I needed the laugh this morning...

I got this off Greg Atkinson's blog this morning and I got a kick out of it... don't be surprised if you get automated replies from me from now on...

Best Out of Office Replies by Jeremy Wright

1. I am currently out at a job interview and will reply to you if I fail to get the position. Be prepared for my mood.

2. You are receiving this automatic notification because I am out of the office. If I was in, chances are you wouldn’t have received anything at all.

3. I will be unable to delete all the unread, worthless emails you send me until I return from holiday on 4 April. Please be patient and your mail will be deleted in the order it was received.

4. Thank you for your email. Your credit card has been charged £5.99 for the first ten words and £1.99 for each additional word in your message.

5. The e-mail server is unable to verify your server connection and is unable to deliver this message. Please restart your computer and trysending again. (The beauty of this is that when you return, you can see how many in-duh-viduals did this over and over).

6. Thank you for your message, which has been adde d to a queuing system… You are currently in 352nd place, and can expect to receive a reply in approximately 19 weeks.

7. I’ve run away to join a different circus.

8. I will be out of the office for the next 2 weeks for medical reasons… When I return, please refer to me as “Margaret” instead of “Steve”.

*** I don’t know about you, but I’ve needed a laugh lately. I thank Eric for always having a smile and a joke ready. Number 1 is my personal favorite. So what can you come up with? Got a number 9 and 10 reply?

Stories and statistics

I couldn't tell you where I stole this line from, but I'm fairly confident I didn't come up with it myself... for now I'll give credit to the unknown source, but eventually I'll get to the point where I'll take credit for this expression, but here it is.

Behind every statistic is a story

Looking at the church overall, and speaking from personal experience, I know that all too often people look at easily track-able numbers like attendance when it comes to looking at our statistics as a church to see "How we're doing". While this isn't the case at Lifepoint, I do know at churches I have been to in the past the focus seemed to be on attendance, and in force of habit, on occasion I have found myself regressing to see how we did on a Sunday by attendance, instead of focusing on things like that are nowhere near as easy to track such as salvations, baptisms, and/or as how we like to put it, Life Change.

But if you look at it even with attendance, how often do we really pay attention to what those numbers actually mean?

Every one of those "numbers" is a person with a story, that person? you know the one who was number four hundred ninety nine, do you know their story? do you know that their family was in discord before they started coming to Church and that it's made such a huge impact in their lives? What about person number four? They're the one who didn't want anything to do with God or church before a friend dragged them in (kicking and screaming) and now after encountering God their life has turned around and they're not only here every week, but helping with setup and now, bringing their friends!

What about volunteer number 49? They're the one who had been burned by "Religion" and was done with church, who never knew a church like this could exist, where the purpose is to reach people far from Christ, and now are back on fire for the Lord?

Or Kid number 87, who's parents brought them to kidspoint for the first time, who finally was told the gospel in a way that made sense to a 3rd grader and changed their life forever...

Those kind of stories go WAY beyond simple numbers, and this post is more of a mental reminder to myself than to anyone else and really help to drive that point home, maybe you're the Pastor of a Megachurch with over 3k in weekly attendance, or maybe your the choir director of a church that has more people in the choir then on the pews... is Life change happening at your church? What are the stories behind some of your statistics?

Got RSS?

If you follow more than one blog regularly (or in my case if you read like over 3 dozen blogs), then you might find using an rss reader very handy... there are quite a few out there, but the one I've found that seems to work for me is google reader, it's nicely tied into google, (which I use for a variety of things, ironically not so much for searching).

How it works:
Well it does take some time to set up, you have to add the blogs you follow, you can search by accounts if you know them, or do search strings for certain ones... or if you're lucky the blog you read has a "RSS" feed button...

Once it's set up, it pulls feeds (articles) directly from the blogs you've set it up with in one hand y to read from spot so you don' have to go hopping from website to website.

For example, before I started using google reader I had a small cycle... I'd first open my own blog (occasionally to update it) and then from there I'd hit the links to jump over to Pastor's blog, from his I went to Jeremy's from pick's Id go to josh's then from Josh I'd jump back to mine to hit either Northpoints, or Wade's.

Now I open up google reader and if there any new posts from any of the above mentioned plus 30 or so more there all in one centralized location.

if anyone has some questions on rss readers feel free to post them here.

~Matt

We Don't need no stinking measuring spoon...

If you spend enough time in the kitchen, you eventually arrive at the point where you can "eyeball" certain measurements, (watch any cooking show, unless it's Alton Brown, odds are you won't see a measuring soon). (For the record I'm nowhere near that point). r

Well I found this little nifty game, for those who like to "eyeball" certain angles and such..., enjoy, as for me I'll stick with the spoons.

Pranking to bless...

Lifepoint Staff Retreat Prank from Matthew Furukawa on Vimeo.

So a little bit of explanation... about the video you just saw, or are now watching, is the work of a small group of us who wanted to both uplift, and prank the staff of Lifepoint church... the cans in front of the office doors are the preferred soda of each occupant, and who doesn't like candy? The one thing that didn't translate to video well was the smell... something like five pounds of double bubble gum was scattered about and the scent hits you right at the door.

Sorry about the poor quality of the video, all I had was my litle cannon sure shot digital camera which shoots 30 seconds of video at a time.

Aggravation...

Is there actually anyone out there stupid enough for to fall for this? And if there is do you feel sorry for them, or feel like they got what they deserved for falling for something like this...

First off, the typos... (though to be fair this one has far less then the ones that normally arrive in my inbox)

Second of all, if it were to be true (it's not, bear in mind) than by accepting this you would be guilty of some massive tax fraud/evasion/etc... keep in mind that They didn't bag Al Capone for murder, racketeering or any kind of crime syndication, but they nailed him for tax violations... (That's where the IRS gets it's fearsome reputation).

By the way if you read this blog and you've actually tried to do one of these things.... please don't tell me, I will think less of you.

Hello Dear,

I have Paid the fee for your Cheque Draft.but the manager of Eko Bankn
Benin told me that before the check will get to you that it will expire.So
i told him to cash $2 Million USA DOLLar all the necessary arrangement
of delivering the
$2 Million USA DOLLar in cash was made with FEDEX COURIER COMPANY.

This is the information they need to delivery your package to you.with
FEDEX COURIER COMPANY, contact them now.

NAME: FEDEX COURIER COMPANY.
ATTENTION: PERSON: JIMI ANDERSON.
POSITION: FOREIGN DELIVERY DEPARTMENT.
ADDRESS: COTONOU BENIN REPUBLIC
E-MAIL:fedexcouriercompany432@gmail.com
PHONE NUMBER: +229-9317-8953

Please, Send them your contacts information to able them locate you
immediately they arrived in your country with your BOX .This is what they
need from you.

1.YOUR FULL NAME
2.YOUR HOME ADDRESS.
3.YOUR CURRENT HOME TELEPHONE NUMBER.
4.YOUR CURRENT OFFICE TELEPHONE.
5.YOUR CURRENT HOME TELEPHONE NUMBER.
6.A COPY OF YOUR PICTURE

Note that this is there E-mail contact is (fedexcouriercompany432@gmail.com)

Please make sure you send this needed info's to the Director general of
FEDEX COURIER COMPANY BENIN REPUBLIC,DR.JERRY COOK with the address given
to you.

Note. The FEDEX COURIER COMPANY don't know the contents of the Box. I
registered it as a Box of an African cloths. They don't know it contents
money, this is to avoid them delaying with the Box.don't let them know
that is money that is in that Box.

Thanks and Remain Blessed.
MARK ROBERT(ESQ)

Has anyone seen?

I was thinking about going to watch an American Carol tonight, has anyone seen it? Is it worth the ticket price?

Healing to do healer...

I still distinctly remember how i felt when I first heard the song "Healer" by Mike Guglielmucci, I also (VERY distinctly) remember how disgusted I felt when I heard the truth behind the story. But, as Pick has pointed out to me on more than one occasion (mainly when I'm arguing about doing a performance song) is that Truth is truth, whether it's coming from an old hymn or a Train song. And after a bit of consideration I've come to accept that regardless of the means of promoting the song, there is strong truth to it, and it's an amazing worship song.

However, with far better words and scriptural backing allow me to share with you an email I received from one of our band members about using this song in worship, I've left out name references as i didn't ask this person permission to share this on the blog, but as awesome as this email was I wanted to share it.

Man you sure know how to make a guy think...

When we were talking about this song at practice that night - about how the Hillsong guy Mike whatshisname lived a lie, promoted the song with his fake illness, the unbelieveable audacity of a very well-known Worship Leader to so distort everything related to the situation, I had no desire to ever do the song at all and said so that night. When I saw the Planning Center notification this morning, I "reviewed" the service to see what we were doing. I saw the song listed and the pit of stomach balled up in a humongous knot. I was getting ready to click the "Decline" button when something (had to be God) told me to wait. I then remembered something in Phillippians I had read before in my personal reading etc. Here's the passage...

Phillipians 1:15-18 (NIV)
15 It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. 16 The latter do so in love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. 17 The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains.[c] 18 But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.

I didn't remember anything false in the lyrics, but I listened to them again to make sure and yes there is truth in the song.

I went to planning center again and clicked the accept button. I'm just thankful the Lord and the Holy Spirit kept the promise from John 14 about the Comforter (Holy Spirit) being with us to bring to our rememberance everything He has taught us.

The reason I'm spelling all this out for you is in case someone else has doubts about the song feel free to share how God helped me.

Just don't expect to see the song on my "favorites" playlist :-)

I personally felt "ministered" to by this email and if you're a worship leader out there, or someone who's job is to find new worship music and you've been struggling with this song as much as I have I hope this helps you out.

God bless,
~Matt

Momentum....

Tonight's the momentum meeting for some of our Volunteer leaders and coordinators. Having been off yesterday I had the chance to spend some time in the office while they were planing part of the meeting, It's going to be an awesome night, full of inspiration and information to help us invest in our teams so that we can reach this community.

things that make me go hmmm....

I'm a conservative person, I mean that from a financial, political and social stand point.

So with all this bailing out going on, I got quite a kick out of this "Birk plan" I don't know if you've seen it so here is a copy of it.

Subject: The Birk Economic Recovery Plan
Hi Pals,

I'm against the $85,000,000,000.00 bailout of AIG. Instead, I'm in
favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in a We Deserve It Dividend.
To make the math simple, let's assume there are 200,000,000 bonafide U.S. Citizens 18+. Our population is about 301,000,000 +/- counting every man, woman and child. So 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at
adults 18 and up..

So divide 200 million adults 18+ into $85 billion that equals
$425,000.00.

My plan is to give $425,000 to every person 18+ as a We Deserve It
Dividend.

Of course, it would NOT be tax free. So let's assume a tax rate of 30%. Every individual 18+ has to pay $127,500.00 in taxes.
That sends $25,500,000,000 right back to Uncle Sam. But it means that every adult 18+ has $297,500.00 in their pocket.

A husband and wife has $595,000.00. What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00 in your family?

Pay off your mortgage - housing crisis solved.
Repay college loans - what a great boost to new grads
Put away money for college - it'll be there
Save in a bank - create money to loan to entrepreneurs.
Buy a new car - create jobs
Invest in the market - capital drives growth
Pay for your parent's medical insurance - health care improves
Enable Deadbeat Moms and Dads to come clean - or else

Remember this is for every adult U S Citizen 18+ including the folks who lost their jobs at Lehman Brothers and every other company that is cutting back. And of course, for those serving in our Armed Forces.

If we're going to re-distribute wealth let's really do it...instead of trickling out a puny $1000.00 ( "vote buy" ) economic incentive that is being proposed by one of our candidates for President.
If we're going to do an $85 billion bailout, let's bail out every adult U S Citizen 18+!

As for AIG - liquidate it. Sell off its parts. Let American General go back to being American General.
Sell off the real estate. Let the private sector bargain hunters cut it up and clean it up. Here's my rationale. We deserve it and AIG doesn't.
Sure it's a crazy idea that can "never work."

But can you imagine the Coast-To-Coast Block Party! How do you spell Economic Boom? I trust my fellow adult Americans to know how to use the $85 Billion We Deserve It Dividend more than I do the geniuses at AIG or in Washington DC .
And remember, The Birk plan only really costs $59.5 Billion because
$25.5 Billion is returned instantly in taxes to Uncle Sam. Ahhh...I feel so much better getting that off my chest.
Kindest personal regards,

T. J. Birkenmeier, A Creative Guy & Citizen of the Republic
PS: Feel free to pass this along to your pals as it's either good for a laugh or a tear or a very sobering thought on how to best use $85 Billion!!

Now before we even consider expanding this for 700 billion, let's look at it this way....

Where did the 85 billion dollars come from in the first place? Think about it, $425,000 to every person 18+ (Before taxes) had to come from somewhere, or they (as the Government just absorbed it, either by introducing more money into the market, thus decreasing the inherit value of the dollar, or by just taking it as part of the federal budget (snort).

I'm no economist by any stretch of the imagination but to me it stands to reason, if the Government bring in money through taxation... wouldn't that mean that the 425,000 that would have been paid out to every person 18+ is now being PAID by every person 18+, I know what you're thinking, but Matt, the Government will levy taxes on those big corporations, like the oil companies, they'll just sock the money from big oil...

Well where does big oil get it's money? Government taxes One Company (let's just use Exxon as an example) for 10 billion in some sort of new tax? Exxon just shrugs and adjusts the price of every gallon being sold to make up for it. So who ends up paying for that in the end?

And since when has the Government ever been able to take over something and then produce better then the private sector? If you don't include the military I think the score is 0 and counting.

Case in point: The Post office, if the Postal Service runs so well, why do people pay fed-ex and UPS, and DHL instead of just going to the post office?

Okay, this might be more like it....

So last weekend (the one before this past one) I had the awesome opportunity to go down to Elevation Church with Ben (Our Kidspoint director) and Chris (Our Foyer team director/coordinator), I met a ton of awesome people, seriously their staff just rocks!

And I had a great time sitting in with their worship team meeting, what do I mean? Well check out these videos done by Wes (their Producer) and you'll see what I mean.

I need some bleach for my brain...

STOP
Before you watch the following please note that I found it in a thread topic WORST Worship ever! But this is my answer to Clark always playing the Sonseed video.