a moment of randomness....

sorry a couple real posts coming sooon, but for now please enjoy a look a "Christian Jelly Bellies" over at SCL

... I want one of these...

Okay so it was like they took a bunch of photographers and videographers and put them in a room full of legos and geeks....

and thus I want one!

Sorry for the lack of informative posts lately.

Very Random

In an effort to help promote energy independence and global initiative we here at Fudi's blog would like to present a new way to SAVE MONEY in these hard times, yes with energy costs on the rise a new champion of freedom is needed and I've decided to spear head the cause, join now and for a mere 25 million dollars you two can own your own nuclear power plant!

makes me want an iphone...

okay now this is cool....



http://gizmodo.com/5079308/the-iphone-ocarina-link-never-would-have-allowed-this

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)