iGod

I have finished listening to a series from LiquidChurch called iGod based on Romans 1-3. You can listen here, here and here. It is a great start at adjusting my view of God.

The first in the series dealt with putting God in a Box. My favorite quotes are...

"On the sixth day, God created man. On the seventh day, man returned the favor."
-- unknown (attributed to Pascal)

and

“You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”
-- Anne Lamontt

Blog Psychology at it's best

It may be the blog version of Lucy (from Peanuts) Psychologist stand...

What Your Pizza Reveals

People may tell you that you have a small appetite... but you aren't under eating. You just aren't a pig. You aren't particularly picky about pizza. It's so good... how could you be? You fit in best in the Western part of the US. You like food that's traditional and well crafted. You aren't impressed with "gourmet" foods. You are dependable, loyal, and conservative with your choices. You are cultured and intellectual. You should consider traveling to Vienna. The stereotype that best fits you is guy or girl next door. Hey, there's nothing wrong with being average.

What Does Your Pizza Say About You?

More Coverville Countdown 2007

Coverville just released numbers 24-17 of their countdown of best covers....

I was excited to see the song I nominated as number 22 -- Blake Morgan's version of Paul McCartney's "Maybe I'm Amazed". I was also happy to see Copper Box's version of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb".

Coverville Countdown 2007

The Annual (I have listened for 3 years now) Coverville Countdown is underway -- 32 to 25 were released today and 40-33 released last Thursday.

My favorites from 40-33? Social Distortion's cover of "Ring of Fire", Joan Jet's cover of "Crimson and Clover", Rufas Wainwright's cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" and my favorite of the bunch, the Gypsy King's cover of "Hotel California".

From the lineup I see on the 32-25 list, I can already tell that I will enjoy The Clash's "I Fought The Law" and Bill Kirchen's "Hot Rod Lincoln" (I liked that one enough the first time I heard it I bought it).

While I am thinking about it, the Coverville Blog recently told us about "Yuletide Zeppelin", a mashup of Christmas songs with Led Zeppelin riffs playing in the back. You can read about the song here but download it (legally and free) here.

A National Treasure

We enjoyed the original "National Treasure" so much we took the opportunity to see the second one, "National Treasure -- Book of Secrets", we even hit the first showing today for the $5 tickets (at the Brighton Theater). If you saw the first one, most of the starring roles are reprised and the actors do a great job.

If you want to se a fun mystery it is a good choice.

Reviews?

I promised book reviews, get ready...

I was reminded of where I left off a couple of Sundays ago. The current sermon series is called "Kingdom of God: Grip It & Rip It" which is on the first chapters in Matthew. The first message was on the Genealogy of Christ, specifically how there are lots of people of ill repute but reformed characters in that lineage, specifically, Rahab, Ruth and Tamar. At one point in the sermon, it was mentioned that not to many people like genealogy. This brought back memories of the book I read when I quit giving reviews.

It is called "A Frederick Family Album: Memories, Pictures and Documents of an Iowa Farm Family" and was written and published by my aunt, Elizabeth VanderSchaaf.

This is not, by far, the first book she has written. In fact, she has more than 14 books behind her now, many of them dealing with my family history but all of them dealing with family history from my side of her family or her husband's side.

This was a fun book to read, especially when it started talking about those I was familiar with, my Grandmother (who died when I was 5) and my Grandfather, my great uncle Elmer, my Dad and Aunt. Of course, many of her memories were of my grandparents, my Father and herself.

There is quite a bit of historical information in there as well. For instance, I skipped over some of the legal documents that were included.

Now to tie things back to the sermon. One of the things that she always said was you tell family history, no matter how bad things looked. The point made by the pastor that Sunday was that you could tell that the lineage of Christ was real because it was not whitewashed but showed the good and the bad.

No More Whoppers?

Thanks to Greg at the Church Video Ideas blog, I had a flashback to my Junior High/High School years.


Youth for Christ held a roller skating night every month that we would go to enjoy. Often, on the way home, we visited the Burger King.

This video is shows what would happen if the Whopper was removed from the menu. I suspect that Burger King hopes this goes viral. I am doing my best to help out!

Joy

We were first told of the shootings at the YWAM campus in Arvada Sunday Morning. That morning Dave, who has done some teaching at YWAM, talked about joy during the music part of the worship service. Dave told us that Joy, unlike happiness, is a choice, not a feeling. Our worship during those services was passionate.

Today I read Psalm 33 (New Living Translation)

Let the godly sing for joy to the Lord;
it is fitting for the pure to praise him.
Praise the Lord with melodies on the lyre;
make music for him on the ten-stringed harp.
Sing a new song of praise to him;
play skillfully on the harp, and sing with joy.
For the word of the Lord holds true,
and we can trust everything he does.
He loves whatever is just and good;
the unfailing love of the Lord fills the earth.

The Lord merely spoke,
and the heavens were created.
He breathed the word,
and all the stars were born.
He assigned the sea its boundaries
and locked the oceans in vast reservoirs.
Let the whole world fear the Lord,
and let everyone stand in awe of him.
For when he spoke, the world began!
It appeared at his command.

Gospel What?

Sometimes we forget that there is a (more?) virbrant and (more?) active Christian community outside the enclave of the United States.

Today I ran across an interesting site called Gospel Reggae. It is very "island" flavored and, with snow on the ground, warms my heart.

The first tracks I listened to were from Ghana (west Africa). It also included tracks from Beliez as well. Artists you can sample include Kenneth Appiah and the Soul Winners, ZiggySoul and Katalys.

You can even visit their "Christafari" kids page.