Established 33 A.D. - 2

The last humorous post of the day. I mentioned a while back that some churches have a plaque that talks about them being established in 33 A.D. Well, now you can have your own T-shirt to let the whole world know. It sure is hard to pull those buildings around for people to see those plaques. So go here and get one today!

More on blessings tomorrow.

How Much Difference Can One Word Make?

We have been upgrading our church library for a few months now. A recent purchase finally came in from the UK after waiting over a month for it to arrive. It put a look on my face that I wish I had a picture of when I opened it up. I had ordered Abraham Malherbe's The Letters to the Thessalonians from the Anchor Bible Commentary series. What showed up? Well, all I can say is the first three words were correct but that last word sure makes a difference - The Letters to Penthouse (sorry, no links for that). Now that is a pretty bad mistake! Normally we scan the cover of our new books and advertise updates to the library but I don't think this one will make it any further than the trash can.

$2 million and no warranty?

And now a break from our regularly scheduled program. The famed General Lee is up for sale on Ebay. Better hurry up while it is a steal at just over two million dollars. Or buy this one for only $1000 complete with exhaust snorkle and wench.

The Perks of Youth Ministry

See what your youth minister is doing while away at conferences. This is hillarious. Warning, satire ahead.

Code Enforcers

We got our first "Code Violation Notice" in the mail a few weeks ago because we have a one-lane driveway and have to park the other car alongside of it. We have been asked by the city of St. Pete to voluntarily correct this problem. They say it is a problem because they don't want erosion washing into the street. The solution? Put down mulch next to our driveway and park on that. Wouldn't that cause even more problems with things washing into the street, getting into our neighbor's yard, etc? Our neighbor also got a violation notice. His problem? The front of his trailer was protruding beyond the frontline of his house. His solution? Move it back a couple of feet. Fixed.

I started wondering, who are these people who have nothing better to do than to come by my house and threaten me with punishment if I don't abide by their definition of how my yard should look? They are going to make up some rules and if I don't like it I have to pay them money. What would life be like if we could all just make up some rules and people would have to pay us? It would be chaos! Now, I realize that there are some good rules out there and I am glad that they want our neighborhoods to look nice and everything. But it seems to me that the solution is worse than the initial problem.

Have you ever known anyone like that? Have you ever met someone who had their own set of rules and if you didn't abide by them there would be a penalty? Sounds like St. Pete could use a few pointers on grace. Therefore, the next few posts will be about grace and maybe St. Pete will listen!

Kids Say the Funniest Things

I have a nephew who is about to turn three who you can see in the picture to the right. My sister-in-law was telling us the other day about a couple of really cute things he said. He was sitting at the table and they were trying to get him to eat some vegetables before he could eat some other things. His response? "Now that's gonna be a problem."

They were at the table another time and they were trying to get him to eat something he didn't like. My sister-in-law left him in the room by himself for a moment and heard him say to himself, "They can't treat me like this."

We were all at my parent's house for Christmas. My nephew loves the Land Before Time (all 46 sequels!). The big green dinosaur is called "Grandpa." We were trying to get him to learn all of our names because we don't see each other often. When it came to learn that his grandfather's name is "grandpa" he got this shocked look on his face and began to shake his head no. I realized my father may have resembled grandpa from the movie just a bit too much with his green sweater on.

What funny things have you heard kids say?


Have a look at these insightful series from around the blogosphere:
Alan Rouse's series on Romans
Bobby Valentine continues his series on Text & Context
James Wood's series on Post-modernism
Wade Tannehill's series on Can God Be Persuaded to Act

The Brick Testament

If you want a good laugh and an interesting take on some biblical narrative have a look at The Brick Testament. Some of the theology or interpretation behind the stories is a little strange at times. Some of these might make for some fun ways to introduce a story in a college or youth Bible class. Of course it is never a substitute for the real thing! See here for that.

Next up - back to creative approaches to teaching.

Edit - Notice the comments that follow and the disappointment for many areas of this website. I probably should change the humor link to one that says, 'disgrace'