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We at Team Swap are aware that the comment feature on the blog is not working. Our hosting company controls our access to the database (which seems to be the problem), and they tell us they are working on it. The solution is suppose to be found and implemented within 48 hours, but based on their past track records we are hoping for next Monday. We will keep you updated, and thanks for your patience.
Well after almost (probably nine total months of breaks) 20 solid years a era ended yesterday (May 11th, Mothers Day, 2008), I am not longer teaching a weekly Sunday School, Discipleship Training, Youth Ministry, Small Group or Connection Time class. The last 20 years have been fun, and I can honestly say God taught me so much because I was leading the various classes, but my wife and I made this call for all the right reasons. The #1 reason being that God seems to be bringing some new ministry options / opportunities / means our way and #2 we need some freedom on weekends to pursue some things away from church as well.
That is not to say that we (meaning she and I) will not take a class on again or act as filling ins / temps when needed, but honestly as of now we/ I have no plans to take leadership of a weekly class anytime soon. God of course could change all of that tomorrow (and He has done that before when we stepped down from leadership), but we are trusting Him to work on that when He wants.
This decision took almost a year to make, and the base seeds of it were planted almost 2 years ago. It was one of those things where 10 to 15 small to medium, and a few large things, added up to showing us it was the right time to make the big move. Our students seemed to understand and were supportive overall, church leadership was supportive as well, but in the end we made the call and we were going to do regardless of the support because it was time.
For this blog / website this real world change should have no real impact as this operation / ministry has functioned separately from our weekly live teaching for over 4 years now. Hopefully it will actually help improve this blog / web site as we MAY (big MAY) have a bit more free time to devote to it now. I do desire to resume a more regular blogging pattern again soon, but that will be more dependent on my ongoing M -F work load. It is a very good possibility that there will be more and more posts from 6 to11 PM and less from 8 AM to 5 PM at least short term. Time will tell.
As always thanks for reading, thanks for your encouragement, thanks for visiting, thanks for commenting, and most of thanks for your prayers.
Well this season of Survivor ended last night. Overall I would say that it was one of the most interesting / exciting seasons so far due to all the twists and turns. They medicals and the resignations made it interesting too. Even though I disagreed with the overall winner it was fun too watch.
Bottom line, for me, Amanda should have won. She out played, out witted, out lasted, and out survived them all, but Parvitti won one the backs of girl power. Amanda’s success is even more impressive when you think that she (and James) did back to back Survivors.
Pavaritti;s win really surprised me as I never really saw Parv’s game as being much more then cheat and double deal all you can. I figuired that would bite her in the end. I guess that is really what the jury respected though. Cerei was a weak player overall, shocked she got to final three. Erik said the most by saying that he went as far as he could without betraying himself. Natalie…well that is just one crazy crazy chic.
I think the outcome would have been a different game without Penner’s and Jame’s medicals. Penner would have broken up girl power mid game and James would have won at least one more immunity. If and but’s though in the end, and stuff like that makes Survivor survivor.
It will be interesting to see how Gabon goes. I hope Amanda and Ozzy are happy too.
I told my wife that Circuit City may get bought by Blockbuster (story here) and she said “What are they going to call it Circuit Buster or Block City” I really love this woman.
This AM as I drove into work I was already thinking about lunch. It was not that I was really hungry it was I was missing a little sandwich shop near my work that closed a few years back.
This little sandwich shop made some of the best sandwiches I have ever had, they made a good calzone too but you had to come after 5 for those as the owner (and only employee) did not turn on the “pizza oven” until 4PM due to the cost of running it. The sentence above really tells you most of the reasons that the shop is gone - one employee (the owner) and a bare bone budget with no room for advertising. Adding to the last issue was the fact that the owner was a quiet guy who you almost had to drag more then a “Hello” out of. Not exactly a self promoter you might say.
Well bottom line as I thought about those sandwiches, the business situation of the shop, and the owner himself an additional thought came to me - how most Christians have similar habits to that little shop and it’s owner when it comes to sharing their faith and their relationship with God.
You ask why I say that? Well think about it a bit. Christians have the best thing in the world going for them - a one to one relationship with the creator of the Universe, the savior of the world, and the perfect patient and persistent teacher of true wisdom - yet many never talk about how great their life is or the perfect peace that comes from the Father. They allow their natural habits and tendencies to confound their walk, which eventually results in them just giving up and moving on. Many Christians go quietly through life, concerned more about not being noticed or being different, then actually worrying about showing / telling other about the very thing that makes them different, special and unique.
Understand I am not talking about,or saying that, Christians having to run into a room hand out tracs and share their testimony 15 times a day. No, I am simply talking about Christians taking the time to share with others (friends, co-workers, etc) the love of God. I am talking about relating too / investing in people close to you. That means talking to people about more then sports, weather, kids, and cars. That means carrying about the person enough to want to get to know the REAL person and allowing them to know the REAL you.
Back to my core point, this pattern of silence and camouflage by many Christians goes on month after month, year after year. They then wonder why their faith is stale, why they are unexcited about the things of God, why they seem so unfulfilled, and why no one really id’s them as a child of God. In time they begin to drift away even more and they begin to languish in their own disillusionment. After that they just stop thinking about the things of God entirely. They are resigned to being saved and to being silent about it. Unfortunately by doing this, they are missing the fact that they are not living up to the potential that God has for them. They are sliding silently through life while carrying a incredible (and free) gift with them and that is not God’s call to His people.
Just something to ponder as you move through your day and your walk with the Lord. Also something to ponder if you are ready to hang up your walk with God and just accept a quiet life of sliding along.
First of all, I am not a big Dell fan. Their higher end stuff (XPS, servers, etc) is good, but their lower end stuff is just terrible in my experiance. Honestly, they make fine computers if you buy a new box every few years, but if you want to upgrade and expand well their non standard motherboards and all on one board systems have always bothered me. Bottomline, in high volume big business where there is a consistent and regular migration pattern then Dell works, but in small to medium non tech businesses they create problems with the less then stellar quality and properitary products.
With that all behind us I heartly say CONGRATS and WELL DONE to Dell (HP and Leveno too) for coming up with creative and LEGAL ways to continue to provide XP after the CURRENT (as I think the Redmond gang will move it) June 30, 2008 end of product life date for XP. Vista is just bad. Every person I know now is trying to stay with XP. All my IT friends are working hard to keep Vista out of their offices and off their users desktops when possible. Windows 7 better get here soon or OS X and Linux will continue to get traction (and growth) in the marketplace. At this point Microsoft needs to understand that people are trying to stay on XP and are only going to Vista when they have too. That sort of situation causes people to look around at alternatives ALOT more. Personally I would love to see a working Windows 7 by Jan 1, 2009, but honestly I don’t think Microsoft could hit a any reasonible deadline at this point.
Well late last night, early today Swap Blog had ROUGHLY (as our counter is a appromiate count) it’s 300,000th visitor. We here at Swap Central would like to thank all our visitors, be they#1 or #300,001, and regardless whether you come by regularly or if this is your first time here, for taking the time to read our posts. We are blessed that God has allowed us to do our online thing and impact a few people in the process. At the end of the day, God is the one that makes all this possible and the one that deserves all the praise for ANY success or good things that come from this blog.
Thanks again for visiting and come back soon if you can.
