So, currently my time at work has been spent on making the new SaturateOnline.com. It’s coming, this summer, to a web browser near you.

I’m looking forward to getting this out. I don’t usuallly do this kind of stuff, so it’s a little stretch in the skill set for me. But I enjoy it.

What do you to keep you fresh at your job?

-A

So I was fortunate enough to be able to get an iPad a few weeks ago. I was somewhat back and forth on it but decided to go through with it. I have this tendency to be an ‘early adopter’ (as with the iphone) and am usually captivated by shiny Apple products. Either way it’s been cool to use and I’m even more excited about it’s potential. I wish I had a good idea for an app, maybe I could make one to cover the cost of the iPad.

This past week I got to spend one of the days hanging with my parents, brother, sister-in-law and my nephew. I got an idea to get the iPad out and see how my eleven and a half month old nephew would interact with it. I opened the app called ‘Talking Carl’ (I highly recommend this app, especially if you have people who laugh at random things. Like weird looking red creatures.) and let E check it out.

Watch the video below to see how he played with it.

*the audio is a little off of the video for some reason

-A

…lately.

I guess it’s all going around in my head.

How about you? Learning anything new? Are you a verbal thinker or a head thinker?

-A

I found this video the other day on a blog that I frequent. I spent the 20 minutes to watch it and thought it was really interesting. I threw a comment out on Twitter asking what people’s thoughts were. I thought it would be interesting to bring the discussion here.

If you have 20 minutes, check this out. It goes quick.

Thoughts? Do you have an epic win?

(ht: ChurchCrunch)

So, I usually enjoy coming up with fun solutions to complex problems. It may be how to figure out how to get a certain result out of people or it could be as simple as getting a white board up some tight stairs into a small room.

Well, today that happened. Mainly to the credit of my friend Peter. A few months ago we got permission to turn an old tech room into a creative space for our Saturate meetings. We very much needed a place to call home. We worked out a little deal, that if we did all (read most) of the work, they’d let us ‘have’ the room. With the go ahead, we started painting and renovating. We got a nice table to sit at, etc. We also ordered a 12′x4′ white board.

It’s freaking huge.

Either way, due to a lack of planning and thinking things through, we realized we had a nice white board that we couldn’t get up the tight stairwell to our creative room. So what did we decide to do? That’s right, cut a whole in the wall, and take it through.

All that to say, it’s always easy to look at a mistake or a problem, get frustrated and give up. Next time that happens, try to let the ‘boundaries’ of the problem be an opportunity to think outside of the box. Problems just provide the context in which you can be creative in, the rest is up to you!

For your viewing pleasure, here are some pics of us taking the board through the wall. A huge thanks to Peter!

The Stairs.

The Whiteboard

Hole from the stairwell

Hole from in the room.

Board coming through wall.

Final Product!

Have you ever done anything like this?

Last night I had the opportunity to go to the Derek Webb/Jennifer Knapp Show that was in Manheim, PA. It was a fun show. Both Webb and Knapp did acoustic performances.

I have come to really appreciate Derek Webb’s writing. Maybe it’s how he is constantly ‘evolving’ his sound, or maybe it’s his pithy, sarcastic style of writing that I find commonality in. Most likely it’s both of these things.

A song that he wrote a while ago, and one of his most well know “House Show” songs is called “Wedding Dress”. The whole song is an analogy of the typical (american Christian) relationship with Christ.

Again, last night, I found this song speaking to me and reminding me of the ways I just use God to get the things I want. Which also leads me to be thinking about how I do that to others in my life as well.

While I know some people disagree with his songwriting and the way he calls us out, I personally am thankful for what he is doing and hope others are willing to give it a listen.

So, for your listening (and viewing pleasure) here’s the song “Wedding Dress” from the show. (The viewing of this thought is not so pleasurable, was sitting in the very back.)

Thoughts on the song?

Here’s a song that I’m really digging right now. It meets me where I’m at. It’s by Gungor, check out their music. Good stuff.

You Have Me
out on the farthest edge
there in the silence
you were there

My faith was torn to shreds
heart in the balance
but you were there

always faithful
always good
you have still have my
you still have my heart

I thought I had seen the end
everything broken
but you were there

I’ve wandered heaven’s gates
I’ve made my bed in hell
You were there still

You have me
You have my heart completely

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about knowledge, and things that we are meant to know/understand and the things we actually strive after to understand.

More specifically, I’ve been wondering about God. Should we try to understand Him? Are we meant to understand Him?

Depending on what you believe, it’s pretty obvious to see that God give us insights into who He is, and what He is about.

But my question is this, when God reveals a part of who He is to us, should we try to understand it, or should we dwell on it and be thankful for what He has shown us.

Thoughts?

-A

This past weekend I had the privilege to jump on a plane in Harrisburg and fly to Dallas for a conference called the Electronic Gospel. It was a very interesting conference that happened at Dallas Theological Seminary.

It definitely was more of a theology based conference and got me thinking a lot.

The main speaker, Shane Hipps, author of “Flickering Pixels” was basically getting the idea across that the type of media or technology that we use/consume, affects the way we view and live out the Gospel. The main two that affect us are 1) Reading/Writing 2) Visual/Photo/Videos. These two different categories use two different sides of the brain. Our culture, in the past, has been more of a Reading/Writing society. Actually that has been the prominent form of communication for a long time. This causes us to use our left side of the brain more, becoming more dependent on it.

Making us more of a logical, sequential, linear thinkers. Causing us to view and understand the Gospel in the same light.

Compare that to the invention of the photograph in the late 1800’s. Since then our society has become more of a visual society. Yeah, language and letters aren’t going anywhere, but the majority of the media we can consume now is visual. It also tends to have a bigger impact. This type of media using the right side of the brain. Slowly you can trace the change from an overwhelming Evangelical doctrine/orthodoxy/thought to an ever-slowly Emergent/”less orthodox” way of viewing our faith. Hipps this is a difference between right and left brain thought process, and not a difference in actual “theology” which is a right brain concept anyways.

All that to say, it was a very thought provoking conference. Hopefully that makes some sense. So, how do we use the tools at hand today, and what message is it sending. Because the medium is louder then the message.

Thoughts? Push backs? Funny Jokes?

So, pretty much since January has started, life had shifted into 5th gear. I apologize for not keeping up with the schedule blog posts I said I would put up. There may only be a handful of you that read, but I’d like to keep these regular.

There will be some posts coming soon, wrapping up a few projects I’m working on and hopefully that will open up some time.

In the mean time, always feel free to jump over to Saturate’s blog and see what’s going on there!

-A