Courageous Leadership
by Bill Hybels
So… Bill Hybels is the founding and lead pastor of Willowcreek Church in Barrington, Illinois. His church averages 23,000 attendees on the weekends, and its the 4th largest church in the U.S. He founded the church out of a burden for reaching youth and young people back in 1975, and it’s obviously [...]

Snowed In Announcements

Because we cancelled church today due to snow, Cody made this great video to show.

I guess I’ve got sweet blood.
I’ve known I was an easy target for stinging creatures for a long time now. I still haven’t quite figured out why they like me. Yet because I am well aware that flying insects are truly WMDs (Wasps of Mighty Destruction), I am pretty sensitive to their presence.
That hypersensitivity is [...]

I saw this entry over at Michael Kelly’s blog and wanted to ask you what your experiences with famous people are as well.

Who’s the most famous person you’ve almost met?

Or…

Who’s the most famous person you’ve met that you didn’t know was famous?

I have a famous person fetish. I don’t know why. Carolyn thinks I’m insane, [...]

Thank you, Google, first of all, for providing free airport WIFI in Baltimore. I despise airport WIFI charges, and Boingo is one of the worst offenders, but when we arrived for a layover enroute to New Mexico, we were delighted to find the message that Google has partnered with Boingo to provide free WIFI in [...]

Be careful of pretensions of autonomy. Jesus reminds us, “I chose you.”
In the conclusion of this powerful message called “It Is the Spirit Who Gives Life” by John Piper of Bethlehem Baptist Church on December 27, 2009, Piper points out from John 6 that “whenever resistance to Jesus starts to mount – and we feel [...]

I’ve always been enthralled by the ability of the iPhone to allow you to use location-based apps. I wrote an early entry about Loopt vs Whrll. Since then, there’ve been a series of great apps out using the phone’s capabilities from the start, among them:

Loopt
Whrll
Brightkite
Gowalla

I wrote reviews of the above apps while I was writing [...]

Courtesy of Tweetstats.com.

What a year! It was begun fighting cancer in southeast Arkansas, and it is ending with a healthy family in Virginia. We are humbled and amazed at all that has been done in and through our lives this past year.
Before I write an entry on looking forward, I wanted to look back. So I thought [...]

My best friend was born 39 years ago today.
It’s amazing to think we’ve been married for 17 years, but we’ve been friends since her freshman year in college. I was a senior when I first met her. I was working at Third Street Baptist Church in Arkadelphia, Arkansas as their youth minister.
I needed someone to [...]

It’s nice to have a sled run, with jumps, in our own backyard…

ruminate |ˈroōməˌnāt|
verb [ intrans. ]
1 think deeply about something : we sat ruminating on the nature of existence.
2 (of a ruminant) chew the cud.
“Random Ruminations” may not necessarily be accurate because few of what you’ll see in this series will require deep thinking. However, it should make for some fun reading. I’ll be using it [...]

You know the Rolaids commercials about “How do you spell RELIEF?” And they respond with “R-O-L-A-I-D-S?” Well…. last night I was preaching away in our second December Nights celebration at the BCM at Virginia Tech. It was packed. We had a special worship team in from Brentwood Church in Lynchburg led by Nic Carver. The [...]

The Best American Short Stories 2005 (The Best American Series)

I waded through the first story, F-bombs and all. Then came the second story with more of the same…
What?!
Really?!
If these are the “Best American Short Stories of 2005,” we’re really hurting.
I was looking for brilliance and all I got was bawdiness. It’s hard for me to [...]

It was one of those weekends as a leader that you anticipate/dread with equal measures of enthusiasm and uncertainty. Our church had an opportunity to host the Glory in the Highest concert tour here in Blacksburg. After deliberation and an email survey, we jumped at it.
There were more than 900 folks at the concert Friday [...]