Notes from the Trail

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So I’m driving to Little Rock today and get passed by this chicken truck bearing thousands of hormone-hopped foul to their early deaths. As it passed me, I glanced over and saw Houdini the Chicken. He’s perched between all the cages, and was watching the road fly by with this expression of consternation. I sped up and captured the moment on my Treo 650. I could just hear it saying, “Oboy! I’m free! I’m free! I’m freeeeee…, uh, now what do I do?”

A few years ago, I developed the following as my personal ministry vision statement. I stumbled back across it today while I was looking for something else on my computer and was encouraged by it. (Is it possible to be self-encouraged?) I guess I simply pleased to see that what I wrote then still means a lot to me now.

“Creative, loving, and inspired ministry that loosens the burdens of religion and leads people to a lifetime, obedient relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Each word in that vision statement is very significant to me and describes my spiritual pilgrimage to this point. Creativity is important to me, not just because advertising and graphic design are in my background, but because from the beginning, our God was a creative God; I don’t believe there is any room for stagnancy in Christianity. Love is the central theme of the Bible, and it is the imperative of the Great Commandment. It is only through daily submission that inspiration will come, and it is only through inspiration that I find the strength to carry  out God’s work. There are five “L” words that I consider essential to Christianity: loving, loosening, leading, lifetime, and Lord. There are two “R” words that are distinctive: religion and relationship. They are not the same. May God use me to accomplish His purposes.

It was a profitable exercise for me then, and I think it might be so for any of you who want to embark upon it as well.

This has been a huge undertaking, but it’s almost ready to go! With the help of Mike Graham, I’ve been creating BuyItFindItSellIt.com (you can type it in lower case). It’s been a several month project, and it’s still not quite ready, but you can view the rough site here.

However, you can now use the classifieds section fully! From now to October 31, 2006, it will be free to list whatever, however many, that you want. After that, there will be a minimal charge per listing (which will be much cheaper than your local papers!).

I’m excited about BFSit for this region! Please help by spreading the word. The more traffic it gets, the better shopping it will be for everyone! Stop by BFSit - your local and regional online garage sale!

Update: Doh! Link fixed!

BTW, there’s something else coming just around the corner as well! Stay tuned.

9Rules reviews another site by a new member blog called MomAdvice. Looks like a great link for… well, moms. Uh, nuff said.

In an interesting post, Justin over at Radical Congruency, recommends Robert Greenwald’s Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices. This may shake us all up a bit - at least those of us who depend on Wal-Mart for date night. Sigh. I guess I’m going to have to watch it.

By the way, I can already hear Angela giggling gleefully.