A Little Christmas

Our house is relatively small. When the baby came a long we moved everything into the family room, which we now affectionately refer to as the piano/ computer/ tv/ playstation/ couch/ conversation/ three guitars/ big-‘ol-recliner-in-the-middle-of-the-floor room.

Or just the claustrophobia room for short.

Needless to say we didn’t have room for a Christmas tree this year.

Sarah’s Mom, who has such a great heart, saw our dilemma and bought us tree that was just the appropriate size for our house. Evie and I made the star.

Merry mini-Christmas!

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2 Years Ago Today

I proposed to Sarah.

The night before I’d taken the chocolate out of her Starbucks Advent calendar and replaced it with a clue. That one led to another clue. The hunt took her all around the house and even online to some websites I’d made. It eventually led back to the calendar where I hid the ring in the box for Dec. 24th.

After the hunt Sarah wrote, “The beginning of the rest of our lives,” on the side of the box for the 11th. This year we socked the calendar Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Rollos and Hershey’s Kisses. Today Sarah and I shared 2 Kisses during our morning coffee. I took a picture of the calendar and we reminisced in how awesome the last two years have been.

The Beginings of a Rockstar

I promised Eve-Marie, my 7-year-old, that I’d start to teach her guitar when she finished her level 1 piano books. The other day she finished one of her books and Sarah bought the next level of piano books for her. So as a reward for learning to ride a bike I busted out my SG and taught Evie how to play Holy is the Lord. It was a glorious moment for me. I’ve given guitar lessons to more kids than I can count and always dreamed of the day I’d teach my own children.

Well it turned out I goofed. Apparently Evie didn’t finish her level 1 piano books, the book she finished is a pre-level book. So the level 1 books are really called “primers” and the level 2 books are called “level 1.” Sound confusing? Alright, it’s not just me then.

Sarah and I both want Evie to stay serious about piano so yesterday I told her that I would give her a guitar lesson only after she’d practiced the piano that day. Most days piano practicing is met with groans and whining but today Evie volunteered to practice with out coaxing. She then reminded me, “As you know, I practiced my piano today and you said you’d give me a guitar lesson when I did.”

At my house getting to practice guitar is a reward for practicing the piano. How do ya like that?

Goodbye Training Wheels!

All Dads suffer from the common lower-back pain of “stooping down to hold your child’s bike seat so they don’t fall over while they are learning to ride” -itis. After many months of this ailment my daughter took her first bike ride with out Dad’s help today:

We promised her that she could have a girly basket for her bike when she learned to ride it, so we did an awards ceremony for the bike-riding princess with all her royal subjects around as she was awarded her shiny basket of accomplishment:

Some pics of the basket on the bike:

I’m crazy proud of my girl.

Classy Church

Recently I applied for a worship position at a church and after taking some initial steps in the interview process we decided it wasn’t a good fit.

To show me how much they appreciated the effort I’d put in the church sent me a letter along with a Starbucks gift Card!

It made me wonder – if this is how classy they treat people who potentially want to work with them how cool must they be to their actual staff?

Whether your staff is paid or volunteer it reminded me that doing small extra things can go a long way towards shaping a productive staff that works together as a team.

It doesn’t have to be a cup of coffee but small things like a phone call, thank you card, leaving a comment or linking to someone’s website can be great affirmations.

BTW send Jon some link love. Apparently the poor guy doesn’t know what an iPhone is.

What is VHS?

 

Hey the Wiggles!

I wonder what you do with that?

Open it up.

Pop it in.

Push play.

What the…?!

What do I do with that?

DVD!

Lo-Fi Tribe on Church Websites

An excellent blog I’ve recently been following is Shawn Anthony’s Lo-Fi Tribe. His take on faith is both insightful and authentic. On Friday he put up a thought-provoking post entitled:

The Use of Stock Photos on Church Websites

Shawn’s position seems to be one of “There is never any good reason to use stock photos on a church website. It’s just too fake.” (My paraphrase of his thoughts, not a direct quote.)

The comments others left rang with resounding agreement. The concept resonated with me as well. I believe using stock photos tends toward inauthenticity, but my view isn’t one of such totality. I’d say, “Yeah they are fake, and real pictures are better, but in some circumstances they could work.”

For example, Church Plant Media is a company who designs websites for church plants. Their client list includes such respectable organizations as Act29 Network, Purpose Driven Planting, and ChurchPlanters.com. If you look through websites they’ve designed you see a lot of stock imagery.

I left some devil’s advocate style comments on Shawn’s site and received a hardy reply from his other blog readers. Shawn muses that when you publish something publicly, “you open yourself up to critique.” In regards to comments left on his site he was right. A great discussion ensued. The level of reaction was so gut-level I thought to myself, “Shawn’s really probed something deep here,” so I wanted to share the concept with you guys.

What do you think about using stock photography on church websites? How fake is it? Are there any legitimate reasons to do so?

Leave comments on Inept as Icing or Lo-Fi Tribe.