final post

This is my 365th post. If I had posted everyday for a solid year, today would be December 31. But this blog has been in existence much longer than a year.

This blogspot site was created on Friday, February 18, 2005. So it has been in use for over 2 1/2 years.

Before that I blogged on an angelfire site: a pretty horrible attempt at blogging.

A new day has dawned in my blogging life. Margo and I have decided to combine our blogging powers. We will now have 1 family blog. Currently we have my blog, Margo's blog, and Deacon's blog. All 3 blogs will now be forged together to create:

MeetTheFaulkners.com

You'll still find all my typical rubbish there. I'm also considering starting a blog for the Worship Ministry at my church, where I can post stuff specific to worship/music. I'll let you know if that comes available.

But for now, update your favorites, links, and readers to MeetTheFaulkners.com

big changes

big changes are coming soon...

stay tuned...

for a little preview: MeetTheFaulkners.com

Remedy

The new David Crowder Band album is in my itunes/ipod now. I'm still getting acquainted with it, so won't offer many comments. I think "A Collision" may be a better album. I like the beeps/pops/whistles/other-techno-type-noises...when used sparingly, and not on every track. That is the only down-side I can see so far. But I lean toward the more folky style of things anyway.

The most amazing thing about the album...and I'm still trying to figure out how this happend...is that THE NUGE [Ted Nugent] rips it up on "We Won't Be Quiet." Don't believe me? Watch this...

Suffer Together

Today at Grace we featured a song called "Suffer Together." The song was written, played, and sang by Mandi Eldredge, a high school student at our church. This was her first crack at writing a song, and I think it is a pretty good one. It fit the message/theme of the service perfectly, so we plugged it in.

Mandi is also one of my guitar students. She brought the song to one of her lessons a couple of months ago, and we started working on it. We changed a few words, changed the phrasing of the melody, changed the chord progression here and there, and tweaked it a couple of other ways. Songs are rarely finished first after being written. At least the good ones aren't. They usually need room/time to grow and transform. Like many things in life, they need a partner that can help in the maturing process. Someone who can strip away the fluff and make it as good as possible. Here are the lyrics:


Verse 1:
We put on fake smiles to cover up our pain.
We don’t want the world to see our shame.
We build up our walls to keep our hearts safe,
But all we end up doing is heaping on the pain.

Chorus:
Let’s suffer together
and take down our masks.
We don’t have it all together.
Please, let’s drop the act.

Verse 2:
We talk about our friends when they’re not around.
Look how bad they cover what we have learned to drown.
Two people are better off than one,
for they can help each other until the battle’s won.

Chorus

Bridge:
We all go through the same things. We all wear the same chains.
We all go through the same things. We all wear the same chains.

Chorus: just guitar
Chorus: full band
Outro:
Let’s suffer…………together.

Ron Mueck

Today the family went to check out Ron Mueck's exhibit at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. It's in town through Oct. 21, if you haven't seen it yet. It is really impressive.

For a gallery of pictures click here.

Here is a video of some of his work...*warning* there is a little nudity...


What I like about the art:

it is real....too real...all the imperfections are left as is

the layout/placement...especially the fat guy in the corner...there is no buffer between you and the art

the variety in scale

the attention to detail...feet, hands, eyes, noses...they look more real than my own.

What I'll be doing tonight...

The Office
1 hour season premiere
8:00 pm central

New bloggers

Welcome new Grace bloggers...
Emily
Kristy
and welcome back to Shellee

return to blogging

Life has gotten the better of me, but I'm back, at least for now. Deacon's big B-day #1 is this Saturday, so maybe I'll have some pics to post after that.

I saw a film last night [the last of our Netflix experience...we had to cancel it] called Danielson: A Family Movie. It is a documentary film that follows the musical/spiritual journey of Danielson and his family band. Basically Daniel and all his brothers and sisters, and their spouses, created this band. It started as a research project for his Rutger's thesis. They are technically a band made up of Christians, although they struggle for recognition in the mainstream Christian music market. They are labeled as oddities, and play lots of shows in bars [as well as the occassional church].

Daniel's voice sounds like a cross between Jack White, the guy from Modest Mouse, and Alvin and the ChipMunks.

One of the cool things about the film is it follows them on their European tour, which featured Sufjan Stevens on percussion, filling in for the youngest brother in the band who was still in school.

Why are all the best films now documentarys? Is it just the natural bi-product of the Reality TV culture we live in? Does documentary = reality movie?

The Next Big Deacon Movie

Going to visit a church on Sunday night

The Search is an emerging worship community at University Christian Church near TCU here in Fort Worth. They meet at 5:00 pm on Sundays, and Margo and I are going to check it out this Sunday. I'm really looking forward to it. You can hear a couple of messages here. I'll probably post a recap afterwards. It sounds like they launched this service about 1 year ago. I'm interested to see how they approach worship, the design of the service, and what elements they incorporate.

Erik Mongrain

Technique: lap tapping
Erik performed live at the August 2007 Willow Creek Association Leadership Summit.
More on Erik Mongrain

random daddy & deacon pics

not your typical Bible on tape

The Complete Bible Experience due out in November, just in time for Christmas!

Ugandan Orphans Choir video

Jay Sellers Worship Confessional

why people stop volunteering

A recent season of volunteer turnover in the ministry I lead has led me to some reflection. Here are my observations

Why do people stop volunteering in a ministry?

life changes - Something core to the flow of life changes, and everything goes out of whack. A new baby. A new spouse. A new job. A new obsession. What used to be normal, routine volunteering gets put on hold.

gift changes - I'm a firm believer that God is the one giving out the spiritual gifts in the Church. And since they are His gifts, He can take them back if He chooses, or give them to someone else. Someone will stop volunteering if the gifting for that ministry leaves.

vision changes - Maybe the direction the ministry is headed is somewhere the volunteer can't/won't go. They're not onboard with the overall vision of the ministry and what needs to happen.

spiritual life changes - God does something in the life of the volunteers and priorities get reset. Instead of volunteering in a ministry, something else that is needed is done [by the leading of the Holy Spirit].

spiritual life doesn't change - Stagnation. The conduit for the Holy Spirit that we can potentially be gets clogged up due to inactivity. Volunteers stop seeing the point of serving. Or worse, they don't "feel" anything from serving. Or even worse still, they don't "get anything out of it." When did the definition of servanthood change to "personal fulfillment/benefit"?

nothing changes - In other words...people get bored! Volunteers start dropping out when they don't feel connected with other volunteers. When the job is so monotonous and there is never a challenge or new twist volunteers don't believe it is worth their time.

random thoughts I'm having before going to bed

1. The Ugandan Orphans Choir is in the house this weekend. Literally. The group is singing at Grace this Sunday, and we're hosting some of the kids in our home over the weekend. Expect to see some really neat pics, and maybe some video & audio early next week!

2. The Sleep Number bed has been in use almost a couple of weeks now. It has helped my back a lot. I prefer about a 95 [really hard], and Margo prefers about a 25 [really soft]. The great thing is that if next week, or next year, we decide we want a different firmness mattress, it is instantly ours.

3. I'm thinking about xeriscaping a portion of my lawn.

4. My 30 page research project for IWS is due at the end of October. I'm setting my goal to write 1 page per day, 5 days per week [take weekends off], which will have me finishing in mid-October with a couple of weeks to proof and revise.

5. Who likes Will Ferrell?

barefoot and in the kitchen

is where Dr. Paige "Ewok" Patterson says women belong!



Here is the Star Telegram article.

This fall, a bachelor of arts in humanities degree will feature a 23-hour concentration in homemaking, with courses focusing on hospitality in the home -- teaching women interior design as well as how to sew and cook. Women -- men won't be allowed to take the homemaking concentration -- will also study children's spiritual, physical and emotional development.

There is also instruction on the intimate side of male-female marital relations. A staff physician will be involved in discussions of, "satisfaction and intimate life," seminary President Paige Patterson said.

"I suppose it's biblical sex-ed," Patterson said. "We discuss conception and abortion."

N.T. Wright quote

I'd love to take a gander at this guys library. Check out this guys writing set-up. He has like 3 book stands on his desk, holding book pages open for him. That tells you something there.

I'm finally getting around to reading an N.T. Wright book. All the big thinkers say he is good to read, so I'm reading Evil and the Justice of God for my doctoral project. It is a quick read, and here is a quote from something I read today:

"According to the early Christians, what was accomplished in Jesus' death and resurrection is the foundation, the model and the guarantee for God's ultimate purpose, which is to rid the world of evil altogether and to establish his new creation of justice, beauty and peace. And it's clear from the start that this was not intended simply as a distant goal for which one was compelled to wait in passive expectation. God's future had already broken into the present in Jesus, and the church's task consisted not least of implementing that achievement and thus anticipating that future. I have found in my own work over the last few years that this eschatological framing of the church's task is the most helpful way I know of understanding the challenges, possibilities and limits of what we are supposed to be doing here and now."

[sheep jumping fence]...1...2...3...4...

We're now the proud owners of a new bed. Well not yet, but we've signed the paperwork. Why paperwork? Because it is a Sleep Number bed. And buying a Sleep Number bed is like buying a new car. A car that you spend 1/3 of the hours in a day in.

We're getting the queen version of this bed. After the initial trial, I think I'm going to start out at about a 85, while Margo will start out at about a 45. Which is why we need the sleep number bed! Our current bed is about 2 years old, and was a used hand-me-down. So this is actually the first bed purchase we have made in our 5 years of marriage. This bed has a 20 year warranty, so hopefully it will be the last bed for us for a while.

Our current bed is a king, and we're moving down to a queen. When we were first married we had a queen bed, so it may take a little adjusting to get used to being so close to each other while sleeping. I've had some back pain the last couple of weeks, and when Margo and I switched sides of the bed for 1 night, she complained about it the next day.

The bed should be delivered sometime next week hopefully. If you'd like to buy our old king bed, it's $50 and goes to the first to respond in the comments section.