Coming soon… we hope!
We’ve been a bit behind on the blogging with summer and quite a few projects going on in the background.
Truth is, one of the projects we’re working on is a completely revamped website with Facebook and Blog integration. Unfortunately the process hasn’t gone nearly as quickly as we would like. Hopefully we’ll be able to reveal the new creation some time soon. It’s release will coincide with a steady stream of blog content.
In the mean time. Bear with us… we are hopefully getting close.
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Vote for Controversial week 2
Controversial week 1, this coming Sunday will be What does the Bible teach about homosexuality?
Because of the PG-13 nature of this talk there will be an alternative option for kids during the teaching time.
Here’s your chance to vote on week 2… tons of great questions asked. We will definitely have to visit/revisit many of them in the future… in an effort to narrow down the field for voting, here are the most echoed suggestions thus far…
1) I am personally interested in hearing a biblical discussion of abortion. Tim
2) If our God is a loving God . And God is omnipotent why is there pain? Curt
3) Stem cell research might be interesting. Tina
4) I would like to know why children have to suffer. Geri
Please vote with your comments.
theAlley.org redesign
shhhhh….don’t tell anyone but we have been slaving away in theAlley labs working on a new website/logo. we are planning to launch the new site on the anniversary of our first worship service.
before we put the finishing touches on the content & features 
of the new web (see screenshot), I wanted to take a minute and get your opinion. what are some of the things that you would like to see on the new site that we currently do not have? what are the things on the current site that aren’t really relevant?
weigh in with your opinions!
Small Groups: Are you in one?
One of the most rewarding experiences in my life right now has to be our small group. We are a group of families that have kids all under age 4. We hook up every 2nd and 4th Friday of the month to not only study the Word together but also to fellowship with each other, pray for one another and of course EAT together! It is a great experience and it has caught on with our children as well. Our oldest talks non-stop about her Bible study friends and always asks when they are coming over. One of our families child refers to our get togethers as “Bible Parties”, who wouldn’t want to go to THAT!?!
Small groups are a huge part of our faith. The relationships and bonds that we form in our groups are essential to our growth in the Word and in the faith. If you aren’t connected yet please consider it. There are groups ready to connect with you and new groups are forming all the time.
Oh yeah, this little pep talk was inspired by a great article that I read at www.larknews.com …..
OWENSBORO, Ky. — A small group from Rolling Hills Christian Church arrived at a place of unprecedented honesty with each other last Tuesday when they discovered that nobody in the group actually liked anyone else.
“We all realized, ‘You know what? I don’t care for any of you, and I find your kids annoying,’” says one man who was present.
The moment of openness came while they planned their annual small group camping trip. Some disagreed over dates and camping locations, until one man finally said, “To be honest, I don’t relish spending any extra time with any of you, especially not a week-long trip.”
Others voiced their agreement and several people applauded.
“It hurt so good,” said one participant. “I felt huge relief at not having to pretend to like these people anymore.”
The discussion progressed as people revealed what they disliked about the others. Marty, a middle-aged umarried woman, was singled out for being too socially needy and bringing up the same prayer requests she’s had for the past five years. The group was also tired of praying for her “unspoken request” which everyone knew was to find a husband.
The Perez family was blasted for allowing their children to run around the house unchecked and eat the adult desserts before the adults had a chance to eat them.
“I made the loveliest pumpkin cupcakes one time and the kids inhaled them in about thirty seconds,” says one woman. “From that point on, I just brought store-bought snacks.”
Everyone voiced annoyance at the homeschooling family but couldn’t find a specific reason to, given that the daughter sits quietly in the corner reading Little House on the Prairie books.
“I guess she’s mousy. That’s about the worst I can say,” said one member.
The outpouring of truthfulness came five years after the group was created by a church secretary who is now employed elsewhere. At the time, the secretary was responsible for placing all church members into small groups by geographic proximity, age and “sometimes the sounds of their names,” she says.
But this group struggled to gel.
“I always looked for reasons to like everyone, but I just couldn’t find them,” says one woman. “I’m just put off by each person.”
Another man says he worked hard “to enjoy their company and find common interests, but I just couldn’t do it.”
Now, he says, “I’m tired of wasting one night a week on them. I’m even tired of the smell of their houses.”
The group agreed to have what they call a “Paul-Barnabas split” in which they part company willingly, with hopes that the others flourish in some other environment, away from the rest.
To the surprise of many, the experience has given them a common bond.
“I like these people a lot more since we all admitted we don’t really like each other,” says one man. “I still don’t want to meet with them every week, but at least we have a real relationship now.”
If you hadn’t guess yet, LarkNews is a bit of a spoof. A la the Onion of the church.
What a weekend…
This was my (Ben’s) first weekend away from theAlley since launch in September. I have to say it was a lot harder on me than anyone else. I missed the worship, the people, family fun day and serving at the shelter. I missed and I was wowed… at all that God is doing through our community. Pictures can say so much more, so check these out!
Thanks to Jon, Denise and Rick for leading a great event serving alongside of the women’s shelter.
Thanks to Ingrid and all of our AlleyKids leaders for putting so much time, energy and passion into this incredible ministry!
Thanks to Shawn for a most excellent sharing of your testimony!
Thanks to Dave for sharing your gift of teaching!
Thanks to Jon… for not blowing up the school but amazing everyone with your object lesson!
And thanks to Brian, for your servant’s heart, partnership in theAlley’s leadership and your most excellent verticle!
I did have a good time and a great experience in Chicago… I’ll share more on that tomorrow.
Laminin…..it’s not athlete’s foot powder.
Kind of a cop-out blog posting today (hey, it’s Friday) but you gotta see this (if you haven’t already). This is a snippet from a talk from Louie Giglio (often tours around with Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman). Louie has a great spirit and a real passion for teaching on the awesomeness of God. I hope you enjoy this video as much as I have:
Made to Stick
Our staff, (O.K. Brian, intern Ben and I) are diving into a new book. At some point in the future I’ll put out a full review, but have already picked up some interesting insights.
The book is titled Made to Stick, and in the author’s own words,
“We wrote this book to help you make your ideas stick. By ’stick,’ we mean that your ideas are understood and remembered, and have a lasting impact.”
Six Principles of Sticky Ideas
Principle 1: Simplicity
“Proverbs are the ideal. We must create ideas that are both simple and profound. The Golden Rule is the ultimate example of simplicity: a one-sentence statement so profound that an individual could spend a lifetime learning to follow it.”
filler
Principle 2: Unexpectedness
“We need to violate peoples expectations. We need to be counterintuitive… For our idea to endure, we must generate interest and curiosity.”
Principle 3: Concreteness
“We must explain our ideas in terms of human actions, in terms of sensory information. Mission statements, synergies, strategies, visions – they are often ambiguous to the point of being meaningless. Naturally sticky ideas are full of concrete images… In proverbs, abstract truths are often encoded in concrete language. Speaking concretely is the only way to ensure that our idea will mean the same thing to everyone in our audience.”
Principle 4: Credibility
“We need ways to help people test our ideas for themselves – a ‘try before you buy’ philosophy for the world of ideas. When we’re trying to build a case for something, most of us instinctively grasp for numbers. But in many cases this is exactly the wrong approach. In the sole U.S. presidential debate in 1980 between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, Reagan could have cited innumerable statistics demonstrating the sluggishness of the economy. Instead, he asked a simple question that allowed voters to test for themselves: ‘Before you vote, ask yourself if you are better off now than you were four years ago.’”
Principle 5: Emotions
“How do we get people to care about our ideas? We make them feel something. We are wired to feel things for people, not for abstractions.”
Principle 6: Stories
“How do we get people to act on our ideas? We tell stories. Research shows that mentally rehearsing a situation helps us perform better when we encounter that situation in the physical environment. Similarly, hearing stories acts as a kind of mental flight simulator, preparing us to respond more quickly and effectively.”
Rockin’ the Lutheran Educators Pt II….
**This post was originally written on 4/24, but it didnt get posted**
So today was day 2 for me but officially day 1 of the LEA conference. The day got started just after noon when I arrived at the convention center. The place was decked out and ready to roll.
We had a rehearsal with a thrown together choir about 15 minutes prior to the set. Pretty casual affair as myself and the band leader Chris ran through the tunes unplugged at the loading dock. The first set consisted of an old hymn with a new twist and Blessed Be Your Name among others. It was pretty hard for Stan and I to hold back as this version was a little slower paced than we’re used to. It was a great start to the conference, the attendees seemed to be engaged in some great worship too.
So after the first set we had a handful of hours to kill. In an effort to reduce my carbon footprint I decided to hang around and just spend the day out there rather than driving back to the grove and back again to mpls. We found ourselves sitting at Brit’s enjoying some of these beauties————–>>
I don’t even want to know how many calories or fat grams are in those things, but I did the math and:
hard-boiled egg
+banger sausage
+bread crumbs
+batter+deep fried
+mustadyspicy dipping sauce
=MMM MMM GOOD
Sometimes ignorance is truly blissful! Definitely not something you’d want to indulge in every day or week for that matter, but definitely scrumptious.
Ok before this becomes too much of a foodie blog…..
So we ventured back for the evening’s set and had a great time! The song selection for the set was a bit livelier than the first one and we really had some fun with it. We honky-tonked through the Happy Song, jammed to My Redeemer Lives and Stan absolutely destroyed This Little Light of Mine (in a good way!). All in all a great time of worship and fun. It’s really nice to be kind of in the background for a change, i felt free to just hang loose and jam out.
Also there are several cameras taping and displaying all that’s going on the stage onto a giant screen. I was weirded out on more than one occasion when this camera came sweeping in get a close up of my lack of guitar chord knowledge.
So tomorrow it’s back for one last hoo-rah, stay tuned….
Ben Stein’s Expelled :: Movie Review
Thanks to our own Tim Schmitt for contributing the following review.
When I was told that Ben Stein had made a new movie, I wondered if the spin off movie trend had finally hit “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off “and had earned Ben Stein’s character a movie of his own (Bueller, Bueller….). I can thankfully report that this is not the case. Ben Stein’s new movie, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”, is documentary about the retaliation that is taken against the scientists who support the intelligent design theory and how the discussion around intelligent design is suppressed by the scientific community.
The first part of the movie focuses on proving that scientists who support the intelligentdesign theory in their professions are systematically squeezed out of their positions or pressured to change their views to conform to the mainstream positions. There are about 5 scientists who give their accounts about how they supported intelligent design and the resulting conditions which led to their dismissal. Although it’s difficult to prove that the underlying reason each person lost their job was related to their support for intelligent design, the individual stories were compelling and believable. The end result is a convincing case that intelligent design is not accepted within the scientific community and that people have lost their positions in academic institutions over their beliefs on the subject. Ben uses these cases to demonstrate that although science is based on the sharing ideas and theories, the scientific community seems to suppress the intelligent design discussion by disciplining those who support it.
The second part of the movie is a discussion with people on both sides of the intelligent design and evolution debate. Several video clips are woven together into a discussion which covers topics ranging from how some evolutionists explain the origin of life to thoughts on why the scientific community seems to suppress the intelligent design discussion. The people representing the intelligent design position were thoughtful and clearly knowledgeable on the topic, which was a nice contrast to how proponents of intelligent design are typically portrayed in the media.
There were a few aspects of the movie that I did not agree with. For example, in between many of the interviews, the movie would stop and a humorous clip that pertains to the previous segment would be played with the intent of poking fun at the answer which was just given. For example, after one of the scientists gives a half hearted explanation for the origins of life, the movies cuts to the scene of the Dorothy discovering the wizard of OZ is just a man behind a curtain. The clips are sometimes humorous but they detracted from the seriousness of the topic and seem undermine what could have been a sincere discussion of the topic.
Secondly, the movie attempts to link Nazis and evolutionists together by demonstrating that the “survival of the fittest” concept was the root motivation for the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis in Word War II. While it is true eugenics was part of the Nazi’s motivation, I’m not sure you can suggest that the people who support the theory of evolution today would take the “survival of the fittest” concept to the same extreme that the Nazis did.
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed demonstrates the bias against intelligent design in the scientific community but could have done better job proving their case by reviewing more of the evidence for intelligent design and taking a more serious approach to the debate. If you are interested in learning more about intelligent design, I would recommend seeing the movie. Tim
Rockin’ the Lutheran Educators….
So these next couple days and yesterday I am part of the house band for the Lutheran Educators Assoc conference at the convention center downtown Minneapolis.
Sounds like it’s a pretty big deal and when I walked into the hall and saw the stage setup my hunch was correct. Check out the size of this place! I was standing about halfway into the hall when I snapped this pic. Just a tad bigger scale then our humble but beloved Cafetorium.
So yesterday afternoon/evening was rehearsal and they have collected a great pool of musicians for this thing! A few folks flew into town and then there are some local guys as well. Some guy named Stan something or other was in the band too, he looks really familiar but I just can’t place it ; )
Anyways, I’m off in an hour or so to start the first set of the conference. I’ll try to take some more shots and give you all an update as we progress.
Rawk out.
