April Blogger Awards

Better late than never. I had a few people remind me that I had forgotten to do the Blogger Awards for April. Apologies abound. So here they are, the best posts and posters April had to offer:

Henderson's Trip Recap
Benson on Tithing
Dena's Pet Peeves
DJ votes Facebook
Liz says Less is More
Heather's Little Secret
Kayla's Amberly Tribute

As for the BBC Blogger of the month, I think this was one of the closest races yet. I finally narrowed it down to 2: Sara C & Elizabeth S. And by the slimmest of margins I'll give it to Liz because of the quality/quantity combo. I enjoy the 'thankful Thursday' posts, her missions blog & some a couple of her posts even mentioned me (that's a hint for the rest of you!) So...

Elizabeth S (Blog 1) (Blog 2)

January: Elizabeth S
February: Kirk P
March: Kirk P
April: Elizabeth S

Looks like we have a 2 way race, so far, for 2007 poster of the year. Anyone else going to join the competition?

Undrafted

Another NFL Draft has come and gone and I remain amateur. The oldest player drafted was 26 years old. I will be 26 in June so next year's draft is basically my last chance to go pro. I've decided that it's time to get serious. I need a documented time in the 40 yard dash. I need to see how many times I can lift objects that weigh differing amounts. I need to make a YouTube video that shows of my skills. I need to get a girlfriend that ESPN can zoom up on when teams pass over me in next year's 1st round. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Tomorrow evening I vow to get a 40 yard dash time.

NFL Draft

One of my favorite sporting events of the year is the NFL Draft. I've missed it the past 3 years being in China. But tomorrow I'll catch it for a change. I might even be drafted myself. I'm certainly eligible. I'm asking my readers not to call me tomorrow b/c I want to keep the phone's free in case some team calls.

Name that Pony

Are you a good investigator? Points to the 1st Person who can tell me the significance of the picture below with some degree of detail:

MOST

We've started a home group for ages 18-30 which I'm pretty excited about. We had 7 people attend the first get-together with a handful more wanting to come next time. We'll meet every 2nd & 4th Tuesday to chat, eat, hang-out & hear something from the Word. In our 1st meeting we watched the short-film "Most" and I decided to give the group the same name. Why? Because this group is going to focus on "becoming less like the most, getting the most out of life, and responding to the One who most loves us." Plus, M.O.S.T. is a good reminder to Meet On Second Tuesday.

But my reason for posting this is because I'm curious as to who else is currently leading or participating in a group for 20somethings? How is it going? What has worked well? What hasn't worked at all? Feel free to give me a general overview :)

Idol #6

Now that Sanjaya's gone, it's tough for most people to say who should be the next to leave. Personally, I don't really like Chris's voice. It's just not inspiring at all compared to the other singers. He sings everything nicely, but not greatly. Here is my leaderboard showing this week's and overall scoring:

Melinda 8 (82)
Jordin 7 (77)
Lakisha 6 (73)
Phil 8 (72)
Blake 7 (68)
Chris 7 (67)

Gilmore Girls 20

Surprisingly, Paris & Jess were eliminated last week while Jackson remained. Paris, in fact, finished dead last in voting despite being the top vote getter up until that point. In other words, you people are unpredictable. And so, I have no idea which 2 characters will be eliminated in the next 24 or so hours. Remember to vote FOR one character and AGAINST another.

Luke
Sookie
Michel

150 ***'s

I just noticed that ***'s were functioning again so I gave everyone who posted in the past week 3 *'s. There were 50 of you. Now, that doesn't mean that blogroller is working again, but it might be an indication. I'm still learning about other ways to improve the speed at which we can check up on bbc blogs.

And, once again, for future reference, when it is working, (is that WAY too many commas?) the link at the top right allows you to give yourself ***'s when necessary. Finally, remember that September 4th is the official BBC BLOGGING DAY. Everyone must blog on that date or else.

Is God Silent?

Many atheists argue that God is silent, but I think it is much more convincing an argument that they simply don't listen to God where He speaks. Unfortunately, many times, Christians also fail to recognize the ways in which God speaks to His people. Tonight, we went over 12 ways that we hear from God:

1. Creation- He communicates His attributes through creation
2. Conscience- He communicates His standard through conscience
3. Christ- He lives in us and communicates to us
4. Covert Communication- He communicates through prayer
5. Canon- He communicates through Holy Scripture
6. Church- He communicates through the rest of the church
7. Children- He communicates through the innocence of kids
8. Crisis- He communicates through our trials & tribulations
9. Coincidental Confirmation- He communicates through providence
10. Closed/Open Corridors- He communicates through access
11. Culture- He communicates through the culture at large
12. Concerns/Passions- He communicates through our desires

Teaching Stuff

We're staring a small group for 20 somethings. This will be the 5th Bible study I lead each week. Sunday morning I teach Sunday School hour. We just finished Luke and will be starting Acts in about 10 hours. Sunday night is my favorite teaching time. I just finished teaching the Case of Christ and will be starting a series on spiritual disciplines. Tuesday Night will be the small group. This week will just be introductions and stuff. Wednesday nights I lead a 30 minute Bible study. We just finished 2 Kings and will be starting a short series on Jude. Thursday night is men's group. We are in Romans. I estimate that I am currently around 31% through my goal of teaching through the Bible in 12 years with an overall goal of teaching through Scripture 3 times in my life.

Eternity in their Hearts

In stark contrast to the 1st book I read on my trip, I thoroughly enjoyed Don Richardson's 'Eternity in their Hearts.' It's certainly not a new book (published the year I was born), but it may end up being my favorite book of 2007. Basically, it's about 'general revelation,' a subject that interests me to a high degree.

Richardson is a missionary and his book argues that at the root of most ancient folk religions of the world lies a monotheism that has only relatively recently evolved into polytheism. Further, he argues that this remnant of monotheism can and has been utilized by missionaries as a bridge to Christ with fantastic results. Telling one of the stories would probably be a better review, but instead I simply recommend the book to you. If you have a heart for missions, you'll love it. If you don't have a heart for missions, you may by the time you're done reading.

The Apocalypse Code

On my trip I read 2 books, the first of which was Hank Hanegraaff's 'The Apocalypse Code.' I had been waiting for this book to come out for quite some time since I am interested in eschatology and I knew that Hank (of 'The Bible Answer Man' fame) had arrived at conclusions quite similar to my own. I started reading the book at the Buffalo airport and quickly realized I had forgotten to bring a pen or pencil to underline with. Fortunately for me, but unfortunately for Hank, I didn't really need one.

It's not that the book is bad. I liked it and agreed with just about everything he said. The problem was that the book doesn't really have a core audience. He skips from verse to verse too quickly for anyone beginning a study of eschatology and says too little about anything for anyone well read in such matters. It turns out, the book really isn't about eschatology so much as it is about methods of interpreting God's Word. The 'illustration' of his method primarily utilizes Revelation, but I feel that choice isn't the best place to teach basic principles of hermeneutics.

That being said, I like the acrostic (L.I.G.H.T.S.) he uses as the basis for the book. Hank describes and illustrates the Literal, Illumination, Grammatical, Historical, Typology & Scriptural Synergy principles used to correctly interpret the Bible. All in all, I'm not sorry I bought the book, but I also don't regret not having a writing utensil.

Idol #'s 8 & 7

I've missed a couple of weeks of my American Idol analysis, so I'll do them together right now before I find out who got kicked off tonight. Below I will record my "out of 10" rankings for last week, this week, and their total overall score:

Melinda 8, 9 (74)
Jordin 8, 8 (70)
Lakisha 8, 6 (67)
Phil 6, 8 (64)
Blake 8, 6 (61)
Chris 7, 6 (60)
Haley 5, na (42)
Sanjaya 5, 4 (38)

Gilmore Girls 19

For Aaron H's bullet form highlights of our trip, click HERE. But now it's time to get back to what we're really all here for: The Gilmore Girls Tournament. They've been on a break for a while, but tonight is an all new episode. We are down to 9 contestants. We'll eliminate 2 (that's right, 2 at a time now) in the next 24 hours. Remember to vote FOR 1 character and AGAINST one character.

Paris
Jess
Jackson

Monday 11:00pm

I just recently got home. Just in time to watch the last few moments of the Sabres game 3 victory. Then my mom wanted me to watch the latest episode of The Office. The last day of the trip wasn't super great, haha. Another early morning. Slept on the bus. Flight got cancelled. Lots of waiting. But it wasn't all bad. I finished a great book (Eternity in their Hearts by Don Richardson). Somebody missed their plane, giving me their seat. And I had a few neat conversations. And I'm home. All in all, my 1st vacation was a success. I might even take another one next Summer.

Sunday (not really)

Ok, so it's actually late monday night, but I just got home and realized I never got a chance to give a report for Sunday. Let's see. I woke up in Bucksport and Aaron's dad drove me to the bus station bright and early (people just can't wait to get rid of me). Tammy C picked me up in Portland and we had about 9 hours to kill before meeting with Matt & Tami P. Suddenly, we realized it was Sunday so we went to church (Harvest Bible Chapel). Pretty good. Then we went to Friendly's (which I had never been to, but I really liked). And after that we went to the Maine Mall before heading to Tim's. Around 6 Matt & Tami arrived and we had a fun time telling college stories about you (whoever is reading this). And to put icing on a fun day, I got to sleep with Spiderman sheets!

Saturday 1:31pm

Well Friday morning Aaron & I woke up, checked out of the hotel, and went to Liz's for breakfast. After some time, we were on our way to Digby to see Tim Cook and catch the ferry. Unfortunately, that is where we ran into our first miscalculation. We missed the last ferry by 15 minutes. The website was very wrong. Anyways, we talked to Tim for a while and decided to drive all the way around. We got gas in Sussex and started toward St. John, but then the driving conditions deteriorated so we slept in Rothsay or whatever. We finished our journey back to Maine this morning.

Tomorrow I'll be taking the bus from Bangor to Portland.

Friday 12:02am

Hey. Thanks for the comments on previous posts. I don't really have time to respond to them right now, but I did read them. Today Aaron & I hung out at the hotel until lunch time. Then we ordered WAY too much Donair stuff. Crazy amounts. Ugh. Anyways, then we went shopping at a really awesome Nova Scotian store called Wal-Mart. Next we went to Liz's church to hang out and prepare for the evening youth event. The youth group was fun, and I don't even usually like teenagers. Then we had pizza while watching CSI. And now I'm blogging. Tomorrow the plan is to head to Digby. I should be back in Maine by about this time tomorrow. God bless.

Thursday 12:01am

I'm in Nova Scotia now. Today was fun. Aaron and I slept in and then said hi to four bbc staff that we ran into before lunch-time. Before leaving Sussex we went to its Wal-Mart and bought a couple dvd's. Then we started our trek toward Nova Scotia as we listened to Weird Al & Country music. We arrived at Elizabeth's church around 5pm. After that it seems we stopped at about 5 grocery stores, but I may be remembering wrong. We had supper and watched some sci-fi stuff before Aaron & I found a hotel. Well, Aaron thinks I'm listening to him talk, so I better go!

Wednesday 1:27am

I have made it safely to Sussex. Good trip so far. The Bus Ride from Boston to Bangor was great, and I had enough time to finish a whole book (though it wasn't very good). Aaron and I got to Sussex later than expected (turns out it's an hour later here!). Anyways, we met with some new and old friends and saw some of the changes to the college. Tomorrow we will sleep in and then try to visit a few staff before we head to Nova Scotia. Gotta go! God bless.

ps. Since i didn't watch Idol, I'll give my stats for 2 weeks next wednesday. Also, I'll delay my blogging 10 commandments series till next thursday. In response to comments, I still haven't updated the abc list. I guess I prolly won't get to that till I get home.

Playoff Predictions

1st Round

1 Buffalo over 8 NY Islanders in 5
4 Ottawa over 5 Pittsburgh in 7
6 NY Rangers over 3 Atlanta in 6
2 NJ Devils over 7 Tampa Bay in 6

1 Detroit over 8 Calgary in 7
4 Nashville over 5 San Jose in 7
3 Vancouver over 6 Dallas in 5
2 Anaheim over 7 Minnesota in 6

2nd Round

1 Buffalo over 6 NY Rangers in 5
4 Ottawa over 2 NJ Devils in 7

4 Nashville over 1 Detroit in 6
2 Anaheim over 3 Vancouver in 5

Conference Finals

1 Buffalo over 4 Ottawa in 6
4 Nashville over 2 Anaheim in 5

Stanley Cup

1 Buffalo over 4 Nashville in 6

Ugh

Besides resurrection celebration, it really hasn't been a good last little while. My taxes were about $1500 more than expected, I've been sick, and now the LCD screen on my laptop has died. I'm currently using my television as a monitor. Now I have to decide whether to buy a whole new laptop or just try to replace the screen. I hope this week isn't an indicator of how my trip is going to go. The trip, by the way, starts early tomorrow morning. I will be travelling to the following places in the following order: Buffalo, Boston, Bangor, BBC, Kentville, Digby, Bucksport, Portland Limerick, Portland, Boston, Buffalo, Barker. Blogging may be sporadic during my trip, especially since I won't have my laptop.

Now for the good news amidst the most annoying week of the decade: I won the BBC Fantasy Hockey League, beating Graham Perry in the championship round and I'm in the championship round, this week, for the BBC Fantasy Basketball League where I'll be taking on Graham once again.

The Case for Christ

Here are links to a quick 3 Hour Series utilizing Josh McDowell's "Evidence that Demands a Verdict" along with and FF Bruce's "New Testament Documents: Are they Reliable?" and Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ" (not to mention limited use of other resources).

Jesus: A Man of History
The Gospels: A Reliable History
The Resurrection: A Fact of History

!

ABC or Recent ***'s

The voting results were close. 20 of you like the new system of having the most recently updated blogs at the top of the right hand column. 15 of you like the previous system of having the names arranged alphabetically. Since the vote was close, I have decided on a compromise. The right hand link list will remain as is (most recent at top), but I have made a 2nd, alphabetically ordered, list at the bottom of the left hand column. Unfortunately, it isn't an up to date list, but I'll be taking care of that problem bit by bit over the next week or so. One last note, if you ever post and, for one reason or another, don't get ***'s, simply click on the link in the very top right of my blog and you'll be able to manually give yourself ***'s.

#3 Your True Colors

Last Thursday, in our '10 Commandments of Blogging' series, we talked about the name game and how important it is to create a title that CATCHES the attention of your readers and CONVEYS the purpose of your blog. Almost as important, though, is the COLOR scheme you select for your blog.

Let me illustrate to you the importance of a winning color scheme. A few years back, the Buffalo Sabres new owner changed from the colors of the team from classic blue/gold to a supposedly more hip black/red scheme. Fans didn't like it. It seemed everyone was moving to black jerseys and Buffalo fans wanted to remain different. This season, with a new owner again, the Sabres went back to their blue/gold tradition. And they're going to win the Cup! Bottom line? Colors are important.

How did you select the colors for your blog? Did you just stick with a template provided by blogger? I don't recommend that unless it's a really good looking template. I say, pick your favorite colors. My favorite colors are charcoal, blue & bright green. Granted, my colors were, reportedly, too bright at first, but that problem has since been corrected.

Idol #9

I fell asleep early last night and woke up the same, so just watched Idol. Difficult episode to differentiate b/w the singers b/c pretty much everyone had a 7 out of 10 performance. The one exception: Melinda. she continues to blow away the competition in my opinion.

Weekly Awards:
Best
Performance
Melinda Doolittle
Worst
Performance:
Sanjaya Malakar

Overall Standings:
Top 3: Melinda (58), Jordin (54), Lakeesha (53)
Low 3: Gina (47), Haley (42), Sanjaya (29)

Da Vinci Code

I read 2 Christian responses to "The Da Vinci Code" without reading the actual book (since I don't read fiction), but the other day I finally got around to watching the movie. To be honest, despite the poor reviews the movie received, I thought it was pretty good. As far as massive conspiracy theories go, I think this one is pretty creative. And I don't still say it wouldn't have caused the uproar that it caused had not Dan Brown come out and said it was all based on facts. Historically, it's hogwash, but at least the majority of the hogwash is contained in a 5 minute spiel by Leigh Teabing. That being said, a decent movie, similar in some ways to National Treasure.

Rating: 7.2
Status: Must See

I Got Fired

For the first time in a couple of years, I made a mistake. You see, I have been getting my nephew (who lives next to the church) off the bus each Monday & Tuesday. Monday was a close call. I was running behind and got caught at a train crossing. I reached the church just as the bus was about to give up on me. Disaster averted. Tuesday I was at the church, working, when I suddenly realized what time it was. I looked out the window to see the bus already almost out of site. Well this triggered a network of phone calls that ended up in me being fired from bus duty.

I am actually quite disappointed in this for a few reasons. First, I enjoyed spending this 30 minutes twice a week with my nephew 1 on 1. Second, it stinks that my memory is so bad. Third, every time I hear the bus go by the church I'm going to feel like a crappy uncle and brother.