6 Medical Myths

This made me laugh. An article on Yahoo News reveals research into some commonly held myths (even commonly believed by doctors). We can all sleep easier now, knowing these truths:

Myth 1: We only use 10% of our brains. Nope - brain imaging reveals no part of the brain that is actually "inactive" or unused at any point.

Myth 2: You should drink 8 glasses of water a day. Nah. You need the equivalent of 8 cups of fluids, but you can get that from fruit and vegetables, tea, even coffee.

Myth 3: Shaved hair grows back thicker, darker, courser. Wrong! Studies show the hair growing back after shaving is not any darker or thicker than unshaved hair. It may appear darker due to not having been bleached by the sun, though.

Myth 4: Reading in dim light damages your eyesight. No way Jose. It doesn't cause any damage at all. Can cause eye fatigue, but it gets all better with a good night's sleep.

Myth 5: Cell Phones are dangerous in hospitals. Negatory. Tests showed that cell phones can actually interfere with a few hospital medical devices, but only if they were held within a few feet of the device. In general, walking down hospital halls or even into rooms, poses no threat. In fact, the improved communication by doctors carrying cell phones actually results in fewer mistakes and better health.

Myth 6: Turkey causes drowsiness. What? Not true? well, sort of. Turkey does have triptophane which makes you drowsy. But it doesn't have any more triptophane than chicken or beef. So why are we so tired after Thanksgiving meals? Mass quantities of food and alcohol. That's all.


So, as you prepare to celebrate Christmas, feel totally free to walk around hospitals with cell phones, eat all the turkey you want, read in the dark, drink more coffee, and shave your whole body if you want too.

Merry Christmas!

SNOW UPDATE 2

We're on!!!

Halbeck Dr (the road that turns off of Curtis into the school) is plowed. So is the parking lot and the walkways into the school.

SO...but given the condition of lots of side roads, we are going to cancel Sunday School and just have worship at 10:30am.

See you at 10:30 if you can safely make it out there.

Drive safe,

Scott

SNOW UPDATE!!!

Hey Folks. It is 6:30am and we are trying to decide if we should have worship.

Several Churches in town have already cancelled services for today - including First Christian.

We have our expert team of snow assessors on the way to Barkstall School as we speak to determine if roads, parking lot, and walkways are passable.

We'll be making an announcement shortly as to whether or not we are meeting.

CHeck back here for a final word on whether or not we are meeting!

Thanks,
Scott

um, what's this cold white stuff all over the ground?

So, I woke up on Thursday and my first thought was, we gotta cancel church. I mean I know it was only Thursday...but it was SEVEN degrees. Like as in single digits, seven.

But then we're sitting at the table on Thursday night eating dinner and we notice this white stuff blowing around in the wind. It was kind of a nostalgic moment: it reminded me of ash from forest fires. Felt like being in Southern California again.

An hour later, we couldn't hardly see any grass.

Well, woke up this morning to a beautiful 2 inches of snow covering everything. And yeah, that was us outside making snow angels at 6:30am. Hope we didn't wake ya!

Oh, and church is still on.

A story that didn't make the cut...

I wanted to use this illustration in my sermon on Sunday but since the sermon was already over 20 minutes, I had to axe it.

Rob Bell tells an great little story in one of his Nooma videos:

Rob is walking with his son through a mall and they pass by one of those little mini-stores that sets up right in the middle of the walk way. The guy working the booth invites them to play with this little toy, some sort of a sticky rubber thing on a string. And his 5 year old son just loves it. "I want one" he says. So Rob starts laying out his case for why it's not a good idea: It won't work, it will wrap around your wrist, or your neck, it will hit you in the face...

And his son gives him that look: "But I thought i said you love me."

He ends up having to carry his screaming son out of the mall to the car.

Rob makes the point that at that moment, all his son can see is the thing he wants. The son thinks he knows what he wants (what he NEEDS!) and his world falls apart when he can't have it.

But what his son can't see in that moment is the bigger picture. Rob knows that there is something better. Something later. Something else. The next stop on their family trip is another store. They walk in and march right up to this wall filled from top to bottom with kick balls. And Rob sets his son down in front of these wall and with great joy says "Take your pick."

This is a great lesson on our expectations of God. God sees the bigger picture. God knows what's we really need. God knows that there is something better, something next, something else. So when we don't get what we want, or what we expect, or what we think we deserve from God, do we react like the kid in the mall? Or do we react with the wisdom of the parent, knowing that God has something else?

This Christmas, we have a great chance to help our kids see the things that really matter. We have a chance to help them see that there are things bigger, better, and more significant than just having the thing that's right in front of them that they think they need so badly. And by helping them see that, we start to give our kids the tools they need their whole life long to trust God to give them what they really need.

Share your ideas on our Launch: Advent Conspiracy Blog

Now officially open: Share your ideas, struggles, and meaningful Advent experiences with one another on our official Launch Advent Conspiracy Blog.

The address is: www.launchadventconspiracy.blogspot.com

Sermon mp3's for this series are under the mp3 archive on the right side.

You can also access it via the link on the top right column of this page!

The Advent Conspiracy

This past Sunday, we introduced our Advent series which we are calling "The Advent Conspiracy". We are launching this holiday season journey alongside dozens of other churches across the country that are striving to celebrate Advent in a way that is worthy of the birth of Jesus.

When asked to describe the feelings that Christmas elicits, parents will all too often list such things as exhaustion, business, stress, guilt, materialism, greed. I shared the story of my 8th grade Christmas when I was so completely crushed and as a result spiteful to my mom when I got the GI Joe Troop Transport instead of the GI Joe Hovercraft. For me Advent was all about...me.

So this Christmas season, we are challenging one another to take a good honest look at what we are really all about. We are challenging each other to explore new ways of celebrating the Holidays. It's a conspiracy because we are committing to not settle for the status quo, but to to try a new of living, of worshipping, of giving, and of getting. We are conspiring to stand apart from the materialism and greed that all too often take center stage this time of year. We are conspiring to demonstrate another way to the world.

Here are the themes of our Advent Conspiracy:
Worship More: We are looking for ways to keep Christ at the center of all that we do.
Spend Less: The average family doesn't finish paying off Christmas bills until teh following August. We are encouraging one another to put less of an emphasis on spending money as a way of showing love to one another.
Give More: Instead of spending lots of money, we are encouraging one another to give more meaningful gifts, relational gifts, home-made gifts, the kind of gifts that will show up in scrap books and keep-sake boxes 30 years from now.
Love All: We'll talk about ways we as families and as a church family can use our resources to make a real difference in the world. Stay tuned to find out what we'll be doing around the world, and right here at home!

If you want to read more about the nationwide Advent Conspiracy movement, please visit the following website: www.adventconspiracy.org

We hope you'll join us on this journey to reclaim Advent in honor of the one whom we celebrate during this season!

mass media and the emerging church

I regularly check the blog of a guy named Tony Jones. Today, he mentions a story that ran in USA Today about the emergent church.

Some really interesting reading. Here's a link:
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20071112/opledereligion100.art.htm

There are some interesting thoughts on how the Emerging Church approaches alot of things. Take a look at these quotes and let me know what you think. Some of these ideas would challenge us on some of the issues we're dealing with. Some would make for mighty good conversation.

Here are some of my favorite quotes:

"according to emergent theology, the point of being Christian is not solely to achieve heaven in the next life, but to bring some heaven to this life by doing the work of Jesus."

"Emergents are quite certain about some things, nevertheless, especially Jesus and his clear instruction about the way Christians are to live out their faith — not primarily as respectable, middle-class pillars of status quo society, but as servants to the poor and to people in the margins. In the words of Gideon Tsang, a 33-year-old Texas emergent who moved himself and his family to a smaller home in a poorer part of town, "The path of Christ is not in upward mobility; it's in downward."

"Unlike the megachurches of mainstream evangelicalism, emerging groups do not emphasize attracting new members (although it seems to happen anyway) or constructing church buildings. Some emerging groups meet in rented auditoriums, some in people's homes, some in pubs. There is less emphasis, too, on programming for members. In their view, the church exists not primarily to serve members but to serve the community."


What do you think?

Good fences make good neighbors, or not.

Have you heard this saying before? It's an old saying - it's been around alot longer than the days of privacy fences that fully hide your backyard. Back in the "old days", a good fence was probably made of stones stacked on top of each other and was maybe 4 feet tall. Short enough so that you could talk to your neighbor, but tall enough that your neighbor wasn't likely to climb over unless there was a really important reason.

Well, coming from Los Angeles, I know a thing or two about fences. In my last neighborhood there, every single back yard was completely enclosed by a full privacy fence at least 8 feet tall so that not only could you not talk to your neighbor, you couldn't even see their backyard. Might be "naked animals in there"(another movie quote) for all you knew.

So when we moved into our new house here in Champaign, it was kind of a shock to the system to walk out onto the back porch and see nothing but grass between us and the house behind us and the houses on either side of us. At first I couldn't wait to build a fence. But after a few weeks, I realized something:

No fences make better neighbors.

I guess I mean neighbors in a "love your neighbor" / Jesus kind of way. Since there is no fence there, all the kids in the 'hood come walking through the back yard to play with my kids. The basketball court in our backyard becomes the neighborhood gathering spot, chalk art display, jump rope stage, race track, multi purpose play place. And I actually have conversations with my neighbors as we cut our grass, chase dogs, play with kids, etc. We're getting to know each other, and care about each other. We've learned about jobs, families, issues with kids. We're starting to share life together.

And it's all in large part because there's nothing between us but grass.

I'm glad we don't have a fence and I'm glad we know our neighbors.

I knew I should be famous...

Ran across a cool website that lets you see what celebrity you most resemble. I was pretty sure I was come across as the nerd from 16 Candles, but look what the computer thinks....

%1

Don't be a zombie

I think this shirt is kind of funny. Richard says he would wear it.

But the sad part is that alot of folks think us Christians ARE alot like zombies...brain dead.

And they don't think that because of what we believe. They think it because of how we live. Or maybe because of how we don't live.

So don't be a zombie. Use your head. But also use your heart.

a church being the church

I got a note today from a good friend here in Champaign who attends a different church. My friend was writing to tell me that her small group had just spent their evening together driving around to various churches and standing in the church parking lots praying for those churches. What a beautiful demonstration of a church getting beyond denominationalism or territorialism. They spent a chunk of time standing in the parking lot at Barkstall praying for us! Praying that we would have God's vision for our future together and praying that people would be drawn to Jesus through our life, our worship, and our mission. I was blown away and so incredibly encouraged.

The timing was interesting. Right about that time, i was driving by a local church on my way to work and noticed that on their marquee out front, they were advertising a night of live music. As i drove by, a little smirk sneaked onto my face as i thought about how completely non-interesting that sounded. Just then, I had this really stinky feeling of guilt. I knew almost instantly how pathetic my attitude was - especially when other folks at other churches were praying for me and for my success. So as i drove the rest of the way to work, i tried to make up for my own hypocrisy by praying that God would bless that church and their live music night so that it succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

I really hope God moves us, as a church, to be a loving and committed part of the Church.

Living Biblically - one way to do it...

This is AJ Jacobs. He spent the last year literally living Biblically. He took every instruction on how to live in the Bible and decided to try to literally obey each command. So he didn't shave for a whole year. And he wore white robes and sandals every day. And he did absolutely no work on Saturdays (I'm sure his wife loved that). He even took an Old Testament passage that instructs you not to sit in a chair where a woman may have sat during a certain time of the month, and well, you know, since you never can be too careful really, he started carrying his own chair around with him. At least he knew who had been sitting in that one.

Well, there's a new spin on how to "Be like Jesus." And while I think it misses the point a little bit, AJ stumbled across some pretty profound truths in his one year experiment.

When asked what was the biggest challenge for him, he said: "That'd be no coveting, no lying, no gossiping. They're little sins, but they're killers. My year made me realize just how many of these sins I committed every day. And refraining from them for a year was really hard but completely transforming."

And when asked about what the biggest lesson he learned, AJ said: "Your behavior shapes your beliefs. If you act like a good person, you eventually become a better person. I wasn't allowed to gossip, so eventually I started to have fewer petty thoughts to gossip about. I had to help the less fortunate, so I started to become less self-absorbed. I am not Gandhi or Angelina Jolie, but I made some progress."

There's a great discussion question here: Do our beliefs enable our actions to change? Or does changing our actions help shape (confirm, strengthen) what we believe? What do you think?

Question number 2: Gandhi and Angelina Jolie - same sentence. discuss.

What's the launch?

Somebody asked me recently what we were hoping to accomplish with the Launch. I stumbled through an answer and realized I needed to be able to answer that question better. After spending a few days thinking about it, reading the Southwest Strategic Plan, and reflecting on our own 6 pillars, here is what I came up with:

I want this Launch congregation to become a mission minded community of Christ followers who worship, serve, and live life together.

Mission minded reminds us that in everything we do, we are thinking about those around us. We have our non-Christian friends and neighbors in mind when we think about how to set up chairs, what kind of music to sing, what words to use to describe our faith, how we give people chances to respond in giving, everything.

Community reminds us that we are in this together. My faith is not just between me and Jesus. My faith connects me with every other believer, every one of you.

Christ followers is at the heart of the statement. Jesus Christ is at the heart of who we are. Notice it doesn’t talk about what we believe. Though our beliefs are important (we’ll talk about that a lot!) faith is first and foremost a journey of following Jesus Christ.

The next 3 words all describe what we do together.We worship. And we worship together. And our worship grows out of who we are together.We serve. Jesus told us we are the light of the world. Our responsibility is to take the light of Christ into all the dark places in the world. Again, we do that together.We live life together. We are committed to being a church of small groups; a church where everyone feels like they belong; where everyone knows they are known and loved.

One thing that’s not mentioned in that defining sentence is a word about being open to God doing a new thing in us. We are continually asking God to lead us into creative ways of expressing worship, caring for our community, and sharing life together. You never know exactly what you’re gonna discover on a Sunday morning. And the Launch may look quite different in 6 months. Hopefully it will, as long as we’re following our creative and loving God.