LOST may be over, but I have a friend who’s currently worked his way through the series. Our conversations along the way have caused me to reminisce and miss the series, so I found a couple of soundbytes from around the interwebs and came up with the following:

1. “Smokey” – this is a looping sound of everyone’s favorite Smoke Monster. It’s a great sound, but it’s not perfect because it lacks that sweet horn/siren thing that announces it’s coming. Download it here.
2. “Dharma” – this is the intro to one of the Dharma videos (the first one, I think). Complete with warbley tape defects. Download it here.

Just download the files and drag them into the “Ringtones” area of iTunes. Sync with your iPhone (check your settings) and your done.

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We had a great time of reconnecting with family and having some fun. We got lost in the woods, saw my niece takes some of her first steps and drove each other a bit crazy at times. Check out the highlights in the video below (or watch it on our youtube page).

Vacation to Starved Rock from Erik Scottberg on Vimeo.

By the way, the song in the video is “Lisztomania” by Phoenix. You can pick up their album at amazon.com.

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I’m not sure what I expected when Zondervan sent me a copy of the book to review, but it’s not what I thought it would be. I’m a highlighter guy. I love smell of florescent colored markers and the scratchy/squeaky sound they make when they go across the page. However, I think I only made one highlight throughout the whole book. Now that might sound like it’s a negative, but it’s really more a comment about the type of book it is. The Power of a Whisperisn’t a “how to” book filled with pithy, memorable one-liners. Instead, it’s a stream of narratives and inspirational examples of times when people (usually Hybels) heard the “whisper” of God. It’s not a deep theological covering of the topic, which is what I think I expected.

I’ve only read one other book by Hybels (Courageous Leadership) and this one didn’t stack up quite as well for me. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed this book and I recommend it for people who are looking/needing some inspiration about hearing from God. However, the book weighs in at 260 pages (minus the Appendix). Not a very long read, but I’d say it’s a bit too long for this topic. Or at least the way this topic is handled here. Maybe I’m impatient or ADD, but several times during my reading I found myself nodding my head saying, “Okay, I’ve got it. Let’s get to the next point.” Needless to say, Hybels is thorough. The book is absolutely packed with personal stories and examples from his life. Five of the chapters (4-9) break down God’s whispers into five different categories: written (Scripture), those that come during difficult circumstances, those that are regarding parenthood, those that come through others, and those that change the world. That’s 125 pages of illustrations. Don’t misunderstand me. These are excellent examples of hearing God’s voice…it’s just that there are a lot of them.

Chapter 4, titled “How to Know When You’re Hearing from God” was more of what I was expecting from this book. In it, Hybels outlines 5 filters you can use to determine if God is speaking to you. The filters are helpful and provide some good practical steps to apply some of the inspiration from the examples in the book.

In the end, I don’t think Hybels was trying to write the kind of book I was looking for and that’s fine, because for what it is, it’s a good, solid read. If you are looking for some truly inspiring and moving examples of people hearing and responding to the voice of God, then this book is for you. If you are looking for a book that will provide a lot of practical or deep theological discussion on the issue, then it’s probably not for you.

You can pick up your copy of The Power of a Whisper at amazon.com.

For disclosure’s sake, I need to add that my copy of The Power of a Whisper
was provided for review by Zondervan.

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1. book review – “Exponential”
2. book review – “steering through chaos”
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I’ve been a staff pastor for several years. I have dreams of one day leading a church and/or planting one. When that happens, I’ll be revisiting this book for some of the ideas and concepts it contains.

“Exponential” is a book about creating and sustaining multisite ministry among churches. At the core of this is the idea of reproduction through apprenticeship. This is something that applies to every believer, not just pastors interested in adding an additional location for their church. And for me, that’s what makes this book great. As much as this is a book about church planting, it’s also a book about how to create ministries and leaders who seek to reproduce themselves in apprentices (to use the term in the book) who will in turn continue to pass their heart/vision/skill on to others.

I found this book to be very accessible and easy to read. It’s written by Dave Ferguson with some humorous notes from his brother, Jon Ferguson, along the way. It has some great personal stories/examples to balance out and illustrate the philosophical and strategic content. And there’s a lot of that here. It’s full of practical advice and tips for how to reproduce and raise up leaders and churches. This is one of those books that will end up on my shelf for future reference.

For me, a book like this challenges me on a couple of levels. First, it causes me to evaluate my current ministry assignment and find ways to improve on how I am leading and what I am passing on to others (apprentices) around me. Second, I begin to step back from my current situation and dream about what God is calling me to and where he will eventually lead me–sort of a big picture or long term vision.

If you’re a pastor interested in starting a multisite location or if you are a lay leader in your church, “Exponential” is an excellent resource for you to find ways to reproduce yourself in others and expand the Kingdom and the ministry you lead.

You can buy “Exponential” at amazon.com (if you purchase through this link, you’ll help support the blog).

For disclosure’s sake, I need to add that my copy of Exponential was provided for review by Zondervan.

Related posts:

1. book review – “steering through chaos”
2. book review: primal
3. book review – “The Power of a Whisper”

To be honest, I can’t remember the first time I watched it, but as a kid it was one of those movies I couldn’t get enough of. Few films I watched during my childhood have left as strong of an impression on me as this one.

I remember going over to my friend’s house and searching for treasure in the forest that was in his back yard. We would go on adventures for hours in there. One time we went all the way through the forest to the other side and ended up in an abandoned farm field. We walked across several fields until we came to an old one room house, entered through the broken door and searched for valuables. Of course, all we found was old junk, but the adventure was the fun of it. I think we ended up dragging a broken, rusted piece of farming equipment back to his house. I don’t remember calling it “playing Goonies”, but I remember thinking about how great it would be if we found a secret treasure like the one One-Eyed Willy left hidden away on his boat.

In honor of the anniversary, I decided to watch it tonight. I thought I’d type while it was playing but I had to pause it–I still get sucked in to watching after all these years. So enough reminiscing. Back to the movie for me.

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The last 10 minutes of the show no doubt threw most people for a loop. I have to admit, I was a bit annoyed because I thought they were pulling a “it was all purgatory” ending. They didn’t quite do that, however, and I think what they did accomplish was to tell a beautiful story of redemption. If these characters were lost (and there’s no doubt in my mind that they were–Jacob even says none of them had things together before he intervened) then by the end of the show, they were found.

I’m amazed at how the writers of Lost were consistently able to weave their story back into itself, tying up the overall thematic and visual elements of the show (opening and closing with Jack’s eye, Kate stitching Jack up, Kate stitching Jack up, etc.). In hindsight, I love the moments in the “sideways” events when a character would remember who they were. It was a great way to bring the cast together from the first season and wrap up the narrative all at one time.

Speaking of the “sideways”, I was initially confused by Jack’s conversation with his dad. I wasn’t sure what was going on. After some thought, I think it’s fairly clear that the “sideways” events took place in “purgatory” or a holding area of some kind.

The “sideways” events serve as a mini-narrative that tells the story about the character’s discovering that they are dead. These are separate from the Island events and they happened outside the time line of the rest of the show. This confused me at first because throughout the season I had viewed the two time lines as parallel. I assumed the island time line and the “sideways” time line would somehow merge. My thinking was that as one time line progressed, the other progressed along with it.

But these are totally separate. When someone dies on the island, they pass on to the “sideways” time line. There’s no indication given as to when on the “sideways” time line this happens. Beginning? Middle? Just before the alternative Oceanic 815? We aren’t told how much of the sideways is different that the Island history, but Jack is married to Juliet and has a son, so they enter the timeline at least several years before the “sideways” version of Oceanic 815.

“When” doesn’t really matter though, because it lies outside of the time constraints of the Island timeline. That’s why Desmond tells Hurley that it’s not time for Anna Lucia to come and why Hurley and Ben talk about being #1 and #2. Apparently Hurley and Ben took up their roles as protectors of the island, though we have no idea how long that lasted. It could have been hours, years or decades of time. At some point, they died and ended up in the “sideways” time line. Once there, they eventually realized what happened (they were dead) and they waited for (or in some cases helped) the others to see and then met at the church.

Again, it’s a pretty slick way to sum up the story. It ties things up and reunites the cast in a satisfying way.

The themes are powerful in the finale:

• They were lost (individuals on a flight) but now they are found (together, waiting for each other before their next departure).
• Their failures have been forgiven (Ben’s apology to Locke outside of the church).
• Their flaws don’t define them, but are seen in light of who they are (Hurley’s conversation with Sayid–”you’re a good person”).

The more I think about it, the more I love this show. You have to dig a little here and there but there are enough clues to satisfy and give closure to the story.

I’d love for others to chime in with their thoughts. That is if any of this makes any sense at all.

Namaste.

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It’s a powerful program that comes bundled with OS X that allows you to automate tasks and actions on your mac. I’ve just started playing around with it, but it’s an incredibly powerful tool that can enhance your workflow.

For instance, every Friday I need to send out an email to our staff to remind them to get me their agenda items for our next staff meeting. I used to just try to remind myself each week…and that didn’t really work out. So then I went to the next step. I created an iCal alarm for 10am each day. This was effective, but I still had to respond to the alarm. I had to open Mail.app, create a message, choose the recipients, type my message and then send it.

Not hard, but a bit tedious.

So I created an Automator action that would accomplish this whole task for me on it’s own.

Here are the steps I took:

1. Open Automator.
2. Create a new “iCal Alarm”

3. Select “Mail” in the left column to only show Mail.app specific actions. Then drag “New Mail Message” onto the window on the right.

4. Enter the information for the email recipients, subject and message. You can also select which email account you want to send the message from (if you have multiple accounts).

5. Now select “Send Outgoing Messages” and drag it beneath the “New Mail Message” action.

6. Save the Automator file.

7. iCal will open. Set the parameters of the iCal event. (I created a separate iCal Calendar named “Automator” for all of my Automator events). Notice that the alarm isn’t a noise. Instead the alarm is to open the Automator file. Make sure to set the “repeat” setting in the iCal if you want this to be a reoccurring event.

If you’ve done this properly, Automator will create your email and send it off for you at the time you specify and at the repeat value you set (i.e. every Friday at 10am).

This is just scratching the surface of what Automator can do. I’ve automated several different tasks on my mac (like backing up folders to my Dropbox account).

If you’d like to explore it a bit further and get an idea of Services (new to Snow Leopard), check out this video with Sal Saghoian from PixelCorps.tv.

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You can start the search box like any other mac application, but since it runs in your menu bar you can press the Command key twice to call it up (quick and easy).

Once it’s up, you are presented with a box that allows you to search for just about anything including: web searches, documents on your computer and most importantly (for me) applications to launch.

I’ve used QSB to search to find a few items on my mac, but for me, the real power is the ability to quickly launch any application. In the screen shot below, I’ve started the search box and then typed the letter “F”. QSB auto-completes “Firefox” for me. All I need to do is press “Return” and Firefox instantly launches. There’s no need for me to even finish typing the word “Firefox” out.

I still keep many of my most used applications in the dock, but since using QSB, I’ve been using the dock less and less. It’s just faster than scrolling to the bottom of the screen and much faster than clicking through to the Applications folder.

This is just scratching the surface but I’ve had such great results with it just as an application launcher that I thought I’d give it a shout out here.

Anyway, you can download Google Quick Search Box here and try it for yourself.

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It makes me want to get my NES out and play some Contra or Ninja Gaiden.

Too bad it’s packed away in storage.

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So I decided to introduced the boys to the nauseating fun that only a tire swing can provide.

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