Bag of Randomness

  • Hello colder weather, I love  you.
  • Hello extra hour of sleep, I love you.
  • The hit on Colt Austin Collie was fair.
  • I think yesterday was the first time I saw Jerry Jones not wear a suit to a game.  If Wade Phillips isn’t fired by the afternoon I’ll be surprised.
  • I’ll be surprised if anyone but Jason Garrett is named head coach.  It just makes sense since he’s the assistant head coach and has been deemed the ‘head coach in waiting.’  If Garrett can’t get this team to play for him this season, then you know he won’t be able to next season, and then Jerry can find a coach he really wants.  He’ll pick Gruden if he’s smart.
  • I’m liking the new AMC show The Walking Dead.  The lead actor is actually a British actor.
  • I never thought of people like Keith Olbermann or Glenn Beck as journalists.
  • Crazy college football weekend:
    • Oklahoma, who was ranked #1 several weeks ago, lost to an un-ranked Texas A&M.
    • The Longhorns, who were once ranked in the top five lost again.
    • The Ken Starr Baylor Bears, who were ranked in the twenties, gave up 725 yards to Oklahoma State, and were beaten 55-28.
    • That Baylor team also lost to TCU earlier this year 45-10, and TCU still can’t get any respect after killing #5 ranked Utah at their place is ranked #3.  I fear they will end up playing Boise again in a non-championship game this year.
    • TCU only received two first place votes.  Lunacy.
    • Now do we see how silly rankings are?
    • Texas Tech wore some hideous looking uniforms, but you have to give them a pass since they were to benefit wounded warriors.
    • A&M and Baylor has made for some great games as of late, I expect the same this time around.
  • My friend Bone who teaches children’s Sunday school said a kid tried to reference the book “Second Possibilities.”
  • Bono wrote a song for Itialian singer Zucchero.  Read the lyrics and hear a clip here.
  • I’ve been told there has been a lack of bacon posts lately.  I didn’t know that I posted much about bacon.  But anywho, here’s bacon soda, bacon hot sauce, and a bacon scarf.
  • Remember that young Asian guy that dressed up like and old man and boarded a plane to from Hong Kong to Canada?  You can buy the mask here.
  • I think I want one of these for my sink.
  • Food landscape art
  • Results for celebrities that ran the New York Marathon – Link
Posted in Personal | 1 Comment

Methodists seek better pastors, vital churches to fight shrinking rolls

NASHVILLE — Better pastors. Healthier churches. Less bureaucracy.

United Methodists hope that combination will help turn around decades of declining membership and attendance, according to a Call to Action proposal being discussed by Methodist leaders.

The proposal blames a lack of leadership for the denomination’s struggles. The church has lost 2.89 million members in the United States since 1970, dropping to 7.8 million today. The report’s authors say the drop is killing the church’s effectiveness.

Shrinking membership and budget shortfalls have caused a crisis, said Bishop Dick Wills of the Tennessee Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church.

“The United Methodist Church as it is today is not financially sustainable,” Wills said. “It is growingly irrelevant to the culture.”

Methodist leaders hope the new report will push the denomination to change, said Tammy Gaines, vice president of business operations for the Nashville-based United Methodist Publishing House. Gaines said that for years, Methodist leaders have known their denomination had troubles. But they’ve been unable to turn things around.

“The statistics show that we’ve been stuck in a rut for years,” she said. “Hopefully, this will un-stick us.”

Promoting healthy local churches is a key component of the proposal, put together by a team of 16 Methodist leaders. They relied on research from the business services firm Towers Watson, which analyzed data from 32,000 Methodist congregations. It found about 15% were so-called vital congregations, with strong preaching and lay leadership, and a mixture of contemporary and traditional worship. Those churches tend to have growing memberships.

Full Article

Posted in Spiritual | 1 Comment

Nicest Canadian couple in world dole out lottery winnings

A retired Canadian couple who won $11.3 million in the lottery in July have already given it (almost) all away.

“What you’ve never had, you never miss,” 78-year-old Violet Large explained to a local reporter.

She was undergoing chemotherapy treatment for cancer when the couple realized they’d won the jackpot in July.

“That money that we won was nothing,” her tearful husband, Allen, told Patricia Brooks Arenburg of the Nova Scotia Chronicle Herald. “We have each other.”

The money was a “headache,” they told the paper–mainly, it brought anxiety over the prospect that “crooked people” might take advantage of them. Several people called them out of the blue to ask for money when the news first broke that they’d won the jackpot. So they began an $11 million donation spree to get rid of it and help others.

Full Article

Posted in Interesting, Touching | 2 Comments