Bag of Randomness

  • I’ve gotten in the habit of painting the lid of a paint can as soon as I open it because when I need to search for paint at a later period, usually the lid becomes rusty and the paper has deteriorated.
  • We’re in to the third season of Mad Men and I just can’t get enough of it.  Part of me wants to start writing down Don Draper quotes.
  • In the latest episode Don was up cooking a snack when his daughter walked in and they had a real cute father/daughter moment.  I wonder when that’s gonna happen for me.
  • Rick Warren made a Twitter gaffe that he eventually took down, “I challenge any church in America to match the spiritual maturity, godliness & commitment of any 500 members of Saddleback.”  As you may have guessed, some folks weren’t happy about it.  A nice commentary on it can be found here.
  • Nike has an ad that favors women with a, um, larger than average caboose.
  • This form of advertising by Dove Body Milk is kinda creepy.
  • A podcast on how Southwest prepared for Air Force One’s arrival to Love Field.
  • Abby Road has a web cam set up outside their studios to catch folks trying to recreate that famous Beatles cover.
  • A little old news – Underwear packaging reportedly recalled from Walmart after Cullman pastor’s complaint
  • How to contact Twitter about a deceased user
http://www.blogsouthwest.com/podcast/air-force-one-and-only
Posted in Personal | 1 Comment

Teens avoid church groups and other aspects of religion

Only about one in four teens now participate in church youth groups, considered the hallmark of involvement; numbers have been flat since 1999. Other measures of religiosity — prayer, Bible reading and going to church — lag as well, according to Barna Group, a Ventura, Calif., evangelical research company. This all has churches canceling their summer teen camps and youth pastors looking worriedly toward the fall, when school-year youth groups kick in.

“Sweet 16 is not a sweet spot for churches. It’s the age teens typically drop out,” says Thom Rainer, president of LifeWay Christian Resources, Nashville, Tenn., which found the turning point in a study of church dropouts. “A decade ago teens were coming to church youth group to play, coming for the entertainment, coming for the pizza. They’re not even coming for the pizza anymore. They say, ‘We don’t see the church as relevant, as meeting our needs or where we need to be today.’ “

“I blame the parents,”who didn’t grow up in a church culture, says Jeremy Johnston, executive pastor at First Family Church in Overland Park, Kan.

Full Article

Posted in Pop Culture, Spiritual | 2 Comments

An Escape Hatch From Being Stranded on Hold

A new company, LucyPhone, is offering a solution: when put on hold, users can hang up, and are then called back when a customer service representative finally picks up. On the free service’s Web site, LucyPhone.com, users type in a customer service number (or click on one of many stored on the site), as well as their own. The company also has submitted a free iPhone application to Apple, which it expects to be approved soon.

Article

Posted in Interesting | Comments Off on An Escape Hatch From Being Stranded on Hold