thanks to some help form my good friend matt mccomas over at “leadership, technology, innovation” i have my own independent website. which means i am again abandoning my current blog… i’m sorry, i won’t delete this one but i won’t be updating here anymore… and what’s helpful to you it means you have to type less when you’re trying to find me. the new web address is www.himynameisjaked.com. (isn’t it great to not have to type all that .wordpress stuff?) so yeah just click the above image or website or however you feel let to go to the new blog. there’ll be a new update there in the next day or so to kick things off. there’s also a link there to the new rss feed. you can also find it here.  see you on the other side. also i’m just getting used to things so it’s a little under construction so yeah, just a heads up.

before you jump up and down and get all mad/excited/throw-me-off-of-a-bridge, let me stress one big point, i LOVE my job. let me also stress the smaller points that i do not wish that i did not have a job because i want to be able to be lazy, or because i want to take up professional lego building, or because i want to increase my xbox gamerscore. (its 24,095 btw) no i want to not have a job because i was able to work myself out of one.

what does that mean?

you might ask. to fully be able to really explain that, you have to understand what it is that i do for a living. i work for an organization called campus crusade for Christ. it is the goal of said organization to see a day when every single person on the face of this earth truly knows someone who genuinely knows and follows Jesus Christ. as a part (a very very large part) of that job i get to hang out with and engage in spiritual conversations with college students who are all, if they know it or not, searching for something, for someone. and lucky me, i get to introduce them to someone who i was once searching for.

seems like a pretty big deal right? not so easily done i assure you. but the cool thing about that is i can’t do it. i definitely can’t do it alone and i am blessed to be working with some of the most talented people in the united states. but to be honest, we could be the most talented, organized, stratagized, and whatever other -ized we could be and it wouldn’t be enough. and thankfully for that we serve a very big God. everything we are trying to do would be for not if it were not for Him.

another aspect of my job in which i’m trying to work myself out of one is in raising up leaders. i want to train the guy who’s going to take my place, and i want him to be better at my job then i am. (and i don’t want to hear any snide comments about how easy that may or may not be) i want to invest in where i am, to build up leaders, and then be able to move to a new place, rinse and repeat.

so when that day finally comes and my organization’s goals are fully complete, i will probably be without a job, and i will be excited about it. i really don’t know what i’ll do when that day comes… maybe i’ll work on my gamerscore then, or maybe get a couple boxes of legos and see if i can build this… what about you? in what way are you trying to work yourself out of a job? what big thing are you trusting God to see happen?

[update] my buddy chris has also written his thoughts about the same subject over at his blog www.christownley.com he did post his first but i’ll have you know (it may not show) i started writing this a couple days ago. and be sure to complement him on his shiny new website.

currently listening to:

hans zimmer – inception original movie soundtrack

one of the people i went through new staff training natasha (her blog is here) posted a link to this in her blog and i thought it was pretty cool. hope you enjoy it.

ok so i understand that this is probably the 283,42,958,234th blog posted in the last couple days with that title, and like all of those other people i too am excited about the recent announcements concerning the 2012 debut of the avengers movie. with thor next summer and captain america later that year, it’s like a comic book fan’s dream. with announcements of hawkeye (my 2nd favorite comic book character after cap himself) and a new (read third) actor to play the bruce banner/the hulk the cast is shaping up quite nicely. there’s still rumors going around that either nathian fillion or adrien brody will portray henry pym or ant man. (who’s slated for his own edgar wright directed film in 2012 as well) personally i’m pulling for fillion. (who i thought would have made a great hawkeye but i’m happy for renner who starred in the hurt locker to dawn the purple cowl and bow) anyway here’s a quickly photoshopped image of the announced (and rumored) actors and their perspective heroes for the joss wedon (of dr. horrible and firefly fame) helmed upcoming super hero mash-up.

the avengers

robert downey jr as tony stark/iron man

don cheadle as james ‘rhoedy’ rhodes/war machine

chris hemsworth as thor

mark fuffalo as bruce banner/the hulk

chris evans as steve rogers/captain america

jeremy renner as clint barton/hawkeye

and (rumored)

nathan fillion or adrien brody as henery pym/ant man

]]> http://himynameisjaked.wordpress.com/2010/07/26/avengers-assemble/feed/ 0 switchfooted217 avengers avengers http://himynameisjaked.wordpress.com/2010/07/21/the-people-you-meet-on-airplanes/ http://himynameisjaked.wordpress.com/2010/07/21/the-people-you-meet-on-airplanes/#comments Wed, 21 Jul 2010 23:01:19 +0000 himynameisjaked http://himynameisjaked.wordpress.com/?p=367 ]]>

coming back from orlando today, i had the opportunity to sit next to a gentleman dressed in a pretty sharp suit heading to chicago on a business trip. we started talking about our reasons for travel and i shared with him that i was coming back from new staff training with ccc and he shared that he was involved in ministry through his local church and we began to share our testimonies. it was cool as this guy, his name is lawerence, shared about growing up in jacksonville fl and moving up to the dc metro area with his mom.

lawerence shared that he grew up going to church but how he had through college, lived the crazy life of a practicing homosexual. he went on sharing how out of that God had met him where he was and that someone had taken the time to share with him God’s unending love. He shared how his decision to put God first in his life had radically changed his outlook in life and how he lived day to day. he is now working for the fdic and is happily married to the woman of his dreams and has been for the last five years.

over the last couple years God has used him to start a men’s ministry in his local church and has taken him to eastern africa on several evangelical mission trips and now he feels God’s call to eventually go into ministry as a pastor. he also shared how God was using his current position in hr as a recruiter for the fdic to engage college students in spiritual conversations and how God was using him to do ministry in the workplace.

it was very encouraging because as we were landing i had the opportunity to pray for and be prayed for by a guy who seriously two hours before i didn’t even know existed. God is doing amazing things in people’s lives and i feel fortunate to get the opportunity to hear about God’s intervention into people’s lives.

how about you? what is a cool story you’ve heard or experienced in the last couple months? what’s one way you’ve seen God show up in something you’ve experienced lately? or maybe who’s the most interesting person you’ve ever sat next to on an airplane?

rule changes

1. no goalies… you simply put one of the forward’s grandmothers in a dunk tank filled with icy cold water and send her in whenever his team misses a shot on the empty goal.
2. no cleats… everybody wears those giant led filled frankenstein boots. this should help to make new rule number one much more interesting.
3. all substitutes are knife wielding monkeys, except for the back up captains who have slingshots as well.
4. all the refs are mma fighters and every time a player goes down and fakes an injury, the ref will step in, stop play and administer unto that player, the injury that he is faking.

i feel like rules like these will result in teams like portugal fielding an all monkey side after every single one of their players has been roughed up by the refs because of all their dives.

that’s all i have for now, i have some thoughts on penalty shots but i need to do some more research on the geneva convention before i redefine exactly what a penalty shot is.

what about you? got any ideas to make soccer more fun to watch?

the above was paraphrased from a comic strip i read this morning. i can take very little of the credit.

video here

so i just finished reading/listening to the first works of jonathan acuff, advertising copywriter turned blogger and now regular writer of books. (or just book at the moment, i’m sure more will follow) and i think before i jump into what i thought about the book/audiobook i want to preface  with a little about me, because why not really?

when it comes to reading i have much more in common with doug, the lovable talking k9 from the animated jewel ‘up’ and less in common with, someone who can pay attention to what they are reading. (i couldn’t think of a good example so sue me) [please don't sue me] i’ve got no problem reading the books               (hom skooln reely werkt fer mi) it’s just when i’m done reading a page i tend to have no idea what it said.

so my silver bullet to help me concentrate on what i’m reading is i’ve discovered the audiobook. ok ok i know this isn’t ground breaking technology we’re talking about here. (for groundbreaking technology i hear there’s a new iphone coming or some nonsense like that) sure it costs extra to buy basically two versions of the book (that’s 1 for the paper version and 1 for the audio version if you’re counting along at home) but it’s usually only around $5 to $10 for the audiobook and if i’m already spending upwards of $20 for the book wouldn’t you pay the extra 5 bucks to understand/remember what you’ve read? see i’m smart.

with that in mind this is a review of both the book and the audiobook, at the same time… so really you’re getting two reviews for the price of one… what a deal!!!

so ‘stuff christians like’ by jonathan acuff, published by zondervan (yeah i know, they publish the Bible and stuff) and read by mr. acuff himself, (on the audiobook, he doesn’t actually come to your house to read you his book, but i bet if you asked nice enough he might) can accurately be described by the title that was pitched and then rejected ‘stuff christians like: what c.s. lewis would have wrote if he were 40% more sarcastic and 100% less dead.’ except i think i would have changed it around to maybe 90% more sarcastic.

this book (which it really isn’t a book as much as a bunch of short essays taken from his blog stuffchristianslike.net, which is a ‘rip off for Jesus’ of the semi-famous, semi-best seller book and blog stuff white people like) was written with jon’s (i’ve been listening to him read me the book for the last couple hours, i feel like we should be on a first name basis) tongue so far in his cheek that i’m a little worried that it’s going to burst out of his face. i am in no way shape or form. in fact i loved it. from his satirical observations on everything from mega churches, the metro-sexuality of our worship leaders, thinking about the lost finale more than the second coming of Christ,  to holding your church’s tech team to a slightly higher standard than steve jobs and apple. nobody’s safe from the satirical eye of jon acuff.

i really believe that a book such as this needs to have a warning label on it bigger than the book itself. there’s already a cult like following starting up due to this book. (examples here with someone requiring readers to understand the historical context the book was written in, or here the book is turned into a new prosperity gospel, here the book is used as someone who is running for president on a platform that does not bear repeating, and here the chapter on missionary dating is used to found a missionary dating sight that claim if you fill out a quick form you’ll be unequally yoked in no time.) [just so you know each of those pages are fake and was just some viral advertising used by jon's blog]

but what i am talking about is that if the casual christian reader were to glance over any one of the more than 207 pages of the book, (there are 208 pages) they would easily be offended. starting from the very first line.

if you buy this book, God will make you rich.

the book is broken up into essays on prayer, the Bible, church, God, whitnessing, as well as 5 other categories and if you grew up around the american church i assume that you will can relate to the psalty references, small prayer group etiquette, and proper technique for lifting ones hands during worship, you’ll probably get a good chuckle of really how weird we christians can tend to be. if you grew-up without such an upbringing you’ll probably find jon as the heart and face of irreverence. although jon usually ends up poking more fun at himself then he does christians as a whole if one doesn’t understand that this is satire than i’m sure offence would be taken and pitchforks & torches would be gathered.

one of the benefits of having the audiobook as well (besides the wicked sweet auto-tuned version of his deep v-neck essay) was that jon went a little off script and explained some things he wrote about in his book. it was cool to get a little more insight of the aftermath of booty-God-booty as well as the fact that the “friend” he refers to through most of the book is actually his dad who is a pastor.

having read jon’s blog for some time, one thing that i really felt was missing from this  book was more from jon’s wednesday segment ‘serious wednesdays.’ this is the part of the show where ‘most’ of the sarcasim gets set aside for something that jon and God are dealing with. the last segment of the book entitled ‘saturday night cryfest.’ (refering to the mountain top experience of the last night of a church retreat or summer camp) but it seems more tacked on and is nothing compared to how jon can describe God’s love.

jon does what any good humorist does, use satire and humor to bring someone somewhere else, like the over $60,000 the community centered around his blog raised to build two schools in vietnam. he has this way of removing all of the ‘stuff’ that seems to cloud our view of faith and really draws attention to the unbelievable love of God and how he would like to have a ‘stuff’ free relationship with us.

so if jon’s website has you up in arms the book will probably do more of the same but you could always just pick up a copy to become rich.

you can pick up stuff christians like here in paperback and here in audiobook form for $9.35 and $13.99 respectively.

currently listening to:

travie maccoy – lazarus

yesterday an article written by a fellow staff member brian barela wrote a guest spot for the famous church crunch one of the sites put on by the 8-bit network who’s mission is to ‘resource the Church with timely, relevant, pratical, and exceptionally valuable content.’ they focus primarily on the use of technology in ministry. check out the article here it’s short so you can do it. i know you can.

on a lighter note…

so i haven’t done one of these in a while, ok a long while. but anyway i watched this horrible movie on dvd and thought i’d share what i thought about it. what did you think?

click to enlarge