Reformed + Missional = Reformissional
I’m working at home this morning so Amy can go to a meeting. This means I need to keep the kids entertained so I can focus on my work.
I exit the office to check on them and there are no more chairs in the kitchen.
Where have the chairs gone?
They are now quiet as mice playing in their fort. Time to get some work done!
This is a pretty amazing concept. Pricey, but amazing nonetheless.
From page 111 of Strengthening the Soul of our Leadership by Ruth Haley Barton:
“as Donald Capps so aptly points out, ‘Since our churches have taken on many of the characteristics of bureaucracies, it is not surprising that clergy are sometimes rewarded, not punished for their narcissistic behaviors.’ ”
“Narcissism as a personality structure goes hand in hand with bureaucracy.” - Ruth Haley Barton
No wonder we have so many narcissists in government. And so much bureaucracy. And so many, oh you get the idea.
Sadly, churches aren’t much better in this regard.
I just finished my Spring Quarter intensive week at Bethel SD. While there, I had a chance to sit down with the program coordinator for a degree audit. I am pleased to say that it looks like I’m on track to graduate in May of 2010 with my Master of Arts in Transformational Leadership. Only four quarters left to the finish line. Maybe I’ll blog more than once a month once I finish school.
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/mar/31/german-family-seeks-us-asylum-homeschool-kids/
My good friends are struggling through a very difficult time. We are close to so many people who have experienced great loss over the past few years. Will you join us in praying for our friends? Will you pray for us that God would grant us the grace to walk with them through their difficult journey?
I bought a copy of Plato’s Republic recently. I think it’s time to read it.
Republic is a complex and profound morality tale in which we can see, if darkly, the reflection of our own republic.
> $1 Trillion. Amazing. Our great-grandchildren will be paying for this.
“We contend that for a nation to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.” - Winston Churchill
“The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money” –Margaret Thatcher.
Well I certainly don’t agree with the title of the article, but I’m intrigued by the concept expressed in this quote:
…how a large, global business can operate: as a distributed idea engine where leadership emerges organically, unfettered by a central command.
How Cisco’s CEO John Chambers is Turning the Tech Giant Socialist
I’ve uploaded some new pictures of our family:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=72324&l=04a89&id=673658618
Those kids are growing so fast!
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I have a feeling I’m going to lose this battle…
From a recent CT interview with Mark Noll:
There’s irony and tragedy there, too, because small government is a really good principle, but one of the main reasons we don’t have small government anymore is because Christian people sat on their hands as the racist terror continued. If we complain about big government today, we have to repent of what happened when small government prevailed on these matters up to the 1950s.
From Uncle Tom’s Cabin to “I Have a Dream”
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If the early counts are correct, then Obama has 200 electoral votes right now. If you assume he’ll win California (55), Oregon (7) and Washington (11), then he’s already over the 270 mark. Looks like this election is over.
(6:47 PM PST)
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I’ve needed an outlet for posting some more technically focused content, but have felt that my personal blog just isn’t the right place for it. So, I set up a new blog today for highly technical, highly geeky content for software application developers and agile project managers. If you’re interested in the latest in agile software development practices, Scrum, ASP.NET MVC, C#, jQuery, patterns and practices, etc., then head on over to
And if those topics don’t interest you, then you’re in luck because I won’t post about them here again. Now returning to my regularly scheduled personal blogging…
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Here’s another detailed look at the financial crisis from a perspective similar to the one I expressed the other day.
The road to financial ruin finds its roots in government policy
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I read this morning that Nicholas Sarkozy, the president of France, has said that the age of “lassiez-faire” is over. This is becoming a clarion call of many who favor more government intervention in our economy. But the problems we are currently experiencing in our economy cannot be squarely blamed on a “lassiez-faire” approach. An abundance of regulation has not led to the demise of our economy, but neither has a lack of it been the root of the problem. Instead, the primary contributing factor has been misregulation. One or two bad regulations are enough to have far reaching consequences which eventually reverberate through the entire economy.
Our energy crisis has come about in large part due to an artificial reduction in supply springing from anti-production regulations in the energy sector. Politicians talk of “energy independence” but the trouble is that we have layer upon layer of rules and laws that prevent the extraction and production of oil and coal. It is simply cheaper to purchase our oil from nations that do not artificially diminish their supply of energy through such forms of regulation. Supply of fuel is also kept artificially low in our nation because he have come to a halt in terms of building new oil refineries. Simply speaking of “energy independence” solves nothing when we have laws on our books that prevent the market from deciding which form of energy is cheapest to extract, produce and distribute.
We have also stifled our supply of energy because misregulation has made it cost prohibitive to build any kind of new power plant. Politicians speak of clean energy solutions which the private sector should certainly be promoted and encouraged to develop and distribute. But in the mean time we are not taking proper advantage of proven methods of power generation such as clean-coal technology and, especially, nuclear power. Even if we ramped up production of these kinds of facilities, our power grid currently struggles to keep up with the growing demand of consumers. No matter the source of our power, if we do not have a working distribution network, even new clean energy technologies will not be able to provide power to the people who need it. Once again, misregulation has made it difficult to build out and maintain our power grid.
In the financial sector, our government has been forcing banks to take on subprime loans for years. The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) needs greater exposure for the economic travesty it has wrought. We should not blame the institutions of Fannie and Freddie themselves, because it was our government that has continually misregulated these institutions by treating them as quasi-government agencies which have, in fact, been heavily regulated. The intention of providing housing to everyone is noble. But offering large amounts of credit to those who cannot afford it is simply unwise.
More regulations would not have solved this crisis, and simply having fewer regulations would not have done so either. But a few restrictive regulations in a couple of key industries have had disastrous consequences. And so here we are. The Left screams out for more government intervention, and the Right squeals that government needs to be more hands-off, but what we really need is more intelligent government that takes time to consider the consequences of a few misguided regulations.
I’m not holding my breath.
Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending
How A Clinton-Era Rule Rewrite Made Subprime Crisis Inevitable
Global Business Regulation
[Update]
Cafe Hayek agrees: Laissez Faire to Blame?
Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution explains the real reason gas prices are high:
My wonderful mother is upset, like pretty much everyone else, at the price of gas. “Well, the hurricane has knocked out a lot of production on the gulf coast,” I say. “Yes but there’s plenty of gas in the pipes that was produced before the hurricane - the suppliers are gouging.” she responds. Arrghhh….must resist, must resist, must be ….nice. “mmm,” I say. You and my Econ 101 students (103 actually), however, are not so lucky…
Read the rest: Marginal Revolution: Response to my Mother
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I didn’t think too much of the whole “lipstick on a pig” gaffe until I heard it put this way:
If McCain had made some offhand comment like, “Barack Obama is criticizing me for being more partisan than I want people to think I am. Well, that’s kinda like the pot calling the kettle black,” that would have sunk him immediately. Never mind that it’s a common phrase. The standard in politics (and governance) is that you don’t make comments that can very easily be taken the wrong way.
Kinda makes you think…
About the “lipstick on a pig” comment
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An absolutely fascinating talk and discussion at Google by Tim Keller regarding his book The Reason for God. Interestingly, this was one of Google’s better attended sessions of their “authors @ Google” lecture series.
The democratic national convention claims it is going to be the most “tech savvy event of its kind.”
Go to: http://www.demconvention.com/
and click on the “quick-link” entitled “A Tech Savvy Convention”
which takes you to this page: http://www.demconvention.com/the-2008-democratic-national-convention-the-most-technologically-savvy-event-of-its-kind/
Which shows this message:
Page not found
Sorry, it seems you were trying to access a page that doesn’t exist or has been moved.
* If you need to confirm your Community Credential for Thursday night at INVESCO Field at Mile High, click here.
* Click here to go to the home page
* Click here to read our Frequently Asked Questions
Tech Savvy indeed!
[UPDATE: and of course it is working now. so they fixed the bug quickly, perhaps proving that they are, in fact, tech savvy.]
