Christmas Easy Budget video features wisecracking Nutcrackers

Here's my Christmas video promo for my "Easy Budget" ebook. Thanks to my wife and co-workers Joe and Jody for their help in the production:



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Jon Bon Jovi alive and well, but Kim Jong Il can't find Vaclav Havel in hell

 Rumors of Jon Bon Jovi's death were greatly exaggerated on the Internet Monday, so he went online with a photo to prove he is still among the living.

I'm glad he's still among us, though I was hoping for better relations with new lead singer Jon Bon Un.

Not to be outdone, departed Dear Leader of North Korea Kim Jong Il issued his own photo, showing himself in search of fellow head of state Vaclav Havel who died on the same day as Kim.

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Living on a budget (video)

I've made my first promo video for my "Easy Budget" e-book. And, obviously, I did it on a budget. (Hey, proves I practice what I preach!)

Daily devotions not for all, Tim Ross says in new book 'The Nearest'

Do you struggle with a daily devotional time? If so, Tim Ross wants you to know you are not alone.

In his just-released book “The Nearest: Devotion Not Devotions” (O Books, 175 pages) Ross makes the case that while Bible reading and prayer are important, Christians shouldn’t beat themselves up if they have trouble with them. Ross himself, a retired Methodist minister in the U.K., found it difficult to set aside daily time for prayer and Scripture when he first became a Christian in his late teens.

He began to realize that it is one’s entire life that is a devotion to God and not just daily devotionals. Using one’s spiritual gifts is an act of devotion: helping a person in need, etc. And the short prayers uttered throughout the day keep one in contact with God no less than an hour devoted specifically for that purpose.

So how did we come to believe that a certain portion of time sequestered from the outside world was vital for recharging spiritual batteries? Ross says the medieval monastics led the way setting themselves apart to focus on their relationship with God, and over time lay people began to model that behavior with daily devotionals.

And while certain time set aside for devotions are beneficial to the spiritual lives of some, they aren’t for others.

“ The heart of my problem, I knew, was one of self-discipline,” Ross writes. “I am not a person who is happy in routines. I am not one of those people who have no problems with keeping to patterns and habits, just the opposite, in fact. Which raises another relatively serious question about patterns and habits of prayer. Just as there is an implied relationship between the frequency of prayer time and the presence of God, it is easy to make a connection between spirituality and discipline, which again risks exchanging the grace of God for spirituality by merit.”

Ross makes sound theological arguments, and his humor and personal stories make them easy to understand. His encouragements are worth a look to anyone who has ever wrestled with doubts over his or her ability to dedicate a set-aside time in prayer. He notes that his ideas aren't new, but they can be revolutionary for people who have spent years feeling inadequate in their spiritual walk.

(Disclaimer: A free review copy of this book was provided by the author. Read my interview with Ross about the book here.)

Church stained-glass damaged by tornado

My church's stained-glass windows, dating from the 1920s appeared untouched after the April 27, 2011 tornado outbreak that hit the Southeast United States, but when I showed up for church three months later some of them were missing. Find out what happened over at my blog, Jesus In Alabama (and Everywhere Else): Images of the Name.

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My stay-cation project propagating azaleas on the cheap

I've been on stay-cation this week, and I've worked myself silly. One of my projects was trying to root some of clippings from my Grandma's azaleas and spending $0 doing it. I wrote about it over on my Easy Budget blog. If you are interested in how it turned out, check it out here.

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Must we act out the lyrics of worship songs? (Video)

"We stand and lift up our hands."

As we sing these words of the Chris Tomlin praise song in church everyone feels obligated to stand and lift up their hands.

OK, not everyone. Almost everyone feels obligated to stand. Those who never lift up their hands still don't do so even though they do feel obligated to stand.

I have one friend who bucks the trend. He says he's not going to stand just because some human being says he ought to stand. He'll stand when the Spirit tells him to. Although this morning he did stand at the line, "We stand and lift up our hands." Maybe the Spirit just happened to move him at that exact point in the song today. Or maybe it was because he was sitting on the front row.

Hey, I'm not judging him, because I always A) stand and B) lift up my hands when the line is sung, and I do so specifically because the line says it -- even though I sometimes both stand and lift up my hands during other songs because the Spirit leads me to. And sometimes I neither stand nor lift up my hands in other songs even though the Spirit does lead me to because, you know what, no one else is doing it -- or at least not many others are.

And I'm not talking about when I'm in a church where people don't make that kind of outward expression -- I'm talking about where I'm in the kind where they do, and where I'm comfortable doing it, but I don't do it because right then and there I'm afraid someone will think I'm putting on a show or being all holy-holy.

But back to that standing-and-lifting-our-hands song. Do you remember the next line? It's "We bow down and worship Him now."

Do you know how many of those people who stood and lifted their hands bowed down in unison at that line? Zero!

So my friend who never stood up to start with is the one who was in the right all along and the rest of are hypocrites! (Well, excepting for today he stood up -- but he still didn't lift up his hands, mind you.)

This was all after the singing of another song in which Jesus is called "The Rose of Sharon." Something struck me funny there, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Turns out my friend Googled it. During the passing of the peace he tells it was the Shulamite woman in the Song of Solomon who says she is the Rose of Sharon. So if you are among those you make the Song into a parable of Christ and the Church, shouldn't the Rose of Sharon be the Bride of Christ, not the Groom?

That's what he and I thought, though I have since found there are others who don't agree.

That notwithstanding, it's a great song. The peace of God be with you:

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Photo: Bibliothèque de Toulouse. Domaine public