Mo Money, Mo Problems

January 26, 2012 in General with 13 Comments

The following numbers are submitted without comment. I just found them mind-boggling.

Let’s say you and your wife bring home $82,000 combined. According to this website, that puts you in the richest 1% of the world. Your income is 36 times that of the average person in the world. This site also provides giving information, so if you donate 10% of your income, $8,200 in this case, you are still in the richest 1.4% of the world (Hey, your part of the 99% again!), and you are still 32 times richer than the average person in the world.

Then I found another application that compares your annual income to Mitt Romney’s. And at $82,000 a year combined salary, how long do you think it would take you and your wife to make what Mitt made in 2010? How about 264 years. Dang!

So, I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts on these numbers.

Hypothetical Wednesday: The Discovery

January 25, 2012 in Hypothetical Wednesday with 5 Comments

You and your significant other are vacationing in Syria (What? It could happen). And one day while strolling through the Syrian countryside you stumble into a cave, where you discover clay jars with ancient scrolls inside. You smuggle the jars back home, have the scrolls analyzed by a friend who specializes in such matters, and he tells you the scrolls date back to around 40 AD. He also tells you the scrolls contain information that scholars will use to argue against Christianity. Your friend estimates collectors would likely pay you over $300 million for these scrolls, but also warns their unveiling will be the news story of the decade, and magazines will run headlines like, “The Scrolls that Killed Christianity”.  In reality nothing will change, Christianity will be as true as it always was, and people will continue to convert at the same rate before the scrolls went public. Scholars and unbelievers will just have a new, powerful way to argue against Christianity, and you will have $300 million. Confused, you talk to a couple of pastors and they urge you to sit on the scrolls. So, do you go public and sell the scrolls, or keep them in your basement?

 

If You Build It

January 24, 2012 in Faith with 20 Comments

I finally read David Platt’s book Radical last month and it got me thinking, as I suppose it’s apt to do. Early on, Platt talks about reading a Christian publication where an article detailing a nameless First Baptist Church’s successful $23M building campaign was next to an article about Baptists raising $5,000 for Sudanese refugees. This disgusted Platt, as it would anyone not named Grinch, and later in the book he says, “…we also see no verse in the New Testament where God’s people are ever commanded to build a majestic place of worship (p. 117)”

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You Know I Read it in a Magazine

January 19, 2012 in Uncategorized with 11 Comments

First lets give away a book from last week’s top-10 books of 2011 post. The winner, as chosen randomly by some number generator I found online is……….(Drumroll)………….Jeff Johnson. Congrats Jeff, you win one of the 10 books off my top ten list.

Do the magazines you subscribe to say something about you? Or do they just say you can’t say no whenever the Books-a-Million associate offers you 8 free issues with your purchase. We subscribe to Entertainment Weekly, because Tricia use to get it in college, and enjoyed it, so I bought a subscription for her last birthday. And we also subscribe to The Economist, because I had to subscribe to a magazine to earn some frequent flyer miles back in October, and I figured we needed something smart to cancel out Entertainment Weekly. But enough about us, what magazines do you subscribe to?

Hypothetical Wednesday: Coyote Ugly

January 18, 2012 in Hypothetical Wednesday with 6 Comments

You are on the pastoral search committee at your church, and after months of searching, the team lands on the perfect candidate. He is theologically sound, a dynamic speaker, and has a phenomenal record of growing churches wherever he’s been. The pastor in turn shows interest in coming to your church, so a month of trial sermons are arranged. But it is during these trial sermons that you notice a bizarre trend. Each week, the pastor mentions the film Coyote Ugly. Nothing big, just quick passing references that no one seems to notice. Everyone in the church agrees the pastor is perfect, and the next week the search team visits his office to offer the job.  But here you realize the pastor has several framed Coyote Ugly posters, along with props from the film, prominently displayed on his shelves. You glance out the window and see his car, the tag reads COYOTE. The head of the search committee is handing him the contract, do you speak up?

We Have a Dream

January 17, 2012 in General with 1 Comment

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10 Best Books I Read in 2011

January 12, 2012 in Books with 25 Comments

I read forty books last year, which may seem like a lot, but if you want to write, you’ve got to read, so you can know what to steal. The breakdown looks like this, twenty-five non-fiction books, thirteen novels, and two collections of short stories. I read six travel books in 2011, my new obsession, and six about soccer, my other new obsession. I got on a Hemingway kick earlier in April and read three of his novels, I also read the first two books in the Game of Thrones series. I read three books that I had already read, Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby, The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway, and The Great Gatsby, which I read every December. Below are my ten favorites from the year.  But enough about me, I’d love to hear from you, what was the best book you read in 2011? Let’s make it a contest, just comment with your favorite book and we’ll draw a name and random, winner gets a copy of one of the books off my top-1o.  

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Hypothetical Wednesday: National Championships

January 11, 2012 in Hypothetical Wednesday with 6 Comments

Mike Slive appears to you in a vision with a bizarre offer. Your favorite team is guaranteed to win five National Championships over the next ten seasons, but you will not be able to see any of it. If you try and listen on the radio, you will only hear static. If you turn the game on television, you will only see the test pattern. If you go to games, you will be turned away. If you try to read about the games afterward, you will be beaten with a six-iron. Not only that, but when the ten years are over you still cannot read about or watch videos about the five championships.  When clips come on TV you, for some mystical reason, will not be able to see or hear them. Even the championship flags at the stadium will look blank to you. You will only know about these games through conversations with friends. If you say no, your team is guaranteed not to win a National Championship over the next ten seasons, but you can watch them as much as you like. Mike Slive is waiting, what do you say?

 

Déjà vu

January 10, 2012 in God and Football, Sports with 5 Comments

My Mom, celebrating Alabama's National Championship.

I’d planned to write a running commentary on the BCS Championship Game, but I ended up missing the entire thing. I gave a talk to the Baptist Men’s Association in Brookhaven, MS, and the program ran much longer than I’d thought (not my fault, I only spoke 20 minutes), so by the time I checked in to the fabulous Holiday Inn in Meridian, Nick Saban was getting a Gatorade shower.

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If Jesus Tweeted

January 9, 2012 in General with 2 Comments

click the photo twice to enlarge

click the photo twice to enlarge

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