Bring'n the music back

The South Point Mall in Durham is the largest mall east of the Mississippi River. And one of the mall's greatest attractions used to be the local street performers that often populated the outside portion of the mall. Yet recently, since the mall came under new management the street performers were canceled. This meant that the South Point faithfuls would no longer get to enjoy Juggle Boy, the magic kid, or my personal favorite and good friend Gary Mitchell, musician.

"With a background in percussion, piano and guitar, Gary graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill, a man with a mission. Yet another local musician fed up with the low quality and horrendously immoral message of popular music, Gary strives to create and perform great music, played very well, that celebrates life and points people to their loving Creator in a way that makes you groove and sing along."

Gary has been a church worship leader, youth minister, and he voluntarily leads a Bible study at one of Chapel Hill's local high schools. He regularly plays gigs around the Triangle area and has recently put out a new demo, Enough for Me, which I bought as soon as it came available. It's awesome. You can find it at CDbaby.com.

This is one inspirational dude.

The good news is that the project manager at South Point Mall is currently working on a contract to get the street performers back out doing what they do best.

Hopefully this will happen soon. The place just isn't the same without Juggle Boy, who is always sweating profusely from juggling anything from swords, fire sticks, or 7 balls at once while doing a balancing act. Don't forget the young kid who does magic tricks: he looks to be about 11 years old from my perspective and mostly entertains other youngsters, yet is doing a great job and keeping the streets fun. It's also not the same without ol'e Gary who keeps the groove alive with a twist of what I like to call "spiritual funk."

SMILE

Studies show that people who smile more are happier. (What a surprise?!)




There's something about a cute animal picture that always brings a smile to your face, even when you're down. So here's a few.




This was sent to me by a friend. It's a good'n, because I used to love Pez.




Some of my favorite cute pet pictures are, of course, of my own dog, Dakota. Heather and I "adopted" Dakota when she showed up in my driveway almost three years ago. She was only 12 pounds when we found her.

But she's gotten bigger.


A few others for your enjoyment. Hopefully, these will serve their purpose: to make you smile.

Regular day clothes.

Super hero cape!

Which Bible translation do you use?

Recently, as a project for my Greek class, I have been translating the book of Colossians. To say the least this is a tedious and arduous process that requires more patience than I generally keep in stock. But nonetheless, I shall persist. After struggling through many theologically dense and grammatically...well...long, Pauline sentences I began to get the joke that all Greek professors must be playing on their students: I'm never going to be a Bible translator.

You may have stumbled across at some point one of those silly little articles called "If kids wrote the Bible," or "If college students wrote the Bible," or some other sorts of Bible jokes. These are usually good for a chuckle and typically lighten my day. But here's a new question, What if Greek students wrote the Bible?

While trudging through Colossians I have translated a number of verses that don't exactly match the NRSV...or KJV...or any other translation for that matter. Feel free to check my translation against your own Bible, you might just have a laugh.

What follows are a few verses that I for some reason just didn't get.

"In order that in him might be good pleasure all the fullness to dwell." Col. 1:19

"And you at one time were being alienated and an enemy of the mind in the works in wickedness, but now he reconciled in the body of his flesh through the death to stand beside you holy and faultless and blameless in his sight, but if you might continue in the faith being grounded and steadfast and not being moved from the hope of the gospel which you heard the one having been preached in all creation the one under heaven which was made I Paul a servant." Col. 1:21-23

"For if and in the flesh I'm absent but in spirit I'm together with you rejoicing and seeing you the dignity and the steadfastness of in Christ your faith." Col. 2:5

To quote the words of Paul of Tarsus:

"Εἰ οὖν συνηγέρθητε τῷ Χριστῷ, τὰ ἄνω ζητεῖτε, οὗ ὁ Χριστός ἐστιν ἐν δεξιᾷ τοῦ Θεοῦ καθήμενος."

Yep, I don't know what he's saying either.

Needless to say, even though studying Greek has been fun, I think I'll just stick to my NIV for now.

Got gas?

I remember road trips with my family, they were fun. One memory is of my parents who would often get very excited to travel into SC to buy cheap gas: 80 cents/gallon. By the time I had my first car I was paying approximately 1.50/gal for gas. Of course, those older than me can remember gas even cheaper than that, but oh how we miss the good old days.

A news article today says gas prices may reach $4 this summer, "Retail gasoline prices pulled back slightly from record levels Tuesday and gave some consumers a small break, but a new government forecast said gas could reach as high as $4 a gallon during the summer driving season."

The Energy Department's Energy Information Administration reported this month that, "monthly average pump prices will peak near $3.60 a gallon in June, but could rise as high as $4 a gallon at times." Most experts, including the government are predicting that the higher prices will have an impact on demand during the peak time of the summer...well duh!

Diesel fuel is also going up in price. Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, N.J. says "we'll set a new record this week" for diesel prices. This is alarming, because diesel fuel transports most of our food. So we ought to expect food prices to increase, yet again this year.

If these increases continue, eventually America (and other countries) are going to have to make more drastic changes in our oil consumption. Recently there's been many more hybrid cars developed and marketed in the US. The Toyota Prius is the #1 hybrid right now, but it still doesn't get that much better gas millage than my two door Saturn coupe. However, this is balanced out by our rarely driven gas hog, Stella (right).

Something is going to have to be done soon. If gas prices continue to climb, more and more lower income citizens won't be able to afford a car. This will effectively drive a larger stake between the upper and lower classes.

I look forward to a time when oil isn't our best and primary source of transportation energy. But for now, we must simply learn to be more efficient with what we have and make Al Gore proud.

"Walk a mile in their shoes"

For some this is easier said than done. Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB) is a rare skin disease which causes rapid blistering of the skin at varying degrees of severity. More mild forms of the disease cause painful blisters if an area of skin receives too much friction. Other, more severe, forms may cause severing scarring, or even the skin to fall off an affected area. The more severe form of the disease is at times fatal to infants.

Aside from painful, if EB is anything it is heartbreaking. A mother must resist cuddling her child for fear of causing blistering. A toddler's feet are wrapped in bandages for walking too many steps at the zoo. A girl crawls--hands and knees--to the bathroom because walking hurts to much.

So far no cure for the debilitating disease has been found. However, it is encouraging to see awareness being raised by those in visible positions.

Courteney Cox and her husband David Arquette have pledged to raise 1 million dollars in just two weeks to support EB research. "EB is very personal to me so I'm happy to be part of this $1 million challenge," she said. Cox is reaching out to other fellow celebrities such as Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom, Jennifer Aniston, and Kate Beckinsale to garner support. Because the disease is rare, awareness is low as is funding for research. The former Friends co-star also said, "now is such an important time to put a spotlight on EB and ensure that research can continue at a fast pace."

It is encouraging and reassuring to see this rare disease getting some time in the spotlight. Knowing five people living with EB, I have personally witnessed the heartbreak that it can cause. This is something that can't be researched too fast.

So the next time you hear someone complain using the adage, "try walking a mile in my shoes," think of those EB patients out there. To "walk a mile" in the shoes of one of them would mean to give up the ability to walk for the next several days or possibly worse.

Christ's many names

In my younger years I grew up in First Baptist Church, Asheville (see left). And along my life's journey I've run across many other first baptist churches. I've even seen some second baptist churches and the occasional Third Baptist Church such as this one in St. Louis. In high school I attended a Methodist church named Covenant Community United Methodist, which I always thought was a "neato" name considering its Old Testament roots. I've also attended West Asheville Baptist (can you guess where this one is located?), and I currently serve at University Baptist of Chapel Hill (right).

There's something about Baptists that make us want to give our churches names that tell where we're located. Now, of course, this isn't a universal fact as we shall see. We Baptists, and many other denominations have come up with some pretty interesting church names. Here are a few that I've run across, or recently found.

A friend of mine worked at BBQ Baptist Church in rural North Carolina. The church has no a website.

The Fire Baptized Holiness Church is actually a small denomination headed out of Greenville, SC. My favorite part is the "fire baptized"!

It puzzles me, but there are a number of churches that named themselves after the biblical city, Corinth: Corinth Freewill Baptist Church of Dunn, NC; Corinth Reformed United Church or Christ of Hickory, NC; Corinth Baptist Church of Seneca, SC; Corinth Reformed Church; Corinth Christian Church; and Corinth Church of Christ.

This puzzles me, because what I have learned about the 1st century church of Corinth is not really something I would want my church to emulate. From what we can tell from historical study and from reading into the problems addressed in First & Second Corinthians is that the church was very troubled. They were plagued with problems during worship and communion, pride within many members, Gnostic influences, immoral members here and there, rowdy women, and plenty of other problems. Many parts of Paul's letters to the Corinthians were disciplinary and frustrated.

Not that I think these churches' names are bad names, but I don't understand why they would name themselves after such a troubled church. Of course, on the other hand perhaps Corinth reflects our modern congregations a little to well at times...?

Here are some more interesting church names:

Yoe, Christ UMC of Yoe, PA
Coolville United Methodist Church of Coolville, OH
Grooverville United Methodist Church of Boston, GA
North Pole Church of God of Fairbanks, AK
Penguin Baptist of Penguin, Tas., Aust.
Arctic Circle Baptist Church of Fort Yukon, AK
Snow United Methodist Church of Lowell, MI
Frostproof United Methodist Church of Frostproof, FL
Thawville United Methodist Church of Thawville, IL
Caliente Community United Methodist Church of Caliente, NV
Ignited Word of Las Vegas, NV
Church on Fire of Amory, MS
Franklin Furnace United Methodist Church of Western Ohio
Cowboy Church on Fire or Iraan, TX
Pigeon Run United Methodist Church of Massillon, OH
Runs Baptist Church of Aiken, SC
Brown Swamp United Methodist Church of Conway, SC
Airport Freeway Church of Christ of Euless, TX
Devils Lake United Methodist Church of Devils Lake, ND
Assumption United Methodist Church of Assumption, IL
Looney's Creek United Methodist Church of Whitwell, TN
Horseheads United Methodist Church of Horseheads, NM
El Camino Christian Church of Sunnyvale, CA
North Chevy Chase Christian Church of Chevy Chase, MD

...and the list goes on and on and on.

Needless to say, we Christians can get pretty creative, boring, silly, and everything in between when it comes to naming our churches. But the good news is there is so much diversity within the Body of Christ that we are able to have so many different names. The body of Christ is and should be very diverse, because Christ came and died for all people; and people are different. That's just the way it is.

"For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ."
1 Corinthians 12:12