I’ve been a part of a college ministry network for the last year and we are putting on a big retreat in a couple weeks. If you happen to be in the area you should come, it’s FREE. You can’t beat that.
Watch the teaser below and get more info here.

So I was wondering, do other religions have their own contemporary music? Specifically some of the cultish Christian groups like Christian Scientists, Mormons, and JW’s.

The Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) scene has become quite a thing in the last 20 years and in many ways has actually caught up to ‘mainstream’ music, where it used to be said that CCM was 10 years behind. But I was wondering do Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses have their own version of CCM?

After a little web searching I couldn’t come up with much. I found some mainstream groups had church goers from various religious sects like the Mormons and JW’s but none marketed as such, except for some choir groups. I wonder why this is? It could be that the nature of these groups tend to be a bit more secretive and conservative then most Christians, so there isn’t much encouragement. Maybe it’s because their history is so recent that it will be years before they catch up to the social and cultural engagement that evangelicals have embraced? Either way it must be tough being a young person within these religions. I imagine that a young Mormon or JW kid is probably a rebel if he listens to Michael W. Smith or Third Day.

Ok, so you may have heard that Pluto is no longer a planet. I have to say I’m a bit shocked and started having flashbacks to my childhood when so called scientists decided there was no such thing as a Brontosauras. Up until that point it had been my second favorite dinosaur and then, bam, it doesn’t exist.

On a side note has anyone ever asked why in the old Disney cartoons Goofy, (who was a dog) talked and wore clothes but Pluto didn’t?

…the collared sleeveless shirt, also known as a muscle shirt.

Muscle shirts in themselves aren’t a big deal. I personally don’t like sleeves when playing certain sports and such because I feel restricted and most ‘muscle’ shirts are created with sports in mind. Where things get interesting is when you take a perfectly good button up, collared shirt, and cut the sleeves off. Whenever I see somone sporting one of these bad boys, I usually freeze and stare in a mix of awe and unbelief.

And so today I salute the collared muscle shirt and all those who are man enough to wear them!

Having grown up in the midst of the evangelical haven of cultural expression that was the Jesus People movement I have been keenly aware for some time now that any day Jesus is going to come back. The most obvious sign for us evangelicals is of course The Beast and his mark which is 66…you get the point.

I will now give you a list of previous anti-christs, (from my lifetime) who didn’t quite pan out:

- Mikhail Gorbachev: For the obvious reason that his giant birthmark was clearly a wierd headwound …The Mark!

- The Pope: The bane of evangelicals the world over and… yeah um, his hat is wierd too.

- AC/DC: Hello?! Anti-Christ Demon Child. Need I say more? (could also stand for alternating current/direct current, but only if you take it literally)

- The Beast: A secret super computer in Europe somewhere that controls all the world banks and uses a lot of 6’s in it’s secret computations! (editors note: this computer hasn’t been found but is rumored to be a really sweet Mac, like a G66 or something)

The reason I am writing about this is because I have finally found the real anti-christ and I’m warning you this one fits all the criteria. Yeah, it’s Tom and The Beast is the Myspace server. In one year when all of the worlds population has a MySpace account he will subtly start to introduce the MySpace religion which will “unify” all the world religions. At this time there is also a MySpace currency in the works which will be called “Kudos” and will be greater than the Euro.

What of the headwound you ask? 6 months ago Tom’s personal MySpace account got hacked and deleted (a virtual headwound) and he was able to fully recover and still rules today.

Chances are this blog will be mysteriously deleted but if you are able to read it get out now!

Jessica, Joel, Sarah and I journeyed to a magical land just south of here yesterday. A land called Hobbiton.
Gandalf was very interested in my pregnant wife and a very alien looking Gollum tried to snag me but overall it was just a nice walk in the redwoods.

I haven’t thrown out a new music pick in a while so here you go.

The Kooks are a fun brit-pop band that I came across wilst listening to the internet treasure that is Pandora. There’s a bit of a Maroon 5ish feel to them and you can definitely hear the british accent more than most but they’re worth a listen.
Check them at:
MySpace (Give Naive a listen)
or
Website

Rolled back into town Friday and hit the ground running. It’s been a packed couple of weeks between directing camp, visiting family in Seattle, and preaching at church on Sunday.
Here are some highlights of the past 2 weeks:
Triumphant Life Camp
- the weather was an awesome 85 pretty much the whole week
- I had never met him before but the speaker was great
- the quality staff made the week awesome
- my little bro had to leave camp early with an infected bug bit that was getting freak nasty, at one point they drained a 1/4 cup of puss
- dozens of kids lives were positively affected

Seattle
- Jessica’s grandparents celebrated 60 years of marriage
- cruised downtown in Seattle, Kirkland, and Monroe
- Lot’s of good eatin
- Shot an 85 (on a par 66) playing golf with Pete
- Time with family and friends
- Urban Dogsledding