The oldest blonde boy ticked off the youngest blonde boy.

The youngest blonde boy retaliated with this two-sided note on his door (click to enlarge):

Here’s what side one says:

Keep Out Conner!

But I love you Conner and your still by best butty [buddy]. more ritting [writing] on the other side.

P.S. Mom, Dad you can still come in.

Here’s what side two says:

Your band from my room Connor forever enless [unless] you say your sorry for saying I’m a jurk.

P.S. rite your sorry here. get pencil and rite sorry here.

And the illustration has the youngest telling the oldest “you can’t come in here til you say your sorry“… there is a notation that it is Chase’s room….

Check out the finger point and the angry look. It’s classic! Oh yeah… he drew Connor in perspective – one leg is longer as he is walking down the hall.

If you anger the boy, he will retaliate with his art!

tags: art | brothers

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up to find it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”

HT: Ethos

Here’s some of the stuff we’ve been doing on Sundays…

Here’s a time lapse of the set design for our current series… Your Life.

Here’s the opener from last Sunday. Randy brought it with the lights.

We did a really cool thing where we had people come forward to lay their prayers and commitments at the foot of the cross that we set up at the front of the stage. Watch for the little boy at the end who come up to lay his prayer at the cross – I almost lost it.

tags: New Covenant Community Church | NewCov | Fresno | church | video

I don’t have daughter’s, but if I did, these would be the rules:

Rule One
If you pull into my driveway and honk you’d better be delivering a package, because you’re sure not picking anyone up.

Rule Two
You do not touch my daughter in front of me. You may glance at her, so long as you do not peer at anything below her neck. If you cannot keep your eyes or hands off of my daughter’s body, I will remove them.

Rule Three
I am aware that it is considered fashionable for boys of your age to wear their trousers so loosely that they appear to be falling off their hips. Please don’t take this as an insult, but you and all of your friends are complete idiots. Still, I want to be fair and open minded about this issue, so I propose this compromise: You may come to the door with your underwear showing and your pants ten sizes to big, and I will not object. However, in order to ensure that your clothes do not, in fact come off during the course of you date with my daughter, I will take my electric nail gun and fasten your trousers securely in place to your waist.

Rule Four
I’m sure you’ve been told that in today’s world, sex without utilizing a “Barrier method” of some kind can kill you. Let me elaborate; when it comes to sex, I am the barrier, and I WILL kill you.

Rule Five
It is usually understood that in order for us to get to know each other, we should talk about sports, politics, and other issues of the day. Please do not do this. The only information I require from you is an indication of when you expect to have my daughter safely back at my house, and the only word I need from you on this subject is: “early”.

Rule Six
I have no doubt you are a popular fellow, with many opportunities to date other girls. This is fine with me as long as it is OK with my daughter. Otherwise, once you have gone out with my little girl, you will continue to date no one but her until she is finished with you. If you make her cry, I will make you cry.

Rule Seven
As you stand in my front hallway, waiting for my daughter to appear, and more than an hour goes by, do not sigh and fidget. If you want to be on time for the movie, you should not be dating. My daughter is putting on her makeup, a process than can take longer than painting the Golden Gate Bridge. Instead of just standing there, why don’t you do something useful, like change the oil in my car?

Rule Eight
The following places are not appropriate for a date with my daughter: Places where there are beds, sofas, or anything softer than a wooden stool. Places where there is darkness. Places where there is dancing, holding hands, or happiness. Places where the ambient temperature is warm enough to induce my daughter to wear shorts, tank tops, midriff T-shirts, or anything other than overalls, a sweater, and a goose down parka… zipped up to her throat. Movies with a strong romantic or sexual theme are to be avoided; movies which feature chain saws are OK. Hockey games are OK. Old folks homes are better.

Rule Nine
Do not lie to me. I may appear to be a potbellied, balding, middle-aged, dim-witted has-been. But on issues relating to my daughter, I am the all-knowing, merciless god of your universe. If I ask you where you are going and with whom, you have one chance to tell me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I have a shotgun, a shovel, and five acres behind the house. Do not trifle with me.

Rule Ten
Be afraid. Be very afraid. It takes very little for me to mistake the sound of your car in the driveway for a chopper coming in over a rice paddy near Hanoi. When the Agent Orange starts acting up, the voices in my head frequently tell me to clean the guns as I wait for you to bring my daughter home. As soon as you pull into the driveway you should exit the car with both hands in plain sight. Speak the perimeter password, announce in a clear voice that you have brought my daughter home safely and early, then return to your car – there is no need for you to come inside. The camouflaged face at the window will be mine.

HT: Noodlestatic

tags: dating | rules | daughter

From Tony Morgan’s blog…

1. Hiring too fast and firing too slow. The right people don’t need to be managed–they just need to be pointed in the right direction. Jim Collins said, “If the person came to tell you that he or she is leaving to pursue an exciting new opportunity, would you feel terribly disappointed or secretly relieved?” If you’d be relieved, it’s time for them to go.
2. Putting the projects before the people. Ecclesiastes 7:18 says, “The man who fears God will avoid all extremes.” This is one of those areas where we need to embrace the tension between relating with people and accomplishing the mission/getting the job done.
3. Trying to fix the problem rather than the process. It’s like continuing to change diapers instead of potty-training your kids. You can either continue to react to the problem, or you can fix the process. 90% of the time it’s a systems-problem rather than a people-problem.
4. Delegating tasks instead of responsibility. I told the story of the three little pigs. “If all I’ve known is straw houses and I control every detail of their construction, then my leadership will never generate brick house ideas.”
5. Assuming it’s always black and white. Following rules is easier than the messiness of relationships. Following rules is easier than discerning God’s will. The policies or guidelines we establish should actually remove barriers and allow more freedom within our organizations. But, innovative organizations don’t value the rules over the mission.
6. Not following my gut. (…or is that the Holy Spirit?) Sometimes when I’m facing a big decision, I try to acquire more information rather than seek God’s direction. When we stop listening to God, he stops talking to us. God stopped talking to Abraham for 13 years between the last verse of Genesis 16 and the first chapter of 17. And, sometimes, God requires us to take a step, in faith, before he reveals his plan. Check out Joshua 3.
7. Dwelling on the worst case scenario. I have the spiritual gift of discernment. That can be a positive gift when God’s in control of my life. When I try to take control, that “gift” turns into sin. It’s called worry or anxiety. I’ve wasted way too much time worrying about challenges or problems that never happened. This is my biggest area of vulnerability. What’s yours?
8. Waiting until there’s a problem to provide feedback. I’m encouragement-challenged. My tendency is to only speak up when expectations aren’t met. That can create a culture of fear. I need to discipline myself to encourage my team. As Tom Peters has said, “Reward excellent failures. Punish mediocre successes.”
9. Staying busy. I’ve too often made the mistake of assuming that since I’m busy I’m adding value. It’s very possible to be constantly busy and be completely ineffective. By the way, email can be the biggest trap of all. If I wanted to, I could spend every hour of every day processing email and getting absolutely nothing accomplished.
10. Spending too much time on the details rather than the dreams. Perry showed me this one. Check out Genesis 11:31-32. Terah intended to go to Canaan. Instead he stopped in Haran. He got stuck there for 205 years. Then he died. Why? Was it disobedience? Did he lose sight of God’s vision? Did he just get too comfortable? Did he settle for less than God’s best? When I get too focused on responding to the urgent, I lose sight of the big picture. And, frankly, my tendency is to settle into a routine that’s very comfortable but doesn’t accomplish the full mission God has for my life and my ministry.

HT: tonymorganlive.com

tags: leadership | mistakes | success

I know that I have probably begun to sound like a broken record. But I can’t escape the facts… you and I – the many readers of Two Blonde Boys – are (compared to much/most of the world) rich.

Sure… we have burdened ourselves with stuff and debt, but we are rich.

$32 a month. Become unburdened. Save a life.

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

tags: Compassion+International | Compassion | sponsor a child

It just may be, according to this article in Gamespot:

It’s been a rough year for Toshiba’s HD DVD format. After spending 2006 and 2007 locked in a heated battle with the Sony-backed Blu-ray for high-definition, high-capacity disc format dominance, HD DVD has suffered a series of devastating setbacks in the first two months of the year.

Warner Bros. kicked 2008 off by going Blu-ray exclusive in the first week of January. An apparently panicked HD DVD camp canceled its Consumer Electronics Show conference in response, and reports quickly surfaced that HD DVD holdouts Paramount and Universal were looking to switch to Blu-ray.

Bad news for HD DVD fans is continuing to snowball this week, as Best Buy and movie rental service Netflix both said they would back the Sony-supported format going forward. (Best Buy will still stock HD DVD, but its salespeople will advise prospective customers to go Blu-ray).

Two more big names came up as abandoning HD DVD today. This morning the official Wal-Mart blog confirmed that the massive retail chain is going Blu-ray exclusive by June, and the Hollywood Reporter is citing “reliable industry sources” for the news that Toshiba itself is ready to drop its own format.

A Toshiba representative denied the news to the film-focused trade newspaper, but left plenty of room for people to infer there is some truth to the report.

“Given the market developments in the past month,” the rep is quoted as saying, “Toshiba will continue to study the market impact and the value proposition for consumers, particularly in light of our recent price reductions on all HD DVD players.”

A source “close to the HD-DVD camp” told the paper that an announcement could be made in a matter of weeks, but that it is definitely coming soon.

Article by Brendan Sinclair, Gamespot

HT: Gamespot

tags: HD DVD | Blu-Ray

Please join me in helping 30 children get sponsored through Compassion International by the end of February.

Read the incredible stories of what kind of a difference your $32 a month makes as the Uganda bloggers tell their stories of hope.

Curious how it works? Shaun answered some of the common questions on his blog:

Does all of my $32 go to my sponsored child every month?
A minimum of 80% goes toward meeting the physical, metal, social, economic, educational and spiritual needs of your sponsored child. That’s high by comparison. The actual percentage right now is 83.8.

Am I the only one sponsoring my child or does my money go into a fund or something that takes care of lots of kids? How’s that work?
Your money sponsors your child. Only your child.

How on earth does 80% of $32 make the difference you say it does? How? You can’t be shooting straight.
I am, I swear. A little goes a long way in the third world, you know? Consider this. I made a “family gift” to my sponsored child in El Salvador one time. A family gift isn’t something I had to do but I wanted to give that money for Compassion folks to use if there was a need not covered by my regular sponsor dollars. I just wanted to do more, something for the whole family, if they needed it.

Anyway, you know what they did with my $20 gift? They put a while new roof on their house. A roof! For $20! I put a roof on my house for $4000. A little goes a long way.

So I’ve heard you say Compassion International works through local churches and pastors. OK, well, what’s in it for them? Are they making some cash off the deal or what?
These people are the most generous folks I’ve ever met – they put me to shame. They give to Compassion and kids much more than they get. Compassion keeps it’s relief percentage (80% of your $32 a month) so high partly because Compassion doesn’t have to build buildings. The Compassion “projects” I talk about are church buildings – Sunday school classrooms, sanctuaries, etc.

The church uses existing facilities to care for kids, and church members and other Christian locals to do most of the work along side Compassion staff – also local. These church members are trained in social work and child care and everything need to do their jobs with excellence. And they’re held VERY accountable by Compassion staff right there in their country.

I guess, from what I’ve heard from pastors, what church get most out of the deal is growth. Numerical growth because as kids make commitments to Christ their families follow, and also who doesn’t want to check out a church that feeds and educates their kid? But the church pastors have also consistently told me working with Compassion grows their congregation spiritually. It puts the poor, the folks Jesus commanded us sacrifice for, at the core of their church. You show up for Sunday school and your classroom still has math problems on it from the fifth grade class that met there all week. That sort of exposure to the work of Compassion breeds compassion in the hearts of church attenders. It changes the church.

But no, no pastor is getting rich off of Compassion. I’ve seen where a couple of them live so believe me they’re not milking Compassion for a condo and a Mercedes. This is a partnership between Compassion International, sponsors like you, and local churches – everybody pitches in.

Why work through churches? Why not work through corporations, institutions, government, somebody bigger and richer and better? Is this the best way to help kids in poverty?
Compassion International is not about helping kids in poverty. That’s what they do but not what they’re about. They’re about raising an impoverished into a mature, healthy, independent Christian adult.

Meeting ALL of a child’s needs – inside and out – I believe is the best way to free children from poverty forever. That’s the goal. Now, that’s important to understand because it is the foundation that affects every other decision Compassion makes, everything about how they operate.

For instance, governments and institutions and what-not can do a great deal to feed and clothe kids. They can educate kids. They can teach nutrition and could even teach parents a trade. But they can’t cure the biggest poverty a kid can know: spiritual poverty. Only Christ has the cure for that. Only Christ offers that kind of wealth and hope. So Compassion works through the church.

And besides, while its great when anyone helps folks in need, Jesus didn’t command anyone to help these kids in the third world except the Church. That’s you, me and the local congregation in Uganda. It’s our job, not Uncle Sam’s.

tags: Compassion+International | Compassion | sponsor a child

This morning was pretty awesome!

We kicked it off with My Redeemer Lives. Rick and the team BROUGHT IT and Randy programmed some wicked lighting. Hopefully he will posting it soon on his blog or on our production blog.

The “moment” of the morning was when we invited people to come forward to a cross we set up on stage right. Our pastor was teaching on fasting and prayer (check out the podcast HERE). We put slips of paper on everyone’s chair and they were invited to come forward to place their prayers/commitments at the foot of the corss (or to nail them to the cross). It was definitely a God-moment.

We closed the service with More to This Life.

Here is the entire set with iTunes links…

• My Savior Lives
• Take My Life (Holiness)
• Break Through
• We Fall Down
• All Who Are Thirsty
• More to This Life

Oh yeah… will you be the first person to sponsor a child with Compassion through my blog? For $32 a month, you can save the life of a child.

tags: New Covenant Community Church | NewCov | Fresno | set list | Compassion | sponsor a child

This is what hope looks like…

Be the fits one of 30 this month through my blog to sponsor a child through Compassion. All it takes is $32 a month to save a life.

Sign up at Compassion’s web site, then come back here and leave a comment on any post to let me know you’re on the team.

tags: Compassion | Compassion International | sponsor+a+child