NewSpring Church just launched their redesigned website (complete with a redesigned identity - logo, etc.). Love the design. It’s clean, visually interesting, modern, and easy to navigate. All of the text is well written and concise. Look around! It’s good stuff…

From Blank is Like Blank:

Naming a child is like fitting in at a party:

People usually screw up by trying too hard.

Here’s a thesaurus that only suggests shorter words.

Simple wins :).

[via daring fireball]

Some folks have decided that prayer is the only answer to high gas prices. From the Washington Post:

The price of regular at a Shell gas station in Petworth gleamed defiantly in the midday sun: $3.91 a gallon.

But unlike the customers rolling up to the station’s pumps this week, resigned to the fact that their wallets were about to take a beating, Rocky Twyman and company had a plan to bring that number tumbling down.

They would ask God to do it.

“Our pockets are empty, but we’re going to hold on to God!” Twyman, a community organizer from Rockville, said as he and seven other people formed a semicircle, held hands and sang, pleading for divine intervention to lower fuel prices.

It was the latest demonstration by Twyman’s movement, Pray at the Pump, which began in April. Since then, he has held group prayers at gas stations as far away as San Francisco, garnering international media attention and even claiming success in at least a couple of cases.

…

Last week, as one of the demonstrations was winding down, an angry gas station manager in Petworth chased them from the property, Twyman said, annoyed that the activists were hampering business.

Ahh…so much one could say about this. I’ll just say this. I guess that’s one way to approach things…

[ht: The Consumerist]

Why not consider getting into the hot dog cart business? I hear it’s low stress and profitable! You can even get free stuff! At least, that’s what this site tells me.

Things have been pretty sparse here recently, but for good reason. Between finishing up classes, taking some trips and making some big transitions, life has been packed! For those who may not know, I’m transitioning out of my position working with small groups and moving into a job as a residence director at a university in the area. I’m also going to be working with small groups at a church plant in Pasadena. In the midst of it all, I’ll be finishing up seminary with one class each quarter over the next year. I’m really looking forward to a slower pace on the schoolwork (might be able to absorb a little more), a more relational job, and working with a church plant.

Transitions are exciting, but they always bring stress as well. We’ve loved the relationships we’ve developed at our church over the past two years. We want to stay connected, but as we transition out, we also know things naturally change. And new people and new friendships are exciting, but they’re also new.

So we’re really excited about this next phase of life. We’re moving into a cool new place, and I’m looking forward to starting my job next week. The church plant is scheduled to launch in September. A lot’s on the horizon!

For a peak into what we’ve been up to this weekend, here are two of the rooms we painted in our new place. We’re taking a little time to spruce things up before we move in on Saturday. First, you’ll see the kitchen, where we painted the cabinets (with permission, of course!). To do it right, we took time to clean, sand, prime and then paint those suckers. It took ALL DAY. But you get to see it in about 45 seconds. Then you’ll see a bedroom wall. We also painted the bathroom and living room. All of that in TWO DAYS. With very little air conditioning. Fun stuff!

For all you California readers, you’ve probably noticed a new law goes into effect July 1 that says you must use a cell phone headset if you’re going to talk while driving. For the rest of you, it’s a good idea anyway. In fact, it’s probably wise even if you’re not driving. I still don’t know what kind of radioactive goop my brain is slowly turning into with all my cell phone usage.

So let’s say you need a headset but don’t want to fork over a lot of cash. Check out FreeHeadset.org. They’ll send you one for free (ok … $3.94 shipping). It may not be the latest model or anything, but hey, what do you expect?

I just ordered one for my Motorola RAZR. I’ll let you know if it comes in the comments…

[ht: Unplggd]

The new iPhone comes out on July 11. My birthday is July 11. Just thought you should know.

(Ok, so actually, I’m stuck in a contract with Verizon right now, so there will be no new iPhoning until at least November…)

While this blog is silent (give me a week or two and things will pick up again), there’s a great conversation going on over at Ed Stetzer’s blog about multi-site churches and some of their challenges.

Read Ed’s first post (Questions for McChurch) here.

Read a response (Questions for “Questions for McChurch”) here.

This is part of what I’m reading tonight and trying to make sense of:

“The matres lectionis as indicators of historical vowel quantity. The matres lectionis not only indicate certain timbres, albeit imperfectly, but they also indicate etymologically long vowels, again imperfectly. Unlike the Arabic script, the Hebrew script does not use quiescent letters exclusively to indicate all such long vowels. Certain long vowels often are not represented by any mater lectionis (scriptio defectiva), and conversely, historically short vowels sometimes are indicated by a mater lectionis, although the scriptio plena is uncalled for.”

Some of you may be tracking with all of that. But in honor of the rest of us, I again give you this video:

Ahh, the joys of seminary!