As someone who works in the field of information technology I am fascinated by the concept of Open Source Software (OSS) development. OSS is primarily the principle that by allowing anybody the chance to work on your source code you’ll end up with better code. Another name for it is community based development. Sure there is the possibility that someone sabotages your project, but most people that care about the project will treat it with respect and actually help to make it better. The thing that makes OSS work isn’t that it’s (largely) free software, it’s that communities develop around specific projects and these communities work together to make the project better.
Recently I’ve been thinking about the development of the church in terms of open source. Initially the two seem to be polar opposites, church and software development, but the more I’ve thought about it the more it makes sense. Read the rest of this entry »
Coming into our first home study day we had very little idea what to expect. We knew that there would be lots of personal questions, but that’s about the extent of it. Well it turned out that we were right about the personal questions, though we were unaware of just how personal the questions would be, there were also lots of questions about what type of child we would want and a house walk through. With all that said here’s how it went down. Read the rest of this entry »
No doubt you’ve heard about the kerfuffle surrounding Miss California in the Miss USA pageant on April 18. If you haven’t then you are truly a blessed person and I’m going to introduce you to it – and thus remove your blessing I guess. Basically in the Q&A section she was asked whether she thought states should allow homosexual marriage. She answered honestly and happened to say that she did not believe in homosexual marriage. She ended up as the runner-up – many people say she would have won has she answered the question oppositely. I really don’t care about her answer, which I thought was oddly phrased and not well thought out, but hey she was nervous and probably expecting a question about world peace or something. My problem is with the questioner, a well known tabloid personality, who happens to be very pro-homosexual marriage. He asked the question thinking that he would get a particular answer based upon his bias and he didn’t get that answer. Ever since he has ravaged this young lady at every opportunity, because she did not answer the way he would have liked. Read the rest of this entry »
Who does not like a parade? If you had asked me a couple days ago I’d say a lot of people. In fact I was of the opinion that parades had gone out of style. They just don’t seem like something that people are really into anymore. I mean we have Twitter and text messages, movies and TV and a thousand other things that seem much more interesting that waiting on the side of the road to see endless numbers of floats, marching bands and who-knows-why dignitaries from who-knows-where. Mark me as surprised on Saturday when I went to photograph the local Daffodil Festival parades and there were hundreds, if not thousands, of people along the parade routes to watch them. I’m sure that, as an outsider, I don’t fully appreciate how big of a deal the Daffodil Festival is in this area. Still, there were a lot of people out there at 10 a.m. on a Saturday to watch a parade. The second parade was even more well attended – I had trouble finding a place to stand where I could take decent photos of the event. I don’t know why so many people like parades – they’re not my cup of tea and maybe that’s the point. My own bias against parades prevents me from truly understanding why people enjoy them so very much. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s been a long time since anything has been written about the adoption, so in this post I’ll try to update you with everything that has happened since I last wrote about it.
The PRIDE weekend was good. I went in feeling a little nervous about what kind of people would be in the group. Fortunately my worries were unwarrented. The people in our class were some of the nicest people – all of whom cared greatly for children and really wanted to be parents. We covered a lot of stuff over the course of the weekend. I could barely start to tell you everything that was covered, all I can tell you is that there was a lot of scarey stuff that, oddly enough, made me want to adopt a child out of the foster system even more. I can’t believe some of the stuff these kids come out of — and worse yet that the parents actually think it’s acceptable or worse yet the parents have no idea what’s happening because they’re too drunk or high or delusional to even realize. The part of me that feels compelled to rescue people is so strongly activated that I actually ache for the kinds in the foster system. Anyway… the weekend was good and left Jen and me much more dedicated to adopting. Read the rest of this entry »
There are those who would like to say that Christianity is easy. Receive Jesus into your heart and you will be saved! That’s it all that is required to be a Christian. There is very little indication that life change is required, that there is supposed to be a peculiar aspect to the followers of Christ. Risk is not even considered when discussing the implications of faith. How did this happen? Suddenly, or not so suddenly, we’ve melted Christianity down to a short prayer and weekly church attendance – wait scratch that – monthly church attendance. I know that many in the evangelical wing of the church would (and will) disagree with me, but I think that’s wrong. How can Christianity be simply simple?
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For better or worse, at some point most Christians will need to look for a new church. For some people this is an easy task because they have friends or family going to a particular church. But if you’re new to an area or have specific requirements for what you would like for a church the task becomes more difficult. With this in mind I present here are a few tips on how to find the church that is best for you.
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For a while now Jen and I have known that we wanted to adopt a child someday. A little less than a year ago we decided that it was time for us to start pursuing that goal. We looked around at several agencies, Jen read a couple of books and finally we ended up settling on Antioch Adoptions as the organization we wanted to adopt through. We put in our application, had an interview and were accepted into the program. This weekend we start the process officially with the big PRIDE weekend.
We are hopefully going to be keeping you posted through this blog on both how this weekend works out and how the rest of the process works.
July 18th,2008
Family | tags:
adoption,
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We then spent four days driving through Jackson Hole, Teton National Park and Yellowstone. It was a wonderful time where Sean got to take tons of photos and we, among hundreds of other tourists, were able to see amazing views of nature and creation. We ended our road trip in Twin Falls, Idaho to visit with the Kennedys (from Alabama) while they were visiting the rest of the Kennedys (from Twin Falls). It was a great chance to connect in a random place even though we live across the country from each other. Read the rest of this entry »
