Unfolding Neurons

Seth’s Blog: The lesson from two lemonade stands

Jul 21

Posted by Darren in Deep Thoughts, God Stuff | No Comments

Some time ago I read this article by Seth Godin,  ” The lesson from two lemonade stands“.  Go read it, then come back here.

For the church – what lemonade stand are we?

  • Are we passing out tracts and telling people the “bridge” story or are we loving people and walking with them to the bridge.?
  • Is it more important to us that people attend or that people encounter?
  • Are people an audience or are they participators?
  • Does tradition trump God’s leading?
  • Does playing it safe to protect what we have trump taking a risk in faith to go where God is?
  • Are we known more for what we take than what we give?
  • Or put another, way – for what we are against than what we are for?

I’ve purposely left the “in between” unfilled in this post.  Hopefully these questions get you thinking as much as they have me and I’d love to hear what you have to say in the comments!  So, what lemonade stand is the church?

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Something I’ve been struggling with

Jul 13

Posted by Darren in Deep Thoughts, God Stuff | 2 Comments

Is there ever a good time to lie?  If you ever want to spark an interesting conversation, this is the question to ask.  If I’m honest with you, it’s a question I struggle with and if you’re honest, I think its something you struggle with too.

I always thought the 10 commandments had a “Do not lie” somewhere in there and it does BUT it only says something about not bearing false witness against your neighbor.  In other words, “Don’t lie about something you witnessed your neighbor doing or not doing”.  Kind of narrowing the context in which you must not lie.  But then, lying is listed as one of the six things God HATES in Proverbs 6:16-18. If you lie, you are putting yourself in opposition to God. Ouch.

So I struggle.  I struggle because there are some times where its really easy to be a truth teller. There are other times where its not that difficult to recognize the temptation to lie and resist it.  But then there are the the times…  

  • when my wife has come through a grueling day of looking after the kids, doing laundry, cleaning the house AND has supper ready when I come home.  It tastes awful.  She asks me, “Do you like it?” I’m tempted to say, “Delicious”
...This is a preview of Something I’ve been struggling with.
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Early Adopter Disease

Jul 5

Posted by Darren in Talkin Tech | 3 Comments

Here’s some symptoms of early adopter’s disease…  

  • you subscribe to multiple tech blog feeds.  Even worse, you follow all their twitter feeds.  Even worse than that, you are a fan of their facebook page. Oh and  by “multiple”, I mean so many that you have 100 new posts an hour coming into your feed reader.
  • All non essential activity stops and you drool when watching an announcement on the latest gadget.  Essential activity is breathing.
  • When a new gadget is released you read every article that get’s written on it.  Anything else is old news.  What oil spill?
  • You know of gadgets that no one else you know has heard of.
  • You begin a lot of conversations with, “Hey did you hear about this? ___________”  and proceed to describe in glorious detail the incredible features of the gadget that will save the world.  Well, at least make the world a better place to live.  Well, at least make YOUR world a better place to live….
  • Things aren’t cool, they are magical.
  • You don’t understand why people get frustrated when something doesn’t work.  Your patience level is god-like when working with new stuff.  Which is probably why….
...This is a preview of Early Adopter Disease.
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How is Mobile Technology Changing the church and the Non-Profit Sector?

Jun 30

Posted by Darren in Talkin Tech | 1 Comment

The title of this post is taken from a question posed over at ChurchDrop a while ago (along with an iPhone giveaway – great way of generating comments on the subject!) and I left a comment there so good I thought I’d repost it here [tongue in cheek] and add to it.  Actually, there’s a lot of great comments over at the original post, feel free to add to the conversation there, or here!  So here’s what I wrote:

Mobile technology is changing the church and non-profit sector in the following ways:

1. Real-time communication

People react quicker to what they are experiencing. (especially applicable to multi-site discussions -> see tony morgan’s observations) This also applies to the reporting of people on the field (i.e. missionaries, short term missions trips etc). It can be easier to communicate via mobile than any other technology from a user standpoint and this means that the message gets out and is widely distributed in a matter of seconds rather than minutes or days.  Sometimes whether we want it to or not.  

...This is a preview of How is Mobile Technology Changing the church and the Non-Profit Sector?.
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At the focal point of history…

Jun 29

Posted by Darren in Deep Thoughts, God Stuff, Leadership | No Comments

I read an interesting article a couple weeks ago about a little known guy named Ron Wayne who is actually one of the founders of Apple Computers.   You can read the article for the details on his story but it was fascinating to read some of the comments from this guy who sold away his 10% Apple Stock back in 1976 for $800.  That same stock would be worth about $22 billion today.  Yeah, that’s what I thought, wow.  But notice what the guy has to say,  

  • “Well, I’m one of the founders of Apple Computer”
  • “I’m living off my Social Security and I do a modest trade in collectors’ stamps and coins”
  • “What can I say? You make a decision based on your understanding of the circumstances, and you live with it”
  • “We did get fairly chummy, had lunch together, dinner together and had conversations,” (about his relationship with Steve Jobs back then).
  • “What Jobs had in mind was that he and Woz [as Wozniak is sometimes called] should each have 45 percent and I would have 10 percent as mediator in any dispute that would come up,”
...This is a preview of At the focal point of history….
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Click here for all the tweets I've made in the week ending Jun 27/10

Quick Organize Series Update

Jun 25

Posted by Darren in Neurotic Plugins, Organize Series | 5 Comments

I just wanted to post a quick update for all of you who use my Organize Series plugin for WordPress now that WordPress 3.0 is out.

The big question of course is “Does Organize Series work with WordPress 3.0?”.  The answer is it should but I haven’t tested it completely and have not upgraded my own blogs yet.  I haven’t heard of any issues arising from any users yet so I’m assuming that things are okay.  As always though, make sure you back up your blog before upgrading if you are a user of Organize Series.

The other reason for this quick update is to let you folks know that I’m in the midst of a pretty major rewrite of Organize Series. Here’s some highlights:  

  • WordPress 3.0 brought in some much needed love to the custom taxonomies api which makes a lot of the coding I did for Organize Series obsolete and redundant.  This rewrite will make OrgSeries leaner, faster and even more future proof against future WordPress updates.
  • I’m also going to add some goodies in to this next release thanks to some fine users in the Organize Series community who have mailed me some custom work they built around the plugin for me to include.  So there will be new features with this release.
...This is a preview of Quick Organize Series Update.
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Click here for all the tweets I've made in the week ending Jun 20/10

Click here for all the tweets I've made in the week ending Jun 13/10

are you missing it?

Jun 12

Posted by Darren in Aside, Deep Thoughts, Home Turf | No Comments

Yesterday I posted this.  And then today I read this which reminded me that the most important investment for my life is right before my eyes.

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