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Gavin Richardson

dismantle the mission trip

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a few weeks ago i mentioned a change in language about our not taking missions trips, but going on missions experiences. since that time, but not spurred by my posting ariah has gotten into some great discussion over short term missions. it reminds me of dixon’s deconstructing of the short-term mission trip which was and is an excellent read. he destructed them & then restructured them, so it is fairly balanced. of ariah’s most recent, a letter to returning members of short term missions, post this sticks with me.

What was never said to me, and what I want to say to you now is that
that tugging at your heart, that current impassioned disgust with our
consumeristic culture, that feeling that you should drastically change
the way that you have been living, all of that is the Holy Spirit
instilling truth in you. They are truth’s that you won’t hear preached
from a pulpit, it won’t be the topic of a Youth Group Bible Study, and
you will find very few leaders, mentors, or peers in your life that
will encourage you in your new found convictions and passion, but don’t
give them up. The Holy Spirit has placed a great stirring on your heart
through the unique trip that you have gone on and it would be a shame
to let others snuff that out.

i would like to think of myself as one of those people that does not put out those fires. they are too important. i would hope that i am a person who helps to stoke those embers into fires. maybe though, what i do not do is seek out more firewood….

update: seems more folks are talking about short term missions trips. matt has two postings here on how they suck & more on how they suck, via rethinkingyouthministry folks.

christianity today totally ripped off my blog

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notice something eerily familiar about this cover in relation to this blog?

Christianitytodaycover

i got an anonymous tip from guy that christianity today totally ripped off my blog title because it is oh so creative. actually, i think my title is more creative & relational to the medium of this blog.

what got me going was an email from guy, who shall remain nameless, and sent me on a non-adventure for a few days.

I just got my new Christianity Today and they’ve totally ripped off
your blog name/concept (which I was peaved I hadn’t thought of first
when I first stumbled across you). I don’t know if it’s on their
website yet, but thought you’d enjoy knowing if you didn’t.

indeed they had not updated their website. i let the idea pass. then i was downtown on wednesday, stopped into a favorite bookstore looking for the magazine, no dice, they don’t carry magazines. this sorta peeved me and only heightened my anticipation to find out if it were true.

next day i went into a large bookstore with lots of magazines, no dice & their service kinda stunk, though i did find some decent magazines to pick up. grocery shopping with wife later in the day, surely somebody has to have the current issue of ct? no dice on the grocery store.. (note: now expecting a grocery store to have ct might seem like a stretch, but i am in the bible belt, they were playing christian music over the music system)

so we come to today. head to another mega bookstore and low & behold, tucked away with the health & home section, between the diet and log home magazines i find the ct hiding out. obviously shameful of the blatant plagiarism of my blog title.

i would consider lawsuit, but i think they would get away with a loop hole that they direct it towards evangelicals, which, i am not..

so what do you think? at least a letter to the editor? &:~D

let the candidate games begin

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had some fun with this candidate match thing via usa today. it is a little more thorough than the last one i took. what is cool is that you can scroll over the color coded issues and see what the particular candidates stance actually is. i noticed i didn’t do the ‘importance’ grading, which i guess would change my results, but again, i have a series of dropped out democrats. so what is a guy to do for super tuesday? tip to thunder
Candidategame

in the mail today

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Thegreatawakeninglook what the mail brought me today. this was not the primary book i was looking for, but i got sucked into the free shipping deal that amazon gives you. so, figuring i would pick up this book at some point i thought i would go ahead and take the plunge. the actual book i was looking for came in the mail as well, but it has become an unintentional surprise for erin. so you will have to wait to hear what that one is.

funny was that we had some conversation about jim & sojourners yesterday at the cohort. we mentioned his recent appearance on the daily show. a few things from that conversation, don’t try to be the funny man on the daily show, stick to your message, answer the question you want to answer not the one asked. that is how you play the game. &:~)