I doubt many would be surprised to hear that I have a special place in my heart for technology.  I love the way our church websites, Internet Campus, and online groups extend the ministry of our church and allow me to connect with people I wouldn’t have met otherwise.  I love that I can stay in contact with many people by reading their updates via Facebook, Twitter, and their blogs.  I love that I can use technology, like Skype and Facetime, to connect with my family and have face-to-face conversations even though we are geographically distant from one another.

But along with this amazing gift of technology, our society, and maybe much of the world, has now also taken on the mantle of hyper-criticism.  I see it in the comments of many blogs I read, I find it on Twitter, and I’ve even watched it creep into our church’s online social spaces.  Our ability to interact and give feedback has brought many to the point where they can’t seem to turn off their own commentary.  And now, everywhere I look, I’m surrounded by criticism.  Someone is ripping on a airline for bad customer service, or they’re tearing down a celebrity for the dumb choices they’ve made, or they’re complaining about the quality of some product.  Everywhere I look on the web, someone is pointing out somone’s mistake.

We’ve taken the platforms of web technology and social media and turned them into our pedestals.  Our opinions have become the commodity, and we have become self-important.  We take everything personally, refuse to extend grace, and dish out negativity.

This can’t be healthy.  Not for us, and not for our society.

I think it’s time for many of us, especially those of us who claim to follow Jesus, to take a different path.  It’s time to climb down from our pedestals, remember that we’re flawed like everyone else, and begin using our influence to lavish grace and love on those around us.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Two years ago, Keri, the kids, and I flew to Knoxville, hung out with our friends, Josh and Kim Whitehead, visited Faith Promise Church, met up with Pastor Chris and Michele for lunch after the services, and visited a small group.  That weekend marked the beginning of our transition from Fort Worth, TX to Knoxville, TN.

Wow, we had no idea what we were getting into!

Honestly, these past two years have been the best years of my life in so many ways.

Thank you, God, for the privilege and joy of serving at such a great church and with such an amazing staff.

(This is a repost from my guest post over on the Faith Promise Blog earlier this morning.)

Over the past few months, we’ve made plans for a major update to the Faith Promise Church website as we prepare for the launch of our Blount County Campus in October.  As Brad Roberts and I worked through the process, here are a few things we had in mind:

Let’s help people easily find information that is accurate for their campus.
While the vision, direction, teaching, and core ministries will be consistent across campuses, there are many small variations between campuses, such as different location and contact info, different service times, and different ways of getting integrated into groups.  We set out to make sure that people get the correct information based on the campus they attend or plan on attending.  This means that depending on your campus, certain page contents, graphics, and menu options will be different.

Once people have chosen a campus, don’t make them pick again.
Rather than the annoyance of having to choose your campus every time you visit the site, we’ll store that information for you and take you straight into the site.

Make it easy and intuitive to switch between campuses.
Forced selections on a website make us feel like we’ve stepped into a choose-your-own-adventure book.  (One bad choice, and you’re trapped inside a spooky house or dragged off into the woods by Big Foot.)  Instead, we tried to make the campus selection feel like a light choice that can be easily switched at any time.

Provide a solution that scales well with additional campuses.
Rather than build a system that will only accommodate three campuses (Pellissippi, Internet, and Bount), we’ve built a system that will scale as we continue to add new campuses in the future.

While we were at it, we also enabled mobile video and overhauled the blog.
When you visit the  Series Media page on your HTML5 web-enabled mobile device, you can now watch sermon videos.  In addition, our church blog got a significant facelift.

As of this evening, we’ve rolled out the update.  We’re still in the tweaking process, but you can check it out!

First thing this morning, my daughter asked me to draw with her and paint with her.  I love the graphic arts, but I have to say that it’s been a while since I spent much time drawing freehand.  The good news: it’s kind of like riding a bike – not something you forget how to do.

This was the first one. I drew my son's lion, and since it looked a little sad, I decided to make it into note to send via MMS to Keri.

We were sitting in my daughter's closet while we were drawing, and one of her dolls was nearby, so I tried doing a pencil drawing.

After that, my daughter wanted to paint with watercolors, so while my son and daughter painted, I sketched out this drawing on watercolor paper. I'll probably ruin it tomorrow when I try to paint it.

The rest of the day was filled with Chick-fil-a, Playmobile, folding laundry together, and ice cream.  I love being a dad!

I haven’t finished the last five books I’ve started, but now I’m on to the next.

But this one is different.  This one was written to women.

And I’m not a woman.

Even still, I don’t know that I’ve ever read another book (outside of the Bible) that has taught me so much about myself and the sickness inside all of us that is trying to destroy our lives.  It’s shed helpful light on why I do some of the things I do, why I’m tempted in some of the ways I’m tempted, and why I often feel like I’m on an emotional roller coaster:

“I feel everything.  My joys are huge, and so are my sorrows.  If I”m mad, I’m really mad, and if I’m despondent, I wonder how on earth I’ll go on.  Then, I get up, pour some coffee, and move on to the next emotion and forget how depressed I was an hour ago.” (Kindle Location 1177)

Other than the coffee part, I completely relate.  And I’m discovering that it’s not just my sensitivity.  It’s the exploitation of my sensitivity: insecurity.

“Are we honestly going to insist on drawing our security from people-men or women-who are oblivious to the inordinate amount of weight we give to their estimation of us?  Seriously?” (Kindle Location 261)

“We can think we’ve murdered that monster once and for all, and then it rises from the dead and it has grown another head.” (Kindle Location 283)

“Loss of favor and approval and harmony is excruciating to people with insecurity.” (Kindle Location 400)

I wish that every woman and most of the men I know would read this book.  I think it would be transformational in the lives of many.

The name of the book?  So Long Insecurity, by Beth Moore. (Don’t judge me.)

Here are a few of my favorite Twitter quotes from the past few months:

• TerryStorch: The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it -Michelangelo

• craiggroeschel: Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things that don’t matter.

• johncmaxwell: I’m sick of all the reasonable people. They see all the reasons for doing nothing. -George Bernard Shaw

• johncmaxwell: Nothing is easier than saying words. Nothing is harder than living them, day after day. ~Arthur Gordon

• GeoffSurratt: The signature of mediocrity is consistency (via Jim Collins) #wcagls

• drchrisstephens: Until u ask the right questions, u wont have the right strategy.Without the right strategy you’ll never get the right results

• PastorMark: RT @timchaddick: “Sin is never the last word for the children of God. Grace is always the last word.” Tim Chester

• TerryStorch: The chief cause of failure and unhappiness is trading what you want most for what you want now.  Zig Ziglar

• maurilio: “We fail God’s plan of prosperity in our lives when we assume it’s all meant for us.” @pwilson  #CrossPoint_tv

• johncmaxwell: Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance or a stranger. -Franklin P Jones

• pwilson: RT @stevenfurtick: If you’re not willing to be misunderstood, you’re not ready to be used by God.

• johncmaxwell: The fellow who never makes a mistake takes his orders from one who does. -Herbert V. Brocknow

• stevenfurtick: When all else fails, & you’re not sure what to do, just have integrity. Everything else will eventually come together.

For the past couple of years, the topic of the Sabbath has fascinated me.  It’s clearly an important concept in the Bible, but I’ve never seemed to get a solid hold on how it should translate into my weekly calendar.  Honestly, the thought of it seems a little boring.  I mean, where’s the challenge in doing nothing for a day.

Then, a couple of weeks ago I started reading Sabbath by Dan Allender.  This book has caused me to totally reconsider the presuppositions I’ve made about the Sabbath.  Rather than taking the path of legalism, this is a book about delight.  In the author’s words, “We are driven [in the work we do] because our work brings us power and pride that dulls our deeper desire for delight.  …We are far better at handling difficulties than joy.”

Although I’m only half way through, it’s already the best book that I’ve read this year (and I’ve read some great books this year).

If you decide to read it, let me know.  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

P.S.  – This is my 300th blog post.  Hurray!

On Dan’s site, we:

• changed over from a static single-page website to a full-blown blogging site.
• kept a similar look and feel as before, but used cleaner lines.
• used Standard Theme as the starting place for the site.

On Tamra’s site, we:

• used the same design as before, but we adapted it to a full 960 pixel width to better feature her photography.
• simplified the navigation.
• switched to a Javascript slideshow so that it would be viewable across most devices.
• added a boutique page, where people can now purchase directly from the site.