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Yowzers! Advent Conspiracy!

I guess this little Advent Conspiracy thing is picking up steam through some national media outlets.

Fox News had a little article.

CNN/TIME had an article.

Yahoo put the CNN/TIME article on their front page.

Whoopi had a few things to say on The View

CNN had a video on their website

CNN interviewed Greg live on Headline News

Christmas Lonliness

I was looking through the White House Flickr page.  Some really fascinating photos.  What stood out to me were these few photos of Barack Obama:

What stood out to me was how extremely lonely being President must be.  Of course you interact with so many people all day, every day.  Some of those people are Prime Ministers and Presidents and dignitaries, which would be such an honor to spend time with.  But how many of those people get to be his inner circle?  How many of those people does he call friend?  Who does he watch the game with?

Then I start thinking about Christmas.  I think about how many people will be lonely this year.  How many people won't feel any sense of joy in being with family and friends.  

My prayer as I move closer to Christmas is that I cherish each moment with my wife and kids.  I pray that I capture each moment, facial expression, and word said as we spend time celebrating the birth of Jesus.

And that's my prayer for you too.

Thanksgiving...The News...The Crossing

The embed option doesn't work.  But go here and watch this.  A story well done by a local news station on our Thanksgiving Experience.

I don't care that it's not even Thanksgiving yet!!

A little laugh today...

Last night was our once a semester Big Hairy Question night in one of our classes.  I get to be on the panel of pastors answering these questions.  It was tough.  Maybe I'll unpack it a little more later.

At any rate...I needed a little laugh and creativity today.  Games You Must Play from Tyler Stanton's blog:

Grocery Carting
Grocery shoppers are notorious for walking away from their (unguarded) cart to grab a few items throughout their shopping stint. The goal here is to place an item in the unguarded cart without them knowing and see if they check out with it. Obviously, the more absurd the item, the more points you get. Getting them to check out with an extra jar of pickles is one thing, but watching them pay for an 18-pack of Natty Light they didn’t want is a thrill unlike any other.

Reunion
If you’re hanging out with Neil, and Neil sees someone he went to school with (say, Samantha), get Neil to tell you as many details as possible about her (teachers she had, neighborhood she grew up in, etc). Then, you excitedly approach Samantha as though you haven’t seen her in years, reminiscing about those classes you had together, the neighborhood memories, the one slow dance you shared Sophomore year (your favorite dance ever!), followed by an apology for “that mean thing” you said about that haircut she had in middle school. If you get her to say that she remembers you, you win.

Advent Conspiracy

Here is some of the news coverage from our Advent Conspiracy event yesterday.  So cool to be a part of and so many stories to share already.

St. Louis CBS news

St. Louis Fox news

St. Louis Post Dispatch

Advent Conspiracy

Holy Cow!  What a revolution!  Just a few years ago this little movement started to push back on consumerism and in turn provide clean drinking water for people around the world.

3 churches turned into a few hundred.

A few hundred turned into a few thousand.

And this year we have no idea what to expect.

At youthcrossing we've seen students dreaming big dreams and hashing out monumental plans to raise money for clean water.

One middle school girl trick or treated for clean water.  She raised $70.

A few high school students are collecting spare change.  They started with $8.

A couple of other students somehow convinced the principal of their public school to let them pitch this whole idea to their entire school.  We'll know in a few weeks what happens.

In the mean time, watch this.

Be inspired.

Around the interwebs

Here are a couple of photos I came across from the ol' world wide web.

From Renee Scott's blog

From Fail Blog

Do You Believe in God?

When asked if he believes in God, here is what Peter Rollins says...

    So the question remains… as a Christian, do I believe in God? Well, while I am drawn to the idea that there     is a Supreme Being I must confess that I don’t believe in God, at least most of the time.

    But if you ask me whether I aspire to believing in God then, with all of my being I say yes, yes     and again yes…

David Letterman

There is so much to unpack here.  It's a 10 minute video, but very interesting all the way through.

Notice what Dave says and how he says it.

He seems sincere.

Notice the crowd.

They seem confused.

The whole thing is fascinating to me.