3 Months later...

We are now three months into my unannounced blog hiatus.
I've been asked a couple of times about it since November, but really didn't feel a need to explain since it seemed like it would only be a temporary lapse.
Now that I'm fairly certain that it's going to be a while still before you hear from me in blog form, here's a short answer so that you're not put in the dark unnecessarily.
Simply put, I haven't blogged because I'm not really convinced that at this moment, I can do it to a level that would add sufficient value to my readers.

In the limited time I devote to this blog, I think I've done okay, but I know that if this had a little more direction, a clear focus on something more useful to everyone out there than just me and my opinion, it could be really great.

Oh, there's plenty to talk about, all kinds of wonderful things going on, and my mind and heart are as engaged in the journey as ever, but in light of all the great minds and wordsmiths in the blogosphere far wiser and more focused that I could ever be, it seems a little pretentious to me to be meandering along every three days racking my brain to figure out a witty post title on a Wednesday morning when there are so many other places out there that are saying pretty much the same kinds of things I am.

I've just started realizing lately that I'm better off spending what little time I have getting better at what I'm called to do, rather than doing something because everyone else on staff is doing it (Now would be a good time to note that I don't mean to say that no one should have a personal blog, just that for this moment in my life, it no longer feels like the best use of my time). I'm not always this disciplined in other areas of my personal development (I've got leaders in my life who are nodding as they read this), but everyone's got to start somewhere.

You may see more here one of these days with a new header or a different direction, but for now, consider me on a blog hiatus.

Thanks for visiting.

-mo

Only four days left!

Extended periods of silence on this blog usually mean craziness in the editing world, and this entire month pretty much proves that. That being said, in four days, the cat will be out of the bag, as it were, and all the awesomeness will be revealed! (Awesomeness...what a great made-up word..)

Anywho, until then, here's a message from Pastor Troy!


Don't miss this Weekend! from Flamingo Road Church on Vimeo.

Something big is coming...

Experiments in HD

Sooo....we've started using what little space we've got on our one P2 card to film small promo spots in HD for TV, and here is our first fully HD spot...maybe someday I'll post the early experiments that have people tinted in funny colors with pieces of their bodies cut off by the camera.

Mad props to our spokeswoman Ana and to Phil Lashley, our resident After Effects ninja, who made the killer background.

Enjoy!

FRC-192 Cutaway Intro - Ana from Mauricio Tinoco on Vimeo.

I soooo don't look this cool in real life

Bryan from NBphotographix came by church this week to take some headshots of the staff here to be a part of an art project....this is one of the many results:


It's my 30 year old twin!

A prophetic word?

HT to Candice Watters, contributor from The Boundless Line, who quoted this in an article centered around a great explanation on our current economic situation over at Tony Woodleif's blog (who may have got it from someone else, but that's as far as I can keep track of where credit is due on this one).

This was written in 1897:

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage.
-Alexander Tyler

...And from the looks of what I'm reading and seeing in the news, the cycle is in full swing.

Thanks, Mr. Spencer

It's an emo night...I can feel it. Sometimes it just hits me, this mentally-and-emotionally drained kind of frustration with where things are at the moment. Even Heroes had that kind of Ecclesiastes kind of vibe to it, all the characters running around trying to make a difference and never really getting anywhere (and what was the deal with Peter starting to use Sylar's power and attacking his own mother like that? Craziness!). Guilty pleasures aside, it's the Dip, as Seth Godin puts it.
The only reason I mention it is because I frequently need to be reminded more than I need to be informed when times like these come around, and posts like this one help keep things in perspective for me. You should definitely check out that link and see his site if you haven't...I just quoted the whole post here because I liked it. If I've still got this blog when I've gotten over the self-consciousness of baring my soul on the internet, you'll be seeing more of this kind of honesty in the stuff I write. At the moment, though, I can totally identify with what he's saying.

Some Christians love to talk about the sins of Obama or gays or the mainstream media, but get really animated when I suggest we need to talk about our own, even if they are listed in the Bible dozens of times.

If the Gospel isn’t grabbing you by the real sins in your real life, just exactly what is the Gospel doing for you? Or you with it?

I don’t like the fact that I can give a really good talk on prayer when I rarely pray.

I don’t like it that I can read Matthew 5:23-24 and, as far as I can recall, never take a single step toward obeying it.

I don’t like that I can sin and then condemn someone else’s sin in almost the same breath.

I don’t like it that I’m convinced people need to understand me, but I take so little time to understand others.

I regret that I’ve spent so much of my life seeking to make myself happy in ways that never led to real happiness at all.

I don’t like it that I’ve accumulated so much stuff I don’t need, and I’m so reluctant to give it away.

It causes me real sorrow that I’ve said “I love you” far to little in my life, especially to the people I love the most.

I don’t like the fact that some of my students think I’m a hero, when I’ve done nothing more than be an unprofitable servant.

I hate the difference between what I know and what I do.

I hate the fact that I can use words like “radical” describing what others should do in following Jesus when I’m the first one to want to play it safe.

I don’t like that part of me that thinks everyone should listen to what I say.

I wish I could see myself as God sees me, both in my sinfulness and in the Gospel of Jesus.

I regret using so little of my life’s time, energy and resources for worship and communion with God.

I despise that part of me that always finds fault, and uses that knowledge to put myself above others.

I am embarrassed by the words I use that come so easily from the tongue but have little root in the heart.

I regret taking so few risks in the cause of living a God-filled life.

I despise the shallowness of my repentance for sin that has caused hurt and pain for others.

I don’t like that part of me that can make up an excuse, even lie, almost endlessly in the cause of avoiding the truth and its consequences.

I don’t like that I can talk of heaven in a sermon or at a funeral, but very little of me wants to go there.

I regret that I have loved my arrogant self far than I’ve loved my self humbled in Christ.

I regret that so much good advice, good teaching and good example was wasted on me.

But I am glad for the endless mercies of the Lord, and the amazing fact that those mercies extend to me, today and every day.

I am glad that Christ my substitute took this sorry life, pathetic obedience and lethargic worship and exchanged it for his perfect righteousness.

I am glad that the Holy Spirit is remaking and raising dead men- even at age 52.

I am glad that one day I will look at all these failures and regrets and they will have been transformed into the very glory of Jesus Christ himself.

I am glad that God has cast the very things I most dislike about myself into the depths of the sea and has removed them as far as the east is from the west.

I am glad that when I return in shame and embarrassment, my Father meets me running, covers me with his gladness and throws me a party in the presence of the naysayers and pharisees.

I am glad that Jesus takes these things I loathe about myself and says “It is finished. Come you good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord. Today you will be with me in paradise.”

I am glad Jesus says “Before I have called you servant, but now I will call you friend.”

I am glad Jesus says “Who condemns you? There is now no condemnation because you are in me and I am in you. If I am for you, who can be against you? Go, and sin no more.”

I'm glad, too.