LeakeSpeak

I apologize for the downtime experienced on this blog overnight on February 23 and into the morning of February 24. I was upgrading my installation of WordPress, the blogging software this website uses. I think everything is all set to go now. If you notice anything that doesn’t seem to be working correctly, though, leave a comment on this post and let me know. Thanks!

It’s been, what, a week and a half since I’ve posted?  That’s kind of the way the past couple of weeks have been; I’ve been really busy.  They have also been a couple of the most difficult weeks in recent memory.  I’ll try and explain more in another post.

I’m quickly realizing that I don’t have nearly enough time to blog all the things that I want to blog.  I’d say I have a couple of good ideas a day of things I would like to share, but too many other priorities keep me from writing the posts I would like to.  It’s kind of hard to decide which posts to write.  The ones I most want to write are often ones that would take more time, so it’s easy to just write the posts I can get up more quickly.

I’m traveling right now…our family just flew up to the U.S. this morning from Mexico City.  Erin and the girls are now driving to see some friends in Texas, while I’m getting ready to fly to Tampa, FL and drive back a minivan we bought.  We spent the last couple of days in Mexico City just relaxing and seeing some things.  It was pretty cool.  I took a few good photos, but then realized that we did not bring the computer cable for the camera.  So I guess it’ll be a few days before I can get photos on the blog…

Then I was planning on taking some photos of my road trip from Tampa back to Houston, but I just realized I forgot to get the camera from Erin.  Rats!  A picture is worth a thousand words, and it seems I’m having trouble sitting down to write a thousand words about all the different things we’ve seen.

Stinkin’ Broncos.  I hate it when I have to wait a whole nother offseason for a shot at a return to glory.  As a Bronco fan, you start the season so hopeful, and then this…It’s especially painful as I’m sitting here in Houston, the city where just a few days ago they had their playoff hopes dashed.  I just got caught up reading Andrew Mason’s blog, the editor of the Broncos news, so that didn’t help.  Reading the fans’ comments, it looks like everyone is pretty optimistic about next season, and I am too, but that’s just the problem–I was optimistic about this season, too.  The offseason just seems so long when your team hasn’t lived up to expectations…

About the expression ‘a whole nother’…How on earth are you supposed to write that?  I say it all the time, but it sure looks bad when its written.

Well, it looks like that’s about all the random thoughts I can fit in for now, because we’ll be boarding in a few minutes.  So until the next one, I’m signing off.

Maybe next season, Broncos…yeah, next season will be better…Cutler will be an All-Pro, we won’t have so many injuries, we’ll fill in holes in the offensive line, a couple good new players on defense, maybe the defensive line will finally be good like we say every year.  Oh, and hopefully special teams won’t be so atrocious.  Yep, next year will be better!  Just over seven months until training camp starts…

I, like so many Newsboys fans, was really disappointed years ago when they announced that lead singer John James was leaving the band.  At the time, the public was told that he was leaving for a preaching ministry in Australia.  Well, that wasn’t exactly the truth.  In fact, it was apparently a flat-out lie.

On the stage, John James was enjoying incredible fame and success, but behind the scenes, his life had fallen apart.  I came across this article as it was mentioned in the YouTube comments for the video that’s in my previous post.  It’s a great read.  In the interview, James gives an extremely honest account of his hard fall, the near destruction of his life, and the subsequent work of restoration God has done in his life in the years since.  It’s powerful.

It kind of makes you sick or maybe ticks you off to realize the money-making machine the Christian music industry has become.  It’s amazing the pressure that puts on artists like John James to keep hidden problems of the magnitude of those he was having.  We have that problem throughout the Church, though.  Right Ted Haggard, and all the rest of us who have hidden sin at one time or another because of the shame that confessing it would bring?  I have a lot of respect for John James for coming clean and sharing the truth about what happened and the powerful testimony of what God has done in his life.

I’ve started reading quite a few business and marketing blogs lately.  I’m not exactly sure why they interest me so much, but they do.  John Moore of Brand Autopsy put me onto an interesting post by Joe Wikert where he reviews Jeff Gomez’s book Print is Dead.  (I know, publishing a book about the death of books is a bit ironic, huh?)

To state the obvious, our modes of communication are changing.  Books are going to be around for a long time, but they will not continue to have the same importance they have had as a communication medium, especially with the younger generations.  Some worried parents commented on Joe’s post, insisting that reading is important and that we should still teach and encourage kids to read books.  I agree with this, but when it comes to propogating ideas, books are no longer going to be the central avenue by which that dissemination takes place.

When there are ideas worth spreading - and I think there are plenty in the mission world right now - we are going to have to find ways other than books to spread those ideas.  Books are a one-way form of communication where the author speaks and the readers listen.  They cost money and are limited in supply.  More and more, people prefer the two-way communication and discussion that is possible through electronic and other means.  That’s what I like about blogs - comments allow a discussion to take place, and blog posts break ideas down into bite-sized chunks.  Let’s face it - these days we’re rarely capable of assimilating information in large doses.

As a blogger, I can start a conversation, receive feedback from others, and present new information as my ideas evolve.  I used to think I would possibly publish a book one day, but now I’m not sure.  I might just stick to blogging.  At any rate, if the ideas I have don’t catch on and start to spread through this blog first, then they’re hardly worth the time and money it would take to put them into book form.

Revolutionaries in the mission world, start using more innovative means of communication!  I have searched for blogs by a number of authors I would like to hear from, but I haven’t found much.  These are authors who, judging by the print material they publish, are finding time to write.  I would like to see more of them enter the blogosphere so that the rest of us could better interact with them.

What do you think, readers?  Do you agree with the above assessments?  If so, drop a comment and join in the conversation!  If you don’t agree, I suppose you’ll be too busy reading a book to comment…

I got onto freerice.com while reading Seth Godin’s blog.  You have to read the FAQs to see how playing a vocabulary game online can get food sent to the needy.  I have no idea what impact it will have on world hunger, but I have to hand it to the creators for a very simple, yet brilliant, idea.  Notice the program’s phenomenal growth on the ‘Totals’ page.

As a missionary, it makes me wonder what kinds of innovative ideas we could come up with to get people more involved in the work of making disciples of all nations.  If you have an innovative idea for helping cross-cultural missionaries get the folks at home plugged in, leave a comment and let us know about it!