As you saw from my post on Monday, I am in the begining stages of planting a church in Uptown Albuquerque, NM.  Over the past few years I have made some good friends who are also planning on planting churches in Albuquerque and across the U.S.  I thought I would take the next few days to introduce you to these guys so you can pray for them and follow them as they are on their own respective journeys.

Clayton Bell

Clayton Bell and I met through the interwebs a little over a year ago through a certain Christian beer blog.  Although I’ve never met Clayton in person, I consider him a good friend.  Through reading his blog and a few online chats, I know that he is a wonder husband and loving father.

About four years ago, Clayton felt the call to plant a church.  Like me, about a year ago he felt that God was calling him off the bench to start his church plant.  This last Sunday, He left his job at Every Nation, Tallahassee, where he served as Family Pastor for the past year and is moving to the Tampa/Trinity area of Florida to start Trinity New Life Church.

If you live in in the Florida area and want to join Clayton on God’s mission to reach the lost of Tampa, you can email him at info@trinitynewlife.com for more information.

Please be in prayer for Clayton, his wife, and daughter as they follow God on this wonderful journey.

As you go through your day today….don’t forget.
While you run your errands,
While you sit at your desk,
While you check your email,
While you play with your kids,
While you eat your lunch,
While you drink your Starbucks,
Don’t forget.

While you are going through your day, Jesus was beaten beyond recognition, hung on a cross, and died for your sins.

Don’t forget.

photo by: Mrs. W.  

After recieving a lengthy email from a friend about my last post, I decided that I need to clarrify some things. 

My last post was ment to be more sarcastic than whiney (I probably should have added a few to help clarify that).  After rereading it, I realized that it did come across whiney.  I’m sorry if you look at me differently because of that now (and why exactly are you judging me? )

But I really am curious as to why people don’t leave comments on my posts.  I have my theory (which I’ll share in a second), but I don’t necessarily think it is completely my writting style.  I’ve been working hard at studying other blogs on the net and learning from their writting styles. 

Of all the blogs that I read none of them have problems with getting comments.  Now I don’t write exactly like them, but I’m not completely different.  So this makes me ask the question again…why no comments?

My theory is that it is my audience (yeah I’m passing off the blame ).  I know that the majority of the people that read my blog are friends who don’t really read any other blogs.  Therefore they don’t realize that commenting on a post is a natural part of reading blogs.

The beauty about reading blogs, unlike books, magazines, and other printed material, is that it gives you the opportunity to share your opinion.  It’s not a one way conversation. You get to interact with the author in a way that any other form of writting doesn’t afford.

For example, I wouldn’t be writting this post write now if it wasn’t for a freindly email from one of my readers/friends.  I would have just gone on with my merry day and put up a post on Photoshop Express. 

So tell me what you think. Am I wrong?  Do I need to change my writting style to be more provacative?  Should I give up looking for emails in my inbox that tell me I’ve recieved a comment on my site?  Should I just quick blogging all together and join a convent in Italy some where (I hear that they can revirginize you)?

Leave me a comment and let me know. 

photo by: tinou bao

I don’t know if you’re like me, but I’m the type of person who likes to rearrange their house every few months. That’s why when Shannon said, “we should redo the office and put the desk here and the bed here…” I was all for it. Well I’m starting to see that I’m the same way with my web site. A few months ago I switched from Joomla to WordPress (before that it was from MySpace to my own domain).

Now I want to change the look of my web site. I’m just feeling like it is too cluttered and that it doesn’t fit my personality (the logo looks like it could be for a Fortune 500 company). So I’ve been kicking around the idea of redesigning the look of my site. I’m going to try to keep the same clean look, but go with a little more grunge of a feel to it (it makes sense in my head). I don’t know though.

Here is my question to all 10 of my loyal readers…do you think I should go with a different look for the site? Do you feel like the current one fits my personality? If you where to change my site, how would you change it? Let me know what you think in the comments below (don’t send me an email through my contact page Jason).My mind is pretty set on changing…but maybe you can change my mind…man that’s a lot of change.

This coming Sunday I’m going to be heading for Seattle WA for the Text and Context Conference held by The Resurgence with five other guys.  This is looking like it is going to be a real blast.  There are going to be some big names at this conference (John Piper, Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler…).  Although the speaking should be awesome, I’m most excited about getting to  drink some good old Seattle coffee/beer while I’m out there.

I’m going to try to keep you guys up to date with what I’m doing while I’m out there.  Check out my flickr page to see any new pictures that I post while I’m out and about.  I’ll also try to give you at least a daily post of the days events.  I’m also going to look into getting Twitter acount or something (I’ve been wanting to get this anyways).  If you are from Seattle, give me some good suggestions for where to eat while I’m out there.  I fyou live in Seattle shoot me an email through my contact page and maybe we can meet up for some good old Seattle coffee/beer.

I just got an email from my mom:

These are pictures from the alley behind our house, Denny’s, and Jordan’s School. Just to let you know how close it is. The smoke is blowing away from the house so that shouldn’t be a problem.
Love you,
Mom

Here are the pics:

My friend Dave Ortega (I’m telling you man…get a blog…or start posting on mine…or something) sent me an email with a link to a new video game that is coming out called Guitar Rising.  Now I’m a huge fan of Guitar Hero (check out my stats…oh yeah).  I’ve always said it is a way for mediocre guitar players (like myself) to play like rock gods.  With this game, mediocre guitar players can now become a rock god.  It even uses a real guitar.  I must say.  If the price is right, I’m going to be trying this one out (unless the company wants to give me a free copy….)  

It has been a few months since Shannon and I got our iPhones. I must say….THEY STILL ROCK!!!! Yes I have become a complete sell-out for Apple. I would buy Apple underwear if they existed (especially since the kind I like are no longer made…there’s nothing harder than finding a new brand of underwear). The iPhone has completely changed my life.We use our iPhones all the time. The main features being email, maps, and searching the internet. I always have my email with me now. I love having the ability to respond to someone’s question right there on the spot.I don’t know how many times the google maps feature has kept me from driving around aimlessly for hours looking for a customer or a friend’s address. And I love being able to look up the answers to random questions right there on the spot. “How many ounces are in a pound?” “Does ExpressJet fly to Austin?” “How old is Barrak Obama?”If I didn’t have my iPhone, I would just be making stuff up like I use to. But now I actually know the answers.(So you’re wondering why doesn’t he use the phone feature…I do. We just get really bad service at our house…So I would rather text.)