Where to begin

It has been a hellish week. I took the family on what was to be a long weekend of camping. Everything started out fine. We actually got away, which is a huge victory in itself for us. It all pretty much went downhill from there.

Outta here

I’m taking the family away for the weekend. It’s going to be good. Nothing like a bit of intentional relaxation. I don’t know that we’ve done that in several years. It’s just a long weekend, but it’s long overdue and quite welcome. I’m sure things will still be standing when we return.

Office 2007 II

I have to say, after a bit more than a month of use, Microsoft Office 2007 is more than I’d expected it to be. Let’s face it. 2003 was pretty good, but it was little more than a face lift for Office 2000. The power and functionality they have added to 2007 is definitely worth the upgrade. It sports a new file system, so that Word documents are *.docx (instead of the earlier *.doc), PowerPoint slideshows are *.pptx, Excel sheets are *.xlsx, etc. It’s not just something to annoy users and force an upgrade. The new files are smaller, which makes them more quickly accessible and more easily transferred. The “ribbon,” as it’s called, is a much more elegant and intuitive interface. The available commands change as you select from the ribbon. And one needs simply to hover over a button and you can see what the results would be if you clicked it. There is an option to save a file as a *.pdf file, since the patent is up for anyone to use now. Collaboration is almost seamless now with other Office 2007 users.

I’m running the Enterprise edition. I certainly haven’t pushed this suite to the edges of what it can do. I have yet to do much with Access. I’m mostly a Word/Excel/Outlook/OneNote/Publisher guy. We’ll be bringing SharePoint and Access online soon. But at this point you can color me extremely satisfied with the product.

CSL…

…is slipping. Or at least their webmaster is. I can see who’s going where from CTSFW, but CSL has yet to post 2007 Calls. The website promised they would be up as of four hours ago. Not that this blog comes anywhere near to doing so, but the goal must be to keep content fresh in the internet age.

Zoe

I actually love pre-marital counseling. In seminary Dr. Bryan Salminen used us, his students, in working out some of the kinks in his Zoe tool, a phenomenally insightful instrument for getting at the good, the bad, and the ugly in a relationship. The personal benefit is that each of us came away from the experience with the training needed to implement it. I use it as the backbone of my own premarital counseling. It pairs God’s Word with secular research and provides a great reflection of a relationship, getting to the very heart of the issues a couple may be facing. It makes for great pre-marital conversation. If pre-marital counseling is an aspect of your vocation, I highly recommend giving it a look.

Fetid Dingoes’ Kidneys

I need a moment to offer a bit of perspective. Anyone who reads this blog may very easily get the impression that I’m a bitter, bothered, joyless curmudgeon who goes to great lengths and takes great pleasure to find the very worst in the church(es) and blog about them. If you’re one of them, I understand where you’re coming from. Having reread much of what I’ve lately written, I get where you’re coming from.

They Just Can’t Handle It

Officials in Littleton, CO, are receiving a bit of flack for their decision to erect a memorial statue to a fallen Navy SEAL. Gunner’s Mate 2^nd Class Danny Dietz was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross, an award second in precedence only to the Medal of Honor. The choice to erect the memorial, a statue of Dietz seated and holding his automatic rifle, in a park frequented by children has been criticized by opponents as “glorifying violence.” They further argue that it is inappropriate because of the park’s proximity to several schools, among them Columbine High School.

The Way of Salvation: A Rant

Every once in a while a quasi-theological nugget quite simply drops to earth from the mind of Monty Python. Today is one of those times.

I’m reminded of the “Birth” scene from The Meaning of Life. The doctors have assembled a cadre of people and machines (yes, the machine that goes, “PING!” among them) and are ready to engage in a “fetus frightening.”

Sin. It’s not the problem it used to be.

Now, before all six of my skimmers (who really reads this thing anyway?) get up in arms over the title, it’s satire. Secondly, there’s a little truth to it. That is, this is the belief that seems to permeate Western morality, and indeed, has firmly planted itself within popular theology. And although you aren’t likely to hear them offer such a statement word-for-word, this kind of thinking has wormed itself into contemporary approaches to ministry. I’m betting you’ve seen it.

An Admin Day

This post is serving a joint purpose. In the second place, it is an experiment with MS Word 2007’s blog post feature. I’m trying to use category tags. I’m impressed. When I went to select a tag, all of my WordPress tags were visible, and I had the option of adding others were I to desire to do so. Fantastic. It just scored above Deepest Sender in that respect.

In the first place, it is to shout to the world that I have just completed worship planning this year up to Advent. That’s not to say that nothing will be added or altered between now and then. It is to say that the services are largely planned, the musicians all have their music, and our secretary can go at her own pace in generating the bulletins all the way through the end of November 2007. Everyone likes to be ahead of the game, and at the moment we’re well ahead of the game. The farthest ahead I’d been before was about 3-4 months. Now I can still work up a service every week, but there’s a significant cushion in place.

I am also rather impressed with the LSB
Hymn Selection Guide. It offers a nice list of hymns and gives their relationships to the appointed pericopes for the day. It’s a phenomenal resource. But it brings with it something of a gripe. It includes in its suggestions some selections that are only available in the Lutheran Service Builder software. The example that is bothersome at the moment is that “I Trust, O Christ, In You Alone” (LW 357) is LSB 972. The bound edition of the LSB tops out at 966. Alas, it’s such a phenomenal hymn. Do we bite the bullet and buy the Lutheran Service Builder for the sake of a hymn? As beautiful as it is, I simply can’t justify it.