So Osama bin Laden was killed May 1st through a US strike.  This is huge victory for the “war on terror” and I’m sure an enormous victory for those across the world that have been hurt or lost loved ones because of his orders and actions.  But the reactions across the United States has stirred up all kinds of feelings and controversy.

As soon as the story broke all over the news channels and Twitter, large groups of people started gathering in several different places in full on celebration.  If you just saw the video without knowing what was going on you would think we had just won the Olympics World Cup (the celebrations weren’t that big).  People chanting U-S-A.  Crowds singing the national anthem, Na-na-na-na hey-hey-hey Goodbye (whatever that one is called) and We Are The Champions.  Obvious job and relief as the FBI’s Most Wanted criminal has come to his end.

But there are also many others who are cringing at the sight of these celebrations.  Frustrated at videos of Americans dancing in the streets at the death of an enemy oddly similar to those we have seen of terrorist groups celebrating after victories.  Christians devastated that there is such celebration of the death of a lost human soul.

My take?  As a Christian we should mourn the loss of any soul that doesn’t accept and receive the salvation through Jesus Christ.  But I also believe that we should be looking to uphold justice.  Would it have been better to capture bin Laden and put him on trial?  Maybe so.  Many would argue yes.  He would get his fair trial and then be sentenced to death.  It would have given him some time to think about his imminent doom.  Would he have changed his mind?  I doubt it.  Could he have changed his mind?  With the power of Christ, yes.

I while I am tempted to say that I am sad that he has no more opportunities to turn to Christ, I am also reminded of all the times throughout the Bible that God had individuals and whole nations wiped off the face of the earth because their hearts were wicked and they wouldn’t turn from their evil ways.  Bin Laden strikes me as one of those.  Doesn’t mean that I’m going to go sing We Are The Champions, but it does give me relief and satisfaction that his evil is stopped, freedom’s fight against the evil of terror took a major step and that there has been justice served for all of the countless families (American and otherwise) that have been devastated and caused such pain because of him

So what say you?

-Interesting Fact-

Bin Laden’s death was announced on May 1st, 2011. Hitler’s death was announced on May 1st, 1945.

-Best Tweets of the Night-

@sugaranddots: Osama Bin Laden, CHECK! Next on the list: 1. Waldo. 2. Carmen Sandiego.

@treykerby: BREAKING — Osama’s mansion was built by the Bluth Company.”

@stoked88: Now I think we all know why there was no season 9 of 24. Well done Jack… well done.

@lizzwinstead: Can we travel with big shampoo again??!

@crownasty: “Sorry it took so long getting a copy of my birth certificate. I was too busy killing Osama Bin Laden.” #ThingsObamaIsThinking

I heard a requote of a quote (what boils down to a RT of a tweet if you prefer Twitter speak) the other day.  The original quote (as far as I know it was the original) was from Billy Graham several years ago.

It’s the Holy Spirit’s job to convict, God’s job to judge and my job to love.

It just stuck with me all day.  How often do I spend my time trying to do the job of the Holy Spirit and God?  It is not a crazy thing for me to think I need to make them see how they are wrong or have judgmental thoughts or actions towards someone.  What is crazy is that I for some reason act like it is up to me.  Don’t worry, brookjames will let you know when you have screwed up.

I need to take the advice that I believe Billy would give.  It is your job to love.  Love my friends.  Love my enemies.  Love the girl that cut me off for no apparent reason and then flipped me off because she was a bad driver.  Love the waiter that has a terrible attitude and poor service.  Love the homeless guy that sits on the bench downtown with his laptop.  Love them all.

I need God to give me strength to love.  That’s my job.  Maybe I should do my job.

Remember back in the day when the phonebooks were used for more than booster seats and for the Power Team to rip in two?  When your answering machine message said “sorry I couldn’t get to the phone in time” and it made sense?  Back when Prodigy was the predecessor to AOL?  When the modem was annoying because it took up the phone line AND sounded like demons were trying to escape the 7 levels of hell?  Before Al Gore invented the Internet?  There was no such thing as Facebook, Myspace, online dating, church online or highspeed Internet.  Roadrunner was still the cartoon bird.  Email still had a hyphen in it.  That was then.

Now times have changed.  If you still have AOL people look at you funny.  Most people don’t know what a modem is anymore because of wireless.  Phonebooks are a huge waste of paper, space and time because Google knows all.  You can go to church online.  You can even go to small groups online.  Twitter and Facebook have become the best way to reach someone leaving Email hoping to stay alive.  Times definitely have changed.  Millions of people are using the Internet to find community instead of the old fashion ways.  I read a statistic that said in the past year about 40% of the adult American population use online dating services.  Now you don’t have to bump into someone on accident on the street corner or hit on a girl in the bar or marry someone from your high school.

Recently I had the amazing opportunity to hang out in person with several people from the online community I am a part of.  There were only three people of over 20 that I had ever actually seen in real life before.  I love that it is possible to have real supportive, loving, caring and fun community using the Internet!  I had such an amazing time getting to “meet” so many of my friends.  Yes, there are drawbacks, but they are still there for me.  They are connected with the things going on in my life.

I know there are doubters out there.  I know some people just can’t wrap their minds around having a real relationship with people that are only on the Internet.  Maybe for them that doesn’t work, but I am a firm believer that if you are truly seeking it out, it is there for you.  The other night was proof of that in my own life.

What about you?  Do you have real community online?  What do you use to stay in touch with them?

Welcome back to Video Of The Week!  Hope you had a great week.  Time to get down to business!  Ladies and gentlemen, this is Nick Thurmond.  He’s another one of those Oklahoma boys so you gotta love him.  He released a live album earlier this year and it is definitely worth checking out!  So, check out his music, and follow the man on Twitter!

Last night we had a slight misunderstanding on Twitter. So let this be the clarification. With our families in town and getting to spend time with them, my wonderful wife (@momdiggity) was overcome with gratitude and love and tweeted the following:

Had a wonderful night surrounded by tons of family. I feel so blessed to have so many here to welcome our baby girl!!

Then I, not wanting to be outdone by my wife in the “I love my family” competition decided it would be a good retweet.  So I did.  And it is true.  We are very glad to be surrounded by family.  We are very blessed to have all these people here from out of town to welcome our little baby girl into this world.  BUT, unfortunately, although we have passed our due date we haven’t actually gotten to that part yet.  Also, unfortunately, Reagan will not get to meet our new little one just yet.  There is a very good chance that Tate may not as well.  The others are still running a risk, but there isn’t much we can do.  Fortunately we have some options going into this Friday so we will see.

So for all of you out there that saw that tweet and thought we had our baby, we haven’t yet.  She will be here soon but just not yet.  I apologize that you wasted the good surprise on me, but you are just gonna have to muster one more.  And I promise I will let you know when!  Thanks for the love!

There are very few times in my life that I read.  Those would be my Bible, blogs, an occasional book and when sitting in a “certain” place.  I have never really been much of a magazine reader.  I more or less get the sports ones (Sports Illustrated, Surfer) and look at the pictures.  But as I was recently flipping through the most recent Surfer magazine, I started thinking about the demise of print.  It was revolutionary in the past, but how long will it hold on?

Newspapers used to be the “immediate” way to get your news.  Now they are a day late!  Magazines used to have the great articles and ideas.  Now they are a month late!  The Internet has just killed these things.  Twitter and Facebook have news as it happens.  News and sports web sites have in depth articles and interviews immediately.  Seems like it should be time to say goodbye to newspapers and magazines. They used to be great but then became mostly waiting room and bathroom readings. Now they aren’t even that anymore. Instead of racks for magazines we should have charge stations for our iPhones or iPads.  That would be perfect.

Do you sill read the newspaper or subscribe to magazines?  Have you moved to the digital age or are you still hanging on to print?  Just curious.

Well, the day has finally arrived.  Today we are off to learn how to give birth.  (I know!  Who knew there was more to it than “get away from me”, “this is all your fault”, “ahhhhhhhhhhh”, “push” and “breathe”?)  It is gonna be a blast I’m sure.  I will probably get in trouble multiple times throughout the course of the class.  But you know what the kicker is?  They freakin’ charge $80 for this class!  Are you kidding me?  I could take a community college course for that!  I sure hope they serve snacks or something.  They better not tell me to turn my phone off.  Good luck with that.  Twitter should be wonderful.

So we are going.  If you have ever wanted to know how to give birth, just wait and ask me after today.  I will know how.

Throughout the blogoshpere there seems to be one consistent question.  How do I get more traffic?  Whether you are starting an online business or giving your business an online presence or writing for your church and most anything in between, the question remains.  What can I do to make my online presence more valuable to people?  How can I drive more people to my page?  While there are many ways to answer this question and many ways that I have discovered, that isn’t what I really want to focus on today.  I’m thinking more of how does this question apply to ministry blogs and self-promotion.

We are all human.  Part of being human is having to deal with the issue of what others think and the desire to be liked by others.  I think we all struggle with this to some degree.  And this issue is no different in the blogging world than at school, work, or the gym.  Each writer wants his or her work to be appreciated and liked.  Once something is written or created, the writer now has to help others find this creation.  One major way for online writers to feel that their work is being appreciated and enjoyed is by the website statistics.  There is good information out there to learn from.  You can find out where people are reading from, what they click on the most, what they search for the most, how often the come to the page and so much more.  But then the writer has to make sure they don’t fall into the trap of putting too much emphasis on the stats.  Obviously this is a different scenario for those selling things, but for ministry it is something to think about.

If you are not careful, it becomes very easy to pay too much attention to your blog stats or number of Twitter followers or Facebook friends.  It becomes too easy to forget the reason your site is there in the first place.  It is no longer about the ministry or what is being written and read.  At that point why are you blogging anyway?  I have found myself there before.  I become worried about how many people are coming to my page or how many people just stopped following me on Twitter or if anyone is a fan of my page on Facebook.  I forget why I started doing this in the first place.

Another very related issue is that of self-promotion.  Once your page has been created, there is a necessary amount of promotion that must be done in order for anything to happen with your page.  But at what point is there the line that is going too far with the self-promotion?  Is it wrong to Twitter when you have a new post?  If not, how many times is it ok to push your site?  Is it wrong to link your page?  Is it wrong to sign your blog up on the blog database websites?  Is it ok to have your website be your name or should it be something more generic and churchy?  Or can you chalk those actions up to desiring to see God work through another avenue in your life and hoping to impact someone else’s life?  I think I can see both sides of the coin here.  On one side it is annoying and a deterrent when someone pushes their page too much, but on the other side, if they don’t push it at least some, people won’t know about it or they will forget about it.  What kind of impact can you have if no one knows about your page?  What kind of influence could you have on God’s people if you did promote it?

For me, I know that I would love to see the Lord use my writings and thoughts to impact people’s lives.  Kinda part of being a pastor I guess.  Maybe it’s just my way of preaching so I don’t have to get up and talk in front of people.  If the readership I have right now is doing the max of what God has planned for this blog, then so be it, but if there is something bigger in the future for this blog, that’s ok too!  I just want to use the gifts and resources that I have been given to impact the lives of those I might come in contact with.  I pray that God would help me see that this is a tool for Him to use and not an ego booster.  I pray that I can move past the “what do they think” and “did people like that” and help fight the stereotype that being a pastor at a church is basic narcissism.

For the past several months, my Twitter profile picture has been shaded green.  As I write this it still is.  On June 12th of this year, the nation of Iran held elections in which there was alleged corruption and which was followed by weeks of protests by the people of Iran.  The Iranian government used brutality and forced out all reporters as well as banned the use of the internet to the population.  Not really the actions of innocent people if you ask me.  The protests were extremely intense for quite a while.  Even as late as November 4th there were still protests not only taking place but being met with police opposition.

Normally I don’t jump on this sort of support.  Don’t get me wrong.  I am all for freedom and true elections.  I mean that I usually don’t change my Twitter picture or do something like that to show my support.  I understand for our own elections and the thinking behind outwardly supporting those, but for something across the world in a country that doesn’t really want the Western world to “fix” their problems, I’m not entirely sure that it does much supporting.  But, that’s ok.  I did it anyway.  So it has been there for almost 5 months now and the other day someone asked me why I still have that green picture on Twitter.  This got me thinking.

How many times do we outwardly support something but really don’t do anything about it?  Granted there may not have been a ton that I could actually do for Iran, but was I really willing to actually do something if there had been?  It is really easy to change our profile picture to be green or have add a Lance Armstrong badge to it or join 400 different clubs and causes on Facebook, but what does that really do?  Well, I don’t know about you, but I try not to add badges or join causes just because I saw it or someone suggested it to me.  I join the cause because I believe in it.  I join because it means something to me.  I don’t wanna do it just because it’s the thing to do.  There is no point in that.  I don’t know what I can do about the craziness in Iran, but every time I see my green Twitter picture it reminds me of what has and is happening there and reminds me to pray for them.  But I’m not perfect.  It doesn’t always work that way.

What about you?  Why do you add badges, change your profile picture, join Facebook causes, etc.?  Are you like most of us or do you really find ways to support those causes?