Shawn Stutz

Here is an interesting ‘blog-icle’ (blog+article) from Boundless.org about the re-emergence of Calvinism in our culture. I’d love to hear your thoughts (about good cartoons too).

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“Where’d All These Calvinists Come From?” by Motte Brown

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Check out the recently updated Must-Reads and Media page!  I’ve been reading a lot!  In addition, I’ve been introduced to some new tunes and such!  What are you reading?  What’s been good to listen to lately?  Post a comment and let me know…

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RSS readers are the greatest internet tools around. I love to blog/journal and I love to read the live journals of others as well. If you are like me in that sense… you’d love Bloglines.com. This service is designed to read multiple blogs everyday and report the new posts on sites you select for it to read. That way I can visit and read from one site and not 10-15.

Try it for yourself. First of all, establish a free account at the Bloglines.com website. Then surf around and find your favorite blogs. On many sites you’ll see a RSS Last Posts. Once you click on it, you’ll see the feed link in the address bar (i.e. – http://shawnstutz.com/?feed=rss2). Copy that and return to Bloglines, click “add“, and follow the prompts. If you can’t find the RSS feed, right-click your mouse and select view page source (unless you’re a Mac one-eyed mouse user!). If will usually be near the top of the page’s code. All you need to do is copy and paste to Bloglines– simple!

This is a great way to read alot (in little time), stay current, and connect with the lives/hearts of others! Of course this works on Xanga, Facebook, MySpace blogs, and HisEcho. Here are a few of my favorites blogs/resources (‘feed links’ not the sites):

• ThinkChristian.net
• Relevant.com
• SoundofScott.com
• Pretoria Press
• Bloglines.org
• Quote of the Day
• xrds.HisEcho.com

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Saturday in Colorado Springs provided some down-time. We jumped in the Suburban around 8:37 AM and drove to The Garden of the Gods. For me, it was a time of quiet reflection, magnificent beauty, and just peaceful moments to hear from God. Here are a few journaled insights:

It’s weird how you can stand so far away from a massive rock formation and feel so awestruck and small, but when you sit at its base or climb into a shadowed perch you sense great comfort, safety, and rest. It seems, to me, similar to our relationship with the Lord. We sit at a distance and marvel at His greatness, and yet when we get close we find peace, intimacy, and refuge. ‘The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my Rock in whom I take refuge.’ – Psalm 18:1-2.

We saw a couple getting married in the garden and it reminded me of the first marriage in the first garden. It just seemed right to start such a monumental journey in a place that demonstrated great foundation and had stood the test of time. It was definitely a great setting…

As I watched a guy climb a stone face about 50 yards away I found myself thinking, ‘If the Lord is our Rock, it’s interesting that people come to see these rocks, take pictures near them, or scale their heights. And yet they don’t have a relationship with these rocks. We, however, have relationships with The Rock of our Salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ. I began to wonder if our enthusiasm about being near, on, or around a rock is like our religious efforts to be all around or about God. And yet religious proximity is nowhere near true relationship with our Rock, Jesus. - Psalm 18.

“I need to remember to chase after the Creator and not the created.” - Jeff Thompson and the Deer

Click here to see the flicker slideshow (the trip, the people, the garden).

Click here to see the greatest song/seat rental car dance collection ever!

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Day 2 started off great with xrds becomes a place of community and healthy relationships where loneliness slips down the list of struggles.

Aaron Stern talked about leadership. He shared some key insights, such as:

• Empowering people to lead and “trust people until they violate that trust.”

• Stay focused on your demographic– clarified mission means clarified success.

• Leaders are servants first (servant-hearted)

• Invest in your leaders, both professionally and relationally

Day two was good! Cracker Barrel & Chick-fil-A were stupendous, and time with our team was amazing! This has been really great trip!

Lead Conference, Day 1

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Today was the first day of the Lead Conference, sponsored by theMill. theMill is a college/20-something ministry out of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, CO. Our team has had a truly awesome time connecting. We have already learned so much about ourselves and who/what we need to be as xrds.

Here are few good quotes from the day… enjoy!

How you treat 1 person in your ministry will determine how you will treat 1000. – Glenn Packiam

Don’t trun down the spiritual intensity of your ministry in order to turn up the cultural relevance. – David Perkins

People are starving for their life to possess mission. – David Perkins

for pictures, click here.

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I totally enjoy reading culture and faith blogs. This was a fun post from the ThinkChristian.net blog. ThinkChristian must search far and wide to find the plethora of interesting Christian faith and church knowledge they have.

If you have some time to waste surfing the ‘intra-web” stop by and visit the church sign generator. It’s a blast.

Regular readers have probably noted that we like to pick on cheesy church signs from time to time here at TC. (Allow me to once again plug the Crummy Church Signs blog.) So how can I resist pointing out this photo-tour of the history of church signs over at Slate? They may be occasionally witty, frequently cringe-inducing, and often theologically dubious, but it seems that church signs have earned themselves a definite place in church history.

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I found this to be a stellar post! Not many people really use the word ‘stellar‘ anymore, but I’m fighting for its comeback. Stellar actually happens to be an ancestor of ‘status‘.

On that Friday in January, those private questions would be answered in an unusually public way. No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities — as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?

Reading the masterfully crafted account (titled “Pearls Before Breakfast”), you find that beauty barely transcended — even though the musician was the world famous Joshua Bell playing a $3.5 million instrument.

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June 24 is the beginning of a new series in XRDS called Worship :: 24/7.

While worship includes musical expression, there is so much more to the adoration of our Great God!

Check out the recent video blog from emegerent village.

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I rode past a dead cat on my way to work today. While that’s a bit gross in your car, it’s utterly disgusting while on a bike. Yet another cat disappointed me– I couldn’t eat breakfast anymore! I’m not a huge cat fan, but this “very dead” {unlike the well known “mostly dead”} feline taught me a little something. Maybe everything is spiritual. Seriously though…

From the little I know about agriculture or soil; I believe I do remember that even the death and decay or plants and animals can fertilize the ground. More I rode away from the rot in the air the more I began to think of how weird that was. How does the world somehow receive nutrition from death? Is this a by-product of the fall? {or a cat– haha?} Then I began to ask myself the following questions:

Can death be something that strengthens the quality of life for others in the land of the living? Could Jesus’ death have been a model of this: that the receiving of Jesus’ death by the grave, the blood of the Savior in the ground ‘fertilized’ new life for us all? And if that’s true, how can I in turn spin my death and decay toward new life as well– if not for me then for generations to come. Interesting…

Another thought struck me also. In some ways it seems to be counter to the original impression. What if I tend to fertilize myself with death and decay? Do I crave the nutrients of life offered by the Messiah alone? My brain seems to be a murky pond to swim in sometimes. Well, off to breakfast… maybe.

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