Last week I finally saw the movie Once. Even now, I can’t get it out of my head; its scenes replay in my mind; its soundtrack has literally been on repeat on my iTunes for several days.
To say it shortly, this film has affected me.
By Hollywood’s standards, Once’s budget was essentially nonexistent. Absent were the [...]

- Amazing 3D Pavement Art!  I can’t convince myself that some of these pictures aren’t real.
- I was surprised by how many of these I hadn’t heard of. And I consider myself a heavy Google addict. 15 Awesome Google Services You Never Knew Existed
- I’ve often thought of getting a ball to replace my office [...]

If you ask us if we’re emergent, and we answer “42,” will you understand?

- I suppose if I wasn’t married, I’d probably build a house out of snow too.
- In a world that seems to introduce a new online Application every week: The rules for computing happiness. [Minimal]
- If videos like this existed when I was in mid/high school, I probably would have shown more interest in my [...]

Some things are supposed to happen in childhood.
For example:
- Break at least one bone (possibly mostly for the men)
- Contract chickenpox
- Experience the first day of school
- Give, or receive, your first elementary playground kiss
- Go to sleepovers
- Play Truth or Dare
- Learn to ride a bike
- Get glasses (if you need them)
I’m sure many [...]

“That’s a lot of purple,” I heard from the backseat of my car. I glanced across the street and saw an overweight young woman wearing the purple in question. And I cringed, both at the unfeeling comment that had been made as well as at the laughter that erupted in the backseat at the expense [...]

- After a week of driving with my mirrors adjusted to the SAE standard. I’m happy to report it does make a difference. Though it takes some getting use to. (Adjusting your mirrors to avoid blind spots)
- CubeStormer, the Worlds Fastest Lego Mindstorm RCX Speedcubing Robot. Not mentioned: the annoying music.
- I might just prefer [...]

102 years ago, G. K. Chesterton wrote a pivotal work that influenced an entire generation of British writers. The work, Orthodoxy, was a Christian apologetic and spiritual autobiography. For the first half of the 20th Century there were many writers whose work paralleled and borrowed from Chesterton’s, not the least of which was C. S. [...]

I no longer believe Valentine’s Day is the most pointless of all holidays. The obvious answer for why I’ve changed my mind is that I had a valentine this year for the first time in several years.  But I’d like to think that my being in a relationship isn’t the only reason for this change.
I’ve [...]

- I’ll admit. I enjoyed the Doritos Super Bowl commercials. Though I never knew there was a contest behind them. California Church Scores Big with Super Bowl Ad.
- For reasons not to be discussed in this post, I’m not a fan of Best Buy. Though their E-waste program does help their reputation a little bit [...]

Because we use a local printer, we were able to see every step in the printing and binding of The Kingdom Experiment: Youth Edition. We thought we’d share some pictures with you.

And I couldn’t resist. I had to include this gem.

- Just about the only time you find decent radio stations is when you live relatively close to a college town. Kansas City, welcome 90.9 The Bridge. The Bridge has been around awhile but I recently discovered it during a return trip home from work in which I forgot my iPod. They even put out [...]

How would you deal with copyright infringement in the church?

Over the weekend, I got to catch up with a dear friend–who happens to be agnostic. Due to our respective locations on different continents, we don’t get to talk nearly as often as I’d like. I caught up on the happenings in his life and told him about how much I’m enjoying my job at [...]

Have you ever discovered a piece of knowledge that should have been revealed in childhood? Last week Bruce shared with me a little symbolic mnemonic for remembering how many days are in each month using only your hands‘ knuckles.
2 weeks ago I discovered this little gem. Instapaper is “a simple tool to save web pages for reading [...]

With the new year comes a new group of churches starting The Kingdom Experiment in their faith communities. We are always excited to see how churches are using KE, and some of these communities are blowing our minds.
Jackson, TN- One church made the local news. See how Thrive Church is using KE here and check [...]

I am one of those people who think that all of life is a Christian theme because all of life belongs to God. It turns out that it’s far more often that I see themes of God’s presence in a film than to NOT see it.

Exciting news in my world: Firefox 3.6 came out last week. Personas, a new feature Mozilla decided to include in this release, has actually been around for awhile. I recommend the Harry Potter theme.
Would you pay for Hulu?
I can already see the headlines now; Buy an iPhone, it might just save your life!
You might have [...]

Patriotism hasn’t been all that cool for quite awhile. Even in elementary school, I was a bit turned off by it. But, then again, maybe I was turned off by the extreme patriotism of one of my grade school teachers. At the time, her son was in the military. We were not so subtly reminded [...]

Why do you go to church? Why are you part of a faith community?
We are at the very beginning stages of a new project and we want to hear why all of you go to church–or don’t go to church. We already had some great feedback here. But we thought we would make it official [...]

In an ideal world the content of a web site would be laid out before the design. But as we all know this world is far from ideal. And as a designer/developer I find myself constantly relying on Lorem Ipsum. I thought we all agreed at how great it is to have dummy text in [...]

I have poor vision.
And when I say poor, I’m not talking about the “poor vision” most people I know have where objects 100 yards away get a little blurry. Or the “poor vision” my close friend has that enabled her to get these vintage frames she’d wanted that are half the size of her face. [...]

So you wake up on Sunday morning. Time to get ready for church. Maybe you want to go or maybe you don’t (the evidence indicates fewer and fewer of us are actually committing to the experience). So answer me this Batman–why do you go? What makes it worth the effort? What reasons would you give [...]

24 days until I’ll reunite  in Chicago with one of my favorite college roommates.
67 days until the arrival of spring.
107 days until my first niece is due. (This one absolutely can’t come soon enough.)
Far too often, I find myself forming these measurements of time, and others like them, in my mind. Only several weeks ago, [...]

I was in Denver for twenty-two hours this weekend. While I was there I had the opportunity to attend Denver United Church. Such a great staff that I’ve known since the early days, back when they were meeting in Pastor Rob Brendle’s basement. If you live in/around the Denver area and are looking for a [...]

The most important goal of us here at The Studio House House Studio is to be consistently and accurately publishing the conversation of the church.
We accomplish this by constantly being involved within the church body. Whether it be leading small groups, teaching Sunday morning, or even shamelessly asking the church what she needs.
Fortunately all five [...]

It was a slow process. But I now dig tweets. I heart Twitter. And much to Scott’s dismay (see why he doesn’t heart Twitter here), TweetDeck has taken permanent residence on my Mac dock. I’m sure Scott loves nothing more than hearing sweet chirps coming from my office throughout the day. And Scott isn’t [...]

The following are, in my opinion, some of the lamest television creations of all time. A few I am even ashamed to admit I have tuned in to. Others are borderline. One of the top five Maile completely disagrees with me on. When I tried to include another one, “What Not to Wear,” she had a downright tantrum.

Faith and belief don’t come easily for me. For awhile, beginning a few years ago, I didn’t believe at all. Sometimes, even now, having journeyed back from my unbelief, I still have moments of doubt, especially concerning if God really hears and answers our prayers. But in recent days, in moments of frustration and relative [...]

Knowing the interwebs changes every minute, should you attend a university for web-related knowledge? While pertaining specifically to Web Developers, Nettuts+ asked the question.
5 Videos Jesus is Embarrassed to Watch (via Discipleship Remix)
Taking forced perspective shots can be tricky (or corny; pushing the Leaning Tower of Pisa). Not the case for these shots: 9 (not [...]

For every crisis, there is a measure of coping.
I’m getting ready to make a move to Nashville, home of all things honkey tonk and emo-rock hipster.  I think you’ll agree with me that this sort of climate change can easily be classified as a crisis of huge proportions.  
Thus I have resorted to a personal [...]

So, true confession, I got this idea from another web site. But instead of sending all of you over there and trying to discern which of the comments were your answers, I thought I’d ask here.
Here’s the task. Write down your age. Use that many words to sum up your life so far. I’ll start.
31 [...]

After only a couple weeks at the House, I’ve already begun to resemble my lovely female coworkers (and friends), Rachel and Liz. I noticed it last night when, in my car, Rachel pointed out I started a sentence with “the thing is”—her signature opening line.
I didn’t think about it much last night, but this morning, [...]

Blame it on the pre-coffee state of mind. Or maybe its simply a case of “the Mondays.” Either way what you will find below is a list (yes, bulleted even) of random thoughts and links.

Whether or not you’re into the many derivatives of the Folk genre, you have to admit that NPR puts together a [...]

As some of you know, here at The House our dogs are pretty constant companions with us. Today while walking Jake into the office, I passed a man on the sidewalk who was clearly afraid of him. For those who know Jake, the only thing there is to be afraid of is getting knocked over [...]

I recently had a revelation about myself—I’m a nomad. There. I said it.

With tears in my eyes, a Ziploc bag of mom-made chocolate chip cookies and my slowly-dying iPod as my only traveling companions, and all the belongings I could safely pack into my car, I left the Hoosier state—again.

Everyone has sales on Cyber Monday. That’s so cliché. So The House Studio is having a Day-After-Cyber-Monday Sale that will last the rest of the year! (That’s way better than a crock-pot for only $3)
We have two new books coming out in January, but if you pre-order The Mosaic Experiment or 180 now, you will [...]

Yes, I know what you’re thinking. Why oh why is he mentioning a beer company? Ah, a good (and appropriate) question. Do allow me to explain.
While traveling abroad this past week I chose Stephen Mansfield’s latest work The Search for God and Guinness as my holiday read. I feel I should admit the title is [...]

One time I was supposed to go to your show–I mean not to not to be a guest or anything, but to sit in the audience  and laugh when the cue cards told me to and make sure the cameras caught my right profile (it’s my better side generally speaking).  
 
But the day I was [...]

A friend of mine is absolutely desperate to move away from his hometown. He and I share the same hometown and we both have a desire to leave, but his desperation just might surpass my desire. When most people want to move the first question anyone asks them is Why. Why would you want to [...]

We know you can feel it. We feel it too; the world is changing. Church is changing. You can hear it in the music and the words coming from Christian leaders. You can see it in the glances of everyone who steps in the Church, and from a good many people who no longer darken [...]

My Dad fed me Dress for Success with my morning cereal. Barely out of pee-wee football, I could tell when someone was under-dressed for an event.
Just when I was beginning to get pimples, I was also mastering which ties were classics and acceptable (diagonal stripes, dots, and paisleys), which were fashionable but unwise (plaids, [...]

I was at Sam's Club last Saturday with my husband. He always wants to go on Saturdays because it is free sample day–smoked sausage, exotic pizza, gourmet cheeses…good stuff.
This week they were giving out samples of Fruit Roll-ups, which surprised me since I had the impression most people know what Fruit Roll-ups taste [...]

I don’t know what it is about prayer, but it scares me to
death.  It is not the talking part that
brings the anxiety–I’m good at that–it’s listening that terrifies me. I grew
up in a consumerist church culture that said “come to us and we’ll bring the Spirit.”
We grabbed the Spirit by the hand, like the [...]

Just returned from The Community of Adsideo in Portland. If you want a life-transforming experience, stop by and visit them next time you're there. It is a powerful experience being with people whose love for God shows through their actions for others. (By the way, those doors are NOT from Adsideo.)
So this weekend, with [...]

Ted Voigt is a poet and writer who lives in Richland, Washington.  His recent works include a contribution to Generate Magazine and a collection of poetry titled "Pages Called Holy."  He blogs at jtvink.com, and he wrote the following as a part of our "Changed Minds" project.
————————-
I used to think it was possible to [...]

2010 is almost here. Christmas music is being played on the radio and holiday decor has flooded the front aisles of Walmart.
The fast approaching holiday season has made us start thinking of projects we want to tackle in 2010. 
One project we have wanted to do from Day 1 is a community-written
book. We have asked your [...]

We are putting the finishing touches on our new book, The Mosaic Experiment: Bringing Old Testament Practices Out of Retirement, and want your opinion.
The Mosaic Experiment is a look at practices and rituals from the Pentateuch that can still be applied in present day. And the similar title to a familiar book, The Kingdom Experiment, [...]

Just admit it. Christian conferences can get weird, with a capital W. Stadiums packed out with young, single evangelicals who are all convinced that God told them they would meet their spouse this weekend. Doctrine debates on every corner, in every restroom line. And vendors selling logo-look alike shirts that say things like OurApostle [...]

Last night I had enough. I had delayed my “instant” gratification long enough. I logged into my Amazon account and purchased the album I had for so long waited for (so long=roughly 4 weeks).
**It should be noted that I experience heartbreak every time I download an album (yes, I listen to albums, not tracks) [...]

180 is now being designed and typeset. We're not quite ready to show you the cover yet, but it's really cool! As we continue to move forward on the upcoming book, we'd like to introduce you to Kenton Lee, another friend of The House.
——————-
Growing up, my pastor would always say “Listen for the voice [...]

I took my coffee cup home. The one with the "E" on it in fancy cursive.
E is for Elizabeth. And Editor.
E is also for Economy. A bad one. The type of economy that has really high unemployment rates. The type of economy you shouldn't quit your job in. (Unless you're a complete ninny, or [...]

As we continue to move forward on the upcoming book 180: Stories of People Who Changed Their Lives By Changing Their Minds, we'd like to introduce you to Danielle Broadbooks, another friend of The House.
————
So the other day I was writing a message on living in Christ-like community. And in the background I was [...]

So in the past month or so a ton of you have submitted essays for our upcoming book about people changing their minds (we finally titled it by the way. We're calling it 180: Stories Of People Who Changed Their Lives by Changing Their Minds.). And your essays rock!
We'll be notifying everyone who submitted [...]

Hinckley Springs is a terrible name for a water company because everyone associates it with that Erin Brockovich movie–you know, the one where the town of Hinkley has all these really whack water problems that cause cancer and stuff. 

Hinckley Springs, company name fail. You don't have to be Julia Roberts to get that.

Anyway, once a [...]

About a month ago we told you about thekingdomexperiment.com– a community-driven online extension of all those little scribbles we insisted you write down in the book. Since then, different groups unpacking The Kingdom Experiment have stopped by to share there experiences. These stories are real, powerful, and a great snapshot of kingdom living in [...]

Once every month my small/community group has made the commitment to serve our community in some sort of service project. It could be anything from supplying meals to the hungry to building a handicap ramp.
This month (tomorrow) our project is entitled a "service of presence." Initially I was thrown off by this idea. I [...]

Mike Schutz (Diversity and Ministry) from The House Studio on Vimeo.
Last but not least…Should a church reflect the diversity of its neighborhood, or should it be guided by a particular culture to help it be free to worship in a way that is most comfortable? Mike Shutz discusses this question with practitioners who continually face [...]

Confession time. You ready? Classify this post as a rant. I don't know what else to call it.
I've been kind of steamed today. See, The House is working on some plans to spread the word about us, about The Kingdom Experiment, and about our upcoming products. So we've been contacting bloggers seeing if anyone [...]

Jim Wicks (Relationship Between Church and Culture) from The House Studio on Vimeo.
Jim Wicks talks with pastors and other leaders about the Christian/popular culture divide. Both entities have the power to shape people’s lives; should they shape each other, and if so, how?
(Apologies for the sound quality, we’re still amateurs when it comes to filming.)