just thoughts

janelle and i went to bridgewater conference on easter sunday afternoon. it was nice to get out. some of the ministry made me think though.

i don't know why it is that just about every time we hear ministry about reverence, our behaviour in meeting is pretty much the main topic. i mean, don't get up to use the toilet, don't chew gum, don't fall asleep...

reverence is something that we do every single day. if we haven't got it monday to saturday, we aren't going to have it on sunday--even if we manage to sit through meeting without going to the toilet or without chewing gum and falling asleep.

the thing about ministry meetings or pretty much any conference meeting is that it's a facility for learning. when people get up on the platform it's to teach the Bible. the main problem with that is that only about a third of the people actually learn very well in a lecture style setting like most ministry meetings and conferences are. so the other two thirds of the people have to either work very hard to understand and to learn from and retain what the preacher is conveying or they get bored and uninterested. and regretably, sometimes the preaching is pretty shoddy. not that i want to knock anyone's preaching because i know it's a tough job, but realistically, it can be and sometimes is ineffective.

so what happens a lot in gospel hall culture is that the audience gets blamed for being uninterested, bored, and incapable of learning when it is quite possible that our whole system of teaching is fundamentally skewed to cater to only a minority of the people.

i'm a visual-kinetic learner, i learn from diagrams and charts and maps and things like that. it takes a lot of effort for me to follow a ministry meeting. especially if i've been up late the night before at a sing and full of delicious, hot food and full of exciting and fun people (like usually happens at conferences).

new at 3dhippo.com

so, i've started adding a "video of the week" feature to my website. unfortunately, i've been informed, many of you haven't been able to view the videos because of missing codecs. i don't know which codecs are missing, otherwise i would make them available for download, but i do have an alternative solution!

i suspect that you may have the same problem when attempting to view some of my older drawings. both problems can be solved by my alternative solution.

My alternative solution
get Ubuntu. it's a free, easy and safe linux-based operating system! go to www.ubuntu.com for more information on how to download and install Ubuntu. After this, you should be able to view my videos without a problem.

My Favourite Customer

I've never had this happen to me before ...

Yesterday I was working cash when this woman came in. Pretty much the first thing I noticed was that her boob was hanging out. It was kind of nerve racking but fortunately her order was really quick and she left. I felt really embarrassed but it was funny afterwards.

Anyways, I have a favourite customer. His name is Jason Sampson and he comes in at least once or twice a week. The first time I noticed him, he was calling in to complain that the pizzas he had ordered were old and getting really cold so we ended up giving him some free pizzas. (Someone wasn't rotating the pizzas properly in the box or something.) What makes him stand out to me, though, is that a normal customer, after getting an order like this, would ask for fresh pizzas (not ones from the hotbox) every time afterwards, but he never does. He just comes in, makes his order and takes what he can get and he never complains unless there's really a problem. I mean, I like it that if there is a problem with the pizza he will let us know and get us to get him free pizzas but that he won't just try and get free pizzas from us because he can (Little Caesar's has a product satisfaction guarantee) and he doesn't complain if he has to wait or anything.