How great would this clip be to open up a message? Wow.

JG

Today all of the staff 35 years of age and younger got to meet with Pastor Rick for a couple of hours. It was particularly good for us young folk to connect with him … there’s a lot of great ideas in the group of young guns and he challenged us to step up and take the leadership into the next generation of reaching our community at Saddleback Church.

Best learning: he said when he was 25 no one believed in him. No one would listen to him. He had great ideas, the ideas that would launch and grow Saddleback, but essentially no one cared, simply because he was 25. And he doesn’t want to make that same mistake, so he’s starting a regular venue with the “reformation generation” as he liked to call us, open channels of communication and has directed the decision makers to clear the red tape that builds up over time.

Lots of promise!

JG

NBC put on an amazing show this week, the game lasted just under 3 hours – a technically sound game – Broncos vs. Raiders – with perfect commentary, amazing camera angles and awesome visual effects. Really near-perfect execution.

ESPN on the other hand, muddied through below average commentary (gushing over the Cardinals, flipping opinions, and … the master of stating the obvious Joe Theisman). But they sure had the better game.

The setup was perfect – I love the Bears, I love Leinhart and love Monday night so I can chat with my dad for the entire 4th quarter as I catch up to live on Tivo. I can stomach poor play-by-play and analysis, shameless celebrity cameos and less than stellar camera work (did he fumble? was his knee down? was the punt inside the 5 yard line?). But who could predict that stunning game. The Bears never scored and offensive touchdown, had 6 turnovers, and won by a point in the final 3 minutes. Simply amazing.

Week 6 presentation: NBC
Week 6 game: ESPN

Final vote: tie

JG

Just realized that tonight this little blog crosses a milestone – 700 posts. Here’s some of the highlights from the past 100, and links to previous milestones below the signature, too.

• How I manage email
• Reeled In: Volume 3
• Why Jessica Alba left her youth group
• Bet on the airplane
• I ditch friends for steak
• The Flat Fields Project
• Greatest party invitation ever
• Weird Al’s White and Nerdy
• My Xbox even has a blog
• Google will text you back
• “In-betweener” volunteers

JG

Archive
600
500
400
300

You’ve heard me champion Google Ads before to make a little mad money on your blog – I’ve made $4 today already and am tracking for a record month! Hahahah … if you haven’t signed up yet, click the banner in the right column and get started ———–>.

But have you considered becoming a Simply Youth Ministry affiliate, too? If you have a youth ministry website, blog or webpage where some visitors might be youth workers, you can make some cash on the side, too.

Here’s how it works:

1) Sign up here.
2) Drop some of the provided code into your template and/or posts.
3) Visitors click through the ads to SYM and make purchases.
4) You get 10% of the sale!
5) Even if they don’t purchase that day, if they clicked through your site it will track it for 45 days and you still get the credit.

And I know it works, SYM pays literally billions of dollars a week out to affiliates (that’s a slight exaggeration, fine). Are you one of them?

JG

OK, so in the last few years I’ve taken a fair bit of criticism for how I manage email. Here’s how I do it, and I know it might go across the grain but it really works for me. Here goes:

I use an elaborate system of follow-up flags and inboxes.

Mail that comes to my @purposedriven.com stays in my main inbox. Mail that comes into my @simplyyouthministry.com inbox gets trasferred to a Inbox-SYM folder. Mail that comes to my @saddleback.net email gets routed to the Inbox-SVCC folder. Any Star Wars email to jg@theforce.net goes to, you guessed it, Inbox-Star Wars. So 4 inboxes.

And then I don’t clean out any of the inboxes, right now the count is 1,541 items. In my followup folder, I’ve got 63 items I’m currently tracking on. That’s a bit high, usually it hovers around 10-15, but with the travel to YS last week and The Gathering the week before I’m a bit behind. And when we have the baby, it’ll get even worse.

Anyhow, here’s the color breakdown for the inbox flags – I’m using then to tell priority and/or category of action needed.

Red Flag – Items that need immediate action, regardless of category. They need attention by the end of the week, or preferably the end of the day.

Blue Flag – These are items that need attention. They are on the to do list, they have pertinent information that I need, they require something from me at come point. The are on the list, but not a priority.

Yellow Flag – These are items specific to the PDYM Community. The are probably resources that need to be uploaded and put into the Resource Sharing section.

Green Flag – These are personal emails – not related to work or Star Wars, just people I know I want to reply to an email they sent at some point.

So nothing ever gets deleted.

Every email I’ve received or sent is probably on my computer. The last 30 days are online on the Exchange server, the rest are autoarchived on my hard drive and instantly searchable offline. Right now that’s 4.7GB, which makes me smile.

OK, that’s the chaos that is my inbox. How do you do yours?

JG

Did you hear about the guy who got tackled by his hair yesterday? Wild. I’m still looking for the video of it … you can see a picture of it if you click the image above. Here’s a clip from the local Pittsburgh paper:

With Pittsburgh in control in the third quarter, Johnson did deliver one highlight play. He chased down Troy Polamalu, who’d intercepted a Damon Huard pass and was steaming toward the end zone. Johnson dragged Polamalu down by his long, wavy hair.

Three years ago, Johnson had hoped to be drafted by Pittsburgh. But the Steelers traded up and picked Polamalu instead.

A flag flew, but coach Herm Edwards said it was because of the skirmish that ensued afterward, not the hair-pulling. Long hair that grows beyond the helmet is considered part of the uniform.

“I made the tackle, tried to get up, and my hand’s full of his hair,” Johnson said. “It’s real cute that (Steelers cornerback) Ike Taylor came over trying to defend his boy when it wasn’t what was going on.

“If I got penalized, I hope it was for me hitting Ike Taylor in the face twice and not for pulling Troy’s hair. Because Troy’s a good player, and he’s a good guy off the field. That’s not something I’m doing.”

After the game, Polamalu said he didn’t have a problem with the tackle.

JG

OK … just getting back from a late show with Tony of Jet Li’s Fearless. This is going to be a short review – basically, when there is fighting, the film is great. When there isn’t fighting, the film bombs. Which means the final product is basically split 50/50, half really innovative and amazing classic Wushu martial arts battles and the other half an odd Chinese-subtitled mess that grips from time to time but ultimately stumbles in the end.

Overall: C

JG