Random

• New church in action -- There is a great story on the Covenant website about Mosaic Covenant Church in Oregon -- which led me to their website which does a great job of communicating their holistic vision.

• Kairos Los Angeles has a new website. Kairos is a "network of neighborhood churches seeking the shalom of the city." ~ link

• I have two pineapple plants growing in pots at PIBC and one is starting to set with fruit in the center -- my first pineapple! I started the plants from the top of store bought fruit and moved them to campus once the plants got too big for our lanai. The only thing I really dislike about condo living is the lack of garden space.

• Improve your marriage by talking less ~ link

• Dave Ramsey's alternative to the panic-driven half-baked bailout --

Change the market accounting rules. Do away with the capital gains tax, which will cause money to flood into the market instantaneously in 24 hours. Last, if we do need to do some insurance of some of these bonds, we can insure them rather than just buying them all. Only 7 percent of them are in foreclosure, while 93 percent of them are paying, so why are we buying them all -- so we can make Paulson king? ~ link

• LA Times:

Setting the stage for a collision of religion and politics, Christian ministers from California and 21 other states will use their pulpits Sunday to deliver political sermons or endorse presidential candidates -- defying a federal ban on campaigning by nonprofit groups.

The pastors' advocacy could violate the Internal Revenue Service's rules against political speech with the purpose of triggering IRS investigations. ~ link

Dumb. Why would you waste pulpit time endorsing a politician when you could spend the time endorsing Christ Jesus? If a pastor feels led to directly endorse a candidate there are plenty of ways that can be done without side-railing the gospel message -- without putting the political process on center-stage.

• Small blogs are beautiful ~ link