Random

• It's really being tropical outside right now -- lightening, thunder, buckets of rain. We never get any dry Seattle drizzle. Everything happens here in the extreme.

• Churches offering free gas! Sorry, it seems gimmicky to me. As Dave Olson implies in the article, genuine outreach really needs to be relational. Yes, if my neighbor needs some gas I might sneak over and put some in her tank. But if we're giving away vouchers to get people to worship with us we've missed the point -- although giving gas away is a lot easier than making friends. ~ link

• iGoogle Seige Day 3 -- My iGoogle page is still under the control of the mad scientists at Google Labs. I'm an involuntary and annoyed participant in the "left navigation" experiment. Meanwhile, I have been enjoying the improvements at the My.Yahoo.com page.

• David Fitch is concerned that we're making the gospel too big -- a tempering word directed toward some of the gracelessness in the emerging church movement -- and among others who are pushing an over-realized idea of the kingdom of God. ~ link

• Quotable:

UnLearning churches focus more on connecting people to meaning than to activity. Fifteen years ago, we would have emphasized getting people to show up for church programs and listen-and-learn meetings. We would have sponsored a seminar and gauged its success by how many attended. Now we measure success by asking “How are people finding life change and purpose through the experience?” People are not looking for church meetings so much as for life meaning. We want to know if their church experience makes a difference in their relationships, parenting, Christian witness, and stewardship. ~ Michael Slaughter

• The World Bank, revising its estimates upward, is warning that world poverty is a much greater problem than originally thought. For example, the number of Africans living in extreme poverty has nearly doubled since 1981. However, things are looking better in China and India. ~ link

• Gas on Guam has dropped 10¢ to $4.349 gallon.