VHS: Say It Ain’t So

VHS, long the format of choice for home entertainment, is now all but forgotten, and most retailers are not stocking VHS tapes in the lucrative Christmas selling season. The format had been expected to survive until January, but high-def formats and next-generation videogame consoles hastened its final decline. I spent much of my hard-earned money [...]

Tribune: Real Doping Crisis is Billiards

Wow! Two strong athletic sports, chess and billiards, taking it on the chin in the same day for doping…can you possibly imagine that?

“Let The Drug Free Chess Games Begin”

From humble beginnings in 1951, the Asian Games have blossomed to become the second largest sporting event in the world, only superseded by the Olympic Summer Games themselves. The 15th Asian Games, held in Doha, Qatar, will host more than 10,500 athletes from 45 countries and regions. My favorite part? The drug-free environment mandated in [...]

Joseph: The High Cost of Righteousness

From LeadershipJournal.net: As the film “The Nativity Story” (see the trailer) arrives this Friday to theaters to great fanfare, John Ortberg has a great article this week looking at Joseph, and the high cost of righteousness in Joseph’s life. Typically Joseph is a bit player in the Christmas story, and is relegated to a supporting [...]

Volunteering Linked to Increased Giving

Philanthropy Today Reports: “Charitable donations by the wealthiest individuals in the U.S. have grown over the past five years, led by entrepreneurs and rich volunteers, a new study says. Almost two in three wealthy Americans say they increased their giving over the last five year, says the Bank of America survey, which targeted people with [...]

Get 20 Million Minutes by Email or RSS!

Are you flying around all week at work and would rather have any new posts from 20 Million Minutes sent directly to you by email or RSS? After a number of requests, we have now added both of those options to the 20 Million Minutes blog! All of our feeds have been migrated to Feedburner, [...]

The Book I Wish I Wrote: “Go Big or Go Home!”

Many of the folks I work with at Park kid me about my life motto — “Go Big or Go Home”, which I have claimed as my own for more than twenty years (and I see Chevy has ripped off from me last year). However, I just came across a book that summarizes my motto [...]

The Birth of “On Faith”

The WashingtonPost.com has recently debuted a new internet column called “On Faith”, which hopes to provide “a new global conversation about what is perhaps the most pervasive and least understood force in human affairs: religious faith. It is a subject about which many people have strong opinions, about which many people care passionately-but about which [...]

Happy Thanksgiving!

As I sit around with friends and family, I extend my heartfelt wishes for a wonderful day for all of you with friends and family! Today, as my father-in-law is making the turkey, I am reminded of the power of smell. I know all the Thanksgiving smells…..the turkey roasting in the over, the potatoes being [...]

You’re All Invited

Each month, we review our website functionality and our website statistics, looking to see if we believe our site is being used as much as it can be, and if it is meeting the needs of our elders, staff, leaders and congregation. So far, so good this year as we add, tweak and redo different [...]

New Zealand Rocks!

My wife and I had the opportunity to take a year out of the rat race in 1996-1997 and our favorite place was New Zealand. Tonight we visited a fellow New Zealand traveller who is a sculptor here in Chicago, Jack Beckstrom, and it brought back memories of a wonderful country and an awesome four [...]

We Love You Bo!

When I was in college, I was privileged to be an equipment manager for the University of Michigan football team working with Jon Falk and coached by Glenn E. Bo Schembechler. I got to be a part of Bo’s team that one the 1981 Rose Bowl — Bo’s first Rose Bowl win (see picture above).

Fellowship One Goes Live at Park!

As Park has grown, we have grown in our organizational ways like any small organization. We cobble together individual solutions by ministry and try to work together on church-wide information needs. About four years ago, we began a process with a developer in our body to build an open-source Church Management System (CMS) in conjunction [...]

Missional Worship – Nov 27

At Park Community Church, we are committed to the Arts in the city.  We draw a wide range of folks in our body, from world-class painters to Lyric Opera musicians.  Our Worship team is committed to taking Jesus to the streets and one way we do this is through playing gigs at open mic nights. [...]

Survey Says….

As the Executive Pastor of the growing, 1,200-attender Park Community Church on the northside of the city, I am always interested in learning more about our congregation. Every other fall, we take an extensive survey of our congregation that gives us a snapshot of who attends, their demographics, and helpful information about their spiritual journey [...]

Tour de Farce?

ONLY IN FRANCE (AP) – The French anti-doping lab that tested American cyclist Floyd Landis’ urine samples told a newspaper it had made an “administrative error” when reporting its findings on his backup “B” sample, the French newspaper Le Monde reported Wednesday. The newspaper cited unnamed sources as saying the Chatenay-Malabry laboratory gave the wrong [...]

YouTube: Photoshopped Models

As a father with a seven year old daughter, I watched with fascination the YouTube video below that shows how a billboard image is actually done, starting with the original model. The 1 minute video gives you a “behind-the-scenes” glimpse of how a model is made up, with face makeup and blown-dry hair, then how [...]

50 Years!

Today I am off to Dallas to celebrate my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary. Wow! 50 years together! What a model for us four kids and a testament to perseverance and love. What is the key to a long lasting marriage? Here are my thoughts…I will post my parents thoughts after the weekend. My sense is [...]

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