Boil Peanuts!

What a busy week it has been. Most of my week was dealing with computers being down, changing things around, changing phones and fixing my head lights in my Dodge. One of the headlights on the new car went out this week and I found out today it is going to cost me a arm and leg to have the dealer install it. Sadly I am unable to as it's some light you can't buy. Whats with these new cars now-a-days. Sounds like to me they are making it that way so you have to take it in and pay for the labor that only took 5 mins to do but say it take 3 hours to do. It's all crazy! Oh well things will work out I am so thankful I am able to have today and Saturday off... It's a rare weekend to be able to have off and get to enjoy my time home and with family. So to kick off my 3 day weekend I am making me some of my deep southern boiled peanuts. It's been forever from the last time I got to make them and there was a fresh crop of peanuts that came in today so I had to jump to it and grab about 5 pounds. I can't wait to eat them after many hours of waiting. May people always ask me what I do to make them so good and really nothing more then any other person from the south would do. I only use water and salt to my liking however the trick is I boil mine much longer then most with at least 10 plus hours. May people are shocked it takes me that long however in the end it's what keeps people coming back for more! :) When I am 70 years old I hope I am still around making my boiled peanuts like those guys do on the side of the road you some times see here in the south. Yeah I know it's not this big shocking goal to have in life however someone has to do it and why not enjoy what you like to do besides maybe then I will be a millenaire and be able to have a gold boiling pot. HAHA...Happy Friday and may the Lord be your light in all you do.

In His Grip,
-Pastor J

Back to the Future... Really?!?!

I am a big fan of Back to the future. While surfing Facebook today at lunch I came across this photo and I started to put my mind at work... From what I remember this was not the date I remember from the movie. So I did some search and sure thing I found the following: 

"If somebody tells you it's the day that Marty McFly and Doc Brown time traveled to in "Back to the Future Part II," better check the tape. Or, here in the future, the DVD.

Some Internet users were fooled Wednesday by an image that claimed to show June 27, 2012, as the futuristic date the characters played by Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd were whisked to in their souped-up, flux capacitor-powered Delorean time machine. Not so.

In Robert Zemeckis' 1989 sequel, the characters are transported 30 years into the future, from Oct. 26, 1985 to Oct. 21, 2015. Sorry, "BTTF" fans, but the magic date is still more than three years away.

An apparently doctored image with the "Oct. 21, 2015" changed to "June 27, 2012" raced across Facebook, Twitter and other sites Wednesday, fooling some users."

~Know when to Pull the Plug~

In 2008, Pixar announced that they were going to be making a movie called “Newt” about the last two blue-toed newts on the planet and their adventure to save the species. The film was referenced at a couple of Pixar events since that initial announcement too. Hard-core Pixar fans were really looking forward to something original coming from Pixar with most of other movies in process at the studios being sequels. (Toy Story 3, Cars 2, and Monsters, Inc. 2 were slated around Newt.) Then, suddenly, in May of this year word leaked out that the entire film had been canceled. No explanation was given but the cancellation was confirmed and the film became the movie that never was. Surprisingly, Pixar put a bunch of pictures of the artwork from the film on their Facebook page. The description on the photo album says “As most of you already know, ‘Newt’ is no longer in development at Pixar. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t share some of the Pixar artists’ amazing artwork with our Facebook fans!” This is a very interesting move. I can’t recall a time when a studio has released something like this on a canceled project, especially so close to the cancellation date. As pastors, I think there’s a lot we can learn from this whole thing. 

1. Not Every Project Makes It. You know it and I know it but it’s good to hear that even a company as successful and creative as Pixar has to scrub a project every now and then. The truth is that every swing at the bat can’t be a home run and Pixar did the right thing to kill this one project to protect their stellar record if they thought it wasn’t up to par. When you consider that this film had been in production was on the official schedule and had been announced in big ways AND the fact that they had to move other films up in production to cover the hole this film was going to leave, it’s easy to understand that this wasn’t an easy decision for them. However, they did the right thing even though it was a hard thing to do. Pastors, sometimes, you have just got to rip the band-aid off, kill the project and move on. Refuse to let one project (no matter how much you’ve invested in it or love it) take the whole ship down. 
2. Celebrate the Artists. The fact that the movie needed to be canceled didn’t mean that people didn’t work hard on it. I’m sure that folks were pouring themselves into this like any other Pixar movie and the fact that Pixar decided to post some of the powerful artwork on their Facebook page acknowledges as much. Pastors, just because you have to kill something doesn’t mean that you can’t spend some effort praising the hard work that people put into it. 
3. Reward the Fans. Pixar could have swept this thing under the rug and never acknowledged it again but instead they effectively just said “hey, the film didn’t make it” and they rewarded the fans with a little bit of what did work from the project. Again, the temptation is to distance ourselves from things to don’t work but I bet someone in your church or ministry might find some value in knowing what you’re trying to do even if it doesn’t pan out. I think the Pixar fans now feel closer to Pixar and have a bit more respect for them because they’ve been so open about this whole thing. Sure, some people are disappointed but the greater lesson is that Pixar cares for and shares things with their hard-core fans. To that end, this was a big win for Pixar and the fans. 
Pastors, perhaps we should be more open with our committed core folks about what is and isn’t working and allow them to see that we are willing to sacrifice certain projects and programs for the greater good and our most important mission.


In His Grip,
-Pastor J