Author: Kevin

Dallas fans need to show Dirk more love

KevinLeave a comment

Dirk Nowitzki is the best player the Mavericks have had since the 1980s, if not the best player they’ve ever had. But whenever his team struggles, which seems to happen far too often, Mavs fans seem to quickly turn on him and criticize every tiny flaw in his game.

This happened on Saturday, when he missed two jump shots and a free throw in the fourth quarter in a one-point loss to the Nuggets. I heard people complain on the radio about his shot selection. However, if you take a look at his career you’ll see that he makes those shots just as often, if not more often. His jump shot is one the key tools of his game.

In case you doubt it, take a look at what he did on Monday night. The same shots the he missed on Saturday he made on Monday. He only missed one free throw in the game (16-17), and that was in the first quarter. He made two clutch free throws with eight seconds left in the game, which turned out to be two crucial points because five seconds later Carmelo Anthony hit an eerily familiar three-point shot.

The bottom line is this. Dirk is a superstar. Anyone who doubts that just needs to watch the highlights below (or click here) from Monday’s game. The team had their backs against the wall and Dirk rose to the occasion. That’s what MVPs do.

UPDATE: I just noticed that after Monday’s 40+ point performance he’s tied for fourth among active players in most career 40-point playoff games.

Church History – Week 7

KevinLeave a comment
  • 7:11 PM Kevin Rossen – Chris Powell is doing a review of last week’s class. I was out of town, so this is good info for me.
  • 7:13 PM Kevin Rossen – Four teachers of the church: Irenaeus of Lyons – The Pastors (130 AD); Clement of Alexandria – The Intellectual (215 AD); Tertullian – The Lawyer (202 AD); and Origen of Alexandria – The Scholar.
  • 7:15 PM Kevin Rossen – Chris just said “I’m a good Republican who hates trees, so I printed off a bunch of stuff.” Funny stuff.
  • 7:17 PM Kevin Rossen – Rome’s official stance was not to seek out Christians to persecute, but they allowed it to happen if Christians were found.
  • 7:18 PM Kevin Rossen – Anyone who gets power by force knows they gotta do something to keep that power.
  • 7:21 PM Kevin Rossen – In 202 AD, Septimius Severus didn’t really care if people had a particular religion, but he wanted them to also worship the Sol invictus too. Christians and Jews caused problems along with this, since they wouldn’t conform to his wishes.
  • 7:22 PM Kevin Rossen – Severus was the first emperor who was vocally against Christians because they wouldn’t bow to his wishes.
  • 7:25 PM Kevin Rossen – Severus went after the primary teachers of the church to bring them down, but his main goal was to make people afraid to convert to Christianity. He thought that by scaring them away from faith in Christ that Christianity would die within a generation.
  • 7:26 PM Kevin Rossen – Romans invented lawyers and the justice system has never moved swiftly since.
  • 7:30 PM Kevin Rossen – After Severus died in 211 AD the church enjoyed an almost 50 year period of peace.
  • 7:31 PM Kevin Rossen – It’s estimated that 2/3 of the world’s population at 200 AD lived in the Roman Empire.
  • 7:34 PM Kevin Rossen – Decius became emperor in 249 AD at about the time when wheat crops were failing. He thought that the biggest problem Rome had was that they had ignored their heritage that made it strong. Most importantly, they were not devoted to their true gods.
  • 7:35 PM Kevin Rossen – Decius didn’t want to fuel devotion to Christ by killing Christians to make them martyrs. He instead thought that it would be more effective to torture them.
  • 7:37 PM Kevin Rossen – Chris is going to make a recipe tonight that needs 10 blocks of cream cheese. Sounds tasty.
  • 7:41 PM kevin –
  • 7:42 PM Kevin Rossen – When someone is holding a sword to you it makes you start to consider your commitments in a way you never have before.
  • 7:45 PM Kevin Rossen – There was a group of Christians (kind of like high C’s today) that thought that the way that they could get the certificate from Decius to avoid persecution without actually worshiping the Roman gods by bribing someone for one.
  • 7:45 PM Kevin Rossen – There were a group of Christian who did not shrink away from persecution at all. Their attitude was “you took one arm, but I’ve got a another good one. Go ahead and chop it off. I’ll never forsake Christ.”
  • 7:46 PM Kevin Rossen – After Decius dies around the late 250’s the church enjoyed another period of peace for about forty years.
  • 7:47 PM Kevin Rossen – The Christians that stayed true to Christ in the face of persecution were called Confessors. They were easy to identify because of the missing limbs.
  • 7:48 PM Kevin Rossen – After the persecution ends, the church had to pick up the pieces. What should be done with the Christians who “lapsed” in faith?
  • 7:51 PM Kevin Rossen – The leaders had to figure out what to do when people who remained faithful and lost body parts, people who bought certificates from the black market, and those who abandoned the church all showed up to worship together.
  • 7:54 PM Kevin Rossen – Some people thought that those who lost a leg (confessors) deserved to be listened to more than the existing preachers.Some bishops fled to the desert to escape persecution. This created a power struggle and created the threat of a church split.
  • 7:56 PM Kevin Rossen – Bishops pulled rank by saying that Confessors didn’t have any real authority because they were just named but were not a recognized leader in an official capacity of the church.
  • 7:58 PM Kevin Rossen – Cyprian was an interesting dude. en.wikipedia.org
  • 7:59 PM Kevin Rossen – Cyprian called for a synod of the bishops in North Africa to address the issue of the church split.
  • 7:59 PM Kevin Rossen –
  • 8:02 PM Kevin Rossen – Cyprian said that those who bought false certificates but never worshiped the false gods could be readmitted to the church immediately, but those who worshiped false gods would only be readmitted to the church on their deathbeds or if a future persecution led to martyrdom.
  • 8:02 PM Kevin Rossen – There was a huge shift in policy change because the bishops were starting to decide who was in and who was out.
  • 8:03 PM Kevin Rossen – Confessors were thought of as in good standing as long as they submitted to the authority of the bishops.
  • 8:04 PM Kevin Rossen – The bishops probably weren’t really power-hungry. They were just responding to real world issues.
  • 8:06 PM Kevin Rossen – When Rome fell apart, 2/3 of the world still needed to eat. This caused the power of the bishops to rise.
  • 8:07 PM Kevin Rossen – The Muslim expansion in the 7th century caused there to only be two bishops remaining in power.
  • 8:10 PM Kevin Rossen – Questions to consider:
    1) How would your faith stand up if there was a sudden outbreak of persecution?
    2) Do you believe there are different degrees of sin?
    3) Does the church have the authority to decide who is in good standing? What is the role of repentance in restoring someone to the church?
    4) Which is more important in restoring repentant Christians: mercy toward the individual or purity for the congregation?
  • 8:17 PM Kevin Rossen – “We use the sword of the Spirit as a chainsaw on our brothers” – Said to a room full Bible College students.
  • 8:23 PM Kevin Rossen – Closing prayer time. Goodnight.
  • 8:25 PM kevin –

Powered by ScribbleLive

How I prepare a message (Part 1)

KevinLeave a comment

I’m preaching at my church this Sunday, so I thought I’d walk you through the prep work that I do for most messages I give. I don’t always do all of the steps in the exact order I’ll be sharing this week, but this will give you an idea of the steps I take.

The first thing I do when I’m giving a textual message (where I follow a book of the Bible as opposed to a particular topic) is to really dig in deep to the text to understand what the author was originally trying to communicate. I do a couple things during this step. First, I pray a lot and ask God to give me wisdom in understanding what the author is communicating. Second, I read the passage. A lot. Using different versions (ESV, NIV, TNIV, NET, NLT, MSG). I’m trying to make sure that the text reads me before I try to read the text (hope that makes sense). Third, I try to break the passage down into manageable chunks. These chunks then become my major points of the message.

The passage I’m preaching on this week is 1 Corinthians 15:50-58. It’s part of a series we’re doing on living as resurrection people.

You can see the end product of this part of my prep work below. Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

1 Corinthians 15.50-58 Sentence Diagram

NBA Western Conference Playoff Predictions

Kevin1 Comment

I’ve been quiet about the NBA this year, but I went through the remaining schedule of the top 9 west teams (minus Lakers) and here’s what I came up with as what I see the final standings being:

1. LA Lakers (WAY AHEAD)
2. San Antonio 55-37
3. Portland 53-29
4. New Orleans 52-30
5. Dallas 52-30
6. Utah 51-31
7. Denver 50-32
8. Houston 49-33
—
Phoenix 45-37

If this happens it would give Dallas a chance to redeem themselves against the Hornets, but I really wouldn’t want to face Chris Paul in the first round again.

What are your projections?

Two new features on my blog

KevinLeave a comment

Quick update. I’ve turned on two new features on my blog. First, I’ve added a WordPress plugin called Lifestream, which basically creates an activity log of stuff that I’m doing online. If you’re familiar with FriendFeed it’s basically the same thing, except that it’s self-hosted. There are two places it shows up. One is on my sidebar (the right side of my page) and the other is on a dedicated page. Right now the page lists my most recent actions, but I’m planning on trying to figure out how to have archives going back further than that (just in case I need to dig up something older). I disabled this feature. You can follow me on Twitter if you’d like to know what’s going on in my life.

The other thing I added was a contact page, which is a basic “fill this form out and I will be emailed” type thing. It’s another WordPress plugin. I used to have my email address listed on my blog, but I was getting way too much spam, so I took it off. This page should be a better solution for me. You can still comment on my posts, but some people might want to ask a question without it appearing on the web. That makes sense to me.

Take a look at both of them and let me know what you think.

Video Issues With My Blog

Kevin1 Comment

I’ve been perplexed by an issue with my blog. Every time that I’ve embedded a clip from YouTube, Vimeo, ESPN, or another similar site it hasn’t shown up in my RSS feed. If you read my blog by going to my domain in a web browser this is not a big deal because you’ll see the video with no problems (most of the time). If you’re like me, however, and you prefer to read blogs with a service like Google Reader or Bloglines (or if you read my “notes” on Facebook, which is just an RSS feed of my blog in reality) it is a big deal because the clips don’t show up. The videos can show up in RSS feeds, I’ve seen it on other blogs in my Google Reader, they just don’t using the default embed coded that YouTube spits out.

I’m not the only person who has had this problem, though, so it’s not just me and my lack of technical know-how. Bernie Zimmerman wrote about this on his blog:

However, when YouTube videos (or other videos from services like Viddler, Vimeo, etc.) are embedded in this way, they are ignored by Google Reader and simply do not show up in the Google Reader interface.

I found a WordPress (the software that runs my blog) plugin that MIGHT fix this problem called VideoWarrior. Below is my first attempt at posting a YouTube video using it. If it shows up for you in an RSS reader/Facebook let me know and we’ll rejoice together. If not, I’ll keep searching for an answer.

[UPDATE: It didn’t work.]

Here it is: