NEW BLOG! (wordpress)

Hi Ladies and Gentlemen - I switched my blog over to wordpress. My new address is http://ryanedwinpaulson.wordpress.com/ - update your links! Sorry about the change, but wordpress offered a little bit more versatility.

Yahtzee!

60th Anniversary

Yesterday I had the awesome opportunity to celebrate my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary. What an accomplishment! It was so fun to be together as a family and to see the impact that their marriage has had. What a great legacy. it's really fun to see the way that God's grace has been evident in my family for so many generations. I'm grateful! 60 years, that's a long time. Can't wait to celebrate 60 with Kelly!

Fun day

Today, for the first time, we went swimming with Ethan! Here are a few pics. He was so funny in the water. He loved it.

Become a Fan

My message for this week in our series "The Gospel According to Facebook" is called "Become a Fan." I am so stoked to give this message. The whole fan thing has been one of my favorite developments in facebook over the last few months. The things that people come up with to be fans of is absolutely hilarious! I was doing some research for my message this weekend looking at some of the crazy things people are fans of. One that caught my eye was "Laughing when people fall." I thought to myself, "that's about the dumbest things I've ever heard." Not only that, but it's simply not nice to laugh at people when they fall. Anyway, I went to the site to read what people were posting (which I'd never done before, but people write some really funny/ridiculous things), and I found this video posted. I was in my office crying I was laughing so hard! Evidentially I am a fan of "Laughing when people fall" and I didn't even know it! Watch this... please.

Friend Request

I am continuing to teach this week in our new series called "The Gospel According to Facebook." This week my message is called "Friend Request." I have been studying friendship in the Bible and feel like the Lord is giving me a good message to deliver, but I can't get the stupid Michael W. Smith song "Friends" out of my head. It's absolutely killing me. So many good/disturbing/emotional/cheesy memories attached to this song. I might have to share a few on Sunday night.

Push play... I dare you!

Facebook Generation

I a starting a new series this weekend called "The Gospel According to Facebook." I'm so excited to teach on this. I am going to use the phenomenon of facebook as a metaphor for the Christian life. As I have been thinking about facebook and why it is so popular it seems to me that its popularity is driven by the way that it touches so many of the desires and cravings that we hold in common as human beings. For examples; connection with other people, causes to believe in, groups to join, etc...

Anyway, as I was studying, I ran across an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about the "facebook geneeration" and the way that they are changing the way that business is conducted. Here are the 12 main things that they see:

1. All ideas compete on an equal footing.
2. Contribution counts for more than credentials.
3. Hierarchies are natural, not prescribed.
4. Leaders serve rather than preside.
5. Tasks are chosen, not assigned.
6. Groups are self-defining and -organizing.
7. Resources get attracted, not allocated.
8. Power comes from sharing information, not hoarding it.
9. Opinions compound and decisions are peer-reviewed.
10. Users can veto most policy decisions.
11. Intrinsic rewards matter most.
12. Hackers are heroes.

It seems to me that the church might do well to take notice of some of these realizations that the business world is coming to. I think that there are a lot of them that are applicable to the way that churches operate. Thought?

Liberty?

I read today that Liberty University will no longer recognize the Democratic Club on their campus. Now, I am not a democrat (nor would I consider myself a republican), but I think this is a bad move on a few different levels to kick them out. And, I must point out that the name Liberty seems a bit ironic at this point! The University said that they will no longer recognize them because "the national party's platform goes against the conservative Christian school's moral principles." If you want to read the article, click here and read what The Washington Post reported.

To make the statement that "the national party's platform goes against the conservative Christian school's moral principles" are you implying that the Republican Party is wholly in line with your values? I certainly hope not. The marrying of Christianity with one political party has weakened Christianity for long enough. Hopefully we can move beyond blind support one party and think about ALL issues through Biblical lens.

Those are just a few of my thoughts, I'd love to know what you think about the story.