Hey gang,

Gotta tap ya’ll for a quick favor:

Justice for Children International (JFCI), the organization Dominick and I are going to Thailand with, is about a hair’s breadth away from winning a pretty significant award from the folks at Myspace, who are emphasizing social justice right now.

The award would mean a fat check for JFCI (word) and prominent placement on the Myspace homepage, which millions and millions of people see.

To win, JFCI needs votes.

Click here and Do the Right Thing.

And hurry! The contest ends Friday (Yeah, I know. I just heard about it. You can vote again each day though).

ps- TNCC Facebook now has 37 members!! Nice.

Nice going, everyone!  Well done.  The True North Community Church Facebook group now has 27 members!

What’s even cooler is that there’s a few people on there I don’t know.

Far be it from me to tell anyone else how to run their Facebook site, but the whole point of the TNCC group was that we might learn to recognize a few people and learn their names.  So those of you with those pictures of you standing a mile away, or amongst a crowd of six other people – Do the Right Thing and get with the program!

So….  I’m sure most of you know that this Saturday is our 2nd Annual Anniversary Bar-b-Cue over at Country Fair.  You’ve heard us announcing this pretty much non-stop at church lately, but that’s only ’cause you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life if you miss it. Ok, maybe not your whole life but most of it. Make sure you’re there, good readers. There will be much chow.

And now, onto a gripe.  I haven’t used this forum to gripe for a long time, and it’s high time we had a good old fashioned rant.

I am a Yankee fan.
The Yankees are my favorite baseball team.  Of all the teams that play
baseball, I like the Yankees the best.  That’s why I was SO excited
last spring when we upgraded our DirecTV service to high-def.  Watching
baseball in high def is like being there, only better – ’cause you can
put the game on pause if you have to go potty.

Seriously, it’s just the best thing ever. You can actually see the blades of grass waft when Joba Chamberlain throws that 101mph fastball.  Yeah.  That’s right.  They’ve clocked this kid throwing strikes at 101!!  That’s just illegal.

So anyway, here we are in mid-september with the pennant race heating up when the good people (read: useless chump losers) at DirecTV decide to replace the YES (Yankees Sports & Entertainment) Network’s Hi-Def channel with a 24 hour non-stop commercial for their new NBA Hi-Def package.  Now there’s nothing wrong with the NBA.  I’ll be on here griping about the Knicks in a couple months.  But all things in due time.  Right now it’s baseball season, and I’d like to know what happened to my Hi-Def Yankee games.

So, I called DirecTV to respectfully request an explanation (read: while and complain). Is one forthcoming?  Apparently not.  The rep I spoke to just told me that the channel would not be activated ’til October. End of the season.  I am certain that the evil geniuses at DirecTV have plans to re-activate the channel right after the last day of the World Series.

But fear not. This is not over. Far from it.  The the score for now, however:
Useless Chump Losers:          1
Baseball Loving Pastors:       0

Now I gotta go reprogram the TiVo thingy to tape the regular-def version.

To be continued….

ps -  Yes. I know I’m spoiled. Now me get busy feeding me some grapes.

pps -  My sermon for this Sunday is about how most of us watch too much tv and need to re-think our entertainment options.  Interesting, no?

Hey Friends,

Hope all is well in all of your respective atmospheres.

One of the problems I’ve heard pretty consistantly at True North is that people don’t seem to know each other as well as they’d like. Introductions are made, but it’s easy to forget names. This usually leads to that awkward moment when you see the person next week and go “Hey…. buddy….”

Most churches combat this problem with something called a Photo Directory. A company comes in and takes pictures of everybody, then publishes a small book. They make their money by selling back photos of the people and their families and usually, everybody wins. The only problem is, these things just look and feel cheesy.

Could we do our own? Yeah. Could we make it look awesome? Oh yeah. Do we have the incredible amount of time and money available to make this happen? Ummmm…. no. Actually, no.

So, I propose a solution. Most of you have heard of Facebook, yeah? I started a True North group on facebook. Yeah. That’s right. I’m the man.

It works cause people have to use their real names, not their cheesy made up myspace screen names. I am now resisting the urge to rant about how lame most screen names are. I am resisting. This is a remarkable display of self control. I hope you’re impressed.

So anyway, I’m thinking that if a whole buttload of people would take 2 seconds and make a facebook page, you can join the group HERE and then it’ll be easier for people at church to recognize each other.

So go ‘head goobers. Let’s take it for a spin and see if it works. The over-50 crowd may have trouble with it, but maybe we can figure something out to help them.

ideas? thoughts? Holla back peoples. This blog has been a barren wasteland for comments lately.

Do the right thing.

Peace,

Bert

Hello again, gentle readers. And perhaps not so gentle.

This week, some random stuff which may not be so random. I’m in a paradoxical mood this week. Can you tell? Or maybe not……. Ha! I kill me. I’m a funny guy.

So there’s this new TV show on TNT called Saving Grace. (Link is over in the TiVo Goodness typlist on the left if you’re interested.)

The truth is, I don’t really watch a lot of tv these days. But over my vacation I did tune in to several Yankee games and saw a lot of ads for this show. I’ve seen three episodes so far, and I’m intrigued. Grace, played by the great Holly Hunter, is a cop who is foul mouthed, promiscuous and often drunk. She receives visits by an angel who attempts to guide her a bit and help her figure some things out. Even writing that, it sounds cheesy. But it’s not. It’s actually a really good show. Fair warning though – if you’re tuning in, be ready for some bad language etc.

I guess the show has captured my attention because I love seeing how the TV and movie industries portray spiritual things. Maybe you’ll dig it. Or perhaps not.

I’m also happy to report that the Giants have once again taken to the field! I can’t even beleive it’s almost football season, but these chilly temperatures are making it more and more believable. The Giants look good so far. It’ll be a lean year without Tiki Barber, but they took care of the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday night to even out their pre-season record at 1-1.

In local news, the worship teams at True North are wrapping up a CD project that is absolutely going to melt people’s faces off. I mean it. No more faces for you. We will be a church will no faces because all the faces will be melted off my this record. It’s that good. We should wrap it all up in September. Details to follow.

And finally, on a sad note, we bid a fond farewell to Pizzeria Uno’s of Smithtown. Many a good meal and many a laugh was shared there, but methinks they could not compete with the juggernaut that is the Cheesecake Factory. Which means I’ll have to get my rattlesnake pasta some other way. Suggestions are welcome. Or maybe not so welcome….

OK team, that’s about it for this week. Hope you’ve all been enjoying Pastor Mike and Dominick’s preaching as much as I have. And for my part, I’m charging my batteries to hit the ground running next Sunday with a new message series called Home Improvement.

Peace, out.

Bert