A Radosevich Project

Dr. [Ben] Carson was raised in extreme poverty by a single mother. As a grade school student, he experienced difficulty academically, eventually falling to the bottom of his class. His mother, who was working two to three jobs, became alarmed. She did not want her sons to drop out of school, believing that education was the only way they would escape a life of poverty. She began to notice that the wealthy families she worked for watched little television. Instead, they spent their time reading books. As a result, she sold her television and insisted her sons read two library books a week, writing a book report on each one. She would then review the reports, make marks on them, and assign two more books. Several years later, to his surprise, Dr. Carson discovered that his mother couldn’t even read. In the interview, Dr. Carson said to me, “Everything changed when I began to read. I started to see myself as a smart person who could learn anything. The whole world opened up to me.

In Defense of Books, Michael Hyatt

• It’s hot here. But not as hot as when I first moved here. Two years ago yesterday, it was 97.
• I finished The Children of Men by PD James last week. It was excellent. Very different from the movie. What I loved-aside from wondering what would happen next-was that she didn’t explain everything. There were shades of other stories and shades of meaning that she left hanging-like a tree branch that you have to jump to catch.
• I’m tired of Facebook. I’m tired of changing privacy rules. I’m tired of trying to figure out what is happening. I’m tired of Zuckerberg owning my information and not letting me control it. I don’t need to keep everything private. I like sharing a lot of things, but this is too much.
• The Wonka candy company is having a Golden Ticket contest. I saw it in the store. The golden ticket is for a trip around the world. Emma and I spent all night opening chocolate bars, singing “I’ve got a golden ticket.”

ROGER BENNETT: America will win the World Cup in my lifetime. I have no doubt of that, even though I’m the co-author who’s English. The country that won the Battle of Saratoga, put the first man on the moon, and persuaded the world to part with five dollars for a cup of coffee will find a way to win. It just has to turn its mind to the task. …

The ESPN World Cup Companion: Will the U.S. ever win the World Cup? - ESPN Soccernet

• I finished no books and watch no movies this week. Where did the week go?
• Our cell phone contract is up next month, and I’ve been looking into solutions for what we do next. We don’t get for what we pay. but Verizon’s coverage is great.
• Apple shut down lala.com this week. I saw it coming when they bought lala.
• This was some awesome marketing by Nike-mystery, a sweet briefcase, and two new jerseys.
• I’m shocked by the oil leak/spill in the Gulf of Mexico. I read about it when it happened, but assumed they would clean it up. I found out yesterday that they can’t stop it and it’s leaking over 200,000 gallons of oil a day into the gulf. Crazy.

One of the first things we need to do is give more people permission to plant churches. There are marks of the biblical church and those always need to be central to what we do, but we have “clergified” church planting. In other words, we have made it necessary to be a certain class of person n order to plant a church — and I don’t think we see that in the New Testament. We see laypeople planting churches, we see pastors going out and planting churches and we see bivocational people doing it.

It’s amazing to me how many church planters think God’s will is determined by whether or not they can get enough funding to underwrite them in a full-time ministry — this attitude is unhelpful. We must learn to give people permission to plant biblically-driven churches without a false class system.

Ed Stetzer: Leadership Network

A couple of weeks ago, Emma and I talked about the different book series that we love. We have our own reasons for loving them, but we talk about the characters like they are real people, quote from the books, and talk about them being made into movies (if they aren’t already).

• Harry Potter by JK Rowling
• The Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson (My brother and I decided to teach our daughters to call their grandpa “Podo” because of this book.)
• The Mitford Series by Jan Karon (I told Emma a few weeks ago that this series has heavily marked my understanding of what it means to be a pastor because it is something I can see. I think it has also influenced how understand living as a Christian.)

What is (are) your favorite series? Why?

The people without money, sex, or power are trying to get some.

The people with money, sex, and power are trying to get more.

I’ll look elsewhere for happiness.

*photo by mshade