Biblical Community

I was given a great reminder today by J.R. Kerr at Park Community Church today. First of all, I am so thankful that I am able to attend a church where I am challenged and convicted by the Word of God that is brought before me each week.

Today J.R. talked about the idea of community (and no I'm not talking about the new show on NBC starring Chevy Chase above), specifically Biblical community. Many times we only go to church to have our needs met. The needs of music, lighting, video, a good sunday school for my kids, etc. These things are ok, but when we start making them our drive and purpose for attending a church then it becomes sin. Today was a reminder that church and Biblical community is not about me.


J.R. also talked about the aspect of investing into other people's lives in community. This builds off of the idea that is not about me. If we take the focus off of ourselves, then we will get close to one or two other believers and encourage them in their walk with Christ, as well as gain insight, and perspective about our own lives.


This point really convicted me. My time here at Moody Bible Institute has been great, but it has been a time that has not exactly been intentionally filled with one-on-one accountability. For the first 2 years here I met with 3 other guys once-a-week who kept me accountable, and we just shared life together. But then one of those guys transferred to another school, and another guy became very close with his girlfriend and is now engaged (I'm not saying those things are bad, I understand life happens). And myself and the other guy became roommates, which has been great, and we have grown closer and kept each other accountable for things, but that once-a-week meeting never happened again.


Today I have been convicted to disciple and invest in someone else's life. To begin a relationship with someone, grow close to them, disciple them, and keep them accountable. I guess this builds off of the selfishness post I wrote a couple weeks ago. I have become so selfish in my own life, and I have not really taken the time to get to know someone new, and really help someone through life.


How are you doing Biblical community? 

Macworld 2009 Day 3 "The Community"

Macworld 2009, Day 3, January 8

Well I decided that today was going to be my last day at Macworld because I've already seen all the booths and there aren't really any sessions or anything going tomorrow, so I'm just going to fly back early which will be nice. So this being my last day at Macworld I decided to make the most of it. O, dangit. I completely forgot to mention in my post yesterday that I went to the feature presentation by David Pogue. So I guess I'll mention that now. This feature presentation was great, David Pogue is a tech writer for the New York Times and he was really entertaining. It was setup kinda like a talk show, he had a couple guests on stage including Matt Harding from the video "where the heck is Matt?", these guys from "You Suck at Photoshop" (they were pretty funny) and the creator of the Ocarina application for the iPhone ( and this was probably the coolest of them all). The guy who developed this application is the music professor at some big university (I can't remember right now, lol) and he has a laptop orchestra there. He gave us a small demo of how it works, and they use the accelerometer inside the Macbook Pro to create sound. In the demo he would hit the screen or touch anywhere on the laptop and it would make some sort of noise. It was so cool, I'll be uploading a video to facebook. So that was yesterday's feature presentation.

I kicked off today by attending a feature presentation by Leo Laporte. He talked about mass media and how media is changing with the internet, and now anyone can produce content and distribute it to the world. It was a really interesting talk. Plus it is always great to hear Leo talk, he is so smart and knows so much about media and the tech industry and always has good things to say. I then went from there and bought myself a tshirt from the Macworld store, it says "I'm a Mac" on the front and then "Macworld" on the back. I was pretty happy about it. I then waited for the expo hall to open.

I went back to the South hall because I had not finished looking at all the booths and such. I also had decided that I was going to buy an Invisible Shield for my iPod Touch. This is a really cool product because they use the same material that the military uses on their helicopter propellors to keep them from being damaged. I also decided to buy some skins for ipod touch as well as one for the back of my laptop. These are really cool first of all cause they have some sweet kick-butt artwork to choose from and because they are reusable, the company is called Gelaskins and I would highly recommend them.

Another cool thing about Macworld is that almost every company is doing some type of raffle or giveaway, so I signed for almost every giveaway possible, but unfortunately did not win anything. But what they do is, they use your badge to get all your information, because there is a barcode on my badge and every booth has a scanner so to enter into the giveaway they just scan my badge, but then they also have my email and all that stuff, but o well. Hopefully I won't get too much spam.

I didn't get to meet any famous people today, but it was still a great day. I got to sit in on a couple live podcasts which is always fun. I was going to go home a bit earlier than I had in the past 2 days, but it was 5:30pm meaning it was rush hour, so I knew I was gonna be sitting in traffic forever. But there was also a meetup at Jillian's at 7 that I wanted to go to, so I just went to McDonald's and got some food and by the time I was done it was time to go to the meetup. O, but wait, I forgot, I did get to meet Andy Ihnatko (a tech writer for the Chicago Sun Times) in McDonald's which was kinda funny. I was just sitting there talking to my dad and I glanced over and I saw Andy Ihnatko standing in line. So I waited till he was walking out and I turned around in my seat and introduced myself and told him I was a big fan of his writing, and that was about it because he had his hands full, but it was still pretty cool. So nevermind, I did get to meet someone famous today. LOL.

Then I went to the meetup and it turned out to be a great night. I ended up talking to this older woman for a bit. She was just asking me what I do on my Mac and I told her I did videography. She has been a school teacher, but she said her real passion is art. It was a really good conversation and so after that conversation was over I wanted to talk to some more people. I met two other guys who ran this news site in Santa Barbara, California, it is called SBLife http://www.sblife.com. We talked about podcasting and videography because they do a bit of that for their site, it was also a really good conversation. Buy by far the best conversation of the night was with the developers of the iPhone applications "Pull my finger" and "Stickie Notes." Their company is called Air-o-matic. It was just really interesting to talk to them about the development process and what the environment is like to develop for the iPhone. Let me just say that after talking to these guys I've realized that developing for the iPhone can be a gold mine. It's crazy how much money you can make from just simple application. I also met the developers of the iPhone app "MIMvista". This is an application that reads MRI's and CTscans of the body brain. It is an amazing application.

I ended staying at the meetup about 2 hours longer than I had planned. This meetup is an excellent example of the Mac community. You can start a relationship with anyone just because we have the simple commonality of the Macintosh. It made Macworld worth it all, and it made me happy and proud to be a Mac user.

Again, it all comes back to the community. This is probably the biggest thing that I took away from Macworld, how important the community of Macintosh is. Without the community the Mac would not be what it is today. And so that is how I will conclude this journal of my Macworld experience. If you a Mac user and have not yet been immersed in the Mac community, I would strongly encourage you to begin doing that, just by simply meeting another Mac user and talk about what you do on your Mac. If you are not a Mac user, I would say that this is one of the strongest arguments for switching to the Mac. Not only is the experience of working on a Mac unbeatable, but the community surround it is incomparable.

For pics and videos of my Macworld experience check out my facebook profile

Macworld 2010 here I come!

Macworld 2009 Day 2 "Tiny Town"

Macworld 2009, Day 2, Wednesday, Jan. 7

Well, day 2 of Macworld was another great experience. I ventured over to the South Hall since I spent my whole day in the North Hall yesterday, and I ended up spending more time in the South Hall overall. In the South Hall there was what was called "Tiny Town." People kept referring to Tiny Town and I couldn't figure out what they were talking about and then entered the South Hall and saw exactly what they were talking about. I think people called it that because there were alot of small companies and vendors, but also because there were alot of things hanging from the ceiling, and it just looked like a little model city.

I spent the whole day in the South Hall and I still didn't get to see all the booths. There were also alot more companies doing demos and such in the South Hall. This is also where the official Apple booth was located. And of course it was larger than life. Literally it was the biggest booth there, if you can even call it a booth (you can check out pics on my facebook). I mean, the Apple booth was cool, but it wasn't really anything special. They just had a ton of iMacs, Macbooks, and iPods on display. And all of these computers were demoing the new iLife and iWork 09, so it was cool to get to demo those. But I mean I really don't think that it is going to be a big deal that Apple is not going to attend the conference next year. I mean, yes, there might be alot of empty space, because the booth was humungous, but as far as content on the booth goes, there really won't be that much missing. In fact, I'm already excited to attend next year's Macworld.

I got to meet yet another famous guy in the tech industry, Chris Pirillo. He did a small session on how to use Ustream and Camtwist together to do your own live show. I mean I already knew all of the stuff because that is what I use to produce the wheel seat but I just stuck around to see if I could meet him after he was done, and sure enough I got to meet him and get my picture taken with him. He seems like a cool guy, so much so that I saw him later that day in the South hall and he actually recognized me and said hi, and then again that night at the meetup at Jillians he saw me and said hi. None of these run-ins resulted in any conversations which I wish they would have, but I was just surprised that he remembered me. He may not have remembered my name, but he remembered my face.

Probably one of the biggest things that I have realized after yesterday and today is how some of these people lead just different lives than I do. And I'm not talking about like Leo Laporte and Chris Pirillo and the other famous guys, I'm just talking about the other people who are attending the conference. As I walked around to the different booths it seemed like alot of the products were really expensive. I saw alot of stuff that I would have liked to bought, but I just couldn't afford it. Heck I was just lucky to be at Macworld, I was saving every penny just for parking and eating food. But other people there, this is their life. I mean, I consider myself a pretty big geek, or nerd or whatever you wanna call it, but I consider myself a geek with not alot of money. But these other people are just buying things like its nothing. It got me thinking about what its like to just have money at your fingertips. It is interesting to think about. I know for a fact that if I had money that that would not satisfy me. I am reminded as I just started reading Francis Chan's book "Crazy Love" that God is the only one who can satisfy, and glorifying Him is the only satisfying thing in life. It is our purpose as human beings.

I wrapped up the day with a viewing of the world premiere of "Macheads" the movie. This is a documentary about the history of Apple and about the Mac community. I really enjoyed the movie, and it was really good for me to learn more about the history of Apple and how far the company has come as well as the community of Mac users. The movie's purpose was to emphasize the importance of the community that has been created around the Macintosh. Yeah the Mac is a great computer, but it is not just about the computer, it is about the community that comes along with the computer. When you buy a Macintosh you suddenly enter into this community of people that just makes your experience as a user so much better than anything you will ever find on the PC side. I have now seen this firsthand by attending Macworld and meeting other Mac users who do different things with their macs but we all have the same type of experience. So I really enjoyed this documentary, if you are a Mac user and you get a chance to see this movie, I would recommend. I mean even if you are not a Mac user I would recommend it because maybe you will come to good side and finally see the light and get a Mac.

So that was my second day at Macworld and again, it was awesome. O yeah, and here's an example of the Mac community, as I was walking back to my car that night I walked by these fountains so I was taking some pictures of them, and as I was walking to my car this guy was walking next to me, and I saw that he was wearing a Macworld badge and I just started talking to him and ended just having a small conversation on my way back to my car. I mean, not a big deal, but just something small like that is part of the mac community.

So if you all haven't gotten the message by now, the point of this post is get a Mac. LOL. Just kiddin. I still love all you PC users out there.

More posts coming soon!