March 15th, 2011 | Published in Life
Ok, so I’m going to throw a little caption contest! Kati took this picture this afternoon and I thought it deserves a funny caption, but I have no idea what it should be! If you win, I’ll mail you a Powered by WordPress t-shirt (blue / medium) if you want. Otherwise you’ll just get the glory of winning a caption contest!
What is my caption?
July 29th, 2010 | Published in Life
Some of the good folks over at The Complete Website nominated me as their favorite SysAdmin for ThinkGeek’s Favorite SysAdmin contest and I made the top 10! The contest ends tomorrow, so if you get a chance today, I’d appreciate it if you voted for me. The winners will be announced tomorrow.
Thanks again!
July 3rd, 2010 | Published in Life
I follow a very talented designer on Twitter named Ian Leino. A few weeks ago he tweeted about a contest he was putting on to win one of his latest t-shirt designs called “Choose Your Weapon”.
As with so many people, video games have been a major contributing medium of my cultural education since as far back as I can recall. One of my earliest memories is actually being four years old and pushing a stepstool up to a video game cabinet so I could play Q-Bert (for about 12 seconds). For this design, I wanted to highlight some of the most awesome ‘weapons’ from the history of video games including some of my personal favorites (but less obvious ones) like the Arkanoid paddle, the line piece from Tetris and the Katamari. (from ianleino.com)
Well I actually won a t-shirt and he kindly sent me it for free, it’s a nice American Apparel t-shirt. – very comfy! With the “Choose Your Weapon” design screen printed on the shirt. Here are a couple photos of me wearing the shirt.
By the way, this is the second Twitter contest I’ve won. So, if you’re not on Twitter, you should be :). You can follow my tweets at http://twitter.com/lewayotte.
November 19th, 2009 | Published in Spirit
At the beginning of the month I posted my essay entry to the Energion Essay Contest called, “What should a congregation following Jesus Christ in ministry look like?”
There were seven total entries in this contest. With a total of 93 out of 150 points, I won third place plus the “popular” vote. This entitles me to a 20$ gift card to Barnes & Noble and a free book from Energion Publishing. Since I already have The Jesus Paradigm (see review) I choose Dr. Black’s newest book, Christian Archy. I hope to get my loot sometime next week!
With a total of 99 out of 150 points, the second place winner was Arthur Sido. He beat me by a whopping 6 points. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying anything bad here… I just think it’s an odd coincidence that the number was “6″.
With a total of 108 out of 150 points, the first place winner was Lionel Woods. Lionel beat Arthur by 9 points and by addition beat me by 15 points. I am really surprised the scoring was so close.
Congrats Arthur and Lionel and thank you Energion for putting on this contest. It was really interesting and there were some really good essays.
If you want to read them, here is a link to all of the submissions:
November 1st, 2009 | Published in Spirit
To launch Dave Black’s new book, Christian Archy, Energion Publications is sponsoring an essay contest. The question at hand: What should a congregation following Jesus Christ in ministry look like?
What a congregation following Jesus Christ in ministry should look like can be a pretty complicated discussion. We have to realize that even the early church had difficulty with this. Many of the letters in the New Testament are corrective in nature. So we should not be surprised to discover that our modern day practices (which are 2000 years removed) may not be as Scriptural as we think. For the sake of simplicity, in this essay I will refer to the “congregation following Jesus Christ in ministry” as the Assembly of Christ. When I envision the Assembly of Christ, what comes to mind is much different than our current practices.
The passage that I think sums up the Assembling of the Church the most is 1 Corinthians 14:26 “What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.” (ESV) In this letter to the Corinthian Church, Paul is correcting a few misunderstandings that the Corinthians had about their gathering. According to Paul, when the Church assembled they were to have one goal, to build each other up. Paul expected everyone to bring something to the meeting. His non-exhaustive list includes things like, hymns, lessons, revelations, tongues, and interpretations. Today, the Assembly of Christ should also include these same things. Each person in the Assembly should be concerned about building the others up.
In 1 Corinthians 1:12-13, Paul writes, “What I mean is that each one of you says, ‘I follow Paul,’ or ‘I follow Apollos,’ or ‘I follow Cephas,’ or ‘I follow Christ.’ Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” I believe this passage had multiple applications in our world today. As Christ followers, the Assembly of Christ should not be emphatic about their leaders or their specific teachings. I believe there is a multiple threads weaving through this letter. Paul is telling the Corinthian believers that they should be concerned about building one another up more than dividing over different leaders. Today, the Assembly of Christ should not be worried about worldly qualifications for their leaders, they should also not show concern for differing denominations. The Assembly of Christ will love their brother and sisters in Christ, regardless of who their pastor is, what their denomination is, or any other extra-Biblical qualifications. In fact, I would say that any specific pastor or denomination is merely happen-stance to the Assembly of Christ.
This leads me to 1 Timothy 3:1-7, which is normally referred to as the Pastor Qualifications. The Assembly of Christ will realize that this list does not have anything on it at every Christ follower should not be following. Instead of choosing their leaders based on seminary degrees, previous experience, or any other worldly qualifications. The Assembly of Christ will recognize their leaders internally. Those Christ followers who are already meeting these qualifications (or most of them) will be the ones who are recognized as leaders:
Basically the Assembly of Christ’s leaders are those people who are imitating Christ in their daily walk and lives. Those of us who meet these qualifications are people who can be recognized as leaders. But that does not mean that other Christians should not have characteristics on this list. More importantly, the Assembly of Christ will recognize that Jesus is their true pastor or their “senior pastor”. For he is the only one who can completely fulfill these qualifications and only through him are we able to fulfill any of these qualifications.
When it comes to the Assembly of Christ, it is not all about our meetings, our leaders, our denominations, or our qualifications. A big part of the ministry of Christ is reaching out to our neighbors with the Good News. Although I believe Matthew 28:18-20 is often times over-used or even misused. I believe it is appropriate at this juncture of the discussion. In Matthew 28, Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (ESV)
When the Assembly of Christ is about building one another up, not dividing over leaders or denominations, focused on recognizing their own leaders, they will inherently be about fulfilling the Great Commission. In fact, I believe following Jesus’ command here may be like second nature to them. They will see the world through His eyes instead of their own. As the Assembly of Christ, reaching our neighbors will not be based on a program, chant, or weekly exercise… it will be according to Christ’s example. Each member in the assembly will recognize their responsibilities, although different, each one has an extremely important role.
The only thing I might add is that the Assembly of Christ should not be defined by a specific group of people (other than Christ followers) or a specific location. In Matthew 18:20, Jesus said “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” (ESV) I believe that anytime Christians meet in His name, whether it is a weekly meeting or a casual meeting, they are the Assembly of Christ. The Assembly of Christ can morph and grow and shrink as people come and go, but the Assembly of Christ will always remain the same. When two or three are gathered, it is the Assembly of Christ, when 50-60 are gathered, it is still the Assembly of Christ.
Well, I’ve officially reached over 1000 words in this post. I know I could write much, much more and probably could have organized my thoughts a little better.
There were five requirements for this essay:
I believe I at least met the 1st requirement :).
I hope you enjoyed this essay. Let me know what you think.
