Back to WoW

Well it has been some time since I have updated ye old blogg so here goes a coffee induced attempt to let you know what has been going on.

After months of playing LotRO and really loving it I hit the MMORPG brick wall.  Ealdor was 50, Kilii is 45 and there was no way left to do anything solo.  The only thing left was grind for rep, which I had managed to get the highest rep for the dwarfs only to find nothing new opened up, or grind for traits and titles.  As much as I love the game the "fun" aspect had worn off.

So, one weekend while sort of bored and down and out I picked up wow again just to see how it felt to play again.  To be honest I messed around with a geek project to play on a private server at home.  It was then that I realized that even though I left a 70 hunter, a 48 pally, and a 50 mage behind in the past, even deleted them, that I still had not seen nearly 1/16th of the content that the World of Warcraft has in it.

So, after taking a drive to town with Tan I popped the question.  "What do you think if we try playing wow again hun?"  At first she was not to interested in it, but when we talked about the fact we where loosing the "fun" aspect of LotRO she agreed.   That night we rolled new characters on The Scryers, a west coast RP realm.  It was fun again, and as it turns out some of our kinship members in LotRO where feeling the same way as we where and they moved back to wow as well.

We where having fun again.  But something was missing.  Those characters that I spent a lot of time leveling.  The ones that when I left wow to never come back I had striped of all items, sold to a vendor and given the gold to our remaining guild members.  The same ones I deleted where gone.  I took a stab in the dark and sent an email to blizzard seeing if it where possible to undelete them.  Now mind you this has been several months.  I figured I would get a reply that said no and would just level my new version of Valimonde, my paladin that I rolled after BC came out.  What I got instead was a reply that they have been restored, however any gear that they had in the past and did not currently have on them during the state of deletion could not be recovered.  I was very excited.

I transferred them over to our new home and have been busy leveling my main, Valimonde, 48 when he arrived on The Scryers, naked with no armor or weapon, and only his mount and hearthstone to his name.  I managed to level him up and get him through the portal into outland where he has been able to shine.  Hes now 54, nearly 55 and decked out in some great gear.  He has 3 armor sets to chose from now, its that insane out here.

Early on we formed Redeemed on this new realm and have made some WONDERFUL new friends.  In do time I hope that we are able together to hit some of the great content having a ball on Vent as we do, but keeping real life in perspective.

So, I still own a lifetime sub to LotRO, and I hope that with a major expansion to go back, but for now it looks like World of Warcrack, I mean craft *smile*  is where I will find time spent with good friends and fun times.

*A side note for a good friend*

Mouse, we miss you and can not wait for your arrival.  We are praying for you and support you.  The door to home is open and a bowl of soup is on the table.

Last.fm Removed from PastorPlayz

Hmm, I woke up very early this morning while at my mom and dad's house in Fresno. Tanya and I had come down to pick up our girls after a week at the Grandparents house. I log onto the blog to listen to some music while wanting to get some reading done. I head right to my Last.FM player on the blog. Press go and WHAT? Lindsey lohan? GIVE ME A BREAK, thats not music. . .

For those of you that don't know, Last.FM is a site where you able to listen to music that you like.  First thing is to download the little applet that will watch the tunes you play on your computer using iTunes or any other media player.  Last.FM then collects that info and makes a playlist and chart of what you like.  Eventually it will be able to build a radio station of songs you like, or songs from people with similar tastes as you.  Well, that is how it used to work.

So this morning I expected to hear some of my favorite songs but instead its giving me stuff that I would never listen to.  I'm not sure what is happening.  Either there is some problem with all the heat that has been put on Internet Radio stations of late or the suggestion software algorithm has gone completely stupid.  So, for now I have taken it down.

I will get to the bottom of this :)

A little tired of WTF ussage!

Pet-peeve department:  I don't know about you but I am really getting tired of seeing the term "WTF" become a mainstream acronym.  Now mind you I am not a prude but I think our language in today's day has moved beyond the point of using a swear word as a means of expressing ourselves.

There is no difference in using the letters WTF than saying "What the ______"  You get the point.  And my point is stop.  There is no need to be vulgarer just because you think its cool, everyone is doing it, shoot John C. Dvorak is using it in his headlines everyday.

That does not make it right, it just means we are being conformists.  Conforming to what we think is the norm from people who can not communicate is a waste of our time. In Romans 12:2 Paul tells us not to conform to the world but be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

So, enough with using WTF.  Lets have some class and represent.  :)

Nothing new to see here. Ok, maybe a little.

Ok, just got home from Fresno and thought I would post something. Tanya and I left the girls with my parents and we are concentrating on getting some ministry stuff put together as well as leveling our characters in LotRO.

Here is a screeshot of Tanya's Guardian at level 45.

If you are interested in joining us in playing a great online game, Lord of the Rings Online, then drop me a comment and we can help you get set up.

I will be posting more in the next couple of days. I have found some great resources out there for churches and individuals to help in there day to day life in the Lord.

MESSAGE: God's Word

Authority. Who, or what is our authority?Believers have but one authority, and that is the Word of God, the Bible.We must understand just how important God's Word is in our lives.

WHERE DID GOD'S WORD COME FROM?

"All Scripture is God–breathed . . ." 2 Timothy 3:16 (NIV)

". . . no prophecy ever came by the will of man; instead, moved by the Holy Spirit, men spoke from God." (2 Peter 1:21)

WHAT USE IS GOD'S WORD TO ME?


God's word is profitable for

• Teaching (Doctrine)


• Rebuking (Reproof)


• Correction


• Training in righteousness

(1 Timothy 3:16 & Romans 15:4)

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF GOD'S WORD?

"so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." 2 Timothy 3:17 (HCSB)

" For whatever was written before was written for our instruction, so that through our endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we may have hope." Romans 15:4 (HCSB)

The purpose of God's Word is to help you become equipped to live a productive life and serve him.

Send me You Links

If you run across a useful link or recourse online send me the link using del.icio.us. I will see your link when you add "pastorplayz" as one of the tags. Remember to keep that all as one word.

So send me all your great links on

• Tech


• Ministry recourses


• Worship ideas/tools


• Anything you can think of.

Worship Matters: Let Your Kingdom Come MP3

Worship Matters: Let Your Kingdom Come MP3

I am always on the lookout for new music to use in our worship services.

I have been subsribed to the Worship Matters RSS feed for a couple of weeks and today I found this wonderful free download.

Head over and see if this will work for your service.

Live Streaming Video on a Budget using UStream

Allow me to take you on a fast tour of how to install and use UStream streaming video service to get your worship service, Bible study, youth meeting, whatever you want people to see, out on the net live.

Ustream is a platform that provides live interactive video for everyone. Anyone with a camera and an Internet connection can use Ustream to broadcast to a global audience.

In other words, you can stream video live across the Internet.

UStream uses flash technology to convert your video or webcam feed into a flash video stream witch can be viewed on the end users computer live. In addition to streaming live UStream offers the ability to record your shows to there network for later delivery.

CHAT
If streaming video wasn't enough, they have also come up with a cool implementation of a java based IRC client that allows you to have a live chat room that goes along with your feed.

Time to broadcast.

I have 4 Pownce invites!

If you would like a pownce invite let me know here or on the Jaiku. Right now I have 4.

Looking for anyone to give them to so we can try this thing out.

What is Pownce

Layout Gala: a collection of 40 CSS layouts based on the same markup and ready for download!

Layout Gala: a collection of 40 CSS layouts based on the same markup and ready for download!

Very nice source for my new layout that I think I will go completely scratch on.

Our Second online Service and oh the Fun *smirk*

I sit in my office getting ready for the mornings services. Bible study is under way and I make my rounds to get things set up for broadcasting over the net.

As I turn to the sound booth I discover that for some unknown reason the computer has decided that the Firewire controller is no longer an important part of the computer and refuses to work. Argg.I do the tech thing; I jiggle cables. Nope, that didnt do it. After about 30 minutes of messing with it I was resolved to pull my laptop in for the streaming. Allthough now that I sit here I realize that would not have worked as I do not have a good wireless link in the sanctuary yet. (make note Mike).

I got things working when I pulled the card out and re-seated it. Bam, there it is. Now if only the rest of the morning would go as smooth as that. /sarcasim.

Now that things are working I am resolved to get ready.

The service ended up going well. I belive we had one person watching live as the service went on. *smile* I even talked about it during my message. We shall see if I can get some of our folcks to understand all this fancy stuff :)

Along the same line, here is the link to today's service. Someone shoot me for wearing that shirt.


Text: John 3:1-21

New Theme

Working on new theme for new site.  I have moved off of bloggspot.com to my own installation of Wordpress.

Open DNS. A Better Way to Surf.

I have heard about it but only recently turned on OpenDNS on my own home network.

What is it? Well DNS is the database that stores names like blogger.com and points it to its IP address. You see, all websites are really ip addresses like 192.168.0.100. I don't know about you, but I cant remember than many numbers for every site I like to visit. So DNS comes to the rescue.

When you type in pastorplayz.blogspot.com your page goes out to a database that finds the IP and then connects you to it. This can be slow and cumbersome, and controlled by a large organization. Enter OpenDNS

Its an open project that replaces Big Brothers version with some added kicks. The one I like the most is the ability to block Adult sites and Phishing sites for free.

But they can say it better.

What is OpenDNS? OpenDNS is a safer, faster, smarter and more reliable way to navigate the Internet. Our service is free and requires nothing to download.

I am going to test it out a bit, but so far it looks like a great way to help keep you from harm, and keep you from letting your eye wonder.

FBLO Live Video Best Wishes

We are going live. Watch here for a live feed once we hit the net.

Sunday 10:50 AM PST (1:50 PM EST)



BEST WISHES
Psalm 20:1-4

MAY GOD’S EAR HEAR YOU
Psalm 20:1 - May the LORD answer you in a day of trouble;

Some people just don't seem to realize, when they're moaning about not getting prayers answered, that no is the answer. - Nelia Gardner White

MAY GOD’S NAME PROTECT YOU
Psalm 20:1 - may the name of Jacob's God protect you.

MAY GOD’S PRESENCE HELP YOU
Psalm 20:2 - May He send you help from the sanctuary and sustain you from Zion.

MAY GOD’S MIND REMEMBER YOU
Psalm 20:3 - may He remember all your offerings

MAY GOD’S HEART ACCEPT YOU
Psalm 20:3 - and accept your burnt offering.

MAY GOD’S WORK BLESS YOU
Psalm 20:4 - May He give you what your heart desires and fulfill your whole purpose.

Free Worship Media Content? WOW, I think I love YOU!

Ok, I found a site/church that on the surface has stolen my heart. Now mind you I still need to dive into it more but this place RAWKS! Check out LIFECHURCH.TV OPEN

These guys have supplied some great resources that smaller churches can use to help reach out. I have subscribed to there blog as well and it has some great stories.

Mind you, I sound hyper, and I am, but I still want to check things out, but WOW.

ZONG! Diging around on the site I discovered this. ONLINE CAMPUS!!!! Ok, I have got to get a hold of these guys and find out what they are using for the live streaming and any other tools.

FBLO Live on the Net

This Sunday, June 24th, First Baptist will be streaming its first live service using the UStream website. You can watch along starting at 10:50 AM PST.

To watch the service head on over to our UStream site for the First Baptist Live Oak feed.

What's that at the Door?

So, it's 7:30 A.M. Saturday morning and the family is still asleep. All of a sudden out of no where our dogs start going nuts! Someone is pounding on the door to our porch. Pounding because its locked, a little run in with a bike thief one summer night a couple a years ago got us into that habit.

Me What is going on? What are they barking at?

Tanya I don't know. Oh, someone is at the door.

Being jerked out of a deep sleep is never good for ones nerves. Your mind races with all sorts of scenarios. Who could it be? Is it good, bad, or trouble? She gets to the front door and finds one of our church members pounding on the door.

Suddenly someone showed up to help pull all the weeds from behind the education building. She brought 2 others. Now, ordinarily this would be great news, but at this point of the story I would like to introduce you to what we call in my line of work as a "Well Intentioned Dragon."

A well intentioned dragon is a person who means well but goes about doing it in all the wrong ways. Instead of being helpful they are usually negative. In this case a remark was made about us being in bed still at 7:30 on a Saturday that still has Tanya reeling over it. The funniest thing about this is that we had a church wide clean up day only a week ago and this WID had not shown up.

So, what is a pastor/minister/insert something here, to do? Nothing. Pray, calm down, try to put a positive spin on it, and remember that people do not always have the tools to communicate properly in our day and age.

We work with people. People need the Lord, and we need to reach them, even when it is hard to do.

Pascal, Templates, and You

Ok, more randomness :) Im sitting here trying to find a new theme for this blog. No luck so far. I could whip out ye old Photoshop and Dreamweaver and start hacking away, but I just don't have that much drive to do so.

I'm caught. I want something that looks good, but is simple. I am so tired of the flashy things, like moxie spoke of in her comments on my last post. I just want it to be simple. With that in mind I think Ill play with some very basic themes. I mean who cares what it looks like right?

Well, we all do. Down deep inside of us all we have a desire to please something bigger than us. Blaise Pascal said it best when he said.

There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus

Mind you good old Pascal, yep the very same one who gave us the principles behind the pascal computer language (If that does not get you in the way back machine I don't know what will) said this sometime between 1623 and 1662. Wow, that guy was pretty smart for an old dead guy.

What I'm trying to say is this. Does it matter what it looks like? Does it matter what we look like? Yes and no. If we try to please the one who fits that vacuum in our heart then we will be ok, but if we try to please the world that wants to fill that spot, well, then it gets messy.

So, what are your opinions on a template for the blog? hehe, I bet you thought this was supposed to be much deeper didn't you? Well, perhaps it is, only time will tell.

Conventional Wisdom?

Conventional wisdom says to stay the course, don't rock the boat. But what are you supposed to do if you like a little adventure in your life? Church life, the life of the actually congregation, not an individual mind you, can be summed up in many terms, exciting, boring, luke warm, and dead are just a few. Church growth strategists encourage pastors to take an inventory often to determine where they are at. This is an easy chore for those who have churches that are alive and moving. For those of us that are in congregations that are, well let's be honest, less than stellar when it comes to wow factor, we find it hard to take this inventory.

Many in my field agree that the days of the 50's are over yet we are still finding that we try to do things the same way we did back then. Being a younger pastor, quickly sneaking up on 40, I did not experience the 50's boom in church life but I have felt the affects of it both positive and negative all my Christian life.

We now live in the twenty first century. People have changed in how they react to things socially, financially and recreationaly. I'm sad to say that gone are the days of people flocking to a church building simply because it is what they always did or had nothing else to do. They will not come because we build it. If we want to continue to be faithful to the great commission we must find a way to be relevant!

I wish I could offer you what we need to do to be relevant in this post, but I can't. I am still struggling to figure it out myself. I'm no expert, I'm not some super pastor, I'm just a guy; a guy who loves Jesus and has been called to serve him. This is what blogs, social networking systems and the lot are all about. We need to come together and share ideas.

So, what do you think? Is this getting out there? Let's be frank not stuffy. Hit it.

Vatican has Ten Commandments for drivers???

Say what?

Come on, I mean don't we have better things to do with our . . . . .

Ok, so I am watching the news this morning and hear the story about a ten commandments for drivers. My first response was how much time do some of those guys have?

Now I am all for people having limits and using their head when on the road, but when you carry the label as THE CHURCH (we can talk about that later) I would think you have a larger responsibility than to come up with something like this.

Maybe I have it all wrong. But then again, maybe I will just go play a game.

What do you think?

Here is the story.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070619/ap_on_re_eu/vatican_road_rage

Ruth Graham Homecoming

What a thing to start out my blog on gaming and pastoring and being whatever.

The news just hit. Billy Graham's wife has passed away.

Read the LA TImes Article on It

Here we go again.

Hi, I'm Mike. I pastor a church in Norther California and I play video games. I have been gaming for many many years. I have struggled with many issues and just want to find a way to make it all work out.