Archive for the 'Pastor Eric' Category
Deep Thought: As I sit here and listen to the sound of fresh rain run-off splashing from the roof on this cold Christmas morn, it reminds me of the sound of urine splashing into a filthy Texaco latrine.
It is memories like this that make me love Christmas. I hope your Christmas is filled with like-so memories.
- We had a couple of great services on Sunday as we had a Dysfunctional Hollywood Christmas. If you missed it, you can watch it @ www.shorelinechurch.net.
- If you attended the 1st service, you might want to watch it again because the 2nd service was better. I didn’t do that on purpose. In fact, I hate it when one service is better than the other. Especially when it happens on the Christmas service. They say that Easter is the Superbowl Sunday of church services. So I guess that would make Christmas the BCS College Bowl Championship of church services and who wants to choke on the big day. Sometimes I just don’t get into the flow until the 10:30 service.
- This Sunday is our last service of the year and we are calling it Open Invitation. This would be a great service to re-invite someone who might have come to Shoreline before, especially if it was the Christmas service. This message is about the heart of one of our core values - grace. It will be a great message for someone to see why we do what we do as a church.
- On the 6th of January we start a 5 week series called Boundaries; we all need boundaries in our lives. The first 2 are also great invite services. This time of the year people start talking about going back to church and the first 2 topics, alcohol and sex are good services to invite people who don’t go to church. Here is the web site for it, www.sexandbooze.com.
- You can go onto the site and listen to the ad that we will be running on 99 Rock.
- We gave out invite cards for the first 2 messages. Here is what they look like. If you didn’t get any Sunday, you can pick some up this Sunday.
Until then, enjoy the cold frosty morn and the wonderful sight of some moron in his bath robe dumping raw sewage into the water run off on your street.
Merry Christmas,
Pastor Eric
Deep Thought: I think somebody should come up with a way to breed a very large shrimp. That way, you could ride him, then, after you camped at night, you could eat him. How about it science?
You might think that would be a big mistake, but let me tell you something about mistakes.
Historically, making mistakes has been a leading cause of creative breakthroughs.
So, if you want to motivate YOUR melon and increase your innovative prowess, check out this list of 10 mistakes that changed the world.
1. One morning in 1930, Ruth Wakefield ran out of baker’s chocolate. So, she brought home semi-sweet chocolate, broke it into pieces and threw it into the dough. And the very first chocolate chip cookie was born!
2. In 1886 while concocting a form of medicine, John Pemberton accidentally added carbonated water instead of plain water to his recipe. When he tasted it, this new drink was so delicious and refreshing, it was later popularized as Coca-Cola.
3. Centuries ago, a Chinese emperor named Shen Nung was boiling water outside when leaves from a nearby tree fell into the pot. He tasted it, enjoyed it, thus creating the very first cup of tea!
4. At the 1904 World’s Fair, waffle maker Ernest Hamwi noticed a fellow vendor’s booth ran out of dishes to serve ice cream. Just to be helpful, he rolled up one of his waffles into a cone and made an instant hit!
5. One morning, centuries ago, Iroquois Chief Woksis threw his tomahawk into a nearby tree. When he returned the next day, he pulled the tool from the bark only to notice sap furiously dripping onto the ground! If only pancakes had been invented yet…
6. In 1928, Alexander Fleming accidentally left a loaf of bread on his windowsill for too long. When he returned and noticed mold, instead of throwing it away, he reexamined the bread and discovered something called staphylococci. That substance eventually created penicillin!
7. In the 1870’s at a soap factory, a workman went to lunch and left the machine running. When he returned, he noticed that air had been worked into the mixture, thus hardening the soap! He later poured into frames and began selling it by the bar and made Ivory a FORTUNE.
8. In 1905, a young student named Frank Epperson was mixing soda-water powder and water one day. He then accidentally left the mixture on his back porch overnight with the stirring stick still in it, only to return to find the very first Popsicle!
9. Harry Brearly was a metal worker who threw his old scraps into a junk pile. On day in 1913, he noticed that certain old pieces rusted quicker than others. After analyzing the metal, he found the element that helped produce stainless steel!
10. In 1907, Arthur Scott, head of Scott Paper Company, had a shipment of paper returned to him by a customer. They complained it was “too hard and wrinkly,” so instead of throwing it away, he cut it into individual sheets and began selling it as “paper towels.”
So you see, you might think my idea is crazy but you never know what you might get out of it. After all, is a mistake that works, really a mistake?
Riding my shrimp,
Pastor Eric
I don’t normally do this, but here goes.
I wasn’t around for my birthday so I know a lot of people wanted to get me something and couldn’t because I wasn’t here. Plus, my family would ask me what I wanted and I couldn’t tell them anything that I needed or wanted. When you get to be my age, when you want something, you buy it.
Well… this came out yesterday. The Kindle
This is what I want for a late birthday/Christmas present. Some of you might say, “Well if you just buy what you want, why don’t you buy this?” My answer would be “…because it is $400.”
You can e-mail me if you need to hear some of my justifications why it is necessary for me to have something that wasn’t even around last week and why now I can’t live without. Reasons, like my book shelves are overflowing with books and now I can eliminate that or how many trees I can save (I have read 5 books in the last 3 weeks alone) or how I know Pastor Sam is going to want one and I need to get if before he does. If you need more reasons than that, I will try to come up with some.
I don’t ask for much, please don’t deny this one pleasure. If that doesn’t work, do it for the children.
I have got to go. I have to go find a band aid for the paper cut I just got from turning a page on a book.
Until then, I’ll be readin’ it old school,
Pastor Eric
After coming off the Shipwrecked series on finances, I thought you might enjoy this little jewel by Janice Revell, Money Magazine senior writer. I’m not even going to start off with Deep Thought because Britney Spears is a Deep Thought.
In case you missed it, some bombshell news came out of the personal finance arena last week. No, I’m not referring to the Federal Reserve’s rate cut or the record-breaking price of oil.
I’m talking about Britney Spears: She isn’t saving for retirement.
Though the 25-year old pop star is hauling in some $737,000 a month (yes, per month), the Associated Press reported last Thursday that according to court documents, she’s not saving or investing a penny of it.
More than $100,000 each month is going to entertainment, gifts and vacations alone.
While most of us may be shocked by this excess, Ms. Spears’ saving habits are actually pretty normal.
The truth is, the overwhelming majority of American 20-somethings aren’t saving anything for retirement, either. Research from Vanguard shows that two-thirds of all 25-year-olds who have access to a 401(k) plan aren’t contributing.
And the worst part is, they aren’t taking advantage of their biggest asset: time.
Let’s go back to Ms. Spears’ retirement plan for a minute. Now I know that she’s richer than you and I, worth in the neighborhood of $100 million from her previous sales and touring (she didn’t always spend it all). But let’s say she was forced to start from scratch, like any other 25-year-old. She could still maintain her lavish lifestyle in retirement.
Assuming she could scrape by on 70% to 80% of her pre-retirement income in retirement - or about $590,000 a month in today’s dollars - Ms. Spears would have to accumulate a nest egg of just over $300 million by age 65.
Sound daunting? Nah. All she has to do is keep working and put away 8% or so of her monthly $737,000 income until she retires and she’ll hit that goal.
So what’s the point of this exercise? Well, the very same strategy can work for you too.
Being sure to set aside just a little each month can help you maintain your lifestyle in perpetuity.
A 25-yr old making $30,000 a year, for instance, and putting away the same 8% of his pay into a 401(k) plan annually for the rest of his career is virtually guaranteed a comfortable retirement by time he hits his 60s.
Assuming average historic rates of inflation and investment returns, and a typical company matching contribution in his 401(k), he would wind up with a nest egg of nearly $2 million by age 65, enough to replace more than 90% of his working income.
I realize that, unlike Ms. Spears, you may also have student loans to pay back at this point in your life. But unless it’s a private loan, don’t sacrifice your 401(k) contribution to make extra payments on the loan. If it’s a federal loan, and you’ve consolidated it, you likely have a fixed after-tax rate of 5% or less. Over the longer haul, you will handily beat that return in your 401(k); if you get a company matching contribution, you’ll trounce it.
And you don’t need to hire a team of people to handle your investments. Just put your 8% in a so-called target-date retirement fund - every major fund company offers them, including Fidelity, Vanguard, and T. Rowe Price.
Here, you make your fund choice based on the expected year of your retirement. For instance, if you were planning to retire in 40 years’ time, you might pick the T. Rowe Price Retirement 2050 fund. Right now, it has an 88% allocation to stocks, 10% to bonds and the rest in cash.
As time passes, and you get closer to retirement, the fund will automatically adjust that mix of stocks and bonds to more conservative levels. The best part with these funds is that you do nothing.
And that means you’ll never have to say, ‘Oops! I did it again’ when it comes to your retirement.
Questions or comments about retirement? Send e-mails to jrevell@moneymail.com.
I am not sure if this is a good thing or not. It definitely does not speak well of you if you subscribe to Deep Thoughts. In fact, they may not be so deep after all. This guy rates blogs on their readability. Apparently, mine only rates at an elementary level. That can be good in a way; we are always striving for simplicity so that every one is included. On the other hand this may mean that you only read at an elementary level and you may need to step it up a notch.
Well, gotta go. The recess bell just rang.
Deep Thought: Most people don’t realize that large pieces of Elk Horn coral, which have been painted brown and attached to the skull by common wood screws, can make a child look like a deer.
I know what you are thinking. You’re thinking, “What kind of a person are you? Why didn’t you give us that idea last week for Halloween?” Last week, I was busy.
For starters, we had our membership dinner. We had 5 new people join the church. Jeremy Campbell, Christin Swilley, Jonathan Scott, and Ryan and Erica Manthey all decided to make Shoreline Church their home church. We are super excited at the people God is adding to this church. We had the membership dinner held at Emerald Grand. If you have not eaten there yet, it is a treat. Great views and great food at great prices.
Having grown up here, I have become disappointed in the quality of the fish sandwiches available in the local restaurants as compared to the 80’s and 90’s. Well you can get a good thick piece of Tuna, Amberjack or Grouper on a delicious char-grilled fish sandwich for under $10. I’d say that right now, it is the best in the area. That’s where I will be eating mine right now as I have become disappointed in the Dewey Destin fish sandwich.
Then this weekend, I took Esther’s grandparents and mom out fishing. We caught 1 big redfish and 2 sheepshead. The redfish was too big to keep and we had to let him go. Although, I thought about screwing some Elk horn Coral to his head and disguising him as a deer but it is not deer season.
Fishing for deer,
Pastor Eric
Here I am trying to put my iPhone on a family plan with AT@T and of course, nothing but problems. The only drawback with the iPhone I’d the fact you have to use AT&T.
I don’t even need a Deep Thought today because what I saw on the news is so ridiculous it will make you mad.
On the same newscast this morning, there was a story of a high school that is giving out birth control pills to high school students. That alone is frustrating in that my daughter can’t even get a Tylenol at school but she can get birth control pills. Plus parents aren’t allowed to know if their kids are receiving birth control pills.
But of that isn’t enough, later in the same newscast was a story of a 17 year old boy who served 2 years of a 10 year sentence for having consensual sex with a 15 year old girl. So, let me get this straight… we are going to give birth control pills to high school students and then arrest them when they have sex. No wonder our students are so messed up… we are messing them up!
This is so absurd that it would be funny if it wasn’t such a pathetic picture of the lack of common sense in our society.
Eric
Deep Thought: If you’re at a Thanksgiving dinner, but you don’t like the stuffing or the cranberry sauce or anything else, just pretend like you’re eating it, but instead, put it all in your lap and form it into a big mushy ball. Then, later, when you’re out back having cigars with the boys, let out a big fake cough and throw the ball to the ground. Then say, “Boy, these are good cigars!”
You can tell we are moving into the fall season with the smell of dead fish in the air from the Red Tide. Plus, it is raining for 3 days straight. It just makes me long for all the church Hallo-Boo-jah festivals’ and Thanksgiving. Sitting here thinking about this reminds of all the good things going in Shoreline right now.
- Really good vibe in church right now. Attendance is up. Not a big spike, just good, steady growth. It reminds me of a book I just finished by my friend Matt Keller, Up the Middle about church planting. It is not published yet, but I read the manuscript. Great book for anybody about to or in the process of planting a church. The basic premise is not everyone gets the long, touchdown game winning bomb in the church plant world. Chris Hodges (Church of the Highlands) and Steven Furtick (Elevation Church) are exceptions to the rule. Most of us have to go for the short 6 & 7 yard passes and runs up the middle that lead to 1st downs that lead to touchdowns. If you are interested, contact Matt at www.upthemiddle.org.
- Speaking of church planting, God has opened the door for us to speak into some church planters lives. We have been talking to or meeting with about 5 different planters in different stages of planting
- Meet with Tom Longfellow of Daphne, AL who is moving their church into a Rave over in the East Bay area. He came over last Monday and we went through the Rave and showed him and his associate what we do. We then had lunch at Hard Rock. Since then, they have met with the Rave over in Alabama and things are rolling along. We got to hang out with Tom in Colorado in Feb. at an ARC pastors retreat.
- I talked with another ARC planter that is planting in Vegas. Tim Jimmerson is planting Destiny Church there. He is an Alabama boy planting in Vegas; talk about culture shock.
- I spent some time on the phone with Ryan May who is a pastor at Seacoast and he is planting in Chattanooga next year, also in a Rave. I have kin folk in Chattanooga.
- I have been playing phone tag with Kevin Lloyd who just planted in Decatur, AL. They are doing well. You can check them out at www.epicchurch.tv.
- We are very excited about the series we just started, Shipwrecked. If you weren’t there for the 1st one, you can watch it at www.shorelinechurch.net.
- This last Tuesday, we had a great Leadership pipeline with some exciting direction for our church for next year. But I can’t talk about it now. Maybe later when we are out back having cigars with the boys I can tell you.
Until then, be thankful… be very thankful.
Coughing up stuffing and cranberry sauce,
Pastor Eric
Deep Thought: Even though he was an enemy of mine, I had to admit that what he had accomplished was a brilliant piece of strategy. First, he punched me, then he kicked me, then he punched me again.
This week, we as a tech team had a brilliant piece of strategy. We went out filming for our series this week, “Shipwrecked”. Is your checkbook on the rocks? Well, for the next 4 weeks, we are going to look at how to get a rescue plan, how God sees our stuff and other good topics like that.
If the on location film shoots are any indication, we are going to have a lot of fun during this series.
So come on out and employ the brilliant strategy of going to church on Sunday.
On Location,
Pastor Eric
