This evening I went to a tea shop to get Ashleigh a kind of tea she likes made with milk and tapioca pearls. When I finished ordering the following dialogue ensued:
Asian Lady at the Register: Are you Irish?
Me: Uh, why?
Lady: You look like a cartoon of an Irish person.
Me: I look like a cartoon? I think I look Irish to you because of the red beard.
Lady: And you are wearing a green shirt and a hat (I’m wearing a gray fedora)
Me: Well I’m not really Irish?
Lady: Oh Really, not at all?
Me: Well, maybe some, we are a mix of English, Scottish, and Irish I think
Lady: Oh you are Irish, I knew it.
So basically, she thought I looked like a leprechaun…a 6’2″ leprechaun
5:30am – Ben wakes up to the cheerful chirps of his Wall-E alarm clock.
5:45am – After getting dressed, Ben looks into the mirror and says to himself, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.”
6:30am – Ben arrives at the office to check his email.
7-9:00am – Ben looks at pictures of cats.
9:15am – Ben calls N.T. Wright to discuss his latest appearance in TIME, and to complement him on the appearance of his beard.
10:30am – Ben checks his blogs for comments.
11:15am – Ben has a lunch consisting of carrots, celery, and self-righteousness.
12:00pm – Ben takes a stroll on the campus of Asbury. After seeing an interesting pile of detritus, Ben is moved to tears and writes an epic poem about it.
1-5:00pm – Ben grades papers and teaches a New Testament class. Ben emerges from class very happy having made a Koine joke that one student laughed at.
5:30pm – Ben arrives home and gets to work on a blog that criticizes conservatives for mixing religion and politics. Ben concludes the piece by reminding us that socialism is truest to the Gospel.
6:30pm – Ben watches a romantic family comedy.
8:30pm – Ben tries to think of synonyms for awesome to describe the movie.
9:00pm – Ben sets his Wall-E alarm clock and goes to bed.
2. Sermons that pretend to be expository but are really topical.
3. The Worship leader mini-sermon. Praise songs may be so poorly written they need an interpreter, but I don’t want to hear your three minute mini-sermon. It’s especially bad when all the vocalists each do one.
4. The collections mini-sermon. This is incredibly common out here in California and it may just be that its weird because I’m not used to it, but I have been to several services at different churches out here that had a 5-10 minute mini-sermon before the main sermon just on giving.
5. Pastors using multiple translations in the course of one sermon.
6. The three point fill in the blank handouts.
7. The invasion of pop-psychology into Sermons.
8. 40 Days of anything. I’d donate a 100 bucks to any church that does 41+ days of purpose/love/whatever.
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