Sometimes I write blogs to see your opinion on a matter. Sometimes I write a blog to let you know my opinion on something. Sometimes I just write to empty my mind.

The one thing that I sometimes forget about blogging is that it was partly invented to let other people know what is going on in life. So, here are my happenings and thoughts as of late:

• Haiti trip with SafeWorld has been moved to August 12-16. So excited about this!!!
• I have my book, “Perfect Church” 90% completed. I should have this finished within the next three months.
• Even though my twitter profile says I am located in Denver, CO I am actually located in Fort Collins, CO, which is an hour north of Denver. I list it like this for more exposure on twitter.
• There will be a new jackalopekid.com launching on July 19th. This is version 3.0 and it is by far the best yet. I can’t wait for you guys to see it.
• I am thinking of getting my first tattoo. I don’t know where I want to get it, but I know I want it to say “To the Summit” in Latin, which is “Ad Alta”.
• We are helping plant orchardchurch in Westminster, CO.
• I am at 20 highpoints overall and plan to climb five more by the end of 2010. This will get me to the halfway point.
• My thoughts right now are that I have a farmer’s tan and I need to do some laundry.

There are some other things I have up my sleeve, but I can’t tell all of my secrets here.

So tell me, What’s going on in your life?

I spend a lot of time dealing with blogging, facebook and twitter. It seems everybody does this social media junk these days. This has me thinking about the future of social media and how long it will even be around. Will I be 80 years old and tweeting about my false teeth and my walker? Maybe so. I will not blame you if you don’t read my tweets when I’m 80 years old.

Or maybe my thoughts will be broadcasted for the whole world to see… Nevermind.

The internet is a beautiful thing.

Where do you see social media heading? What are some things you would like to see in the next big social media craze?

The one thing that I rate blog posts on is how many comments they have. If they don’t have many comments, then I’ll skip right over the post. If the post has a lot of comments, then I’ll dive right in. This is usually because I don’t have a lot of time to read tons of blogs, so I read the most popular posts. I also make sure to use RSS feeds, which makes reading a lot of posts on different blogs a little faster. Maybe you rate blog posts by looking at comments, or maybe you read each one. If there is another way you rate posts besides how many comments they have, please let me know. So, all of this got me thinking today…

What if bloggers took away commenting systems? Would you still read their blogs? Would it make the reading experience better since you don’t feel like you have to leave a comment? Would the blog experience be worse? Let me know.

To all those folks who never comment on here, I just want to know who you are and what do you do. Go.

We all want to see some sort of return on what we put time into. This would then make time an investment. Then there are those things that we all do where we don’t expect a return. This of course includes mentoring, discipleship, volunteer work and the list goes on and on. For me, blogging falls in between these two areas. It’s an outward expression of how I’m feeling, so part of me feels like I’m just journaling. The other part of me says it takes a lot of time and effort to blog, so if I can put ads on the blog and make some extra pesos, why not? Not too long ago my friend Anne Jackson, author of flowerdust.com, announced she was going ad free on her blog. Before this I never really thought about it. I guess this is because every “Christian” blogger I know has ads on their blog. But, just because everybody else is doing it, doesn’t necessarily make it right. So, this got me thinking about putting ads here on jackalopekid.com. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s an individual’s personal feeling/conviction on this matter.

What do you think? Do you feel that it’s wrong to advertise on “Christian” blogs or any blog for that matter?

I’m doing a blog tour over the next month or so. Here are the Guest Posts that I’ve done recently:

“Compassion” on trousey.com
“Leadership and Legacy” on jasonyounglive.com
“An Idol Heart” on anidolheart.com
“Balance” on danielmosley.com
“Prayer” on POTSC.com
Let me know if you want me to do a guest post for your site below.

The number one state for jackalopekid.com is now Colorado. We finally [..]

Hey everybody. First day of November. I just can’t believe it. Well anyways, @pastortim1 is a great guy with a great heart. He’s been an awesome friend here on twitter who always makes me think. We need more of those type of people on twitter.
Adam

When I was a kid we had several fresh water aquariums in our home. Angel fish, Tetras, Catfish, Algae Eaters and more filled the tanks, marking their days swimming from one end of the tank to another. I even remember the distinct smell of the flaked food I would pinch between my fingers rubbing them carefully together to get the pieces just the right size for the little fish to consume.

Lately I’ve been feeling like one of those fish. I swim freely in my own little world, one carefully crafted to meet my “needs” and enjoy life. I drift up to the surface of the water to pick out a morsel of food and then dive back down to circle around the plastic plant for the millionth time.

As I move around the tank of life I can’t help but feel that there is something more outside the glass walls just beyond my reach. Whether it is intuition or vision, I am sensing there is even more that God wants to do in and through my life, but my vision is blurred and the images are not distinct. Even working in ministry the images of what lies beyond are not always clear. Pressing on to clarity requires exercising the faith God has given and developed within me.

Like a fish in a bowl, I can see a world beyond my own, but it is distorted by the barrier between us. But is this barrier real? This is a question with which I have been wrestling of late. I feel like Daniel as he was waiting for an answer from God for guidance (in Daniel 10). After 21 days the angel appears to him and brings him God’s message. Why the delay? Warfare in the spiritual realm is what the angel tells Daniel.

But is that what I’m facing? Is this a prison of my own design? I am trapped here or simply choosing not to leave? I need clarity. I am getting glimpses of the possibilities beyond the barrier and they are captivating. So I press on, in faith, trying to wait patiently as each new pixel of life comes into focus.

Like the fish we carefully chose and placed in our aquariums, I know God has placed me here for a purpose. My life has not been randomly created by some impersonal undirected force of nature. I am here because God created me and called me to a relationship with Him through His Son Jesus Christ.

My lack of clarity tells me that realizing this life is just beyond my reach, but is that true?

Determining the answer to that question is driving me to seek God more, to apply faith, and to seek out others who can help me not only get outside of my “fish bowl” but to thrive by God’s grace once I get there.

@GCCofJesus is a great dude with a great topic here on jackalopekid.com–”Halloween”// buwahaaaaa. It’s happening soon, so what are your thoughts on this?
Adam

Why is it that everyone spends so much time and effort in preparing for Halloween?

Why is it that everyone spends so much time and effort in preparing for Halloween? It’s simple everyone enjoys the spooky holiday.
Everyone likes to do different things throughout their life as individuals, but we all have one thing in common and that is we all like to do stuff we enjoy.
Take reading a book or watching a T.V show for an example, if you are interested in a particular book or show you most likely will want to continue reading or watching to the end.

With that being said, if we voluntary participate in the activities we enjoy then we must ask ourselves a few questions.
Why is it that we profess to be followers of Christ Jesus, but don’t participate in fulfilling the Great Commission of Jesus Christ?
Do we not truly understand what it is to be followers of Christ?
Are we stretched to so thin by the activities of our individual lives that we have forsaken Christ and allowed the things of this world to come before the creator of this world?
Or could it be that our personal agendas give us more enjoyment than seeing souls saved and lives changed by taking our part in fulfilling God’s plan?

Those are some tough questions to ask ourselves, but are very important to fulfilling the Great Commission of Jesus Christ.
First of all if you desire to make an impact for Christ and to see souls saved and lives changed around you, then you must identify your position in life and you must determine what your priorities are. Is God number one in your life? Or do you set Him aside to when you only need Him?

God desires us to walk with Him and talk with Him to experience true joy and happiness. The activities of this life will soon fade away, and the enjoyment is only temporary. God offers us an eternal life full of joy, which is available to all who believe in Jesus.

We must start focusing on what God has called us to do and set aside the things of this world that waste our time and effort. I wonder what would happen if the men and women of God would put the same amount of effort and time into doing God’s will as much as we put into our so called “fun” activities of this life that are just plainly a waste of time?

Well again, I’ve known @MattBowman for a while now here on twitter. A cool cat indeed who loves the Lord and is a great friend. And of course, a great writer. Check it.
Adam

I’ve been in church most of my life. I grew up in a church where our pastor screamed & yelled to the point that we all feared that he would have a heart attack. I’ve been to camp, sung the songs, raised my hands, & done all of that stuff. As a pastor, I’ve even lead those camps. Yet a few years ago, I asked myself, “Is this really what Christianity is?” Is Christianity nothing more than going to worship, and if you are really holy, going to your small group every week? Or is there something more? Could it be that we’ve been called to a life that is bigger than worship services, Sunday school, & potluck dinners? I found the answer in an unlikely place: the words of Jesus!

In the book of Acts, Jesus blows away all of His disciples’ ideas about what it meant to be associated with Him. They were thinking about marching on Jerusalem & throwing the Romans out. Actually, they were thinking about Jesus doing that; they would just be there to share in the spoils of victory! They were expecting a revolution that would set them free from the Roman oppression over Israel. Jesus had something very different in mind.

Jesus envisioned a revolution too, but it was a revolution of faith not politics, And Jesus wasn’t going to be the one to take it forward. It was going to be left in the hands of this rag-tag bunch of disciples who had a loud mouthed fisherman named Peter as their leader. Not only were they going to be the ones to take this thing to the next level, Jesus said they would take it global. Think about that; global? Most people in the first century weren’t going to travel more than a few days from home, & these guys from the backwoods of Israel were going to take a story about a Jewish carpenter into places like Rome & Athens? Yet these guys believed it. Not only that, they actually did it! Within a few decades of Jesus’ words, His followers had managed to take the gospel to every corner of the known world. These guys believed in the revolution. They believed that Jesus really wanted to change the world through them. Now years later, I wonder how many of us actually take Jesus seriously here. Do we really believe what Jesus says?

Do we really believe that we are the agents of this revolution? Or are we content with simply “doing church”? Jesus says that by the power of the Holy Spirit we are going to be a part of a revolution that is global in scope & eternal in significance, yet so many of us live lives that are consumed with me, myself, & I & the here & now. Do we think that Jesus was just giving us a pep talk before he went back to heaven?

If we want to be a part of something more than just a religion, if we want to be a part of a movement, a revolution of faith, then we have to embrace the words of Jesus. We have to let go of the excuses. The excuses have to melt away in the shadow of the power of His Spirit. We have to be consumed by a call that challenges us to leave an impact on the entire world, beginning right where we are now. If you find yourself doing religion & not participating in a revolution, throw off all of your preconceptions about what Jesus can do or wants to do in you & simply start being the agent of Christ in this world.

What excuses do you need to abandon? Where do you need to be that agent for Christ? How can you be a part of Christ’s global, eternal revolution?