Archive for May, 2007
Smashing-ly Great Church Website Help
Posted by: | CommentsOne of my favorite reads (or feed-reads) is Smashing Magazine – an online magazine for web designers and others that hits on the most popular and useful topics about web design.
If you’re looking for free fonts, or great looking websites or anything else for your church website design, check out Smashing …
Of course, if you need a church website design or redesign, look no further than Rockin Cool Website Design.
An Online Spiritual Gifts Analysis and Inventory from Team Ministry
Posted by: | CommentsOur minister of education just showed me an online spiritual gifts analysis today that we’re asking our church to participate in called the Team Ministry Spiritual Gifts Analysis Group Database.
It costs around $190 for a year … and you can download the participants responses or results in spreadsheet form when you’re ready. You just post your church’s special link to the survey and members can instantly go online and submit their answers to the database. Then results can be emailed to your church’s contact for helping plug memebers in, etc.
Faith in the Workplace: Ask a Career Coach Some Good Questions
Posted by: | CommentsOver the past month or so, I’ve been working with Yahoo! columnist and blogger Penelope Trunk … career coach extraordinare. She’s been a blast to work with … and just seeing the stats from her blog has made my eyes cross sometimes.
Well … she’s just released a new book called Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success.
Anyway, I was talking with her about doing a Q&A on the topic of work and career and the intersection of that with faith and spiritual values … and I thought I’d open up the brainstorming of ideas to the readers of this blog.
I think it’d be fun to poise some good questions to her about how a person of deep convictions — enter the evangelical Christian — can “successfully” live out your faith and values in the workplace.
Also … I’d love to hear some questions from pastors that they’d love to get the unique perspective of a “career coach” … both the questions and answers will be interesting to hear I’m sure.
Let’s be general about the questions. But also think about different scenarios a Christ-follower in particular might face. And the whole subject of “faith in the workplace.”
Send me an email with your ideas for questions … or fill out the contact form below.
Introducing The Theme Playground: A WordPress Plugin and Theme Reviews Blog
Posted by: | CommentsMy buddy Ryan is running the Theme Playground, a site devoted to offering quality reviews of free WordPress plugins and themes.
Today, he wrote a review of a new plugin called WP Text Ads, which I’m exploring using here (so I could possibly get rid of AdSense) over at ProBlogger.
Go check out the Theme Playground and get Ryan’s wisdom and knowledge for free. 
[Full disclosure: Ryan and I are partnering on this site.]
And of course if you want a custom WordPress design, or to download some of the free WordPress themes Nathan and I have done, check out Rockin Themes.
The Bride Is Still Beautiful
Posted by: | CommentsI’m around church people quite a bit.
And for the last five years, I’ve been around church people a REALLY, REALLY LOT. I mean, at one point, I lived in an exclusively Christian neighborhood (the seminary campus), worked in a Christian instititution (said seminary), and when my wife and I left all that on Sunday … we went to another Christian gathering — the Church.
I’ll admit the last five years have been an incredible blessing … although sometimes I’ve gotten deeply frustrated and needed the “fresh air” of being outside of the “Christian bubble.”
Anyway … I’m rambling all this to say that in the last two weeks I’ve felt the warm love of the Bride. I’ve been reminded again of the sweet love and care we receive as a part of the Body of Christ.
[Get to the point, Cory]
OK … in the last two weeks, my wife and I bought and moved into a new home … and my grandfather passed away.
1. The house … every single person who helped us moved (including our realtor who is a deacon) was a member of our church. I can’t go into all the details, but let’s just say we were so blessed to have so much help from our college ministry (where we serve) and Sunday School class. One couple has moved us twice now … and stayed behind after the move to help us put together our bed and other things.
2. My grandfather … it was merely mentioned in our Wednesday prayer guide that my grandfather (Clyde R. Miller) had passed away and included my name. It was a two-sentence paragraph. Now, I know … I’m on staff and most people know who I am at my church. But I’ve been, again, so incredibly blessed by those who I know who have come up to me offering their condolences. Yesterday, I even received a card from one of our members. (All of these people I’m mentioning here are those who are not what I would call “close” friends in the sense that we do much together. In other words, we see each other on Wednesdays and Sundays.)
… this is the Bride … in her beautiful glory … it’s merely an extension of the love, grace and care of our Lord.
The Bride is still Beautiful!
But the Glory is the Lord’s!
