kylegilbert

I have about 40 blogs that I follow through RSS feeds.  Of those, my favorite photo blog is called “Stuck in Customs.”  The guy features amazing photography from all over the world.  Very inspiring stuff!

Time lapse oragami + invisible hands = cool.

I am responsible for this, not my daughter.  But she did think it was funny.

As I’ve been working on my personal growth plan over the past few weeks, I realized tonight that I’ve done a lousy job on one my biggest goals for last year.   Tonight, I’m committing to make rest my number one goal for 2009.

“WASTE not life,” wrote Benjamin Franklin, patron saint of American entrepreneurs. “In the grave will be sleeping enough.”  Centuries later, the attitude toward sleep in America — and in American business, in particular — has scarcely changed. Corporate culture reveres the e-mail message sent at 3 a.m., the executive who rushes directly into a meeting from a red-eye flight. Bumper stickers offer an updated version of Franklin’s dictum: “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

“There is a cultural bias against sleep that sees it as akin to shutting down, or even to death….” [New York Times]

I want to learn how to get beyond my own desire to accomplish and achieve.  I want to move past my ability to get things done and make money in the evenings doing freelance work.  I’m praying that God would make me counter cultural and teach me how to rest.

According to ComScore, there are now over 1 billion people who have internet access -  that is between 15 & 22 percent of the people alive on earth.  It’s an amazing number of people, and the implications are huge, especially for the church.

For the past couple of months, I’ve been working through the details of launching an Internet Campus at Faith Promise Church.  Our hope is to stream the entire service on Sunday mornings at 10 am (ET) by March 2009.  More than just sermons, this would include all the drama, video, and music of the weekend service.

This will allow two things to take place:

• People who aren’t ready to set foot on our physical campus will have the opportunity to experience Faith Promise over the internet.
• People who are physically or geographically unable to attend our church will have the ability to worship with us.

My prayer is that our Internet Campus will be a tool that is used by God to change lives all over the world as they hear God’s message of redemption and are inspired by authentic biblical leadership.  Please join with me in praying, and I’ll keep you posted as things progress.

Today the office was closed because of snow & ice, and Keri got us all outside for an early morning walk.

Time for round two with my daughter.  This time we’re going to build a snow man.

Tonight was an awesome night of worship at Faith Promise!  We set a record for a single service with 1,226 present (1321, if you include the kids in Preschool) .  That’s pretty full, especially when you take into account that there are only 1,000 seats in the auditorium.

One of the songs was, For the Glory of it All, and it really made me miss all my pals from the West Campus.  I love you guys, and I think about you all the time!  Come visit, when you have a chance!

Getting a haircut the other day reminded me of something that happened back in college.  It was during the summer, and I had my customary buzz cut going on.  I love having my hair buzzed.  It felt so nice in the shower, worked well with having the top down on my Jeep Wrangler (my car at the time), and I could do the haircut myself in just a few minutes.

Well, one day I was giving myself a haircut, when all of a sudden I felt a couple of things happen.  First, I felt the guard on the trimmers slip.  Second, I felt the metal sliding across the top of my head as the trimmers dug into my hair.  I stopped instantaneously, but the damage had already been done.  There, on the very top of my head was a 2″ x 2″ spot where the hair was gone.

That was a Saturday, and for a couple of days, I made the most of it.   Sunday morning, I had one of my little brothers write the word “HAIR” with a pen in the bald spot.  I went to church that way.

Sunday night, I went ahead and finished the job – shaving my head bald.

Those who have been reading this blog for a while know that I hate getting haircuts.  But yesterday, my wife and I agreed that I had put things off for long enough.  It was time to find a place in Knoxville.

What I didn’t mention in my last post about haircuts is that my wife has been encouraging me for a couple of years to upgrade my experience to a real hair salon.   It’s hard for me to admit this, but yesterday, I gave in to my wife’s suggestions.

Everything was new and different from the beginning, starting with needing to make an appointment.  I’m used to sitting around in a room full of other people who, from the looks on their faces, clearly feel the same way I do about haircuts.  Fortunately, they had an immediate opening available, so after I called, I headed right over.

The differences didn’t stop there.  After I arrived and met my stylist, I received a “consultation”, a head massage (it felt good, but I’m still ambiguous about this), and a shampoo (again, not sure what I think about somebody shampooing my head).  So there I was, already twenty minutes into my haircut, and no one had brandished any scissors.  Crazy!

Well, my stylist did eventually cut my hair, and I must say that it was certainly one of the best haircuts I’ve ever gotten.  I’m used to either:  1) coming home to finish it myself, or 2) going back to ask them to finish the job.  Seriously.

And the fun didn’t stop there, either.  They washed my hair again, dried it, and styled it.

Despite my initial anxiety, there were really only two bad things about the experience:  1) It cost about twice what I’m used to paying (guess I’ll have to go less frequently) and 2) my hair still smells a little like some herbal panda bear thing.

Keri and I met in High School, about 15 years ago.  We were both Juniors in High School, and I was a bus boy at Abuelo’s Mexican Restaraunt in Lubbock, TX.  A mutual friend decided that we needed to meet each other, so the two of them came to eat one night while I was working.  (Can’t you picture me walking around with my black bus tub and white wash rag?)  We dated for several months, but it wasn’t until the middle of college that we both realized we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together.  As soon as I graduated, we were married.

That was January 9, 1999.  Today, Keri and I have been married for ten years.

I really can’t believe how fortunate I am to have such a wonderful spouse! She is my best friend, my encourager, and a wonderful mother to our kids.  God has taught me so much about love, kindness, support, and patience through the example of my wife.

Keri is my dearest treasure, and I am so grateful for these ten years we’ve had together.