kylegilbert

I put together this design for our marketing campaign for our one-service Easter celebration at the Knoxville coliseum. We already had a great design for our invite cards, but we needed something a little bit edgier and attention grabbing for advertising to the college and downtown audience. As I was thinking through what we could say that would stand out, I decided that it would be interesting to juxtapose two of the most bold statements that have ever been uttered by human lips.

The first is from Nietzsche’s work called The Madman. In it he uses these words ( “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.”) to say that humanity can no longer justify belief in the existence of God. In his opinion, belief in God is intellectually reprehensible.

The second statement is one of many places in Scripture where Jesus asserts his divinity. He also claims to be the exclusive door to eternal life.

It’s amazing to see these two statements side by side, and I hope that it will compel people to either seek the truth or live out what they believe.

This is pretty bizarre.  I guess it might be nice when you wake up in the morning on a cold camping trip, but I know I would laugh if I ever saw somebody pop out of their tent wearing one of these.

The funniest thing was that one person left a review and mentioned that they liked to wear theirs camping to play guitar at night.  Can’t you picture it?

Maybe we could convince Justin Petrowski to wear one of these up on stage some cold weekend.

Inspired by Jesus’s parable of the “House on the Rock”, my daughter and I decided to build our own the other day.  Unlike Jesus’s, we decided to build in our own hidden bunker in the rock and equip the house with a canon, a couple of armored windows, a hatch-opening roof, and a surface-to-air missile.  She picked out the front door, not me.

Just got notice that my in-laws, who have been diligently serving Christ overseas in a troubled area, were robbed at gunpoint last night.  They were forced to give over everything of value in their home.  Among many other things, they’ve lost everything electronic in their possession – including my father-in-laws dissertation notes, all of their electronic files, and digital photos.

It’s a shocking reminder that all is not well in the world.

But that will not always be the case:

And then at last, the sign that the Son of Man is coming will appear in the heavens, and there will be deep mourning among all the peoples of the earth. And they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with the mighty blast of a trumpet, and they will gather his chosen ones from all over the world —from the farthest ends of the earth and heaven.  – Matthew 24:30-31 (NLT)

Please join with me in praying for my mother and father-in-law, that God will bring peace, joy, and comfort in this time of adversity.

This video isn’t exactly going to make your day happier (especially if you’re trying to sell a house, like me), but it’s a very nice visualization of what has happened with sub-prime mortgages.

Brands are powerful things.  They give us images and symbols  that help us to connect with ideas and things.  Still, over time, they must change.  Sometimes the changes are subtle, and other times a complete overhaul is necessary.

Here is a very cool visual catalog of the changes to the Hersheys wrapper over the past hundred years.  Their brand is certainly effective; just looking at these pixels is making me hungry.

A few months ago I mentioned the adventures of my brother-in-law, Nathan, who was living in a dry-docked boat.  We’ll the Great Gorilla is at it again.  This time, he’s trying to score a job on an island.  For his application, he submitted the 60-second video below.  It’s hilariously funny.

In case you’re interested, he’s posted additional info on his blog.

As a freelancer, blogger, and the person responsible for Faith Promise’s websites and outreach, a good portion of my time each week in and out of the office is spent coming up with creative ideas or implementing creative thoughts.  I’m also surrounded by other people (like our graphic artist, my Pastor, and others who teach) who are faced with creative deadlines on a weekly and daily basis.  Because of this, the whole concept of creative routines is very interesting to me.

While I do not endorse the content of his writing, I found this quote by Stephen King to be very fascinating:

There are certain things I do if I sit down to write,” he said. “I have a glass of water or a cup of tea. There’s a certain time I sit down, from 8:00 to 8:30, somewhere within that half hour every morning,” he explained. “I have my vitamin pill and my music, sit in the same seat, and the papers are all arranged in the same places. The cumulative purpose of doing these things the same way every day seems to be a way of saying to the mind, you’re going to be dreaming soon.  (entire quote)

It’s an interesting way of putting things, and it makes me consider what things around me each day contribute to or hinder my creative thought process.  Surely my messy desk, full inbox, and constant drone of Twitter aren’t helping things.  It makes me want to fight for more order and stillness in my life.

One of my favorite things on earth is a wonderful sport called disc golf.  It’s kind of like normal golf – you play on a course, usually with 18 tees, and you have similar rules.  The difference is that you throw frisbees (putters, medium range, and distance discs) into a disc basket, and it’s free (other than the discs).

I love being outside, walking the course, hanging out with friends, getting competitive, and occasionally throwing a good shot. I even threw a hole-in-one once.  It was great!  Keri was even there to see it happen.

I haven’t played once since moving to Tennessee, but I know there’s a course about 10 minutes from my house.  It keeps calling my name.  Drawing me to itself.