Filed under: Uncategorized
I have abandoned wp.com for joshbrage.com
Please update your links, come on over and enjoy my new website!
Filed under: Uncategorized
Says Tambor, Howard and others. . .
“Are you on your way to minister or ministering on your way?”.
This has been the resounding question in my head all of this week. Along with “Hold everything loosely.” Ministry is an interesting entity. It requires so much from you. It requires virtually everything that you have emotionally, mentally, spiritually and often physically. Balance is hard. Keeping the right priorities is difficult. Keeping your own life separate is damn near impossible (at least for me.)
Last Monday, I was let go from ORCC and Catalyst.
This was somehow not surprising, however it was also very difficult to hear. Throughout the day, I was both relieved and pissed off. Wednesday sucked, I felt unwanted and unneeded. By the end of the week, I calmed down and have now become far more resolute.
I am going to go to school. I am going to read my Bible more. I am going to get a better job. I am going to work on building some freelance design clients. I am going to continue to impact Catalyst in whatever ways I know how! I am going to offer my creativity, my passion, my excitement and my gifts to continue to help further the Kingdom to the youth culture of Denver. None of that has changed! In a lot of ways, I am free. Free to just go be me.
It is not going to be easy. “But with God’s help, I shall become myself!” The largest thing that I will miss sorely is working everyday with my best friend, Mark. That truly sucks. I will miss working with the interns daily. But that will all be alright. I still see Mark plenty! The interns are about to start getting schooled by me at Axis and Allies on a consistent basis. And above all of this, I trust the Lord, I am chasing Him and He is chasing me! Hey, sometimes you can’t have your cake and eat it too, well, maybe for a little while.
“I flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami.”
I would like to live a life that is this straight forward and simple. This picture kind of already reminds me of my friends and I. Unfortunately, that either makes me Bill or Boomhauer. Here are some amazing Hank quotes. (thanks Craig!)
“Dang it Bobby, your mom and I had our wedding pictures taken in front of that fence!”
Bobby: “You’d never make it in LA.” Hank: “Dang it, I hope I never make it to LA!”
“Ginseng tea?? I’m not gonna get hopped up on dope!”
(…as he gets handed a cigar.)
“Don’t mind if I — oh, you probably didn’t realize this, but this is Cuban. I’ll just go ahead and destroy it for you.”“Why would anyone ever smoke weed when they could just mow a lawn?”
(referring to Ronald Reagan)
“I miss voting for that man.”“A poodle? Why don’t you just get me a cat and a sex change operation?”
(Answering Bobby’s questions about PMS)
“Bobby, some things are like a tire fire, trying to put it out only makes it worse. You just gotta grab a beer and let it burn.”“Bobby, from now on when I ask you how your day was, what I mean is ‘how was shop’?”
“You can’t just pick and choose which laws to follow. Sure I’d like to tape a baseball game without the express written consent of major league baseball, but that’s just not the way it works.”
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Catalyst, church marketing sucks, Design
Last night a friend of mine saw me wearing my shirt from our retreat last year, LOST. It is a decent enough shirt. He was excited, “Oh man, is that a Lost shirt that is really cool, where did you get it?!” I told him that it was from church and what not. “Oh, Yeah, Lost, That’s Lame.”
Publically, I declare that I am not going to knock off famous, public, trendy marketing anymore. iCulture, will be the end of it.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Catalyst, Food, Friends, Fun, Husker Football, weekend
Yep, that is the descriptive quote from my birthday weekend, actually from most of my fall weekends. I won’t attempt to be dramative and try to convince you of how cathartic it to watch football all weekend – I am a guy, I like sitting in my chair and watching football. Period.
Thanks to all who sent me birthday wishes! Thanks to my AWESOME folks for hosting a GREAT birthday party! It was a blast! Although I do not like playing games with Shelley anymore.
Huskers dominated a weak team. Hey, a win is a win and we looked good. It was nice to see a defense shutting down cutback lanes and making tackles. And it is great to see a high-effiency, high-scoring offense.
Sorry I haven’t been writing more. I have been fairly caught up in Catalystlife. But I will work harder this week!
Follow up to Those Were Not My Huskers
Alright, to be fair to my boys, Husker Mike is reporting that these accusations were false. I do find it interesting that there appears to be so much bad blood between those Mizzoo Tigres and the Huskers, maybe Chase is just a bad sport or something, I don’t know. It appears that both coaches investigated and found no truth in his statement. So, while that can be withdrawn, my point that 14 penalties is unacceptable stands. In my mind, Bo has plenty of time to get us winning (like 4-5 years in my opinion) I would really like to see us drop the bad attitudes and the penalties.
Man, we need some talent on defense. I would have loved to have been at the practice where Bo, probably in frustration with his defense, just flat starts looking around the field shouting, “Can anyone here play linebacker!?” as Cody Glenn starts walking onto the field with a beam of light coming from heaven. That is not a good narrative on the defensive talent he was given to work with. But, we will be back!
This looks good! Very very good. I like the cold weather. It somehow seems hopeful to me, I don’t know why. Which is interesting, because during chapel this morning, Terry Law is talking about hope. Faith, hope and love. Lord knows, I have heard plenty of sermons about faith (thanks P. Brian) and a lot about love, but, as Terry pointed out, no one seems to talk about hope very much. Maybe I should learn something about hope . . .
(Notes from Terry Law:)
“Something good is going to happen to me.”
This is a saying made famous by Oral Roberts, but it is the ultimate statement of hope. We, as Christians, must stand on a foundation of hope.
“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God,
to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28)
We must keep this verse close to our heart. This is how God approaches our lives.
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” (Ps. 23:6)
“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” (Matt. 7:11)
God, by His nature, is good. That is who He is.
This is a hopeful thought for the morning.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bo pelini, irritation, nebraska football, saturdays that suck
Last night was a very very difficult evening for me. Even writing this the next morning is hard. Those are not my Huskers. Bo needs to get some stuff together and quickly. I understand not having the right players. I even understand not winning right now, but if we are going to lose, we cannot lose like that. We lost a classless game last night. Two weeks in a row, I have watched an extremely undisciplined team behave like a team from Florida. Is Bowden coaching this team? 14 penalties!?! 14!!??! 14 for over 100 yards! That is ridiculous. Rumors of our players spitting at the Missouri players?!~? This is NOT NEBRASKA FOOTBALL. Bo, get control of your team. I understand that this is not the best Nebraska team, but lose with class, poise, honor and respect and you will have the state behind you. More loses like this and we are going to get very tired very quick. You do get props for your attitude, I appreciate that you hate losing – I hate losing. I appreciate that you immediately take the blame for the loss instead of blaming your players, like Billy C. I appreciate your not giving in and rolling over for the 4th quarter.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: biden, debate, election 08, fired up young person for mccain, sarah palin, vp debate
Sarah Palin rocked it tonight! First off, let me outline my responses and then I will share the best of the texts and twitters that I received all night…
We must remember that this debate was solely about Sarah. All eyes were on her. We know Biden. We know who he is. This debate was her’s to lose or to win. While I do not have an opinion on who won, she definitely won her end of the debate. What I mean by that is that she did not lose. She stayed calm, let her charisma shine, had straightforward and consistent answers and most importantly did not freeze. She did not make any mistakes. She did not lose her composure. Most importantly, I believe that she showed America that she is ready for this job.
She seemed to start out nervously, but I was extremely surprised at how quickly she gained her composure. his smugness made me want to punch him. I was simply waiting for the eyeroll – it never came. She consistently talked about what she had done, what she believed, how she will act. That allowed her to appear confident and ready to lead. He stayed with the strategy of defending Obama (she was critical most of the time) and attacking McCain. She proved herself to a lot of people tonight. She solidified herself to me. It also seemed to be that she was holding herself back at times, this chick is sure one heck of a fighter!
My favorite part of this debate was the same place where Sarah seemed to gain her confidence and accelerated the momentum in her way – during the foreign policy portion. She stayed on the offense, did not allow Joe to skirt issues and most importanty declared the McCain position the we are going to finish the war in the correct way.
Here is a sampling of the reactions I was receiving on my Blackberry throughout the debate:
flowerdust – “seriously, can’t look at Palin now without thinking “Tina Fey”
denverintranslation – “If I hear Biden (or Obama for that matter) say the phrase “fundamental difference” one more time I might just explode.”
me – “GREAT answer on foreign policy!!”
denverintranslation – “It’s funny how all politicians move to the Right in these debates. All of a sudden it’s “tax cuts for everyone.”
tbone – “doing well, better than I thought. an hour to go.”
tbone – “unless someone gets caught up in something I don’t see much coming from this thing one way or another.”
me – “Drill baby drill!!! Go get em sarah!”
denverintranslation – “Such poise! Go Sarah.”
denverintranslation – “Slow Joe Biden living up to his name. He’s flustered now!”
denverintranslation – “Biden looks like a Muppet…The eagle guy!”
me – “Sarah is gaining some serious ground in the foreign policy issues! She is gaining confidence.”
flowerdust – “I wish Biden would throw out a little wink. That would rock!”
denverintranslation – “Biden: “Me sleeeepy….need Wheel Of Fortune and footbath.””
denverintranslation – “Not looking forward to Tom Bwohcaw officiating the next debates.”
Shelley – “Woohoo for the vp debate! Palin did great! Incredible debator!!”
hugh – “The one great line of the debate: “It is so obvious that I am a Washington outsider,” Palin says, “someone not used to the way you guys operate” as she points out Joe Biden’s attempt to doubletalk his way to Obama’s position.”
Overall, again I feel that it was a GREAT night for her. She stuck to the areas where she is comfortable.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: creativity, fight club, innovation, inspiration
(Ht: www.rhettsmith.com)
(This from Lateral Action – read entire post here)
We all want to do remarkable things, and lead remarkable lives.
No one wants to spend the day engaged in mundane productivity in pursuit of a meaningless consumer existence. Certainly not you, right?
So why do we find it so hard to break out of our rut and do truly innovative things?
Because it’s hard. Because it often requires us to significantly alter our perspectives and step outside our comfort zones.
It’s almost like becoming another person.
At its core, Fight Club is about living the life you truly want to live, and the hard path to getting there. Tyler helps the story’s nameless hero (usually referred to as Jack) down that path to enlightenment, so maybe what Tyler says can help the rest of us as well.
Rule #1 “No fear. No distractions. The ability to let that which truly does not matter slide.”
I used to actually feel guilty because I wasn’t constantly “getting things done” at a maniacal pace, even though I was enjoying increasingly significant success each year
Rule #2 “No fear. No distractions. The ability to let that which truly does not matter slide.”
Rule #3 “I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say let’s evolve, let the chips fall where they may.”
Let’s face it, when we break Tyler’s first two rules of innovation and distract ourselves with foolish productivity, it’s often because we’re afraid (which also violates Tyler’s first two rules). We’re afraid of failure, ridicule, risk, mediocrity, and perhaps even success itself.
If you’re going to evolve and grow as a creative person, you’re going to make mistakes. In fact, you should start making twice as many mistakes as soon as possible if you want to have an innovative breakthrough.
Rule #4 “It’s only after we have lost everything that we’re free to do anything.”
Oh, yeah… don’t be afraid to make big mistakes. More importantly, don’t worry about everything going according to plan. In fact, if everything’s going according to plan, there’s a good chance nothing remarkable is getting done.
Rule #5 “You’re not your job. You’re not how much money we have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You’re not your f**@*g khakis.”
When we talk about fear, risk, mistakes, and losing it all, what are we really afraid of? Are we defined by the stuff we own, or would we prefer to be defined by what we accomplish and create for the world?
Rule #6 “People do it everyday, they talk to themselves… they see themselves as they’d like to be, they don’t have the courage you have, to just run with it.”
I bet you’ve got a great idea right now, bouncing around in your head. What are you going to do with it?
Rule #7 “Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken.”
On the other hand, wearing black hipster clothing and hanging in cafes smoking Gaulloises cigarettes does not make you creative. Buying a MacBook Pro and an iPhone doesn’t get it done either.
Creativity and innovation are mainly about hard work. It’s about constantly coming up with ideas and thinking through problems instead of vegging out. And it’s about taking action, plain and simple.
Rule #8 “This is your life, and it is ending one minute at a time.”
First, you have to know, not fear, know that someday you are going to die. Until you know that, you have no sense of urgency. You think you have all the time in the world to do amazing things, but you may not live to see that particular someday.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: character, quitting, sticking with it, youth ministry
P. Shawn Phillips used to tell me that he felt like he wanted to quit every Wednesday night after a youth service. I didn’t know what that meant. He would say,
“Hosh, when you feel like you want to quit. Then just do it. Quit. Tell yourself that you are never doing youth ministry again. Then go home. And come back on Thursday.”
Tonight, I quit.
Tomorrow, I will be back baby.
Josh Brage 