ICanLevitate

Guys, I suck. I was sick as a dog last Thursday and then was all over the east coast and never got these up. Better late than never right?
For the Intro to Youth crowd, here’s our small group training guide.

• NCC Team Leader Training

For Preaching, the only thing I remember saying I’d put up are some links to tutorial places for Photoshop and the like. So here’s an abbreviated list, there are TONS more out there.

• Good Tutorials
• Video Copilot
• PSDTuts
• Creative Cow
• Lynda

Let me know if there’s anything else I’m missing or that you wanted and feel free to chime in below with questions, comments, etc!

We talked tonight about Leveraging Culture in class. Here’s the links to the culture mines we talked about.

• Best Week Ever
• The Soup
• Entertainment Weekly
• Relevant Magazine
• MTV 

Here’s the Amazon links to the books I mentioned.

• Pop Goes the Church by Tim Stevens
• Help! I’m an Urban Youth Worker by Ginger Sinsabaugh

And because it’s oh so necessary… Spaghetti Cat

Have any thoughts? Questions? Comments? Add them down below and let’s keep the conversation going!

Hey guys and gals, in Third Mil we talked about using technology in your ministries. Would love to hear your thoughts, questions, resources I missed, anything!

Here’s a list of links to different resources I mentioned:

• Vimeo.com – A free video service similar to YouTube.
• KeepVid.com – “Snag” clips from sites like YouTube, DailyMotion, College Humor, etc.
• YouVersion.com – Bummer it didn’t work in class. Trust me, it’s awesome!
• ChurchMetrics.com – Not as much fun as the others, but a great resource for data tracking.
• Twitter – Just get an account already! And make sure you follow me, @jeremysexton!
• PSPrint.com – Where many NCC print pieces come from. Cheap and easy.

You should also have the list that was handed out. You better, anyway, PB’s going to expect that in your binders!

So what did I miss? What are you wondering? Blow up the comments section and let’s keep the conversation going!

While waiting for a render with nothing else to do, I started jacking around with the NBA Trade Machine on ESPN.com. This is what I came up with. Make it happen, Ferry or I’ll cut you.

Today, I’ve got a bone to pick with Chronos, the Greek god of Time. He’s a little punk. Tryin to step to my series trailer? I don’t think so. I own you. You’re just a statue. Sure, you’ll say “Oh.. you’re wasting time writing this when you should be working on the Last Words trailer…”

Nice try.

This is worth it. I’m calling you out. I’ll make you my poodle. That’s right. I said it.

I’ll finish this thing and even have time to sleep tonight. Boom. How ya like that? Make it 2:00 pm out of nowhere? I saw that coming. I’m already ahead of you. You couldn’t even catch me during Daylight Savings Time.

Time’s up… busta.

I can’t believe it, but I actually want a WWE shirt. Much less a John Cena one. How freakin sweet is that? Darn you WWE for not letting me continue to hate John Cena for no reason…

I’m feeling under the weather, again, which is no fun. But the title of the post specific to this iteration of the blog, which is not long for this world.

Here’s a sneak peek of what JJSexton.com will look like. Don’t worry though, ICanLevitate.com will still bring you to the blog. It’s just all getting all amalgamated in one site of awesome.

So, it’s Lent, something I usually don’t celebrate because it makes no sense to me at all, but we’ve been asked/encouraged to as a staff, so I’m giving up my Xbox. Why? Well, it is something that directly can take time out of my pocket and give it back to God. So, tonight, rather than firing up Bioshock, which I wanted to do oh so badly, I began a study I’m going to do on Leviticus.

No one ever reads Leviticus, but I feel like there’s a lot of good stuff in there that we miss out because we gloss over the Law without much thought. I read chapters 1-3 tonight and something struck me almost right away.

The chapters talk at great length about the sacrifices that were to be made for different things. It includes priest’s literally ripping off birds’ heads with their bare hands. That’s not what I got out of it, it’s just crazy. What struck me is that they literally had to kill animals.

Like, think about it. We’ve got a migrant group of people that are living with these animals. They travel with these animals. These animals are with them all of the time, they’re practically family. Sure, if you grow up with the animals knowing that they’ll be killed eventually, you can become a little cold to it, but I bet they had names. I bet they had been personified by their owners. They were almost pets.

Then, to cover for their sin, the Jews had to kill these animals. Can you imagine? You couldn’t live up to what God was asking of you, so Lassie gets it. The view you must’ve had of the consequences of sin living back then must have been monumental. It’s just not like that today. I bet if you told people that if they went back to their sin habits that we’d off their poodle, they would probably be pretty good about walking out their faith.

Thank God though, that we don’t have to live under that Law. God goes above and beyond the sacrifice of our livestock and offers up His son to seal the deal forever. It makes you appreciate the grace and the covenant that we live under now.

Another thing that grabbed me is how chapter 3 closes out. God has just described all of this sacrifice and it all hedges on blood and the fat of the animals. Then at the end of chapter 3, he gives them orders not to eat blood or fat. See what He’s done there?

Their sacrifice is meant to go to God and is non-transferable. They can’t offer sacrifices to God and then save some for themselves. I guess it’s kinda like that with this Lent season. Whatever we give up we have to give to God and drop for ourselves. Of course, Lent is an extremely cheap and easy version of it, but nevertheless, the principle remains the same.

I’ve also begun a life goal tonight. A goal I set a few weeks back is to memorize the New Testament. Tonight, I started my target for this year, or half a year depending on progress… Philippians. I made it 8 verses through and was exhausted. Not a kid anymore I guess. I remember knocking out chapters of John in an hour in high school.

I’m mentally out of shape

So, last night on ECW, the WWE held its first ever “Gulf of Mexico” match. Hilarity ensued. Seriously, I loved this match. The goal was to (of course) throw your opponent into the Gulf of Mexico. Add to the pot that it was always referred to as “The Gulf of Mexico” and never “the water” or something like that. No generic names here, proper nouns ALL THE WAY!
Not to mention, my boy CM Punk was in the match and won it. Which just made it all the more entertaining. Particularly for me, having seen his shoot interviews with Samoa Joe and Colt Cabana and knowing a little bit of what his real personality is like. He had to be loving how ridiculous this all was. Kudos to him and Chavo Guerrero for going out there and having fun with it.

Track this down. It’s good times.

Tonight for the first time I was able to watch WWE Smackdown in HD. Can I just say… AWESOME. It was every bit as good as watching football. Some random thoughts:

1) The camera work was great, the team is doing a great job experimenting with different angles and whatnot now that they are in the 16:9 ratio.

2) The audio difference is incredible. Having just picked up a surround sound system, the WWE in Dolby Digital 5.1 is amazing. The roar of the crowd all around you, the pump of the bass from the music (CM Punk’s entrance theme is AWESOME!), the impact of every thud on the mat. Freakin sweet!

3) The new stage is pretty. The lights, the LEDs, the whole jazz looks great.

4) Only downside is either CW or WWE is going a little overboard with the compression. When the camera zoomed close to the wrestlers on the stage, the video got a little pixelated.

Oh! And oddly enough… it’s mere minutes into the show, they go to a crowd shot and there is Bobby and Jodi Brock, friends of mine and a couple I worked with in college. Hilarious.

So… fan or no, check out some WWE programming in HD, it’s good times!