GodBuzz

While listening to James Clay's tune "One at a Time", I was struck with the impactful meaning of this song and specifically, these words "We were made, One at a time, One at a time".

The idea that God did in fact focus solely on each one of us for a period of time while we were being created "in His image", ought to give any thinking person some pause to consider the sheer wonder of that event.

Think of it, you were not made as merely the random event of some sperm-egg union. Rather, that very union was merely the earth-borne manner in which your person began the life that God had already created for you before your earthly father ever laid eyes on your earthly mother.

I'm currently reading "What Every Christian Ought to Know" by Adrian Rogers. It is a terrific book for discovering the fundementals of Christian thought and life.

I'll be posting my impressions in the coming weeks, but I'm particularly impressed with the conversational manner in which the author outlines the basics of Christian life.

Wow. That's about the best summation I can give for this tiny little book.

Not since "The Prayer of Jabez" or "The Purpose Driven Life" has a book come around that has so much potential to awaken believers, seekers and non-believers to the wonders of the meaning of life itself.

Dinner With A Perfect Stranger is just such a book. You will become captivated from the moment you begin reading until the very end. It's a good thing that you can read the book in one sitting, because you will not want to put it down.

The book presents a suprisingly thorough and understanding walk through the Christian faith. Sort of a crash course in contemporary apologetics that is refreshing, invigorating and most importantly, convincing.

This book will appeal to anyone with a zeal to know the meaning of existence.

Eugene Patterson, a pastor of some 35 years and a student of the original Greek New Testament manuscripts, became disenfranchised at the available American English Bible's ability to convey the fire and passion of Paul's letter to the Galatians. So, when faced with the challenge of leading a bible study on the subject, he took it upon himself to transcribe Paul's letter as if he were speaking to the audience of today. The result was quite remarkable. That was back in 1991, and since then, "The Message", a full "paraphrase" translation of the Old and New Testaments of the Bible in comtemporary language, has sold millions of copies worldwide and is currently the hottest selling translation of the Bible today.

U2's Bono has hailed it's author and his work in numerous interviews and has called "The Message" "the most important book I've ever read".

From ChristianBook.com: "Translated directly from the ancient Hebrew and Greek texts into today's contemporary American idiomatic speech, The Message is designed as a reading Bible. With no verse numbers or stiff, formal language, the Scriptures unfold like a gripping novel. Passages we've read many times before come alive, revealing the vibrant energy and passion of God's Word. From the mysterious Old Testament stories to the straightforward teachings of Jesus, to the encouraging early church letters, reading The Message will jump-start hearts, challenge minds, and forever change lives."

You can read this vibrant and relevant translation online here.

Rio Forge 128 - I recently found an open box special at Best Buy on a Rio Forge 128 MP3 player. I got it for a whopping $15.99. The cool thing about it is it will take a 1GB SD card for expansion. I'm pricing SD cards now, and I've found a 1 gig as low as $39 at compuplus.com. So all in all I'm looking at $60 for a 1 gig mp3 player. I'll post my experiences with the Rio as time goes by, but I'm really enjoying listening to podcasts right now. I've learned to convert them down in itunes to miniscule sizes. For example, I can get about an hour long podcast down to around 5 mb, which means I can store about 25 hours worth on the 128. But add the 1 gig SD card and I'm talking some 200 hours of stuff!

Fuji Finepix Z1 - This is one sweet digital camera. I purchased it online and have been soundly pleased with it since. The cool thing about this camera is that it fits in your shirt pocket, yet takes incredibly detailed pics as well as 640-480 movies. I never use our camcorder anymore on account of I can simply slip this thing into a spare pocket and I'm ready to shoot at any moment.

Directivo HD - Having purchased a 46" DLP tv about a year ago, it didn't take long for me to get ny hands on the Directivo HD receiver. The combination is super sweet (when I have time to watch anything). I highly recommend HD Tivo and DLP.

Casting Crowns will be in Birmingham, Al on Saturday October 29, 2005 along with Building 429 and youth evangelist Tony Nolan. On the day of the show, Mark Hall of Casting Crowns, plus youth communicators Tony Nolan and Roger Glidewell will all take part in an intensive 3-hour conference at Gardendale First Baptist Church in conjunction with the evening concert with Casting Crowns.

Shawn McDonald (Gravity, All I need) just released a new Live version of his remarkable debut CD called "Live in Seattle".

Third Day has just release a new album entitled "Wherever You Are". Check out their site for preview songs and commentary from the whole album.

Jackson Browne is a closet Christian. I've always been a huge fan of Jackson Browne's music but I never considered the question as to whether Jackson was a bonafide Believer - until I heard "Don't you want to be there". So now I'm convinced, and if you want further evidence, just check out this excerpt from Bruce Springsteen's humorous and endearing speech for Jackson's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

"Jackson's work was really California pop gospel. Listen to the chord changes of Rock Me On the Water and Before the Deluge, it's gospel through and through. Now I always thought that in our fall from Eden, besides the strains of physicality and the bearing of earthly burdens, our real earthly task was that an unbridgeable gap, or a black hole was opened up in our ability to truly love one another. And so our job here on earth, the way we regain our divinity, our sacredness, and our general good-standing is by reconstructing love and creating love out of the broken pieces that we've been given. That's all we have of human promise. That's the way we prove ourselves in the eyes of God and facilitate our own redemption. Now, to me Jackson Browne's work was always the sound of that reconstruction. So as he writes in The Pretender: We'll put our dark glasses on, and we'll make love until our strength is gone, and when the morning light comes streamin' in, we'll get up and do it again. Amen."

KLove.com - While visiting my local Christian Book Store recently, this station was being piped in. They apparently have a license for this, as it's catered to Christian bookstores in general. Great music interspersed with Christian topics of interest. And you can listen online while you work or play.

SandalsChurch - Thanks to Steve vz' s Blog for this link. This site rocks!

Greg Laurie of Harvest.org
Greg Laurie is a hip guy from So Cal who can bring the Gospel to the iPod generation in a way that's relevant, cool and easily understood.

GodCast Network - This is an aggregation network that features links to hip and relevant Christian podcasts.

RevTim - RevTim is a pastor in Southern California. Although his physical church services consists of less than 600 members, he's got one of the most popular Christian podcasts going today. Discovered him via iTunes Adam Curry podfinder.

From Dream To Destiny (read the first chapter at Amazon)- I first saw this guy on James Robison's program on Directv. The book is based on the ten tests that Joseph encountered and how they can be applied to your life in order to acheive your destiny. The premise is that God presents a series of tests to build your character until you are properly equipped to achieve your purposed destiny.

Blue Like Jazz (read the first chapter at Amazon) - check out RelevantMagazine.com's Q & A with best selling author Don Miller. Also be sure to hop on over to Podraza.org for more like this.

Winter Wonderslam - featuring TobyMac, Barlow Girl, Matthew West, Grits, John Rueben. Tickets $12-$15

Undone Tour- MercyMe, Jeremy Camp, The Afters, Monk & Neagle

X 2005 Tour- Falling Up, KJ-52, Hawk Nelson, Seventh Day Slumber

Diverse City Worldwide Tour- Audio Adrenaline, tobyMac, Kutless, Hawk Nelson

Everything is Burning- Kids in the Way, Spoken, Staple, Last Tuesday

CornerstoneFest - Third Day, TobyMac, Audio Adrenaline, Jars of Clay, Jeremy Camp, Kutless, Relient K, SwitchFoot

The vision for GodBuzz is to provide exposure to cool stuff happening for the kingom of God. Ideally, we'd like to focus on popular culture and bring you stories, interviews via podcast and perspectives from many of the influencers and movers and shakers in popular culture today. We hope to have interviews from people like Third Day, Casting Crowns, Rick Warren, Greg Laurie, Louis Palua and others on how they are shaping the face of Chritianity for a new generation of believers.


These are the kinds of content themes we want to pursue. But we really want to hear from you on what you want to hear and who do you want to hear from?