So, it's been a week since I picked up my iPhone and it was right about this time 7 days ago when I received that first text and realized that, somehow, despite iTunes having all kinds of issues activating the phone, that I was now live. So, what's been the impression so far? Is it just a toy, or is it a productivity aid? While there are certainly some toy features, there have been a number of other things that move beyond the toy and into the realm of productive. For example:

SMS - I text a lot. For both my ministry and personal life, this is my most common method of communication. The iPhone, with the exception of pictures sent via text, is awesome, simply because it keeps a running conversation that I can easily scroll through ... which is especially nice if I happen to have some time where I can't text and then need to step back into a conversation.

email - Most of the email I get demands about 30 seconds of response time. With the iPhone, I can take any free moment here or there, and clear out the inbox, leaving only stuff that takes longer to deal with. This has greatly reduced my email time on my lap and desktops.

GPS - This feature rocks. Tell the iPhone to find where you are, tell it where you want to go, and it guides you step-by-step, even allowing you to watch yourself as you move on down the road.

Internet - It's not built for huge amounts of surfing, but when you need to find something quickly and in a setting where you don't have email, you can't beat having the whole web at your fingertips.

OmniFocus - My to-do list is always with me, ready to either add new items or check off old ones ... hard to beat the productivity of that.

On the not as productive but still very helpful front, here's a couple free apps:

Shazam - This is one of the coolest apps out there. If you like listening to the radio, but hate that you don't know who plays that song you love, Shazam is the answer. Just hold your iPhone up to the speakers, let it record a bit, and within seconds you'll have the artist, title, album, YouTube links, and connections to buy the song in iTunes. I tested it out on really old David Crowder and it didn't work, but it worked on just the intro for a song on the new album.

Pandora - The Pandora app rocks as it allows me to play a wide variety of commercial free music that's based on the musical style rather than any one particular artist. Very cool!

So, what's the next piece of life enhancing technology that I'm going to go for? I'm thinking this video that Anita sent provides the answer (assuming they develop a version that works for bottles):

Having gone through all of the church planting seminars and having read all of the recommended church planting books, I can say that I'm rather familiar with the whole strategic planning process. I can also say that I don't like it at all. I never have. There's just always been something about it that just didn't settle well with me, and I recently figured out what it is.

I've been reading Church Unique, a book that offers a different way to think about mission, vision, values, and all that other stuff that goes into strategic planning for existing congregations. However, rather than just trying to paint a picture of where the church should be, it begins much more with where the church is, what's unique about the historic congregation, and tries to figure out how to maximize what's there, when casting a vision of future mission endeavors.

I was talking about this with Anita over dinner the other night and it hit me, this really links to the "wind" section of the elemental life, but for churches. Traditional strategic planning always asks the question, "Where does God want me?" It's focused not on where you are, but where you think you're supposed to be. Of course, getting there requires all kinds of energy and work with no certainty that, upon reaching the destination, you're actually in the right place.

However, Church Unique seems to operate from more of a, "Where am I?" position. This means figuring out who you are, where God has you, what makes you who you are, and then seeking to figure out how to live faithfully. The big difference is that, when you operate from "where you are," as opposed to "where you want to be," God gets to be the one who guides you to wherever you're going to end up ... you're just trying to be faithful on the journey.

So, for example, if you have a small church near a university, a strategic planning approach would seek to change that small church so it looks more like other successful campus ministries ("Where does God want me?"). However, the Church Unique approach might notice that the existing congregation has some amazing loving relationships that are going on, that they are very encouraging and supportive of one another ("Where does God have me?") and ask, "How can we extend those relationships to the students on campus?"

Thoughts?

I've been known to be rather hard on Christians for a wide variety of reasons and, while I hold to many of those reasons and think there's many lessons for us to learn if we going to be able to connect with people who aren't just like us, the past few months serving at Christ Lutheran here in Denver have been a wonderful reminder of just how wonderful God's people can be.

There have been cards that show up in my mailbox or on the pastor's desk from a wide range of people, continual words of encouragement and thanks, offers to bring dinners up when Anita had her accident, babysitting, tickets to DU hockey games, and then, this week, the gift of a scooter that a family didn't need anymore, but thought would be perfect for us to use getting around downtown.

But it's not the stuff side of all this that's blowing me away, it the thought that goes into it. Seeing the scooter in the garage and thinking, "Hey, the Burnham's only have one car, they could use this!" or people going out of their way to drop off a card or a meal. It just leaves me in awe of how wonderful God's people can be, and I can't help but think that, if those outside the Church saw this side of the Church, it would go far in changing people's perceptions.

As everyone who reads this blog knows by now, Anita and Robbie were in an accident a couple weeks ago and our car was totaled. Over the past couple weeks our insurance agent has had all kinds of issues with the other guy and his insurance company. Yesterday, we found out why. He hadn't been paying his premiums and, ten days before he hit us, his insurance was revoked. So now we have an uninsured driver case on our hands.

Thankfully, our insurance covers things like this so, with the exception of our deductible, everything else will be paid for (we've already received the money for both our new car seat and the old car, and all of our medical expenses have been billed straight to the insurance company with no copay).

During this time, Anita and I have been wrestling with how to best handle the situation. We've addressed the issue some over on the fshbwl, both in this article and on this podcast, but this whole uninsured motorist gig puts a new wrinkle in the situation.

So, what are we going to do? We're going to let our government, which, like all government, God established, in part, to punish the wicked (Romans 13), take care of things ... and we'll help them out in the process.

I just happen to know our district police commander, so, last night I sent her an email, explained the situation, and asked what we could to do to add to the existing charges, after all, the guy didn't have insurance and yet presented invalid insurance at the scene of the accident. This morning I received a message from her and she's going to follow up on it with the DA.

I'm not a vengeful person, and there's no gain for us in this course of action, but I do believe that God has given us government for a reason. When we break the laws, we deserve the full punishment we receive (which is why we pay all of our parking tickets, took a trip to court a couple years ago, and was shocked when this happened).

Hopefully a swift kick in the rear from Uncle Sam will prompt the other driver to, if nothing else, be a better member of society who works to serve his neighbors (although it would be great if, somehow in all this, there would be a great Law smackdown that would prepare the way for the Gospel).

Well, the great car debate that I posted about last week is over ... actually, it's been over for almost a week but I just didn't get around to taking pictures until this morning.

We went with the Fit. It's the perfect urban car in that it's small and mobile which is great for parallel parking, it's environmentally friendly with the low emissions and the 30+ miles a gallon it gets in the city, and works well for the family because it's very roomy inside, has a great safety rating, and is a Honda so, in about 17 years, we'll be able to hand the keys over to Robbie so he can take it to college.