The term ‘accountability’ is frequently thrown around Christian circles. It fills me with unease because I think of it as giving another authority to punish me for failure. Which is why Dr. Cruickshank’s definition in her book, Ordinary Discipleship, is so helpful to me.
“But accountability is merely the ability to ask for an account of [my] actions.” (pg 143)
#trust #accountability #formation #discipleship #leadership
Just hours before our neighbors were coming over for tacos and fellowship they came down with a violent illness. We ran the tacos over to them anyways, but I’m annoyed when it seems our adversary has gotten the upper hand. The spiteful, petty resistance is wearisome.
It reminds me of the behavior of the Unman in C.S. Lewis' Perelandra.
“What chilled and almost cowed him was the union of malice with something nearly childish… this petty, indefatigable nagging…”
But victory will be mine.
Today is ultra-full.
So grateful Amie got me that 20oz latte this morning! 😘
I was stoked when a #missionary family presented their call at #church yesterday. I went up to the husband afterward with hopes of learning from him about their successes/failures in their work in Rapid City (before they’ve moved to another country).
My hope sank level-by-level as I realized that he had no framework for #MakingDisciples and a view of #evangelism in the “build it and they will come” mentality 😭.
Loving this song. All hail King Jesus!
If you ever wonder, what heaven looks like, it’s lookin' like me it’s lookin' like me and you (and I’m wearin' blue)
If you ever question, what heaven sounds like Just let it fill, just let it fill the room.
I’m grateful for the music of #CommonHymnal and #MaverickCityMusic.
The Praise & Protest album strikes at the heart of so much struggle in the U.S. for #truth and #justice (It’s been my demolition music-one needs to break something when listening). Kingdom Book One is a triumphant reprieve in the struggle for justice through remembrance of the live and victory through Jesus the Christ.
#recommendation #music
Ran a truck full of sheetrock, tires, baseboard and wall insulation to the dump today. Ah the memories…
Graham built this great white shark lego entirely by himself. It’s rated for seven-year-olds! Gotta be one of the coolest legos I’ve seen.
This is the most rational and persuasive plea to read the Bible I’ve ever read. My favorite quote:
“…the majority of [Christians] aren’t actually familiar with what the Bible says. Too many use the Bible as a self-help book that they read whenever they need a pick-me-up, while others use it mainly as a tool to manipulate others or make more money.”
I mentioned yesterday how happy I was using native #html, #css and #WebComponents to create a web interface for a service at work. Here’s my write-up of the project for those interested in more detail.
https://alexbilson.dev/resume/call-report-parser-visualized/
I was explaining prompt engineering to Amie yesterday by sharing that AI can be trained to generate representations of character dialog, say Bart Simpson for example.
Instead of getting into the mind of Bart and writing all the new dialog for another episode, a writer could instead dialog with an AI to hone it’s impersonation of a character. Teach it to BE Bart Simpson.
I think a lot of the creativity remains, but now via computer dialog. And you move on to a new character.
For my part this actually sounds like a lot of fun. Instead of inventing lines for one scene of dialog in the next episode of The Next Best Thing™️, you could chat with the computer to fill out the character’s personality and history, give it the scenario, and let it generate the dialog.
“Hmmm, that’s not quite right, computer. Sorry, I mean Sonny. You’re skeptical about Fred because he stole that pencil from you in the 3rd grade. You know, before your parents moved to Seattle.”
If I wasn’t already sold on vanilla #webcomponents when I began adding them to my personal #website, I am now that I’ve built an interactive frontend for a web service at work in 1,000 lines of vanilla #JavaScript, #HTML, and #CSS in only two days!
May it always draw my wonder and devotion that the rightful King of Creation uses his eternal authority to adopt and restore me, a privileged descendant of racists. Like a colonizing Roman centurion among Israel, I have no right to share in the blessing of Abraham and the children of the oppressed. But his mercy extends, scandalously, even to me. And now my life is not my own, but for him and his kingdom.
Until his victory over death is realized among every nation and community!
It’s my birthday! Amie and the boys made me the traditional deep dish apple pie - eight years running! To celebrate, here’s the recipe: how to make an apple pie.
Yesterday we brought over an ice cream cake to celebrate grandpa’s 70th birthday. Then we came home and tore down a wall. Graham managed almost three spaces at his height!
“A mark of maturity is surrendering to the person you actually are instead of the one you wish you were… Hate to break it to you, but the vision you’ve always had for your future won’t come true because that vision was predicated on the person you wish you were, not the person you actually are.”
Thank you David Perrell. I need to hear this.