jasonackerman.com

typically, i like to stick a photo at the top of my posts, just in case i can’t write anything all that interesting, at least there’s something halfway intriguing to look at. but i haven’t taken a photo in a while, and nothing residing on my hard drive really floats my boat, so here it is… you’ll just have to be content with my words.

i feel like the last several days have been bathed in extremes. the temperature sunday and monday topped 100F, which is not typical for here, and is just plain ridiculous. nevermind that we’re a mile closer to the sun than i’m used to, which means there’s hardly any atmosphere protecting us from being instantly scorched by so much sun. this involves lots of staying inside.

nick and i built a small poker table, and as such have been playing in between phone calls during the work day. way. too. much. poker. (ok, not TOO much, but more than is probably necessary) besides which, i’ve been following the world series of poker which is happening now.

there have been some interesting developments on the church front. i’ve had some conversations with some pastors in the area, and have been playing phone tag with the CMA church planting director for this region for the past several days. i’m not yet sure what will come of it all, but the more prayer and thought that goes into it, the more clear the picture becomes. it’s exciting stuff, if not a bit (ok a lot) scary.

business is also a bit scary at the moment. we have a couple projects in the works that should turn out ok, but it seems we’re going to just ride the edge of “making it” again this month… i’m growing weary of this game. in the end, we’ve always been taken care of, so i’m not sweating it too hard, it’s just draining to have to live this way all the time, when we could just as easily toss everything out the window and go get old-fashioned 8-5 jobs with salaries and benefits and everything. then we could put our kids in daycare and never see them and probably never get around to planting a church. that would be fun.

wow. that got snarky pretty quick. i guess the point i’m making, is if you have or know anyone that has need for a web/graphic designer that is quick and affordable, send them my way post-haste. i need work.

to round out today’s boring news post, it appears that i’ll be joining the team at Metroblogging.com, of course at the Denver version of the site. It’s a large network of blogs specifically related to a particular city. It’s just a fun gig, and I’ll enjoy rambling on to a whole new audience of poor unsuspecting souls. If you ever feel like wasting a little time, pop on over and check out the metblogs. But wait until i’m officially on.

back when i was in “quiet deliberation mode” about the whole move thing, i started yet another blog to document some thoughts, mostly just so i could keep it away from this audience. no offense, to you, my dear audience (all 3 of you), but i needed to keep some things under my hat. now that we’re a few months beyond that whole process, i’ll be taking those posts and sticking them over here, and i’ll ultimately shut down the silly “top-secret” blog. i think some of the things i wrote have some value, and i’d like to keep them, i just don’t want to manage another blog.

as soon as the import is complete, i’ll post links here for anyone who wants to read them that hasn’t yet.

EDIT: Here are the links:
http://www.jasonackerman.com/?p=87
http://www.jasonackerman.com/?p=86
http://www.jasonackerman.com/?p=85
http://www.jasonackerman.com/?p=84

i was cleaning off my desk the other day, and as i was stacking things to the side, i saw what you see in the above photo, and it made me smirk a little bit because of the unintentional symbolism. there’s a bible, and sitting smack on top of it is my wallet. you can’t get to the bible without first handling the wallet. now, nevermind the breakdown of analogy when you realize there’s no actual “MONEY” in the wallet…

it felt pretty close to home to see the two together, because i feel right back in the middle of that tug-o-war that i imagine will never end… balancing my ‘needs’ and ‘wants’, my desire to provide for my family with my desire to dive headlong into church planting. give up everything to follow, is the mantra. but when you constantly stare at a dwindling bank account, it’s harder to take that to heart. it seems like the minute i started to make decisions based on what will be financially beneficial, things began to happen. when i say things, i mean things like business slowing way down, and opportunities to step back into ministry poking their heads up like a prairie dog. (there are prairie dogs everywhere here, it’s pretty hilarious… they’re like the possum in the NW, you can’t miss them, especially when driving, if you know what i mean)

so the question i’m currently asking myself, is “why is your wallet sitting atop your bible”? i mean, the practical answer is because if i set the bible atop the wallet while cleaning my desk, it would have fallen on the floor due to the “george costanza” nature of my wallet. figuratively speaking, though, why do we make decisions that are first run through the filter of our wallet before being run through the filter of God’s word? that just seems awful backwards, and i find myself working in a backwards way more often than i’d like.

I’m working at Caribou Coffee this morning. Not working AT Caribou… I’m working FROM Caribou. It’s close, it has wifi, and a fireplace. What more could you want? It’s not so bad, unless I end up having to take a trillion phone calls, then it gets obnoxious. Today has been relatively quiet so far. I’ll be diving into some serious design stuff when I get home around lunch time. Hopefully I can focus without getting too deeply distracted by fence stuff.

We’re currently wading through the thought processes that involve finding a church home, and church planting, and such. I’m currently of the mindset that there is a church out there, that doesn’t exist yet, and if we don’t plant it, no one will. This has all kinds of crazy huge implications and thought processes and discussions and such, of course.

And now, I’m going to head home for lunch. I will say this: the weather in Denver is AWESOME. I’m loving it, so far. Though it is a bit too hot for me today, the sun is out and everywhere I go has A/C on the inside. Stay tuned.