Why are young adults not finding their places in their parents’ church?

I found this on "Out of Ur", one of the blogs I read regularly. This article hit close to home, as I am heavily envolved with the Young Adults group at my church.

Many churches struggle to reach the ever-elusive young adult demographic. Are 20-somethings simply disinterested in church? Not according to Brian McLaren. He believes we are failing to listen to the questions young adults are asking.

This post is a preview of McLaren’s commentary in the upcoming Fall issue of Leadership. Here the Emergent leader encourages churches and parents to begin investigating why young adults are leaving the church—not to argue them back into the fold, but simply to understand their perspective.

There was irony in the title of the old TV game show Family Feud. The irony was that the feuding between families was much less intense than the cheering within families as members tried to answer the same trivia questions.

In our churches, family feuds of another sort arise when members of the same family are asking different questions. For example:

In the third row, left side, mom and dad are asking how they can raise their 14-year-old daughter so she will never rebel and never get in trouble. Meanwhile, their daughter, seated with her friends in the last pew, is asking how she can get out from under their control.

Or in the ninth row, another mom and dad are wondering how they can be sure their 18-year-old son will (a) go to a good college and get a good education so he can have a good job and a good life, and (b) not be exposed to philosophical, scientific, or political questions that may cause him to question his faith. But their son, sitting with his girlfriend in the pew directly behind them, is asking how he can find a college where he can ask the philosophical, scientific, and political questions he has already been exposed to in high school.

These families share something in common: their young

Bypass The Windows XP Log On Screen

Here is a nice way to automate the Windows logon process if you are on a single user machine that is secure in your home or office...

To make logon an unattended process:

Click [Start] [Run] and type
control userpasswords2
Click [OK]
The [User Accounts] Property Sheet displays.
On [Users] tab, clear the [Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer] check box.
Click [Apply].
Enter a user name and password that should be used to logon automatically in the dialog box that appears.
Click [OK].
Go to [Control Panel] [User Accounts] [Change the Way Users Log On and Off].
Uncheck [Use the Welcome Screen] and [Use Fast User Switching]"

Hello FiOS!

Just got Verizon FiOS! WOO HOO!

Apple iPhone to be Cingular exclusive

"Apple and Cingular have signed an agreement that will make the US' largest cell phone provider the exclusive carrier of Apple's forthcoming phone, sources report. Apple's iPhone remains on track for an early 2007 release. Apple's phone will feature a candy-bar design with a 2.2-inch display and 3 megapixel camera. Robust iTunes and iSync support will also be delivered with the phone.

Apple's exclusive contract with Cingular is said to be good for the first six months, sources report, meaning other providers will be able to sell the phone in the second-half of 2007. Cingular had an exclusive on the Motorola ROKR—the first phone to feature iTunes—when it launched last year.

Sources say Apple is in talks with providers in other parts of the world on exclusive deals, but are short on specifics. O2 had the exclusive on the ROKR in Europe, however, suggesting that provider may again be tapped to launch Apple's phone.

Meanwhile, insiders say Apple is internally estimating that shipments of the iPhone will top a staggering 25 million in 2007 alone. Motorola's RAZR, by contrast, has sold more than 50 million units since its launch in late 2004. Apple is betting a phone with Apple's iconic design, elegant interface, and iPod-matching functionality will be a strong draw for users who currently carry both devices on them."

Bypass The Windows XP Log On Screen

To make logon an unattended process:

Click [Start] [Run] and type
control userpasswords2
Click [OK]
The [User Accounts] Property Sheet displays.
On [Users] tab, clear the [Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer] check box.
Click [Apply].
Enter a user name and password that should be used to logon automatically in the dialog box that appears.
Click [OK].
Go to [Control Panel] [User Accounts] [Change the Way Users Log On and Off].
Uncheck [Use the Welcome Screen] and [Use Fast User Switching]"

Suggestions For Christian Growth

Spiritual growth results from trusting Jesus Christ. "The righteous man shall live by faith" (Galatians 3:11). A life of faith will enable you to trust God increasingly with every detail of your life, and to practice the following:

G
Go to God in prayer daily (John 15:7).

R
Read God's Word daily (Acts 17:11) - begin with the Gospel of John.

O
Obey God moment by moment (John 14:21).

W
Witness for Christ by your life and words (Matthew 4:19; John 15:8).

T
Trust God for every detail of your life (1 Peter 5:7).

H
Holy Spirit - Allow Him to control and empower your daily life and witness (Galatians 5:16,17; Acts 1:8).

Too Much To Handle?

"I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much."

-Mother Teresa

Me Got Brain!

I have an IQ of 157!
I am in the 99th percentile!
This means that I did better than 99 percent of the people who have taken this test!

The average score for this test is 100.
The maximum score is 167.
The minimum score is 66.

My look-a-likes

MacFixIt - Tutorial: Installing Classic over a current Mac OS X installation

If you have a Mac capable of running Classic (i.e., not an Intel-based Mac) but either reformatted the drive and installed only Mac OS X, or acquired the machine with only Mac OS X installed, you may want to install the Classic (Mac OS 9) environment overtop the Mac OS X installation. Doing so is a surprisingly daunting task, but there are several options for doing so.

The first thing to do is determine what type of Mac OS 9 installation disc you are using.

First, if you have a bootable Mac OS 9 Software Restore CD, Apple recommends that you erase your hard drive and start with a clean install to perform the multi-disc restore as described in Knowledge Base article #60847.

However, if you don't need to boot Mac OS 9 but only need to run the Classic environment, you can work around having to do a clean install via the following process:

1. You will need to temporarily make all folders visible -- this can be accomplished with a utility like TinkerTool or via the Terminal command: defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool TRUE (You will need to re-launch the Finder after toggling this option by logging out and back in)
2. Next, insert your Mac OS 9 restore CD. You will see a folder called ".images" on it. Open that folder.
3. Double-click on the file "OS9General.dmg." This will mount a Mac OS 9 system disk image.
4. Inside of this disk image will be a folder titled "System Folder." Copy this folder to the root level of your Mac OS X startup drive.
5. Re-launch TinkerTool and make hidden folders invisible again, or use this Terminal command: defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool FALSE
6. Log out then back in again. You should now be able to start Classic from its pane in System Preferences.

If not, you may need to re-bless the Mac OS 9 System Folder per this Knowledge Base article.

Second, if you have a non-bootable Software Restore CD which includes Mac OS 9.2.2, you can simply insert the dic, open Software Restore, and select to restore only Mac OS 9.

If you have a standalone Mac OS 9 retail CD, you can try the same steps listed for the restoration disc, though you may run into issues depending on how new your Mac model is.

Caveat: Mac OS X 10.4.x upgraders Note that if your Mac originally shipped with Mac OS X 10.2.x or Mac OS X 10.3.x and you updated to Mac OS X 10.4.x (Tiger), you may run into issues restoring from original (Software Restore) media. In that case, you will need to perform an erase and install of Mac OS X 10.2.x then re-update to Mac OS X 10.4.x per Knowledge Base document #301468, or attempt copying the Mac OS 9 system folder as described above.

Installing a bootable copy of Mac OS 9 If you have a Mac that is capable of booting Mac OS 9 (any system that shipped before January 2003) and would like to do so, you may need to install the Mac OS 9 disk drivers.

This can be accomplished by either erasing your hard drive and installing Mac OS 9/Mac OS X from the media that came with your Mac, making sure to check the "Install Mac OS 9 disk drivers" option

Otherwise, you can clone your drive to an external volume using a utility like SuperDuper, then erase your normal startup drive, install Mac OS 9 disk drivers on it, then copy that data from the cloned drive back.