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Okay, so reading through my blog subscriptions in Google Reader I come across a Mint.com post about how China has a massive firewall that filters what their people can see on the internet. The reason for the news was that Google decided to stop providing censored search service and instead opened it up. That’s not a secret or anything, but….

I click the link in my Google Reader to open up the official post and it’s gone. All I get is the Mint.com MintLife home page and the previous entry is currently the latest. As of right now (11:14pm Thurs) you can see it on the RSS feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/MyMint

I think China put the kabosh on Mint.com or something. Who knows, this post may not be here that long either. If I go missing, somebody call Jack Bauer.

On a different, but related note, the political leaders in China need to learn that power should be used to serve others, not control them.

Below is an infographic about American studies regarding infidelity. I thought it was interesting that surveys showed 30% of protestant ministers have had sexual relationships with women other than their wives. But, I also thought it was interesting that they didn’t clarify if that was before or after they became Christians, before their marriage or during (adultery). I tend to think the lack of that detail means that 30% isn’t specifically about adultery.

It’s also funny that my home state has a $10 fine for adultery. That will straighten them up.

Via: Online Schools

Here are my five favorite blog posts from this week:

Alex Penduck – Why I’m Building an Ark – Part 6 – Alex uses the final part of the series to share some details about his decision to plant a church in Harford County, MD, called Generation Church. My heart is for Baltimore-area churches, especially new ones.

Brad Lomenick – Up Close Conversation with Reggie Joiner – Reggie is the creator of reThink, the organization our church partners with for children’s ministry strategy and curriculum.

Seth Godin – Failure, success, and neither – Seth shares some great thoughts about the importance of taking risks, not fearing failure and ultimately finding success.

Chris Elrod – Things I Do Not Understand – If you’re a church leader (staff or volunteer) you will LOVE this post. Hilarious but sadly true.

Perry Noble – Ten Questions That Unchurched People ARE NOT Asking! – This is another hilarious, but true, post regarding church life.

Part of the reason I moved this blog to Wordpress was so I could easily create pages that could hold resources for Children’s Ministry leaders. I started added some resources, mostly information about curriculum, networking sites and links to other children’s ministry blogs and bloggers.

I plan to upload everything we use at Community Christian Church in hopes that it could be of some help but I’d like to hear from you.

What could I, or any children’s ministry blogger, provide online that would be helpful to other children’s ministry leaders?

Please comment and let me know your thoughts

I’ve moved my blog from Typepad to Wordpress.  If you subscribe by RSS or Email, and you’re getting this through that subscription, then you are good to go.  No changes necessary.

However, if you’re seeing this on nickblevins.com and didn’t get the RSS or Email (wait a day or so), you probably need to update your subscription.  The old root feed was http://nickblevins.typepad.com/blog/atom.xml

The feedburner feed, which was in place for most of the old blog and is still the same for the new blog, is http://feeds.feedburner.com/typepad/nickblevins/blog

I’m going to post something on the old blog/feed today and later in the week so it will be easy to tell if you’re still subscribed or not.

As for the move, it was the logical thing to do now that I’ve learned a ton about Wordpress after moving our church website to that platform.  Wordpress is free and Typepad isn’t.  Plus, I can customize Wordpress and host other sites under the same installation without any trouble.  I’ll post in the future about migrating from Typepad to Wordpress, and all the bumps I hit along the way (some still need to be crossed).

Last night I exercised for the first time in over 2 weeks.  I had a rhythm going for about 8 weeks leading up to that.  As I exercised last night it was obvious that I had regressed some in just those 2 short weeks.  I noticed it when working out with weights and that made me especially concerned about the cardio portion.  I do HIIT for that, and cardio kills me because of how out of shape I am.  

Every Men's Health magazine I get has a page in the back with statistics about something related to….men's health.  Anyhow, this month was about the average guy and his beliefs.  Here are some interesting stats:

• 71% go to church or synagogue once a year

• 77% say asking for divine intervention paid off at least once

• 83% have prayed in a desperate moment

• 73% believe in miracles

• 69% have watched a televaneglist and 6% of them have opened their checkbooks

• 40% seriously considered making faith a full-time job

• 26% of Evangelical Christians get divorced (much lower than the 50% of Christians we hear about)

Of all of them I think the 40% that seriously considered a "faith job" surprised me the most.  How about you?

I just finished up my first graduate class and it was on Spiritual Disciplines.  One of the books I had to read was Sabbath Keeping by Lynne Baab.  One thing that grabbed my attention was a quote in the book that apparently came from a study written in The Seattle Times on August 24, 2003:

If you asked me what I Moleskine was a year ago I probably would have figured it had something to do with fancy clothing made from dead animals.  But, now I know it's the "is the legendary notebook used for the past two centuries by great artists and thinkers, including Van Gogh, Picasso, Hemingway and Chatwin" (according to the website).  That's not true obviously, as that brand has only been around since 1996.  They just claim those famous peeps used something similar. 

Well, I finally got 2 of them.  I doubt that makes me any cooler but I definitely like them.  I use one for my written "to-do" list and the other for my journaling.  I used to use a legal pad for the to-do list and small 5 star notebook for journaling.  But, neither of those were great for different reasons.  The only problem is that both my moleskines are exactly the same, so I put a red paper clip on one so I know the difference when reaching in my bag. 

The big question is……..how do you pronounce moleskine?  I've actually never heard anybody say it, but I've read that the real pronunciation is "Mo-leh-skeen-eh".  Either way, my coolness just went from a 2 to a 3……on a 100 scale.

Faith shines brightest in the midst of despair.  Steven Curtis Chapman and his family are showing amazing faith in dealing with the loss of their daughter Maria.  I hope their faith is seen by thousands of people who don't believe in God yet, so they might believe: