Thanks everyone for the encouraging comments. It's just all about living like Jesus and loving others as Jesus loves them. I really hope they allow you to be a blessing to others and I hope they inspire you to use the creative hearts in your groups to come up with even better ideas. Just be sure to share them with us.

So am I missing something? I read this blog hoping to get 7 Keys to Write a Great Story or 3 Steps to a Better Story.

No seriously, I love what Ben says:
"Arguments access the mind. Stories access the heart. Guess which one God wants[?]"

Though I am saddened to know some hard-core fundy out there read those 3 sentences and his mind immediately leapt to the answer "Arguments! God wants arguments." (and I would be willing to bet he even raised his hand at his computer as he answered.) No you sad-sack, pipe-organ-loving, chic-track-puppy God wants the heart of man to be transformed and Story pierces to the quick of man. not formulaic 3-point asinine alliterated alliterations!

BOOM! Take that you brood of Vipers!

Thanks @MKnisely for the questions. Thanks @BenArment for the answers and the Story Experience. I hope to make it to Story in fall (Oct 28/29). I guess if we would learn to create/share good stories this fall then we could change the Winter of Our Disconnect to the Winter of Our Content. The content being the Story, that is.

Like a Boss,
@michaelmcminn

Thanks Dana for the kind words, (or can I call you D-Mac?) I just wanna be helpful where I can. But now I have been wracking my brain trying to figure out what the heck I was gonna say at the end of #6 where all I typed was Batt? Ha, I need an editor even for comments!

Brandon,
Would love to guest blog or retool the comment any way you view helpful?

MMc

Once you go Ewok
you never go bok!

No, I think you are mistaken. I am gonna have to ReDunk you on this one. They first did all this with Howard the Duck. and then again with Ernest Saves Camp. Nice try though.

I don't so much eat animals as I do the meat that falls off the bone of animals when you cook 'em just right! ummm, that is good eatin': properly seasoned, tenderized, savory, juicy, well cooked (not to be confused with well done) meat. Whether it be meat from Bessy the cow, Clucky the chicken, Freddie Flounder, meat is murder and murder tastes good with the right sauce. Otherwise why did Noah build an Ark? Not so we could take our kids to the petting zoo a few times between ages 3-7

Remember what Noah did after they got off the Ark? Well yeah he got drunk and got naked and showed his junk off to some family members but that's not what I meant and you know it. Stop trying to make me digress. Noah built an alter.

What do you do with an alter? Well you might say sacrifice a virgin, but that would be foolish because that religious system was wiped away in the flood like a bunch of inbred hillbillies in the woods calling "Soo-ee".... So, try again. What do you do with an alter?

That's right boys in girls you slaughter an animal and burn it, i.e. cook it on the alter as a sacrifice to the Lord who requires blood to atone for sin. Sooo, what did we learn kids: Jesus likes meat, God drowns virgin killers (probably why they won't even kill the virgin in slasher films even today, goes back to the time of Noah), Noah shows his junk as a poster-boy for AA and I eat the sweet-good meat that falls of the animal of my choice when you cook it just right.

I just thought of a great youth fundraiser, so I gotta go plan a Jesus Bar-B-Q. Errr, what good idea, confusing title. You work on the title, I will work on the plan.

Voyager: For when you need a sweet ride to whisk you away from the memory that you still live in your mom's basement!

Ok, I know a couple of things about the Snuggie:

1) Phonetically it is very close to Suckie!
2) Aesthetically it is very far beyond Suckie!
3) It very much resembles a just as ghastly, if not more scratchy, early to mid 90's accoutrement, called (for-the-incredibly-obvious-of-reasons-to-everyone-except-those-with-the-most-severe-case-of-the-munchies) the "drug rug."

So a pub crawl and a cleaned-up-for-the-stay-at-home-mom-crowd version of a 90's grunge stoner fad is definitely something that is not cool. It's just a sanitized for suburbia version of a poncho with a pouch (for your weed and weed paraphernalia) which wasn't cool ever. Pouches on clothes haven't been cool since you wore you Kangaroo sneakers and Parachute pants for about 2 months in 1982.

The original drug rug appeared to be made of something like a cross between burlap sacks and a blackberry thicket. It had a whole in the middle but lacked arms. Because be honest, what stoner hasn't gotten their arms totally tangled up in their sleeves when they were baked out of their minds? And who needs sleeves to eat brownies while lounging all day on your mom's couch laughing at Dave's Not Here and other Cheech & Chong bits?

So put another circle in there for the Drug Rug people and you have people I am cooler than, add a partially overlapping cirlce for Scooby Doo (for obvious reasons). And you have people I am cooler than. Of course if you add the Kangaroo's and parachute pants into the mix then there is not a Vin Diagram large enough to represent my cooler than status.

I don't think this is civil but I know it will sell mopeds to guys who still live in their moms basements:

Voyager: When you need the nose of your bike to distract people from your own!