I have two predictions I need to make.

1. Tomorrow, we’re going to launch a 24 hour “what if” project at 9AM Eastern that aims to dent the universe and save lives. It will be fun and fast and shine big glory on a big God.

2. This Sunday, your pastor will use a Chilean miner sermon illustration.

Next week when both of these have come to pass, you will email me and ask, “How do you do it?” I will respond, “It’s just what I do. The club can’t even handle me right now!” And we will laugh, oh we will laugh.

But predicting that pastors will dig the Chilean miner rescue story is too easy. Anyone can predict that. I’ll actually tell you the four types of Chilean miner sermon you can expect:

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The other day, I realized something surprising about myself. Driving home from work, a single, captivating thought blossomed in my mind like an unexpected flower.

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Despite being an early adopter of both Gavin DeGraw and Salt & Vinegar Pringles, people rarely call me a “visionary.” (Both of those things should be more famous by the way.)

No one looks at me as a shaper of culture, as a predictor of fads, as a trendsetter if you will. Until today. A few weeks ago I hinted at something that came to be. I joked about something that actually came to pass. I hate to exaggerate, but I kind of predicted the future.

How?

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As the nights turn cold and the days grow short, I can’t help but think of one thing. As leaves burst with color and wood fire places light across the Tennessee hills I find myself in, there is one thought that I can’t shake. As the season and sunsets turn into a kind of Thomas Kinkade/Yankee Candle mashup worthy of Double Rainbow strength awe and wonder, one thought is bursting across the landscape of my heart and soul …

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Last year, we raised $30,000 in 18 hours to build a kindergarten in Vietnam.

This Friday we’re going to do it again. Only, it’s going to be a little different.

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It would be difficult for me to love this video more. Tripp Crosby and Tyler Stanton created this masterpiece, alongside singer Chris Tomlin. This is hilarious and perfect for a Sunday afternoon. Check it out after the jump.

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What’s your blog?

What’s your cause? What’s your band? What’s your book?

What’s the link you want people to see more than anything else?

I hereby declare this “Shameless Saturday.”

Post a link to whatever it is you’re all about with no shame or apologizing or feeling like you’re making a comment on a post you really don’t care about but are instead secretly trying to pimp your own blog. (I’ve done that myself many times. The best way to do it is to say, “That’s an interesting post. It reminds me of something I wrote recently on my blog ….” Sometimes when people do that it’s actually a good link to something they wrote that is similar to what was written on another post. But when I was coming up, on 8 mile, just trying to rock the mic at any chance I was given, that was definitely one of the techniques I employed.)

Please, use the comments this weekend to let us know about your blog or your cause or your band or your whatever. The Internets are so big it’s hard to find everything cool. (I try to do Shameless Saturday once a season, so please consider this the Winter edition.)

Tell us what’s up with a link.

(I’ve spent the last few days with one of the funniest people I know, Bryan Allain. You’ve seen his work here before, he’s going to have a book eventually and I think you’ll dig today’s guest post. Enjoy!)

Leaving a church, 2.0

Oh technology, how you have enriched our lives.

Years ago when I wanted to know who won last night’s game I watched CNN headline news for “sports on the sevens”. These days I’ve got live sporting events on my High-Def pocket phone.

Years ago if I wanted to know how a radio worked, I made up crazy theories about a band of miniature musicians who lived in each device that could play every song known to man. These days, I can go online and learn how to build my own radio out of binder clips and Neosporin. (Though I’m still partial to the mini-musicians idea, which I believe was heavily influenced by the technological revelations on the Flintstones.)

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When my wife and I first got married, I thought that when she told me her problems, she wanted me to instantly solve them with my awesome ideas. I thought that what she desired, what she wanted most, was not that I listen to her problems. A large house cat or domesticated ferret can listen to you. What she needed from me were solutions.

And the faster I could get them out the better.

And if I could actually cut her off in the middle of telling me a story about her day, she’d be OK with that.

Apparently, I was mistaken.

Though I tried to instantly fix her issues, she never really seemed to take me up on my wicked awesome ideas. In fact most times, it just made her mad.

People don’t like that. Being cut off was not in fact one of her love languages. (I keep hoping that the game “Words with Friends” counts as a love language.) She wasn’t happy with me when I did that in our marriage, but I think there’s something even worse. I think there is someone even more annoying and infuriating than I was. I’m talking about …

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If it were up to me, you’d be allowed to board an airplane based on how fast you took your shoes off in the security line. Clock a good time? You’re on the plane first! Slowly unlace waist high boots? You’ll board last.

It would be like the Olympics of airport security. And it would be awesome.

These are the kind of things I think about when I fly. If you follow me on twitter, and you really should, you know all of this. You know that last Saturday I tweeted about the four year old next to me who shook his sippy cup like he had just won the NBA Championship. Milk flew on my book and my face. It was a scene man, a real scene.

Eventually the flight attendant stepped in when the kid made a play for the fire extinguisher and the bullhorn. Party time!

But that kid wasn’t even the most interesting thing that happened on that flight. There was an officer in the army sitting on the other side of me. He was flying back to Afghanistan and said something that really surprised me. I asked him what was one of the biggest misconceptions about Afghanistan and here’s what he told me:

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