Wednesday, September 24, 2008

One last PowerPoint help

This will probably be my last Power Point help. I know the video describes how to pitch a presentation for money but I do believe the principles exemplified work in both sermons and teaching. I think that's all I can really do to help others with their power point presentations. The only other suggestion I have is watch good presenters. (Many found on www.TED.com are excellent) Good luck with those presentations and send me and suggestions or comments on this power point series.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Oh, NPR why do I love and hate you at the same time?


Image: From Flickr; logo_npr_125 by MontageMan

So, I love NPR. I use to listen to it all the time when I was in St. Louis. It was great to quickly get my news while driving to Seminary and back. And of course there were the in depth interview with people that I would have never thought to be so interesting and fascinating. Yes, even Ugandan 'flute' players! NPR really broadened my perspective on things in the world. Sure many people accuse it of being a 'liberal' perspective, but I really did think that was honest.

But I will admit that towards the end of the 4th year of the Seminary I stopped listening to NPR. It wasn't a gradual phase but a complete halt. Why? There was a show about a lady who was talking about the Bible. And she was using every single fallacy known to man to disprove that the Bible was completely full of errors and is quite unintelligent. This really infuriated me because I could not really respond to the woman. I knew not just that she was wrong Biblically but that she was using logic fallacies. I guess I was just so mad that I stopped.

Well, I have now begun to listen to NPR again. It was a good news source during both the DNC and RNC. But it happened again today. This time a guy was explaining why he doesn't believe in Scripture, God and the like solely because he found out that a 'medium' was lying about channeling spirits. He took this experience and began to question his whole faith. This time I wasn't as mad but saddened. Saddened not only to listen to this man but saddened that I have never heard Christianity, the Bible, or Jesus ever truly represented in a positive light on NPR. Maybe it's my listening times? But I have yet to hear it. This time I won't be tuning out NPR...I still love...but I kinda hate it at the same time for presenting stories and people of one perspective without covering the whole story.

So am I just too sensitive? Does NPR do this? Do they have shows that give a positive light on Christianity?