Archive for the ‘Humor’ Category

Nelson Mandala

No, I didn’t misspell the name of the guy from South Africa. I’m just providing a mandala of the name “Nelson”.

image of nelson mandala - a mandala of the name Nelson

But, so that those of you who were hoping to see a picture of Nelson Mandela are not disappointed, here is a Nelson Mandela Mandala

image of nelson mandela mandala - a mandala of Nelson Mandela

And I expect that some others of you are hoping to see a picture of the other famous Nelson.

image of willie nelson mandala - a mandala of Willie Nelson

That’s right – it’s a Willie Nelson Mandala. Not to be confused with a Willie Nelson Mandela mandala, that’s below. And Willie Nelson Mandela has to have been the answer to Wheel of Fortune for the category Before and After. If not, I will be disappointed.

image of willie nelson mandela mandala - a mandala of Willie Nelson and Nelson Mandela

That’s all the combinations of Nelsons I could think of for now. Real Nelsons, not cartoons.

This was the design of the stands: they had borders, that is, borders between the crossbars,

1 Kings 7:28

SCL Old Guest Post – Messing with the Attendance Registry

Here is a guest post I wrote for SCL back in the day (2011 in case you’re wondering). It wasn’t run because I didn’t actually write a full blog post for Jon, I just sent him an outline of ideas. But I decided to fill it out and present it to you today.


It’s been a while since I’ve been to a church that fills out pew-by-pew attendance forms, but a decade or two ago it was not uncommon for certain churches to keep an attedance registry in each pew.

In part of the service (usually during the announcements), the congregation would be instructed to have the person on the end of the pew take the attendance sheet, fill out their info, and pass it to the next person. Then the ushers would collect them all and in theory someone would look at them later. Usually that person would be the church secretary.

On some occasions, I would visit my brother’s church. No, he didn’t own it, it was the church he attended. I had to make sure I sat upstream of him so I got the attendance form first. Because if he got it first, he would fill out his information correctly but then also fill out my information.

Now if you can’t picture the church attendance registry form in your head, you need to picture that there is a line for name and address and phone number, and then there are checkboxes for things like “I am a visitor” and “I would like more information about the church” and “Please contact me about church membership” and various other options. All of which my brother would mark for me.

In this case, we both knew the church secretary (one of my other brothers), so I knew it would go nowhere. But he would also do the same thing in other churches, so I had to be on my guard – check the pew for an attendance book, grab it first or sit between him and the book.

Other times, if relatives weren’t visiting the church, my brother would make up names for the people in his pew. He’d get the number right, so the church attendance figures would not be off, but instead of his name he’d put Clark Kent, or Ronald Reagan, or Barry Sanders, or whatever. Just to provide some amusement to the church secretary during a probably otherwise dreary task.

What was fun was when my one brother forgot to tell my other brother that he wouldn’t be working in the church office that week. Then the backup secretary would have to sort through the attendance records and have to figure out why they didn’t notice Clint Eastwood was in the congregation that week.

Then Elkanah went to his home at Ramah. But the boy continued to attend to the service of the Lord before Eli the priest.

1 Samuel 2:11

Bruno Club

I just watched Encanto last weekend, so I have that going through my head. And one thing that popped into my head during the movie was something like this:

image of the first rule of Bruno club is we don't talk about Bruno club

Not that I ever saw that other movie, but I heard enough references and saw enough memes to figure it out.

After my words they did not speak again, And my speech dropped on them.

Job 29:22

Maternity Ward Quiz

This is a quiz to test your knowledge of both the Bible and the maternity ward.

What do those two things have in common? A lot of Greek/Latin/Roman names.

It’s been a while since I’ve been in the maternity ward section of a hospital, but having been there a few times I picked up on some common terms.

This quiz is in a simple multiple choice format. I’ll present 4 choices – A through D – and you pick the term that is not from the Bible but rather is from the maternity ward.

On your marks.

Get set.

Go.

Set 1:
A. Galatians
B. Ephesians
C. Philippians
D. Colustrum

Set 2:
A. Macedonia
B. Pergamum
C. Lycaonia
D. Meconium

Set 3:
A. plains of Shinar
B. isle of Patmos
C. medium of Endor
D. score of Apgar

Set 4:
A. 1st and 2nd Corinthians
B. 1st and 2nd Thessalonians
C. 1st and 2nd Chronicles
D. 1st and 2nd Episiotomies

And… pencils down. That’s it for the quiz. Please exchange papers with the classmate next to you and we’ll grade them now.

The answers are: 1 D, 2 D, 3 D, and 4 D.

I hope you all did well. A passing score of at least 60% can qualify for Continuing Education Credits, please grab a form for that on the way out if you need it.

And after they had preached the gospel to that city and had made a good number of disciples, they returned to Lystra, to Iconium, and to Antioch

Acts 14:21

SCL Old Guest Post – Songs with Motions

Here is a guest post I wrote for SCL back in the day (2011 in case you’re wondering). It wasn’t run because I didn’t actually write a full blog post for Jon, I just sent him an outline of ideas. But I decided to fill it out and present it to you today.


The number one biggest fear that people have is public speaking. That’s not mine though.

Mine is that I’ll e called up to the front of the church to demonstrate the motions to a song, mainly because I don’t like doing the motions but also because I probably don’t know them very well.

This is not so much of a problem now, as grown-up hymns don’t have motions like the kids’ songs do. But you never know when they might break out “Deep and Wide” on a Sunday morning.

And if they did, anyone up front will be immortalized, as the services are streamed and recorded, so the whole world can watch your motions on the internet for as long as the internet exists, in theory.

It’s not a comforting thought.

In case you’re wondering, “Deep and Wide” is a perennial favorite of the leaders of the kids’ program. Because then, the third time around, after people have started to develop muscle memory, they change the words to “Wide and Deep” and try to catch people off guard.

And I haven’t sung this song in decades, but it stuck with me: “Father Abraham”. Even as a kid, this seemed a rather worthless song as far as lyrics went. It was obvious the point of this song was to make kids exercise.

Anyway, I did my time. Now I’m old enough I think I don’t need to worry about it – I get to take my kids to the kids’ program and watch them have fun with the motions. Carry on the tradition.

Paul stood up, and motioning with his hand said, “Men of Israel, and you who fear God, listen

Acts 13:16

SCL Old Guest Post – Swearing Substitutions

Here is a guest post I wrote for SCL back in the day (2011 in case you’re wondering). I think it wasn’t run because he had something similar. I can’t check though, because the SCL site is broken for anything not on the front page.


I am on the conservative side of things when it comes to swearing. If you’re anything like I am, you refer to the martial arts actor as “Jean-Clause Van Darn” just so there is no possibility of confusion.

My upbringing may have something to do with my stance on language. After all, I’ve heard my father swear only once in my life.

It was at Christmastime, of all things. Dad had just finished setting up the tree and we were about to start decorating it.

However, the tree was not quite level and it started leaning. Dad spent several minutes adjusting and re-adjusting the tree so that it would stand straight. Finally, he had the tree where he wanted it and he stood back to make sure it looked right.

… at which point the tree started falling, which was not what my father wanted to happen As it was crashing, my dad voiced his now-famous exclamation:

“Moses!”

The Ten Commandments state that thou shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

The Ten Commandments do not state that thou shall not take the names of other Biblical characters in vain. I think that makes them fair game.

SCL has already touched on the point of swearing occasionally, but not the various lengths that people go to in order to sound like they’re swearing but without crossing the line.

And where exactly is that line?

Here are a few places it could be:

Based on the FCC
The infamous list of words that can’t be broadcast in the USA is a good place to start. But what about Christians in other countries? Or those who don’t speak English? The FCC doesn’t apply to them, but I bet most every culture has some taboo or extra-rude words that would be the equivalent. I think the Smurfs were the first to creatively get around the FCC by substituting the word “Smurf” for any stronger language.

Anything other than God’s name
The third commandment is an obvious line in the sand. I’ve known some people who use common epithets that usually involve God’s name, but they replace God’s name with the name of a “deity” from another religion. It’s amusing, but it got me wondering if that people could be considered to be praying to a false god, which would violate the first commandment.

Line? What line?
Some people think lines are legalistic and shun them. But if everyone thought that way, then SCL would have lasted about 3 days. SCL needs lines.

Normally at the end of a blog post, there’s a question to garner comments and responses. The first questions that came to mind for this post were “What are your swearing substitutions?” and “What are some of the crazier phrases you’ve heard?”

But then I started thinking about what kind of comments that would get, and I started to worry. So I’m not asking any official question here. Just write whatever comment you feel like writing, related to the topic of swearing substitutions.

But remember that Jon’s grandmother will be reading your comment.


And that’s the guest post I sent over to Jon Acuff about a decade ago. I hope someone gets that old site working, so we can peruse the treasures within.

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not [f]leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.

Exodus 20:7

New and Improved Petri Dishes

image of new and improved petri dishes in the shape of cruise ships

In case you can’t tell, those are glass cruise ships.

Because there’s no better incubator of diseases than cruise ships.

then the Lord will bring extraordinary plagues on you and your descendants, even severe and lasting plagues, and miserable and chronic sicknesses.

Deuteronomy 28:59