I start out at $ 0.75 less an hr but after 6 mo., I'll make $ 0.25 more an hr than I was with Qualex. Company van, tools etc. They have a big contract with McDonald's for espresso/ cappuccino machine to be installed and serviced. My area will be slightly bigger and there will be quite a bit of overtime in the first year, while they get all the McDonald's set up.
I enrolled full time in college the other day. My Pell grants covered all my tuition and most of my books. On top of that, being enrolled full time, I would have the Montgomery GI bill paying me about $800 + a month while in school. Sounds great doesn’t it? It sounded great to me too. I jumped into it without giving it much prayer. That was my mistake. After I had enrolled, signed up for classes and bought my books, I sat down with my syllabuses and started going over the coursework. I started budgeting about how much time it would take to successfully pass these courses. I started, only then, to realize what taking these courses would mean. It would mean that I would really only have time for work and school. I really wouldn’t have time for family, church or others. I started thinking to myself, “what did I get myself into?” I’ve wanted to get into a small group at church. I can’t really sacrifice any more time with my family. I also have felt an urge in my spirit to spend more time investing into the lives of my unsaved friends and family. I wouldn’t be able to do that if I had to be in class or studying during that time. There just isn’t enough time in a day to complete all I would have on my plate. I went the next day and withdrew from my classes and returned my books. I’m glad I did the right thing. It would have been nice to have the extra money but it’s not worth it if I have to sacrifice both my family at home and at church.
I'm always looking for new worship music. I'm defining worship music, in this case, as music that can be played during praise and worship time at church. Ok, I guess that can still be a pretty abstract definition because "what can be played during praise and worship time" is going to be slightly different for every church.
I would really like to build a social networking website where people could share new and fresh worship songs that they are using in their worship services at church. I know there are so many annointed worship leaders out there that God has blessed with new songs. These people may not have the means to get an album out there to the masses but with computers and the internet it is now possible to produce and share music that was never possible before. The music market has been flooded with so many self-produced bands. These bands used to just be local bands and that is as far as their music would ever go. Now, with the internet a band can become viral without the help of any corporations or sponsors. It's happening more and more every day.
I feel we as christians need to take advantage of this same technology to spread the gospel through music in the same way. If we had a centralized "bucket" for everyone to pour their gifts of songwriting into, that God has given them, anyone could draw out of it and many more people could be blessed by their gifts.
One of my favorite music artists, right now, is Aaron Roche. God has definitely given him a talent for writing music. His love for God is tranparent in his music. You can check him out on myspace http://www.myspace.com/aaronroche
I always enjoy finding new christian artists. The artists I really like are the ones who are real, who spill their guts out, good and bad, singing about Christ's involvement in their every day life. Rich Mullins, Keith Green, Jars of Clay, Caedmon's Call, Jeremy Camp, Switchfoot, David Crowder Band, Jason Upton, are some examples.
I like listening to Air1 online. It plays contemporary christian music, stuff you don't really hear on radio stations around here much.
Drop me a line in the comments on some of your favorite artists.
Ok, I'm setting this blog up, mainly as a place where relatives of the Cowart family can come together to converse about gift giving in 2008. Anyone, in or out of the family, is welcome to join in.
Alright, as you all know, my dad always held the view that Christmas was highly overrated. I didn't exactly agree with all of his views but I did admire the core values that he stood for. While listening to some podcasts from the Imago Dei church, pastored by Rick McKinley, I came across a message called Advent Conspiracy. This message really struck a chord with my spirit. I would like to incorporate some or all of what has become known as the Advent Conspiracy into our annual gift giving. The concept is Worship More, Spend Less, Give More and Love All.
What would it look like to spend less money but invest more time and thought into presents for each other. I know that all of us from the Cowart line are pretty thrifty but we can always become more relational with our gift giving. We can also look at corporately giving to some sort of missional outreach. We can give globally or locally. We don't even have to give monetarily. We could always donate time at a mission, soup kitchen, etc. We can live out the gospel more in our lives.
I don't think Christmas is the only time to do this either. Just a thought, but we could always have Christmas in July. Now that's really different. I know it is a little easier around Christmas in some ways because school's out etc. I think we could orchestrate it though. By having it in July, there are several advantages. One, there is a larger percentage of people volunteering for missions and soup kitchens during the holidays. The poor are poor 24/7, 365 days a year. Two, it frees us up during the holidays a little more so that we don't feel so rushed during the holiday season. If during the holiday season we step out of the mad rush and have asked the Lord to enlighten our spirits to the needs of others around us, we will have more of a bird’s eye view and the ability to spend the time to minister to those around us who are hurting during the holiday season. These are just things to think about. Comments welcome.
In the area of giving more relationally it's going to take a little more work. We will find out the likes of others in the family, find out what they enjoy doing etc. All this leads to more community and unity in the family. If we keep up with each other and talk more during the year, we will know what the others are "into" more. I know the aunts and grandmother keep up with each other over the phone and visit each other. I know myself, I'm not the best at keeping up with all of my family very well. For the younger generation, we have Myspace. I know most of the cousins are "with it"; ) and have myspace accounts. There is also now Mychurch, a spin-off of myspace. I am leaning more towards it now and hope to see the whole family join. We can use one of these social networking sites to keep up with each other a little more and get to know each other a little better. We are trying a social experiment at our church to see how Mychurch works to get to know each other better. I've already been able to place names with faces better, not that we have that problem, and I've also learned small little details about those in our church too. With these small little details you can sometimes start to build a bigger relationship. It might be worth introducing to your churches also. Well back to the subject. I also use a wish list sight called boxedup. Boxedup allows you to link to different things you would like to have. We don't need to get too caught up in wishing for things but it is nice to be able to look at someone’s list and get and idea of their tastes. It doesn't even mean you have to get them something on their wish list but it might give you an idea for a relational gift that would truly mean something to them.
Ok, I think I've laid out enough to get the conversation started. Now I have to track you all down and bring you here. That's going to be the fun part. I'll leave you with a video about Advent Conspiracy. Ok, so the video won't embed itself in my blog but it's on my front page.
Love you all,
Kit
P.S. I meant to include a sheet explaining all the different programs on the disk I gave you all. Just write me and I'll help explain whatever to you.
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