Landis Live @ Pend Oreille Winery

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My One and Only Political Post

This is just one man's opinion, take it or leave it. I heard people today say that they are an Obama supporter or McCain supporter and rub into each other the result of the election. Today being the day after election day, in my mind, we are no longer Obama or McCain supporters. We are one nation, the greatest, most free, nation on earth. With one democratically chosen president elect. Whether we agree with the policies of our president elect or not, he is still our nation's elected President. Today should not be an overwhelming celebration of one candidate or the sulking of the other, but the praising of a nation where people have the right to freely choose who they would like to lead their nation. This is not a right that we should be arrogant with, but instead protect and cherish in humility.

Justin Landis Live @ Pend Oreille Winery

Sorry its kind of Dark and the audio may not be too good but it is still cool.

Defeat on the Trash Battle Front

We I didn't have time to blog about this experience as much as I would have liked. The Trash competition has been over for some time now and I'm sorry to say that we lost. The closing weigh in put the Landis's at 83lbs of trash to our 92lbs of trash for the month. The winner recieved $190 from the yardsale where all the items sold came from dumpster diving and leftovers from a friends yardsale. Justin has posted a video of the last weigh in on Emenation. Although we lost we learned and experienced alot. We are also ready for another challenge and this time we won't be so easy on them:)

Day #3-6..... This is difficult

I'm really surprised at how hard this it is to be aware of what we are buying and what we are throwing away. I find myself just throwing things out without even thinking about it. Which is why our friends are most likely winning this little competition. Just to clear some things up about why my wife and I are doing this little competition. We are in no way becoming environmentalist. For me we are realizing that we are could be better stewards of what we have and how we use what we have. Many of the practices that we are slowly trying to put into place are not only good because they are less wasteful but they also are very practical and save us money. Like re-using foil and plastic baggies. For a commentary by my Friend Justin that explains why we are doing this challenge follow the Link. It was recorded on our way to do a little dumpster diving. Go here to check it out.
I was hoping to be able to blog about this everyday but I just don't seem to have the time. I will blog as often as I can and try to process my thoughts enough for the post be interesting and maybe meaningful.
We have been doing some dumpster diving. Here is a link to some pictures that we took. It feels strange jumping into a dumpster. This was really the first time we have done it in broad daylight and had people actually see us in the dumpster. I don't know why but the thought of people seeing me do that made it harder. Deep down inside of me I don't want people to think poorly of me which I think indistinctly they would if seeing me scavenging through a dumpster. The more I do this the more it is showing me how I process what I see and how I react to what I see and how I can change that for the better.
One of the things we noticed was that in one day that dumpster we went to was filled. It was empty in the morning and full that evening. Even though it was a business it seems like it was an awful amount of stuff being thrown out.

Day #2

Today, I was sitting at my kitchen table just eating my lunch and I got a little of my lunch on my face. So without even thinking about it I grabbed a paper napkin wiped my face and threw it in the trash. Right after I did I realized that I didn't have to use paper napkins I could grab a cloth one that would just be washed and re-used. This got me thinking about how much of conserving our waste is changing our habits and the way we think. There was nothing easier about the paper napkin it was just there. If the cloth napkin would have just been there I would have used that. How much stuff do we use and then through away just because it is in front of us. Or another theory would be that we use a lot of products just because that is what we have always used. We have always used paper napkins so I instinctively reach for the paper napkin when I need to wipe food off my face. I'm not a big environmentalist. I don't think that I'm going to save the planet. But I do feel that as a person of this world that God has created that I should be a good steward of the little piece that God has allowed me to be in.

Day 1 Last day to put out the trash

So today was the last time I will put the garbage out for 30 days. We began thinking of ways to not produce waste such as reusing foil and plastic bags etc. Trying to put these thing in place and remembering to do them. Remembering, hopefully I can do that. I'm not known to have the greatest memory.

30 Day Challenge

Last night we were hanging out with some very good friends of ours, Justin and Jen, and they introduced us to a site call The Story of Stuff. After a lengthy and indepth discussion about this we decided to do a 30 day challenge together in the form of a family vs. family compition to see who can produce the least waste. Basically how this will work is each week we will weigh how much trash we have produced with a hay scale. In the mean time we will be visiting the local dump location for some good old dumpster diving to recover some useful things that others have thrown into the trash. We will collect these item throughout the 30 days and at the end have a yardsale and the family that produces the least amount of waste will get the cash from the yardsale. So stayed tuned, both Justin and I will be posting our families experience during this time.

Yard Sale Update

I think yard sales may be a bit over rated or maybe I need to know how to do one right. We only made about $50 which we imediatly blew on a dinner out on the town. All that work didn't seem to get compensated, except for that fact that we don't have as much junk cultering up the place and the wonderful taste of Oishii's Sushi.

As I look out across my beautiful yard sale creation I notice that there is nobody buying anything or even looking....or even stopping to look. I decided to get all of the stuff that we don't use together and have a yard sale today. Big dreams began circulating in my head of all the things we could sell and all the money that we could make and of course what I would buy with that money. After a few hours of laborious toiling and organization we had that perfect little yard sale. Now I'm sitting here scowling, watching my nice little day dream yard sale evaporated into the North Idaho breeze. I've been sitting out here for two hours and only one person has even stopped to look. Oh... someone just pulled over....damn! Just someone visiting the neighbors. Was this toil worth the spoils.....we shall see!

To The One Reader

My only reader left a comment on the last post and posed some interesting questions here were the questions he posed: I wonder, what is the purpose of Christians meeting together? To glorify God? How do we glorify God? Is it by challenging or solidifying held beliefs? Some balance of both?
These question I'm assuming stemmed from my last post about using media in our church gatherings. I believe that Christians meet together for fellowship to edify and encourage each other and in doing this bringing glory to God. I do want to clarify one thing this doesn't mean that this is what Sunday mornings have to be. In my church Sunday morning gatherings are not necessarily for the believer but for those who don't believe. By loving people and continuing forward in our journey with Christ I believe is how we glorify God. How this looks I think can widely vary depending on the individual. God made us each unique with unique personalities, talents and ways of expression. Thus, we each uniquely glorify God. An example could be someone who is a talented musician. I believe that they are glorifying God when they use that gift in the way that God intended them to use it. For someone else it may look very different. I'm sure that challenging and solidifying held beliefs makes God happy but for some reason I can see him also looking down at us once we have solidified and thinking to himself "It's' about time you figured that out, now lets get moving!!"
I don't mean to bring less importance to solidifying ones beliefs it is important and it is all of those times which make the journey the journey.
Now how does this even remotely relate to my previous post about using an AC/DC song during one of our Sunday Gatherings? .....I guess the question is did using that clip of that song bring glory to God? I think that it did. It's purpose aligned with the mission of our church which is introducing people to a growing relationship with God. It was one tool of many that we used that Sunday which to introduce people. I believe that the chosen song worked well. Highway to Hell is a extremely well known song. Most people know it as soon as they hear it. Some people thought that we shouldn't use it because of the reputation of AC/DC. To me that was a reason to use it. People don't identify that music with church which in turn makes them begin to think about why they are hearing it in a church, of all places. I love it!!! It begins to get there minds cranking before the Pastor has even stepped up on stage.

Can God use AC/DC

So this past week I created a bringback. A bringback is what we use at our church during a gathering to let everyone know that coffee break is over. The topic this particular Sunday was Is There A Hell? So naturally going with the topic the song Highway to Hell by AC/DC came to my mind. As I began to discuss with some people about my idea I got some strange but not too strange reactions. Some people thought that it wouldn't be right to use a song by a band such as this because of their reputation. Others thought that it wouldn't be glorifying to God to use such music. In my simple mind this is where we as Christ followers tend to go over board. This is how I processed it. A bringback is a tool used to let everyone know that it is time to sit down and lead them into what the talk is about. Why should our tools be limited to those that are created by Christians. Does the Holy Spirit work through only material that is tagged as "Christian." I do agree that we should sensor what we put up on screen. Profanity and such material should not be used. But by limiting ourselves in this way we put God into a confining box that he is not in. We limit the ways the people can connect and relate to God. So I've included the bringback. It is is really nothing special but it brought up interesting conversations about how people can connect with God through media. In my role as Tech Team Leader at Cedar Hills I am continually learning about this. I will post more as I continue to process the thoughts and challenges of using media in the church.

Love to Serve

I got to say that I love serving in my local church. I serve as Tech Team Leader at my local church, Cedar Hills Church, and today we had some training on the presentation software that we use. Some how it worked out that I got to take 4 hours off of work and hang out with an unexpected amount of people from the Tech Team, which is always good, and watch some online training classes that were better than expected. Then at rehearsal tonight we apply some of what we learned and accomplished some great things. I know that this is like the euphoria of serving that typically it's more like people didn't show and the computer didn't work so we missed most of everything and the classes were horrible, but I can't help but be excited. Seeing people use the talents that God has given them, and watching them be applied in a practical way is just an exciting thing to see.

Challenge to Grow

Typically in the past my perspective when looking at the course and direction of my life has been me centered. I guess what I mean by that is that when I move or make some change life in general changes for me. I do something then I change. Recently a good friend of mine moved from Idaho to California. Yeah, not the typical move but he's also not the typical dude. And I find myself facing change that was not created by me. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing in fact I think that is good. It is challenging me in more ways than I thought. My friend is following God and I sincerely encourage him in that, he will be missed but once again as he has periodically done in the past he is challenging me to grow. Or I could say God is working through him challenging me to grow. I've had to step up in my leadership which I think is just what I needed. Anyway if your reading this then most likely you are him. Thank you for your guidance, friendship, and challenging me to see myself and others with the potential that God sees.

Just a little bit of snow

If you have been following the weather you know that here in the pacific northwest we are getting slammed with alot of snow. I actually kind of like it. My kids do also.







This is my wife infront of our neighbors house and you can just barely see my youngest daughters head.

Family Ski

We took our girls skiing yesterday. It was Yeo Won's second or third time and Kimberly's first time. They had a great time and they love their pink ski goggles!

leave the bling at the door

So I decided it was time to redo the blog and add some pictures that are a little more recent, but are still old. The new description was inspired from a single friend of mine who recently had a date. Me being the caring sensitive friend that I am decided to help him get as nervous as possible for this encounter. So for Christmas I bought him a huge shiny plastic necklace (I know, I'm cheap) with a huge Bling Bling medallion hanging on it. this got me thinking about what the Bling Bling actually is. What I concluded was that the bling is what we want people to see when they look at us. All those great admirable qualities that put envy on the face of every person you encounter that are really a fancy projection of a low resolution self. Bling is the gleaming smile covering an agonized soul, the enthusiastic "Good!" answered to the half meant "how are you?" How do we function like this? How can we expect to have true relationship with others if we can't get past the impressing shiny plastic and to the core of who we are?