Tragic news today:

WACO, Texas - A pastor performing a baptism was electrocuted inside his church Sunday morning after adjusting a nearby microphone while standing in water, a church employee said.

The Rev. Kyle Lake, 33, was stepping into the baptistery as he reached out for the microphone, which produced an electric shock, said University Baptist Church community pastor Ben Dudley.

Water in a baptistery usually reaches above the waist, said Byron Weathersbee, interim university chaplain at Baylor University.

Lake was pronounced dead at Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center, nursing supervisor Pat Mahl said. The woman being baptized apparently had not stepped into the water and was not seriously injured. Associated Press

Sympathy is abundant across the blogosphere. Our prayers go out to Kyle’s family, friends, and congregation (which includes the David Crowder Band).

Forgive me if this seems inappropriate, and I would understand if his family isn’t ready to deal with this, but I’ve noticed that Kyle had registered KyleLake.com, and has several books out recently. The domain is currently parked, and if the family and church are interested, it might be nice to use it to set up a tribute site. I would host the site in Kyle’s memory (possibly also containing info about his books) for free forever.

If anyone would like to pass word to the family of this offer (i.e. someone who knows the family and when it would be appropriate to broach the subject), please do so, and contact me for setup info.

Also, if there are any web designers out there who would like to design the site, I’m sure it would be appreciated.

I’m still trying to understand why, but this passage has been stuck in my head for weeks. It’s just beautiful. From 2 Timothy 2:11-13:

The saying is sure:
If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him;
if we deny him, he will also deny us;
if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.

Transit Over Roads just released a new TV ad to promote the Seattle Monorail Project. Go check it out here.

Scot McKnight is now blogging at JesusCreed.org, and using WordPress to boot. His new RSS feed is here. The site looks great, and I wish him well.

Unfortunately, his old site, jesuscreed.blogspot.com, has been snatched up by a porn site linker. Jerks.

If you give up your BlogSpot blog to switch to another platform, DON’T delete your BlogSpot account, or it’ll get reappropriated like this. Just leave a post that tells everyone where your new blog is.

I know that Mayor Gridlock and his yes-men seem to have a lot of support from the local media in dooming the Seattle Monorail Project, but those on the outside (read those from cities who actually have rapid transit) are wondering what our city leaders are smoking. Check out this article (subscription required) from the Infastructure Journal in London. It has been partially quoted by The Stranger.

Hey Mr. Mayor, why don’t you put down that cookie and do something to get the city out of gridlock. Sheesh.

Starbucks is a great company. You might not know that if you don’t live in Seattle, because many people lump them in with Wal-Mart and other not-so-friendly megacorps. But they offer health insurance to employees, sell fair trade coffees, and give lots of grants to the community. Social responsibility is a big deal to St. Arbucks.

The Starbucks Challenge is an experiment to see if individual stores will offer to honor their policy of serving fair trade drip coffee upon request. Kottke picked it up, from which Jordon Cooper picked it up, and got the fair trade he was asking for.

I did the Starbucks Challenge yesterday in Gig Harbor, Washington, at store #00357. I asked if they had fair trade drip (without saying anything about this experiment), and they offered to brew me some in a french press. I didn’t know that was how they did it, and since I didn’t like french press, I declined, thinking I had caught them. I checked their website, though, and french press is the official policy, though a lot of the blogging about it doesn’t mention that fact. One commenter on Kottke.org said Starbucks will french-press any coffee you want at no additional charge if you’re willing to wait the 4 min or so it takes.

So here’s to you, Starbucks in Gig Harbor, Washington, Store #00357. Fair traded!

Religious humor sites can’t compete with reality. Today’s proof of this sad fact is the Salvation Challenge Board Game! (yes, they have a video. W00t.)

Thanks, Bob, for the link.

You gotta love the part where he puts a red sticker on his head and screams “JESUS, SAVE ME!” (which is apparently, in all seriousness, required to win the game).

To witness to an unsaved loved one just ask…

Would you like to play a game?

The game clearly shows the way of salvation in such an easy way that people only have to add faith to the salvation call. Fascinating discussions arise as players land onto Preacher’s or King Solomon’s squares.

“What a wonderful way to teach God’s people to give to missions”
–Ron Hembree Quick Study TV

“The game is certainly an innovative way to teach biblical principles”
–Pat Robertson 700 Club

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Download this podcast (10:34; 7.26MB) | Subscribe in iTunes | Podcast feed

Links:
Early Disciple Phone Tag

DJ Chuang and his podcast

Emergent Radio proposal and my thoughts on it

Shameless name dropping in this podcast: Andrew Jones, thanks to Bob