June 25, 2018 by jemscoutdill

You’re much taller on the internet.

I’m a 54-year-old father of three young children, separated and ready to date-I guess. Conventional wisdom would dictate that I meet someone the old fashion way, organically, you know like accidently smashing your grocery cart into a women’s cart at Loblaws. “Oh I’m sorry -nice melon’s!”

But it’s a brave new world and social media in the form of online dating is all the rage. According to datingadvice.com 49 million people have tried online dating. There are more than 7,500 dating sites online. One-fifth of committed relationships begin on line. So, I’ll try it.

First, I start by picking a dating site. There are so many. Some cater to a specific demographic like Tinder.com, which caters to singles looking to hook up. Well that’s not me. Some, thankfully, are more general. I pick the one with a kindly old gentleman on the advertisement. Not sure how reassuring that is.

Now I need a profile and a profile photo. Mark 1

A profile is akin to a personal brand. Its important to convey who you are and what you’re looking for in a few good sentences. I write about how I got here in the first place. I write about my fitness level. I joke about how I may be in good shape but could I take on the Mountain-no! The man can’t die. I write about my likes and my hobbies. I noticed that a lot of people like long walks on the beach, sky diving, and swimming with the dolphins. (I don’t care for any of those things, but it sound right so I lie. Hey according to psychologytoday.com 53% of all participants on dating sites lie on their profile.) I write that I love my three young children more than anything and how I’m developing a heavy dependence on Single Malt. (Maybe because of my three small children.)

I start looking through what seems like thousands of photos and profiles. A pattern emerges. Most women like height and hair. Even women who are 5’1 are looking for men who are 6′. What’s the difference? If the man is 5’7 he is much taller than you! Do women see security in height? I’m the aforementioned 5’7 and I’ve been in plenty of fights. Ok mostly with fitted sheets but have you tried to fold a fitted sheet??! After a few long agonizing hours, some fleeting moments of self-doubt, a wish that the recessive hair gene had skipped a generation, and several glasses of Glendronach I realize that I’m out of milk- off to loblaws.

Maybe you have an online dating story?

Image result for twitter logo Online dating yes or no https://bit.ly/2km6d5e

Can online dating help you find true love https://bit.ly/2km6d5e

Cartoon courtesy Niche Cartoons.

June 18, 2018 by jemscoutdill

Control, Shift, Catholicism

With its declining enrollment, its lost revenue and its shuttered doors, the church has had to make some changes to the way it conducts itself. For a long time now, the past 60 years, there has been a slow decline in the number of catholic church goers. The reasons for this decline are very complex. David Carlin writes for Sophia Institute Press that the decline can be attributed in no small part to several key issues: The changes introduced by Vatican II, shifting American culture, scandal, abuse and so on. The school system is another factor. Enrollment in catholic schools is down and according CRUCX NOW more than a third of millennials claim no religious affiliation. While the Vatican has taken a methodical approach to using social media, some small churches in the U.S. have embraced it. Making religion cool and attracting a younger audience.

For some small churches utilizing the power of social media to bring the word of God to the masses is a godsend. More and more young people are online. They get their news online. They connect with friends online and they now pray online. Here are a few examples of some very hip social media savvy churches:

The Fresh Life Story
Fresh Life Church was pioneered by Pastor Levi and Jennie Lusko in 2007. From the very beginning the desire was to make Jesus famous and teach the Bible in a way that people could understand – utilizing every form of technology possible to communicate a message of hope. At the first gathering there were only 14 people present but that tiny seed of faith has grown into an avalanche of a move of God that exceeds what anyone could have anticipated. Through Network Sites, radio, television, online broadcasts, worship records, social media and podcasts, Fresh Life’s ministry spills over borders and infuses hope in people all across the country and world.Though the church has grown and the dreams are big, the focus is intentionally small – impacting people with the shocking, life-changing grace of Jesus one life at a time. January of 2017 marked ten powerful years of Fresh Life, but the story has only just begun to unfold, and the half has not yet been

Vous Church
Founded in Miami with a goal of community outreach and involvement, Vous Church is the only church on this list with a Snapchat icon on their home page. If the photos on their Facebook and Twitter are any indication, Vous Church is one of the youngest churches in the social media game, and it shows.
How Vous Church Owns:
• They often post Bible verses, quotes from their messages, and other information with well-designed (and very shareable!) images made by their creative team.
• They have their own hashtag, #vousnotes, for sharing insights from the message.
• Instead of hosting videos on their website, Vous Church opts for a weekly podcast on the iTunes Store, making it mobile-accessible.
• Retweeting members adds a personal touch

Community Bible Church:
Community Bible Church (CBC) probably stands alone on this list as a church that at one point had an actual Social Media Pastor (the title no longer exists but the great content does). Based out of San Antonio, Community Bible Church broadcasts sermons all across the country, and even has special sermons just for their internet campus.
How Community Bible Church Owns:
• Separate social media accounts for their online church help the internet campus feel like a real campus.
• Personal videos from the worship team on Facebook get people pumped for their Worship Wednesday service.
• They make sure to directly engage with Twitter followers by asking how they need prayer, or what their goals are for the week.
• They share many Bible verses on Twitter and Facebook, with great designs that members can download and use for their own inspiration.
• They keep it personal even on Instagram by reposting members’ photos from CBC events.

I’m not a religious man by any means but Catholicism presented this way is worth a second look. What do you think?

Control, Shift, Catholicism https://bit.ly/2t82fXv

Source; Capterra Church Management Blog.

Darwin-et awards

In 1985, the Darwin awards were created to honour those whose moronic behavior got themselves killed. Named after Charles Darwin and his theory of natural selection, the award is given, posthumously, to an individual who ends his or her life in dramatic, idiotic fashion.
Past winners include: Karmic Valentine Schadenfreude, who pushed his girlfriend into an icy river, then jumped in to kill her. Problem was she could swim and he could not. She swam to shore while Valentine drowned. A man named Anthony G died while driving around safety cones, placed around downed hydro wires, ignoring screams from passing pedestrian.

And then we have the story of Nguyen of Vietnam. While drinking with his friends, he got into a heated argument over whether the old detonator he found could explode or not. Nguyen assured his friends that it was too old and rusty to work. They disagreed. To prove to them that he was right, he put the detonator in his mouth and told his pals to connect the wires. He died on the way to hospital.

It’s not a stretch to suggest a Darwin award, which I like to call the Darwin-et award, to someone who is moronic, idiotic, whose ill advised tweets or posts gets them in hot genepool water. ( click )Twitter has become the go-to media for anyone who wants to chime in on the topic of the day. To vent their displeasure on the goings on is society, it has become the soap box, on which anyone can impart their, sometimes ridiculous, dogma.

Now not everyone who joins Twitter does so with the sole purpose of espousing their misguided lunacy on the rest of us. According to the (Click) Huffpost, there are 10 types of twitter users: the egg, the lurker, the contester, the retwitter, the Bot, the #Teamfolloback, the Celebrity, the Guru, Business, and a whole bunch of normal people that don’t fit into the above categories. But for the purpose of blog, let’s focus on the moron. The celebrity moron.

There have been alot of celebrity mistweets in the past.(Click) Buzzfeed has a list of their top twenty five mistweets. And they are funny. But the best, and this year’s winner of the Darwin-et awards goes to: Roseanne. Roseanne, an actress with a hit sitcom, flamed out in the most moronic, the Donald Trump of moronic, way with her tweet about Valarie Jarret, a black woman and former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, looking like a monkey. Within hours of the tweet, ABC, the network that carried the program, cancelled her show. Thus ended her career.