Saturday, February 24, 2007

Post 7 - Dreams Caption

Why do we have dreams and what are they made of is what millions of people ask. Some people say they come from a spiritual source and are a super natural experience, others say it’s an unexplained science waiting to be resolved. The man to the left is the representative of all the ones believing dreams come from a spiritual source and are super natural. The one to the right is the one representing the ones believing dreams are an unexplained science waiting to be resolved. Both individuals are staring at a tree, and a man’s transparent head, which reveals his brain in detail. The tree represents the mystery of dreams. For example, some of these mysteries are why we sometimes have nightmares, and other times sweet soothing dreams. The man’s head with the transparent brain symbolizes the agreement between the two men representing the people, which is that they both deeply agree that dreams start and end in the brain. Another thing that represents this agreement is the two men holding hands. Outside of this agreement there is a lot of disagreement that is among both men. They are both desperately trying to resolve the hidden meaning of dreams and are both going two different ways about it. One is looking in spiritual things, and the other is looking in science. Both men will continue to seek among themselves the meaning of dreams, but until they both come together on a more personal relationship they will never find the meaning of dreams. This is what the red in the picture represents.

Post 6 - Other Blog "The Huffington Post"

The assigned blog for this post is titled “The Huffington post” with the subtitle being “delivering news and opinion since May 9th 2005”. Briefly stated, the blog is packed with opinions about the news in general and mainly focuses on the politics side of the media. The blog has many different articles about politics, from the Presidency in 2008 to the war on Iraq.

The creator of the blog uses some very good methods to catch the reader’s attention. For example, the article labeled “Cheney: Iraq War A "Remarkable Achievement"” catches ones attention instantly. The article is located on the top left hand corner of the blog. This article is about the war on Iraq. This article has three large photos, which help catch the reader’s attention. These photos are of a man standing on a burning car, Dick Cheney, and a soldier aiming his weapon upwards at something or someone.

The blog is well organized and has a number of good conventions. Some of these conventions include, but are not limited to things, such as hyperlinks, video, to eye capturing pictures. Some extremely useful conventions to navigate the blog easily are the hyperlinks located on the top center of the blog. The names of these links are, Home, The News, The Blog, Eat The Press, and Fearless Voices. These same links are also located on the very bottom of the page, which makes it convenient to navigate the blog up and down. Each one of the links takes the reader to another section of the blog, which have more news of some sort.

When comparing this blog to my own I noticed a limited amount of similarities. The only similarity that was noticed was that we both used hyperlinks in some way. My blog has hyperlinks that are located on the right side of the screen. The Huffington blog has its main hyperlinks on the top and bottom of the blog. Besides this minor similarity both blogs are extremely different. For example, my blog has a dark background with white lettering and only a few posts. The Huffington blog has over a hundred or more posts and has a white background with dark lettering. The Huffington blog also has a lot of different advertisements all around it, from the top to the sides of the blog. The advertisements are annoying and unwanted.

The one thing I believe the creator of the blog does exceptionally well is put photos together that are relevant to each article on the blog. This is the one thing that I would like to start including in my blog. Another thing that is done very well is how the blog is continuously being updated. For example, as I was writing this post the article mentioned earlier about the war on Iraq was replaced by an article about Presidency candidate, Hillary Clinton. This article also has a large photograph designed to capture the reader’s attention, just like the earlier article with the three photos. There are a lot of other things not mentioned that make the assigned blog, a great blog.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Observational Essay "Worship at Calvary Chapel"

My observation for the essay took place at a church called Calvary Chapel South Denver. When I first visited the place where the birth of my observational essay would take place, I was unsure of what the specific point of the observation would be. This is because there were so many different options to choose from. Some of the different options included the structure of the building, the activities within it, and the people occupying it. The worship music and the people creating the experience is what the primary focus of the observation was based on.

The section where the worship took place was a big, open room which resembled an auditorium. There was row after row of chairs in this room. The chairs were metal with red cushioning, which were designed to support your butt and back. The chairs numbered about one thousand. On one side of this room there was an alter that had musical instruments, speakers, a podium, and fake plants. The instruments consisted of two guitars, a drum set covered with big glass peaces on every side and a base guitar.

The room where the worship took place had vaulted ceilings. The ceiling had some interesting things hanging down from it. For example, it had two big speakers and lights hanging from it, which lit up the room and added a very pleasing visual to ones eyes. There were also two projectors hanging from the ceiling, one on each side of the room. The projectors were turned on and facing the front walls, which were located right behind the alter. The projectors were displaying a Power Point with a series of announcements from men’s and women’s Bible study to a snow shoe retreat that was taking place, that next week.

Being inside the room that resembled an auditorium my wife and I heard light worship music in the background as we looked around contemplating where to find an adequate place to sit. Once we decided where to sit, we made our way to the place and sat there until the worship started. As we were waiting for the service to start I noticed the different people walking into, and around in the room. They numbered about a hundred or so. They were all scattered through out the room making it look as though the room was too big for its audience. Shortly after we sat down I heard the light music in the background come to an end and three people from the audience walk towards the alter. The people walking toward the alter grabbed and played some of the instruments. The beginning of the service had started. The worship had started.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

One of the three people that kicked the service off was a young girl in her early twenties. The other two were male. One was in his mid thirties and the other was in his mid twenties. The female was the lead singer with a really talented voice. She was playing one of the guitars and one of the guys was playing the other. The other guy was playing the drums. All three of them put their skills of playing instruments together to make the pleasing sound of worship music. Out of the three playing the music, the lead singer, is the one that I observed the closest.

The girl leading worship was wearing black Jeans, a green hoodie sweater, and brown slip on shoes. She had short black hair, which only reached to her shoulders. A part of her hair was put up in a pony tail. The girl was seating in a high stool with a standing microphone in front of her mouth, for her to intensify her voice throughout the whole room.

Once the first song of worship started the girl started out with a simple prayer, and informed the audience to either sit or stand while worship went on. She mentioned that she wanted everyone to do what ever they felt comfortable doing. She then proceeded to begin singing. As she was singing this first song, she had her eyes closed and the expressions on her face revealed that she was really passionate about what she was doing. The first song ended in about four to five minutes, and before moving on to the second one she prayed earnestly for everyone.

The second, third, and forth songs of worship continued with prayer in between each one. The girl singing each one was intensely involved in singing the worship songs. I could tell that she was pouring her heart into each song she was singing. She was very passionate about what she was doing and her vibe was also spreading to the audience. I could not only see the passion of what she was doing, but also feel it.

One specific song she was singing was called “Knees to the Earth”, and I remember one verse that the girl was singing. The verse went something like this “Wonderful Savior My heart belongs to Thee, I will remember always the blood you shed for me Wonderful Savior, My heart will know Your worth. So let me embrace You always as I walk this earth.” As she was singing these words it was as she was communicating directly to God, and not to the audience. I can only imagine that in her head, at that specific moment there was no one else in the room except her, communicating her love through worship to God. There were multiple times through out the worship time that this seemed to be happening.

There were many different aspects of Calvary Chapel South Denver that I observed closely, but do to the limited amount of wording allowed, I could not share them. The most interesting aspect was definitely the worship music and the people that created the worship music. This created a stimulating, inspiring, and overall spiritual environment. The way everything came together to make the worship music was remarkable. It really is hard to explain what kind of atmosphere the worship music created. So, to put it into perspective I will use Martin Luther’s words, “Music is a discipline, and a mistress of order and good manners, she makes the people milder and gentler, more moral and more reasonable.”

Friday, February 9, 2007

Post 5

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Sunday, February 4, 2007

Post 4

Briefly stated, my observation essay will be based on a series of church atmospheres. Before sharing the church environments I will be visiting, observing, and hopefully interviewing the leadership there I will share why I chose to do my observation essay on certain churches. There are so many different churches with different teachings that are considered to be the right ones, but with so many different options how can someone determine which one is the right one? In order for me to try and answer this question I will observe a particular church and than try to compare it with other churches that might have some similar and different beliefs. For example, I will observe a Christian Non-denominational church and then compare it to a Jehovah Witnesses or Jesus of Latter Day Saints (Mormon) church.

The particular church that will be observed for my essay will be Calvary South Denver. This Church is part of a bigger organization named Calvary Chapel. Calvary Chapel is an organization that states it teaches directly from the Bible, verse by verse, and is recognized in many different states and places across the world as a non-denomination Bible teaching church. During my observation I will be concerned about every thing that I could possibly observe. This would include things such as, the setting and design of the building, the interaction of its members, the leadership in the church, and what the main teaching of the church is. After my first observation I plan on going a second time and this time focus on a more specific part of the observation. For example, instead of looking at every possible aspect of the church, I will focus more or either the interaction between certain members or maybe the design of the church building.

As I was looking at the website that Calvary chapel has, I came across several pages that sparked somewhat of an interest. The first one was the main page, it consisted of a series of announcements of what the church has to offer and is involved in. The second was a page designed specifically for the churches core values and believes. The focal point of the page is bold lettering that say “Statements of Faith”. This page of course states the key values that the church has. The third page is about the churches mission, which briefly stated is to lift God up, equip people with tools to lift God up, and share God with other people. There were also other pages on the website that I came across from there leadership, to there location.

In closing, I am hoping that through my observation and completing my observation essay I will have a better comprehension of the church gathering and believes. I also hope that I could relay this observation clearly to all of my class mates. The goal is to make it so clear to all of my class mates that after reading my observational essay they will actually feel as if they were there beside me, observing with me.

Thursday, February 1, 2007

Post 3 - You Tube

“Hey guys you know it’s funny people they go to sleep, they think everything’s fine everything’s good they wake up the next day and their on fire.”

This is what the GI Joe Fire Fighter tells the adolescents. This is the conclusion and the focal point of the video. The video is very short, about thirty seconds long, and to the point. The point is simply to make the viewer laugh. The video is not trying to relay some important message about fire safety, but just trying to make the viewers laugh. If one watches other GI Joe videos on You Tube, they will see that most of them are put together with random sayings and nonsense, which a lot of the times do not make any sense. They are not intended to make any sense, but straightforwardly entertain the viewer. I have seen this video a number of times before. In order for one to understand why I chose this video out of thousands, maybe millions of videos from You Tube, one must learn a little bit about my background.

In 2004 I joined the Army National Guard and had to go through nine intense weeks of Basic Combat Training and fifteen weeks of job training. The fifteen weeks of job training was to go through the Fire Academy for the Army National Guard. So, the job that I am privileged to have in the Army National Guard is Fire Fighting. During my job training, which took place in Good Fellow Air Force Base in San Angelo Texas, was the very first time ever that I saw this video. The Fire Academy had a lot of outside, hands on training, but there were a few times that there was strict classroom lecture type training. During these times the Fire Instructor would always start or end the class session with silly, humorous videos in order to break the ice among the class mates. One of those videos, which was played multiple times was the video used in this post. The video became one of my favorite videos that I ever watched during my time at the Fire Academy.

The content of this video would be completely different if observed on Television or any other sort of media device outside of the Internet. The reason for this is because on television GI Joe is an action packed, non stop action cartoon that is focused on capturing the attention of younger kids. I am not quite sure if GI Joe is still around, but when I used to be a kid, it was definitely one of my favorite cartoons. GI Joe definitely captured my attention as a child, and continues to capture my attention as an adult. The content of GI Joe on television was designed to entertain the audience through action, and on the Internet it is designed to entertain the audience through humor.

I recommend that when one watches the video on this post that they watch it more than just one time. It seems that the more one watches the video the funnier it gets. For example, when I first showed my wife the video she thought it was one of the most dumb and stupid videos ever. She did not understand why I thought it was so funny. I encouraged her to watch it multiple times, and she did. The more she watched it, the funnier she thought it was. So once again, I recommend that one watches the video more than once to catch the humor in it.