December 27 2010

Show open and agenda

Produced intro from Lowe Street Studios, downtown Des Moines, then the live open on DesMoinesAmplified.com with mic checks. Bits on the 'caps for sale' video hitting 700 YouTube hits versus 25 for 'Jesus stuff,' a scratched phone, an eye floater plaguing a deer-hunting trip, and a deer that seemed to race the car down the highway. The agenda is set: non-biblical signs of the apocalypse, New Year's resolutions, and a smoking story.

A host's quit-smoking story

A host tells his quit-smoking story: after weeks of honestly confessing 'smoker' in his Life Transformation Group, Ben (named in the audio) told him he had to quit, not just confess. He picked December 17 on a whim, held firm through Friday on prayer, then relapsed Saturday night from insomnia and caffeine, and a week later was 'right back where I started.' He frames the pattern — seeing the sin coming and going for it anyway — as typical of his life.

M&Ms, huffing, and TV shows

The hosts trade addiction stories: one cannot moderate cold M&Ms (and once did a sweets fast where he only smelled the bag), and Dan was handing out frozen M&Ms after the show. A tangent on huffing, then TV: The Sing-Off with Ben Folds, never having watched American Idol, and preferring the Pathway Band on Sundays.

Chat confessional and Randy

• Is the problem the substance you're addicted to, or that something controls you?
• When a homeless person asks for money, is giving cash the right response?

A 'chat confessional' on addictions: chocolate milk, daily gas-station stops for a breakfast sandwich, Karen's nail-polish shopping therapy, and whether the substance or the control matters. One host tells of giving a homeless man, Randy, the $7 in his pocket and trading prayer requests, sparking debate over giving cash versus doing more. The 'Book of Ben' mote-and-beam joke caps it.

Why start smoking

• Why would anyone smoke their first cigarette?

One host asks the smoker why he ever started: at 18, playing in a band in bars, it got him out of conversations. He observes only the first cigarette calms you and the rest is pure habit, and notes the cost — he knows exactly what they cost and buys them anyway, and money saved just finds other cracks.

Site plug and second-hour preview

Hosts invite listeners to livefromthepath.org for the newsletter and the YouTube channel (nearly 4,000 hits), and preview the second hour: non-biblical signs of the apocalypse.

New Year's resolutions and goals

• What makes a New Year's resolution actually work?

The hosts discuss resolutions: goals are worthless without a system (Dan's old bench-400 example), and church attendance figures mean nothing without discipleship in place. Bible-in-a-year attempts die in Leviticus; the LTG's 30-chapters-a-week accountability has one host reading Matthew for the fourth time this year. Harvest Ministries reading plans are recommended, and one host admits he orders books every December but hates reading.

Resolution generator

The hosts use a random New Year's resolution generator on air: Mike gets 'take a nap,' Dan gets 'do yard work,' Stacy must friend a same-named person on Facebook, Allison must 'create something that betters the lives of others,' and the host gets 'watch a movie in 3D.' That leads to 3D movie talk (Avatar, Up, 3D football), Dan's teammate mentoring, and the emotional foster-parenting ads.

Books, John Acuff, Pathway plug

One host's book order arrives: 'Viral Churches: Helping Church Planters Become Movement Makers.' The hosts praise John Acuff's StuffChristiansLike.net — he reads the Christian culture honestly — and announce he will call into the show in January. Pathway Church gets a plug: Johnston, Wallace Elementary, 9 and 10:30, thepathonline.org.

Sermon word game, music, and kid talk

The chat feeds words for Dan to sneak into a sermon — liposuction, eschatological, Barry Goldwater, galumped (a Lewis Carroll invention) — plus the 'Mind Freak Supernova of Adrenaline' Holy Spirit bit. Then music talk: a four-year-old's love of early-80s Foreigner, New World Son's 'Working Man' opening theme, 'Babylonie's Gonna Fall' sung as 'bad baloney,' and a Christmas-Eve walk where a daughter reasons Jesus is 'just a baby' so Dad will have to drive, and that God's house must have cool toys.

Hugh Hefner and the downfall of society

The hosts react to news that Hugh Hefner, 84, is getting married to a 22-year-old, reflect on the millstone warning for causing children to stumble, and lament how pervasive pornography has become. It segues directly into the apocalypse game.

Non-biblical signs of the apocalypse, part 1

• What does kosher actually mean, and could someone freelance as a 'kosherizer'?
• Are these absurd news stories signs that the end times are near?

The game opens: chat votes 'end is near' or 'more time' on absurd news stories. A Manteca dealership sold a truck to a dementia-suffering nursing-home resident who led a 50-mile police chase and died the next day. A Colorado Springs man cleaned a lit gas fireplace with aerosol cleaner. McDonald's tests McWeddings in Hong Kong, and bizarre Asian McDonald's menu items are read off. A running 'kosherizer' joke develops.

Non-biblical signs: the second-coming jewelry sale

• If you believe the end is near, why sell jewelry at all?

Larry Falter of Superior's Limited Jewelers ran a TV ad blending a storewide sale with his belief that Jesus' return is near ('the end is near, so prices are low'). The hosts debate the logic, quote his ethical-obligations-to-creditors defense for not giving the jewelry away, and the chat flags storing up earthly treasures.

Non-biblical signs: chicken fight and lottery safe

• If you found a lost safe on the road, what would you do with it?

An Akron man attacked his brother with a crowbar over a bitten piece of fried chicken — the mother admitted she had chomped it. Then the $8 million Idaho lottery ticket lost when its fireproof safe fell through the rusted floor of a 1982 Datsun, prompting debate over what you'd do with a found safe on the road.

Non-biblical signs: naked mailman, glued eye, and wrap-up

A Whitefish Bay postal carrier delivered mail naked to cheer up a stressed woman; Jar Jar Gabor's husband Prince Frederick Von Enholt glued his eye shut with nail glue; a chat story covers U.S. Muslims as a consumer niche and halal; a Scottish man flooded his neighbor's house over an electrician feud. The wrap-up verdict is mostly 'more time,' with a reflective turn on Jesus' 'unbelieving generation,' great faith, the widow's gift, and the fig tree, then a 2011 sign-off.