The Incredible Singing Christmas Tree

For any VeggieTales fans out there, or Christmas music enthusiasts, check out Amazon's Free release of The Incredible Singing Christmas Tree!

http://amzn.com/B001232ODA

I just added this guys book to my amazon wish list.

Church Planter: The Man, the Message, the Mission

Someday Nicole and I would like to plant a church in an area that does not have many if any church of Christ or Christian Churches. I think this book will be good :)

Batman - The Long Halloween

Today I borrowed a book from Buddy, Batman The Long Halloween. And I remembered why I really like reading graphic novels. In about 2 hours, I read almost 400 pages. I feel like a superhero when I read that fast.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the book. Overall really good, but there was one section that I appreciated more than the rest. Bruce and Batman are working together and take down a warehouse full of Falcone's money:

The conversation goes like this:

Dent: oh boy. you know...if we were two other guys...in a room full of untraceable cash...

Batman: We're not.

Dent: yeah. But I was just thinking how easy--

Batman: Don't

Dent: Okay then.

I like this because it shows character. Batman does what is right, even when no one will know. He is a man of integrity. This is one of the many reason I like batman!

How to Win Friends and Influence People

How to Win Friends and Influence People is one of the first bestselling self-help books ever published. It was written by Dale Carnegie and first published in 1937, it has sold 15 million copies globally.

I recently read this book and throughly enjoyed what I learned. Over the past few weeks I have been trying to put his techniques into practice and so I have been reading this on a daily basis. Hopefully these will become a habit.

Fundamental Techniques in Handling People Don't criticize, condemn, or complain. Give honest and sincere appreciation. Arouse in the other person an eager want. Six Ways to Make People Like You Become genuinely interested in other people. Smile. Remember that a man's Name is to him the sweetest and most important sound in any language. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves. Talk in the terms of the other man's interest. Make the other person feel important and do it sincerely. Twelve Ways to Win People to Your Way of Thinking Avoid arguments. Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never tell someone they are wrong. If you're wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically. Begin in a friendly way. Start with questions the other person will answer yes to. Let the other person do the talking. Let the other person feel the idea is his/hers. Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view. Sympathize with the other person. Appeal to noble motives. Dramatize your ideas. Throw down a challenge & don't talk negative when the person is absent, talk about only positive. Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment Begin with praise and honest appreciation. Call attention to other people's mistakes indirectly. Talk about your own mistakes first. Ask questions instead of directly giving orders. Let the other person save face. Praise every improvement. Give them a fine reputation to live up to. Encourage them by making their faults seem easy to correct. Make the other person happy about doing what you suggest. Seven Rules For Making your Home Life Happier Don't nag. Don't try to make your partner over. Don't criticize. Give honest appreciation. Pay little attentions. Be courteous. Read a good book on the sexual side of marriage.

Love Languages

If you have never read the book, The 5 Love Languages, you definitely need to. This will get you thinking about how to interact with the people around you as well as help you communicate love to those you care about. You should take a minute to assess yourself to see what your love language is. You can do this by reading the book (which I recommend) or you can simply take a 5 minute assessment online at: http://www.5lovelanguages.com/assessments/love/

During my Freshman year at Mid Atlantic Christian University I took a class that used this book as one of the textbooks. I learned a lot about myself and found that I am VERY much a Quality Time person. I have seen this to be very true in my relationship with my wifey. We are very different than many couples where we both want to spend as much time together as possible. Our goal is to always wake up together, work together, eat meals together, and do life together. It stresses both of us out when we are apart, even for a short time, because we both feel loved and show love through our quality time.

Here are my scores:

3 Words of Affirmation

12 Quality Time

5 Receiving Gifts

2 Acts of Service

8 Physical Touch

With this being said, I often desire to show love though through quality time, but also often through gifts. I am very purposeful in the gifts that I give to those I care about. I even have a folder in my phone called "Gift Ideas" where I write down things that come to mind that people would like. For instance, if I hear someone say that they would really want a certain coffee mug or something like that I will try and remember that and make it happen. I spend time with those I love but often this is difficult and so sometimes a well thought out gift will suffice.

Coffee Shop

One day my wife and I want to own a coffee shop. We believe that this can be a fun and exciting way to do ministry. We will be very purposeful in the people we higher, events we hold, in the way we decorate and arrange things, and pretty much everything. We do not want this to be the "christian getaway" but rather more like the gorilla lovers tactics and catch people by surprise. So, this is what I think about on a regular basis. Someday's I find it motivation to get up. I get out of bed and think, "Today, I'll go to muddies and think about owning a place like this." And whenever we travel, which is about once a month, I try and find a neat local coffee shop to take notes on.

Here's our last coffee shop visit:

Double D's Coffee Asheville NC

I have a memo in my phone where I write down ideas dealing with our future coffee shop, here are a few:

Market: Coffee drinkers, people who like art, college students, old people, business people, people who walk their dogs, chess players. Then I have ways written out to pull all these types of people in: creating a walking route around the city where x coffee shop is a stop, free wifi, music nights, displaying and selling local art, college discount nights with music, locals or regulars discounts.

While these may seem like simple ideas, they are much more vast and broken down into much greater detail in my head.

I also have been thinking about ways to partner with churches, encourage discipleship, evangelize, and connect with dignitaries/important people.

Anyways, this is just something I think about on a regular basis and so I wanted to share it. If you would like to share back, what would be a good name for this future coffee shop?

Quirky College Life

At MACU there are a lot of little things that in another location would seem VERY peculiar...


Someone sneezes 7 times and you get to spot whatever you're doing and enjoy some free time.

If a bell rings, everyone stops what they are doing and then sings as if they were intoxicated.

Walking on the grass is done in fear of ones life.

A break in one of the most busy times of the year for a day outside with friends.

Food cannot be "to go" and outside food is considered contaminated.

Everyone knowing the words to "wonderful the matchless grace of Jesus."

Every student skipping class for a day to hang out, and that being okay.

Seeing people dressed up like colonial's and remembering that it must be constitution week.

Being able to say that you have eaten with every professor and staff member.

And not just knowing everyone's names but actually knowing them as an individual.


While MACU is a different kind of culture, I really have grown to appreciate its quirkiness.

Advertisements

I would imagine that for most people, advertisements simply don't work. We usually pick a product because we tried it somewhere else and liked it or a friend recommended it and so we start to use it. I, on the other hand, take advertisements very seriously...specifically the pictures.

Honestly: Which of these cats look happier?

or


See, some of these things are important to consider. For instance toilet paper, would you rather use angel soft and have a baby determine what kind of tp you should use or would you rather have quilted northern and have your grandma decide. I trust my grandma far more than a baby.

These are some things that you should consider the next time you go shopping.

Bathrooms and Snow Cones

Here's a little insight into my life:

I constantly think about how to make things better then they already are, to improve every situation or company in some way. For instance, the other day I used the restroom at a local coffee shop. While in there I thought about how they should put some time into making the bathroom better. For starters they could bring some speaker wire and splice the music from the lobby into the bathroom to create a better atmosphere. They could also ask one of the local art schools to do a mural or paint the door in a creative way. This could also get them a few more customers. While I wash my hands I think about how they could put a better sink in there, put some soft rocks into the bottom of the sink and buy some nicer soap. I also thought about how they could have a local photography group or school do some local shots and place them around the place.

While at the snowcone barn I think about how there are 3 snowcone places in town and that this one needs something that makes them unique to the other ones. They could possibly go to some garage sales and get some nicer chairs. They could go mobile and hit up ball games and local events around town. I pondered the idea of having special days where everything was half off or certain flavor combinations were special.

At the time these thoughts and ideas seem very important, but then i remember that sadly, I don't rule the world and that sometimes bathrooms and snowcone places don't have to be perfect.

Opps

So I realized today after a lot of confusion that I have two blogger accounts...one uses just coreyrayjones as the username while the other one is coreyrayjones@yahoo.com NOW THAT IS CONFUSING! sorry to anyone that finds the other, because I never blog, and will especially never blog on that other account... yikes

Now that I have this figured out, I would like to post semi often, so enjoy.