An Epic Journey » TV

A Few Follow Up Tips From Sunday

epic — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:47:59 +0000

Yesterday we talked about how to get right side up with our finances. I laid out a simple strategy of Deciding to do away with debt, Starting to specifically set aside savings, and to Purposefully plan.
I have a few side notes that I want to leave with you – just a couple of tips.

1. When you begin to pay off credit cards or loans you will pay them off much faster if you begin with smaller ones and focus your excess income on paying just one credit card or loan off first. Jenni and I did this and as we would pay one off, we would transfer the money we were already used to paying on that credit card to the next – it was like a snowball effect.

2. Get rid of services you don’t need. Ask yourself tough questions. Do you need a home phone? If so, could you go a creative route like using a Magic Jack – $40 one time fee and then $20/YEAR for phone service.

Do you need cable? Jenni and I use an antenna on our house, and receive 20 channels in HD (most people don’t realize that HD is being sent over antenna’s for free) and we save bundles every month. Most TV’s also allow you to hook your computer up to them now and most TV networks are putting their shows online (www.Fancast.com is a great place to catch up on your shows for free, with less commercials and when YOU want to watch them)!

3. Plan ahead for meals. One thing Jenni and I are doing to try and cut back on how much we eat out is to plan out a monthly calendar. This helps us curb how much we spend eating out monthly and also helps cut down the grocery bill by not wasting food (if we are buying a head of lettuce for tacos one night we might do a salad the next).

4.� Be sure to check out Epic Churches Budget resource by visiting epic4life.com/budget. �This will be very helpful to you as you try to plan!

these are simple ideas that could help you cut several hundred dollars out of your monthly expenses right away! You can do it, it just takes some discipline! Can’t wait to hear the creative ways you are finding to cut costs, save money, pay off debt and use your money to fund the Kingdom of God!

Why you should use extreme caution when playing with your Wii

epic — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 03:20:14 +0000

We had Jenni’s little sister and her friend over to spend the night and to help us do some stuff for Epic. They have been great. We set them up on the Wii to let them play and have fun and I forgot to tell them to use the wrist straps. The picture above is what happens when you forget to tell them. It’s a little dark, but you get the picture.

On the brighter side, Jenni and I now have one dang cool piece of art… Ahh… Maybe we can sell it and buy a new TV…

Where’s the People

epic — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 19:41:25 +0000

What should we do with all these old people?

epic — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:53:25 +0000

So, this morning I was watching the Today Show while I worked out. They had a study that they were examining about women & their life expectancy going down in certain parts of our country. They asked the Doctor, “what the take away” was on this whole issue. She said that the Govt. has to start looking at how they are dealing with these issues. She suggested that we may need to ration health care. Her example: If a 40 year old needs a hip replacement and a 90 year old needs one, maybe we should consider rationing and only give it to the 40 year old.

Are you kidding me? What kind of a solution is that? At what age does a person stop needing quality of life? At what age does a person become dispensable enough that we don’t need to care for their physical ailments. I have included a link to the video below, the comment comes shortly after 3:49 min.

Women’s Health

Eli Stone and Modern Day Spirituality

epic — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 23:38:58 +0000

Jenni and I have grown quite fond of the show “Eli Stone” on ABC. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a show about a modern day prophet who is slowly growing into the fact that “God” is leading him to do certain things. The show does a pretty good job at not giving homage to any one specific “god”, they keep it very general. What I think is so interesting about the show is that a prime time television show is taking on overt spiritual themes. This is what the writers say about the spiritual overtones on ABC’s website:

“What was your inspiration for tackling spirituality on television, examining the idea of a modern-day prophet?Spirituality really seems to be in the zeitgeist these days, particularly with the popularity of The Secret. We think it’s a reaction to spirituality being co-opted for political purposes in this country recently. Everybody is spiritual to some degree and many people are tired of feeling as if they need to practice a one, specific religion in order to feel legitimately spiritual. We see this show as, in part, returning ownership of spirituality to everyone.”

While Christianity is on the decline in our society, I think the environment which we find ourselves is fertile for the ideas of Jesus. It is time we lose our religion and introduce people to a relationship with Jesus! If anything, shows like Eli Stone point to the fact that people are curiously seeking for something deeper and more meaningful – I hope and pray that we can capture this moment and capitalize on it for the Kingdom!