By: Mark Steele on May 19, 2014
Most people I talk to have some form of a bucket list. A bucket list are those life time goals most want to complete before they die. The concept was popularized by the movie with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman called The Bucket List. The bucket list can be goals like learning a new language,…
By: Sandy Bils on May 18, 2014
…for God has already approved what you do. (Ecc 9:7) I was always bothered by the fact, that I had no traditional knowledge passed over by the region I come from in Germany that had something to do with lucullan knowledge and the traditional foods and drinks from there. If you’re from Bavaria, you know…
By: Sharenda Roam on May 17, 2014
Josh Kaufman, in his book “The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything Fast,” he determines that, well, anyone can learn pretty much anything fast. There were several thing I considered learning: how to draw, a new language, advanced piano ear-training. However, ultimately I chose “a lovable project” and something out of necessity. I recently…
By: Garrick Roegner on May 17, 2014
This week in our D.Min program we were tasked with reading Josh Kaufman’s book The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything… Fast! Kaufman’s book is basically a guide on how to break down skills into component parts and tackle the learning process in an organized and logical series of steps. Kaufman greater and more…
By: Fred Fay on May 17, 2014
Can you learn anything in just 20 hours? This week I took on the challenge of working on my touch-typing. I have been reading the book The First 20 hours: How to Learn Anything Fast by Josh Kaufman. So can I improve my touch typing this week? I must admit I am not trying to expect…
By: Richard Rhoads on May 17, 2014
In May of 2008 I was able to take my first tour of Israel, I was hooked. From the biblical sites to the modern culture, I loved everything about traveling and experiencing the Middle East. Not long into the trip I realized there was much to learn. Culture, contexts, foods and most of all the…
By: Chris Ellis on May 17, 2014
I had every intention of taking this week’s D.Min assignment (to learn something new) and learning something ‘exotic.’ Something that I had never done but that always intrigued me, something that would make me more of a renaissance man. I wanted to learn how to fly fish. Sadly though, a more necessary skill that needed…
By: David Toth on May 17, 2014
When my cohort was tasked to read the book The First 20 Hours by Josh Kaufman, I figured we would read the book and then blog about it; this has been the customary approach to the reading assignments. However, Dr. Clark pulled a “switcheroo” and the assignment was changed to actually follow the book’s directions,…
By: Phil Smart on May 15, 2014
Naturally I first accessed my bucket list to accomplish something that has eluded me in the past. I play guitar and have always wanted to learn to play banjo (aka: Cliff Berger method)but after sending out requests via Facebook, I was unable to acquire a borrowed banjo and It would stretch me to buy one…
By: Garrick Roegner on May 10, 2014
They got Charles Darwin trapped out there on Highway 5 Judge says to the High Sheriff, “I want them dead or alive” Either one, I don’t care, high water everywhere -Bob Dylan, High Water History is fascinating stuff. Often it gets short shrift from poor high school teachers more focused on the memorization of facts…
By: Sandy Bils on May 9, 2014
Why were some civilization able to create a hegemony status for themselves and why did others fail and were only able to play a subordinate role? This and other questions are discussed in the book “Guns Germs and Steel – The Fates of Human Societies“ by Pulitzer prize winner Jared Diamonds. One of the traces,…
By: Richard Rhoads on May 9, 2014
Shortly after my college days I interviewed and was hired at a church roughly two hours from where I grew up. When I originally heard of the open position and the town it was located in, I remember thinking, “I’ve never heard of this place.” In my first attempt to visit this large town/small city,…
By: Cedrick Valrie on May 9, 2014
When I was a child, my family did not own a car. Getting around was a chore that we often experienced, yet resolve came in various forms, such as family friends with cars, city buses, and taxis. Such modes of transportation made it easier for my family to acquire basic needs like food, clothes, and shelter by…
By: Phil Smart on May 8, 2014
For one year I studied Human Geography in a Master’s program at the University of Kansas. I was home for a year’s furlough from mission service in Brazil and was encouraged to study but ran out of money so never completed the degree. However, while at KU, I was exposed to Environmental Determinism, a precursor…
By: Mark Steele on May 8, 2014
Jared Diamond in in his book Guns, Germs and Steel attempts to answer the question why some societies advanced much quicker than others throughout history. He tracks the history of man 4 million years ago in Africa and 1.8 million years ago in a Southeast Asian Island in Java to the oldest fossils discovered of…
By: Sam Stephens on May 8, 2014
Whether it concerns an individual, or a family, communities or nations, the most pressing question for humanity is this: What does the future hold? Then, the most frequently asked questions are: Where do we go from here? Where are we headed to? How do we get to where we desire to be? It isn’t very…
By: Fred Fay on May 8, 2014
Quite a few years ago I accompanied a group from the church I was working for on a missions trip to Ensenada. We passed through beautiful San Diego with palm trees, green foliage and modern buildings. Then as we passed over the border into Mexico everything changed. The ground was brown and barren. There were…
By: David Toth on May 7, 2014
Jared Diamond’s book, Germs, Guns and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, is his attempt to answer the question, “Why did history unfold differently on different continents?”* I found the book to be well written, easily understood, and well researched. Diamond writes with a breadth of knowledge and global travel…
By: Sharenda Roam on May 7, 2014
In “Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies,” professor of physiology, Jared Diamond, asks the question, “How, though, did the world get to be the way it was in A.D. 1500?” To rephrase the question …”…why did human development proceed at such different rates on different continents? Those disparate rates constitute history’s broadest…
By: Chris Ellis on May 7, 2014
Guns, Germs and Steel is a fascinating read that tells the history of humanities development from the time we could begin to call ourselves Homo sapiens. There was much in this book I didn’t know, and I feel like I could read it again and find things I missed. The author tries to answer questions centered…
