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Highland Church of Christ

Front Page: The Disease of Me (Est. 6:6) Chris Altrock – Oct. 30, 2016

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Unsolved Problems

Last year at about this time, several things starting going wrong with me:

  • ? First, my ears started ringing. All day long there was a constant rumble in my ears.
  • ? Second, bright lights started to bother me. Whether it was the headlights of an oncoming car or the lights that brighten the stage from which I preach, bright lights started to really bother me.
  • ? Third, three to five times every week, my head would hurt so badly I simply could not function. I couldn’t write sermons. I couldn’t hold meetings. I was pretty useless.

I went to my primary care physician. I went to an ear, nose and throat specialist. And I went to a neurologist. Numerous times. And finally they pieced it all together. All of these symptoms were the result of just one thing: migraine headaches. Migraine headaches were causing the ringing in the ears, the sensitivity to light and the intense headaches. And once we found a treatment that worked, all three symptoms began to subside. Read More »Front Page: The Disease of Me (Est. 6:6) Chris Altrock – Oct. 30, 2016

Front Page: Why Work Matters (Est. 2:19) Chris Altrock – Oct. 16, 2016

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Bees

There’s a lot more that goes on in someone’s work that you might guess.

Take preaching.

Last week my colleague Eric was rudely attacked by a rogue wasp while he was preaching in the late service. Repeatedly the wasp came at him. Like a miniature jet fighter honing in on a target it aimed for his face as he preached away. He had to swat and preach, swat and preach. I wasn’t present, but I watched the video. It was the most heroic preaching effort I’ve ever seen. Finally, Wasim Khokhar, longtime Highland member, killed the wasp, and laid it at Eric’s feet.

Sometimes there’s a lot more that goes on in someone’s work than you might have ever guessed.Read More »Front Page: Why Work Matters (Est. 2:19) Chris Altrock – Oct. 16, 2016

Go:901 Love Shows (Rom. 5:8) Chris Altrock – Sept. 11, 2016

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I Agree

If you’ve ever bought a new app for your phone or updated software on our iPad or on your computer, or if you’ve ever signed up for a new loyalty card online, you’ve seen a lengthy legal terms of service agreement. Before you could proceed with the software update or the purchase of the loyalty card, you had to indicate that you read that statement and click the button that said “agree.”

Raise your hand if you’ve ever read it before you clicked the button that said “agree.”

Jonathan Obar at York University says that it would take the average person 40 minutes a day, every day, for a year to fully read all of these legal service agreement statements which we encounter. Thus, most of us never read them. We just click, “Agree.”

To test this, Obar and a colleague conducted an experiment where they tried to get people to sign up for a new social network site called “Name Drop.” When people signed up, there was a typical service agreement that popped up on the computer screen. The user had to click “agree” in order to use the service. Buried in the agreement were two disclosures. Read More »Go:901 Love Shows (Rom. 5:8) Chris Altrock – Sept. 11, 2016

Winners & Losers: Finished (Rev. 16:17) Chris Altrock – Aug. 28, 2016

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Endless Tasks

The ancient Greeks had a legend about a king named Sisyphus. Sisyphus was the king of Corinth. He was a bit of a troublemaker–so much so that he got on the wrong side of the gods. As a result, in the afterlife, he was assigned a troublesome task. Sisyphus was forced to roll a giant boulder up a mountain. But just before he got to the top, an evil force would cause the boulder to slip from his grasp and tumble to the bottom. Sisyphus would have to go to the bottom and roll the boulder the top again. Where, once again, the boulder would slip and roll to the bottom. Sisyphus was condemned to repeat this unending task forever.

Ever since, certain tasks have come to be known as Sisyphean–they are unending in nature. In our staff meeting last week we shared some of the Sisyphean tasks of ministry. Read More »Winners & Losers: Finished (Rev. 16:17) Chris Altrock – Aug. 28, 2016