New Years Revolution

When I look back at 2009, I see many times that were good, and many that were not so good. I see most of the first year of my third daughters life, who we are truly blessed to have. I see my two older daughters continuing to grow, make us laugh, make us mad, and mostly, make us thankful. I see my continuing struggle to find my place in church, at work, and in life. But mostly, I see another year where I let most of my potential slip by. I set "resolutions" for myself in 2008, just like everyone else, but I never truly made the effort needed to enforce the change. In fact, I think that the term "New Years Resolution" has lost some of its effect, at least on me. 

So I am proposing a change.... 

A BIG change actually...

What if instead of a resolution.... you have a REVOLUTION....

What possibilites could you uncover? 

What if you strove to finish everything that you started, instead of leaving so many things undone?

What if, instead of focusing on numbers, you focused on harvesting true friendships? 

What if instead of saying that you are going to read your bible, you actually read it.... and READ THE WHOLE THING!

What if instead of turning your nose up at that homeless man on the exit ramp, or the person that you KNOW is homosexual, or pregnant outside of marriage, or DIFFERENT than you are, or, dare I say it, people in your own church....

What about going out of your way to use your gifts and talents to help others that might be in some sort of need? 

But mostly, actually having a true LOVE relationship with your Heavenly Father!

I am pointing a finger at myself as much as I am anyone else, but how might the world change if we step outside of what we know, and into something that feels foreign, and uncomfortable? We all know that we are not long for this world. We weren't meant to live here, but how will you live your life while you are here? Will you sit and do nothing for the rest of your life, or will you choose to do something REVOLUTIONARY? 

We've already seen organizations like People Of The Second Chance, Help-Portrait, To Write Love On Her Arms, and many more, make a huge difference in peoples lives... now, will you choose to be a part of the REVOLUTION?

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Help a Brotha' out

I will preface this post by saying that I am the least "gangsta" person you will ever meet, just ask my wife. But in all honesty, I do need your help, if you will hear me out.
If you read back several posts, you will remember that my computer and the floor got together on an awesome collaboration called "Hey Dummy, you forgot to zip your backpack". I was a huge "bomb" that is going to end up costing me, the "producer" a boat load of money to fix. In fact, it would make more sense financially to "can" the messed up computer, and purchase another refurb, or "remixed" computer. Here is where you come in. I need some "co-producers" to help throw some "auto-tune" on the tracks and to help "pump up the jams" so that we can make sure that the only "number one hit" you will hear is the sweet sounds of fingers gliding across the "ivories/letters".
Translation: If you can afford to help my out in replacing my computer, I would appreciate it. I would't be doing this, except for the fact that its the machine that I do 90% of my work on, and I really don't have anyway to replace it otherwise. Plus, you can help out an awesome organization along the way.

Whatever monies are donated to my fund to replace my computer, I will in turn donate 30% of that to Love146(http://www.love146.org) to help end child sex slavery and exploitation.

If you can help, click the link in the Chip-In box below to donate. If not, no worries. Thanks for hearing me out.

Posted via email from In Search Of....

Help Portrait

If you follow Ashley or me closely on Facebook or Twitter, you know that this coming Saturday, Dec 12th, is Help Portrait. (You can find more info @ http://www.help-portrait.com) We have locations set-up in Locust Grove at Studio 42 and in Austell at Ewing Road Baptist Church. The events are taking place between 9am and 5pm on Saturday. For appointments, you can have people call  (678) 453-8217. I won't go into a great deal of detail except to say that we need your help. Here is what we need:

We need people. Those in need, the sick, the lonely, the hurting, those affected by the recent floods in Atlanta, anyone that you can think of that might be in need this holiday season. Have them call the number above to set an appointment for either the Locust Grove location or Ewing Road(Austell) location. They will not only receive a free session with one of many talented photographers, they will also receive a free 8x10 print.

Thats it. And if you are interested in helping on the day of the event, please let me know. 

Posted via email from In Search Of....

Christmas Decorations

That is not our house.....

But in preparing to decorate for Christmas today, we remembered that a whole large plastic container of our Christmas decorations was stolen out of our driveway last year. So, if any of you have any extra decorations that you aren't using, we would love to borrow them for the holidays! You can send me an email @ wes@rockthecross.net if you do!

Merry Christmas everyone!

W

Posted via email from In Search Of....

Holiday Traditions

So, after a little bit of excitement tonight, the girls and I are settled in watching ELF, preparing to trim the tree and start decorating the house tomorrow afternoon. Over the past few years we have tried to make a conscious effort to start our own holiday traditions, including:

Waffle House and It's A Wonderful Life on Christmas Eve
Walking Nativity at a local church
and our favorite new tradition, The Brawner Family Congloma-feast (everyone picks a food item, no matter what it is, and we eat)

So, what are some of your family traditions?

Posted via email from In Search Of....

Holiday Traditions

Click here to download:

ornaments1.pxm (381 KB)

So, after a little bit of excitement tonight, the girls and I are settled in watching ELF, preparing to trim the tree and start decorating the house tomorrow afternoon. Over the past few years we have tried to make a conscious effort to start our own holiday traditions, including:

Waffle House and It's A Wonderful Life on Christmas Eve
Walking Nativity at a local church
and our favorite new tradition, The Brawner Family Congloma-feast (everyone picks a food item, no matter what it is, and we eat)

So, what are some of your family traditions?

Posted via email from In Search Of....

Follow Friday 2.0 #ff

I've noticed that Follow Friday has become a way for some people to shove as many twitter names into 140 characters as possible. I personally like the route some of my friends, like @dmosley have taken, actually giving a reason to follow someone. So, this is my first attempt at a little deeper follow friday.

1. @dmosley:for suggesting the new follow friday. Great guy, with a big heart for God

2. @chownage:his simple plan helped me clean up my inbox and de-stress my digital life. Also, doing some awesome work with Help Portrait

3. @ashleybrawner: shes my wife, shes hot, and shes a totally rad photog....

Thats all for now!

Posted via email from In Search Of....

Do we really need....

a "christian" twitter....

Do we really need a way to isolate ourselves from the world even more? ChristianChirp.com opened earlier this week, to much controversy. And after watching his "podcast" (http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/2489665) and hearing James Paris, the founder of CC, compare himself to John Rambo... I'm convinced that we don't need it...

What about you?

Posted via email from Wes's posterous

Perspective

(Inspired by Carlos Whittaker's post of the same name http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2009/09/perspective/ )
If you follow me on Twitter or are a friend on Facebook, you know that the last few days have been pretty difficult for myself and my family. Some of it culminated on Sunday night, and the result is shown above. After picking up Kaeleigh from class at church, my Macbook fell out of my backpack, which I had neglected to zip up....

But see, I think it was to teach me a lesson....

You see, earlier in the evening, I was concentrating on all of the wrong things in Small Group (books-a-million ordered the wrong book, should i get my fan fixed tomorrow, how much I needed to work that night, etc.) and not on the fact that I was there to learn, listen, and set an example for others. So, in my distraction I caused 1200 in damage. And after careful consideration, I won't be fixing it right now for obvious reasons. It serves as a reminder...

My computer can break, be stolen, stop working... Is that more important than Christ?
My work may be overwhelming sometimes to the point of exhaustion... But am I spending time with my family?
People may make mistakes... but should that change my mindset when I worship?

That dent serves as a reminder to me that Christ is in control. Through all of the good times and the bad ones. And through that, Christ has helped me find a new focus in life, and put me on a new path, for a new journey.

I'm ready for the journey... are you?

Posted via email from Wes's posterous

Lunch at the Lady and Sons

Here it is. I feel my arteries cloggin already

www.rockthecross.net

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Kaeleigh's New Hair Do

Last Friday, Kaeleigh cut a chunk out of her hair. Today we got it fixed... here she is

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140 Characters

140 characters has become the new norm in communication. Millions of people live out their lives in short, mostly nonsensical bursts. Twitter, Facebook and the like have given many people a way to have a "social life" with out ever leaving the house. And more often than not, there is no substance behind the things that they post.

Don't get me wrong. I'm just as guilty of nonsense posts. But I try to take the relationships that I've formed through these tools, and put work into them. Have you? Is there substance to your life or are you living life in 140 characters?
www.rockthecross.net

Posted via email from Wes's posterous

Upspeed Faster Than Downspeed

I've never seen this before....

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IMG00277-20090930-1440.jpg

She was telling me about how "not everyone has lights in their car".
www.rockthecross.net

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Did You Know V4.0

My friend Daniel Mosley (@dmosley) posted this video today. Pretty amazing stats

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What do you think?

Should the students in Catoosa County be able to display bible verses on the football teams run through banner? 

http://www.newschannel9.com/news/says-985149-football-field.html

My opinion, yes, they should. Whats yours?

Posted via email from Wes's posterous

Love this little one..

Scraped nose and all
www.rockthecross.net

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My Top 5 Mac Apps

After 7 months, I am by no means a Mac professional, but I have found some applications that have really made a huge impact on the way that I work. Check out my top 5, and feel free to add your own.

1. Writeroom	"Distraction Free Writing" at its best. There are many imitators, but none of them do it as well as Writeroom does. And at only $24.95, its well worth the price. Best Features: Great "lights down" effect, low price, highly customizable Worst Features: Haven't found any. Get it here: Writeroom
2. Coda	"Text editor + file transfer + svn + CSS + Terminal + Books + More = Whoah. Welcome to Coda. Grow beautiful code." Their description pretty much nails it down. Coda is quite possibly the best web development program that I have used. Maybe even better than Dreamweaver.And at a fraction of the cost($99). Simple, yet powerful, Coda is a must have. Best features: Great Live Preview feature, Powerful plugins. Worst features: Price Find it here: Coda
3. Eventbox	With the popularity of social networks Facebook and Twitter, as well as Google reader and the social bookmarking services, you often find yourself bogged down in a number of open web tabs and desktop apps for twitter and your Google feeds. Eventbox solves that. All of your info is in one place. $20 ($15 while its still in beta) is a meager price to pay for this excellent program Find it here: Eventbox
4. Coconut Battery	Coconut Battery does one thing. And it does it very well. It monitors the charge, load cycles and battery life. A definite must for all Macbook owners. Find it here: Coconut Battery
5. Lumina	Need to track your time on a task? Working on a project? Maybe you just want to know how long you've been on the computer. Regardless of the reason, Lumina will help you keep track of it. Its easy to use and very compact. Another must have, especially for those needing to clock time on projects. Find it here: Lumina

So that's my list.... Whats yours?

Posted via email from Wes's posterous

Guilty Pleasure Songs....

I don't care if anyone knows this.... I am a big fan of Party In The USA by Miley Cyrus. Its one of my guilty pleasure songs. Its just so catchy and I really can't help but dance along when its on.

What are your guilty pleasure songs?

What's Your Following Policy?

Twitter has become an invaluable tool for spreading the word about RockTheCross.net and AshleyBrawner.com, as I know that it has for many other people. I currently maintain two twitter accounts, one for myself, @wesbrawner, and one for RockTheCross, @rockthecross. My general policy is that once or twice a week, I will go through my followers list and follow the accounts that are legit and block the ones that aren't.

So..... What's Your Policy?

This smells like...

Its been a little while since I've updated... before I left for Honduras. Life has really taken me by storm lately and I've been really struggling to find my rest in Christ some days.... Pray that I will...

Today, as we were bringing in a phone that we got at my grandparents house, my middle daughter tells me that "this phone smells like Mema and Grandpa's house". I already knew this, because everything that comes from their house smells good. It got me thinking about what some of my favorite smells are.....

1)My grandparents house
2)Michael's (the craft store)

What about you guys? No deep spiritual meaning here... just curious

We are here!

Here are just a few pics of our first few hours in Honduras...

It is a sad day when.....

A Mother and her 4 year old have to wander the streets of Atlanta at 12:3o am looking for food and shelter. When a women who has no place to go has to sleep in a child's stroller. When a man who has been on the streets for so long has his mental capacity reduced to that of a child. Jesus would have been right there with these same people, loving them, and pouring his life into them. Yet, we turn our heads away when we see them, take a step away when they walk towards us, refuse them when they ask us for money for something to eat. Two songs come to mind when I think of the plight of the homeless in our country. "Give It Up" by High Flight Society and "Disappear" by Anberlin. Both of them are songs written from the standpoint of someone who is hurting and in need of the love that Christ bestowed on us. Somehow, we think that someone else is going to take care of it. We walk by and ignore them.

After seeing that 4 year old child, and having children myself, I realize that I am not doing my part to show Christ's love to these people that need to be loved just like anyone else. So, here is what I propose. I want a group of us to get together, make sandwiches, snacks, get blankets, anything that might help the "disappearing people" and go to them. Not to the shelters, the soup kitchens, but directly to them where they are, on the streets of Atlanta. I suggest a group of people because you never know what to expect, but I also know that God will have us in his hand. Please, if you are interested, let me know. I'm going to try and organize something once I get back from Honduras, so be in prayer until then.

No Matter How You Look At It......

Flie "sharing" is stealing. As most of you know, I run a christian music news and reviews site, so I take a pretty hard stance on downloading when you haven't paid for it. But even before I started RockTheCross.net, I was against downloading.

Now, don't get me wrong, I downloaded my fair share of music in the heyday of Napster, and Audiogalaxy Satellite. In fact, I had several GB of downloaded music. But, one day, after a lot of thinking, it stopped. I decided it was morally and ethically wrong. Not only could I not do it as a person, but as a christian, I couldn't steal from the pockets of the artists that I loved and that were helping spread the gospel.

I'm sure you are wondering what brought all of this on..... well, I was having a conversation today with someone and he was asking what kind of music that I listen to. I told him a lot of Rock, etc. but that I really dislike country. He said "Well, thats all I've got. I get my music off Limewire.". I explained my reasons for not downloading any more and he said "Yeah, I only get on for like 20 minutes or so, and I only get a couple of songs.". His response led me to formulate this question as I was thinking about the exchange later in the day.

Would you rather that your house be robbed just once or twice, or would you rather have it happen 300 times? Either way, you are getting robbed.

Please think before you download again... You could be taking food out of someone's child's mouth.....

A Change May Be Coming....

Ashley and I maybe be making some fairly big changes coming soon. I don't want to say much, except for that if it happens, it will be a change for the entire family.

Please......

Pray for myself and my family right now. For several reasons....

1)That I am able to raise the support that I need for my trip to Honduras. And that my passport will come through in time.

2)That I will be able to find a job expeditiously that I can begin earning income at.

3)That God will continue to bless Ashley's photography business, now that she can walk again.

That's really all I have time to say right now.......

Late Night Tonight

Its been an extremely long day for me. And I dont think its quite over yet. I've just finished up an email campaign I was working on for a friend, that will hopefully lead to some more income for me. Now I've got to get just a few more things done before I finally lay my head down for the night/morning.

I'll be honest, its really hard being a dad, husband, writer/editor/etc of my own website, graphic and web designer, chauffeur, cook, etc. But then I remember that God equips me for the things that he has called me to.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We will always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. (2 Corinthians 4:7-10)

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a Spirit of power. (2 Timothy 1:7)

I think that sometimes though, I take for granted what God has given to me through his Son. And I know that I am not the only one. Look at the staggering number of stagnant christians, those of us who proclaim Him with our lips, but that's all we do. There isn't fruit in our lives and we don't impact those who are around us. That isn't going to be me anymore. From now on, I am going to live my life out loud for Him who has saved me from certain doom. My question is, who will come with me on this journey.........

17 Days til Honduras... and I need your help

I've never had my own personal blog before. Usually it has something to do with my website, www.rockthecross.net, but never a personal blog to share my own non-musical thoughts. So I think a round of applause is in order.

The following text is from my support letter for my upcoming mission trip to Honduras. Please read it , and pray about giving. If you can't give financially, give through your prayers. If you need my address to send anything, please email me at the address below. Thanks!

The art of the personal letter is somewhat of a lost art. Lets be honest, most of the time when you get a letter, its a bill, or some advertisement for the latest Dish Network deal. This letter is not that....

In fact, its somewhat different. Over the past few years, God has really been working in my heart for short term missions, and this June I will have the opportunity to go on my first international mission trip. Leaving June 19th, and returning June 26th, myself and a team from my church at Eagles Landing First Baptist will travel to Tegucigalpa, Honduras to work with the local people there. I am nervous, yet excited for what God is going to do while we are there.

Now for the best part, the cost of is $1400. Asking for money isn't a strong suit of mine.... but any amount will help. If you can give a little, awesome. If you can give alot, thats awesome also. If you can't give financial support, I beg that you send your prayers, for the preparation, for the people of Honduras, and also for the members of the team. If you would like more information about the trip, please feel free to email me or call me, I'll include my information below. Don't forget that your financial donation is tax deductible.

Well, I'd give myself a solid B+ in letter writing this go around. Thank you in advance for your support!

Wes Brawner
678-524-6707
wes@rockthecross.net