The Link
The Weekly E-Newsletter of Disciples Christian Church
In This Issue
- Updated Prayer Requests
- Disciples Women’s Ministry
- Mike’s Kids Banana Boxes
- Give 2 the Troops
- Alternative Gift Market
- BBPS Fundraiser
- Jennifer Caughron
- DCC Education Department News
- From The TechnoManor
- Men’s Bible Study
- Music Notes
- Children’s Sunday School
Updated Prayer Requests
- Oran Nabors had successful neck surgery on October 28. After a
rough 4 or 5 days, he was finally moved to begin physical therapy. Wonderful news – he is getting more and
more feeling in his extremities!
- Anton Garza, 5-year old nephew of Daniel Gonzalez, is suffering with a terminal
disease and is unable to swallow at this time.
- Rosalie Dunham, mother of Linda Gulick, had three additional surgeries
this week due to the spread of melanoma.
- Karen Hiett, Mary Carroll’s daughter, is undergoing tests.
- Dakota’s parents have both gotten new jobs and have been able to
lease a car! Dakota lived with the
Youngs for a time.
The prayer requests in The Link each week are recent
updates. A list of ongoing prayer requests appears in our worship bulletin each
Sunday.
Well, it’s
over. At least I think it is: I saw a
“Palin 2012” banner flashed on TV, but I think it was a gag. Yes, this election campaign is over. There may be a few recounts here and there,
but the winners and losers are known now.
Ah yes,
the losers. The Rays lost the Series;
the Cowboys lost last Sunday; there were more losers than winners in the New
York Marathon, and the Olympics; in fact, in any competition there are more
losers (unless there are only two competitors).
“Where do we go from here?” is the question the losers ask.
In
politics, the losers hunker down and plan for the next election. And in the meantime they figure out how to
play along or gracefully oppose. It has
always intrigued me that in
We
Christians know all about that. It
involves a little notion called forgiveness.
And it involves another little notion called reconciliation. We often find it difficult to practice. Feuds are the result of not practicing either
of those two concepts. Often enough
forgiveness and reconciliation are two-way streets. So if you have been harboring evil thoughts
about the ‘other party’ (God forbid), now is the time to start practicing forgiveness
and reconciliation. Remember Jesus’
words on the cross: “Father, forgive them”; if Jesus can forgive in that
extremity, then His followers can too.
God bless.
GGC
Disciples Women’s Ministry
The next Disciples Women’s
Ministry meeting takes place THIS Tuesday, November 11 at
Mike’s Kids Banana Boxes
Mike’s Kids is a major outreach program of the North Texas
Area each Christmas season. Mark Slaight
is the current head of this ministry that supports abandoned children and
families that have been forced out of their homeland to a new country. As
Christmas approaches, the North Texas Area Disciples of Christ Christian
Churches begin filling banana boxes with
new and gently used clothes and toys
to be delivered to Southwest Good Samaritan Ministry in Los Fresnos. The banana
boxes were delivered this week to
DCC and are located in the bulletin
board area leading into Fellowship Hall. Further information about Mike’s Kids can be
found at www.mikeskids.org.
Give 2 the Troops
The
Disciples Women’s Ministry is collecting items to send to our troops through an
organization called “Give 2 the Troops”.
We have placed a basket in the coffee area for you to place your items
in. There is also a list of things they
request as well as items that they ask us not to send. The list is also on their web site give2thetroops.com. Let’s all give to these wonderful defenders
of freedom.
Alternative Gift Market
The Disciples Women’s Ministry is having an Alternative
Gift Market on Sunday, November 23 from
BBPS Fundraiser
Bright Beginnings Preschool is
announcing their fundraiser, “Ultimate Gourmet and Candles.” The school’s goal is to raise funds for additional
classroom materials. Linda Gulick,
preschool director, has placed the product brochures and order forms on the
Welcome Table in the Atrium. Deadline
for orders is Monday, November 17.
Checks need to be made out to “BBPS.”
Jennifer Caughron
Jennifer
Caughron, Rev. Diane’s granddaughter, will eventually need a liver
transplant. If you are interested in
making a donation to the fund set up for her to help with expenses, you may do
so by making checks payable to “American Liver Foundation Transplant
Fund.” Be sure to write “Jennifer
Caughron” on the memo line.
Mail donations to:
American
Liver Foundation
DCC Education Department News
by
Youth News
- Saturday, November 22 – Movie afternoon beginning at 11 am.
From The TechnoManor
From the Technomanor
I didn’t
have a message in my Inbox this week. So
I thought I’d address a side discussion we kicked around in our Friday Men’s
Bible Study group. I call it, Google, Wikipedia, and Trust (Oh My!).
This isn’t
a “how to” article. It’s my take on what
we see on the Internet, how we should think about it, and how far we should
trust it.
I’m going
to “pick on” Google and Wikipedia, but these ideas can be applied to anything
on the Web.
Let me
review Google and Wikipedia before I go on.
Google (www.google.com) started as the
now-ubiquitous search Web site. You type
a few words into the box on its cleanly-styled page and it presents you with a
list of matches. Those matches are a mix
of paid-for advertising links with free Web-site links.
So far, so good. You click on a link to visit a
Web site to learn more about the words you originally searched for.
Did you
ever wonder, “how does it know about those
sites?” “how
does it make money?” “why isn’t it telling me what I’m
looking for?”
Google
makes its money by selling advertising.
It sells ads on it’s search results page and on
other people’s Web pages. It behooves
you to use Google for it to make money.
That’s why they make it so simple (and enticing).
Google has
programs (called “bots”) that scour the Web.
These bots automatically “visit” Web sites. At each site, the bots decompose a Web page,
extract the text you see (such as “Looking for somewhere to belong” on the DCC
Web site) and save the text as keywords for future searches. Google’s bots also find the links on a Web
page and follow those links to continue their journey through the Web. All of this information is cataloged by their
servers. It’s used to match future
searches.
But what
does this mean?
It means
when you “ask” Google to tell you about some subject, Google looks in its
catalog and finds your words. It then
presents a somewhat arbitrary list of Web sites that may have those words
somewhere on their Web page. There is
little intelligence involved in this process.
How does
Google decide what to display in its list of matches? Well, that’s Google’s secret. There are businesses that try to “game”
Google to forcibly display a company, service, or whatever at the top of the
list of matches. Actually, we’ve been
lucky. If you enter disciples
The
success you have with Google depends on:
·
How
unique are the words you give Google.
·
How
well-designed and informative is the target Web page.
Google has
some pretty good algorithms for how they manage their catalog of words and Web
sites, but it’s still a pretty dumb process.
Now
Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page)
is different. A wiki is a collection of Web pages that enables anyone who accesses
those pages to contribute or modify the content. Wikipedia
is a Web-based encyclopedia. It is
maintained by the Internet community.
Wait a
minute. Who is this “Internet community?” Anybody and everybody. I could write or edit an article in Wikipedia
(but I have better things to do). You
could, too. Basically you need to
register for an account, pick a topic, and start writing. If you enter absolute rubbish, someone else
can come along and change it. That’s the
beauty.
But
there’s no central authority, no group of experts to assure accuracy and
consistency. This isn’t the
Encyclopaedia Britannica! Wikipedia is a
public encyclopedia.
So, here’s
the rub. Because Wikipedia is a public
encyclopedia, you must take what you read with a grain of salt. There is no final arbiter who declares the
material correct (as in a traditional printed encyclopedia). But a consensus is often reached by
significant individuals to make most of the content accurate. However, you must be the final judge.
If
something on Wikipedia seems outrageous, or biased, it may be.
In my
experience, topics that can be verified by other means (technical documents,
reference sources), are highly trustworthy.
Topics related to living people (especially celebrities) or politics,
are often suspicious.
So now
I’ve given some background about Google and Wikipedia.
Should you
trust them? No, you shouldn’t…at least
not as absolute oracles of truth and fact. Why?
Because each produces results that can be rigged.
Should you
totally forget them and discard anything coming from them? I say no to that question, too. Because you could be
discarding valuable information that you may not find elsewhere.
Now we’re
both confused.
Isn’t trust
a continuum? There’s the high end (the
Bible) where we give absolute trust (or nearly so). On the lower end, we have people like used
car salesmen, where we give virtually no trust.
Google and Wikipedia (and other Web sites) fall somewhere in that
continuum.
You should
give information from the Web about the same level of trust as you would a
rumor or piece of gossip. The
trustworthiness depends on how reasonable it sounds, how it matches your
experiences, and how verifiable it is. I
think how the information passes those tests, determines how well you should
trust it.
After all,
didn’t you know I received a Pulitzer Prize for my writing? Why, it says so in Wikipedia! (wink)
Ok, you’ve
gotta keep my mind occupied. Send me a
technical question that’s been bugging you.
My Inbox lives at:
frenchygrey@gmail.com
I’ll
answer one question each week in The Link.
Otherwise,
I’ll have to ask and answer my own questions.
My dogs look at me funny when I talk to myself.
Dave Gillen
Men’s Bible Study
Calling
all men! Come join us at IHOP (
Music
Notes
by Laura Young
Handbell
Choir rehearsals
began this week! Thank you to all of our
incoming ringers. Our rehearsals will be
from
Chancel
Choir will be
warming up at
Thank you
to John Prewitt for providing singing "Come to Jesus" for our special
music on All Saint's Day. It was
well-done and very moving. Thank you
also to Galen Clark for adding to our service music with the violin.
For
questions about the music program, or to share local concert information for
publication in the Music Notes, please contact Laura Young, DCC Music Director,
at youngzoo@sbcglobal.net or
972-744-9941.
Children’s Sunday School
ALL PARENTS,
GRANDPARENTS, AND KIDS!! A SUNDAY SCHOOL CLASS FOR
PRE-K
THROUGH 5TH GRADERS MEET, AT
ALL KIDS WELCOME
BIBLE
STORIES, ACTIVITIES, FUN, MAKING NEW FRIENDS
=
LOTS OF LEARNING AND GROWING!
For more information contact pharbaugh@verizon.net.
The
In order to follow Jesus and worship God, we will serve our neighbors. We will
minister to our fellow Christians. We will live and tell the good news of Jesus
Christ in all we do.
Disciples Christian Church Staff
Diane & Galen Clark, Co-Transitional Pastors
Laura Young, Music Director
Linda Gulick, Preschool Director
Julie Chen, Pianist
Jan Carter, Administrative Assistant
Dave Gillen, Webmaster frenchygrey@gmail.com
Miranda Prince, Nursery Attendant
email: theoffice@dccplano.com
phone: 972-398-2240