Kyle Gebhart

2007-01-11T00:54:00.000-08:00

Question of the Day:

Why do we know so little about the death of the apostles?

Even Paul's death is 'thought' to have been in Rome - but there is little verifyable evidence - mostly we have speculations from the Catholic Church that are dated very late.

The popular Catholic tradition related to his death is that as a Roman citizen, he was exempt from crucifixion, so he was beheaded with a sword, in Rome c. 64.

2007-02-07T20:28:00.001-08:00

IS THAT ZACK?

The answer to your confusion (I've asked this question and had it asked several times over the last week) is...NO. It is a stock photo which Zack altered in photoshop.

And the guy DOESN'T have dreads either.

Glad to be of service.

Kyle

2003-10-25T01:08:00.000-07:00

So here we go, welcome to the world of ultimate self-disclosure!

Let all the world gaze upon the wonder that is my opinion, thought, idea, or question!

All ye who harken near beware: rants against SUV's, consumerism, self-loathing, and self-promotion shall strike ye down lest you tread with caution!

Enjoy the glory of the net that be:here.

2003-10-25T01:23:00.000-07:00

There are other me's about (Kyle Gebhart)...and I don't know if I like it.

Before this net that is woven around the 'inter' I would not be plagued by them, but now I have become aware of the following facts:

1) There is a me who is a member of the Ohio Green party.

2) There is a me who interviews members of the Dropkick Murphys, the Donnas(!) and various other punk bands.

http://punk.wbgufm.com/interviews.html

3) There is a me who has 15 years experience.

http://www.insure.net/Records.html

Let it be stated definitively, therefore:

The only Kyle Gebhart who is this Kyle Gebhart is THE Kyle Gebhart who states that he is THE Kyle Gebhart. And this Kyle Gebhart resides currently in Kansas City Missouri.

He will never fail in his quest to prove the me-ness of his true presence, both upon net that is 'inter' and the net that is outer.

This Kyle Gebhart is truly Kyle Gebhart.

A=A

Kyle Gebhart

2003-12-27T07:28:00.000-08:00

In Pittsburgh:

Last night I arrived back in my favorite city, the city of hills and steel.

Am sitting now at a newly renovated (still construction dust) Kiva Han which is across the street from a new monstrosity, the bold, brazen and heartless Starbucks Coffee Company which is giving the corporate finger to the local coffee industry...

anyhow. i know that at the moment this 'blog' is rather uneventful...and inevitably unread by any human other than myself. but i maintain a hope of greatness on the web one day, and intend to move forward one step at a time.

looking forward to many visits with old friends and comrades while in town, will update with any stories worth mention.

kyle

2007-03-06T20:27:00.001-08:00

SWITCHED TO WP - CLICK HERE! DON'T FORGET TO CHANGE MY ADDRESS ON YOUR BLOGROLL.

2007-03-05T17:34:00.000-08:00

Should I Switch to Wordpress? Convince Me.

My only reasons for not switching were 1) it involves a slight amount of work 2) Randy was on blogger...alas, now that he's not blogging anymore - that reason is lost.

So - I'll leave it up to my adoring public.

My fate is in your hands.

Remote Control Pigeons...Yes, REAL Pigeons

2007-03-03T22:06:00.001-08:00

Chinese scientists, those tricky guys have made it possible to control pigeons flight via remote control. Check it out.

More and more I'm convinced, the end is near.

How long until these are available for Christmas on the black market?

2007-03-03T11:29:00.000-08:00

I'm the Grinch Who Stole Birthdays

So - I have this theory that, once you're a grown-up, you shouldn't expect people to make a big deal out of your birthday. (P.S. If your reading this, that probably means you're a grown-up).

Now, I know that certain families have traditions, and of course, if it's your family (or a request you have made of friends) you can have a fair expectation for a certain amount of attention, love, gifts, whatever.

Suffice to say - this is not a popular theory. But I do wonder if we have overly stoked expectations for this sort of stuff because we live in a close-knit Christian context.

Let me put it this way: If my job was as a systems analyst at IBM - I couldn't expect people there to:

A) Know it was my birthday
B) Care if it was my birthday
C) Buy me presents, throw me a party and bring me cards and cake

Again - I'm assuming I'm not close friends with ALL my co-workers: "A man of too many friends comes to ruin..." Proverbs 18:24

I'm not saying we shouldn't do anything for anyone. For example - I asked some of my friends to take me out to dinner this year for my birthday. It was fun. I was thankful for their appreciation of me, amen.

So my question: Do we have unrealistic expectations when it comes to this? I guess you already know my answer.

Another question someone might know the answer to: Is all this birthday stuff uniquely American or do other cultures celebrate birthdays of everyone yearly?

And a brief note: This really has NOTHING to do with ANYONE who has had a birthday in the last month, week, etc. - it's something I've thought about for years.

2007-03-01T04:07:00.000-08:00

Why I don't "Wordcast" More Often:

Been thinking about this the past few days, and I can come up with a few reasons.

1) Don't have internet at home...nuff said.

2) Don't usually go online when I'm in the prayer room. Not that there is anything implicitly wrong with writing a wordcast on a little 'break' - but I'm just usually 'unwired'.

3) By far the most significant reason: I don't think out loud. Really - I don't formulate thoughts (for the most part) while I'm writing them - but before I write them. It usually takes me 3-4 days to formulate what I want to post on the next time.

This, unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), means less posts for you read - but my hope is that the quality if higher. I'm not prolific (ask Jared Diehl for a definition).

Side note - I'm thinking about an idea for a book:
working title = American Pharisee (or how meekness has become an un-American activity).

2007-02-26T12:29:00.000-08:00

Truth vs. "The Facts"

Been thinking about the fuzzy nature of truth (in the secular arena) lately as I've been reading up a lot on the Iraq war, Bush's presidency, etc.

It seems to me that in our common vernacular truth has become synonomous with 'fact' - but facts themselves can be funny little creatures - especially depending upon the context and tone in which they are shared.

As I've been reading about Iraq, I've discovered that everybody quotes everyone else - and the quotes are usually the same - but...it is often the way the words end up getting interpreted that determines people's opinions.

I feel like i should say something else. but i think i'm done.

2007-02-23T14:07:00.000-08:00

Things I Like About George W.

In the past months I've been reading up on the Iraq war a lot, and they have plenty to say about W...and almost none of it good. Although Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, and Wolfowitz take many punches as well; the buck stops in the Oval Office, and Bush takes a pounding from the liberals as well as the old guard conservatives.

With Bush's approval rating showing no liklihood of improving - I thought it would be nice to take a few moments to give a list of the things I actually appreciate about his unique brand of leadership.

Decisiveness: Whether you believe in his policies or not - you have to appreciate the fact that when the man makes a decision, it is clear he'd made a decision. There is little waffling, posturing, or maneuvering to avoid making the call.

Idealism: In some ways (according to his critics) one of his greatest weaknesses as well - he sets his mind on ideas and forms policy around those ideas - vs. a "Colin Powell" style pragmatism that can become paralyzing.

Down-to-earth: He holds international meetings at his ranch, and invites the leaders or Arab nations to jump in his 4x4 for a spin around the property while he gets to know them. You can take the boy out of Texas, but you can't take the Texas out of the boy. Bush's folksy charm is one of his most winning qualities.

Sincerity: Goes hand-in-hand with his idealism. I believe our president really means well when he speaks of spreading democratic ideals like seeds throughout the Middle East - he has a strong belief in the 'spirit' of America (we won't get into theology on that one...today).

So, for all you political cynics out there, chew on that for awhile.

2007-02-17T22:16:00.000-08:00

Leisure and the Gospel: A Day in the Life of Zadok pt. II

So, we’ve already established that Zadok has about 291 days a year committed to fulfilling his commitments as an intercessory missionary. This alone, however, doesn’t really establish for us just how much he is actually working – since every hour of those days could be spent in a multitude of ways.

Let’s do the numbers on those 291 days.

291 x 24 hours in a day = 6984 potential ‘work hours’ a year

Of course, Zadok has to sleep and gets an average 8 hours a night. We’ll factor this into the number for rest at the end.

291 x 8 hours of sleep = 2328 sleep (rest)

That leaves us with 4656 potential waking hours for working. Zadok has been given grace by God to do the night watch – a lifestyle that suits his character as a contemplative and his predilections as a night owl – and he goes whole hog jumping into it for 6 hours each working day.

291 x 6 hours in the prayer room = 1746 hours in the prayer room

That brings him down to 2910 hours for the rest of his IHOP responsibilities and the mundane activities that make up the rest of life. A man of habit, he decides to clean IHOP four hours a day 6 days a week.

291 x 4 hours of service = 1164 hours in service

That brings him down to 1746 hours for personal household responsibilities. He’s a family man – and he’s consistent in helping his wife with the kids and the household chores for a solid 4 hours each day.

291 x 4 hours of 'family time' = 1164 hours of personal household labors

That leaves Zadok with 582 potential leisure hours a year – or about two hours every day. (And that’s for a workhorse who does a fourteen hour day six days a week.)

I’m not going to ask for a show of hands of people who regularly do a fourteen hour day.

If we add up those 582 hours with the hours spent sleeping – and factor them into our percentages – we get...

291 x 10 = 2910 hours of leisure in the average year

plus

73 days off x 24 hours = 1752 hours of leisure on days off

equals

4662 hours of leisure a year

divided by

8760 total hours in a year

equals

53% of hour time each year is spent in leisure, recreation or rest – with a fourteen hour work week six days a week (including sleep in leisure).

In a future post, we'll compare these numbers with the 'average American' ratios for work and leisure - though I'll tease you by letting you know that 'technically' we work more - but then, we haven't defined work OR leisure yet - which could certainly turn things on their head.

2007-02-15T13:48:00.000-08:00

Writer's Unite!

Announcing the birth of RE:Vision - a writer's group committed to support crafting and improving our skill at communicating through all forms of written media.

It's time to get it together and start getting serious about things like: query letters, book proposals, stanzas, line breaks...and semicolons.

My proposal: We meet Fridays at 9PM at Higher Grounds (we can find another place to meet weekly if we want).

So, first meeting - next Friday the 23rd at 9PM at Higher Grounds.

Feel free to bring copies of something you want us to read and comment on - including prose, poetry, essays - etc. We'll have an assignment for the next week and go from there.

Feel free to bring a friend (though we'll cut it off at about 12 people).

Please, serious writers only. We really want to take time and energy together to craft our writing, get creative and support each other related to getting published and engaging with the larger literary community around us in whatever way we are called.

Email me or post a comment if you know for sure you will be there.

2007-01-12T15:45:00.000-08:00

Link to a CBN News story on IHOP-KC and 24/7 movement.

http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/82269.aspx

Lacey Balwin is on CBN!

intercessory missionary IHOP-KC
intercessory missionary IHOP-KC
intercessory missionary IHOP-KC
intercessory missionary IHOP-KC
intercessory missionary IHOP-KC
intercessory missionary IHOP-KC
intercessory missionary IHOP-KC
intercessory missionary IHOP-KC
intercessory missionary IHOP-KC
intercessory missionary IHOP-KC
intercessory missionary IHOP-KC
intercessory missionary IHOP-KC
intercessory missionary IHOP-KC

2007-02-13T20:30:00.000-08:00

Leisure and the Gospel: Zadok’s Labor and Rest

The last few weeks I’ve been thinking about the nature of rest related to the unique work of prayer which we engage in as intercessory missionaries at IHOP-KC. I’ve had the opportunity to engage in some discussions related to our revised absence policy – and thought it would be a good topic to examine critically over the next few weeks.

My basic premise is this: we have no idea how much time we spend ‘resting’ and how little time we spend ‘resting well’. When I say ‘we’ I mean myself as well. One would be hard-pressed to deny that we (in America) live in one of the most privilaged, entitlement-driven, self-serving cultures in human history. Because of this fact, I think an honest examination of the actual quantity AND quality of or leisure can only lead us further into the grace of God.

The question, ultimately, comes down to how the Bible defines work and labor and how the Bible defines rest, recuperation, and leisure, but before we get into the discussion as it relates to the Bible – I’d like to simply look at a few of the basic facts.

-the IHOP-KC missionary lifestyle - by the numbers -

The average IHOP-KC missionary – (we’ll call him ‘Zadok’) - has a ‘work-week’ of six days, assuming he takes one full Sabbath day off a week.

(6 x 52) = 312 ‘work-days’ a year

Then we subtract Zadok’s 21 personal days (any day off where he misses a scheduled sacred trust prayer meeting).

312 – 21 = 291 days

So that means Zadok is ‘working’ 291 days a year - (this assumes that he uses his 21 support/ministry days to do ministry and raise support – which certainly counts as work).

So Zadok ‘works’ 291 days a year (about 42 weeks), and he ‘rests’ an average of 74 days a year (about 10 weeks). Of course, there may be those who have all of their prayer meetings scheduled scheduled within a span 4-5 days – which would change these numbers radically – but we’ll stick with Zadok’s schedule for the sake of simplicity.

So, by the numbers about 80% of his days are spent working and about 20% are spent resting.

These numbers are a little deceiving, however – since every moment of those 291 days isn’t spent ‘working’ – within each day we spend a certain percentage of time working AND resting.

More numbers on that later.

2007-02-09T13:21:00.000-08:00

"Wordcast"- Stolen by Sci-Fi Nuts, Christians, and Jonathan Fox!

Well - wordcast sounded like a better option than blogging - but we've been beaten to the proverbial punch by some unlikely contenders. And the first one is a doozy.

In first place, with "wordcast.com" are the strange stylings of the "Arthur C. Clarke Egogram. That's right, it's Arthur's blog.

To summarize his year: he's ninety now, missing his Chihuahua, and believes the Golden Age of space travel is yet ahead of us, including, "fee-paying passengers will be experiencing sub-orbital flights aboard privately funded passenger vehicles, built by a new generation of engineer-entrepreneurs with an unstoppable passion for space."

Most interesting to ME however was this quote: "I am very encouraged by the wide-spread acceptance of the Space Elevator, which can make space transport cheap and affordable to ordinary people. This daring engineering concept, which I popularised in The Fountains of Paradise (1978), is now taken very seriously," can anyone say, corridor of glory?

And the runners-up:

Christian Music broadcasting = "Word-Casting"

And bringing up third place: this guy.

If we want to unite and start a wordcast union - it will make for unlikely company.

Flock is Cool!

2007-02-08T21:51:00.001-08:00

So I discovered a web browser that I like even better FireFox.

I can have all my flickr pictures (or someone else's) at the top - you can click the '[wordcast] blog this' [translate 'wordcast this'] button and click and drag stuff into a toolbar at the bottom to collect pictures, text, etc in the web browser without 'going' to your blog...it is cool.

I like it - like mint chocolate chip ice cream...that's right, the cheap green kind that you get in a generic brand with the old-school chips...not the fancy 'shaved' chololcate that is so popular nowadays.

Anyhow. My opinion: Wordcasting with flock is easier. check it out and give me your review.

Does anyone else use it? Is this new only to me?!

2007-02-06T23:55:00.000-08:00

Stay posted for a series on leisure and the Gospel - the definition of true rest - whether we work too hard (or not hard enough) at IHOP and other such goodness.

It should be rolling out in less than a week...drum roll please...

As a teaser - I have this question...

Does the average intercessory missionary work more or less hours than the average American worker? (we are including prayer room time in the numbers).

If more, by how many hours - if less - the same.

Looking forward to your thoughts.

2007-01-30T13:46:00.000-08:00

Yes - I know - I need to say something...sigh.

So - I've been thinking about how Paul Cain prophesied the 'spirit of Islam and communism coming together - being headquartered in Europe' - and the fact that both Iran and North Korea are actively pursuing nuclear weapons (and hate 'the West').

When do we actually start to proclaim TO the Eastern seaboard that there is imminent nuclear holocaust? I always picture that extra in the movie with the sandwich board that says 'the end is near' when I think about this.

Once I finish teaching my class (Thursday...I'm teaching NT Survey for the first time to a faithful 4 students in the night watch APP) I'm going to begin to search out the implications of Paul's prophecy in light of the above. Hopefully I can get an interview with Tony Snow of Condi to help out with my research.

Stay posted.

2007-01-11T15:59:00.000-08:00

"Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me."
President George Bush,
January 10, 2007

One of my friends indicated that Bush admitted making a mistake in Iraq.

Honestly, I was hoping for more than the above quote.

Where have mistakes been made - what lessons were learned and applied?

When Clinton failed morally - we (meaning the church) endlessly berated and criticised. Yes, it was an abominable abuse of authority and a profound failure. "The Right" was dead-set on impeaching him.

Were the mistakes leading up to Iraq greater, lesser, or is it a matter of comparing apples to oranges? I'm not sure of any satisfactory answer - but I just was hoping for more from our President.

I truly enjoy our President, and appreciate his efforts to keep us safe, but I continue to pray and hope that the entire Republican 'system' can move more in the direction of personal accountability, humility, and away from political posturing. Especially those who declare Christ and reflect upon Him in their decisions.

Admitting you've made mistakes is difficult - but the source of great spiritual maturity when done without defending yourself - it cleanses the soul.

2007-01-04T00:53:00.000-08:00

Kyle's Blog: THE REVIVAL

zack has inspired me.

if he will write I will write.

let the joy begin.