In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is vulnerable to someone sneaking up on him from the side.

As promised I was out in the garage this morning to pull, rebuild and re-install Gerta's carb. I worked very slowly and deliberately. These things have lots of little parts and linkages that have to go back exactly as they came out so this is not a job to rush. I created a "back-up copy" by using my digital camera to take more pictures than Stacey Price at a family picnic.

I think it went OK. I only had a couple of parts left over and they were small ones.
Just kidding.
The before and after pictures show how dirty the carb was, and the inside looked the same.

That's the good news. The bad news is that after putting the carb back in and hooking everything up...IT STILL WON'T RUN RIGHT!!
This acts for all the world like a fuel flow problem. Before I left for Seattle I replaced all the rubber fuel lines, from the tank in front to the carb in back. As of noon I have a rebuilt carb and a new fuel filter. If (!) I'm sure I got the carb rebuild right that leaves the fuel pump - another rebuild project - or the fuel tank. The latter is my next move.
It's possible that when I drained the tank I pulled sediment into the copper mesh screen at the bottom of the tank that has now restricted fuel flow. So when I have time I'll pull the tank (pesky job) and check that screen.
You have no idea how bummed I was to put that carb back in only to find nothing had changed.

If you don't do anything else today watch this video:
Rick Reilly has a new one-hour show on ESPN called "Homecoming" where he interviews a famous athlete in their hometown. The premier episode aired today and it featured Josh Hamilton.
You can watch the entire show in "chapters" or sections by selecting them sequentially from the panel on the right.
Seriously, you NEED to watch this. Even if you have to do it over a couple of days (but I'm betting you won't be able to stop.)

Today I read an article in one of the alumni mags I get about the missional church. If you haven't heard that term before it may be because it's relatively recent. "Missional church" started showing up 10 years ago, +/-, but the movement has grown and spread over the last five years. It sees the church as a place designed to reach out to its surrounding culture, engaging and serving it. The church is not a place for "bringing in" but "going out." The goal is not to get people to come to church but to get the church to go to them through a variety of service efforts.

The Missional Church is a morphing, a development out of the Emerging Church. They aren't the same in some key ways, but we won't take time to go there in this context. One thing they have in common, however, is that they both believe they represent a new reformation, a return to what God intended the church to be as laid out in the NT.

So now we have the Missional Church, preceeded by the Emerging Church, precceded by the Seeker Church, preceeded by the Discipleship Church, preceeded by....
Anybody see a theme here?

IMVHO there's lots of of validity in E), all of the above. Each has snagged a biblical truth and brought to our attention one of the responsibilities of God's children. But I keep coming back to 2 Tim. 4:2, "Preach the Word." Everything I read in the NT about the local church indicates it's a place for believers, a place where they worship, work together as body and grow through the preaching and teaching of God's Word.

I predict that by the time we get to 2012, 2015 at the latest, we will have moved on to the lastest re-formation of the church. A fresh set of books will sell thousands of copies, explaining to us how we've wandered off the NT course. Seminary-fresh pastors will jump on board and preach powerful sermons on restructuring the local church.
I'll be the old guy preaching expository sermons.