Category: Notebook
08Mar
As a small reminder, this year I joined a creative project started by Anton Peck called Project52. The goal of this community is to be creative once a week for an entire year. You can read about my specific goal of writing Twenty Four stories.
The response of the blogging world literally overwhelmed Anton (in a good way) and he decided to revamp the site and resources and take the time to allow the mass participation that his original idea generated. What this means is that you can participate still. The official start date of the project is March 17. I’ve put my stories on hold until then so I can start with the new date and go the whole year.
If you’ve felt motivated to be creative this year and want a community that will help encourage that head over to Project52 and sign up (don’t forget to join the Google Group).
I’ll be back with a new story next week.
30Jan
I’d like to introduce you to the one and only Internet Monk, Michael Spencer who has mastered the rare art of civil online religious discussions. Michael is a Christian and isn’t afraid to uplift Jesus and stand firm in his beliefs. But he has the rare gift of being able to do that without demeaning opposing views. He goes one step further and makes sure that is audience does the same.
He openly invites Atheists, agnostics, Catholics, and others to dialog with him and his audience over a number of issues with the goal of better understanding each other, not proselytizing or tearing down the opposition. For example, read his interview with Dr. Valerie Tarico and A Letter from an Agnostic. Its important to read the comments on the above as well to understand what I’m getting it in terms of his gift.
Last year Michael rocketed out of the Christian Blogosphere and into the mainstream (at least briefly) with his essay The Coming Evangelical Collapse. This essay got him every where from the The Christian Science Monitor, the BCC, CNN, The Drudge Report, Daily Kos, countless others.
Michael writes:
I believe that we are on the verge- within 10 years- of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity; a collapse that will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and that will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West. I believe this evangelical collapse will happen with astonishing statistical speed; that within two generations of where we are now evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its current occupants, leaving in its wake nothing that can revitalize evangelicals to their former “glory.”
This essay is not your typical blog rant. Its a thoughtful exploration of what western Christianity has done wrong over the past several decades. His basic premise is that Evangelics are about uplifting a cultural agenda instead of Jesus.
Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This was a mistake that will have brutal consequences. They are not only going to suffer in losing causes, they will be blamed as the primary movers of those causes.
The setup for the entire series, in my opinion, his Michael’s call to return to a Jesus focused Christianity instead of engaging in political and cultural wars. In short, the more Jesus matters to you, the less important the culture wars will be to you. Currently mainstream Evangelics measure your allegiance to Jesus by your adherence to their cultural war mandates.
Over the past year Michael wrote a book. Its called Mere Churchianity, Find Jesus Shaped Spirituality.
Tragically, last year Michael also got cancer. Fortunately it looks like Michael will recover. Unfortunately he lost his job as a result of the cancer which also means his health care will run out this month.
Regardless of your religious beliefs you want to support someone like Michael. Civility on the internet around critical topics such as belief and non-belief is virtually non-existent. His voice enables real discussion between reasonable people of differing beliefs. Please take a look at Internet Monk and if anything interests you consider pre-ordering a copy of Michael’s book.
I’ll buy a copy for the first 5 people to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) with an address that Amazon.com US will ship to.
16Jan
Dear Internets,
My friend Andru from Gear Live invited me to take part in the Gear Live & Friends donation matching for Haiti.
I happily said yes and got one of my best friends, Roger Rustad, to throw in with me. Together we’ve put up $1200 for matching donations.
We need your help to turn that $1200 into $2400 and help Gear Live turn the $5650 in matching donations into $11,300. Better yet, if you have as little as $50, contact Andru and add yourself as a matching donor.
Here’s how it works. Just use your cell phone and donate $10 to Red Cross by texting the word HAITI to 90999 or donate $5 to YELE by texting the word YELE to 501501. Then leave a comment saying you donated over at Gear Live. If you prefer a different charity, just leave a comment over there letting us know where you donated. We’re not going to be police about it.
Our $1200 in matching donations is going to the The Nebraska Global Orphan Project because I personally know some of the people involved and have witnessed the fruits of their labors first hand.
But, bottom line, find a way to give.
03Jan
This year I’m participating in Project52, an effort lead by Anton Peck in which participants commit to writing at least one article per week for one year. It presented me with the perfect opportunity to reboot my personal blog. 52 posts is a challenging prospect just in terms of schedule, let alone creativity and challenge. That’s why I have a plan.
Over the next year I will be telling twenty-four stories. Twelve will be from my own life, twelve will be from interviews inviting others to tell their story. These will be divided up into one post per week so at the end of every month two stories will have been told. I want to tell these stories in a way that helps me become a better person in every aspect of my life. I want to do it publicly in the hopes that it helps others but I make no pretense about my main audience being anybody but myself.
A plan is not enough; I know myself well enough that if I only have a plan it will never happen. So, I’ve enlisted the aid of my enchanting wife Laura to be my editor for the year and help shepherd the project to completion. We used to work together day in and day out and loved every moment of it. We’re both relishing a shared creative project again.
The themes and tones of the stories are inspired by conversations I’ve had over the years with Paul Burdick, Kevin Shinn, Mitchell Kimbrough, Kurt Deutscher, and most recently with Derek Allard and his lovely wife Jo over delicious coffee in Europe at EECI 2009.
The implementation of the idea is inspired by Philip Yancey’s Soul Survivor.
03Jan
My site’s content has been completely rebooted for 2010. Everything that was here content wise is now gone. If there is something you want back, please .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and I’ll see about making it available somehow.
Speaking of contact, for the time being comments will be turned off. I want to concentrate on writing and producing content and limiting feedback to email (and I suppose Twitter) helps me with that. Once I get into the swing of things I may turn comments back on if I think it will help the writing process.
