Category: Uncategorized

Too good to just plug it in at the end of a round-up…

God Makes Lemonade – love this concept!

Seth Godin on Talker’s Block – great post about working through writer’s block; of course the mild irony, for me, is that I frequently do have “talker’s block” and tend to keep silent if I don’t have anything to say. Also from Godin: Marketing the Placebo – When Everyone Gets Their Own Belief.

Lifehacker: Upgrade Your Health & Fitness Routines.

Donald Miller: Leaders Lead People Through Fear.

Dan Dick: Take Time to be Holy.

Jamie, the Very Worst Missionary: Using Your Poor Kid to Teach My Rich Kid a Lesson. Raises an important point to consider about the unintended messages of mission trips.

Cameron Conant (via Rethink Church): Live the Best Case Scenario.

Christian Piatt (via Huffington Post): Why Young Adults Are Walking Away From Church.

Michael Hyatt: What Drives You As A Leader?

Chad Missildine: 8 Dos and Don’ts of Transformational Leadership.

I’d forgotten about the whole “Playing for Change” project, so I had no idea they had new songs out. Here’s their latest, and it’s a good one:

I don’t really fit the theological camp that Good News Magazine is written for, but I do try to read it when it arrives in my mailbox to broaden my theology and to better be in dialogue with other United Methodists; and the fact is, frequently there are good articles in the pages. The article by Jason Vickers “Renewal in an age of Anxiety” has some great stuff in it (it doesn’t look like the on-line version is available yet, otherwise I’d link to it). I especially appreciated these thoughts:

“The truth is that we do not need more demographic or generational studies to figure out what people are looking for. In the midst of workplaces full of resentment and hostility, people are searching for love. Surrounded by anxiety and depression, people are looking for joy. Amid the violence and insanity of city streets and war-torn countries, people are searching high and low for peace. Faced with spouses and co-workers who lose their tempers at a moment’s notice, people are looking for self-control. Amid rampant road rage, people are in desperate need of patience. Against the backdrop that is the harshness and cruelty of the evening news, people will inevitably be drawn to churches that exhibit gentleness and kindness in every aspect of their lives. Over against the gospel of pervasive pessimism about human nature and human communities, people will be drawn to church that proclaim and embody a gospel of transformation and holiness.

 “Conceived along these lines, the real question for the church is not whether we can get people to come to church in the first place. The real question is whether, upon coming, they will find compelling reasons to return time and time again.

“People will not be drawn to and held captive by the church simply because it carefully preserves and maintains its long-standing structures. Nor will they be drawn to and held captive by the church simply because it is part of a prophetic movement aimed at renewal or reform. Rather, people will ultimately be drawn to and help captive by the church when they discover in the church something they cannot readily get anywhere else, namely a community that embodies in readily discernible ways the mind of Christ, the theological virtues, and the fruits of the Spirit. In other words, they will be drawn to and held captive by those churches that bear the marks of incorporation into the Trinitarian life of God. Short of this, people may come to the church for a season, but they will ultimately look elsewhere for their salvation.” 

I have the bad habit of trying to read several books at the same time. I’ll start one, get half-way through, set it on my bookshelf, get distracted by another book, then a couple chapters in, go back to the first, etc. Unfortunately that’s been the case with Dirty Word: The Vulgar, Offensive Language of the Kingdom of God by Jim Walker; unfortunate, because while the whole book is good, the last couple chapters are exceptional.

Jim’s words here, really spoke to me:

“In talking with the young adults who are part of our community, I have noticed that many of them are paralyzed by life. With so many choices and expectations, they freeze and don’t do anything at all. I think part of the problem is that our culture demands that we do something ‘big’ with our lives. In the face of that expectation, we go into a coma. There is a strong undercurrent in our culture, which makes its want into the church, that pulls us into thinking that we have to change the world somehow. This expectation leaves many young people who want to follow Christ trying to figure out how they can be a disciple of Jesus, the sufferer, and a big rock star at the same time. The result is an epidemic of Christian rock stars. Instead of finding places to serve, these Christian rock stars will only serve when the work is cool or sexy, or they get to climb up on the roof and take their shirt off. Or when there’s a camera around. Instead of being honest about their struggles, they push their dirty laundry under their beds and pretend that they have it all together. Instead of running toward the cross, they run away from the cross, all the while talking about their plans to change the world. We need less Christian rock stars and more heroes, people willing to surrender and sacrifice so that the kingdom of God will be near.
“I believe that we are at a critical point in church history. There is a conflict going on, and we need losers like Jeremiah to stand in the fray and be torn to shreds. The outcome of this conflict will affect the future of the church. The conflict within the church and between those who call themselves Christians. The conflict is between those who are surrendered and those who use fear as a weapon. It is between those who humble themselves and wash feet and those who use rejection to conquer and control. It is between those who share in compassion and those who guard their luxury. It is between those who pursue the truth, the Word of God, and those who abide behind fake veneer or superficialities and disillusion. It is obvious who will win and who will lose this conflict. The winners will take the spoils – the beautiful buildings, the large endowments, and the places of position and power. The losers will quietly go their own way, back into the catacombs from which they came. They will go back underground, to the tattoo-shop basements and dark, dirty holes of this world where they share little pieces of body and little drops of blood with one another, and they sing quiet hymns of praise. We need heroes who are ready to go and lose that battle for the sake of the kingdom of God, ready to be losers for Christ, and for the sake of those who do not yet know of the awesome love and grace of Jesus.” (pgs. 244-246)

Roger Olsen: Is Hell Part of the Gospel? Also Olsen asks the question, do we really think of the people of America as family? (his answer in short, only when it suits us).

Rick Dake: Moving Out. Rick’s a good friend & colleague and I appreciate his thoughts on choosing isolation, or choosing to learn a new language and embrace a new culture.

Chad Holtz: After the Storm

ChurchLeaders.com: More Christians are Developing a ‘Designer Faith’

Philip Bewer: Social Security is Not a Ponzi Scheme

Jonathan Martin: What Does it Mean to be a Preacher? Some great stuff in there (I’d encourage you to read the whole thing):

“It is understandable why we would pretend to be something different than what we are, because to put it mildly, preachers have limitations. We are compared to poets, but we generally lack their precision with language, using words with clumsy brute force as often as not. We are sometimes called prophets, but we are not generally so courageous, especially since our livelihood generally depends on the people we prophesy to. We are not precisely artists, since we lack the artist’s originality. The preacher’s job is not to paint new things but to repeat old things…

 “I am a preacher… I live under the weight of words. I carry words in my pockets, words in my satchel, words in my heart. Words, always the words. Words as pitiable weapons in a world when there are guns for sale at Wal Mart, words as medicine in a world where prescriptions are all we seem to need. Carrying my words to places where they are impractical and words to places where they are inept. Delivering words that make some people look at me with the superstitious fear of a witch doctor, a shaman, the village medicine man who has all the answers—words that make people look like the village idiot, a man out of time, a man that won’t move on with the world.

“And I know that words cannot always be the answer. But that sometimes they can, and that words can create galaxies and words can burn cities down. All this damnation and hope at my disposal, all this absurd power—living under the weight of the words. I wish that I could live up to the greatness of the words, to have a soul big enough and a life noble enough to be worthy of them. But don’t you see by now—I’m a preacher? There is nothing greater than the words, they are the stars that light up the night. Isn’t Jesus Himself called the Word of God? Only He could bear up under the weight of so many words, only he could exceed the expectation that words create and surpass the reality of what words signify. 

“I don’t live up to the words, create the words, own the words. I gaze at them, I gibber with them. I consume them, I choke on them, I vomit them. I am a preacher. Words are all I’ve got, words will have to be enough.”

Lifehacker: Forget the Standing Desk – Move. Too bad, I always thought the idea of a standing desk seemed kind of cool (although also somewhat impractical).

Donald Miller: The Best Writing Advice I Ever Received.

Seth Godin: Lousy Tomatoes and the Rare Search for Wonder. While Godin’s critique crosses all institutions and industries, it seems especially apt for the church – we are the boring supermarket – there when people need us, more often than not, offering visitors “good enough” instead of remarkable. It’s possible the church can swing too far in one direction and go overboard with trying to get the “wow!” factor, especially when you set the expectation that each week you need to top the previous one – before too long, the pastor will have to be juggling flaming batons, while a trapeze act flies over the pews, or you end up with this. We can be reliable, let us also aim to be remarkable.

Jay Voorhees: Get the Churches to do it, They’ll do Anything! Great post from Jay, questioning one of the key arguments of those seeing to limit government assistance to people in need. The argument is that churches will pick up the slack, and that they are precisely the institutions with the missional foundation to best help those in need. You can back the argument up by showing how it was churches that built the key social structures in this country, hospitals, colleges, even public schools have their roots in religious institutions and are the result of faith-based leadership. The problem is the world has changed since then. Many hospitals and colleges are now only loosely affiliated with the religious bodies that founded them. I haven’t studied the reasons behind that shift, but I’m guess there were a few elements behind it – the institutions were adapting to a more secular culture and  the churches shifted their focus to congregational life instead of social service. But my guess is the primary reason has to do with the professionalization of the fields – the business of running a hospital has become so complex that it no longer makes sense for pastoral authority to hold supervision over the institution. It might have worked 50 or 100 years ago when clergy were among the best educated people in the community, but that is no longer the case.

In Jay’s blog, he addresses a different point. Based on current conditions, most congregations are in no place to address the groundswell of needs that are happening in our nation right now. And the notion that a tax cut would produce a sharp increase in charitable giving to help churches provide for the new needs is questionable at best. The reality is, it would need to be basically a one-to-one ratio, not to mention the increase in inefficiency due to a lack of coordinated authority.

Jen Lemen: How to be Happy (Part 5).

Will Willimon: Using Dashboard to Understand the Church’s Story.

The end of R.E.M. I know I should feel sad, and I wish I had seen them perform live, but honestly they had pretty much dropped off my music radar for the last decade.

My DS, Eugene Blair, writes on cross-racial appointments and urban ministry here (and no, I’m not posting that just to “kiss up”).

One of my former professors, Rabbi Jay Holstein, is featured in a recent documentary. Unfortunately I don’t have the channel the program is being broadcast on, but he was a fascinating professor. (I’d especially love to go back and sit on one of his classes now).

Michael Hyatt: How to Write a Blog Post in 70 Minutes or Less. Good ideas in there, especially since at some point I’d like to break away from the pure “round-up” nature of this blog. Related: 13 Idea-Starters for Stuck Bloggers.

Derek Thompson: Who’s Had the Worst Recession: Boomers, Millennials, or Gen-Xers?

This week – new music from Gungor – “When Death Dies.” Anytime you have a guy beat-boxing AND playing cello simultaneously, you know something awesome (or awful) is happening (fortunately, I file this under “awesome”).
 

I knew I’d been off for a couple weeks… didn’t realize it has been close to a month since my last post. Time to play catch-up:

Damon Lindelof on Raiders of the Lost Ark

Unexpected ways the library can save you money. Actually these are all pretty standard and obvious in my opinion, but then again, I’m a cheap nerd who loves the library (and I especially love my current local library because they do have an excellent music, movie, and magazine selection in addition to a great book collection).

Why 99% of Pastors are Universalists… at Funerals. Love the last line, “Maybe if Rob Bell had spoken his thoughts at a funeral, nobody would have had a problem with it.”

Donald Miller: Learning to Love Your Flaws.

Jen Lemen: What If…

Amy Valdez Barker has a few thoughts about churches failing to do the most basic of outreach efforts I think she is a little “off” in directing her criticism at the pastors; anyone can build a church website or facebook page, ordination isn’t a requirement, even though I know the main point is it takes pastoral leadership to get the church to even consider those things. Amy’s also quick to affirm when churches get it right.

My good friend, Eric, is back blogging at Operation Nu-U, great thoughts on the battle with food addiction, and the efforts he’s making towards living a healthier lifestyle. Eric’s an awesome guy, and I wish him the best in his efforts.

Another good friend, Jeff, tells of the 10 things he snuck into his son’s backpack before he starts kindergarten.

How to Shave 10 Hours Off Your Ministry Work Week.

Dan Dick on Accountability Ability nice post on a tough topic – at what point do we take membership vows seriously enough to remove “Christians” blatantly exhibiting un-Christ-like behavior?

Roger Olsen: Was Kierkegaard an evangelical? Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Also from Olsen: Why “evangelical” is a label I won’t surrender; while “evangelical” is not a label I grew up with, I’ve been interesting in finding ways to reclaim it, because it is part of the Wesleyan heritage. Just recently I was taking part in a phone survey where the question was asked, “Do you consider yourself evangelical or mainline?” and I wanted to answer both, but not in the way “evangelical” has been commonly understood in the last 30 years.

Fred Clark on Neuhaus and “Dominonism”. Just prior to labor day, I heard something on NPR about Bachmann, Perry and Palin’s connection to this theological arena (movement?) I worry that connections, and beliefs like this can be overblown and overstated, but I also think this is something worth keeping an eye on. Fred offers a follow-up post here. Also interesting stuff on the ACLJ, I had always been a little weary of the organization’s efforts, I had no idea about the financial aspects of the organization. One more from Fred to plug: Refusing to Bow Before the Beast, on understanding the Book of Revelation.

Lifehacker: People Who Get Malware, Also Get Mugged More Often.

What If Steve Jobs Made Disciples? 

Who Said It? God, MLK Jr. or Captain America?

Six Key Tasks of Pastors Who Make a Difference.

Jeremy Smith: I Could Sing of Your Love on Sundays. Great video if you haven’t already seen it. On a much more serious note from Jeremy: Do We Seek Success or Significance?

The Post I Shouldn’t Have Posted, and How It Changed Me.

Several college friends were living in NYC ten years ago. Here an IM chat my friend Rudy posted from that day.

McSweeney’s: You Look At Me Like You’ve Never Seen a Neo-Hipster Before and Do You Like Me, Click Yes or No.

3 Blogging Experiments That Might Make You a Better Writer. I’ve wondered about trying to do something with video, but I know I’d make myself crazy with wanting it to be “perfect” – I’m okay with a misspelled word, but the idea of stumbling over spoken words, or even poor sound or video quality would make me nuts.

Michael Moore on what it felt like to be the most hated man in America. Moore has always interested me, especially since I’ve moved to Michigan, and can now see areas like Flint up close, that 22 years ago seemed like a very far away place.

Using John Wesley’s words in regard to the Global Leadership Summit. (Actually a good quote for a variety of learning experiences).

With all the attention given to this being the 20th anniversary of Nirvana’s Nevermind, I’d forgotten that it is also the 20th anniversary of Fugazi’s Steady Diet of Nothing, an album that I not only purchased before Nirvana, but also understood much more immediately than Nevermind.

Jeremy Smith on Outsourcing the Message – Jeremy brings up some good points about something I’ve been interested in – using video streaming to bring sermons to remote congregations. While I’ve been generally in favor of at least exploring or experimenting with the possibilities, and how it can be a way to support small membership and rural congregations that might otherwise lack regular preaching (especially as the number of active clergy drops and the associated personnel costs rise), I appreciate Jeremy’s critique of how it undervalues contextual, community based messages and undermines leadership development. Good stuff to consider.

Bill Hybels responds to Starbuck’s ceo withdrawing from Willow Creek’s Leadership Summit. Regardless of what you might think of Willow Creek or the “controversy” that surrounded this, I think Hybels response is excellent; he addressed it with a lot of grace… and actually made me pick up Howard Schultz’s book Onward when I saw it at the library this week. (I’m only about 1/3 of the way into the book, but already agree with Hybels that it is excellent).

Roger Olson on Process Theology – it’s interesting in that I’ve always considered myself in or near the process theology “camp” , but based on Olson’s definition, I’m not (because I don’t see God and the world as being ontologically interdependent). I also enjoyed Olson’s post on Something Protestants should borrow from Catholics.

Four signs you are becoming an irrelevant church leader.

Fred Clark on Is Rick Perry a ‘sucker’ or is he just lying, unlike Fred I am likely to give the benefit of the doubt and believe that most politicians err on the side of stupid rather than malicious, but I always appreciate Fred’s analysis. Also from Fred on the theme of truth telling, this time from the pulpit: Glurge and Ghost Stories I don’t think I’ve ever been as egregious of the violations Fred cites – I’ve never tried to sell another’s story as my own, and there have been a couple cases where I have tried to fact-check or explain a sermon illustration that falls more into the “metaphor” rather than “history” category, but I can see where it is an easy trap to fall into.

Top 10 Tips for Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse. Always good information to know.

I’m falling in love with Spotify – it’s a great site for finding and listening to music, new and old, with some great social networking features. Their music catalogue is pretty deep allowing me to reconnect with music I used to have on cassettes that have been lost though the ages (and I’ve never managed to replace on CD or MP3); The Sundays are one of those bands – Reading, Writing & Arithmetic – was a big part of my soundtrack in the summer of 1990:

Paul Steinbrueck: What Church Members Want in an App.

Roger Olsen: Folk Religion and Life After Death (Part 2). Excellent article! One of my adult Sunday School teachers is going to be doing a study on “heaven” this fall, and (I think) will be addressing some of these “folk religion” aspects that Olsen mentions.

Fred Clark: You might be an evangelical…

Jen Lemen: 10 Things That Are True About You.

Dan Dick: Running Out of Options. Dan makes that case that the greatest threat to the future of the United Methodist Church is:

“… a self-centered, selfish, consumeristic, privileged entitlement mentality that puts the comfort of the individual ahead of the integrity of the community of faith and the will and vision of God. My-way-or-the-highway, take-my-ball-and-go-home immature coercion is becoming the norm rather than the exception. This, and this alone, has the power to kill us.”

make sure you follow the link to read the full article.

Wil Wheaton writes about the 25th anniversary of Stand By Me.


From Mike Slaughter’s blog: Why Methodist? (Good to be reminded that sometimes we do get it right).

From Christianity Today: Should We Still Give Out Tracts?

From ProBlogger: The 5 Must-read Books for Bloggers in 2011. Haven’t read any of these, but I was interested in the second one on the list: Curation Nation: How to Win in a World Where Consumers are Creators – I didn’t realize that curation (basically what I’ve been doing each week) was really a “thing” – this was really about finding a way for me to catalog the stuff I found interesting as a personal study discipline, and to possibly bring some benefit to the handful of friends interested in similar subjects. I’ve always felt a little like I was cheating by pointing to other people’s blogs while not offering very much in terms of my own content, but maybe there really is value in just doing this.

Personal MBA: 7 Tools to Manage Social Media Overload.

My family got our picture in the Detroit Free Press this week (fortunately not for doing anything illegal).

Steve Sjogren: Bullhorn Evangelism. Interesting article, especially when I saw this very thing being played out at the U2 concert in Lansing – outside a handful of guys with a bullhorn condemning everyone to hell, inside a stadium of people singing songs of hope.

Dan Dick: Paradoxology. Be sure to read the whole thing, as with most of his posts it is pretty convicting, including this bit:

“The process by which God provides is in place. That process is us. Our current problems are not those of quantity, but distribution. We don’t lack resources, we simply lack love, faith, compassion, and trust. We bow before the god of fear at the expense of trusting the God of love. It feels safer and more comfortable to take care of ourselves than to perhaps give aid or comfort to someone we don’t know, like, trust, or agree with.
And this is why our church is in the state it is in. At least for United Methodists, we lost our way when we jumped the mission and social justice ship for the church growth cruiser.”

Chad Holtz: Christians Need a Ramadan and The Idolatry of Belief

Lifehacker: Best Windows Downloads and Best iPhone Apps. Several of the Windows programs I use on a regular basis (Google Chrome, Thunderbird, Dropbox, Picasa, Microsoft Security Essentials, and I’ve started playing with Spotify); the iPhone apps I don’t know as well, but these are both pretty solid lists for good (and largely free) software for your systems.

This next link it a little more advanced in the techno-nerd realm, but Michael Hyatt has a nice post on How to Get Your Kindle Highlights into Evernote. This has been one of my frustrations as I’ve experimented with ebooks – how can I mark passages for future reference, and fortunately Michael notes a (relatively) simple solution.

I never really expected myself to agree with John Piper on much of anything, but his article on How Do I Think About Tweeting actually makes a lot of sense to me, especially since I know I don’t use the platform to it’s potential (most of the time you’ll just find me retweeting what someone else has written).

Great article from Roger Olsen: A bigger problem than heresy: folk religion.

One more for the “must read” list: What If Jesus Isn’t as Reasonable as Us? by Ed Cyzewski:

“Theology can only take us so far. We’re dealing with approximations at best when we talk about God. We can study the Bible all we want, but at the end of the day we’re just talking piles of dust and spit trying to define a deity that we can only see in a mirror dimly.
We know some things about God, but as NT Wright says, we can’t be 100% sure that all of our beliefs are right. And if we one day discover that God is different from us, what will we do?
I don’t think you can blog a rebuttal after standing before the judgment seat of God. Actually, I’m pretty sure about that one.
At a certain point we bump into our limitations and the likelihood that we have been wrong about God in some ways. We have to decide whether we’re willing to stick with God even if he dashes parts of our theology to bits, even if he appears unreasonable, intolerant, or too inclusive.”

Mike Friesen posted this video on a day I really needed to see it:

I’ve had this song by the Avertt Brothers stuck in my head the past couple weeks… I really don’t know much about the band other than the appearance they had on the Grammys with Mumford & Sons, and Bob Dylan; but checking their wikipedia page shows that their grandfather was a Methodist minister, so they get bonus points for being cool…

Not as much this week… here’s the rundown:

Jeremy Smith on Creative Commons, Lewis Center and Link Love. Like Jeremy I think Creative Commons is a good way to approach issues of copyright, and I use a similar license (the only difference is I allow for derivative works, but require the same license to be employed).

One of the things that typically flies under the radar of many people is that Zondervan Books operates under the News Corp. umbrella, run by Rupert Murdoch, who recently made headlines because of the scandal related to News of the World. Will Braun has an interesting article in the Geez Magazine blog abut the connection, as well as some interesting insights from Shane Claiborne about how he personally handles his connection to the company. (via Slactivist)

Slactivist (aka Fred Clark), also addresses Rick Warren’s tweet about taxes: To Whom Much Has Been Given.

Jay Voorhees: The Dilemma of Leading a Church in Decline.

Luke Burns: The Birthday Clown Consortium Price Guide. (Not church related, just something I found amusing).

From Andrew Conrad: Opportunity to Partner with Resurrection. Basically they are looking for 3 small membership congregations served by lay speakers or local pastors to become part of a multi-point circuit for a year. I think this is a REALLY interesting idea, and may be the future for maintaining some small-membership congregations, especially in isolated areas, and will be interested to see how this experiment works out.

Jen Lemen: How to be Happy (Part Four).

From the Father Apprentice blog: Conquer the In-Between State.

Michael Ratliff: Is the UMC really committed to young people’s ministries? (via Gavin Richardson).

Jeff Goins: Saying You Want to Write Verses Actually Writing. I am totally guilt of this.

I hope there is more to this story than the way it is being spun, but the apparent move in Wisconsin to require people to possess state-issued ID to vote and then close DMVs in 10 different locations seems very suspicious.

Kurt Boemler on 7 Suggestions for those Studying to be a Pastor. The first point about business and leadership training is important AND lacking in traditional seminary education as he points out; I’m really glad Garrett is now offering their MDiv+ program (but wish it wasn’t so expensive to alumni to participate). Also good points about mentoring (both in an official Board of Ordained Ministry capacity and more generally in terms of pastoral leadership).

Seth Godin: No Such Thing as Business Ethics.

I guess I’m still in a They Might Be Giants mindset, here’s a cover of Tubthumping they did for The Onion AV Club (PS TMBG – why must you be so cruel to have your concert in Detroit be on a Saturday night? Some of us have to work in the morning… this is only made more cruel by have Jonathan Coulton open for you):

They Might Be Giants covers Chumbawamba