Old Norse Texts and other Icelandic Literature
Texts of various Icelandic Materials.
Archive for May 2009
Episcopal Cafe
Welcome to the Episcopal Café, a ministry of the Diocese of Washington.
The Café is collaborative effort by more than two dozen writers and editors, and an ever-growing list of visual artists. Together, we aspire to create a visually appealing, intellectually stimulating, spiritually enriching and at least occasionally amusing site where Episcopalians and those interested in our church can read, watch, listen and reflect upon contemporary life in a context informed by faith and animated by the spirit of charity.
via Episcopal Cafe.
Great Budget Narrative
First Evangelical Lutheran Church in Longmont Colorado does a great job in presenting their Proposed Budget on the web. It is easily understandable. It starts with focus on what we are doing which then is turned into numbers.
Leadership in Small Churches
The preacher is the chief storyteller of the congregation’s story and knows the value of telling and retelling it on the occasion when most people are gathered and receptive to the storyteller’s spell, that is, the sermon. This is especially valuable to small membership churches, where neglect of history to the point of institutional amnesia is a telling symptom of a lack of corporate self-esteem. A small membership church that cannot tell its own story is prey to a fabricated story told about it from outside by an unfriendly critic. For the sake of building up the body of Christ, the preacher must become a determined student of congregational history. Then in an act of strategic leadership, the preacher must tell that recovered story from the pulpit.
As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God
Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.
via As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God | Matthew Parris – Times Online .
From Definitions and Technical Jargon to Story Telling
The Church is about sharing, living, remembering and repeating The Story. If we understand theology as constantly contextual, we are moving away from the world of definitions (modernism) to a world of stories.
The Aristotelic way of organizing, thinking that the sum of all the parts is equal to the whole, nothing more and nothing less, is not sufficient to understand ourselves or others.
Our task as modern theologians is therefore to move away from our definitions and technical jargon and start telling and listening to stories.
We can actually ask whether Schleiermacher and later WCC in their focus on modern/enlightened theology removed God from the people in the pews, and perhaps alltogether from all of us.
Hyperhistory
Some history buff in Trinity brought my attention to the Hyperhistory-web. It contains timelines and info in a short form about whatever history related.
Race Relations in America – links to articles
In January 2008 I took a course about Urban Ministry in Detroit, MI. An eye opening class for many unpleasant reasons, and few pleasant too. Here are few articles I read in connection to the class.
The Fire Last Time – washingtonpost.com.
THEOLOGY AND THE CITY: LEARNING TO CRY, STRUGGLING TO SEE by Jim Perkinson
Religious Cancer of racism by James H. Cone
Voices of Liberation and Struggle: Conversation with Dwight Hopkins
Like a thief in the night: Black Theology and White Church in the Third Millenium by James Perkinson
Martin, Malcolm and Black Theology by James H. Cone
Mission in Ethiopia
When in Systematic Theology I @ TLS, I wrote a comment in my notebook, about looking further at Gudina Tumsa. Part of that would be to see how and whether a tension between NMS and NLM played out in the formation and the first years of the Mekane Yesus Church.
I don’t remember the reason for this comment but it might be worth examining further.
Gudina Tumsa, Ethiopia, Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus.