At Faith and Theology: Rowan Williams: a letter to a six-year-old there is a story about an answer Rowan Williams sent to a 6 year old.
They discovered me when they looked round at the world and thought it was really beautiful or really mysterious and wondered where it came from. They discovered me when they were very very quiet on their own and felt a sort of peace and love they hadn’t expected. Then they invented ideas about me – some of them sensible and some of them not very sensible.
As a response to Pastor Al’s sermon this morning I decided to translate one section of my Bible blog. The chapter I have chosen is naturally chapter 9 of John’s Gospel, the gospel reading for today. The idea with the Bible blog is to write down thoughts and speculations that arise when I read through the whole Bible, publishing a chapter a day here on iSpeculate.net. I hope my translation is slightly more accurate than Google Translate would be. Continue reading Gospel of John – Chapter 9
Recently I installed Ubuntu on an old HP laptop, thinking it would be fun to experiment with it. Due to my extensive use of iProducts, and lack of connectivity between them and Ubuntu I have not yet started to use the system as much as I had planned.
However, I have listed few programs that I would like to test out on Ubuntu in coming weeks and months.
Laura Wacker Stern writes on Duke Divinity Call & Response Blog about Struggling with leadership “effectiveness”.
The leadership models recommend constant evaluation in order to measure the “success” of an event, sermon series, or outreach ministry. From formal congregational surveys to first-time visitor interviews, we are encouraged to build accountability structures into our day-to-day church operations. Such evaluations alone are certainly understandable, yet they can create a narrow, data-driven measurement of success. Increased participation in worship, new professions of faith, and additions to the membership rolls disproportionately define a congregation’s faithfulness to the Gospel.
Frederick Schmidt writes about theological education in the article:Is It Time to Write the Eulogy?: The Future of Seminary Education. It contains various interesting and important topics, but this part caught my attention. Continue reading The Future of Pastoral Education
In 1962, when Willie Rotter was about to graduate from seminary, President Fendt handed him an envelope. “What’s this?” he asked? “Your first call,” replied Fendt. That’s how it was done. You went where they told you. End of conversation.
It has been interesting to see the candidacy process in ELCA during the time I have stayed in the US. Bishop Mike Rinehart in the Gulf Coast Synods writes an interesting blog about “the Draft” in Chicago. The blog is here: From the Seminary to the Parish | Connections.
via Stephen Zeller’s Facebook Wall.
Newgeography.com has an interesting article addressing where college graduates are locating themselves in the US. New Orleans makes the first place, most likely more due to a shift in population after Katarina, then anything else. The real winner in the 1 million+ category is the area around “The Research Triangle” in North Carolina. It is fun to see Columbus, Ohio in 9th place and also which metro-areas are not on the list. The following paragraph caught my attention:
Conventional theory suggests that the new generation of college graduates will go to the largest, densest places, eschewing, as The Wall Street Journal put it snidely, their parent’s McMansions for small abodes in the inner city. Yet the ACS numbers indicate that, overall, college migrants tend to choose less dense places. In the two years we covered, the growth rate in urban areas with lower urban area densities (2,500 per square mile) boasted a 5% increase in college-educated residents, compared with roughly 3.5% for areas twice as dense.
See further on: America’s Biggest Brain Magnets | Newgeography.com.
Donald E. Meek takes it personally. Celtophiles (59) and plastic surgeons (190) are stealing his cultural heritage and religion. The elements that make him what he is. Meek’s account of the events are scholarly based, witty, ironic, and at times his anger is quite visible. His humor is wonderful, and from time to time, I laughed out loud, as I read through his description of contemporary Celtic Christianity. At one time I put the library book aside, grabbed my computer and ordered my own copy from amazon.com, thinking that this was one of the text books I had to own.
Yes, I liked Meek’s book, his meekness in the introductory chapter, his way of confronting the contemporary Celtic Christianity and the way he stands up against what he considers to be a theft of his own personal identity. Continue reading It is personal: About The Quest for Celtic Christianity by D.E. Meek
Sure, Millennials will report that the “reason” they are leaving the church is due to its perceived hypocrisy or shallowness. My argument is that while this might be the proximate cause the more distal cause is social computing. Already connected Millennials have the luxury to kick the church to the curb. This is the position of strength that other generations did not have. We fussed about the church but, at the end of the day, you went to stay connected. For us, church was Facebook!
It is clear according to Dori Grinenko Baker and Joyce Ann Mercer, youth should not be a time of waiting to become. Young people are not to be subjects of our solution based church ministry. Continue reading Thoughts about “Lives to Offer” by Baker and Mercer
When a young person walks into a church, it’s a significant moment, because no one expects her to go and nothing pressures her to attend; instead, she enters the church looking for something. (16)
Tribal Church is one person’s attempt to put it out there; her thoughts and feelings about being a parent, a spouse, a seeker, a rostered church leader, a young adult, a person-in-debt, all while living in a world of constant changes and uncertainty. She addresses the struggle of being a follower of Christ in a world were young people outside the church walls “seem much more gracious, loving, and responsible, more consistent with Christ-like behavior.” (2) Continue reading Thoughts about the “Tribal Church” by Carol Howard Merritt
When I say, “I am a Christian” I don’t speak with human pride I’m confessing that I stumble – needing God to be my guide
This is a part of a poem by Carol Wimmer. I came across it on Pastor DJ Dent’s wall on Facebook and thought it was worth quoting here. The whole poem can be found on Carol Wimmer’s website.
Christianity started out in Palestine as a fellowship. Then it moved to Greece and became a philosophy, then it went to Rome and became an institution, and then it went to Europe and became a government. Finally it came to America where we made it an enterprise.
This quote is said to be by Richard Halverson and I borrowed it from Kim Conway’s Facebook wall. Intriguing indeed, but lacking for sure.
The early church was on the margins not only of Judaism, but of society generally. Given this setting as the occasion of the writing of the books of the New Testament, we might begin to suggest that the New Testament actually has more to say to us when we find ourselves on the margins than it does when we find ourselves at the center of society. It’s at this point that we cast a glance at the Old Testament and realize that the bulk of it, too, is addressed to a people who finds itself on the margins, not in control of their political situation. We might even look anew at passages concerning the downtrodden, the oppressed, or the outcast and imagine that they might not be talking about someone else, but about us — and without having to spiritualize the message to get there.
The Church & The World in the Decade Ahead is an interesting blog post with familiar thoughts about the church.
In the winter semester of 2009 I gave a presentation in the course Theology of Mission at Trinity Lutheran Seminary about the “The New Atheist Movement.” This was a talk, and what you find in this post are my notes, slightly modified to be readable. (I did some more editing at Jan 27, 14:04 EST). Continue reading The New Atheist Movement
I am told that it is possible to run Bibleworks on Mac with the help of Crossover Mac from CodeWeavers. Crossover does not need a Windows Operating System license, and according to my sources lets the application integrate seamlessly in OS X.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgdcljNV-Ew
via Margaret Marcuson.
I am now back in the US, after 15 days in Iceland were I met all kinds of fun and interesting people. More importantly I got a F2 visa in the US embassy in Reykjavik. It is kind of awkward that the interview I had to go to, took approx. 2 minutes, and contained two questions. “How is your wife doing in her studies?” and “Did you study in the US?” I answered both questions very thoroughly and explained how I tried to find a job while on OPT but did not succeed. I had the feeling that both the question were just an attempt to be polite, because the employee actually said that they had already decided to accept my application. Continue reading A new status and vangaveltur.net
When this is published on October 26, I am just about to land at Toronto Pearson International Airport on my way to Iceland. being officially without a status in the USA. I decided to write this blog to gather in one place informations about my recent experiences, and in case some friends and/or family are interested in what has actually been going on in my visa-status adventure. Continue reading Out of Status
