Category: English

Recruiting Volunteers

Recruiting volunteers still requires work, but the context has changed. Now there is awareness and pride where before was obligation. And that makes all the difference both for those who recruit and those who say "yes" to this opportunity for ministry.

From Leading Ideas: A Resource for Church Leaders.

A timid church

I’ve been pondering that a lot. Have we become a timid church?” Hanson asked the ELCA leaders.  A sign of a timid church is one that describes itself by what it has lost and what it lacks, he said.  Such a church is one that tries to hold onto the past and preserve what was, Hanson said.

A church that defines itself by controversies and partisan divisions “will become a weary and timid church,” Hanson said.  A timid church has lost confidence in the power of the Holy Spirit to work through the gospel, he said.  The presiding bishop also said he is “deeply concerned” that leaders preach with a sense of confidence.

via ELCA Presiding Bishop Tells ELCA Leaders it’s Time to Move Forward – News Releases – Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Cydia Applications for iPhone

After having jailbreaked my phone today, the next step is to look at what there is to gain. My original plan to unlock it, to be able to use it on an Icelandic GSM network if needed be, failed for now as my phone has firmware 5.14.02 which has not been hacked so far.

Well at least I can use Cydia to find applications Mr. Jobs is not happy with. Here are few that sound interesting.

Wi-Fi Sync tricks your computer into thinking your iPhone is hooked up to it via USB. Then it proceeds to sync wirelessly through your network. The retail price for the app is $9.99.

Cylay is a security app that monitors your phone at all times. It calls for a subscription.

3G Unrestrictor is a relatively cheap ($3) app that enables you to access the 3G network for things the iPhone would normally block by tricking it into thinking that it is operating over Wi-Fi. An alternative to 3G Unrestrictor is My3G.

MyWi 4.0 turns your iPhone into a WiFi router, offering tethering support to the phone. It is a bit pricey though.

SBSettings offer a fast way to make changes to your system settings. It looks pretty cool and works very well.

How to Unlock my iPhone

It’s the moment that many of you have been waiting for: the Dev-Team’s ultrasn0w carrier unlock for iPhone 4 is out.

via iPhone 4 unlock available now (update: video!) — Engadget.

  1. To jailbreak the phone, I need to go to jailbreakme.com.
  2. Next I need to use ultrasn0w (repo666.ultrasn0w.com) to unlock it.
  3. AT THE MOMENT IT ONLY WORKS ON iOs 4.0.1.

—

Another thing worth doing is to downgrade my phone from iOs 4 to iOs 3.1.3. Information about that are on: http://lifehacker.com/5572003/how-to-downgrade-your-iphone-3g[s]-from-ios-4-to-ios-313

Fake Christians

No matter their background, Dean says committed Christian teens share four traits: They have a personal story about God they can share, a deep connection to a faith community, a sense of purpose and a sense of hope about their future.
“There are countless studies that show that religious teenagers do better in school, have better relationships with their parents and engage in less high-risk behavior,” she says. “They do a lot of things that parents pray for.”
Dean, a United Methodist Church minister who says parents are the most important influence on their childrens faith, places the ultimate blame for teens religious apathy on adults.
Some adults dont expect much from youth pastors. They simply want them to keep their children off drugs and away from premarital sex.
Others practice a “gospel of niceness,” where faith is simply doing good and not ruffling feathers. The Christian call to take risks, witness and sacrifice for others is muted, she says.
“If teenagers lack an articulate faith, it may be because the faith we show them is too spineless to merit much in the way of conversation,” wrote Dean, a professor of youth and church culture at Princeton Theological Seminary.

From Author: More teens becoming fake Christians – CNN.com.

For Those Speaking (and listening) on behalf of God

A prose from The Grand Inquisitor by Fyodor Dostoyevsky which the enlightened atheist Ivan shares with his younger brother and monk Alyosha.

He came softly, unobserved, and yet, strange to say, everyone recognised Him. That might be one of the best passages in the poem. I mean, why they recognised Him. The people are irresistibly drawn to Him, they surround Him, they flock about Him, follow Him. He moves silently in their midst with a gentle smile of infinite compassion. Continue reading For Those Speaking (and listening) on behalf of God

A mixed up (and messed up) understanding

It is useful here to make a distinction between confidentiality and secrecy. A commitment to secrecy is a commitment never, under any circumstance, to share the information in question. This commitment on the part of the priest is inherent in a sacramental confession. Confidentiality, on the other hand, means holding information in trust and sharing it only in the interest of the person involved — with their permission, or in order to seek consultation with another professional, or in order to protect others from being harmed. The ethic of confidentiality is intended to assist people in getting help for their problems; it is not intended to prevent people from being held accountable for their harmful actions or to keep them from getting the help they need. Continue reading A mixed up (and messed up) understanding

Confidentiality in the Church

From the article Confidentiality in the Church: What the Pastor Knows and Tells, by D. Elizabeth Audette.

A recent survey I conducted of 300 Congregational clergy and laity uncovered some assumptions about confidentiality. No members of the group articulated ecclesial or theological grounds for their assumptions. Continue reading Confidentiality in the Church

Death of British Christianity

Britain is now the most irreligious country on earth. This island has shed superstition faster and more completely than anywhere else. Some 63 percent of us are non-believers, according to an ICM study, while 82 percent say religion is a cause of harmful division.

through orvitinn.com from The slow, whiny death of British Christianity : Johann Hari.

How To Downgrade your iPhone 3G

Many of its marquee features aren’t compatible with our two-year-old handsets anyway—no multitasking, no nifty orientation lock, not even background wallpaper. And worst of all, it hobbles our once-functional phones until they’re near-useless. Apps crash, or they’re teeth-pullingly slow to open. Download speeds are so slow we feel like we’re back on dialup.

from How To Downgrade your iPhone 3G to iOS 3.1.3 | Mac|Life via John Kalis on Facebook.

Why I Hang in There

I hang in there for several reasons. First, if I want to be affiliated with any group of human beings, sooner or later I will be associated with bigotry, intolerance, violence, stupidity, and pride. In fact, even if I stand alone, distancing myself from every other group, I know that within me there are the seeds of all these things. So there’s no escaping the human condition.

Second, if I were to leave to join some new religion that claims to have – at last! – perfected the way of being pristine and genuine through and through, we all know where that’s going to lead. There’s one thing worse than a failed old religion: a naïve and arrogant new one. In that light, maybe only religions that have acknowledged and learned from their failures have much to offer.

From My Take: Why I support Anne Rice but am still a Christian – Religion – CNN.com Blogs.

Leaving ELCA (or not)

Out of 10.230 congregations in ELCA, 199 have already taken two votes and decided to leave ELCA due to its decision at Church Wide Assembly 2009. When this is written 136 are in the process of making the second vote to leave after having passed the first. This means that in case all of the 136 decide to leave, ELCA has decreased in number of congregations by 3.2%.

What would be an interesting statistics in comparison with this number, is the number of members that have left. My assumption is that congregations that are most likely to leave are on average larger than those that stay. This is of course only a feeling, based on only one example (UALC) and a gut feeling about the nature of congregations. Of course I might be wrong.

based on pretty good lutherans » Blog Archive » ELCA by-the-numbers and numbers from the ELCA site.

Brain Theory

The term “triune brain” describes three levels of the brain; the reactive brain (brainstem), the feeling brain (limbic), and the thinking brain (neo-cortex). When anxiety arises the reactive brain takes over, and we become more instinctive in our action.

This understanding of the brain plays a role in Bowen’s Family Systems Theory, which focuses on being “less-anxious” presence (the correct phrase is “non-anxious presence,” but we are only non-anxious when we are dead), attempting to allow the thinking brain to function even when the anxiety in the surroundings is running high.

National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke offers a good overview of the brain on their website, called Brain Basics: Know Your Brain.

Spiritual formation: a family matter

In his article “Spiritual formation: a family matter,” C. Ellis Nelson writes about spiritual formation in light of Shemá.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.  Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deut 6.4-9)

Nelson emphasizes that if God is not part of an upbringing in a household, “children will, under ordinary circumstances, either fashion a private idea of God, become unaware of God’s existence, or consider God unimportant.” Direct teaching by some kind of religious institution or authority can not substitute for the family in this regard. Nelson claims:

Direct teachings about God are important but what is taught can get split off from the events of daily life. If this happens, then the children may begin to develop a legalistic, obey-the-rules type of relation to God or a dogmatic, I-know the-truth style of religion.