intersections

Tweet-tweet

It's official! I actually like Twitter. I sorta quietly starting Tweeting about 2 months ago at the suggestion of my friend, Alburn. I didn't make a big fuss out of it at first, mostly because I didn't get it. It just seemed silly to me. At some point it is silly, but it's surprising how much funny it is to blog in this micro format.

So, if you're interested, you can find me here. My tweets are set as secure so I have to allow you to follow me before you can read my tweets and follow me. I'm only following a few people and allowing people I know to follow me.

Also, if you're a Mac user, I highly recommend Twitterrific for keeping track of things. It's free as long as you don't mind a few ads, which aren't much of a bother at all. Otherwise it's $15.

Contributing to a new blog

I was recently invited to be one of fourteen bloggers for a new Allelon blog called, The Missional Journey: Thoughts Along the Way.

This blog focuses on:

» mission-shaped leadership;
» re-connecting and engaging the “worlds” in which we live;
» stories of engaging and listening to our context(s);
» the gospel and our modern Western culture; and
» Allelon initiatives.

I wrote a post just today called, "We Don't Really Have Bible Study." Let me know what you think.

And if you haven't heard of Allelon or visited their website recently you should definitely check it out. It is the premier place for all things missional!

Sometimes humor is the only way

From Truth Dig, July 13, 2007.

Turning my back on the iPhone...for now

This is my new "productivity tool" - a BlackBerry 8830! I can now check my email every three minutes where ever I am on the planet. That's just crazy! But I do like having all my contacts, my calendar and Google Maps at my fingertips. It now comes bundled with PocketMac so syncing with my PowerBook is easy. I'm have a little trouble figuring out why some of my contacts are not there. I'm still getting used to this thing, but so far so good! And for less than half the cost of an iPhone (*sigh*).

Pictured here actual size

Camp Meeting 2.0 - The Counter-Cultural Prophetic Church: Remnant and Seventh-day Adventist Mission

Camp Meeting 2.0 continues today with an exploration of the Adventist doctrine of "Remnant," written by Johnny A. Ramirez, Jr. In his essay he quotes Adventist apologist, Angel Rodriguez:

“The concept of the remnant is very dear to Adventists and has played a significant role in our self-understanding, in our mission and in our message. There is an almost unconscious feeling among us that if we lose the idea of the remnant we would lose, as a church, our purpose, our reason for existence.”

Read the whole thing here and join the comments at Johnny's blog. Comments here are closed.

A serious effort at church sign humor

I ran across this photo on the Internet yesterday. I had two simultaneous reactions: I laughed out loud and then I sighed. Clearly this is sarcastic (please, tell me this is sarcastic). But on the other hand, you could imagine certain churches putting this on their sign in a serious way.

What are your favorite church signs?

My friend, Todd Hiestand, even developed a ranking system.

Camp Meeting 2.0 - Applying Trinity to Human Relationships

Part 2 of our summer series, Camp Meeting 2.0: Bloggin' the 28, is now online. The author is Dr. Johnny Ramirez-Johnson, professor of  Religion & Relational Studies, School of Religion, Loma Linda University. He is writing on the doctrine of Trinity. Here's how he begins...

The “Statue of the Three Lies”
Have you ever drawn God? If you were assigned the task of doing so where will you go for inspiration? At Harvard University yard, where the oldest buildings remain, in front of the old water pump, there is a statue that we Harvardites call, “the statue of the three lies.” You see the statue is supposed to be a representation of young John Harvard, but it is not. That is the first lie, the story says that Mr. Daniel Chester French, a sculptor was contracted by the university administration to produce a statue of the greatest benefactor they ever had.

Rest the rest at the Spectrum Blog and share in the conversation.

Camp Meeting 2.0: Bloggin' the 28

Welcome to Camp Meeting! I have a long and checkered history with Camp Meetings in my Seventh-day Adventist upbringing. Most recently, I spent the better part of 11 years in the Pennsylvania Conference where the annual 10-day gathering of saints from around PA was something of a sacred pilgrimage for many. Of course, it fell to the pastors to work like dogs for 10 days entertaining the young'uns and setting up tents. I was happy to leave Camp Meeting behind when I moved to LA.

Welcome to Camp Meeting 2.0! Initiated by Alexander Carpenter, fearless curator of the Spectrum Blog, a group of us Adventist bloggers are going to be blogging the 28 fundamental beliefs of the Adventist Church.

This blog is not really dedicated to discussion of Adventist peculiarities. It's decidedly focused on the "intersections" between faith, life, culture and community. I don't even have a category in my blog for Adventism. So, for those of you non-Adventists who are regular readers, my apologies while we have a little in-house conversation. I promise this blog will continue to be more than just that. On the other hand, I hope you might listen in and discover how new generations of Adventists are remaking our faith for a new world. For you Adventist out there, join the conversation, join the revolution!

So, Camp Meeting 2.0 starts today with a post by my good friend, Ron Osborn, on the "Life, Death & Resurrection of Christ." It is a tad bit long, but well worth the effort.

Centuries before Jesus’ birth, Jewish apocalyptic writers, struggling to understand the theological meaning of Israel’s exile in Babylon, concluded with paradoxical audacity that pagan oppression was the result not of YHWH’s weakness but of his actual justice and strength: Israel was being punished by the Creator God for its failure to keep the covenant. (28) Things would grow progressively worse, Jewish eschatology predicted, until a final, decisive moment when God would at last send a warrior-prince to restore his Chosen People to their rightful place among the nations. Jewish apocalyptic literature used cosmic and fantastic images to describe this future event, but Jewish hopes were firmly rooted in the realm of concrete, earthly politics. When God’s kingdom arrived, it would be plain for all to see by three material facts: 1) the Davidic monarchy would be restored in Jerusalem with unparalleled justice and prosperity; 2) the Temple would be rebuilt with unsurpassed splendor; and 3) the downtrodden Jews would emerge a triumphant superpower with their pagan enemies humiliated and defeated beneath them.

Read the rest and leave your comments at the Spectrum Blog (comments here are closed).

What is your theological worldview?

Find out what your theological worldview is here!

I should say that this quiz is just for fun. There are many issues with this, though in the end I guess it's fairly accurate. Not sure what the author of the quiz means by Evangelilcal Holiness/Wesleyan, but anyway.... The primary issue is, of course, whether one can measure one's theological worldview with these 63 questions, many of which are written in "either-or" fashion.

And, I guess Brian McLaren is the face of Emergent/Postmodern Theology! But, it's fun little thing to do.

Hat tip to my friend Julius at Progressive Adventism for pointing this out. There is a great conversation going on in the comments of his post. Check it out!

Google Analytics gets an upgrade

If you have a blog or website you should definitely check out Google Analytics, if you haven't already. The user interface just got a whole lot better, too. But I'm having a hard time figuring something out.

I also use StatCounter and the two systems are giving me different info. For example, on last Friday, May 18, StatCounter tells me I had 110 pageloads and 68 unique visitors. Google Analytics says I had 75 pageviews and 36 unique visits. Somehow they are calculating this different. Does anyone understand this?