intersections

Summer Reading Group :: What Would Jesus Deconstruct?

It’s hard to believe…but, summer is here. And with summer comes time spent with great books. So, re-church is announcing a Summer Reading Group. We will be blogging through What Would Jesus Deconstruct?, by John D. Caputo. This is an enjoyable and challenge jaunt into postmodernism, Derridian deconstruction and the gospel. Caputo has a playful, sharp and ironic style that is sure to rub us the wrong way and spark some great conversation.
There are 6 chapters and we will blog one chapter a week for six weeks, starting July 13, so you have time to get the book and start reading. Our bloggers will be:

::Ryan Bell, Senior Pastor of the Hollywood Adventist Church
::Samir Selmanovic, founder of Faith House Manhattan and Pastor of City Lights
::Zane Yi, Ph.D. candidate in Philosophy at Fordham University in New York City.

Please drop a comment at the re-church blog if you plan to read along with us. The blogs will be posted there and we invite your comments, questions, challenges and insights. This will be a much more enjoyable experience if you participate in the comments.

Please invite anyone you know that might be interested in this group and lets have some fun this summer reading together.

Following Jesus

The post-modern spiritual seeker's dilemma.

GenderAnalyzer.com

Over at GenderAnalyzer you enter your URL and it determines of your website is written primarily by a man or a woman. It said this blog fit their profile for a man by 80%.

Am I disappointed that I fit their profile so closely. Hmm...

I wonder what my friend over at SDA Gender Justice will think of this.

Who's reading?

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Here's a look at the diversity of Intersections readers out there. Below are the top 20 cities to visit this site out of a total of 11,700 visits so far this year.* And, we just passed the 40,000 mark for unique visits to this site since I started it in the Spring of 2005. That's not nearly as many as some of my friends, but I like to think of this as a boutique blog! :) Thanks, everyone!

Amazingly beautiful photo blog

Blogs exists, mostly, in the domain of words. Even when we watch "vlogs" we are inevitably watching someone, well...talk. I find that my life is overwhelmed with words. I crave silence. But I also crave beauty. So, in the spirit of blogging beauty, allow me to refer to a blog that is just crammed with beautiful photography. It's The Boston Globe's, The Big Picture. The most recent post contains 16 amazing photographs of Jupiter.

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And, in honor of the Tour de France ending today in Paris, check out the amazing photos of the greatest sporting event in the world. (Congrats to Carlos Sastre, who won this year. I was really pulling for Cadel Evans - sorry to my Aussie mates. And to represent the US of A, I really like Christian Vande Velde, on a lot of levels, but I digress...).

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So, add The Big Picture to your feed reader and enjoy a little visual beauty in the midst of all these words.

(Thanks to Scott Arany for pointing me to this blog)

A new blog

My friend Alburn Binkley has started blogging. Alburn is a member of the Hollywood Church and a very active part of our media ministry. He works on the post-production side of the entertainment industry and is one of our technical gurus at the church.

But he also has a keen theological mind. He has a really great way of reflecting on his life in the light of faith and justice. His most recent post, "I was born addicted..." is a great example.

Check it out!

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