From Around The Blogs
Here’s a few blogposts from the past week that have caught my eye. Thoughts on Worship – Pete Lev takes on two of the most common (and often least thought-out) critiques of contemporary worship from within the emerging/missional ranks (‚ÄúWe don‚Äôt do singing‚Äù and “…naff, Jesus is my girlfriend songs‚Äù). In particular, these thoughts stood […]
Here’s a few blogposts from the past week that have caught my eye.
Thoughts on Worship – Pete Lev takes on two of the most common (and often least thought-out) critiques of contemporary worship from within the emerging/missional ranks (‚ÄúWe don‚Äôt do singing‚Äù and “…naff, Jesus is my girlfriend songs‚Äù). In particular, these thoughts stood out,
“…I also don‚Äôt buy that whole ‚Äúmen don‚Äôt sing‚Äù thing either ‚Äì and even if it were true in wider culture (which it isn‚Äôt) that would be no reason to stop singing in church.”
“I wonder sometimes in all this if there isn‚Äôt a danger of a kind of cultural snobbishness. Or a theological snobbishness. A dismissal of popular forms of church and Christian expression, in the name of being ‚Äúcutting edge‚Äù.”
Moleskine External Hard Drive Enclosure via Johnny Laird – Yes, I love Moleskine notepads and yes that is a cool mashup. But, it is not a patch on the ubercool Create a Moleskine PDA: The Student GTD Hack from C. Wess at GatheringInLight.
Marquee: Emerging Approaches to Church Leadership (And The Fading Ones Too) – Some great stuf again from C. Wess, this time on the fuzzy question of leadership in an emerging context. Really speaks from the kind of fluid and quotidian understanding of church that I’m trying to find/build.
Stolen Goods: Tempted to Plagiarize via Kruse Kronicle – I can distincly recall the first time I heard a blatantly plagarised sermon and it made me feel sick to my stomach. The same feeling hit me when I heard a young (and much vaunted) minister in my denomination preaching in “his” new church and delivering stuff that was cut and pasted from that week’s email newsletters. Michael really nailed the issue in the comments section of his blogpost,
“If we send someone of to seminary to learn languages, theology, and other tools so they can open the Word of God to us in our context, then all they do is read someone else’s sermons to us, is that legit? Why not just hire an accomplished drama student from high school to deliver the sermon? It is that expectation that the pastor is truly entering into the Word and opening it to people that I think makes it dishonest for a pastor to read another’s work (or large portions of a work) as though it were his or her own without acknowledgement that is dishonest.”
Homiletical Ideas for the Burned-Out Pastor – Maybe the alternative to plagiarism? I don’t know, but this tounge-in-cheek list made me laugh out loud!
Extending the Reach of the Classroom via Brad.Boydston.us – Some promising and smart developments in the use of video in educational contexts to provide modules and teching support. Also, check out Mary’s links to some examples of social networking in educational contexts.
Creativity and Religion via Knightopia – Blogger Rod Garvin has struck up a conversation with one of my favourite writers, Richard Florida (see my thoughts on the creative class here). Whilst I see Florida’s work as essential to understanding both globalisation and the economic role of creativity in society and I hold creativity to be an essential theological category in my own understanding I have to sadly admit that faith and creativity are seldom an active mix in global cities. At least seldom is not never and where they do mix, the combination is powerful. Maybe the biggest challenge is how to allow that small edge of global creative faith at work in the creative class to speak to the rest of the church?
Women in Christianity – Steve’s blog has been one of my favourites for a long time and this response to Mark Driscoll’s most recent faux pas really merits reflection.
