endirect

Blogs and spiritual formation

When I started blogging back in September of 2002, eh oui, it has been that long... I wanted to talk about the emerging church. Looking back I realize that what really interested me was how we live out the life that Christ has given us. The fortuitous crossing of paths with Bobbie in the blogoshpere, opened a whole new world, blogging as an expression of devotion and growth.

Recently I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be a community of God's people, what makes it different. Last Sunday I preached asking the question, "What's going on with your soul?" Connecting with God, with each other and ourselves is a fundamental of who we are. And these connections need to go deep.

As I start a new day here in Grenoble, France, I realize that God is using the relationship that are connected across the Internet to develop Christ's image in me.

Risky business?

I just had one of those, "What have I gotten myself into..." moments. You see, I just sent out an email to folks who follow our ministry, telling them I'm blogging regularly again. If you're here because of that email, Welcome!

Some blogs have a clearly defined purpose, my blog is just about whatever I'm thinking about. So there are things I write about that will not please everyone. And therein lies the risk. Do I concern myself about what others will think?

Experience has taught me (painfully I might add...) that the the displeasure I may try to avoid by doing what pleases others is far less dramatic then what happens when I finally stop trying to please them.

So I've learned that letting folks know what I'm thinking, who I'm working with and what I'm doing is much better than hiding information that may or may not be palatable to certain folks.

So that's a little apologetic concerning my raison d'être. In the end, it really isn't that risky.

Isn't the blogosphere great!

Now that I'm back in action and talking about anything I like. I'm thinking today about my friend Bobbie.

A couple of year ago she found me. Turns out she was trolling through the blogosphere and there I was. Yes, I was the guy who went to Bible College with she and the guy who now her husband.

What I really enjoy about her blog is the commitment to telling the truth. But not just any truth. She's aiming at what it means to see God's Kingdom now.

Great stuff from a good friend.

Here we go again...

I'm going to give it another go. This time around I've decided to stop acting like I have something to say about stuff that's emerging, missional and in France. It really was rather pretentious and I don't have much to say on the subject...

So, I'm going to write about stuff that I'm thinking about. And it will be pretty random.

This is what I think about blogging, those who do it and keep doing it, like to write. In the past I thought I was one of that ilk. Problem was I limited myself to a subject for which I had just a few things to say. Once said...

So now I'm giving it up or maybe getting it back. I really don't know. I'll probably say stuff about missional/emerging things in France but I'm not going to act like I am the voice on the subject. I think I was doing that. Turns out I didn't do it well and there are others who are doing some good things.

I may point to those folks (yeah JF I'm still using that word). You'll need to read French if I do.

So that's what I was just thinking about.

A Shift Among the Evangelicals

E. J. Dionne of the Washington Post comments on the recent election of Rev. Frank Page as the President of the Southern Baptist Convention. Toward the end of the article he writes...

The election, he said, indicates that "the leadership of the denomination that pushed it hard to the right on theological and social issues is aging or passing from the scene and is unable to rally the troops as they once did."

"Some people," Leonard added, "are tired of just fighting liberals. You need a reason to be a Southern Baptist other than just fighting liberals in the culture or in the church."

One other force was at work in this year's Baptist voting: the rise of the blogosphere.

Sitting here in France this is welcome news.

Here's the link to the article.

2006

Happy New Year!

Blogs, movies and the French riots

This morning (Dec. 1) the Washington Post posted on their web site an aritcle about a film who's subject is the riots in France that was made by a young Frenchman using a game that's called "The Movies". The article's called Game Turns Players Into Indie Moviemakers. Boing Boing had already posted about the movie last Monday (Nov. 28). That post was called Political film comments on French riots using video-game animation. The movie's been online since November 22 and you can see the movie here.

The whole thing points to the way things are going to get mixed up. Here's a guy playing a video game who makes a film about the riots in France. He posts it on the web and in a few days it is going around the world.

News, film, video games, social commentary... all that getting mixed up in the great mixing bowl of the web.

Beyond all the zeitgeist stuff of the blending of mediums the movie does a pretty good job of expressing the ambiguity between a country that claims it stands for liberty, equality and brotherhood.

Todd Burkes has blogged a lot about this. You'll want to check it out...

More things change...

...the more they stay the same.

Well maybe it's not that bad but it sure seems that way sometimes.

Back in February I radically changed my thinking about blogging. (If you want to see what I said here's the link, starting over.)

One of the good things from those changes was getting my blog off the grid. I was getting no search traffic. Pretty cool.

The the downside of not being a public blog and not posting often has meant that the folks that read this blog has dwindled to a faithful few. Good thing you can get it feed cause it's pretty depressing passing by from time to time and seeing that nothing is happening...

The discipline of posting regulary is dependant on some many factors. Do I have something to say? What is the point of my blog? Who am I writing for?

I've thought often about the whole blogosphere thing. There is some much to read out there. Sometimes to the point of being a black hole. Pulling you into it and take all your energy. It is the borg...

And there lies the paradox. You can lose your time clicking from one page to the next yet you are also connecting with a larger world and fulfilling the utopian ideal of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin as we all contribute to the noosphere. Pierre Papon wrote in Le Temps des Ruptures that utopias are forerunners of radical innovations. So something is happening and I like being a part of that...

So I'm making this blog public once again. I'll continue to keep my family off of it. I have other blogs that will be private where I can write about that kind of stuff. But here I want to be a part of what's happening.

Now let's see if I can sustain some rthymn...

A new season...

The calendar says it's September 22. The days are getting shorter and the weather is cooling. I think I'm ready for a new season of blogging....