Let's begin again....

I am feeling a little sheepish and apparently a little pauline today. I wrote a little while ago about the importance of keeping up a blog or webpage once you created it. Apparently this is easier said than done - or at least for me.

This leads me to Paul: Romans 7:15

"I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want,

but I do the very thing I hate." (NRSV)

So apparently I am not unlike Paul - I want to blog regularly and I am annoyed by those who set up expectations and then disappoint me by disappearing from the blogosphere. So what is one to do?

I guess all I can do is the Christian thing: ask for forgiveness and begin again. That is what I love about my faith, there are always opportunities to take stock, realize your errors, acknowledge them and begin again. In this "ordinary time" in the church year, I am doing that most ordinary and yet extra-ordinary thing: repenting and beginning again.

(P.S. I am about to go on holidays - so I may need to repeat this post again...and maybe again)

Playing with Wordle

The above is a wordle based on this blog - pretty cool hey??? Try it out at www.wordle.net

The Church 2.0

I am reading about the Church and Twitter at Time: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1895463,00.html

I am intrigued by this use of Twitter in worship. What happens when the Church becomes the Church 2.0? What happens when people can talk back during worship?

Will twittering help the Church to be more responsive? It certainly has the potential to radically change how we imagine Church. The Church is systemically hierarchical and new social media may have the potential to deconstruct that hierarchy. When people have the capacity and the invitation to participate at all levels of the Church, then a radical new community may indeed be born.

People may begin to expect to have a voice in places where they have traditionally be silent. The Church 2.0 would be an interactive Church where everyone has the potential to participate and all voices may be heard. It would not be a fixed unchanging entity but rather one that each person contributes to and "edits", for the building up of the whole community. In the Church 2.0 the Word is not static - the Word is living.

Time also has an article on how Twitter will change the way we live: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1902604,00.html

Maybe they have a point - maybe this Twitter thing isn't just a new fad, maybe it is a radical new way being....

Church and Media

I have been thinking a lot these days about how Church leaders use or do not use various forms of media. It is a point that seems to keep coming up. Should the Church use social networking sites? Should Church leaders twitter? facebook? blog?

As a person who twitters, facebooks and blogs, I guess I have an opinion on this. I am interested in new media and I do love to explore how it can be used. But that is the key - the various media I choose to engage in are all tools for a purpose.

The Church used to be on the cutting edge of the creation of new media - the movement from parchement scrolls to manuscript books were a part of the birth of the Christian faith. The movement from handwritten manuscript books to the printed type was a major factor in the Reformation of the Church. The Church ceased upon these new forms of media - even developed these new forms of media, as a way of manifesting its mission. They were tools to spread the good news.

The same is true with new media - they are tools that allow us to create community, to invite people into a interactive, open discussion of faith. They allow us to connect to believers around the world and people in need around the corner.

So should Church leaders get up to speed with new media? Well, it depends on what they want to do and why. If you enter into cyberspace without a plan - you will be surfing to nowhere. First, know what you want to accomplish and then seek out the latest web 2.0 tool that will allow you to fulfill your mission.

It takes a bit of work and a lot of patience - just like any other pastoral task before us.

Family values

I have just returned from a week of holidays. It was a week full of family celebrations.

There was a celebration for Mother's Day, for a Wedding and one just because.

I am so busy running around in my life that I sometimes forget to give thanks for the gift of my family. I am a truly blessed woman who has an amazing collection of relatives. They have formed me and shaped me. They are brutally honest and endlessly generous. They exhaust me and they give me the strength to go on. They remind of what is most important in life: to love and be loved.

My mother doesn't remember much these days, but when I visit her I believe she knows that she is loved and that she loves me. She may not know who I am, but she knows we are connected. That is good enough for me and I am very, very thankful.

Fear not - be courageous

This morning as I was driving into work I started to think about the connection between the words courage and discourage. I looked them both up on http://www.askoxford.com/?view=uk and here are the definitions given:

discourage
• verb 1 cause a loss of confidence or enthusiasm in. 2 prevent or try to prevent by showing disapproval or creating difficulties. 3 (discourage from) persuade (someone) against (an action).

courage
• noun 1 the ability to do something that frightens one. 2 strength in the face of pain or grief.

So many of the people I come across on a daily basis identify themselves as being discouraged. They are discouraged by the economic times, by overwhelming bad news, by everyday difficulties in their lives, even (and maybe more especially) by the happenings within the Church. Sometimes it is difficult to see any hope in a world full of discouragement.

This is where courage comes into play. Courage is that ability to continue on, even when one is overwhelmed by circumstances. Courage is that deep abiding strength and calm that bubbles up in the midst of distress and anguish. Fear is a powerful master and is not easily overcome. Fear breeds those twins anger and discouragement. People don't often see the connection, but anger can sometimes be the means of masking our deep fear. And the only way to overcome this anger, is to be courageous in the face of fear.

I am strengthened the numerous "fear nots" of the gospels, from the cry of the angels in the birth narratives in beginning of Luke to the comforting words of the angels in the post resurrection passages of Matthew. Courage in the face of fear is not only possible, it is witness of the good news.

It is that kind of courage that will help us to reimag(in)e this world. It is that courage that will help us see the lies that are often implicit in fear. Because we can overcome. We can make a difference. We can create a more just world. We can make our dreams come true. It doesn't have to be this way. It will not always be this way. Fear not - be courageous.

Theological Education & Community

As our school prepares for its annual Convocation I am thinking about the role of community in theological education. When I look back over the formation of those graduating, I realize that many of their greatest revelations, greatest moments of growth, came in community experiences and not necessarily in the classroom.

Theological education is about the formation of the whole person. Students learn in the classroom, for sure, but that should not be our only focus. Students also learn from one another. They learn how to argue, how to compromise, how to reach out to someone in pain, and more importantly, how to reach out to someone who has caused them pain.

They learn by what they see and hear all around them, in the classroom, the student room, in community placements and in church placements. Every encounter becomes an integrated part of a whole.

Thank God for the community that forms and transforms us.