Random Acts of Linkage #11
by Brother Maynard | May 26, 2007 | Amusing, Blogging, Books, Culture, Current Events, Emergent, Emerging Church, Missional, Technology, Winnipeg |
- I’m leading with this because it is without doubt the most inspiring 19 minutes I have spent all week, and longer. If there is a single person alive on the planet today who potentially holds the key to curing cancer, in my mind that would have to be Eva Vertes. Hope that’s not too much buildup; you’ll want to watch her TED 2005 presentation which she gave at the close of the conference on her last day as a teenager. As you watch, imagine the power of thinking differently (HT). We in the church could use some thinking differently. It could change everything.
- Have a burning need to know how the mouse cursor moves on your screen? Click through to a kind of “digital magnifying glass” to find out — it takes a while to load, but be patient. When you see a large gray circle, move your mouse cursor over it, and all will be made clear. (HT: Eclecticity)
- Ever wonder what the most blogged scriptures are? You needn’t wonder any longer… the concluding observation: “Maybe we need to develop a blog lectionary.” Not a bad idea… but one could just blog the lectionary we already have.
- The Wikiklesia Project website is up now, and hyperlinks are starting to appear for some of the contributors. I confess I’m not yet near where I wanted to be with my contribution, but I’m hoping to get it done (all but the spit-polishing) by June 5th when we have our Missional Leadership Conversation with Alan Roxburgh. Follow the link and register (freewill offering) if you’re in or near Winnipeg.
- A couple of years ago, I heard Brian McLaren being compared with the Serpent in the Garden of Eden. Now we’ve got him being compared to Hitler — guess they’ve never heard of Godwin’s Law. Some people (who call themselves “leaders” or “teachers”) just don’t get it, do they? I mean, can’t you disagree with someone without resorting to accusations that they are evil incarnate?
- The People Formerly Known As… is summarized again, keeping the meme alive (even if he skips some entries, including -sniff!- mine and other recent ones).
- Michael “Internet Monk” Spencer: Interview: Scot Mcknight on Evangelicals and Marian Dogmas. Scot tackles some “dangerous” ground for some evangelicals, but it needs tackling. I’ve yet to procure a copy of his The Real Mary: Why Evangelical Christians Can Embrace the Mother of Jesus, but it’s still on my list.
- Technorati moved all the furniture this week, and some of us couldn’t find things without poking around. Dave Sifry announced the changes and we all went browsing, at least until they suffered an outage. Look closely at the black bar at the top of the main page, it’s a ticker. The whole thing is intentionally less blog-centric now, but after some digging, those of us who didn’t want it to be any less blog-centric should use the ‘secret’ search page instead, and all will be well with our results. I never found the “easy way” to do it, but I did find that hacking the urls a bit could still produce searches ranked by authority, such as this one on “discovery”. Some parts ar still a bit buggy, but I’m sure we’ll all keep visiting heavily while they work it out.
- Unfinished reading: I haven’t finished thinking through Greg Loughery’s Refiguring the Missional Church? – Part 1 and Part 2 yet. They aren’t long, but I don’t want to pass by them too quickly… I have this niggle telling me to slow down as i read them. Same goes for Earl Creps’ The Rise and Fall of Starbucks (HT: Len), which reminds me of a bunch of blog-press they got back in February from the business and marketing voices following a leaked memo… but forget Starbuck’s, Earl (he of Off-Road Disciplines: Spiritual Adventures of Missional Leaders) has some good thoughts/questions for the church.
- “Mary” has Missionary Support – Part Two, following on her earlier question on rethinking missionary support. She references K.P. Yohannan’s Revolution in World Missions on the economics of supporting indigenous missionaries (read: missional living) rather than always sending foreign missionaries. Anyone wanting to chase that down further (besides reading the book) might check out WorldServe Ministries, which is “focused on church planting in areas that are either closed or have restricted-access to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” They state that their “core philosophy is to come alongside the chosen servants of God in these difficult countries and lose our identity as we ‘serve’ them and provide resources they desperately need…” Without answering all the questions, this to me seems a good line of thinking.
- Unanswerable question of the week: I noticed the other day that our crock pot has “high” and “low” settings that are labeled “fast” and “slow.” Uh, a crock pot with a fast setting? What’s up with that?
Thanks for the link to the most blogged scriptures. The lectionary that exists should be sufficient. Good point.