A new trend in pastoral leadership

Check out this post on new forms of pastoral leadership by Justin Wise. Definitely interesting stuff.

Pop Culture and Theology

I was just glancing over some of Mary Hess's book Engaging Technology in Theological Education and I was struck by this quote, "As I wrote earlier, All That You Can't Leave Behind is the name of an enormously popular musical album by the superstars U2, and Left Behind is the title of a series of novels and a film. The wonderful coincidence - as in "coincidencing" - of these themes suggests to me that religious symbols and biblical narratives afloat in our larger cultural spaces are a rich source for theological reflection," (83). Our culture is littered with mainstream artists who are wrestling with huge theological questions in their art. One of the songs I think of most is Dave Matthew's song Bartender, a song about receiving a drink that will give life, life that is sustaining and not wanting to receive the drink that "strung Judas up from the devil's tree". What is your favorite pop culture reference? Where do you see the biblical narrative afloat in our cultural space?

Sent from my iPhone

Not too long ago I received an email from a friend that he had composed on his iPhone. Shortly, he is in line to get the new iPhone 4 http://www.apple.com/iphone/?cid=wwa-naus-seg-iphone10-016&cp=www-seg-iphone10-brand&sr=sem . Immediately I was reminded of something - I don't have an iPhone and I would love to have one. However, the reason for my wanting an iPhone is purely for the image of it. I am not a mac user and I have no interest in the iPhone other than the fact that there is a certain image that comes with people who own and use the iPhone.
This got me to thinking, "Do we do this with media in our churches?" There are so many times I see churches who use certain technologies and use them purely because there is a belief that if they have it, it will make them more relevant. On the contrary, technology is all about our context. We do not need to implement technologies to engineer credibility, we need to add technologies as the cultural soup of our context desires it.
It isn't the iPhone that makes me desire it, it is how my friend is able to use it - the way that he is able to become more efficient because of it. The same technology in the hand of someone else could be very clunky and become a hindrance to them.
Technology is an advancement only when it is needed and relevant to the context.

Multiple Approaches

“Make him go left! Make him go left!” These four words haunted me while I was growing up. One of my passions in life has athletics and athletics was how I spent most of my time. One of skills I tried hard to develop what to become equally as good dribbling with my left hand as my right hand. You see, only being a proficient right handed dribbler, I was a one dimensional player. So, when I would bring the ball up the court, the opposing coach would yell, “Make him go left!” The desire to become multi-dimensional pushed me to practice and practice something that did not come natural to me. Looking at learning goals that I have laid out for myself in Education is much of the same as what I strove for on the basketball court. I want to be a multi-dimensional educator. My undergraduate degree was in education and I spent my first two years out of as a classroom teacher. Those years, studying education and being an educator allowed me to be acutely aware of my need to have multiple approaches to teaching. Now as a leader in the church, I want to continue to develop my approaches. Through this class I hope to further develop two of my learning goals which are to 1) broaden my repertoire of teaching methods 2) is able to use multiple approaches to learning. While these two goals may seem the same, they are quite different. First, to broaden my teaching toolbox is to use different methods to teaching. Teach to each type of learning. Second, to use multiple approaches is to be able to use things like media to inform my learners. Hopefully this class will be able to help me develop both of these goals and keep moving me down the path as an educator.

Effective tools for Ministry

In our worship service this Easter, our pastor had a few people show a simple response to a question. The question was “What were you before you encountered the risen Christ, what are you now?” At this point of his message, he had about 20 people on stage that had shown white pieces of tag board and on one side they had their ‘pre Christ’ message and then after they had all shown that aspect of their lives they flipped it over and showed the ‘post Christ’ message. Message such as ‘Ego Centered/Christ Centered’ or ‘led by me/led by Him’ or ‘addicted to alcohol/freed from slavery’. It was absolutely powerful with not many dry eyes in the place. To those sitting in the seats you could see them thinking about what their statements would be. However, then things took a step up. Then Pastor Mike had people text their message/statements to a certain number. As these texts flooded in, they were displayed on the screens. The whole community was sharing what Christ meant to them. For the person who has yet to have that experience it was an awesome message of the gift that is available. It was a very emotional experience for all people involved. Technology has now given us low barrier approaches to people’s lives. People are able to share, are able to get involved, in a nonthreatening way. As I study church and culture, I am excited to see how we can continue to gather people through technology around the message of Christ. Social Media, when used correctly, can have a very positive effect on our church community. The church I am serving at now has more hits to their facebook page than to their webpage. Over 3500 people are fans of the facebook page and rather than just providing information (website) the facebook community can interact with one another. It can give information but also gather people and point people to different things. It is a huge opportunity for us to take advantage of.

Getting with the times

In the mid 1950’s the landscape of the United States changed drastically. Once a community that revolved around the home, the 1950’s family began to change. The 50’s was the dawning of the interstate system across the United States. Something that our world takes for granted today, rapid and easily accessed transportation was once a novelty that extended communities. As communities were extended, family dynamics and community dynamics changed. Our culture went through a portal and was changed forever. People’s lives, geographically, were no longer centered on their homes. One of the byproducts of this change is that our communities were no longer as closely knit as they once were. Clay Shirky, in his book Here Comes Everybody writes, “Both the distance between the grocery store and home, and the fact that travel between the two is highly enclosed, reduce the likelihood of chance social encounters (and as a result reduces the raw material for building social capital,” (201).
As a culture, we have recently gone through another portal. This portal was the advent of the internet and the use of social media to organize and connect culture. One would think that with more time behind a computer screen, people would become even more isolated but actually, the internet has had some positive effects on connecting people. As a result, in many ways, we are more connected as a society than we have ever been before. Shirky talks about the ways in which technology has reshaped the way organizations and communities function. People are gathered as a result of and gather in social media. Shirky writes, “The internet augments real – world social life rather than providing an alternative to it,” (196). The internet does not reduce the amount of social interactions that people have, it actually can enhance the ways in which people meet up.
With this in mind, we must begin to think about how social medial will affect and can be leveraged as community builders in our churches. This is a highly debated topic. Many questions arise as a result but the advantages can be huge. Connecting in the cultures language is a great way to connect people to one another and to the Gospel.

Michael Wesch - An Anthropological intro to YouTube

I just finished watching Michael Wesch's piece on YouTube and all I can respond with it, WOW! What a fascinating look at how YouTube has changed the way we view and the access points that people have to video. To start off with, I just want to note a couple of points that Wesch makes in his piece that struck me:
1) In the 60 years since the three major networks (ABC, NBC, CBS) have been in existence (Wesch's piece was done in 2008) - 1948-2008 - if each network was airing material 24hrs a day for all of those 60 years it would amount to over 1.5 million hours of programming. That is a huge number, BUT in the six months prior to his research, Wesch noted that 9,232 hours of video was uploaded EVERY day. That adds up to the equivalent of 385 'always on' channels every day and 88% of these were original videos. We are being introduced to a new wave of culture. We once had to rely on what producers and TV channels deemed worthy for us to view and now we are able to access virtually anything we want. Information is relayed constantly and we are able to access it very easily. We have all become producers and there aren't a lot of gatekeepers to what is being produced.
2) Along the same line of thought, I loved what Wesch had to say about how 'we' have become the center of the media landscape. The average Joe was once purely a consumer reliant on what others produced and now it has switched that we can produce whatever we choose and we have a 'no cost' way to make it available to people.
3) Wesch notes that the beauty of YouTube is that collaboration is something that is highly valued. People freely take other's work and add to it/change it/remix it. It is a culture that plays off of one another. One of my favorite YouTube videos of all time is titled, "David after Dentist". In this video a father captures his son after the son has had anesthesia at the dentist. It is hilarious and because of its popularity, it has been recreated many times - many times very poorly. However, the beauty of YouTube is that the ability to interact and recreate is so readily available.
YouTube has changed our ability to express our creativity and it has also changed the way that people interact online. Wesch's findings were astounding to me and have reshaped the way I look at YouTube. It isn't just something to consume - it is something to participate in.