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Gavin Richardson

blogger meet up : the bishop robert schnase

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if you are in the nashville area, a blogger, and got some free evening time on wednesday evening. come over to the congress on evangelism for a blogger meet up with bishop robert schnase. amy posted info at the methoblog.

Several of us attending the upcoming Congress
on Evangelism in Nashville are pulling together a blogger meetup
at the supper break time on Wednesday, January 7. We haven't yet set
the location; one factor in that decision is how many people we expect
to have. So, please email me at aforbus(at)umr.org by Friday, Jan. 2 if you plan to attend the meetup. Bishop Robert Schnase will be part of the gathering.

UPDATE:
We've decided to meet later, to get around the time crunch of the
supper break. We are going to meet up after worship and go somewhere
that'll let us sit around and talk past 9:00.

bishop schnase is the toast of methodism with his fruitful congregations book & resource. i first ran into him at the umerging event back in 2006 when he sat in as a q&a with bishop scott jones. that was a heated little conversation, but in the following years i believe we all understand each other more. i liked bishop schnazz then & i expect to like him more after hanging out.

reclaiming wesley : a little creativity from the methochurch

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saw this today over on kevin watson’s deeply committed blog. its a promo for reclaiming the wesleyan tradtion from out of discipleship resources (a division of the general board of discipleship). i recognize one of the voices as my friend bill lizor who is part of the division on ministries with young people.

i like the over feel of the video and i like how it plugs reclaiming wesleyan tradition. it mixes the success of the guiness commercial ads without the moving mouths and a succinct history & message. well done. my big issue (as i always seem to have an issue) is that the video has been on youtube since the summer and only has 67 views (at the time that i viewed it). we need some help getting our agencies ingrained in the social media spectrum.



in other oddities, i noticed, what seems to be the ‘pee standing up pastor‘ (viewed over 200k times) talking about john wesley (viewed 1500x more than the reclaiming wesley video has).

what has me pee’vd : back to the war metaphor

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i could not help it. i got burned up inside by some prooftexting comment on adam walker cleaveland's posting about inappropriate youth ministry curriculum. i've gotten on my war metaphor bandwagon before and it's not that i'm some pacifist (i admit to struggle with pacifism). but as i see it, youth need new metaphors and new words to bring inspiration of the gospel message. otherwise we just get a lot of the same. here was a bit of my comment.

thanks for the prooftexting, i think we know there is a bunch of war in
the bible. but if you can honestly say war is what God wants then get
away from my youth. my youth want nothing to do with war, it stresses
them and contributes little, except loss and heartbreak to their lives.
we have adopted what Jesus told Peter, to “put down the sword” &
“get behind me devil” for picking up the sword and weapons and power
tool of the empire which creates widows & orphans. may we all turn
our gun & war metaphors into “plowshares” so that we cultivate
things that grow, not destroy..


update: adam's posting was picked up by the youth specialties blog, asking if military imagery is needed in youth ministry?

religulous : bill mahar on radical faith & people who don’t think

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i've spent bits and pieces of my morning watching religulous, the documentary by bill mahar on faith & reason. my quick thoughts

  • he takes on more than just the christian faith, which i know is in the target hairs of skeptics/critics etc. since he goes to all faith expressions i'll say, he's balanced in his critique.
  • i agree with him on a few of the 'questions & doubt' he brings up. case, he was standing in front of the vatican and said 'where does Jesus talk about this?' (or a similar caveat). which i agree, our systems and buildings, which are or can be testaments to God inspiration within persons, can also wreak of our own needs. but with this case example, people are moved spiritually by such structures & people are have probably been sacrificed (financially & socially) in making such structures exist. we live in both worlds as a faith, we cannot seperate the them.
  • i have a hard time calling it documentary, more like docudrama, in that the film is littered with snippets of video from various culture angles (from gay porn, war footage, to children's bible cartoons) that give little to the overall conversation than to elicit an edgy response. there is also times, especially in the conversations with various leaders of islam where they subtitle what is being said. now, it could be what is actually said (i do not speak arabic) but in a case where a cleric takes what looks like a phone call/txt message, they put in subtitle what he txt message. those instances just fuel stereotypes which is not helpful for his overall message.
  • his overall message is that religion needs to go away (and for those religious/christ follower folks, you might think the same), but his crass nature in sharing his message will probably only put off people to what is probably a greater message, that we need to question & answer our faith. that type of questioning is not a bad thing to be avoided, but should be embraced as part of our spiritual pilgrimage.

i might suggest a more graceful response in putting out a similar message to the christian church is to check out 'Lord save me from your followers' by dan merchant