Wow, I’m tired. Loooong day. We were rocking by 8:30am, and I just got home at about 10pm. There was a little down time in mid-day, but not much.
People were encouraged to get out and walk the streets of the Seattle
this afternoon, specifically in four neighborhoods: Fremont, Rainier Valley, Greenwood, and Lake City. I’ll confess – I didn’t follow the rules. For one thing, I didn’t go with the official groups, but my crew from the Purple Door and I drove through Rainier Valley and Columbia City – we drove, not walked . . . it was raining, and we had some other stuff that we needed to get done, in preparation for tomorrow’s concert.
This evening, Shane Claiborne gave his keynote. Good stuff. This was the first time I’ve seen him live. Pretty much like what he writes, and the podcasts I’ve heard of him. It was good to hear some of the updates on his community in Philly, after the big fire that burned through their neighborhood last year. A lot of good things are happening there.
At one point, during a Q & A time, a young man stood up and said, “I’m a Palestinian Muslim, but I follow what you talk about and do, because it’s compelling. It doesn’t matter to me that we follow different paths.” Pretty cool moment – I appreciate the courage of this guy to sort of “out” himself in a room full of Christians, and it obviously spoke deeply to the compelling nature of the way of Jesus, when it’s taken seriously. For those unfamiliar with him, Shane Claiborne does not soft-pedal his faith. He speaks quite boldly about Jesus, and where all of his social justice and activism comes from.
Off to bed now, before I get up and go for it again tomorrow.
Filed under: conference
“We cannot fully recover until we help the society that made us sick recover.”
~painted on the wall of the New Jerusalem community in Philadelphia, as reported by Shane Claiborne
Just finished lunch. Attended a workshop on some missional movements going on in Latin America. Very, very exciting stuff. I’m really stoked that much of the renewal of the theology and expressions of church is getting outside of the Western world. Go check out La Red del Camino. I’m really hoping/counting on there being an mp3 of that session available – I’ll post it here, if so.
I’m off now to an afternoon workshop – “Creating Support Groups for Jesus Radicals,” led by Mark Van Steenwyk.
Sitting here with Mark Van Steenwyk.
Morning session with some great music, and a panel discussion with Mark Scandrete, Tom Yaccino, Kathy Escobar, and Tom Morey. They spoke to various streams in the new way of approaching faith in the way of Jesus – the emerging church, the monastic, the mosaic, and the missional. I really should unpack all those things, but no time for now. Gotta head off to the first workshop session. I’m going to Tom Yaccino’s talk, on his missional expressions of church in the Latin American context.
More to come later.
Hi all. I’m getting ready to head out the door, but I wanted to note a couple of things. First, some of those people I linked in my previous post will be blogging the conference, so check them out for updates.
Second – a tip of the hat to the conference organizers. In the obligatory goodie bag that was handed out at registration, there was a plastic travel mug. During the announcement time, they said, “You can drink as much coffee as you want here . . . but you’ll have to do it with those mugs.” They didn’t want there to be tons of paper/styro cups generated from this event, so they provided mugs . . . I think they even said that they were made from recycled materials. NICE TOUCH FOLKS!!
Filed under: Seattle, blogging, books, conference, friends, the purple door
Just got back from the opening sessions of The New Conspirators. Really good vibe in the room. Tom Sine had some opening remarks, Christine Sine led out in some prayers, and all the workshop presenters gave a quick intro of themselves and their topics for the conference. I couldn’t get too far beyond the registration table before getting caught in the tractor beam of the book tables. Lots of good stuff there, including Tom Sine’s book, which has the same name as the conference title . . . coincidence? But then I saw Shane Claiborne’s new book, Jesus For President – a pleasant surprise indeed, given that I didn’t even think it was available yet. I liked Shane’s Irresistable Revolution, but I was actually more interested in seeing the graphic art work on literally every page of the book . . . done by Ryan and Holly Sharp, a.k.a. 2/3 of The Cobalt Season. Very, very cool. Now I’ll be able to get them to autograph it Saturday night, when they play The Purple Door. Speaking of which, I got to see and chat with Mark and Lisa Scandrette, as well – Mark will be sharing the stage, doing some poetry on Saturday, as will Adam Klein. If you’re in the Seattle area, you’d be silly to miss this evening – the fun starts at around 8pm, so come on over.
I was also very excited to finally meet, face-to-face, Eliacin, after months of trading e-mail and Twitter messages. Great guy – I’m definitely looking forward to developing a good friendship with him. He introduced me to Mark Van Steenwyk as well. Didn’t say much more than hello, but I’ve been tracking his blog for a while now, so it was cool to meet him. I did get to talk for a spell with Justin Baeder, too, which was good – it had been a while since we chatted. Other than that, I just got a couple of quick hello’s in with Eugene Cho and Karen Ward.
A couple of my cohort-mates from school were there, so I said hello to them. It was good to be there with Johnson, one of our team members at The Purple Door. There’s a lot of good stuff ahead. I think they’ve put together a really great lineup of folks as presenters – most of whom aren’t the big names, but they’ve done the real work of charting a new way forward, so they’ve got all the street cred they need, in my book. I’ll blog as I’m able . . . but the wi-fi is only available in one part of the facility, so it may be spotty.
Filed under: technology
You may have seen this around the web already today, but yesterday at the TED Conference, Microsoft unveiled a project that will be available this spring as a free download – the World Wide Telescope. Watch the presentation here. I’m no astronomy buff . . . but this thing is astonishing.
With my astute forecasting skills, I could be a weather man, yes?
As of this evening, I’ll be spending the next couple/few days at The New Conspirators Festival. I will try to blog the event, which may mean an annoying amount of words here. Of course, I’ve tried the whole live-blogging a conference thing before, and failed miserably. I’m one of those people that will buy my ticket to a three day conference, just so I can stand in the hallways talking to people during the sessions. If I can figure out a way of taking good notes and putting them into actual prose-y sentences, I’ll do it.
I’m really looking forward to this event. I’ve got several friends to catch up with, and I’m looking forward to meeting several more.
I was talking with one of my team members yesterday about the nature of blogging and being wise with saying (or not saying) things that will get us into trouble. We talked about authenticity in our communities of faith, and the tension that “professional Christians,” i.e. church staff types feel. I told her that I decided a long time ago that I’m willing to get fired, as long as it’s for something good.
For one small example, though I will occasionally write a venting kind of post on the ‘ol blog here, and say some things I might regret later, I’m pretty careful not to interject profanity. Let me be perfectly transparent with you, dear reader: words that many would consider offensive do escape my lips from time to time . . . but committing those gems to writing and publishing on the web: a) is unnecessary (for me), b) is unhelpful (for me), c) has gotten people fired more than once. This does not qualify for my criteria of good things to get fired for.
On the other hand, I do think there’s value in saying provocative things on my blog. It’s why I’ve claimed to not be Trinitarian, or even Christian.** Stirring the pot a little is a good thing.
So where’s the harmony between being provocative but wise, and just being dumb? It’s a tough one to discern at times. But ultimately I know that the fruit of my actual life will bear out both the wisdom and stupidity of who I am. This blog is one aspect of my life, but Godhelpme, it ain’t the whole thing. I honor (or not) the Holy Spirit in my life by how I trust and follow, rather than simply what I write. I’ve never met some of you out there – probably never will, in some cases. All you have to go on is what I write. Sorry about that . . . because sometimes I’m a jerk here. I hope I provide some encouragement along the way, too, though.
**Disclaimer for those of you too lazy to follow the links I’ve included: I do, in fact, believe in the Trinity, and I do, in fact organize my life around following Jesus. See there? I’m being provocative . . . but hopefully wise, too. Although, having to go on and on explaining myself in a footnote disclaimer feels silly, lame, and decidedly un-fun. Plus it takes all the punch out of saying the provocative thing, right? This is why I lack that certain something which would qualify me to work at The Onion. Before too long, this disclaimer is going to be longer than the actual blog post, so I’ll shut up now. Peace and giggles, friends.
