- In regards to Everything Must Change by Brian McLaren (which I will continue blogging through soon), The Other Journal has an interview with Brian aptly named Why Everything Must Change: A Conversation with Brian McLaren. 10/31/2007
Blogging from the National Youth Workers Convention
October 30th, 2007 | Comments (6)
I will be blogging from St. Louis, Missouri this Thursday through Monday, where I’m attending the National Youth Workers Convention, an event organized by Youth Specialties.
In addition to seven “general sessions” with great speakers and worship leaders (David Crowder Band, Starfield, et al.) there are a bunch of smaller seminars that I’m really excited about. I don’t know if I’ll be able to attend every one I want (because some are at the same time), but here are a few I’d particularly like to attend:
I basically plan to go and act as a sponge; I just want to soak up as much youth ministry information, tips, advice, and wisdom as possible. I’ll be taking lots of notes and blogging my reflections throughout the extended weekend.
- Pete Rollins, author of How (Not) to Speak of God, has posted an excerpt from his forthcoming book The Fidelity of Betrayal: The Ir/Religious Heart of Christianity (which Amazon says will be released April 30, 2008). “The point is not to exclude the idea that miracles can involve awe-inspiring, breath-taking spectacles, but rather to point out that if the event is purely spectacular, involving no real change in the core of ones being, then it is nothing more than a spectacle… A miracle worthy of the name is so radical that while, on in the physical world, nothing may change, in the one who has been touched by it nothing remains the same.” 10/30/2007
Four point oh!
October 27th, 2007 | Comments (12)
The picture, as you have obviously inferred, represents me turning on the power to JakeBouma.com 4.0 (in reality, I was turning on the power to Milwaukee). If you’re reading this in a feed reader or email, click through and test drive the new design!
First of all, I would like to offer a sincere “thank you” to everyone who participated in the JakeBouma.com 4.0 prize giveaway. All of the winners have been selected and notified via email. Thanks to all of the prize sponsors as well. The prize giveaway obviously couldn’t have happened without them.
The new iteration of JakeBouma.com is the biggest overhaul to the website in nearly two years, when i switched to the previous theme. Before that, the design of JakeBouma.com was disastrous - like watching Ben Affleck try to act.
The design is based on Nathan Rice’s WordPress theme ElegantBlue, which I modified a bit to my liking. Much thought went into choosing this particular design (see below); I actually tried a couple of different themes before settling on this one. In addition to the new theme, many things have been added/enhanced/tidied up. I encourage you to poke around a bit, but here are a few of the modifications and reasonings:
Anyway, it’s really late and I’m really tired. Rather than continuing to list increasingly minor redesign details, I’m going to go to bed. Leave a comment and let me know how you like (or dislike) the new design!
- “Heaven is important, but it’s not the end of the world.” - N.T. Wright 10/26/2007
- Seth Godin on how to create a great website. “Insight is good, clever is bad. Many websites say, ‘look at me.’ Your goal ought to be to say, ‘here’s what you were looking for.’” 10/26/2007
- The deadline for entries in the JakeBouma.com 4.0 prize giveaway is 8:00am on Thursday, October 25. I have received lots of entries so far, but there are still some people who have signed up for email updates that haven’t sent me the secret word. If you haven’t done so yet, enter the contest and/or contact me to secure your entry. 10/24/2007
- New York Magazine has a review of the script for Where Wild Things Are, which was adapted for screen by Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers. “Where the Wild Things Are is filled with richly imagined psychological detail, and the screenplay for this live-action film simply becomes a longer and more moving version of what Maurice Sendak’s book has always been at heart: a book about a lonely boy leaving the emotional terrain of boyhood behind.” 10/19/2007
The JakeBouma.com 4.0 prize giveaway
October 16th, 2007 | Comments (2)
To celebrate the redesign of JakeBouma.com (sneak preview above), I am holding a prize giveaway as a way of saying “thank you” to everyone who reads and supports this blog. Check it:
The prizes:
How to enter:
You will receive one entry for subscribing to my website either by RSS or by email. In the first update, you’ll see a secret word at the bottom (e.g., “The secret word is _______”). Just email me the secret word for your entry into the giveaway.
You will receive two entries for blogging on your own website about this giveaway. You can describe the giveaway any way you want to, but you must link back to this post from yours. After you’ve posted, email me the URL so I can verify and add your entries.
To maximize your chances of winning, subscribe to JakeBouma.com by RSS or by email, then email me the secret word, and write a blog post of your own about the giveaway. You can have a maximum of three entries.
Details:
The deadline for entries is Wednesday, October 24th 2007, and the winners will be announced here on Friday, October 26th 2007. Winners will be selected using a random number generator (random.org).
There is a maximum of one prize per person, and prize sponsors are more than welcome to enter the draw (but obviously not to win your own gift). When you submit your entries, feel free to let me know which item(s) you would prefer, and if you’re selected as a winner, I’ll do my best to award you that particular prize. Good luck… and tell your friends!
- Here’s an interesting article from the NYT about Mitt Romney’s efforts to align with evangelical Christians. “His references to Jesus as his personal savior align with evangelical vernacular. Although it is consistent with Mormon doctrine, evangelicals caution that this is potentially dangerous territory for Mr. Romney, because their conception of who Jesus Christ is differs markedly from what Mormons believe.” 10/16/2007
Blog Action Day - Making effective transportation choices
October 15th, 2007 | Comments (0)
Today is Blog Action Day, a day when “bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind.” This year’s issue is the environment. Participating bloggers are encouraged to write about any topic relating to environmental issues. Because I have recently been looking for a car, today I’ll be writing about making good choices in regards to transportation. To do so, I will be enlisting the help of a wonderful book called The Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices.
The aforementioned book lists the following five things as “priority actions for American consumers” in regards to transportation:
Living closer to work and stores will cut down on your commute, which can significantly affect your overall health and sense of well-being while at the same time benefiting the environment.
Buying a new car sends an indirect message to auto manufacturers to keep making new cars. “When you picture that new car in your driveway, imagine instead the four tons of carbon and nearly 700 pounds of ordinary pollutants pumped into the atmosphere as a result of its manufacture.” If you do buy a new vehicle, make an effort to ↴
Choose a type of car that meets your everyday needs, and then look for the most fuel-efficient and least-polluting car in that class. I have been looking at cars for a couple of months now, and I am looking seriously at the Toyota Yaris. The 2008 model Yaris has the best fuel economy of any non-hybrid car. The idea here is this: do research! Don’t just buy a car on a whim because it looks cool; consider its impact. These sites are a good place to start: FuelEconomy.gov, GreenerCars.org, and UCSUSA.org
Create a “travel budget”, and try to reduce the amount of driving you do by 20%. Log your daily trips and odometer readings. If you reduce your driving by 20%, you’re lowering your household’s total contribution to global warming and air pollution by about 5%.
I am lucky that my church is only about 6 blocks from my house, so walking is an appropriate option. If walking or bicycling aren’t serious options, consider taking the bus or train instead of driving to lessen your impact on the environment.
Blogging through a book: Everything Must Change (Part 1)
October 11th, 2007 | Comments (0)
This is part one of a series where I blog through my reading of Brian McLaren’s Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope. The entire series is listed below ↴
Intro | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Conclusions
In this first section of the book, McLaren delivers the rhetorical device that will shape (I presume) the rest of the book. He asks, “What do the life and teachings of Jesus have to say about the most critical global problems in the world today” (12)?
In response to this question, McLaren makes a two-fold point: (1) Christians (and followers of the other “big” world religions) have failed to address the world’s most pressing crises because (2) the church has either focused all of its energy and attention on ideological debates (playing the “blame game”), or the church has become too “specialized” — or both.
You only have to have a passing familiarity with Jesus and his message to know there was a special place in his heart for the poor and oppressed. Why, then, has the church been so unsuccessful in addressing the issues of povery and oppression?
“We seemed polarized by our ideological diagnoses of the causes and cures of poverty, and even worse, we were paralyzed by our polarization, and so the poor continued to suffer - trapped by their poverty and our polarizing, paralyzing arguments about poverty” (16).
We’re too caught up in pointing fingers and debating who/what our fingers should be pointed at that we have failed to make any substantive progress.
- Indie rockers Copeland are releasing an album of “rarities, b-sides, EP tracks, acoustic, and alternate versions” called Dressed Up and In Line on November 20. “The idea is this - we’re taking rare and unreleased recordings from the last 7 years and revisiting the original tracks. All of them are going to be re-mixed and re-mastered. Many of them are going to be updated a bit with added strings, vocals, keys, and guitars. Some will be altered more than others.” Awesome. 10/10/2007
Blogging through a book: Everything Must Change (Intro)
October 10th, 2007 | Comments (0)
This is the introduction of a series where I blog through my reading of Brian McLaren’s Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope. The entire series is listed below ↴
Intro | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Conclusions
Over the next few weeks I’ll be blogging through Brian McLaren’s new book Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope.
If you’ve heard things about Brian McLaren (good or bad) and wondered what all the fuss is about, hopefully this series will answer some questions for you. It will also facilitate my own reflection on the book and I hope that it will generate some healthy dialogue on this site.
Everything Must Change is divided into eight sections, each consisting of four chapters, and my plan is to write a post after every section I read.
In the short introduction of the book, entitled “Hope Happens”, McLaren reassures us that he can help the reader “understand some highly complex material and make it not only accessible but maybe even interesting and inspiring” (1). I have no doubt he’ll deliver on his promise; he’s a skilled crafter of words to be sure.
After introducing himself, McLaren presents us with the book’s thesis:
“People interested in being a new kind of Christian will inevitably begin to care more and more about this world [as opposed to the “other world” of heaven], and they’ll want to better understand its most significant problems, and they’ll want to find out how they can fit in with God’s dreams actually coming true down here more often” (4).
These “significant problems”, or global crises, can be traced to “four deep dysfunctions”: the prosperity crisis (environmental breakdown & unsustainable global economy); the equity crisis (gap between socioeconomic classes); the security crisis (war fueled by cultural/economic resentment); and the spirituality crisis (world religion’s failure to provide healing), which McLaren says is the “leverage point through which we can reverse the first three” (5).
I’m really looking forward to digging through this book.
- Tony Jones has moved his blog to TonyJ.net in anticipation of his new book The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier which will be released March 3, 2008. 10/09/2007
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