The Monday brief
February 23rd, 2009 | Comments (2) |
Highlight of the week: Even though I’m less than excited to be 25, I had a great birthday weekend. It was so great, in fact, that I fell out of a booth. Thank you to all my friends and family who made it awesome.
Book(s) I’m reading: Well, now I’m in the middle of five books. The two that I added in addition to last week’s are You Shall Know Our Velocity! which I picked up because it was the only Dave Eggers book I didn’t own and hadn’t read (I’m halfway through it), and Theological Reflection: The Creation of Spiritual Power in the Information Age by Edward O. de Bary.
Music I’m digging: Still digging The Fray.
Something(s) that blew my mind: It didn’t necessarily blow my mind, but this picture has been stuck in my head for a couple of days now… I’m not sure why, but I really love it.
Ministry update: Our junior high and high school ministries will be doing the H2O Project during Lent. Although I’m not looking forward to two weeks sans coffee, I am looking forward to seeing how it plays out. I think it could be really sweet.
And, for your viewing pleasure, here are the first couple of videos that Brandon and I made for St. Mark’s Lenten small groups.
Seminary/ordination update: Nothing new to report.
Looking forward to: The Cubs’ first spring training game is on Wednesday (go Cubs!), and I’m going to see Green River Ordinance in Minneapolis on Friday night.
That’s it for the Monday brief. Feel free to leave a comment, and if you’re feeling extra frisky, check out the Monday brief archives.
- Five places to go before global warming messes them up. I’ve been to two of the five, but it’s the two that are in the United States. 02/23/2009
FREE and easy group texting for youth ministry with Tatango
February 21st, 2009 | Comments (10) |
Those involved in youth ministry understand that communicating effectively and easily with teenagers and parents is one of the most important parts of the job. Even though a perfect solution to the communication conundrum doesn’t exist, Tatango makes the process significantly easier, and best of all — free for 30 days.
Before I say any more, I’ll let the CEO of Tatango describe their utility for youth workers. Check out the video below:
Like Derek said, Tatango lets you send out group text messages and voicemails for free, which for youth workers might as well be manna from heaven. Although the free version is supported by ads, they are unobtrusive and the message you send is still communicated, so who can complain? (Please see the updated Tatango post with a 15% discount code!)
One of my favorite things about Tatango is the different ways available for you to promote your group and get members to join. You can embed a widget in your website where users can type in their information, and every group you create has a unique web address where users can sign up as well. But the greatest tool, in my opinion, is using customizable keywords. For example, I set up a customized keyword of “EIKON” (the name of my high school ministry). All I have to do is tell students to text the word EIKON to a five-digit shortcode number, and they’re immediately subscribed to any updates I send out for that group.
Of course, Tatango has paid subscriptions ranging from $5/month to $100/month, which give you some benefits, such as using customized widgets and personalized keywords, but it’s an expense I think many youth workers will easily be able to justify.
On top of everything else, the guys running Tatango are great people, and they have offered readers of JakeBouma.com a 10% discount on any of their paid subscriptions. Just enter the word Tango in the “Coupon Code” box on the payment page, and you’re all set. (Please see the updated Tatango post with a 15% discount code!)
If you have any questions about Tatango’s services, be sure to check out their Frequently Asked Questions page, follow them on Twitter, and/or leave a comment below. And, in the interest of full disclosure, I am not receiving anything from Tatango in exchange for blogging about their company. I simply feel strongly about their services and believe that other youth workers could benefit from them as well.
The Monday brief
February 16th, 2009 | Comments (2) |
Highlight of the week: The highlight was definitely not when the database that holds all of JakeBouma.com’s content mysteriously disappeared. The support people were able to confirm that a) they didn’t delete it and b) I didn’t delete it, by accident or otherwise, and I had pretty much resigned to starting over agian; I even put up a splash page during the downtime. Anyway, I got an email from support saying “the issue has been resolved,” with no further explanation… so apparently the found the misplaced server. Whatever. At least it wasn’t my fault like this time or this time.
The real highlight of my week was probably listening to Brandon Mick repeatedly butcher the introduction to the St. Mark podcast (link opens in iTunes). Luckily for you, a recording of the whole escapade is available; just click the play button below.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Book(s) I’m reading: I’m currently in the middle of three books: How to Think Theologically by Howard Stone and James Duke, which is a bit of “research material” for a project I’m working on; The Future of Christology by Roger Haight, for the Tranforming Theology Theo-Blogger Consortium; and The Fidelity of Betrayal by Peter Rollins, which I’ve been reading in bed the past few nights.
Music I’m digging: The Fray’s new self-titled album is incredible… I can’t get enough of it (You might remember that back in 2005 I said, “They are totally on the verge of becoming huge.”). Also, I’m really digging One Last Century by The Damnwells, which you can download for free here.
Something(s) that blew my mind: How about the fact that last week it was 60+ degrees midweek and it snowed 7 inches on Friday? Welcome to Iowa.
Ministry update: The last couple of weeks have been pretty crazy for me. I’ve had the biggest “pastoral care” issues with parents/students that I’ve dealt with up to this point in my (admittedly short) youth ministry career, and it’s been scary, humbling, draining, while at the same time, beautiful, life-giving, and affirming. And through it all, God has been speaking to me in profound ways (which is something I have said with any confidence very few times).
In other ministry news, one of my students who is in college called me tonight and told me he’s feeling called to youth ministry. We had a really long and productive conversation about it… it was awesome.
Seminary/ordination update: A strategic phone call has been made.
Looking forward to: I am both excited and not excited about turning 25 this Sunday. Excited because birthdays are generally a good time and not excited because 25 is halfway between 20 and 30. Ugh.
That’s it for the Monday brief. Feel free to leave a comment, and if you’re feeling extra frisky, check out the Monday brief archives.
- On the occasion of Darwin’s birthday: Five Things We Can Learn From Creationists. “2) They never tire of pointing out how scientific ideas can be misused by dangerous ideologies, from reckless capitalism, to vanguard communism, to Nazism. We will always need the reminder.” 02/12/2009
- How Teenagers Find Themselves. “Cognitive neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore of University College London and her colleagues found that when compared with scenarios describing basic emotions that did not involve the opinions of others, such as fear and disgust, girls who thought about onlookers’ opinions engaged a brain region known as the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) more during social emotional scenarios than adult women did. This area is one of the last regions to develop before adulthood, and it is known to activate in adults when they think about themselves, about other people and even about the personality traits of animals.” Related: The Primal Teen: Book review 02/06/2009
How can theology transform the church?
February 6th, 2009 | Comments (3) |
Here’s a better question: How couldn’t it?
If you could open my brain, peer inside, and see what has been happening there the past month or so, it would be a loop of this video.
The entire video is fantastic, but here are a couple of money quotes:
“[Pastors] are saying, ‘Theology doesn’t preach. And I only seem to connect with my congregation when when I do psychology, contemporary affairs, aesthetics, novels, comparative religion, lectures on this and that topic.’ So the starting point is just to let folks do theology today.”
“If we then can say every one of us who picks up a Bible, or, for that matter a newspaper, and tries to wrestle with the relevance of the Bible for the contemporary world, or a Christian response to the events on the front page of today’s newspaper — that person is already doing theology.”
“Theology is when Christian folks engage the contemporary world in a vital way; when they ask the hardest questions and then they sit down and try to get some answers.”
I think this is what Tony Jones was getting at when he named a chapter “It’s the theology, stupid.” in his book The New Christians.
Theology alone will not save the church, but if it can be wrestled away from the ivory towers of academia, it will undoubtedly have massive transformative power. And my contention is that the starting point for theological thinking is precisely where it has been avoided — youth ministry.
More on that later.
The Monday brief
February 2nd, 2009 | Comments (2) |
Highlight of the week: I have had a blast at the Extravaganza the last several days. My presentation went really well, but the highlight has surely been meeting new people (like Bethany from Augsburg Fortress, Assistant to the Bishop Eric Carlson, and Emily) and getting to know people in our Des Moines network even better.
Book(s) I’m reading: On the flights to New Orleans, I finished Marko’s Youth Ministry 3.0 and got about a third of the way through Living Gently in a Violent World by Stanley Hauerwas and Jean Vanier.
Music I’m digging: Something We Can’t Let Go (link opens in iTunes) by Wideawake and the Sans Radio EP by The Daylights.
Something(s) that blew my mind: During Christian Scharen’s workshop on pop culture, he played the music video for The Saints Are Coming by Green Day and U2 and encourage us to use the time as a music video divina. After watching, myself and the people around me were literally speechless.
Oh, and last Wednesday’s episode of LOST was insane.
Ministry update: Brandon Mick has officially begun his ministry at St. Mark. Although we have completely different job descriptions, we have hit the ground running on a couple of really exciting projects. A new audio/visual era has begun. Nerds unite!
Seminary/ordination update: After being denied acceptance into Luther Seminary this past fall, I was pitched on the very program for which I applied upwards of five times at the Extravaganza this week. Oh, the irony.
Looking forward to: Retrieving my guitar from the guitar shop (again), LOST, and beginning Saturday evening worship at St. Mark.
That’s it for the Monday brief. Feel free to leave a comment, and if you’re feeling extra frisky, check out the Monday brief archives.
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