Tall Skinny Kiwi

5000 Mile Emerging Church Tour

Well, its all a-go-go for our furlough in October. I really want you to track with me over the next 4 weeks - there are some people that YOU HAVE TO MEET and things to see that will blow your mind.

We leave in a few days and will be driving about 5000 miles around USA from Houston, to Austin, to Dallas, to New Mexico, to Orange County, to LA, to San Francisco, to Portland and to Seattle . . . . and some small places in between. . . . and then back again. pheeeew! I will also be flying to Nashville (Oct 24-25) and (hopefully) making it to a few events (Doxology, Emergent Gathering, Godblogcon)

But, honestly, the most important events will be small house parties that we throw and enjoy along the way in which we meet with key emerging church leaders in their own homes and eat pizza and laugh and tell stories and pray for wisdom for the future. Some of these parties will be open and you may want to email me to ask for an invitation if you suspect we are having a party in your city. (Portland will be a good one)

1n 1999, we put 25,000 miles on our Winnebago around USA. This trip will be a recap of cities where we have spent time and made friends. We have a lot of people to see and catch up with. Its been over 5 years since our family has driven this circuit and we want to reconnect with the emerging church leaders that were starting out back then, as well as meet the next crop of leaders who are planting seeds into the next season. I will be blogging the trip quite heavily and talking about the history of the emerging church - in particular its more hidden stories and key players than don't get invited to write books for MSM or speak at conferences in hotel banquet halls where people where beige dockers and polos. It should be a good month to track with me on my travels - you will meet some amazing people and I think your understanding of the emerging church will be stretched.

Deanna said
"Hey - have a great trip to the US. I don't know if you have already, but could you update on finances for your trip? Here's hoping the effects of Rita don't stop you!"

Thanks Deanna, and others of you, for asking. Katrina nearly stopped us from coming (it seemed insensitive and untimely but we decided the time was still right) and Rita had us worried. But we are on track. Here is the FURL-O-METER right now. We had enough money come in to buy some cheap plane tickets for our whole family from Dublin to Houston. FANTASTIC! That was the biggest challenge. Someone else has offered to rent us a mini-van and that will be the wheels for our family. I am not sure about the rest of the Boaz team - they will have to figure out their ride, or hold on to the roof rack. Our biggest expense will be gas and food. We are bringing two tents and will be camping in the back yards of friends along the way, and staying with relatives.

I have started out an email list to send out at intervals during the month - please email me and ask to be put on the list if you want to be updated. Especially if you want to attend any of our pizza parties and small intimate gatherings in people's homes. The name of the list is Butterflies and Hurricanes

Question: When are these house parties?

Mac Mags in the Bath

"give me a cup of tea early in the morning and let me read mac mags in the bath and show me an action movie with pizza on friday night with my family crashed on the floor and send me to farway places where i can camp in a canvas tent next to my wife and pour me another cup of tea while i read my bible and listen to the laughter of my kids and bask in the pleasure of God." TSK, about me.

I changed my bio on this blog from the previous version (in Dutch, which i do not speak) to something in English. I think it is getting closer to describing me.

Doxology October 7-8

I am really excited about this and will be in Houston at the right time for the Doxology conversation. Actually, we planned our trip that way. Here is the official invitation from Shannon Hopkins:

Doxology
Drawing On Dialogue. Re~Claiming Christ
Please join us on the Opening Night - 7 October 2005, 6.00 - 10pm
And for a Day of Dialogue - Saturday 8 October 11am - 4pm
Xnihilo Gallery - 2115 Taft St, Houston, Texas, USA. 7 October - 6 November 2005
An exhibition by Rob Pepper (a London Based Artist) and an international creative team.

www.doxology.org.uk
www.dailydrawingdiary.com

Spying on 'Summons To Lead'

"I wonder what role Mission America may have in the emerging movement?" (Overheard on the web)
"1. Do we need a new group?
Yes, but we don’t want to be a “denomination”
Better: a movement

Double Takes

- Emergent Quaker
- Biblical Curse Generator (HT: Jonny)
- Mr Potato Head and the Emerging Church

Pyromaniac On Image Editing

"I've been using Paint Shop Pro for Web graphics for 10 years, so I've gotten pretty competent with it, in an amateurish sort of way. It has a lot of features that make this sort of thing easy. It takes anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour to go from a raw .jpg of a scanned comic-book cover to the finished parody version." Pyromaniac Phillip Johnson

The blog that Phil built in June 2005 has already taken its place among the Anti-Emergent Favs such as EmergentNo and Slice of Laodicia.

Phil, in case you were wondering, is not happy about the direction of the emerging church as he sees it. Whether or not you appreciate Phil's slant on the emerging church, his blog is an excellent example of color, fonts, readability, custom images, good links and focused content.
And it proves that:

Even with 50 million blogs, you can still make a big splash with a brand new, fit and virile blog.

It is worth taking one software program, even an old lame one like Paint Shop Pro, and sticking with it long enough to master it.

Humor and satire can grease the way for some good conversation.

More advice: Phillip says "Copyright and trademark law do not necessarily apply to the use of images for caricature, farce, or parody" and he is probably correct, coming from a background with Moody Press.

Technorati Tags: blog, emerging church, new media

China Issues New Web Guidelines

Hey - if anyone finds the new regulation online, please let me know.

"The Chinese government announced on Sunday a new set of regulations intended to tighten control over news reported on the Internet, but it was not immediately clear what, if any, effect the new regulations will have." HT: MacCentral

Blast From The Past: 'And'

1970: "The word "and" will be a often-used conjunction in the emerging church" The Emerging Church, by Bruce Larson and Ralph Osborne, 1970.

2005: Dwight Friesen has a blog named "And."

Wisdom: "It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other.
The man who fears God will avoid all extremes"
Ecclesiastes 7:18

Thought: The word "and" keeps us from polarities and unhealthy extremes. It teaches us to listen, and to see with synoptic vision.

I guess I am blogging this because many of the complaints I hear go something like . .

"Emerging church people choose ___ over and against _____!

Technorati Tags: Emergent, emerging church

My Daughters Done Got Baptised

UPDATE: Wow. It went really well. Sunshine and a good day. The girls all did something different at church. Elizabeth read some poems, Hannah led everyone in singing "Step by Step" by Rich Mullins. And Abigail answered questions very briefly. All did really well. After eating some food, we all went down to the water. And they all got baptised by myself and James Stockan. And yes, the water was REALLY COLD!

Here is a quick video i made this afternoon. Take a look and enjoy. QuickTime Movie (5.4 Megs)

Emerging Church MP3s

Talking Points: Grand Rapids Theological Seminary hosted a day of talks about the Emerging Church and made them freely available. Its a good conversation. I liked Number 5 the best because they deal with some of the criticisms. Remember that this is not dealing with the house church movement nor cyberchurch or the wider emerging church but rather the emergent-type churches that hold a similar structure to the traditional but are showing a possible way forward. Link. HT: Dave's Listening Place

(MP3):
1 - Emerging Church Past Present and Future (Brian McLaren)
2 - Emerging Church A Historical Theological Professors Reflection (Mike Wittmer) (Powerpoint Slides)
3 - Emerging Church A Pastor's Reflections (Ed Dobson)
4 - Emergent Conversation: Present and Future Challenges (Brian McLaren)
5 - Emerging Church: Reflections and Questions (Steve Argue, Moderator. McLaren, Dobson, Wittmer)

[I originally called these "podcasts" but Justin says they are not - so I renamed this post.]

Technorati Tags: church, Emergent, emerging church

50 Most Cited Works 76-83

Its a very anglo-western list, but here are the top 50 most cited works from 1976 - 1983 HT: BoingBing.

1. T.S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 1962
2. J. Joyce, Ulysses. 1922
3. N. Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. 1957
4. L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations
5. N. Chomsky, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. 1965

Collision

Collision: latest sounds from David Crowder Band reviewed by MW

The Skinny on Rita

Gotta love those Texans. Here's the Skinny on Hurricane Rita that hits the Gulf Coast today.

ASSISTANCE:
- Food -Texas Baptist Men are ready to cook
- Buildings. Baptist churches have opened up.
- Strategic Teams are looking for people.
- Houston Chronicle will show you where to volunteer.
- Ecclesia Houston are on the ground and ready

BLOGS:
EmergentHouston say they have never seen anything like this.
Thisblogisfullofcrap has a big list of bloggers and a webcam.
Hurricane Rita - from Houston Chronicle
Liberty's Blog - from Galverston
BlogHouston
more coming . . .

Technorati Tags: Hurricane, Rita, Texas

Houston? Comfortable?

This came in the email from Expedia about our flight into Houston.

A Prophet on Galveston and Houston

A grey-bearded prophet named Chuck Pierce spoke some prophecies this year, as part of a prayer tour through the port cities of USA.

HOUSTON:
"The Lord then said that Houston would shift in July. "Prepare yourself, for you will influence the nation in a time of crisis."
GALVESTON:
"The Lord also said, "And you will know I'm going to shake Galveston in a way that it has not been shaken since the beginning of the last century. But this is a time for Me to come full circle. And this time, Galveston will begin to run forward into My presence in Houston. And that which is resisting My presence in Galveston will be overtaken. I am raising up the Body in Houston to receive an outpouring of My presence. As I flood the people of Galveston to Houston, I will return them with a flood of My presence. "
From: CONCERNING PORT CITES, HOUSTON, GALVESTON and HURRICANE RITA on Messianic News

Related: On the same site, Cindy Jacobs says the name Rita comes from the name "Margaret," which means Pearl of Great Price.

Technorati Tags: Hurricane, Rita, Texas

Traditional, Contemporary, Emerging

Kyle Potter found this on a website from a church.

What i want to know is this:
- What is in that third cup under Emerging? I bet it is Chai. Fair-trade chai made from cruelty-free tea leaves and NOT purchased from Starbucks. Can I get a witness???
- How can they expect emerging people to get up so early on a Sunday morning?
- What happens when the emerging people want hymns around the organ?
- What happens when the traditional people want to take their shoes off, paint Bible verses on the wall and drink some chai?

Technorati Tags: emerging church

Blogging Rita?

Stuck in Houston for the weekend? Praying for your ADSL connection to withstand the storm so that you can blog? . . You're an idiot. . . .but you are not alone. . . and i would probably be doing it with you.
Houston Chronicle says Stormwatchers could use your help. HT: Hugh

Technorati Tags: blog, Hurricane, Rita, Texas

Becoming Conversant With Fundamentalism

I have been asking for some fundamentalists to explain and define their version of fundamentalism because:

1. its much better to let people define themselves with their own words than do it for them which often leads to inaccuracies and personal attacks.
2. There is a lot of good stuff in fundamentalism that is covered up by some ugly excesses . . . and love believes all things
3. Over the past year, the fundamentalists have turned up in the backyard of text-driven blogdom, and many emerging church bloggers are having their first interaction with them - lots of heated discussions and fiery darts coming from both groups. But also room to learn from each other, if we do it right. Time to talk about it so we can move ahead together, as much as is possible this side of eternity.

I may pontificate on another blog post about my days as a wild fundamentalist street preacher, and boast of my youthful, zealous acts for God such as leaving gospel tracts inside Catholic hymnals, and on the windshields of their cars while they were in mass, and preaching through John MacArthur Jnr's "Charasmatic Chaos" at my Baptist church, and rebuking Christians for listening to rock group Petra . . . and also my fantastic experiences in the Word of God that are still with me - hey, i had a really good time as a fundamentalist and really don't hold any grudges. In fact, I still turn up and preach in their churches. But before I write that post . .

Here are some links to start the journey (and you can recommend others)
- I posted "Are "Fundamentalists in the Emerging Church?" which kind of kicked off this series.
- CaptainSacrament has a good post entitled "Facing Opposition: An Open Letter to Emergent Christians" I like his tone.
- Challies, who once called himself a funkdamentalist, posted "The Fundamentals of Fundamentalism"
- PryroManiac is one of the best looking fundy blogs (actually, it beats the emerging church blogs also) and its a helluvalot better designed than mine. Heck - I feel graphically challenged everytime i visit - a severe case of pixel envy! Anyway, this fine looking blog became the unofficial gateway for John MacArthur's thoughts a few days ago under "Recovering the Spirit of Early Fundamentalism."

A to Z of Alt. Worship

K = kleptomania
"Alternative worship “steals” all the time. Borrowing concepts and ideas, songs and visual ideas from the world outside, but then baptising and subverting those ideas."

Abbess Sue Wallace has listed an A - Z of Alternative Worship. HT: Karen at Submergence And if you like them, check out Steve Taylor's A - Z of Emerging Church

Technorati Tags: emerging church, alt. worship

Why All the Lights?

“Worship

why is it always music?
why the same songs?
why only pretty people on stage?
why all the lights?”

Greg Powell explains the emerging church to Assembly of God pastors. Link

Technorati Tags: Emergent, emerging church

b5media: A New Kind of Blog Network

Another blog network begins. b5media launches with Darren (Living Room) and a new team of blog authors. Wish you guys all the best.

Update for Video Jockeys

Upgrade: Arkaos VJ 3.5 This new upgrade will allow you (and me) to record performance through firewire in DV format. No more messing with little Quick Time movies on the event recorder. MacMinute says "ArKaos VJ 3.5.1 HW, offering support for Core Image, the real-time video technology from Apple" which has not appeared on the official Arkaos website yet, but I hope it is true.
I heard that Arkaos was used at the recent Live 8 concert in London. It was also used by quite a number of alt. worship groups at Greenbelt Festival, including Church of the Apostles (Seattle).
I moved from G-Force to Arkaos in 2003. I have used it for rave worship, missionary presentations, teaching conferences, worship karaoke, ambient worship installations and just throwing moving images on a wall because it looked good.
Related: Thoughts on Arkaos, Skinny on Powerpoint, VJ Village

"For certain effects, the fathers even made use of the magic lantern, the Jesuit savant, Athanasius Kircher, having been one of the first to draw attention to this possibility. With the help of such projection apparatus, they made visions and dreams especially appear on the stage." Fülöp-Miller, 1930 Link

Missionaries were among the first to use projected images on a wall. The Magic Lantern was used extensively by Jesuits, nuns, and and protestant missionaries like David Livingstone. Dr Grenfell used his magic lantern to show the needs of New Foundland and raise money for his mission.

Butterflies and Hurricanes

Our road trip next month across USA needs a theme song. I had already been thinking about "Butterflies and Hurricanes" by the English band "Muse" because we will start in Houston - with people affected by the recent Hurricane Katrina, and because there is a butterfly-like quality to our tour - fluttering lightly across USA, making tiny invisible waves that may one day have a huge effect. If anyone out there wanted to remix this song, we would love to use it. Even better if we could remix it again while we travel and mix in some sounds from our journey.
Another interesting sideline. The producer of this song was in Orkney last year and hooked up with Michael who was here on Sunday.

Muse Lyrics

Tell you more about this song . . .

Today is the one year anniversary of Butterflies and Hurricanes, released in u-myx format on Sep 20, 2004. Remixing or remashing was encouraged and Muse provided the software for anyone to do it through U-Myx. What i am thinking about is this: How could we make U-Myx kinds of books . . and movies. Could we do our tour in a way that allows anyone to take our words, sounds and images and make their own media from it? Can we build into our media the ability to do that without being a geek?

Even More: See a screenshot. Lyrics to Butterflies and Hurricanes. The Skinny on Muse. Ring tone

Hope for My Commodore 64

I bought a Commodore 64 for a few pounds this summer, in hopes of resurrecting it. Quantum-link seems to have info on connecting to the internet through PC but I am not sure how to do this with Mac. Still . . . there is hope. HT: BoingBoing

Blogs4God is back

Email:
Andrew, FYI : blogs4God is back online after a rather bad bout with spammers and other
not-so-fun stuff. Dean Peters

Since 2002, Blogs4God has been aggregating Christian bloggers. Good to see them back (read the Press Release). I just went over there and registered. I don't normally register on these things, but after a 3+ year history with Dean Peters and the team, I want to support what they are doing and be a part of it. I also do not want to forsake the aggregating of ourselves together.

5 Issues For A New Reformation

Marc Van der Woude, the tall skinny Dutchman from Connect Europe, has written out some thoughts on what a new reformation could look like . This came out of a series of meetings last month in Prague with about 50 key leaders from all over Europe. Link Download .doc

"We believe that today’s church, especially in Europe, is in a serious spiritual crisis and needs a reformation of theology and practice in at least the following areas:

1. From idolatry to acknowledging Jesus Christ as the true head of his church. Idolatry is basically anything that robs Jesus of his legitimate place, like:
a. church programs that limit the flow of the Holy Spirit,
b. the clergy-laity divide, which is creating and maintaining a mediation structure between ‘ordinary’ people and Christ, and
c. denominationalism, dividing and disempowering the body based on human notions.

E.B. Brooks: "Keep It About Jesus"

Dr. E.B. Brooks. He's the man who covers my back and reads my reports. He will not be in his office next month. After a long and incredible term with the Baptist General Convention of Texas, E.B. is retiring and preparing for the next chapter of ministry - one that I am hoping will also include me.

E.B. asked me in 1998 to assist the BGCT in ministering to the "postmodern" culture . . . as we called it back then. He has been shielding me and taking flak for almost 8 years. And he has given us a huge amount of freedom to go where God was leading us, which was outside USA for most of that time. Anything we have accomplished in the past 8 years could not have happened without E.B. standing behind us. Whenever we met in person, he would encourage me to "KEEP IT ABOUT JESUS" - which is a now a mantra permanently embedded in my brain as a whispering companion.

Milfred Minatrea (guy on the right with the hard-as-rock hair) will be taking over E.B.'s role as the primary person to complain to about me and the other trouble makers that are associated with me. I am sure he is really excited about that role. Milfred is a nice guy, a man of God, and author of a book I am reading right now. BUT I SURE WILL MISS E.B.! He has been more than a supervisor . . . he has been a father to me. . . and i cant tell you how much loss i feel in his retirement and how much i long that he will not hang up his big texan hat but will jump with us all into the next season.

Technorati Tags: church

Revolution. Renaissance. Reformation.

3 books in the bathtub with me this morning. All of them trying to name our present changing culture. A culture radically transformed by new media, communications, the internet, and the people who are transforming it.
Douglas Rushkoff calls it Renaissance. (OSD)
Hugh Hewitt calls it Reformation. (Blog)
George Barna calls it Revolution. (Revolution)

How will the church respond?
Ginkworld says Evolution.
Richard "Passmore says Redefinition

Me?
I think 'Renaissance' best describes our response to the new media culture and 'Evolution' (through emergent behavior) best describes the way these changes are coming about.

Blogging Evangelicalism

"I'll safely predict anyone who doesn't take the time to understand blogging as an evangelical phenomenon will soon wish they had . . ."
" . . . . blogging is among the most equalized of all current mediums of communication available to evangelicals, and as such, it deserves some efforts at comprehension by those considering what evangelicalism will look like in its future."

Michael Spencer (iMonk), "An Optimistic View of Blogging Evangelicalism: Community, Confessional Conversations and Adventures In Self-Criticism"

As for the last paragraph . ..

"Blogger Andrew Jones has suggested that the church plant of the future will involve choosing a name, an easily accessed coffeeshop and, of course, making a good-looking church blog. Jones is suggesting that blogging, as a means of self-publishing and community creation, will become essential to the formation of church communities in the future. He may be optimistic, and he may be manifesting that evangelical crush on new technology I mentioned earlier. I happen to believe he is substantially correct, and that we can welcome a spirit-led, Christ-imitating blogged revolution as a worthy goal of the evangelicalism of the future. "

Well, i may have said that. And if so, let me explain and expand
1. Good looking blog? If i said that, i meant to say an integral looking blog - a church blog should reflect the character, flavor and artistic sensibilities of the people it represents. Anything more is false advertising and wishful thinking.

Technorati Tags: blog, church, cyberchurch, emerging church

More on the USA Trip

Here is some more info about our plans and the family road trip.

We arrive in Texas Oct 5th and will be involved in Doxology in Houston. We may do some meetings in Dallas and Austin, and then, probably around Oct 11th, head off to New Mexico, Los Angeles, and then up to San Francisco and Portland Oregon by the 20th. There may be a group of us traveling - the alternative church caravan - and we will be stopping at key places along the way to encourage the emerging churches and catch up with everyone.
Then back to Texas for some more meetings, and fly over to Dublin for 2 days and then home to Scotland.

We want the emerging church in USA to enter into its new season
We want the emerging church in USA to enter into its new season
We want the emerging church in USA to enter into its new season
We want the emerging church in USA to enter into its new season
We want the emerging church in USA to enter into its new season

the house churches, cyber churches, invisible underground churches, the emergent/pomo churches, AND the traditional churches . . . because God is calling his WHOLE church to participate with Him in what he wants to do.

We want the emerging church in USA to enter into its new season
We want the emerging church in USA to enter into its new season
We want the emerging church in USA to enter into its new season
We want the emerging church in USA to enter into its new season

and i repeat it once more

We want the emerging church in USA to enter into its new season . . . pray for us all that we can help God's work move to the next level.

Rob Pepper and Shannon are already there in Austin getting things ready for the Doxology event in Houston - which i will tell you about next week. But take a look at Rob's Doxology in Progress slide show.

Technorati Tags: Emergent, emerging church

Michael The Harcus

Michael Harcus, the musician from Westray just left our house. He is here for the festival but he also led the worship at Stromness Baptist Church this morning. We chatted about music and he showed my his main web site and the CrossRythms promo. I managed to talk him into getting a blog going (being the blog evangelist that i am) and we whipped him up something quick and simple called Michael the Harcus. Hope he keeps it up.

Orkney Blues Festival

Our little town of Stromness is buzzing today with blues musicians from all over UK. Our kids were getting free lessons today. The Orkney Blues Festival runs all weekend and there are bands playing in all the clubs and pubs.

Ryans Em. Church Innovations

Ryan Bolger lists some "innovations" of the emerging churches, or what they add to the traditional model. I think he looking here at the emergent/pomo models rather than cyberchurch or house church and they read a little simplistic, but they could be helpful for some.

. A return to Jesus/sermon on the mount as central to faith, thus ethics are central to their concerns as opposed to simply heart questions...
. Emerging Churches do not believe in a secular realm, thus, church services will look very secular to the outsider. Correspondingly, emerging church people see many things in the so-called secular realm as spiritual (they see God's fingerprints everywhere).

NexChurch Conference

"75 churches will close their doors this Sunday
112 million Christians claim themselves as churchless."
(Len Sweet, NexChurch)

Fred Peatross is blogging Len Sweet's talks at the conference this weekend.

Richard's 10 Steps To Refining Church

Richard Passmore has brought a number of his posts together under "A Manifesto Calling for a New Way of Being and Defining Church."

"1. The first reformation gave the bible back to the people and we need to give church back to the people (not just christian people).
2. This will take a redefinition of church NOT just a change in style.
3. The churches sub cultural weakness is a leaning towards evolution over revolution, hence style over definition.
4. Theologically there are many examples of revolutionary steps or leaps in thinking, eg Peters vision, Jesus new covenant and so redefinition is plausible.

Technorati Tags: church, Emergent, emerging church

Hat Tip to ASCP

Ahhh . . . Hungary. Wish I was there. The Alliance for Saturation Church Planting is having its farewell conference right now in Budapest. I usually turn up each September for this conference but cannot make it this year for their last event. Last year I spoke on "Emerging Culture Issues". In 2002 I gave the "Budapest Album" But this year, I am absent for this event. I told their story back in June of why they are stopping.

Who's blogging it?
Gabi says she is too personal in her blogging but we could all learn from her - to blog from our emotions AND our head. She is the blogger to read this weekend. And then there are the guys - mission geeks, all of them.
- Scot Friderich will probably have the skinny on the conference. Scot's wife got her nose pierced last week which is becoming obligatory for current day missionaries. My wife had her nose pierced back in 1998, just like Rebecca in the Bible (Genesis 24)
. . . Sorry . . . off track . .
- Reinhold is there from Switzerland.
- Alexander from Bath, UK is there. He is currently blogging "30 Hallmarks of emerging scripture-based fellowships" (Start here)
- David Toth just gave a message on the need for church planting movements in that region.

Lee Behar hasn't blogged for months but he is the nicest guy in the world. He is also the ASCP team leader who is delicately taking down the structures and paving the way for the future. Pray for him this weekend. Its got to be an emotionally draining experience. But he should be encouraged about the great work ASCP have accomplished in the past 10 years. And the next season for Central and Eastern Europe.

Technorati Tags: church, Europe

Katrina Update

- Relief Connections is a new web-based relief effort that will try to coordinate efforts for Katrina victims. Its about making connections between needs and resources. HT: Hugh

- The Mayor of New Orleans says a third of the city's residents can return to certain areas of the city from next week. Link
- Baptist Feeding Teams in Texas. Link-

Technorati Tags: Hurricane, Katrina, New Orleans

The PryoMarketing Conspiracy

The suspiciously-suppressed book "Pyro Marketing" seems to have been released from captivity and is available on Borders, according to Tim Bednar on his blog post about the cover-up everyone has read on Tim Challies post 'Purposeful Interference'

Well . . not everyone. For those that have not read it, Challies describes the influence of pryromarketing on Purpose Driven Life that may have helped it become the best selling hard back book in American history. Challies also outlines the pressure put on the publishers to withhold the book, in case it tarnished the story of The Purpose Driven Life. An earlier post was called "Pyromarketing and the Purpose Driven Life"

All this is interesting reading. Better, in fact, than many conspiracy novels. And for a bonus, Greg Stielstra, the author of "Pyro Marketing" appears in the comments to give his views as does Richard Abanes (worship pastor at Saddleback) who now blogs at Slice of Laodicea Church, which BTW looks remarkably similar to Ingrid's old Slice of Laodicea blog which was in use until Challies designed her a really nice looking new one at Sliceoflaodicia.com.

Technorati Tags: books

Your Blog on Google Blog Search

Google's new blog search engine is good step forward, but you may need to make sure your blog is listed.

"Google doesn’t provide any direct way to submit your own RSS feeds to it in order to be indexed. To make sure your blog RSS feed gets all of Google’s attention you need to use XML-RPC pings." Lockergnome

This is true, I guess, but it doesn't worry me because I signed up with the FREE service at FeedBurner.com (blog). They handle all that geek stuff for me. They even tell me how many people get my feed - those lazy people who cant be bothered coming all the way over here - the internet's version of couch potatoes. Not complaining - I also read far more RSS headlines than I do visit blogs.
But if you dont have feedburner working for you, go and get it. They also give you the yahoo tags and other tags that make it easy for people to add your feed to their news readers.

Technorati Tags: blog

Emerging Church Stuff

Jordon says to check out Thunderstruck.org [MISTAKE -SORRY}

Maggi Dawn is putting together a TV show and needs help.
Emergent Gathering New Mexico

RECENT PODCASTS:
- Core values of the Red Network Link Podcast
- Australian Vineyard Director on emerging church- Link. Podcast
- Brian McLaren "What is the Emerging Church?" Part 1 Link Podcast

Technorati Tags: Emergent, emerging church, podcast

BIG NEWS: USA TRIP IS ON

Real quick - i will expand later

Our furlough in on. We arrive in USA Oct 5 and will be touring USA until November 1.

Roadtesting Google's Blog Search

Someone smack me if i start using it! Google Blog Search was released an hour ago. Official site is blogsearch.google.com and there's a good post at SixApart. As for me and my house, I just don't like the idea of the Almighty Google knowing so much, remembering so much, and having so much power. Being a old stick-in-the-mud as i am, I will stick to Technorati.com

ROADTEST:
I typepd in "tallskinnykiwi" and the first result was an Alan Hartung post. The rest were all mine, but still . . I would like to control my own tag. Now a search for the same thing on technorati.com . . . woooohhh . . even worse . . all these strange sites who have mentioned me and mine is not even there. Maybe blogsearch.google.com is worth a look at after all.

GEEK NEEDED:
Could some geek out there create a search engine box for our blogs that offers blogsearch.google AND technorati AND oldskool Google?

(UPDATE_ ROADTEST 2:
| just searched for this post using "tallskinnykiwi, google blog search". Results:
Technorati: YES
BlogSearchGoogle: NO, not yet.

Technorati Tags: blog

Home-Church [UPDATED]

UPDATE: OK - I got fooled by an purely satricial article that i found thru AddisonRoad - thanks Bob Hyatt who commented twice before I changed this.
But rather than just delete the whole post and save face, the article called "More Kids Being Home-Churched' makes me wonder if the term "home-church" will be a substitute for what George Barna is calling 'Family Faith Journey' in his book Revolution. The family in the article are probably not real, but I have come across real families who are bringing church back into their homes. Even done it myself . . I mean . . ourselves.

Technorati Tags: home church

The Spirituality of Torrent

Torrentocracy announced a Web API that will allow bloggers to manage their own dang torrents. BoingBoing says Ecto will support it soon. This will really help with distributing large video files. I have heard of Blog Torrent who may have already offered this, but have not had time to try it out.

If you have ever downloaded a large file through bit torrent protocol, you know that you are not downloading from a central data bank or a single user but rather from other users who are downloading it the same time as you are. In other words, you are getting it from lots of people who do not yet have it all. And while you are downloading the file, others are already downloading from your computer what you have already taken. To be a receiver is to be a giver. You don't wait until you have the whole file before you start uploading - it happens at the same time. It all sounds very spiritual to me