whatever you do.

A fantastically humourous article from the Guardian really nails my frustrations with the constant griping and finger-pointing by conventional media distributors… prophetically concluded in the final sentences…

Alternatively, of course, we could try to adapt to the world as it is, rather than dreaming of what it used to be. But hell, where are the headlines in that?

The company where I work is right in the midst of this junk. Our music division is constantly presented to us as struggling and hit hard by the “digital revolution” (an archaic and sensational term used by our Commander & Chief). Instead of talking about ways to move forward, month by month we are simply told and retold that doing things the way we have been doing it just doesn’t seem to work.

Here’s the deal, if you want to continue to do things in the mold of the contemporary record industry then go ahead. But PLEASE stop insisting that the world come back to where you are, comfortable and accustomed. PLEASE stop trying to impede the world’s direction with lawsuits and angry press releases. It just makes you look like a crotch.

Tags: Music Industry, file sharing, RIAA, technology

Alright. I have postponed this long enough. I 95% guarantee that this weekend I will work on updating the art side of this site. There is so much I could do with tying the two aspects of my website together. Maybe I’ll finally put something under that ‘About’ link as well.

This is absolutely a fantastic idea!!
Report: Suns Considering Outdoor Preseason Game

Listening in on a conversation among professors at Dallas Theological Seminary as they discuss the points of the various expressions of the emerging church movement. I am so fantastically excited by this dialogue! It is so fair and non-confrontational on all fronts. Honestly, there is a level of respect I honestly did not expect from a conservative, evangelical institution. During the conversation they bring up many diverse aspects of the movement and deal with them all fairly. Often they first applaud the work of various folks in the movement and then offer a word of caution against the dangers that, may or may not be real right now, but could be if certain paths are followed without enough foresight.

The profs affirm the health and balance that the emerging movement is bringing to the many parts of Christianity. Perhaps a conversation of this level coming from this corner of evangelicalism will spur on some more responsible debate from others in that tradition.

HT: TSK

Tags: emerging, emergent, christianity, theology

The Top Ten Paradoxes That Will Rule the Future – by Len Sweet
I’ve heard it stated somewhere that Len is a gateway drug into the emerging converstation.

Here is a collection of a few Emerging Taxonomies that have surfaced over the last while, starting with one of the latest:

Four Models of Emerging Churches by C. Wess Daniels
His four categories/families/networks are Deconstruction, Pre-Modern, Open Anabaptism, and Foundationalist.

Five Streams of the Emerging Church by Scot McKnight
“Key elements of the most controversial and misunderstood movement in the church today”
You simply must be following along at Scot’s Jesus Creed blog. Absolute must reading.

Emerging Church – Three Classifications by Darrin Patrick
Disclaimer from Patrick:

Now, let me be clear that these classifications are only so helpful. For instance, many emerging attractional types also do a ton of incarnational ministry. Likewise, many incarnational emerging types are not opposed to large group worship gatherings. Also, both of these groups love to engage in conversations with regard to theology, church and culture. These classifications are simply my attempt to help bring clarity for those who are peeking over the fence and trying to understand the emerging church. I know my categories are not perfect, but I hope they are helpful for those who are seeking to understand the emerging church.

Finally, and for my own amusement, here is Scot’s series on the Kingdom of God, condensed here because Scot makes you do far too much scrolling to find the pieces to his series. The man is an absolute monster of a blogger!

The Keys to the Kingdom
Introduction
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10

I will add to this list as Scot continues the series.

Tags: emerging, emergent, kingdom, paradox

Are many of our fears about falling out of truth, or falling into sin seeping out of our fear of God disposing of us? Do we have a fear of God casting us off like unwanted children because of our human examples of imperfect parents? Are our retaliations and disavowing of God simply an attempt to beat this mean and unfaithful God to the punch?

Adam, Yoani and Mike are off to Nicaragua this weekend!

From Adam:

Hi Everyone!

Yoani, Mike (our cameraman), and I will leave with the Innerkip Mission of Hope group early Monday morning from Pearson Int’l in Toronto, lay over in Atlanta and then head on to Nicaragua! Although we’re still a few hundred dollars short of our full needs for funding for this trip, through some creative thinking and some steps of faith, we’ve managed to come up with some arrangements so that this trip will go forward! Thank you to everyone who has given toward the trip - without your generosity this would not be happening.

We’ve got a blog/informational site up which we’ll try our best to update while we’re on the road. We’ll also put updates there after the trip as we work to get the Christian Trade Mission project up and running. You can also now sign up for our bonafide newsletter. Please sign up for our newsletter using that page if you’d like to get continual updates.

We’d appreciate your prayers, and if you could remember especially my wife Autumn and little baby Ebony who I’m leaving back here in Canada, for their peace of mind and safety while I’m gone. Please forward this to whoever you might think would be interested (or to whoever you forwarded previous emails, if you did.) Thanks! I’ll talk to you guys again in two weeks!

Tags: missional, mission, coffee, fair trade

73% Geek

Blogged with Flock

When I was in high school my geo/history teacher wouldn’t let me do an independent study on Communism because as he said, “It doesn’t work”. For him, that box had already been explored and declared DONE.

Here we go again. Is it done? Are we there? Why are we talking about this stuff still? Who is even talking about this stuff still? Why do we care? I just do stuff now.

The Emerging… term refers to so many things that I don’t even know what it is I am supposed to be tired of anymore.

Many are blogging about and linking to this question by Kester Brewin.

I side with Tony Campolo when he cautioned Tony Jones, “Do not EVER emerge. Always be emerging” (or something like that)

How arrogant of us to say the fad is done? Every day there are folks who are discovering a new (for them) paradigm and are searching for those with whom they can wrestle through it. There are people emerging constantly. What do we say to them? “Oh, sorry. Talking about emerging and post modernism was so 2006. I don’t talk about that anymore. You should just go do stuff now.” If some of us found extreme encouragement in the simple conversation about it all, how dare we reject the conversation with those who are stepping out into a new world for the first time. Or say that it is not ‘popular’. I know conversation is different than blogging.

Sounds like:
“Pshaw.. you sing praise and worship songs? Didn’t you know that the worship war is over? We just do stuff now”

…

Less cynical now.. here is a thought. A lot of different people fell in together when E——-g Christians began to congregate. Pastors, not-pastors, social workers, historians, anarchists, theologians, etc. Now some of those folks have dealt with their similar questions and have gone back to where they were to work and incorporate their new ideas and habits. Excellent. That’s kind of the point. My fear is that we may be tempted to close up the boxes we opened up a short while ago. Maybe the best thing we can do is leave the boxes open. Never try to end the conversations.

Or maybe I am just paranoid that – as I head back to college this year with a massive collection of stuff to explore – I will receive some sort of cold shoulder from academics that already touched the stuff and won’t feel inclined to let one more person touch it. Or maybe I’m just still bitter about my highschool teacher.