Wired Parish Blog

Technodiction

1. I'm addicted  to shiny things.
2. I HAVE to have one of these.

Granted the name is ridiculous (Chumby???), but it looks ever so cool. I'm not 100% sure of what it does, but from all I can see, it looks glorious.

A Twisted Sister Christmas

If you're looking for after-Christmas Christmas music, look no further than here. You may think that Dee Snider singing 'O Come All Ye Faithful' would be terrible. As it turns out, that's a VERY charitable position to take. But come on, don't you need this in your music library?

After watching the 'video on YouTube that I am NOT recommending you watch because you'll likely be offended, and even if you're not, you probably should be,' I must say that Dee looks almost identical to the way he did back in the 80s. Thank you makeup and plastic surgery.

Plaid

Just finished an interview with Tim Bednar for the Church 2.0 podcast seminar we're launching in January. If you're involved in regular ministry--pastor, volunteer, whatever--you need to check out a software project he's working on called Plaid.

Christmas and Atheists (Language Warning: Read at Your Own Risk)

Being in a philosophy department means routinely running up against Christian/Atheist/Agnostic issues. That gets a huge thumbs up from me. I love it. But because it happens so regularly, all of us have a rather lighthearted approach to the whole thing. I'm sure someone outside our very tiny world would be mildly offended at our glibness from time to time, but we dig it.

I say that to say this: I got an email today from one of my Christian friends in the dept. It was sent to 2 Christians (including myself), an atheist, and an agnostic. I give it to you with the only alterations being some of the profanity 'bleeped,' explanatory notes where needed, and names being changed to protect the guilty.

Language is a bit rough by church standards. Mild by philosophy department standards. Obviously tongue-in-cheek with a decent dose of thoughtfulness thrown in. I'd love your thoughts . . .

"As we have seen so many times, North [the atheist] and I have proven once again that if two people are on absolute ends of the spectrum, they actually meet on the other side (is this sounding continental?... I could only hope to sound that pretentious).

OK, some quick background.  North has taken the view that it is offensive to call the philosophy party a 'Christmas' party.  Han takes the line that he simply should not be offended.  And then North shreds his silly scrawny blond a** to shreds to the enjoyment of all present (and those of us not present as we later hear the story).   

So, I have been mulling this over for a bit and recently decided that I agree with North (as is often the case) but for entirely different reasons (as is often the case).  Here is my line:

Why in the h*** should we Christians have to share our great

Holiday

with atheists?  Only those of us who have been washed in the blood of the lamb should get to use the word 'Christmas'.  That means that the rest of the world of non-Christians are forbidden from enjoying our great holiday in any way, shape, or form.  So, no St. Nick (the early church father who punched out one of the heretics at an early church council meeting), no lights, no trees.  If you ain't a Born again, fundamentalist Christian, you don't get s*** for Christmas.  So, 'Christmas' and everything associated with it is simply off limits for all atheists, pseudo-Christians, and pansy-a** liberal Christians.  If you don't believe that Jesus physically rose from the dead, no Christmas for you (in soup Nazi voice).    

Just think how this will benefit our economy with 70 to 80 percent of the U.S population actually working this week and taking no time off. 

Just thought I would pass this on to you.

So it is spoken; so let it be!

"

The Spirit of Competition

I'm not quite sure what to say about this. The runner failed a gender test and lost the medal said runner won in a competition. I don't really have any commentary, but I have a couple of questions:

1. Did you not think you were going to get caught on this???
2. Did you have ANY satisfaction winning the medal if you knew you weren't racing against the same gender???

I Love Reggie McNeal

I sitting in one of our 'talent rooms' in our studio. Just got through with an interview, and I'm responding to emails here rathter than in my office.

Next door, Reggie McNeal is recording a few 'casts. (Actually, he's in South Carolina right now, but--yeah, I'll spare you the details of how our recording process works. His voice is next door. He's half a country away.)

Reggie is an absolute trip. He could be reading a cookbook, and I would love listening to him. It's RARE that I listen to one of his 'casts and go more than 3 or 4 minutes without laughing, and his insights into leadership and church life are really unparalleled. He is a tremendous component of what we're doing around here, and I'm deeply grateful to have him on board.

If you're not listening to Reggie, you need to!

A Wired Parish Christmas List

My friends know me as an inveterate sneezer--in the Seth Godin sense. Not in the allergy sense. I'm always recommending things--music, books, podcasts, restaurants, surgical procedures, etc.  The good news is that I also get asked for recommendations; so apparently my taste isn't completely hopeless.

So in the interest of spreading a little Christmas cheer--or a few Christmas viruses, if you will--here are my Christmas Sneezes for 2006. To make it to the list, a recommendation had to fit two criteria:

• I dig it.
• There's a decent chance you've never heard of it.

Music:

Blue Merle - 'Burning in the Sun.' Think Coldplay meets Dave Matthews with a dash of the Counting Crows.

The New Pornographers - Anything they do, but 'Twin Cinema' is particularly wonderful. My favorite band of the last year BY FAR. 'The Bleeding Heart Show' from 'Twin Cinema' is simply spectacular. And in spite of the name, they're music is actually quite clean.

Tina Dico - 'In the Red.' Tina sings a couple of tracks for Zero 7, another of my favorite bands.

Derek Webb - 'Mockingbird .' Not only is this a tremendous cd, it's free!

Books:

How (Not) to Speak of God - Peter Rollins. My friend Tony Jones said the other day, 'I refuse to talk to any critics of the emerging church unless they read this book first.' Short, rich, GREAT.

Divine Nobodies - Jim Palmer. I'm sure he'll get sick of hearing it, but he's the next Don Miller. Or maybe Don Miller is the next Jim Palmer.

Getting Things Done - David Allen. Don't ask questions. Just go buy it. Then name your first child after me out of gratitude.

DVDs:

'Arrested Development' - The. Best. Sitcom. Ever. It's somewhere north of PG-13 in its content; so be forewarned.

No other DVDs will be recommended until you see 'Arrested Development.' No exceptions.

Enjoy!

Old Age and Hair Bands

Conversation between Megan and Jay about different bands at the studio today:

Jay: 'Do you like Whitesnake?'

Megan: 'Whitesnake? Isn't that an 80's band? I think my dad listens to them.'

Jay: (then turns up 'Is This Love?' to a staggeringly high volume)

Hero Worship

I have the privilege of interacting with lots of wonderfully cool writers and speakers through Wired Parish. Some of them are not necessarily national names (yet). Some of them are. Regardless of their visibility, I RARELY get nervous interviewing or interacting with them.

However, today is different.

We have a separate project we're developing in the sports ministry arena; so I interview sports figures on a fairly regular basis in preparation for launching that, and today I get to interview Pat Summerall. THE Pat Summerall. One half of the Pat Summerall/John Madden announcing tandem. The Pat Summerall who calls all my Madden football video games. The Pat Summerall who has the smoothest broadcasting voice and demeanor of all time.

I could go on and on about his accomplishments, but suffice it to say I am NERVOUS about this interview. I'm praying I don't degenerate into the Chris Farley character from Saturday Night Live . . . 'Hey, Pat, do you remember the time . . .?  That was awesome.'

UPDATE: I did not in fact screw anything up in the interview. It went swimmingly. And yes, I did say, 'Pat, I just want to get this out there at the beginning. I want to thank you that in all my years of playinig Madden football, you never once criticized my playcalling. Thank you.' I thought that really set the tone of professionalism that I was shooting for.

Pastors and Cultural Literacy

My friend Kent Schaffer at churchrelevance.com  has some great polling data on the cultural literacy of pastors relative to congregation members. On average pastors are 8 percentage points less aware than congregation members in 12 areas of popular culture. (Actually, the percentages listed are for those who said they were 'very informed' about the area in question.)

The range was from being 7 percentage points more aware about politics (36% v 29%) to 23 points less aware about the internet (20% v 43%).

I'm not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, I'm glad my pastor isn't Googling for the latest pictures of Britney Spears sans undies. On the other, is it a good thing if he's not aware of the Michael Richards fiasco?

At the end of the day, I think we should want our pastors to be very aware of culture, not so they can mindlessly enjoy 'E! True Hollywood Story' but so they can parse culture through the lens of the Scriptures and speak prophetically against culture when appropriate.