I had the delight of meeting Tom and Christine Sine at their Seattle home on Monday. They're both terrific people, and a real delight to be around - gracious and hospitable. We were mainly just meeting for the first time, but we spent some time talking about Tom's new book, due out in early spring, called The New Conspirators.

Related to the book release, Mustard Seed Associates is putting on a really great looking conference by the same name. It'll be Feb. 28-Mar. 1, 2008. They've assembled a really terrific lineup of speakers, from diverse backgrounds and experiences.





Check it out . . . and stay tuned here. We may try to throw together a little shindig at The Purple Door after the conference.

Labels: conference, friends, Seattle

I just noticed that in the Facebook e-mail environment, the spell-checker flags "Facebook" as a misspelled word.

And since I'm talking about it, is it just me, or is Facebook super slow today??

Wow, this has been a heavy set of days for me. Having come off of two conferences last weekend (one of which involved around 12 hours of driving round trip to attend), I've had a heavy school project working - hard work on structuring my dissertation and outlines. Much frustration here. I know the work will pay off, but oi! It's funny, because words and writing and ideas have always been pretty easy for me, but there have been multiple moments this week where I've felt the same as I did in my college chemistry classes - completely stuck. I'm making small breakthroughs, so no worries. I'm just whining.

In better news, we had another teach-in with inter::mission last night. Good times. I made enchiladas, guacamole, and some cinnamon tortilla chips. Tasty, if I must say so myself. Mike Gunn, pastor of Harambee Church in Renton, WA joined us for a discussion of gospel and culture. I really enjoyed that a lot. Mike is skillful at reading culture, as evidenced by his movie reviews over on Hollywood Jesus. His approach to culture is in the tradition of Lesslie Newbigin. He also made reference to Kevin Vanhoozer's book, Everyday Theology . . . though that mention made me sad, as that book has been sitting unread on my desk for the past two or three months . . . even now, it's only about thirteenpointfive inches away from my left elbow, mocking me, taunting me, daring me to lay aside the piles of school books I'm already delinquent on . . . but I digress. Mike hammered the Christian ghetto culture more than the culture of the bigbaduglyworld, which is a no brainer for some of us, but a stunningly new approach for many. All in all, it was another stellar evening at The Purple Door, and another signal that we're continuing to move in a quality direction.

Labels: conference, culture, inter::mission, school, the purple door

On days like today, I haul my tired butt out of bed, and at some point look at myself in the mirror and say, "Dude, you're looking old." Typically, I'm more oriented toward "feeling as old as I think," which is to say, fairly young.

Happily I can say on this Monday morning that I'm tired from having had a weekend of seeing good friends. I spent Thursday evening and Friday morning/early afternoon at the Off The Map Live event. Got to at least touch base with a number of friends and acquaintances that I only see at events like that. It would have been really good to be there longer and relax a little with some friends. But I had to jump in my car with a couple of my younger friends (a.k.a. my staff team) and drive many hours through the dark of night to get to eastern Oregon. We were attending the Northwest Collegiate Ministries fall conference. I'm grateful to have some fun, good hearted, and adventurous people - the road trip was good. Being at the conference was good, too - I respect and enjoy my counterparts in ministry, and I don't get to catch up with them often enough.

At the conference, we had Lauren Winner come and talk through her book, Real Sex. I've not read the book, but I definitely appreciated her perspectives. She debunks many myths we hear in the church about sex, and does so in an intelligent way.

Yesterday afternoon it was back in the car for the road trip home. It's good to be back.

So, while I didn't have my favorite person in the world with me, I had a tiring weekend of rich relationships, all of which I'm thankful for. I would have name dropped specifically who I'm talking about, but I'm too lazy to link them all here. A younger version of me would have done a better job at this.

Labels: campus ministry, conference, friends, travel

In all the buzz and hubbub of the emerging church (a mostly Western/Northern world thing), the voices of the Church Emerging in the global South have not been heard. This is the focus of my school research, so I was delighted to read this:

The rumble of the drums and the joyful voices of our brothers and sisters from the Emerging World are getting louder and louder each minute. With all due respect, dear brothers and sisters from the west and north, you’ve been speaking for quite awhile. Now it is your time to show some humility and listen. [read more]

Good words. May they - and the ears to hear - increase.

Labels: culture, emerging church, Global South, Seattle

It's becoming a sort of default calendar item for me, but it's the first weekend of November, which must mean I'll be at the Off The Map event, this year codenamed Hear, Listen, Connect. I've been so cranking busy over the past few months that I've not had the time to be as involved in some of the behind the scenes stuff as in previous years, but I still love going to these things - mainly for the people I get to see. I won't be able to stay for the whole conference, but I'm sure it'll be fun. I'll definitely miss seeing some friends that aren't making the trip this year, though.

Labels: conference, Seattle