Jul 19
Apparently, I have been given a Versatile Blogger Award by Chris Brundage. There are three responses I am to make after receiving a VBA: 1) Thank the giver of the award and link to them. 2) Tell readers seven things about yourself. 3) Confer this prestigious award upon someone else. Read more
This morning, I noticed with interest that Holy Post, the National Post‘s religion blog, has decided to disable comments on their posts for a while due to the bad behaviour of commenters (curiously, comments are allowed on the post announcing that comments will no longer be allowed!). Read more
Over the last few weeks I have noticed a feeling of unsettledness and mild disorientation as I begin my morning ritual of coffee and a trip through my news reader/aggregator. At last count, I have over 130 subscriptions to various blogs and news sites, some of which are (incredibly) updated 3-4 times daily. I have no idea if this is a “normal” amount of information for the technologically-savvy to wade through on a daily basis in our brave new cyber-world, but the sheer volume of words I make some attempt, however minimal, to regularly keep up with is proving increasingly unwieldy. Read more
I preached my thirty-sixth sermon yesterday, which, in and of itself, is not a particularly momentous number or occasion, but which nonetheless, was an experience that provoked a bit of reflection. Preaching is a practice that has taken some time for me to grow into. I still find it incredibly odd that people actually entrust me with twenty minutes of their precious time on Sunday morning. And I often think that God has an incredible (or incredibly weird?) sense of humour in sticking the introverted kid who talks too fast and stutters too much in front of a microphone every Sunday. Read more
A little later this month, my wonderful wife and I will mark our 15th wedding anniversary. In some ways, it seems like a lifetime ago that a fresh-faced 19 and 20 year old walked down the aisle of a church in small-town southern Alberta to make a commitment that we scarcely understood, but have grown into together. We’ve spent over half our lives together now, which is a marvellous thing. I doubt and second-guess many things in life, but the decision to spend my life with Naomi is not among them. She is one of God’s best gifts to me. Read more
One of the things WordPress’s comprehensive stats page gives navel-gazing blogger-types like myself the opportunity to do is observe as certain “milestones” come and go in the life of their blog. Recently, the 4000th comment came through here, and I am coming up on 400 posts in the nearly four years I have spent in the blogging world. This may be a testimony to my stubbornness and persistence (or egotism!) more than anything else, but it’s still kind of neat to track how this forum has evolved over its lifespan. Read more
In just under a month, an interesting “first” will be taking place in Raleigh, NC. Big Tent Christianity: Being and Becoming the Church is a conference/conversation being held to talk about what it is that unites followers of Jesus from a broad range of contexts and perspectives and how we can live and work and talk together in a spirit of cooperation, respect. It is intended to reflect a willingness to learn from rather than shout at/about one another in this crazy thing called the church. It is an attempt to come together under the “big tent” of the body of Christ and to recognize that the big tent is more important than the little tents that we are, perhaps, more familiar and comfortable with. Read more
The other day I was visiting a blog I admire and spent some time wandering around the “Archives” section. It occurred to me that many blogs have a lot of good stuff that is buried in the archives—unceremoniously consigned to the cyber-scrap heap, as it were. So, as way of addressing this “problem” (and because everyone who writes thinks that the stuff they produce is incredibly important and worth preserving in perpetuity), I have created a “Favourites” page that can be accessed here and, more consistently, from the bottom of the header above. Read more
Well, summer is here and the posting around here continues to be somewhat sparse. This week I am in the Vancouver area attending Celebration 2010, our Mennonite Brethren denomination’s 150th birthday party. I have been spending the week with people from around the world learning more about MB identity and celebrating the ways in which God has worked in our collective story. Read more
Sometimes I (somewhat hypocritically) lament the limitations of the blogging world, the kind of discourse it does/does not promote, the nastiness and/or triviality that can creep in, etc, but there are many good things about blogging as well! And one of these good things is discovering thoughtful and intelligent writers and thinkers out there whose reflections are all brought together into blog networks (I have thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the CC Blog Network, for example). Read more
Apr 22
A friend sent this to me earlier in the week, and I thought it was simply too good not to share. It’s been making the rounds in the blogosphere, but on the off-chance you haven’t seen it, here is John Cleese with the benefits of extremism. Read more
Philip Clayton and Harvey Cox both have new books out and they are taking them out on tour. One of the blog tour stops will be here, but as you can see below they will be making their rounds over the next month until they wrap things up in Montreal at the American Academy of Religion‘s annual meeting. There they will be joined by an illustrious panel including Eric Gregory, Bruce Sanguin, Serene Jones, Frank Tupper, and Andrew Sung Park to share a ‘Big Idea’ for the future of the Church. These ‘Big Ideas’ will be video taped and shared, so be on the look out for live footage from the last night of the tour. Read more
From the “on the off chance you’re interested” file: Today this blog was officially welcomed into the fold of the Christian Century Blog Network: Read more
A few months ago, I came across this picture on Gil’s blog and had a good chuckle. There is much that is true about this caption. Blogs are a dime a dozen, and most vastly overestimate both the scope of their influence and the significance of their content. I printed the picture off and it hangs beside my desk as an omnipresent reminder of the perils of blogging. Read more
Ever since I switched to the WordPress template I am currently using, I have had occasional issues with the order comments appear in. I thought I had solved the problem by allowing “nested” comments. This seemed to make the comments appear in the proper order and allowed for the possibility of keeping responses to this or that particular comment grouped together. I thought this might make it easier to track the flow of conversations—especially on some of the longer comment threads. Read more
Mar 10
I’ve been sticking with the same WordPress template for quite a while now, but some have told me that the font is a little on the small side and it’s difficult to read. I’ve tried a few other templates to try to get a more readable look but nothing’s really impressed me. The latest template from WordPress came out today so I thought I would give it a try
This one seems a bit easier to read to me, plus I think a few of the changes are kind of cool as well. On the down side, it’s a bit plainer and the picture I had on the header of the previous template (which I quite like) doesn’t work as well with this one. I’m going to keep tweaking things, but in the meantime I thought I would try this one for a week or so and seek your input on this weighty matter. Is the new template better or easier to read? Was the old one even that difficult, from your perspective? Is this a trivial topic entirely unworthy of your consideration? I’m all ears…
Ever since I entered the weird and wonderful world of blogging I’ve been utterly vexed by my inability to come up with a good name for this site. As fascinating as my name is as a title, I couldn’t help but think that perhaps I might come up with something just a bit snappier and more compelling, a bit more indicative of the kind of stuff people might expect to find here, a bit less dull and unimaginative… Read more
I’m providing the following link to Ben Witherington‘s recent post about blog etiquette. I’m not doing this because I feel that discussion and debate on this blog has been particularly rancorous or uncivil or anything like that. Far from it.
I have, however, had a few recent attempts to post comments anonymously. Here I am in agreement with Dr. Witherington’s “First Commandment”—if you can’t at least identify yourself in some way and stand behind a comment you wish to make public, then it’s not going to appear here. Again, this is not a common occurrence by any means, but clarity on these matters is always better than confusion.
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Rumblings 