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the richardson clan welcomes a new boy to the family. it's argueable if we needed more boys, however, we are extremely happy!
Dawson Anthony Allen, b'day: 3/29/06, 10:29am, 7 lbs 8 oz, 20 inches
so i'm an uncle again.. for the fith time. my guess is that dawson is the first child to be able to say their initials before saying mom or dad.. "daa"
spent the day today with some of the youth at the project cure warehouse here in town. there isn't much of an opportunity to work with project cure like we are able too, there are only six or so warehouses in the us. however, just wanted to shine light on this mission for many who may not know of it. you can visit the site for more of the story, but simply put, this is a group that collects donated and retired medical equipment from us hospitals and distributes them to hospitals & clinics in third world countries. i like to support project cure because they really do save lives with their work, providing available equipment to places of need. and they do this with care to not give unnecessary equipment, or stuff that doesn't work, plus they work with the governments to keep the items off the black market.
today was the first time we took the hfumc youth to the warehouse. i think they enjoyed it. we worked most of the day packing boxes of surgery supplies, sorting instruments, and racing pallet movers. that's what i call missions
jonathon is trying to make spin the gauntlet that he threw down last week. we didn't know what to do, so we took some action. now he's spinning the whole thing saying my youth are "misguided by a charismatic yet renegade youth leader."
you knew this would happen. thanks to our insider we were able to infiltrate your compound, rescued our "y-guy" & took yours. the methodists strike back! hahahahahaha!
was away this weekend. erin & i had a wedding to go attend. would have blogged or something anything, but the embassy suites stinks, charging 7 bucks for wired internet. lame!
wedding thoughts: wedding was great. took some pics on erin's camera so if i get ahold of some maybe i'll post them. it was a catholic wedding, a contemporary catholic wedding. still the standard length, but not as formal. the risen Christ on the cross should have tipped us off that this was a little different parish. this was the first wedding of erin's family, so it was fun to party with the new extended fam. if things go similar for our wedding in sept. then we have another crazy clan that will be making a name for themselves.
while i was gone the episcopal diocese of tn didn't elect a bishop again. they've recessed the election till may. again, there was way too much attention payed to blogging the election. not sure if i'll be a part of that. i'm sure they would want me too.
return Y-guy or the guitar gets it!
don't mess with the bull, or the guy that borrows your stuff and never returns it, you get the horns!
i have been in a panic most of this afternoon. not because of the impending wednesday night lent worship service that i was putting together. no, i was in a panic because someone stole our youth rooms "Y Guy." Y Guy is a 5 foot tall steel man who greets our young people and generally holds up signs so that people know where they are going. sometimes he gets dressed up, but never does he leave the cloister that is the third floor youth lounge.
that is, until today.
in walking through the lounge area i looked over to greet Y Guy only to find out he was missing! i was amazed... did Y Guy go to the bathroom? no... he didn't go down to the children's wing.. his clothes were left behing. gasp! was i left behind. did Y Guy figure out the meaning of the book of Ezekiel and i didn't listen.
no, apparently francis assbury and his band of thieves needed money for their extremist methodist group so they kidnapped Y Guy.
i don't negotiate with extremist methodists. i hope Y Guy has been saying his prayers.
this didn't get on the radar of news. but Dr. Lunkim the international editor of the upper room was kidnapped some two months ago for his continued work in the name of Jesus Christ. all the kidnappers wanted was for him to stop spreading the word. he refused, so they continued to hold onto him. through many prayers and vigils he was release this past saturday.
gospel broadcasting mission and the Christians' hour has posted some email correspondence regarding his release. the upperroom has published it's official press release.
being a friend to many at the upper room and gbod i know that they did hold special times of prayer and cared very deeply for dr. lunkim. i am happy to see his safe release.
over at wesley daily, one of the latest posts is by clif guy @ appian way. his thought stemmed from a young person saying that 'you don't exist if you are not on myspace. which, for some youth, it does seem that way. this is the comment that i took notice of though.
It seems that churches are in the earliest stages of exploring this new technology and social phenomenon. So far no one has hit upon a truly effective strategy that they can teach the rest of us.
to this i commented the following:
more thoughts: i had a conversation with clif over email where he asked the 'effectiveness' of the groups that we have set up at myspace. i was honest in saying that was not a big part of myspace for the youth i know. the tennessee methodist group, hendersonville youth group (started by one of our youth), the prayerroom, plus others have only had marginal activity compared to the whole scheme of things. however, i feel the presence there is important and even if we don't get off the charts commenting it is okay, because we are there. we also come back to the fact that the core of this community is the personal page and giving comments back and forth takes precedence over groups & blogging.
side note: i might add that the update alerts only happen for myspace groups if the person who has joined the group has also made a comment or bulletin post. if they have not done that, then they don't know when new comments have been made. some groups get that initial comment by saying 'where is everyone from?' so those myspace youth groups use that as a tool piece.
stuff i've written about myspace: kids don't blog they myspace, my myspace ministry, ministry with myspace.
feel free to visit my 'myspace' @ http://www.myspace.com/gavoweb. if you have questions on myspace you can email me at gavoweb (at) gmail (dot) com.
it feels really great when you get to pastor youth into ministry. i got great feeling of that tonight. today we had our first meeting of our new worship team. the youth initiated it after some months of talking (how this one can be successful, when we can play, etc). i sat in on the beginning of the meeting, gave them what pastor advice i can give in leading people into a place of worship. asked them to dream big for the future of this team, told them we'd dedicate some space for them in 
a miscellaneous room on our youth are & then gave it to them. what happened after that was so much fun to watch. they jumped into talking, ideas, songs, who would play what, and on. then even more amazing, they started doing something. they emptied out 'their new room' of the storage stuff and put it all in my cleaned up storage closet... now i can't get to my worship & ss materials, but that's okay (although it was a bear to climb over an old copier to get to some crayons). then they grabbed all my instruments (i have an assortment of odd instruments plus my guitars), what stuff they brought, & raided the choir directors office (i didn't realize he was in the office, how convenient). a few of them ran off to make copies and before you knew it i had to drag them out of their practice room for youth & then they disappeared back into it after youth to get the songs right. amazing
parents started to show up an hour plus later to see where their kids were. i had to apologize, "sorry, i just didn't have it my heart to stop them." once they saw what was happening they didn't have the heart to either. eventually practice stopped, but not before they got down one new song and planned out the next practice.
man i love it when it feels like you've pastor-ed
hanging with the anglicans again today. today is the day for election of the 11th bishop of the episcopal diocese of tennessee. i get my front seat as we update the website of results. maybe i'll be able to live blog some of the process, progress, or lack there of.
if you could, keep these folks in prayers as they seek this decision out. it's a biggie.
update1: started this morning with Eucharist. it was very nice service although i had business on the brain so it was hard to separate myself enough to worship. i enjoyed the chaplain's words to the congregation, plus the atmosphere of the cathedral is just really great to be in. the first election was just started
update2: we just had noon day prayers. led by the chaplain. there has not been an election yet as we enter into ballot 4. i'm hungry, where is lunch?
update3: word on the street, people really like the chaplain. i do too, he brings a nice spiritual element to what can easily be a political event. no real changes in the electing. eventually we go home.
update4: still no election. here's a picture that sally took of me & sent. i think she tried to get her into it. it's pretty nice in the cathedral, can't complain. people keep coming up to me asking for basketball scores.
update5: thanks to thunder, he reminded me of this blog & it's coverage of the election. i've been amused by all this conversation, but it has pass the time by pretty well.
update6: it's getting late, 
we are at ballot 14, it looks like this will come back next week. some want to say they are at an impass, but with votes still moving, that's crazy talk, or people who are just upset for some reason or another.
this is what you look like when you spend a full day at a bishop's election.
wrap up: to all the epsicopalian friends who have stopped by. thanks for the encouraging words. we tried through this year to have a prayerful and innovative web presence. the blog idea never took, it really is a practice that not all are going to be involved in, and doing official releases are tougher to come by than the random 'stream of consciousness' blog post. the rest of it i thought turned out well. i'm glad many of you enjoyed the live updates. we logged some 1800 visits. unsure how many were unique, regardless, it's a large response, so we were please with that.
addressing the election, i thought it went well logistically. certainly there are breaks in bridges that need people to be willing to fix. being methodist we have truly lay driven churches (how else can you successfully move pastors regularly without the church going downhill) but there is a bit of a mix of lay trying to lead, but also the clergy with authority to lead the laity and church.. it's kinda a strange mix and addresses my thoughts as to why the clergy don't just jump in and backup the laity votes.
it's a late hour now though & church for this youth minister starts eeaaarlly.
shalom
-g
just received a call from one of my youth asking me to speak at their fca meeting tomorrow. they told me they were going to put me on their speaking list as they have gotten tired of the baptist speakers. nothing against baptist speakers, but apparently the leadership of fca chapters schedules the speakers and they just happen to be all baptist, so it's the same people and same theology. sooo, they said, "we want something methodist."
this leaves a very broad topic. what should one talk about that is "methodist?" here's some thoughts on what would be methodist or at the very least, different from baptist
if you all can help me refine my list i'd appreciate it.
update: so i read from the hymnal #558 I am the church. i found it a good start, plus, i sang some of it like my mom, with a high pitch english accent mixed in with a southern drawl too it. made for some laughs. other than being interupted a number of times by announcements, by the way, talent show tickets are on sale in the lobby for 4 dollars, things went as well as well as could be expected explaining a core belief of a church body in 15 minutes. touched on conversion experiences and 'saved' which led into, prevenient, sanctifying, and justifying grace which led into a quick intro into social holiness as i read our stance on war & peace. i felt compelled to mention that sunday is the 3rd year anniversary of the war in Iraq. i think i confused some a time or two bringing up augustine and saying, 'weclome to this day the feast of Saint Patrick' but my kids enjoyed a theology break, one even recorded my singing & then others were surprised to see me walking the halls so early in the morning & mentioned they would come more if they knew it was more balanced. maybe they'll have me back for a next time. till then i'll keep figuring out what 'speaking methodist' is..
guy williams has set up a tournament group on espn.com for us methobloggers to compete. see who has the moxy to take down the rest of the blogosphere! i'm in.
currently i have duke winning it all. however, i feel that will change before tomorrow's tip offs.
another fine evening with the unruly children as shane, cole, jonathon, myself & newbie (to the group) anglican blogger thunder jones gathered for a geeky gathering tonight. missing out, and probably good for them were josh and erin.
we started chatting right away, about what i don't know, but someone said something funny, so jonathon broke out the podcast equipment and started recording. it went downhill after that.
some misguided quotes from the evening, figure out who said them, or if they were said at all.
updates: so jonathon's computer froze, now we won't have the audio file for umc archives. how sad. we'll do it again though, maybe a quieter place. shane will still talk with his hands. cole will say "this will reach more people than my radio show" & jonathon will be relegated to just two mock voices for the evening. thunder, he will have to agree to play nice if he wants to come over again.
today is my day to hang with the anglicans. the episcopal diocese is electing a new bishop, hopefully, this weekend. i've been involved in the process by maintaining a website for them through the process, suppose i'm church sensitive but objective through the process. tomorrow we hangout and test the wi-fi at the cathedral and make sure we are all on the same page for doing communications during the election on saturday. if things go well, they'll have a new bishop. if not, we'll be back next weekend.
you sat in them today. have you ever thought why? well dan has & is still thinking.
i met dan last fall in a brief meeting at ys, he's a real nice guy, with some great blessings
for ministry. however, church traditions might not really one of them, having
spent much of his understanding in a seeker sensitive environment. so i
find his breakdown honest and fun as i've never given them much thought on pews
till now.
This sanctuary is entirely all pews. I have never been part of a church that has pews, so these things are very confusing to me.
In the 14th century the "pews" as we know them were introduced, but were not popularized into church architecture until the 15th century. Wood benches with backs replaced stone seats. Remember, at this time period, the Reformation was happening where the pulpit was introduced as the focal point of church architecture - so the pews then became the places where people took seats to focus on the pulpit and the sermon which was shaped into a certain more formal format at the time of Reformation.
for a few weeks i've been tossing around this ideal of bloggers being a community of modern day prophets. certainly not all blogs are prophetic, some are just news based or offer little interaction, so i omit them as prophetic. but can a blogging community be prophetic?
this ideal started going through my mind; 1. because i'm in disciple 3, which is on the prophets, 2. from a post series from inside mikes head on children's finger-painting. i understand mike's thoughts with that, but i felt and feel that blogging communities can and are becoming so much more than our selves in our own corners of the world. mike's post surfaced from other premises, but it got me thinking.. can our blogging communities act as modern prophets?
how i see it
Old Testament prophets are doing a number of things, but i'm going to simplify them into three. 1. they are history tellers, reminding fallen people where they came from, from God. 2. they are the 'in your face' voices to people who have sinned in other ways acting a sinful life(#1 is possibly putting idols in front of God, so they are similar), 3. they imagine the church that God desired, which people forget or loose touch with through their sinful ways.
New Testament prophets are those that spoke on behalf of the Messiah, they were privy to have an example of Christ & his words to share with a people who had much of the same falleness. they reminded people where they came from, they called them out for their sin, & they imagined a church.
there were other prophets during the OT & NT times who spoke out on God's behalf (yes, some didn't) that communed together although our famous ones are not directly interacting with each other (except for the mentoring type relationship). in similar fashion we are not prophetic on our own, but as a community.
the Christian blogging communities that i'm a part of has many people who do many of the same things. in ways, community members do one or two things better than others, but they all do these things.
there are bloggers that lift up where we came from, our history, our grounding in scripture, the narrative stories of Christ, the prayers of the people, and more. for us methodists we have people who lift up tradition & traditional teachings. some tell stories of the ancient church. more walk through the scriptures to say, 'this is how it was done' or 'this is our ancestry.'
the miss with prophetic blogger in telling their stories is that they all too easily forget where we all came from. we are susceptible to just tell the stories we know and think that they are the only ones. they are the only things that matter... thus we need a community to be prophetic
there are bloggers that take on the world around us and call out sins of society & at times people. yes, there is still argumentation on what behaviors or actions are sin, but when something evil & easily identifiable as not of God comes across the path, the community calls it out.
the miss with prophetic blogger in calling out what is sinful is crossing a line of faithfulness & love into self-preservation & judgment on a person or people. there is little discernment or understanding beyond ones own context that shortens the reach of God within this world... thus we need a community to be prophetic
seems to me that blogger prophets have a potential imagination for the church that renews the church into what God intends. yes, this comes harder as a human condition to deconstruct comes easiest, but once you as a blogger have complained everything, there is no place to move but where God moves you. should you accept it, God will give you the imagination for the church.
the miss with prophetic blogger in our imagination is many of the things that limit ourselves in other aspects. one needs to get beyond the human constructs & contexts to cry out for the church as intended. we need others to help spark our inspiration as God speaks through his people, not just his person, in order to imagine this great church... thus we need a community to be prophetic
as a part of the community i like to believe God has made more of one of his prophets than when i first began this journey into the the blog community. i've been mean to some, convicted by others, loved, uplifted by many, and at times i've been able to reciprocate that for others. as a prophetic community we cry out from a deep imagination of what God wishes, but we are not the lone prophet. thuse we need a community to continue to be a prophetic voice that eventually will be heard.
i leave with a prayer that made me think of this from Saint Collette.
We praise you, Almighty God, for those like Your servant Collette, whom You have sent to call the Church to its true work and to renew its life; Raise up on our day, we pray, men and women whose voice will give strength to Your people and proclaim the reality of Your ways... Amen.
erin returns tomorrow. i'm much happier. this week has been pretty cool with some time alone, but many times i've missed her. not much bloggging tomorrow. shalom, -g
i would make a suggestion to everyone that on March 19th, you have an observance of prayer for the 3 year anniversary of the war in Iraq. 3/19/03 marks the start of combat operations, sometime in May major operations were ceased, but we all know that operations still continue today.
we will hold a prayer vigil as a youth community at hfumc. i'll print out the casualty lists from all sides and then fill a room with those people (www.icasualties.org/oif/). from there we will pray over the soldiers, contractors, civilians, reporters, etc. our vigil might be moved to the 26th, as we might start this process with some words from my bro & some laity who are educated in aspects of war through experience & story.
this isn't a protest a right or wrong thing, this is a tragedy thing, we need to pray for these people, their families & their leaders who are making decisions on their behalfs.
the picture is taken from shawn's blog during his time in Iraq
today is my granddad's b'day. he's 90. this past weekend we had a little party for him. he wasn't feeling his best so he couldn't party like he used too, but it was nice to hang with him.
my dad is much like my granddad, and seeing that i'm much like my dad, i'm probably much like my granddad. so all my words of wisdom in many ways come from him. funny how that happens. he's led a long and fruitful life & continues to today. granny estelle and granddad go around picking up friends for church services, granddad still fishes his pond, & they both entertain us family members when we crash the farm.
granddad doesn't surf the net, i don't even know if he's been on a computer.. so a blog b'day wish is silly. however, i'm proud of my granddad and this is a big milestone that i'm excited for him. happy b'day papa.
as a staff person at hfumc, we were asked to help lead one of the book studies our church is going through during lent. go figure, there was a request for some online studies. i'm now one of the leaders of the Lent Book Study Blog.
my concern is two-fold with this. 1. getting other church members in the habit of interacting with a blog 2. getting people to get over a phobia of feeling that they don't have something legitimate to write. i think those are possibly the big obstacles for new communities developing around a blog.
so if you are a typepad user as i am you know that you have these 6 or so feature blogs at the bottom of the login. this month they are featuring malcolm gladwell. he's a published author for two books & the new yorker. honest to say i've never heard of him before, but i've really liked what he's been bloggin on, plus this speech that jay posted about is pushing me to say, i'm really liking malcolm.
this morning i finished of a little bit of heaven, and i'm somewhat broken inside. you see, i love milo's ice tea. it really is some of the best stuff on earth. milo's is a local hamburger franchise in alabama which serves up these great burgers that are covered with some gravy sauce. not for the weak of stomach for sure. for those with southern eating experience, think hamburger steak with onions and gravy on a bun, served with fries and a drink of sweet tea. it's awesome. for years i couldn't get milo's tea except when i went back to bama, now they have teamed up with a bottling company and distribute around the south which means i can keep on getting a little taste of heaven without having to steal it from my parents home (which is what i did with this recently expired gallon).
in the presence of tom albin, the dean for the upperroom chapel & other titles associated with the gbod, he asked a group of us "how does it feel to change the world?" to this i said.. "holy crap!"
today and tomorrow; kara, ciona, jonathon, myself & others with the upperroom are reconvening to plan for the training, promotions, and other aspects of getting out the youth version of 'companions in Christ' titled "the way of the pilgrim."
jonathon opened us up with a devotion. he read from where God was conversing with Abraham. Abraham had yet to have Isaac & was content to just bestow his house to one of his servants. God though said, oh no, i've got a child planned for you and your descendants will out number the stars. as i was in prayer on this i was contemplating all the many people who could be affected by such a resource in shaping ones spiritual life.
we got into the planning and the talking, considering all the varied aspects associated with putting together a training for various audiences. it was fun & tough at times, sometimes creativity just doesn't flow, only bringing you back to the same old stuff. we worked through those things and we will get back into it tomorrow.
over lunch tom came to join us, as did many others. tom stopped our general conversation and asked, "how does it feel to change the world?" for me this jumped out.. "holy crap!" what we are doing is going to affect the world? i knew it could really help folks out, but the world? tom went on to tell of how companions will move into various areas of the world, the far east, south america specifically.. wow!
now i don't expect "the way of the pilgrim" to outsell 'davinci code' or even 'left behind' but it should. imagine if those called Christian were to commit to practices of prayer, scripture reading, holy vocation, pilgrimage, and community in spirit of Christ to not just be talking points or gains of knowledge, but to be transformative. we'd have some serious counter cultural behaviors, not activism, but more voices & hands that act in ways against norms fed by an ungodly framework.
will 'the way of the pilgrim' change the world? it can, God has blessed this piece of work, & we're seeing it as something special. i'll just look to the stars and know that with God's blessing this effort, the world will change numbers around the stars in the sky.
i know i've mentioned this with clif before, so i'll say the same things and a bit more.
"our churches" don't get invovled in this because of the quick percepetion of pedophiles, perversion/sexuality, vulger language, & secular-ness of the community. churches would rather say, 'don't go there' or 'your not allowed' than to say, "this is a glimpse of our society and we should be ministering amongst this world and not just watching idly." plus we know what happens when all we do is tell kids what not to do.
a group of us ministers have been online with myspace for well over a year now doing commenting, blogging, creating alternative groupings to model what youth & young adults can do.. it is here to stay until another community can pull them away.
why is this so popular? one only has to look at the transition from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, plus if you read the book 'second family' you will get a glimpse of this too. how, 1. young person culture seeks out community 2. they are okay with finding it online. first it happened with emails, second it happened with instant messenging & chat, messageboards would take hold, but with community sites that allow for organic growth and not just a static content, people get excited. the nature that someone has come over to your 'home' and dropped some messages. you can instantly alert all your friends to new pictures. this is community for these kids & young persons.
why is myspace so popular? i'd say that there is a commitment to being constantly updating as a software. they add new features all the time. since i started they've added rich text editors, the 'top8' list, comment moderation, event invitations, teacher gradings, professor & school gradings, & others have developed cascading style sheet scripts specifically for myspace to give kids the look that is personable to them. the word of mouth has taken it places too. but there is also an element that this is being done all by 'tom' everyones first friend. the actual myspace was bought by fox some months ago, but they've preserved the cult culture feel of being sorta crappy looking, certainly far away from slick corporate. i think that's a subconscious alure as well.