edgy Christian art show

CT Weblog: Some May Be Offended by Biola Exhibit on Reaching Culture
Picked up on an LA Times article (2/15/03) about an interactive exhibit titled ‘The Recovery of Ritual: The Spiritual Quest of the Post-Boomer Generations‘ at Biola University exploring challenges that churches face in attracting younger worshipers. The interactive exhibit, which will be on display through February 21st, is a joint research project by two So.Cal. professors, Biola’s Richard Flory and USC’s Donald Miller. An interactive CD and web site are forthcoming. What may be offensive is that the art installation has a small electric train with “Facts” as its engine, “Faith” as the second car, and “Feeling” as the caboose, depicting the metaphor of Campus Crusade’s “Four Spiritual Laws,” which may be one of the “outdated tracts or pamphlets on how to become a Christian”.

pondering discussion boards

pondering whether to participate more actively in one web-based discussion board, where I?ve already registered, http://forums.crosswalk.com/, http://forums.christianity.com, http://www.growthtrac.com/boards/, http://www.modelminority.com, http://forums.yellowworld.org/, http://www.regenerator.com/conversations/, or to occasionally drop in on each and every one of them? thing is, I don?t want to be loggin? in those boards every day, and yet, the good conversations (read: those I?m interested in) only show up every once a while. Thus my preference for mailing-list / listserv-driven discussions, so they get delivered to my mailbox, a la content pushed to me, instead of retrieved by me after I login.

judgmental, hypocritical, & boring

An oldie but goodie- I had been a sneezer of an ideavirus for the past year that the leading adjectives that non-Christians use to describe Christians are: judgmental, hypocritical, and boring. Who wants to be around people like that?! That’s mostly punditry I heard somewhere I can’t remember, but it sure feels true, sad, but true. It helps a little bit to substantiate it, and let the statistics speak. So here it is, from a 1992 survey done in Charlotte NC by Mecklenburg Community Church. One basic question: “Why don’t you go to church?” Number one answer on the survey-says: “Churches have too many problems.” (81%) The reputation of the church among the unchurched is in shambles. It is believed that churches are inflexible, hypocritical, judgmental, and just plain mean. One man in the survey said, “I have enough problems in my life. Why would I go to church and get more?” [published in NetFax with permission of Dr. James Emery White]

holy purple cow!

Leading edge (old term) book Purple Cow by Seth Godin, initially distributed only via a Fast Company article and his web site [hardcover version scheduled for May 2003], and I love his stories of innovation and creativity in the corporate world.. of course, I loved the package that the book came in; I?m seeing more and more of Moore?s idea diffusion curve around (I?d first seen it maybe 3 years ago, and identified myself with the innovators, which means I love ideas, but have the darndest time translating them into best practices).. the one idea I think I have launched is my web site, so for what that?s worth, there you go. I quote now from Page 123:

Here?s a great Google story I heard from Mark Hurst: It turns out that the folks at Google are obsessed with the email they get criticizing the service. They take it very seriously. One person writes in every once in a while, and he never signs his name. According to Marissa Meyer at Google, ?Every time he writes, the e-mail contains only a two-digit number. It took us a while to figure out what he was doing. Turns out he?s counting the number of words on the home page. When the number goes up, like up to 52, it gets him irritated, and he e-mails us the new word count. As crazy as it sounds, his e-mails are helpful, because it has put an interesting discipline on the UI team, so as not to introduce too many links. It?s like a scale that tells you that you?ve gained two pounds.?