Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
Friday, July 18, 2008
Tracking Lambeth...
The Lambeth Conference (Official Anglican Bishops Potluck and Social) has officially kicked off in Canterbury. It's certainly a historic one. I'm using this as my tracking hub. Here's the official site. +Gene Robinson's blog should make for some great reading across the next few weeks. A dialogue on the conference is starting to gain steam at Anglimergent.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Today we had a hit from someone in Germany who searched "Giant Boobs" on Google
I knew bringing Shayne on board would increase traffic.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Why I Invited Shayne Along
(Me in the Christian Ghetto with +++Jefferts Schori)Two brothers: the priest and the agnostic: sounds like a great hook for a Christian blog with marketing potential. Indeed, part of the motivation in inviting my brother to begin posting on this generally religiously focused site was that I want to trick more people into reading it. I just wanted to put that on the table for you up front so you don't feel betrayed when you find out the truth, that we both want internettention.
The point isn't to become the next successful corporate bloggers though. I just read in the paper that the pros log 16 hour days and suffer from chronic exhaustion, and I don't want that. Rather, as this site has developed a small bit of regular readership, it struck me that it could actually be turned into something more interesting than just another emerging church blog. My brother being much funnier than me, and having a much different approach to faith and life, offers a good counterpoint to my endless blabbering complaints about my privileged middle-class Christian existence. As it is, I spend enough time in the Christian ghetto that I don't need to do more of it online. Or, rather, I at least need to work on bussing in some of the kids from the other side of the tracks to even my experience out a bit. I've always liked challenges and dialogue, and I think it will be great to see what happens as we start to develop an ongoing record of our varied, and extremely important, views on life--me posting as the liberal Christian in Seattle, he as the liberal agnostic in C-Bus, Ohio. My hope is that we'll become the Hannity and Colmes of the blogosphere, providing at least as many laughs and as much important insight into life as they do.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Thank God, another blog
Hi Folks,
The internet doesn't have enough clutter in it, so I decided to start another blog. Actually, I'm replacing an old blog that I've kept on myspace, because myspace creeps me out, and because it's generally too difficult to access.
For those that followed that blog, the topics will pretty much remain the same--complaints mostly, like most blogs, and my all-important insight into the nature of life, religion and truth. I'll also be chronicaling the ups and downs of my discernment for the Episcopal Priesthood, which is actually the topic of this first blog.
I actually have to complain that I'm pretty much fed up with that process right now. To help you understand why, here's a brief chronicle of my ministry discernment to this stage:
Age 17: Feel called to ministry
Age 18: Attend Evangelical College, majoring in Biblical Studies and Theology
Age 19: Volunteer Summer working with youth group
Age 20: Get paid $150/week for summer working 50 hour weeks with youth group
Age 21: Start to feel conflicted about ministry call and Evangelical Faith
Age 22: Graduate, generally avoid ministry work as Customer Service Rep at Best Western Signature Inn, Louisville, KY
Age 23: Move to New Zealand to get Masters in Theology, try out Anglicanism as possible salve for spiritual angst, work in the Anglican Diocese of Dunedin as Youth Ministry Educator
Age 24: Make decision to pursue the Anglican priesthood
Age 25: Share decision with others, have it supported, learn that it would take about two years to get ordained in NZ w/my experience and education. Recieve Theology Masters, move back to the US. Contact diocese of Western Washington (where my wife and I moved) to talk to someone about ordination, get stiff armed by the diocesan office ("Look at the Website for information on the Canons", read "we don't have time to talk to you about this"). Find out the process of achieving ordination is something like 7 years in the American Episcopal Church
Age 26: Get confirmed as Episcopalian despite reservations. Begin discernment in parish community. Jump through hoops. Get assigned mentoring priest. Have process go generally well--feel I'm progressing nicely and on schedule.
Age 27: Get within a month or so of next step towards ordination (assignment of "personal discernment committee"--another group of people to examine me and officially put their stamp of approval on me, so I can be passed on to a bishop for yet another stamp). Find out with less than a week's notice that mentoring priest has been abruptly fired by community for financial reasons. Find out I'll have to begin again with a new mentoring priest in a community I no longer trust. Await reassignment. Resign myself to an added 6 months to a year for discernment process. Curse decision to not pursue ordaination in New Zealand, (which I'm convinced is the better world that we're all looking for).
As you can see, it's already been a 10 year process, and I'm not currently seeing any light at the end of the tunnel--despite Church lipservice to desire to make the discernment process transparent and nurturing, and stated desire to draw young leaders to the church to help engage people 35 and under. Here's my extrapolation into the future of my discernment process (probably colored a little bit by the fact that I stayed up all night last night).
Age 28: Continue with discernment, begin taking university classes (again).
Age 29: Finally move on to Seminary for a year or two. Move across country to do so, short-circuiting ministry involvement in home diocese, wife's career path. Get disgruntled with the establishment nature of the Episcopal Church, lack of missional vision, understanding of anyone below middle class tax bracket.
Age 30: Nervous breakdown and recovery, begin again at beginning of discernment process.
Age 32: Give up, take job as Customer Service Representative at Best Western. Give up on Church. Start my own. Begin referring to myself as Brother Bishop Timothy.
The internet doesn't have enough clutter in it, so I decided to start another blog. Actually, I'm replacing an old blog that I've kept on myspace, because myspace creeps me out, and because it's generally too difficult to access.
For those that followed that blog, the topics will pretty much remain the same--complaints mostly, like most blogs, and my all-important insight into the nature of life, religion and truth. I'll also be chronicaling the ups and downs of my discernment for the Episcopal Priesthood, which is actually the topic of this first blog.
I actually have to complain that I'm pretty much fed up with that process right now. To help you understand why, here's a brief chronicle of my ministry discernment to this stage:
Age 17: Feel called to ministry
Age 18: Attend Evangelical College, majoring in Biblical Studies and Theology
Age 19: Volunteer Summer working with youth group
Age 20: Get paid $150/week for summer working 50 hour weeks with youth group
Age 21: Start to feel conflicted about ministry call and Evangelical Faith
Age 22: Graduate, generally avoid ministry work as Customer Service Rep at Best Western Signature Inn, Louisville, KY
Age 23: Move to New Zealand to get Masters in Theology, try out Anglicanism as possible salve for spiritual angst, work in the Anglican Diocese of Dunedin as Youth Ministry Educator
Age 24: Make decision to pursue the Anglican priesthood
Age 25: Share decision with others, have it supported, learn that it would take about two years to get ordained in NZ w/my experience and education. Recieve Theology Masters, move back to the US. Contact diocese of Western Washington (where my wife and I moved) to talk to someone about ordination, get stiff armed by the diocesan office ("Look at the Website for information on the Canons", read "we don't have time to talk to you about this"). Find out the process of achieving ordination is something like 7 years in the American Episcopal Church
Age 26: Get confirmed as Episcopalian despite reservations. Begin discernment in parish community. Jump through hoops. Get assigned mentoring priest. Have process go generally well--feel I'm progressing nicely and on schedule.
Age 27: Get within a month or so of next step towards ordination (assignment of "personal discernment committee"--another group of people to examine me and officially put their stamp of approval on me, so I can be passed on to a bishop for yet another stamp). Find out with less than a week's notice that mentoring priest has been abruptly fired by community for financial reasons. Find out I'll have to begin again with a new mentoring priest in a community I no longer trust. Await reassignment. Resign myself to an added 6 months to a year for discernment process. Curse decision to not pursue ordaination in New Zealand, (which I'm convinced is the better world that we're all looking for).
As you can see, it's already been a 10 year process, and I'm not currently seeing any light at the end of the tunnel--despite Church lipservice to desire to make the discernment process transparent and nurturing, and stated desire to draw young leaders to the church to help engage people 35 and under. Here's my extrapolation into the future of my discernment process (probably colored a little bit by the fact that I stayed up all night last night).
Age 28: Continue with discernment, begin taking university classes (again).
Age 29: Finally move on to Seminary for a year or two. Move across country to do so, short-circuiting ministry involvement in home diocese, wife's career path. Get disgruntled with the establishment nature of the Episcopal Church, lack of missional vision, understanding of anyone below middle class tax bracket.
Age 30: Nervous breakdown and recovery, begin again at beginning of discernment process.
Age 32: Give up, take job as Customer Service Representative at Best Western. Give up on Church. Start my own. Begin referring to myself as Brother Bishop Timothy.
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