Hacking Christianity :: Rev. Jeremy Smith

Spiderman's Greatest Bible Stories [humor]

2009-07-09T12:01:00.000-05:00

This is by far the best thing I've seen all day. Little did you know that "the Word was with God" really meant "The Webcrawler was with God" and all things came to pass through the Webcrawler.

(click to enlarge)

(hat tip: Unreasonable Faith)

Seeing Communion Again for the First Time

2009-07-07T07:19:00.000-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

As you know, I've recently changed church jobs and ended up in the Plains. Sunday was my first Communion Sunday in a new place. And the culture shock that I had been waiting for finally set in during the Communion liturgy.

You see, in my old parish, we would do communion weekly. While the pros and cons are good to talk about, one negative consequence is that no one wants to read the full UMC liturgy every week. So I would write my own...retaining the proper elements and form for a liturgical sacrament, of course! And since I wrote my own liturgies, I could tweak the theological substance to better reflect the worship message or my parish's theological struggles that I, as the pastor, knew about. I did this for three years.

So imagine my surprise when I read through the United Methodist liturgy in full yesterday. There were several glaring differences between three years of liturgy and the "orthodox" liturgy in the UM Hymnal. I was so struck by it that I thought I would share. While I am a relatively new pastor (three years in my first parish, and seven years of church administrative experience prior to that), I would like to offer the following radical points of departure between what I had been doing and what the "orthodox" liturgy is.

NOTE: Given that I am part of the UM ordination system, I send these liturgies for evaluation yearly. So read them in confidence that while they may not be your theology or "orthodox" theology that they are being reviewed by my peers...which is more than most pastors can say!

Confession and Pardon

UM Hymnal: We confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart. We have failed to be an obedient church. We have not done your will, we have broken your law, we have rebelled against your love, we have not loved our neighbors, we have not heard the cry of the needy.
Hacking Christianity (HX) Liturgy examples: "When we fail to love one another, we obstruct the flow of God's grace given to us to be given to others." "When we fail to love our neighbor, we shut the door in the face of Christ the beggar." "We confess we have not always played our part in confronting the darkness, and bringing the light of Christ to troubled places."

Reflection: There's a conflict between "being" and "doing" in this section. In the UM version, "we have" and "we have not" are statements of being, of existing in a state of sin. In the HX version, "when we" and "we have not always" are statements of doing, of when we do these things, these are the consequences. While I recognize the restrictive nature of writing a communion liturgy for every time and place, I worry about focusing on the "being" and not making connections between "doings": thoughts and effects, actions and consequences, doings and becomings.

Your turn: does the universalizing tendency of "being" in the Communion liturgy or the focused "doing" in the HX Liturgy speak to you more? Why?

Masculine Language

UM Hymnal: Holy Holy Holy Lord, God of Power and Might. Heaven and Earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the Highest.
HX Liturgy: Holy Holy Holy One, God of Power and Might. Heaven and Earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is the One who comes in the name of our God. Hosanna in the highest.

Reflection: In the UM Hymnal liturgy (full version W+T 2), there are 24 references to God as Lord and "He." While I respect the Hymnal is from 1989 and not every church values inclusive language, that's a very high gender:text ratio. There's no need for that in contemporary inclusive churches. Even in the quoted above section that clearly references Christ, there's liturgical ways to do it that keep the reference clear but don't use masculine language.

What do you think? Is there a need for better gender inclusivity in the communion liturgy? Or are those words sacrosanct and women (and men) need to suck it up?

Blood Imagery

UM Words of Institution:
On the night in which he gave himself up for us, he took bread, gave thanks to you, broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said:
"Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me." When the supper was over, he took the cup, gave thanks to you, gave it to his disciples, and said: "Drink from this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant, poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."
HX Liturgy: "On the last night that Jesus had with his disciples, the women and men who had been with him for so many days. He took bread, gave thanks to God, and broke it. He passed it around saying "take, eat, for this is my body." Maybe by that he meant that his body may be broken, and our bodies may be broken, but so long as there are disciples and followers, the body is never truly broken.
When the supper was over, Jesus took the cup, raised it up and gave thanks, and passed it around and said "this is my blood." Maybe by that he meant that he would not be with us in body much longer, but whenever we love one another, forgive one another, do acts of mercy with one another...then Jesus' lifeblood flows through our veins and we are truly incorporated into Jesus' body. Jesus says "every time you do this, remember me."

UM Epiclesis:
"Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here, and on these gifts of bread and wine. Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood...All honor and glory are yours, Eternal Father, now and forever. Amen."
HX Liturgy: "Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here, and on these gifts of bread and fruit of the vine. Make them be for us the bread of life, and the quenching cup of blessing poured out for one and for many for the forgiveness of sins. May they nurture us, may they sustain us, until we gather as broken people around the table again. All honor and glory is yours, O God, now and forever. Amen."

UM Hymnal: "The body of Christ, given for you" and "The blood of Christ, given/shed for you."
HX Liturgy: "the bread of life, given for you" OR "the body of Christ, broken as our bodies are broken" and "the cup of God's love that we share" OR "the love of Christ, given for you"

Reflection: As is perfectly clear here at HX, blood atonement and I are not bunkmates or pen-pals. But what happens if we fudge it in the communion liturgy?

A reflection by Cheryl Magrini at the GBOD questions accommodating children by using non-blood imagery. She acknowledges that children do not have a reference for weird imagery and blood language, but neither have they developed understanding for metaphorical language like "bread of heaven" etc. And if we understand this as a re-enactment, then giving the cliff-notes version of the liturgy is not being authentic to the original giving of bread and cup. She concludes that we should use the traditional language but offer education as to the diversity of what it means.

Those are both powerful critiques but neither point to the underlying pervasiveness of blood atonement in the communion feast. Even though John Wesley clearly supported blood atonement, his atonement theology is much more nuanced and contains elements of ransom and exemplary atonement as well. Why then does the communion table reflect only one?

What do you think? Is there room in the liturgy to create a more nuanced understanding of what Jesus meant by "this is my body" and "this is my blood?"

In closing, let's be clear: I write the above not to say one is better than the other. I'm a simple pastor...the UM Hymnal was written by professional spirit-filled people! I am fully aware the hubris in writing the above as if they can be compared: they are apples and oranges as far as I am concerned.

I'm writing about my experience as a pastor. And so far in my new ministry, nothing is so drastically different as communion. Here's the problem: In my theology, liturgy is the work of the people. While I respect Magrini's statement that different people can get different things from the same evocative liturgy, as the UMC moves closer and closer to weekly communion, it can feel rote and impersonal because it is not the people's language (especially those who value inclusive language and imagery). If liturgy is the work of the people, then does the communion liturgy include the people in it? When will the sabbath be made for humans, and not humans for the Sabbath?

Tough thoughts, and I anticipate some heated discussion about liturgical sacrosanctity (is that a word?) and cafeteria theology. If so, let's discuss the essential issue: can the communion liturgy be made more personal to the congregation? What theological "laws" are broken in doing so? And if the result is absent of masculine language and offers a nuanced understanding of atonement...is it still communion?

Discuss. Welcome to our visitors and thank you for the comments!

Hadouken! [pic]

2009-07-05T21:02:00.002-05:00

Evrenye Fighter :)
Originally uploaded by Hodolomax™

Oh...the memories.

(and for those of you without memories: LINK )

Religious Devotion 2.0

2009-07-05T20:58:00.001-05:00

Just a quick link for today. Take a look at Todd here and think of those iconic pictures and portraits of religious people looking with utter devotion upon saints and holy places. I bet Todd is doing the same thing, looking with awe and fascination upon that which gives him life:

Oh yeah. One thing. He's not looking at Jesus. He's playing Halo.

More photos here: "Game Boys" (hat tip: ysmarko)

New Series: How to Hack the System

2009-07-02T18:57:00.000-05:00

16 months ago we started a new project together: a blog talking about Christianity from a computer and religion nerd's perspective. We called it "Hacking Christianity" and have been tinkering with various Christian systems ever since.

But amidst all the star wars posts and humorous videos, on occasion one may look at the blog entries and perceive there's not much hacking being done. Or is there?

Hacking is simply a hermeneutic: a way of viewing an object. In this case, following the HX Manifesto, we are exposing new or novel interpretations or presentations of Christianity so that they break into people's closed systems of opinions about Christianity. Some are bad hacks which close up people's perceptions further. Some are great hacks which open up new biblical interpretations or allow the Spirit to flow easier. We need to look at what fundamentals are at play in making these hacks work.

Starting July 8th, there will be four weekly entries in a series about what fundamentals are at play in this hacking hermeneutic. We will be comparing classical definitions of "hacking" with hermeneutics with our approach here at HX. You will enjoy it.

Here's a short roadmap of the month:

Defining "Hacking" in the Post-Information Age of Church.
Won't Hacked Systems be broken and unsustainable?
Are Hackers really creating Open Source Theology?
Hacking in community: Where will we end up?

Thoughts at the outset?

Worst Camp Sign Ever [humor]

2009-06-29T22:09:00.001-05:00

There's just so much wrong with this sign from FAILblog:

(1) Terrible way to shorten "Methodist Bible Campground"
(2) It's a "dead end"?

Sigh.

The Church as Shakespeare...ORLY?

2009-06-22T09:42:00.000-05:00

Last week the English language surpassed 1 million words. While we want to blame the internet, the 1 millionth word was "web 2.0"...which is pretty old term in internet-speak.

I suspect the 2 millionth word will come much quicker. In a column in the Tulsa World on June 21st, Michael Overall writes that we now have multiple words or variations of words to describe one specific meaning. For instance, high English "novice" gets shorted to contemporary English's "newbie" gets shortened to text-friendly "n00b". There. Now we have three words to describe one subject, and three different groups (perhaps even generations) which will use them.

Overall's point is that the typical high school dropout recognizes 30,000 words, Rhodes scholars recognize 50,000 words, and the rest of us fall in-between. But with the growing number of words, when will we get to the point where we are no longer able to communicate with each other because we use completely different vocabularies?

Likewise, the number of Christian denominations grows by an estimated 260 per year, and there are an estimated 40,000 denominations today. While some lament the body of Christ being sliced up in this way, competing in inter-necine ways for believers, perhaps just as language is diffusing our experience of God is also necessarily diffusing so different groups can experience God in their language and systems of meaning.

But are we growing in understanding of God or dispersing our experience into a million different slices, not all recognizable to the other? At what point might denominations become completely anathema to each other as their language and systems are unrecognizeable to one another? Or has it already happened?

No real answer, just a musing. But there's an important point to be made that Overall missed in his article. He said that Shakespeare used 31,534 words in his plays and laments, and laments that people do not read them anymore and get the breadth of human language. But it is more important than just simple breadth: Shakespeare coined his own terms, created his own words, and we are using them today.

Today perhaps we are Shakespeare 2.0, and we are creating new experiences of God and calling God by new or renewed words that will benefit all of humankind. Perhaps in an uncoordinated way we are assembling a new work and body of Christ, fragmented as it may be, that is beautiful and evocative in its expression and embodiment. We will use old words and new words, but perhaps together we are creating a body of work and dreams that will inspire people down the road.

Thoughts?

NOTE: ORLY is internet-speak for "Oh really?" You are welcome.

And so it begins... [Road Trip]

2009-06-17T07:59:00.000-05:00

Well, it begins. My spouse, two cats, and I will make a trek across America this week. We are leaving New England for the Plains as I begin a new position working with children and youth.

My last Sunday at my current parish was bittersweet and emotional. The congregation doubled in size as we celebrated three years of ministry in my first parish. As the longtime members told me: Pastors will serve a lot of churches, but they only serve their first parish once. So, yes, they will forever be a part of my heart.

The receiving parish has already exhibited tremendous hospitality and enthusiasm. They haven't had an associate pastor of children's and youth before, so they are just excited to have "grown up" enough to merit a dedicated staff person to these ministries. So the excitement of newness is in my spirit already, inoculating me against despair and stress of packing. At least...a little bit! Ha!

So...enough about me, let's move to the Blog. There's a few blog posts scheduled, but probably very light blogging for the next two weeks. There, there, don't cry. There are plenty of twitter updates will be coming. Give me a follow and you'll get them all!

I'm thankful for your prayers, karma, or well-wishes as we make this three-day trek. Blessings and see you on the other side of the Mississippi!

*No, that's not my truck. But it was humorous!

Sunday is for Star Wars

2009-06-14T05:53:00.000-05:00

Mashup of Star Wars and the Princess Bride. Truly, is there any better combination?

Inconceivable.

Jesus' Model for Church Growth

2009-06-09T14:56:00.000-05:00

As far as Church Growth goes, this is the best model I've seen...although it stops right when things get interesting (and, incidentally, uses Johannine chronology).

LINK: The Naked Pastor

(hat tip: Blake Huggins)

Sunday is for Star Wars

2009-06-07T06:01:00.000-05:00

Han Solo, P.I.

Best Google Logo Ever

2009-06-06T14:15:00.002-05:00

Celebrating Tetris' 25th anniversary, of course!

The 10 Txt Commandments [humor]

2009-06-04T21:42:00.001-05:00

If God had text messaged the 10 Commandments:

no1 b4 me. srsly.

dnt wrshp pix/idols

no omg’s

no wrk on w/end (sat 4 now; sun l8r)

pos ok - ur m&d r cool

dnt kill ppl

:-X only w/ m8

dnt steal

dnt lie re: bf

dnt ogle ur bf’s m8. or ox. or dnkey. myob.

M, pls rite on tabs & giv 2 ppl.

ttyl, JHWH.
ps. wwjd?

(hat tip: McSweeney via ChurchCrunch)

Heads Up: Bible Illuminated on Colbert Tonight

2009-06-04T13:45:00.000-05:00

The Bible Illuminated, which I reviewed on this blog and was interviewed about on NPR, is gonna be on The Colbert Report tonight. Check it out then comment on it here.

Church Committees are Bodies not Machines

2009-06-04T09:56:00.000-05:00

While thoroughly enjoying Kester Brewin's Signs of Emergence, I hit on a passage that I'd really really like to implement:

We must reestablish ourselves as the body of Christ, not the machine of Christ. Bodies are organic, dynamic, sentient, and conscious. They have hearts. Machines break down, while bodies evolve. This metaphorical re-centering from machine to body will require us to rethink our language too, away from the industrial vocabulary of "structure" "drive" "mechanism" "steering" towards more body-centered language: "nourish" "grow" "nurture" "cultivate" and "adapt."

Signs of Emergence, 85-86

If we are to rethink the church, then perhaps by rethinking and renaming our structure we can slowly move away from mechanistic understandings of the church.

As you know, I am moving to a new ministry and upon arrival, I like the idea of using body imagery and organic language to describe the church "structure" of the ministries I'm in charge of (Children and Youth).

So, call for creativity here. How would you rename these committees using organic/growth centered language?

Youth Council (youth-led group that plans youth group)
Youth Steering Committee (adults that advise youth group)
Children's Committee

Any creative thoughts? I know that simply renaming a current structure doesn't do it, but it's a start.

Thanks in advance.

Jesus the Dot-Communist

2009-06-03T22:54:00.000-05:00

One of the commonly posited notions is that the early disciples were socialists: group authority, sharing everything, trading MP3s on Nazareth's Napster. But can we fit this contemporary political tag onto a first-century system?

I think that perhaps for the first time in history, we can. Wired's most recent magazine has an article on the Web 2.0 and collaborative online ventures as "The New Socialism." One of the interesting points that Kevin Kelly makes is that socialism is usually defined as a tension between individual autonomy and the authority of the state. More authority? Socialism. More autonomy? Free market. Give and take, zero-sum trades, very little in-between.

Emerging from the web these days is "The New Socialism," which, according to Kelly, is decentralized public coordination to solve problems and create things that neither pure communism nor pure capitalism can:

The largely unarticulated but intuitively understood goal of communitarian technology is this: to maximize both individual autonomy and the power of people working together. (Wired, June 2009, 120)

This articulation of socialism resonates with the biblical notion of socialism in Acts 2, Acts 4 and even echoes back to Exodus 16. Gone are the antiquainted notions of socialism as centralized authority and controlled information and resources channels, replaced by distributed authority and open transparency. And wasn't that what the Apostles were doing? Distributed authority among them all? Open transparency that replaced the rigidly controlled temple system?

These days we call the US government socialist, and I don't think that definition fits with the Apostles. But this new socialism, I think, finally describes accurately what the original Apostles considered to be the best way for the creative experience and expression of the Spirit to emerge.

Thoughts?

Enough [review]

2009-06-03T17:12:00.000-05:00

Consumerism is the antithesis of contentment. If we wonder why we are not content or happy or satisfied, in his book "Enough: Contentment in the Age of Excess" Will Samson explains that we have only to look at the advertisements and media messages to explain why our houses and cars are never big enough or good enough.

Samson posits further that consumerism has infiltrated our relationship with Jesus Christ in the opposite way. We see jesus a low-cost, low-commitment counter to culture rather than the truly counterculture that Jesus represents.

Samson makes several damning points in his book that are relevant to even events in the past few months (long since the book's publication). Today, we worry about Swine Flu and other communicable diseases. Samson points out that the way we live our life can be a disease on our bodies, minds, and indeed our very souls:

...as nations gain wealth, they increase in the risk of major health problems...perhaps lifestlye disease is communicable. You catch it through prosperity. (Enough, 101)

Our lifestyle of consumerism affects our theologies by making Jesus into a low-cost alternative and everything else into conspicuous consumption.

But why isn't our church doing more about it? Why aren't we more involved in opposing this Tower of Babel-Stuff that we create? Perhaps because the church communities are too enmeshed with the ruptures of its seams. Samson points to our multi-cultural world that breaks our assumptions of Christian community that the past few centuries have found socially easy. Community is no longer something we are socially pressured into; it is something we must now earn. What would it look like? Samson says:

It seems to me that in order to move from mindless consumers of stuff to fully participating members of eucharistic communities, we must find the actions and language that can bring those communities together and allow them to interpret the power of Jesus to provide broad meaning for our lives here and now. (Enough, 143)

I enjoyed the book and, gold for a pastor, I found several sermon ideas and examples. However, I can't help but wonder what Will would write today about our movement away from the Age of Excess. His blog is long dormant. But people are saying the Age of Excess is over, dead. I disagree; I think it is just taking a breather, waiting on the wings to jump on the bandwagon again. Will the Church be ready to respond when it does? Or will we continue to buy more stuff?

Thoughts?

Sunday is for Star Wars

2009-05-31T06:15:00.000-05:00

Stormtroopers know how to cure Swine Flu.

via Flickr

Oklahoma Annual Conference

2009-05-25T06:29:00.000-05:00

I'll be twittering from Annual Conference in Oklahoma this week. I may blog a bit, but those will not be on-the-fly unless it can't wait.

So, to keep up with methodist-nerdom...follow me on twitter!

And follow the "official" twitter hash tag: #okumc for at least 10 clergy twits at conference (is that the right term?)

For the non-Methodists reading this blog...I apologize for this week in advance!

Joys of Children's Ministry I [video]

2009-05-25T06:24:00.000-05:00

"What would Jesus do if he was being attacked by a Polar Bear?"

and many other questions:

Yes, I'm looking forward to children's ministries!

Sunday is for Star Wars

2009-05-24T06:25:00.000-05:00

The new Star Trek movie was good (went to see it with Blake Huggins), but the sight of young Kirk on the plains of Iowa (which apparently in the future isn't destroyed by marriage equality) reminded me whistfully of Luke Skywalker on Tatooine, though with less whining about cleaning droids.

And it looks like I wasn't the only one who thought so: check out this video.

I like what Mark Batterson wrote a while back about "genesis stories" about stories that speak to longtime members of the congregation on a deep level that the newcomers can feel the echoes of.

Perhaps in every one of us is a farm child wanting to go to space.

Wow. Deep.

The Slow End to Scripture Memory?

2009-05-23T12:34:00.000-05:00

The following quote struck a chord in me (hat tip: Patrick Appel on Andrew Sullivan):

I wonder whether our brains aren't becoming less like indexes and more like librarians. The situation isn't quite as Peter presents it: The key skill isn't knowing where to find information. It's knowing where to find where to find information. It's understanding connector terms and knowing the relative specialties of different search engines and finding the best aggregators and possessing ninja-level skills with Nexis.

One of the memories of my youth was Bible Challenges at our local church: races to see who could get to the Scripture in the bible that was called out. I was often the fastest page-turner and would win candy, I recall. Down the street at Rhema (a non-denominational church, I recall), my school friends would have Bible Challenges too, but they would recite bible verses from memory. No, I don't know if they won candy, but I do know they looked down on us lowly Methodists who were without a scripture (chapter AND verse) memorized.

So this article makes me wonder if Scripture Memory is slowly being lost in the era of Google. As a pastor, I find my scripture memory advancing slower these days. I know why. If I need a verse I search for it rather than read the scripture until I find it. That lack of skimming hurts the scripture memory. In the same way, if I'm looking for resources or biblical help, I don't just crack a few books and read them. I also read a website, or the feed-reader. And any question people ask me, I can say "let me google that for you."

The worst thing for me now is Evernote, which I plug in all of my sermon illustrations, links, articles, bible studies, notes, etc into. I know that is where I can search to find an illustration. If I can't find it there, I know I can search other compendium websites that I haven't harvested their stuff yet. I've become a biblical librarian who knows where to find things, even if I don't remember them chapter-and-verse.

So if I ever get into a Bible Challenge today, it will be the same as my youth. I would trounce others that needed to look up passages, but I would lose to the RhemaKnights every time. But we would still have comparable biblical knowledge, and if presenting papers or sermons, we would be comparably well referenced.

I wonder if there are more biblical librarians like myself than there are biblical memorizers these days. And I wonder what effect that has on Christian discourse.

Thoughts?

No, you haven't had a bad day...

2009-05-21T07:40:00.000-05:00

This guy has. The employee tries to sneak a smoke in the freezer of the store (looks like a Subway), unawares of the fire suppression system. Whoops.

Now, have a better day today!

Call for a People-Powered Hymnal [UMC]

2009-05-20T15:11:00.000-05:00

The United Methodist Hymnal is now the musical equivalent of the Encyclopedia Britannica. In the age of Wikipedia where grassroots unorganized labor can come up with an entire encyclopedia, it is little wonder that the Hymnal Revision Committee, a top-down structure that nonetheless faithfully solicited feedback, has become a victim of the economy and the new Hymnal shuttered.

And yet there is still HUGE potential...a Facebook group with 1700 members? Thousands of churches and music ministries? A UM committee that actually understands how to use a mailing list [Ruach]? How can we not let this opportunity fall by the wayside?

A loosely knit group that organized now could form the nucleus of a people-powered hymnal that could make this work for possibly pennies on the dollar and every ounce of passion that the committee could do. The creative energy and vigorous debate in this area needs channeling now that the Committee's primary focus (a new hymnal "book") is on hold and its staff presumably whisked away to alternative projects.

How do we move forward? Summarizing the alternative avenues before us, which of these would be most helpful to the Hymnal Revision Committee and its input not thrown to the wayside? How can the UMC equip and empower people who want to see this project through?

In the same way that Wikipedia is not just people inserting facts but includes editors, catalogers, and spell-checkers...I see at least three areas of opportunity that groups of people who are so impassioned could contribute to a new hymnal if their work was honored by the United Methodist Church:

1. Identification and diverse selection of hymns

Selecting hymns that are faithful witnesses to Christ in general, and the United Methodist tradition in particular. We did a survey of favorite and least favorite hymns. There's tons of conversation in this group about particular hymns and their inclusion/exclusion. Bring out the nets and the scalpel and choose or reject hymns.

IDEAS: Why not have a loose-knit groups of people give temporary blessing to set lists of hymns and see what people think? People can come up with their own mix lists like the "the golden oldies" list or "the African Spirituals" list or narrative lists that try to tell a story from one hymn to another. The most used hymns in all lists can be easily identified and given weight in final inclusion, if there needs to be a "final inclusion." Give them a prize week to week to spur participation.

2. Appropriation and inclusive adaptation of hymns

By posting the full-text of hymns online or in contained digital groups, people could try out alternative language in established hymns. People and professionals could then see what happens when we replace "Lord" with "Love" and sing it themselves. Some hymns could be unchanged, of course.

IDEAS: Post the full-text of hymns, allow them to be set to music after the words are changed (simple for computer programs, just match background image of notes with text), and let people try them out. Evaluation can be done by either voting or simply giving feedback to the final powers-that-be.

3. Alternative distribution channels for a hymnal

Online, powerpoint, mediashout, the Amazon Kindle, smoke signals...why should we choose which one when people may be willing to digitally "translate" hymns into the various programs? Let them do it and equip them to do it. If the UMPH still wants to make money off of this, then make a subscription that every church could purchase to obtain access to all the versions (not unlike Cokesbury's digital Book of Discipline). Heck, people could make money or a percentage of their contributions' downloads.

IDEAS: this group could be in charge of "translation" of selected and adapted hymns [from groups (1) and (2)] into various media programs, guitar tabs, or simply formatted to print off in a bulletin. Give them a financial incentive, if need be.

===========================================

I haven't been involved with this conversation yet, but now that a paper hymnal is on hold and the entire project in danger, I'm more enthused to participate and see a people-powered hymnal take off.

A truly people-powered hymnal is...

RELEVANT to this generation
It honors the GIFTS of our varied music professionals and lovers
It build a BUZZ far beyond this already successful group.

The creative possibilities are endless if the infrastructure will just LET.IT.HAPPEN.

So, this is a call to conversation about what possibilities are there for a people-powered hymnal. Thoughts? PLEASE don't nitpick the particulars...is the IDEA worth it or viable?

Discuss. And join the facebook conversation in the Hymnal Revision Group.

Help: Women's Voices in a Wiki World

2009-05-20T12:04:00.002-05:00

I'm writing an article about faith, women, and technology, particularly how mass collaboration and lowered transaction costs impact and are impacted by women in faith communities.

But I've hit a snag. My favorite voices so far in the mass collaboration brave new world are:

Notice a trend? THEY ARE ALL MEN! For an article on women, I need women's voices reflecting on mass collaboration and emerging internet phenomenon.

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.