Harris Poll

more than half of Americans (51%) do not use Twitter or participate in either of the two largest social networking sites - MySpace and Facebook - this according to a recent Harris Poll

Mistake?

Is this cordial encounter a mistake?

TweetDeck

I just downloaded the beta TweetDeck. Cool app. It an easy way of staying in touch and connecting you with your contacts across Twitter, Facebook and more.

Check it out here

Jesus, Paula, Photography

Of all the things I do photography ranks right up there with my wife and Jesus. It's a passion. So it's pic share time.

Yesterday I found an antique auto museum. I'm not exactly a car enthusiast but I'm a photography enthusiast.

Books, Books

One of the perks of being a writer/editor for a Christian ezine is you get lots of books to read. InterVarsity Press just sent me their fall season catalog inviting me to request one of their new titles for review. I'm tempted by:

Michael Card's upcoming book:
A Better Freedom; Finding Life as Slaves of Christ
Card explores the biblical principle imagery of discipleship. How the early chuch saw Greco-Roman slavery as a window into understanding Jesus as Savior and Master.

Baptism: Three Views
Cases for infant baptism, cases for believers' baptism, and mixed baptism

Patron Saints for Postmoderns
Portraits of 10 people from the past who translated the gospel for their own time.

Which would of the above would you pick?

A Couple in Boston Redefines 'Church Planting'

It's been nearly 8 months since I've blogged. Yet I distinctly remember the HarvestBoston blog when I did and it looks like they have just started posting again after a little hiatus.

They're asking some great questions. Here's just one.

"What is the gospel to people who don’t even want anything to do with religion?"

Stop for a minute and think about that question.

This is more of what I remember about the HarvestBoston blog. Always thoughtful with something profound to forward to its readers.

Another question posed by Holt (of HarvestBoston) in the latest Christian Chronicle, is if we (believers) sometimes mistakenly assume that missionaries can enter a community and merely “download” the good news into its people — who have little or no prior knowledge of God.

“That’s very rarely the way that it works,” Holt said. “At the most foundational level, people are not devoid of God. People are programmed with God’s DNA. They were created in his image.”

Let me interject: God is present in the lives of all his creation. It's our job to become spiritual explorers helping the people we walk with to begin connecting the dots.

Visit HarvestBoston. You'll learn about 21st Century evangelism.

An Authors Perspective of Twitter

Twitter, for me, is a place to chat, a way to connect with my readers. Because of Twitter, people come to my readings when they realize I am in their area. Sometimes it can be really spontaneous. I love it when that happens."

[But] as with any social network, it's easy to burn precious hours reading relatively useless information, and Twitter can prove distracting for writers struggling to finish their books. "Twitter is a crazy time-vampire,"

Novelist Tayari Jones
taken from New & Trends (Poets & Writers)

Decline of the Church

According to the publication Churches of Christ in the United States the past 6 years have been difficult ones for Churches of Christ. They have lost more than 78,000 members with 526 churches closing their doors.

[..more] evidences of church's decline

Dead at Your Age

“Kisses kisses” and “More kisses” he asked of his sister Ruth. Before she left the room, he said, “Smile kisses,” and then smiled at her and kissed a cross she had left on the chair next to his bed.

Duke Ellington at death

from the site Dead at Your Age

James Carville evangelism

I was dead serious about evangelism in the 1980s. Why? Because I had ten Scriptures that would wipe the smile off anyone's face. It was all about winning -- and I often won.

When I look back on that era, I realize that I got a bunch of folks wet. But none are around today. Why? Because I converted people to a set of propositions. I imagine Jesus as not being very happy with my brand of evangelism.

My James Carville style of winning was greedy noisy, despairing, consumptive, and disastrous for everyone and everything around me.