books and blogging

Sometimes I wonder if anyone still stops by anymore, what with my continually decreasing frequency of posts. However, for today I will not wonder and will instead get to the point.

There exists the distinct possibility that I will be published for the second time in my life, though my name will not be on the cover. I've been contacted about my participation in a blog book collaboration that I participated in, specifically it was a series of blog-type discussions about a variety of spiritual topics. I think I've mentioned it in the past: A New Kind of Conversation. Turns out they just finished editing the book, and in that process decided that some of my contributions would be included. Per the expectations that were set at the beginning of this experiment, I'll be receiving a complimentary copy of the book in return for my thoughts and writings being included. I'm fairly excited about it, especially since I had almost completely forgotten about the whole thing. The book should be up for pre-order at your favorite online booksellers (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Buy.com, etc) if you're interested. Otherwise, maybe I'll keep ye olde blog around a little longer and give you a review when I have the book in hand and read it.

On that topic, seeing as my blogging has become more and more sparse, I've been debating about officially closing up this shop; maybe take an archival copy for my own writing bag of tricks, post one last piece and move on to something else. Lately, it just seems no matter how much I try to slow my life down, things get more complicated and my schedule fills up leaving very little time for much else. I haven't decided, and maybe I never will, but I don't know that this little blog will get back to the type of content and purpose that it had at the beginning for quite some time. But then again, maybe that's not such a bad thing...

the long pause

And with baited breath, they waited until they could wait no more. One by one they visited with dwindling frequency, losing hope that anything would change. I like to think that's the case, since my lack of writing leaves me as parched for deep thought exercises as just about anyone else. As is the usual case, my only pitiful excuse for my lack of any written words is of course my crazy schedule between life and work. A few short updates on those topics...

Work continues to keep me busy, such is the norm. Between career building tasks, project assignments, and the daily grind of maintenance I do not lack for things to do. At times I find this a blessing, and other times a curse -- the curse portion is usually when I am inundated by tedious, repetitious tasks which drives the creative side of me up a wall scrambling for some kind of relief.

In other areas of life, I've found a whole new arena of spiritual nourishment that I've been enjoying immensely. I've gotten involved in a new church plant in my area. And when I say involved, I mean that I am working with the core team of people who are forming the worship, generating the marketing, and overall doing a lot of organizing. In particular, my areas of influence have become designing and maintaining the website (duh!), as well as working with the Tech-A/V team which supports the audio and video aspects of worship. I've been discovering that I have a real knack for working the audio mixer for the worship team, and as a result I'm becoming a bit of the go-to guy in that arena. Of course, its hard to discover a new talent if you don't have talented people to work with, and it amazes me how quickly the worship team came together to create beautiful music which I love helping fine-tune. Maybe once I get a few more people up to speed on operating the board, which is 50% art since you need to have an ear for it, I might try my hand at joining the worship team. My guitar skills are rusty and spotty, but I think I could get them up to par enough to lend a hand. Check out the website, I'm excited about this whole endeavor.

Northwest Hills Community Church

On a slightly different topic, I'll leave you with a couple of thoughtful morsels to ponder. Why do certain Christians feel the need to use overly religious, or pseudo-righteous, and biblical language and/or trite phrases when they talk amongst themselves? For example: for the cause of Christ; remember, be holy as He is holy; etc and so on, you get the picture. I'm certain there are probably situations where this might not seem out of context, but when things get tossed in the mix of normal conversation it just sounds odd. Or maybe it's just me and I have a cynical side that just cringes every time I hear phrases that are just dripping with religious overtones and "Christianese." Just to clear things up right away, I'm not criticizing the people who do this or passing judgment, there are some really nice people who I've met who do this from time to time -- I just silently cringe and move on. So maybe the second question is, whenever we find a situation where we might normally toss out some religious/spiritual/biblical phrase, should we stop and think for a moment to ask the question: could I say this with plain speech, without religious overtones, and still make the same point?

Personally, I don't have much use for overtly religious phrases, I think they just cloud any issue you discuss. I find it much more constructive to take the insights we gain from scripture, apply them to the world around us, and use the resulting knowledge as our language and point of reference.

Oh, and on the ReGroup front, things are currently in stasis. Everyone who is involved is being pulled in a lot of different directions, so scheduling another meeting has been tough. We definitely will, it just might be a while... like, we're talking end of summer or into the fall.