Author: Jonathan Blundell

I'm a husband, father of three, blogger, podcaster, author and media geek who is hoping to live a simple life and follow The Way.

A National Tragedy?!

The Insider – another junk celebrity/entertainment show just said, “ABC News broke into regular programming to report the news… as the country comes to grip with a national tragedy.”

ARE YOU SERIOUS?! Ted Kennedy has a brain tumor and it’s become a national tragedy?!

I feel sorry for him and the family, but a Senator from Massachusetts who’s served since 1962, gets a brain tumor and it’s a national tragedy? Yet 100,000 are dead or dying in China and Burma and more than 3000 soldiers have died in Iraq and a politician getting a brain tumor is a national tragedy?

Am I just too cynical or am I missing something?

More quizes

Well I’d like to think I have a generous orthodoxy. I’ve told Laurie recently that I couldn’t tell you where I fall in the “theological spectrum.” But apparently, according to this quiz, I fall primarily in the emergent/postmodern mindset. But because I’d like to think I have a generous orthodoxy – know that where ever you fall – is cool with me ;-). Oh and hat-tip to Chad for the quiz link.

What’s your theological worldview?
created with QuizFarm.com
You scored as Emergent/Postmodern

You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don’t think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this.

Emergent/Postmodern
89%

Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan
71%

Neo orthodox
57%

Reformed Evangelical
57%

Fundamentalist
39%

Classical Liberal
36%

Charismatic/Pentecostal
36%

Modern Liberal
32%

Roman Catholic
25%

A New Humanity

Just finished listening to Rob Bell’s message, “One Mind” focused on Phil 2:1-4.

Excellent.

I could probably write a lot about it but I may use some of it for our community group tonight so I’ll save it for now.

I edited down the ending though. It’s about a 10 minute clip and well worth the listen (or you can listen to the full message here):

[audio:http://www.casadeblundell.com/jonathan/wp-content/uploads/mars-hill-one-mind-rob-bell-edit.mp3]

My model of church

Lee shared this quiz on his blog (didn’t know he had one until he commented on mine earlier today).
Here are my results for “my model church.” The description seems pretty dead on.

What is your model of the church? [Dulles]
created with QuizFarm.com
You scored as Servant Model

Your model of the church is Servant. The mission of the church is to serve others, to challenge unjust structures, and to live the preferential option for the poor. This model could be complemented by other models that focus more on the unique person of Jesus Christ.

Servant Model
83%

Sacrament model
78%

Mystical Communion Model
78%

Herald Model
50%

Institutional Model
11%

What about you?

(open) church social networks vs Facebook

If Robert Scoble is right and Facebook is blocking Google search bots for a reason far more reaching than just “user privacy” and Microsoft is planning a new buyout of both Yahoo and Facebook (can someone else buy Flickr and del.icio.us first?) which will lead to a more closed Internet, would it not make more sense for churches and other organizations to begin building their own online social networks based on an open social platform?

I know I’m not ever a big fan of “Christian ghettos” but does it not make more sense now for churches and organizations to offer open networks where their members, friends and family can share in an online social network without the threat of Corporation M or Corporation S mining all their personal information in an effort to sell loads of targeted advertising to each user?

And if churches do begin to offer their own social networks without the threat of advertising and they become super successful, how will the infrastructure to support these sites be paid for? Will churches have to resort to more pleads for money from the church itself or will the online networks begin fund raising drives like Wikipedia does – or maybe even “pledge-a-thons” like your favorite local Christian radio station or NPR?

And if churches do begin to offer their own social networks, will we allow members to transfer their profile, information and such to other church networks if they decide to leave the physical church body as well?

Could these same questions, ideas work for other organizations, non-profits, schools and such like UMHB or DCCCD?

Just thinking out loud. Would love to continue the conversation via this blog, twitter or wherever (preferably in a public forum). What are your thoughts, questions?

Re: Things in the fire

Well the Dallas Stars lost — another Dallas team fell short of the championship after making it to the playoffs. I should say I’m mortified, saddened, in a state of disbelief – but I think I’ve lost some of my competitive nature and/or just lost interest in most professional sports. In fact I’ve probably lost any real interest in just about every professional sport other than the Dallas Cowboys and maybe the Green Bay Packers (although that’s now diminished a lot since Brett Favre retired).

Thought I’d go back and check up on my “things in the fire list from last week.”

Let’s see…

* …finally finished uploading over 1700 photos to Flickr for the CWF. – CHECK
* …added several new videos to GodTube as well. – CHECK
* …plan to add several more videos to GodTube and probably YouTube. – FAILED
* …hope to build a new light box for our lights at encounter. – “DELEGATED” TO ANOTHER VOLUNTEER – CHECK
* …hope to finish a keepsake box I started for Laurie as a wedding gift (long story there…) – CHECK
* …plan to launch the new encounterthis.com around midnight tonight if not before. – CHECK
* …tomorrow is a men’s event for SniperInstinct – a cool blending of outdoor paintball and laser tag. – CHECK
* …finish updating the HTML files for various degree plans for work. – CHECK

New things on my plate…

I think we finally decided on a name for the pending podcast that Thomas and I are working on. I think we’re going with “Something Beautiful – conversations with ordinary radicals.” Now we just have to figure out some of the logistics in setting up interviews and such with a six hour time difference between us. The name comes from Brian McLaren’s Everything Must Change:

If we believe, we can be transformed into agents of something beautiful that is trying to be born in our world. We can be caught up in the unfolding, emergent, spiraling process of God giving birth to a beautiful whole, the Kingdom of God.

Thoughts? Our idea for the podcast is a unique blend of This American Life & All Things Considered on NPR with a focus on “ordinary radicals” and those finding ways to live their life based on the Third Way of Jesus. We’ll primarily focus on those ordinary folks who as Acts says, “have been with Jesus.” Maybe we’ll get lucky and get a few “celebrities” along the way but we’re really interested in hearing and seeing how the Jones’ are putting the teachings of Jesus into real life application. So if you have ideas for a topic or show, let us know.

Also, I finally ordered a couple new books from Amazon today – Pagan Christianity? and A Christianity Worth Believing. I wish I had been one of the lucky ones to get a PDF copy of Doug Pagitt’s A Christianity Worth Believing, so I could blog about the book and review it right away – but then again folks may have gotten upset when I printed the entire book out on my home or work printer.

I’m looking forward to starting both reads – now I just have to figure out which to start with.

Well that’s about it. I thought I’d wait up a bit to see if Thomas wakes up in time for us to do a little pre-podcast Skyping/recording. If not – no biggie we’ll catch each other on the flipside.