Posts Tagged ‘introvert’

Links to Read with Your Morning Coffee…

October 30th, 2008

So, today I want to share with you all some things I’ve read or found recently that I thought were interesting. So, grab some coffee (or tea, or other beverage of choice) and we can sit and chat about these things that have caught my attention lately:

A friend from high school recently shared this site with me via facebook (I love facebook). It’s called PhotogenX and it’s really a very inspiring and touching organization. Here’s how they describe themselves, “The vision of photogenX is to use photography as a tool for cultural transformation so that issues such as gender based injustice will be issues of history instead of the future. PhotogenX advocates for those who cannot speak for themselves (a voice for the voiceless) and challenges the current global status quo. In addition photogenX seeks to capture the people and places of every nation in the world showing off their beauty but not masking their pain.” I think this is a beautiful and inspiring vision. They have a number of published materials to help raise awareness for issues like gender injustice around the world. They also offer seminars and a Discipleship Training Program that focuses on photography. Anyway, I think it’s very cool what they are doing and thought I’d share it with you all.

I recently came upon this Introvert’s Lexicon and found it interesting. Being a pretty strong introvert myself, this made sense to me. It also gives recommendations for counseling introverts and for issues that introverts often come to counseling with, which I thought were interesting and potentially helpful.

 This is another blog about making church really local. I find the idea of a truly local church to be fascinating. I’ve been wrestling with some of the problems of a local church in this day and age though, but I thought that this article’s assessment for some of the benefits of a truly local church was very interesting and thought-provoking.

This week I also discovered this cooking site that I am now in love with, called 101 Cookbooks. I have loved looking through these healthy recipes but have especially enjoyed the site because the pictures of the food are just so beautiful. If you are looking for a good healthy cooking blog this is one I highly recommend.

Alan Knox at The Assembling of the Church has written three (+) posts on pastors and salaries. In this first blog, Pastors and Churches and Salaries, he asks “Can you think of some reasons that a church would not want pastors to ‘work with their hands’ in order to support themselves and their families?” In the next blog, 1 Corinthians 9 and Salaries for Pastors, he makes the argument that only “those who are travelling away from home in order to proclaim the gospel” have a right to support. And in the third blog, Acts 20 and Salaries for Pastors, he uses Acts 20 and 1 Corinthians to argue that the practice at the time, and what Paul was instructing, was that pastors and elders should work with their own hands and support themselves through their work. I found these posts to be really interesting and worth the read, since ministry and finances and sustainability and business as missions have been topics on my radar for some time now.

Ok, I think that’s it for now. Enjoy!

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany Stedman

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Roundup From Around The Web: Extreme! :)

February 19th, 2008

Do you ever have days when you just feel inadequate… un-used… un-creative… out of the loop? I feel a little bit like that right now…
I worked a ridiculously long day yesterday which was not fun, but some good things came out of it I think… well for one I got a lot of hours out of the way and a lot done, but maybe more interestingly I was able to spend a lot of time blog hopping and reading articles and watching interesting video clips (my job requires me to spend a lot of time on the computer but often the work is rather monotonous and can be done while listening to lectures, half watching video clips, etc – I still struggle sometimes with whether or not it is ethical for me to do these things while working but then I think that if I couldn’t do them I would probably go insane from the monotony and end up quitting my job which I don’t think is what I or my employer would want…so, I continue). Anyway, I found a lot of interesting posts and articles and videos that I would like to now share…

First, some stories…

Here is a story about a female referee that one school wouldn’t let ref because they said they didn’t believe women should be in authority over men – personally I thought this was ridiculous and I was very proud of her male co-workers who, when they heard about what happened, decided to protest by not working for refereeing for this school  

This post gives a beautiful and extremely challenging picture of what it means to really follow Jesus and what it means to follow Jesus despite our clumsy and often broken efforts.

I have been reading this blog off and on for a few weeks now but this particular post really stood out to me. It is a beautiful story of history and love. Reading it made me cry.

Second, some challenging discussions…

In this post an introvert wonders about hospitality and what radical hospitality should look like. “I wonder if stretching myself in this area is good discipline, or if it is actually being untrue to the person I am? Is it more genuine to just let my friends know that I am introvert who enjoys their company, but needs to get away, or should I look at pushing thru this and learning how to live in a different way, while still being who I am?” The comments here are also really interesting.

Sarah at Accidental Blog discusses whether or not there is a “right” expression of ecclesia.

Third, some other interesting thoughts…

Theopraxis discusses Isolation and the Suburban Condition – I found this to be an interesting post giving me a lot to chew on.

I just found this blog today and came across this post about this families “consumption fast” very interesting and challenging. The idea is that they aren’t going to spend any money (no shopping, eating out, movies, etc) except for paying bills and buying necessary groceries. Bryan and I have gone through periods where we have basically unconsciously done this because of necessity for a week or two here and there but I was really intrigued with this families goal of doing this intentionally for months straight (until July). Check it out to read his thoughts on the idea.

Here is an interview with N.T. Wright discussing Heaven… Interesting stuff.

Fourth, some very interesting videos…

This video is a clip of David Fitch talking about Church Planting Via Missional Orders. I found it very interesting and challenging.

My friend recently told me about TED and the videos that are now being shared from that gathering of people. I haven’t watched that many of them yet but they are FASCINATING. Basically each video is about 15 to 20 minutes long and they are little mini lectures about a variety of topics given by a variety of people (business professionals mostly it seems) – seriously very interesting videos. In this one Hans Rosling debunks common myths about developing nations using some fascinating media and enlightening statistics. In this other video John Doeer talks about climate change and green technologies (I personally found him a little extreme to listen to but I agree that we need to take better care of the earth that has been entrusted to us and I really do think that greentech can not only be good for the planet but can also be profitable and economical. In this video Larry Lessig talks about how creativity is being strangled by the law and talks about how we need new creative laws to deal with the advancements we are facing.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on any or all of these!  :-)

 

Rejoicing in the journey –
Beth Stedman

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