The Hsu’s Views

I happened across NBC San Diego’s program called “About San Diego.” The segment I watched on Memorial Day was about San Diego’s movie making history. I guess for a while it was considered Hollywood’s back lot. It was interesting enough to send me to NBC’s website. There is all kinds of good interesting stuff about San Diego and it’s history. I thought I’d post it here for those of us here how are trying to exegete San Diego.

The show airs each Sunday at 6pm and re-broadcast on Monday at 10:30a on MBC 7/39.

Don’t forget about the San Diego Historical Society.  Great resources here on our history.

A couple of stories were brought to my attention in the last couple of days regarding the shift in politics in Evangelical circles. With the passing of Rev. Jerry Falwell, it has been noted that the “Religious Right” no longer has the monolithic presence in U.S. politics that it once had.

One article from the New York Times entitled, “Emphasis Shifts for New Breed of Evangelicals” talk about how people like Rick Warren and Bill Hybels is paying attention to AIDS, Darfur, and global warming; issues normally left to the Left.

“Mr. Warren, along with Mr. Hybels, 55, and several dozen other evangelical leaders, signed a call to action last year on climate change. The initiative brought together more mainstream conservative Christian leaders with prominent liberal evangelicals, such as the Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners and the Rev. Ronald J. Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, who have long championed progressive causes. Notably absent from the list of signatories were several old lions of the Christian right, some of whom were openly critical of the effort: Mr. Falwell; Mr. Robertson, 77; and Mr. Dobson, 71, founder of Focus on the Family.”

Chuck Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, while not signing the statement on global warming, did express that he thought it was a good direction that younger evangelical leaders were heading.

“What’s happening today is the evangelical movement is growing up,” he said. “The evangelical political conscience today is much more sophisticated than it was in the early ’80’s.”

Look at the whole article. It is insightful.

Similiarly, at MSNBC, read “After Falwell, evangelicals at crossroads.”

And two days ago at The Christian Post.

I was reading an article in Newsweek magazine (May 21, 2007) about a company called Y Combinator. It is a group that gives seed money to fledgling start-ups and sends the generally young geeks to Silicon Valley for three months of intensive entrepreneuring. They get access to the best venture capitalists to pitch their wares and get connected with the start-up culture/ethic.

The part I thought was interesting was an observation by tech investor Mike Maples:

It’s several weeks into the program, and Maples is in a Palo Alto, Calif., coffeehouse for a meeting… He sees a lot of people barely out of their teens. The old wisdom for investors in start-ups said you needed an experienced hand as a CEO. The Valley’s new wisdom: don’t fund anyone over 30. The average age of a Y Combinator founder is 25.

This quote jumped out at me since it illustrates a similar element as our U40 group. Maples and the Y combinators recognize that the world, and hence the rules have shifted substantially. It is a tacit acknowledgment that, at least in technology start-ups, you don’t go with the “normal” formula.

I don’t think the Christian faith has had rules change radically over the last two thousand years, but the environment/culture/times we are in is radically different. Our mission to this new environment/culture/time requires us to become conversant with the language of today. This may require new ministry start-ups with under 30 year olds at the helm.

This website was fun the first time I saw it and it is still going. They collect photos of actual church signs all of which are intersting, some silly, and many are scary for different reasons.

You can also create your own church signs at the site.

I ran across this article from Allelon which highlighted tension points as the church attempts to engage and relate to Western culture today. The article was prompted by recent work/statistics from the Barna Group as well as observations from a book entitled, “Jim and Casper Go to Church.” (the observations of and conversations with Matt Casper the friendly atheist as they visit churches across the U.S.)

What are the challenges facing the church in our culture? The article lists:

1. The relative indifference of most churched Christians to unchurched people.
2. An emphasis on the personal rather than communal faith journey.
3. A tendency to perform rituals and exercise talents rather than an invitation to experience the presence of God.
4. The absence of a compelling enough call to action.
5. The failure to listen to dissident voices.

I think this is a useful, though certainly not comprehensive, list.

Saw this interesting study on the church in America, thanks to the Catalyst RSS feed (slap it into your RSS reader). The study was done by Faith Communities Today.

On the chart above, found on page 2 of the report shows that the places where greatest growth is found in new growing suburban communities. Not really news. What was interesting however is where the second best area for growth is in the downtown or central city of metropolitan areas. This seems partly due to urban renewal and gentrification.

It’s worth a look.

You may have heard about the term Web 2.0, a shorthand for the second generation of websites and functionality that are increasingly taking over the web. Web 1.0 might be described as a bunch of websites that were either static or full of proprietary content. Web 2.0 websites would contain content that was generated by users or “mashes up” content from other websites.

So the most famous of these might be flickr which derives it’s value because people are uploading their images. Flickr just provides the backend, and the community adds the value. Think of Amazon. They have reviews that the community provides (at no cost) to benefit other potential buyers. It makes Amazon’s site better. But Amazon also plays the other way. They provide links and data about books, CDs, and products to anyone so people can offer products at their own websites.

If you want to learn about Web 2.0 sites. There was a project created at The Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County to teach it’s staff about this new generation of the internet. It put up 23 Things to do on the internet to teach you about the state of the internet and the various technologies that are “state of the art.” One quick look at the activities and I realized that I was behind. Take a look and surprise your kid that you know about these things.

Read about this project at Wired Magazine.

This video gives you a great sense of the tremendous changes that are occuring in our world. We must forces ourselves to ask how the way we do/be/think ministry needs to change.

Just like the blog entry below, this quote is from Keller’s Gospel and Heart course. It comes from a book by sociologist Rodney Stark called, “The Rise of Christianity - How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries.”

It is an awesome book that details the powerful ways that the Christian community lived radically different, and attractive lives. Stark believes the selfless care believers offered plague sufferers was a significant factor in the growth of the church. He offers a different interpretation on just how quickly the early church grew (not explosively but steadily, comparable to the growth of the Mormon church today). It is great source material.

Here is the quote:

“Christianity served as a revitalization movement that arose in response to the misery, chaos, fear and brutality of life in the urban Greco-Roman world… Christianity revitalized life in… cities by providing new norms and new kinds of social relationships able to cope with many urgent urban problems. To cities filled with the homeless and impoverished, Christianity offered charity as well as hope. To cities filled with newcomers and strangers, Christianity offered an immediate basis for attachments. To cities filled with orphans and widows, Christianity provided a new and expanded sense of family. To cities torn by violent ethnic strife, Christinity offered a new basis for social solidarity. And to cities faced with epidemics, fires and earthquakes, Christianity offered effective…services.”

Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity, (Harper, 1996), p. 161.

I found the videos that use the Macintosh ads to parody Christ Followers and Christians. I think they are both funny and distressing at the same time. I’ve included links to them here.

Part Two | Part Three | Part Four