Take action to protect the Internet. Protest SOPA.
In a few days the US Sentate will consider SOPA, the “Stop Online Piracy Act.” It will give the federal government broad powers intended to combat digital piracy.
Sounds like something a law abiding citizen would support, right? Wrong.
SOPA is written so broadly that it gives the government overreaching power to control the internet. Without a court order, internet companies can be required to monitor your web surfing and block content deemed to be infringing copyright. Say goodbye to privacy.
SOPA offers no protection to companies like YouTube, Google, Facebook, and more, which currently are protected by “safe harbor” provisions in copyright law. Right now, if infringing video is found on YouTube, the rights holder can ask YouTube to take down that video and they have a certain amount of time to comply. With SOPA, the *entire website* could be taken down without giving them a chance to comply. Did someone post a video with a copyrighted song playing on the TV in the background? Under SOPA, not just that video, but the entire website could be forced off the government without a court order.
Imagine a tool like this used as a pretense to silence political opponents. A site torn down by SOPA might be offline for months while the procedure for reinstatement is followed.
With SOPA, the United States will enter an infamous club of nations: like China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Cuba, we will be censoring the internet. Say goodbye to the First Amendment. The US Government will have the power to take any site off the internet without due process.
In protest against SOPA, thousands of websites including Wikipedia will go offline on January 18th to show what a censored internet will be like. Mine will be among them.
Please take action against SOPA and contact your congressmen: Visit AmericanCensorship.org.
5 Ideas for Boosting Your Ministry
Pastors can be stubborn – I know I am! Yet most of us still recognize the need for growing and improving their ministries. At the Nebraska Synod‘s First Call Theological Education, Bishop deFreese asked us, “What resources do you need?” Here are five answers we gave, and some easy first steps to boost your ministry:
- Support for the ups and downs of ministry. Go and buy The Pastor: A Memoir
, by Eugene Peterson.
- Learn how to play again. Go hang out with your pre-school kids during Sunday School.
- Prayer. Send an email to five friends who might agree to support you with daily prayer. (Bonus tip: your cluster could be part of this!)
- Coaching / Mentoring / Accountibility. Think of three people who could help you, and then actually call them.
- Text Study. If you’re too physically isolated for a regular Lutheran text study, start an ecumenical text study.
What else do you need right now for your ministry? Or, if you’re not a pastor, what do you need for your ministry in daily life?
Congregational Mission: rockin’
I posted an email to our congregation on our new church website. We’ve got exciting things going on in Holdrege!
Oh, by the way, did I mention that the ELCA Worshipping Community of Holdrege has a new website?
And, by the way, there’s a new community and children’s event getting started on October 12. It’s called Grace Place, and it represents a partnership between the ELCA community in Holdrege and St. Elizabeth’s Episcopal Church. We’ll start with a community meal at 5:30pm and then our children’s program will kick off at 6:30pm with a gathering and music. Then our classes will break off for individualized instruction, and come back together for a closing in the sanctuary. We’re done at 8:00pm each Wednesday night.
Music, skits, fun, and Scripture – what could be better? I’ll tell you: robots are involved. That’s all I’m going to say. Robots.
Grace Place has a website too: GracePlaceHoldrege.com
Finally, remember to like the ELCA Worshipping Community of Holdrege, NE and Grace Place, Holdrege on Facebook.
More coming soon…
Launching the Holdrege Listening Campaign
This week, five regular people became intrepid adventurers, preparing to listen to the community. They’ll be contacting all kinds of people across the area -
- People who don’t belong to a church, and people who do,
- People who don’t look like us, and people who do,
- People who disagree with us, and people who agree,
Why are we listening? We are convinced that God is already at work in our community, and we want to get on board! And that doesn’t always look like a church program. Until you listen to the people, it’s difficult to move ahead with God’s mission.
So if you get a call from one of our Listeners – whether you’re a member of our congregation, a member someplace else, or not a churchgoer – we hope you’ll agree to spend a few minutes. It’s really important. And please pray for the success of our work together.
Little Red Book 2012 for Google Calendar
I heard on the ELCA Clergy Facebook group that some people were having trouble getting the Augsburg Fortress Little Red Appointment book to work on Google Calendar. Here are some instructions I hope will help:
- Visit the Little Red Book page and download the file for Google Calendar. This will put a “.csv” file on your computer in your Downloads folder.
- Sign in to Google Calendar. Under “My Calendars” in the left hand column, click “Add.” Name the calendar “Little Red Book” or something similar.
- Under “Other Calendars” in the left hand column, click “Add,” then choose “Import Calendar.” Browse to the saved “.csv” file in your Downloads folder. (For the upcoming year, the file is called “Year_B_2012.csv”)
- Back in the important window, change “Calendar:” to “Little Red Book” and click Import.
- If it works, you’ll soon get a message like “Successfully imported 253 events.”
- Navigate in Google Calendar to the first Sunday in Advent (November 2011) and make sure that “Little Red Book” is selected in under “My Calendars.” You should see entries for each Sunday, plus commemoration days and other goodies.
ELCA and the Ministry of Connectedness
I was standing in line at the Phelps County Fair waiting to get some BBQ sandwiches. When one couple standing nearby learned that I was the pastor of the new ELCA Lutheran church in Holdrege, NE, they had a few things to say to me. You see, they had been connected to the ELCA at one time, and they were still receiving a publication from the Nebraska Synod, Your Nebraska Lutheran. They said things like, “Did we pay for that?” and “I don’t know why they bother with things like that!” Frankly, they didn’t see any value in that kind of relationship.
So, why do we pay for that? Why bother?
Sing, Pray, Work
This morning over breakfast, my two-year-old daughter Anneliese told me that church is “where we sing and pray and work!”
Not bad for two years old, huh? I want to unpack that a bit for the missional church:
Sing: the missional church sings songs of joy and sorrow. It gets down in the mucky-muck((A technical term, of course.)) of life and participates in daily life. Such a church doesn’t ignore what’s happening around it or become bound up in tradition-for-tradition’s-sake. A missional church is grounded in the community. At the same time, a missional church seeks to sing God’s song over the community, so that hearts are transformed and lives are changed. Note that little of this actually has to do with music, worship style. (John 15:19)
Pray: a missional church doesn’t seek its own way in the world. Instead, it’s passionately committed to knowing and following the Holy Spirit’s guidance. God has a mission – and we want to get on board. This change in attitude makes a missional church (Galatians 3:26)
Work: a missional church serves its community. It’s life comes from Christ, who identified with those who were counted last, least, and lost. It follows Jesus in hanging out with “tax collectors and sinners.” It’s not big or flashy; it’s attractive because it’s different. The people are apostles – literally, “sent ones.” (Matthew 9:10–11 and many other references)
Of course, there is more to a missional perspective on church. But I like church as the people with whom we “sing and pray and work.”
Installation: Accomplished!
“Installation: where they take a nut and wrench it into place.” – Jason
Read more and see some pictures…
Quick, blog something!
When your website address starts being included on things like bulletins and weekly church emails, you quickly become acutely aware of how infrequently it has been updated. So, without further ado, here is the video of my sermon for Sunday, July 3. This was my first Sunday with the ELCA Worshiping Community of Holdrege, Nebraska.
Click through to see the video.
Called to Holdrege, Nebraska!
My last post here was more than two months ago – my senior chapel sermon called “An Unexpected Call to Ministry.” There’s been so much to write about, but so little time with the end of the semester. Well, how’s this for an unexpected call to ministry?
Not to mention awesome!
Just yesterday the Nebraska Synod council voted to call me as a Mission Developer working with the ELCA Worshiping Community at Holdrege, Nebraska. We’ll be packing, moving in about two weeks, planning and having an ordination in Columbia, MO, and then starting in the beginning of July. How’s that for busy? Whew!
I’m really excited about this call. This is a group of folks who are passionate about mission, outreach, and worship. There is strong lay leadership, and a lot of potential for outreach. It’s a good fit, and Jennifer and I are excited about the possibilities.
I’m writing this from the Nebraska Synod Assembly, where I’m serving as a voting member (already!). People are blogging at http://faith2grow.nebraskasynod.org/ and tweeting on #faith2grow.
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