Facebook.com/TedCarnahan
LinkedIn.com/in/TedCarnahan
Twitter.com/TedCarnahan
A Star is Born: MovingToDubuque.com
Well, I just put up my first Joomla! website in a long time. I had tried it back when it was “Mambo,” and it wasn’t ready, but that was several years ago. Anyway, the Lord of Life website task force realized a month or two ago that Dubuque has a large number of people getting ready to move to the area as part of IBM’s relocation from Rochester, MN. We wanted to provide a way to help those people get moved and situated smoothly. Since Minnesota is so very Lutheran, we also wanted to let them know that the Lutheran churches in the area are available and friendly and such. Thus, MovingToDubuque.com.
The site has very little on it so far, just a list of Lutheran churches and a welcome message, but we envision listing key businesses, schools, etc. It’s not a replacement for the Dubuque Chamber of Commerce website, but it can be a user-friendly supplement. We also want to draw upon seminarians’ (and others’) tips for packing and unpacking, as we’ve gotten to be pretty much pros at the moving thing by now.
While tomorrow is Internet Evangelism Day, this site isn’t about evangelism. We’re not trying to convert people or persuade them to be Lutherans (or Christians, for that matter). Instead, this site is a vehicle for hospitality. We hope it gets used and re-used in the coming days.
Internet Evangelism Day – April 26
Internet Evangelism Day poster
In honor of this year’s upcoming Internet Evangelism Day, I have been working on a couple of projects that will be revealed in upcoming days. First and foremost, I have been conducting a survey of ELCA church websites in order to correlate the quality of congregational sites with demographic trends over the last few years. I hope to have the results of that study out soon (though not, unfortunately, in time for IED). I’m also working on an update to my congregation’s website as well as a site designed to assist a large influx of new residents to the Dubuque area in the next few months.
When those are launched, I’ll be sure to post it here and trumpet it to the world. In the meantime, though, if you are thinking about connections between the church and technology as I am, the IED website is filled with excellent resources, including a comprehensive church website evaluation tool and a new blog about internet evangelism issues.
The Good Days to Come
Occasion: Epiphany, Year C
Text: Isaiah 60.1-6
This sermon was prepared for an assignment for my Preaching class at Wartburg Theological Seminary and was delivered on 15 April 2009.
The passage we have before us this morning comes from the third part of the book of Isaiah, which was likely written immediately after the end of the Babylonian Exile. A significant chunk of the people of Israel were forcibly relocated to Babylon decades beforehand, and now they get to go home. It’s a time of unalloyed rejoicing for these people.
And what’s not to rejoice about? The people’s very identity was threatened by exile. By being kept in Babylon for all those years, they ran the risk of being subsumed into the Babylonian culture and disappearing utterly as a people. Their customs, traditions, and religion were all interrupted by the exile. A huge amount of ink is spilled in the Hebrew Bible exhorting the children of Israel to remain faithful in the midst of exile. This is when the finishing touches get put on a lot of really important Biblical texts. The great histories of the Deuteronomic historian get put in something close to their final form in the Exile, and the key to it all is faithfulness. Their intended message: remember that God is faithful, even when every indication tells us that we’re in Exile.
Anneliese, Month Three
As has become my tradition, here is my monthly upload of photos of Anneliese. Of course, I realized in loading my pictures into F-Spot a few days ago that 80% of the pictures I take that aren’t really about Annie per se end up being of her anyway. But I think that’s just a normal part of being a proud dad. Anywho, enjoy the pictures:
Easter 2009
Jennifer, Anneliese, and I visited St. Louis for Easter this year. My grandmother, who is 92, is quite ill, and we wanted to be sure to see her and introduce her to Anneliese.
We traveled down during the day on Good Friday and had dinner with my parents, and then we attended Good Friday services at Good Shepherd, Manchester, MO. They do a wonderful Tenebrae service, and as they extinguish the candles one by one, the lights in the sanctuary dim until it is completely pitch black. At the end of the service, the lit Christ candle was recessed down the isle and out of the sanctuary, there is a terrific BOOM (the strepitus), and then the candle was processed back in. Quite an awe-inspiring night.
Saturday we visited Grandma Carnahan. That was a really moving experience, as even though she can’t see or hear well, and her memory is basically gone, she remembered that there was a baby, and she got to hold Anneliese by the foot. It really meant a lot to me. I had the pleasure of having Hari Santhanam over to talk that afternoon for a while, and we caught up on what we had been doing in the last few years. We attended Easter Vigil at Good Shepherd, and I was invited to come and preach in June – so that’s something to look forward to. After that some of the family gathered back at my parents’ house for make-your-own personal pizzas.
Sunday was Easter, of course, and the service was beautiful. What more can I say? Afterward we spent the day with my parents. Then on Monday, we made the 8+ hour trek home.
Birthday Party Pictures
I turned 26 on April 8 – wow! That puts me officially past the quarter-century mark, and one more step closer to the dreaded 30. We had a lovely birthday party here in Dubuque, with lunch out at Athenian Grill and then some amazing desserts homemade by my darling. She made homemade hot fudge sauce on homemade (full-fat) vanilla ice cream and a from-scratch chocolate Texas sheet cake with chocolate buttermilk icing. It was all to-die-for! My mom also baked a wonderful cake for me when we visited for Easter.
Photos of Family Visits
We had two separate visits from Jennifer’s family in late March. First, Tim, Jane, Morgen, and Tobias came in from Arkansas, and then later Cheryl, Candice, DeAron, Makyra, and Iris visited. It was quite a week. Here are some pictures from the visits:
Copyright 2006-2010 Ted Carnahan. Except where noted, the content of this site is licensed under CC-SA-BY.