The Love of Christ May 7, 2013

Love of Christ.

This video was created after reading Ephesians 3:14-19.  I have been praying fervently for those who do not know the love of Christ, for those who are sick and in need of His healing, for those who wonder of their worthiness of His love, and for those who praise His heavenly name.  I made this video with the intent in showing it everywhere possible in hopes that one who reads and hears these words from others in what it means to them to know the love of Christ, they too will come to understand and ‘know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that they too may be filled with all the fullness of God.’

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of His glory, He may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through His Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:14-19

For many, using videos is a new and novel way to express their faith.  It potentially can touch hundred, thousands… or more people’s lives.  Throughout class this semester we have spoken about engaging people in the Gospel differently–in addition to our traditional meet-within-the-church-walls way.  I have wondered all semester if using digital media has the same impact as meeting face to face and what I have found is this:

*Using Facebook as an invitation to define Gospel, to name their favorite Bible verse and to express their needs of prayer were met with some resistance.  Theories on why this may be: didn’t want to answer, may not have had a favorite Bible verse, fear of being wrong, fear of boss or others seeing their response.  I did receive some responses in an open post and some in a closed message meant just for me to read.  I found that if one posted something about faith, such as a picture/saying/etc., most often it was seen by many but received few responses.  Is this enough to engage them in their faith?  Is it a start?

* Using email and texting when talking with someone about faith was much easier and more accepted with texting.  I was able to have very open, honest and deep conversations about joys and fears about faith.  Theory on why email might not be the best–a boss or colleagues may read the responses.  Theory on why texting allows for open conversation: might be easier to ‘talk’ when not in someone else’s presence, they are in the comforts of their own home/space, feel most comfortable using this type of tool, belief that no one else will see the responses.

*My biases of using digital media: privacy–my own and those for whom I converse with, I do not feel comfortable using images of others–only those allowed by CC, it is not that easy for me to use different media–this is definitely a learning curve for me.  Animoto was a helpful tool and I will now use it in the future.

In closing, I do believe that using digital media can open the door–wide open–in getting the Word of the Lord out to people and I am excited to learn how to better do this.

Think Gospel May 6, 2013

As we come to the close of the semester in our Gospel and Global Media Cultures class we are asked one last Key Question: As you, within your theological tradition, “think Gospel,” what promotes, guides, and hinders your embeddedness within and encounters with digital cultures?

Throughout this course we have been asked to define Gospel for ourselves, reading what our classmates have offered, and how all of this relates to digital cultures.  Looking back at week four, I mentioned that defining Gospel may depend on who is defining it: I went on to let the ELCA  define it: “Gospel, which is a translation of the Greek word for “good news,” tells us of God who created and sustains everything; of Jesus Christ who lived, died and was raised from death to give us life and salvation; and of the Holy Spirit who gives us faith and makes us holy. The four gospels are books in the New Testament that document the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. You can learn more about the gospel by visiting the Bible.”

I also quoted a book called Crazy Talk by Rolf Jacobson et al: “The Gospel message is good news. More specifically, it is a specific good news—the news that Jesus Christ was crucified, died, and raised for you.”  I talked to friends who say that one, Gospel is the first four books of the Bible, God’s words or songs about Jesus Christ and His life and how He lived and died for our sins, and two, Gospel is doing what we are called to do by Jesus. We were also asked to look at the definition from those in my small group: the Good News of the life, Ministry, and the activities of Jesus Christ’s earthly ministry as narrated by the four gospel writers; it is the story of how much God wants to be in relationship with us; it is not only looking for God and the Gospel at church on Sunday morning but being able to take a moment to hear, see, experience, and share the good news, the gospel through the little things, also the gospel has the power to give salvation and save the hearer and work faith in the hearts of those who hear it. The gospel connects us to God and established the relationship between God and human kind.

So how do we take all of this and understand it within the context of digital media?  I will again turn to Crazy Talk where it states that “Gospel is both a particular message and a particular way of delivery.” We can know Gospel and then deliver this good news message to everyone through Word and Sacrament, through song, through drama, through art, through service to others and even through digital media. This can be done through Facebook as I did with an experiment on prayer, through our faith community website podcast of sermons, the prayer chains many have in their faith community, through making of videos on youtube  or vimeo and the ways to engage or ’embed’ Gospel into digital media are only limited by your imagination.  Gospel is YOU doing Christ’s work for the other.

Above Image

Unknown participant April 25, 2013

What does fair use mean in the digital media sphere?  Do the people in the pictures our of latest tragedies agree to have their picture splashed all over the TV and Web and to be used over and over in Facebook posts, emails and office presentations?  Do they agree that the short clip of them battered and bleeding is okay going viral?  We may have a different situation happening in many middle and upper grades schools where their students watch sanctioned Channel One TV.  While good, I wonder if the classroom teachers don’t try to bring in other pertinant information for their students’ learning because of fear of doing something wrong.  The article Best Practices in Fair Use shows us that there is still some hesitation in using materials because of not understanding copyright issues, thus the students suffer.  We read in the article, “As a result, there is a climate of increased fear and confusion about copyright, which detracts from the quality of teaching. Lack of clarity reduces learning and limits the ability to use digital tools. Some educators close their classroom doors and hide what they fear is infringement; others hypercomply with imagined rules that are far stricter than the law requires, limiting the effectiveness of their teaching and their students’ learning.” (pg. 4)

We believe that creativity begets creativity and so the fair use conversation allows, “The cultural value of copying is so well established that it is written into the social bargain at the heart of copyright law. The bargain is this: we as a society give limited property rights to creators to encourage them to produce culture; at the same time, we give other creators the chance to use that same copyrighted material, without permission or payment, in some circumstances. Without the second half of the bargain, we could all lose important new cultural work.” (pg.5)

I understand that I have used some fair use materials here, right in this blog–the image from googleimages and copying verbatim from the Best Practices article.  While this blog may not be very creative, those two items have allowed me to add to that ‘new cultural work.’

Where I tend to get a bit nervous is when our children post something, it goes viral and is now considered fair use–fair game to be changed or manipulated for someone else’s gain.  Even this blog can be changed and presented in a different light than I  intended.

Again, and as ever, it is us being mindful of what we read and take from the web, what we post/blog/tweet/facebook etc. etc. and what we take from other materials out there and use just as respectfully.

Picture: Googleimages.

What are our opportunities for action? April 18, 2013

In light of the horrific bombings at the Boston Marathon, the suspicious letters and packages sent to government officials and our President Barack Obama, also locally the new flood crest forecast for our city–what was it that our professors called it in our Gospel and Global Media Cultures class?  Oh yes, “Complexity Paralysis.”  One can be so drawn to watching the news channels CNN, msnbc, FOX, ABC and CBS  with minute to minute updates and BREAKING NEWS reports; along with constantly checking the local newspaper website for updates to see if the National Weather Service will say this year’s flooding forecast will surpass the last four years of major flood fighting here in our area.  (Just today the paper says the city has re-opened “Sandbag Central” and asked volunteers to help make more sandbags to add to the over ONE MILLION sandbags that are already made and ready to be used in the flood fight.)  Overload?  A bit.

In reading chapter two, Crap Detection, of Howard Rheingold’s Net Smart this week, he states, “The danger of distraction or credulity is made possible by digital media, but the danger you and I can do something about is the bad habit of not controlling attention or failing to crap-detect rumors.” (pg. 77)  Let me make this very clear:  I am not saying that what has been in the news about the bombings is rumor, what I am saying is that it is so very difficult to take in everything that has been brought to us.  We are the land of the free.  We are cities of the brave.  We are people who believe that we have a safe society in which to live in so, when something so devastating as these bombings happens we almost cannot comprehend.  Our professors, obviously not knowing that this tragedy was to unfold, asked the class to think about how individuals and faith communities can be a voice for the other.  We were to ask ourselves this question as we watched a video with Charlie Rose et all on mass incarceration in the United States–is the US really fighting a fight on drugs or is this a masked form of social control?  Do we target more minority for crimes, crimes that those who are not in the minority equally violate?  Do we incarcerate them with longer sentences?  What does Rheingold and Charlie have to do with the bombings in Boston?  I do not know, I have no inside information, I only know what you and I have heard on the above named news channels, but are we jumping to conclusions about who this person is or persons are who may be responsible for this?  There have been speculations already about who is responsible without having all the facts, without reviewing all that needs to be reviewed.  Are we pointing our fingers too fast?

http://images.google.com/

How then do we bring to justice those responsible for such heinous actions?  More importantly however, how do we comfort those who have lost a love one to this act of violence?  How can we be with those who have become injured by this senseless act?  As we were asked in our lecture from class: as a Christian, “How do our individual actions and our communal confessions shape what we are doing.  What are the opportunities for action?”  What are our opportunities for action in the faith communities that intersect with the civil society?  I asked a few people this very question and here is what they said: “Do NOT show the person’s picture on TV 5,000 times.  Do not give him a platform.”  Another said, “Just turn off the TV and the stations will see that no one is watching so they can quit clamoring for ratings because that is all it is; who can get the most gross picture on the screen.  It really isn’t about the hurting anymore, it is about gore.” I wonder if there aren’t opportunities of action in our faith communities to become more educated on justice issues, to learn about our penal system and ways to work within that system for all, to bridge communities of race, religion, politics, gender and continue conversations, to tell our stories and to see our stories within God’s story and to, as my tagline says on my blog, to create a culture, a mind-set, a community, where everyone’s needs are met, all God’s children are equal; a place where there is no poverty, no discrimination, no us and them, only you and me–together.    

The great divide April 11, 2013

The cute little sign on the left is really not so cute after all.  This week in our Gospel and Global Media Cultures class we were asked to think about the divide between those that have and those that have not–digitally.  To tell you the truth I was a bit disheartened by it all.  We watched videos that gave us lots of statistics about access to digital media, the outlandish cost of digital media, the non-compete clauses for big businesses of digital media, and the ever-widening divide for those who have the ability to pay for digital media and those who can not.

For instance, I do have friends that live in rural areas of the state who don’t have the best options/low-cost/reliable access to internet.  There are also families in my city who come from ‘poorly resourced bases’ and have no way of affording this luxury.  We are seeing a greater and greater gap between student’s learning because of availability of the right tools.  How can that be?

Craig Watkins, of a video we watched, who teaches at the University of Texas, Austin and studies young people’s social and digital media behaviors, names the challenges facing us in this great digital divide we find ourselves in today.  “Kids come from poorly resourced bases in homes and in schools.”  He wonders “how can connected learning function as a lever of change, as a lever for empowerment, as a way of helping young people develop and obtain the kinds of skills, the kinds of competencies, the kinds of connections they need to pursue and reach their full potential in this kind of world we are inhabiting.”  He questioned if teachers and administrators should change their focus on the importance of teaching 21^st century skills and not so much on standardized testing.  He would like us to think outside the box when it comes to teaching and providing opportunities for all students but particularly those who are poorly resourced—such as afterschool programs or digital media clubs.

What then is our responsibility to children who come from poorly resourced bases and do not have equal access?  What do we do as a faith community to aid the teachers and administrators of our community schools so that all children are able to grow to their potential and not be stymied because of this great digital divide?  Susan Crawford , former special assistant to President Obama for science, technology and innovation, and author of Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age, challenges us to think of how we are to be in this civil society–“We need to be able to speak to each other and feel dignified and ready to cope in the 21st century.  It’s not about economic growth but the social fabric of the country and as a country that moves together and trusts each other is better.”

Image: googledocs

Love In Hearing, Love In Action April 5, 2013

We were asked to revisit our definition of Gospel this week for Gospel and Global Media Culture class and to also look to the people in our small group and their understanding, from their tradition, from their experiences.

In my original post I stated that Gospel could be defined in many different ways; in as many different ways as there are people. I mentioned Suzie and John and their definitions.  Suzie believes Gospel is the first four books of the Bible.  The stories out of the Bible that is heard every week in worship. Or possibly some of the songs that are sung about Jesus Christ and His life and how He lived and died for our sins.  She believes we learn of the love of Christ, Gospel, through hearing.  Then John sees Gospel as feeding the homeless or rocking a baby in the NICU.  His Gospel definition is the love of Jesus shown in us through action.

I also so appreciate the understanding of Gospel from my small group–

George – After knowing that the Gospel is also known as the Good News of the life, Ministry, and the activities of Jesus Christ’s earthly ministry as narrated by the four gospel writers, my greatest challenge now is how do we know whether we are preaching the Gospel in an era where human wisdom is taking the lead.

Sharon – We come closest to finding meaning through story. The Gospel is the story of how much God wants to be in relationship with us. This is Good News. God loves us so much he become a human.

Elizabeth – Don’t just look for God and the gospel at church on Sunday morning, take a moment to hear, see, experience, and share the good news, the gospel through the “little things.”

Rufus –  I want to point out that the hear of the gospel is that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins and that Jesus rose from the dead and that is good news for us. We are saved by grace. The gospel has the power to give salvation and save the hearer and work faith in the hearts of those who hear it. The gospel connects us to God and established the relationship between God and human kind.

In all of the above examples, they tell of the meaning, the understanding of Gospel.  We come to this understanding by either word or action–or I should say word AND action.  Christ Jesus-Love is in the hearing the good news with others and Christ Jesus-Love is in the action we take with and for others.

Digital Media Prayer Parameters? March 28, 2013

Jesus Christ, Son of the living God,

You vanquished the powers of evil and healed those who were sick.

Send Your Holy Spirit on our sister/brother ____________,

restore to her/him to health, and confirm her/his trust in You,

through Your all-powerful name.

Insert the name of your loved one as you pray this prayer aloud and respond by sharing with me her/his name so that I may also pray.

I am trying an experiment tonight.  I posted the above prayer on Facebook.  I am wondering if anyone will pray and post back to me.  Is this an appropriate place to post and ask for prayers?  Are there those who follow me on Facebook who are going to be offended by this prayer?  Are others going to be grateful for the opportunity to openly pray for their loved one?  I will keep you posted on this experiment.

In our Gospel and Global Media Cultures class this week we have been asked to listen to prayers given in public spaces and then taped for all to watch.  We listened to Gene Robinson, Rick Warren, Bradlee Dean, and Joe Nelms.  These men had been asked to pray at inaugurations, at a Minnesota House Session and also before the start of a NASCAR race.  Each began their prayer with reverence to God: Father God, Almighty God, Heavenly Father, or Oh God of our many understandings and then I found that they may have had some type of agenda in the prayers…mostly their agenda. And yet, in my very next breath I have to ask, was their agenda’s justified?  Am I to judge those prayers if they are prayers of the heart?  We are told to pray boldly, ask and it shall be given to you, etc. etc. so why was I offended by what some had said?  Joe Nelms thanks God for his “smokin hot wife” Well, I could pray the same thing about my husband–I do, but just using different words.  Who is it that gets to decide if these prayers are appropriate or not–me?  No, it is God who hears these prayers, it is God who we have conversations with, it is God who creates and loves and comforts and blesses and holds and gives.  It is God.  Amen

Empowering communities of care March 21, 2013

This week in our Gospel and Global Media Cultures class we are asked the question, “How does one go about empowering communities of care within digital media? How do we engage pastoral boundaries appropriately, and think missionally about our presence in such sites?”  We have been asked to examine the CaringBridge site in our quest to answer such a question.

Before I answer the question at hand, let me first begin by saying that MyLutherNet (Luther Seminary) is not a CaringBridge site however, it is showing great care for all who are on and off campus as a bridge of information, care, prayers, community, tears, love, fear, compassion, strength–all given with the love of God upholding each and every person aquainted with Luther.  These past few months have been beyond difficult for the community of Luther as we discern how to live within our means and eliminate programming and positions.  These ‘positions’ are God’s children whom we love and respect and care deeply about.  These ‘positions’ are our brothers and sisters in Christ who have worked tirelessly proclaiming the love of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ on and off campus.  These ‘positions’ will be held in our hearts with grateful thanksgiving–thank you good and faithful servants.  MyLutherNet is not CaringBridge and yet it has afforded us a level of trust that is as palpable as it is on CaringBridge.

I personally have had family and friends who used CaringBridge to keep everyone informed and updated concerning ones health and welfare.  I have found this site to be much different than most other social media sites in that I have never had any questions about trust here. Is this site innately so because of the content of pain, sorrow, fear, small victories, etc.?  I am presently on CaringBridge for a highschool classmate of mine; I have not seen him in years and yet, there is great concern for him and his wife as they battle together his disease of diabetes.  That culture of trust is just plain there–and it goes both ways, he trusts that we are all ‘there’ for him and we all trust that, despite the years that have passed, that he knows we care.  To get onto the site you must type in a password, mine is the name of a friend who I was following and who has since died.  So now whenever I access the site I am prompted to write his name–thus thinking of this dear man.  This simple act of writing his name not only reminds me of him but it also reminds me that God is with me throughout my sorrow at losing him and also my daily activities, upholding me in all that I do.  All of this through digital media.

There is a side of social media that I have also encountered today, an article  from our newspaper, Ramped Up Rumors, it discusses the underside of social media. It is a ‘confessional’ Twitter site that has caught on in the area.  It is a place where one can confess anything yet what they are finding is that cyber-bullying is becoming the norm.  We find in this article kids can and do inflict deep emotional pain on others.  What a sad contrast to what I have found in CaringBridge and Luther; places where we are continually mindful of eachother and the love that surrounds us continually.

Picture credit (google images/washing feet)

Testimony–the challenges involved in confessing faith in public spaces March 15, 2013

I took the advice of a classmate and let the Youth of my church keep their cell phones during Christian Education class.  We began by setting some ground rules–the topic of the day would be the announcement of the new pope, the student must tell the person they were tweeting or texting information only about the class, they could Google or Bing any information that pertains to the class, and if called upon they had to share with the rest of the class the conversation they were having with their texting/tweeting buddy.

This experiment began slowly mostly because they needed to find that right buddy who would keep the dialog going and they expected me to teach the whole class.  I wondered if this experiment was going to be just a novel way to learn our lesson but what I found, what we all found, was that sure it was fun but it was also extremely engaging and informative.  This is how these 6-12 graders learn and process information.  I could have read the latest headlines about the new pope, had a worksheet for the students to follow and take a test at the end of the hour.  After all, that is how we have always done it–our standard reply to changes being proposed in the church.  But what we all experienced was community and the witnessing of ones faith through the use of their cell phones.  Who is the pope and did we have someone like him in our ELCA church?  What is a conclave and how do we elect our pastors or bishops?  Do we have cardinals?  Why did they elect someone from Argentina and is he going to change the church because he is from there?  Is our church going to change because we just called a new pastor from Minnesota instead of North Dakota?  Why do they only let men preach and we let women too?  The questions and dialog needed to be started by me–however,  after the initial few minutes I was only needed as a guide; they ‘took over’ the class.

I have to wonder how Jefferson Bethke, who made the video Why I Hate Religion but Love Jesus, or Jim Gilliam of The Internet is my Religion would see this experiment.  Would they applaud the students in their witnessing or call this another form of hateful religion?  I was taken by the conversations and the community that developed last night–a faith community centered not on the pope but how, through the electing of this new pope, the Holy Spirit pointed these students to their own testimony for the love of their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Picture credit

What is Gospel? March 7, 2013

My question for Week 4 of my Gospel and Global Media Culture class is What is Gospel? I have to wonder if there are just as many ways to define Gospel as there are people. It seems that we understand that it has something to do with the Bible and God; and it definitely has to do with Jesus but to try and explain more than that, that’s when it gets a little tricky.

The ELCA  defines Gospel as: “Gospel, which is a translation of the Greek word for “good news,” tells us of God who created and sustains everything; of Jesus Christ who lived, died and was raised from death to give us life and salvation; and of the Holy Spirit who gives us faith and makes us holy. The four gospels are books in the New Testament that document the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. You can learn more about the gospel by visiting the Bible.”

Maybe it’s easier to understand the meaning of Gospel if we used the book Crazy Talk by Rolf Jacobson et al; from Luther Seminary. Gospel is explained this way, “The Gospel message is good news. More specifically, it is a specific good news—the news that Jesus Christ was crucified, died, and raised for you.” He challenges us to memorize two Bible verses that tell us what this good news is all about—“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) and “In Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.” (2 Corinthians 5:19)

Perhaps reading how Suzie and John explain Gospel will be of help…

Suzie defines Gospel by saying, “Well, Gospel is the first four books of the Bible; you know, the Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. The Gospel is the story out of the Bible we hear every week in worship. I think it can also be some of the songs we sing. It is God’s words or songs about Jesus Christ and His life and how He lived and died for our sins.”

John explains Gospel a bit differently, “Gospel is seeing a kid feeding the homeless man in the soup kitchen line. Gospel is watching the grandma wash up, put on scrubs and a mask and gloves just so she can go rock the sick baby in the NICU. Gospel is doing what we are called to do. God uses a sinner/saint like me to care and love others. Because of this unconditional love I receive from God, I sing out praises and thanksgiving by doing for others.”

In the end, I do appreciate a line in Crazy Talk, “The Gospel is both a particular message and a particular way of delivery.” That’s it; Gospel is both message and delivery.   The message is telling us we are saved by grace, we are reconciled through Christ, we are a loved child of God—all of this because God loves us. God does this, it is nothing we have done or can do ourselves.  The delivery is how this good news message is told to everyone—this may be through Word and Sacrament, through song, through drama, through art, through service to others and even through social media. The delivery is done in a way that all will hear these promises we have been given through the life, death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ—these wonderful promises of God’s love given for us. That is Gospel.