• Archive of "urban" Category

    A ViralHope Video

    July 12, 2010 // No Comments »

    A few months back I mentioned the release of the book ViralHope: Good News from the Urbs to the Burbs (and everything in-between). I am one of 50 different authors who offers a brief reflection on what the “good news” might mean for my city (which was Memphis when I originally wrote).  The book has been doing quite well from what I understand and it now boasts an excellent promotional video.

    You can still get single copies of the book through Amazon, or order multiple copies through Ecclesia Press.  I hope you’ll consider spreading this video around, maybe with a link to the book.

    The video was made by Aaron Nee of the Brother NEE.  Check out this trailer from their feature film, The Last Romantic.

    • Share/Bookmark

    Posted in books, ecclesia, gospel, suburban, urban, video

    San Francisco, Strangers, and Stories: Part 2

    June 22, 2010 // 4 Comments »

    I ended my previous post about Amy’s and my trip to San Francisco by saying that one of the highlights for me was seeing Wicked for the first time on account of its similarity to my favorite recent TV series, LOST.

    The connection I want to make is well articulated in the quote,

    Strangers and enemies are merely people whose stories we haven’t heard yet.

    We saw this at play in LOST inasmuch as our assumptions and assessments about the nature of the main characters were subverted over the course of getting to know their history and background.  Let’s face it, it’s just way harder to be so critical of Sawyer once you learn that someone was responsible for conning his mother out of money resulting in his father killing her and then himself right in front of him.

    Similarly, in Wicked, we are given a story behind the relationship between the “good” witch and the “bad” witch from the Wizard of Oz.  We learn that the “good” witch was actually a fairly empty-headed, spoiled brat who always got her way and was extremely judgmental.  At the same time, we learn that the “bad” witch was a product of years of scorn and ridicule from her father and peers.  Not only did she blame herself for her mother’s death, but she was extremely mindful and caring toward her invalid sister.

    Let’s be honest, life is easier when we pretend that we can engage it in black and white.  Truth be told, our need to control life in this way is probably directly related to our own fears and inadequacies.

    It is when we lack contentment in who we are in Christ, that we default to judging others so that we can feel better about who we are.

    … I am more valuable than him because I work hard and he’s a lazy bum.

    … I am nicer than her because I saw how rude she was to the bank teller.

    … We are a more devoted family than them because they are constantly missing church services.

    Little do we know that…

    … he was born addicted to crack and never had the sort of love and support it takes to help someone to recover from that sort of disability.

    … she just found out that her 2 year old son was diagnosed with Lukemia and their family is uninsured.

    … as a family, they are trying to spend time with their neighbors who think Jesus is a joke.

    Stories change everything.

    Identifying with others by entering into their stories is risky because we almost always discover that we have more in common with the people that we would just assume distance ourselves from as strangers and enemies that we’d like to admit.

    So here’s the challenge before you you and I today (and for the rest of our lives!) – to risk entering into the pain and uncertainly of the stories of the people we consider strangers and enemies that we might identify with them as Christ entered into the story of humanity and identified with it – such is the nature and meaning of incarnational ministry and witness.

    I will never be able to watch The Wizard of Oz with as much innocence as I once did. And regardless of what you and I thought about the conclusion of LOST as a television series, there is something profound about this notion of our salvation being bound up with our willingness to truly know and be known by others, especially those we are most unlike us.

    Stories change everything.

    • Share/Bookmark

    Posted in salvation, stories, travles, urban

    San Francisco, Strangers, and Stories: Part 1

    June 11, 2010 // 1 Comment »

    A wedding between our friends Matt and Brianna last weekend gave Amy and I the opportunity to take our first trip to San Francisco.

    The wedding was held at the Guglielmo Winery in Morgan Hill and was one of the most beautiful weddings I have ever attended.

    Thursday and Saturday we stayed in Gilroy, just south of Morgan Hill and apparently the “Garlic Capital of the World.”  Sounded pretty ridiculous to me until we drove into Gilroy and all we could smell was garlic – seriously!

    After the mandatory trip to In-N-Out…

    We of course felt compelled to visit the Garlic Shoppe.

    Amy was even brave enough to taste the Chocolate-Garlic Ice ream.

    We spent Sunday with our friend Jeanelle seeing some of the sights around the city of San Francisco including Hyde St. Pier, Ghiradelli Square, Chinatown, Golden Gate Park and the adjacent beach.  We also took the perfunctory trip across the Golden Gate Bridge.

    Sunday evening, Amy and I went to see Wicked at the Orpheum in the Union Square district of downtown.

    ~~ Lots more pictures here and videos here

    Now, Amy is a musical buff, she’s seen em all (multiple times in many cases!) but this was my first time seeing Wicked and I loved it.  It was probably one of the highlights of the trip for me.  Why? Because Wicked bore a striking resemblance to one of my favorite TV series’ of all time, LOST. Let me offer a quote I heard recently as a prelude to my explanation of that observation.

    “Strangers and enemies are merely people whose stories we haven’t heard yet.”

    More on that in my next post.

    • Share/Bookmark

    Posted in stories, travles, urban, wedding

    Cultural Gravity (Part 1)

    July 24, 2009 // 4 Comments »

    Try to jump and hang in the air for 10 seconds.  How’d you do?  You either failed, cheated, or are reading this from the moon.  You are a captive of gravity.  It pulls at you, refusing to let you wander off.

    Culture is a lot like that.  The various elements of the culture we inhabit pull us toward some sort of center.  Culture, in all of its various forms: language, architecture, customs, expectations, rhythms, etc., creates a sort of reality for those who live in it.  This is what I am calling cultural gravity.

    Cultural gravity cuts two ways – it simultaneously frees and binds.  As regular gravity gives us the ability to walk around and explore our immediate surroundings, it also binds us there, making any desire we have to explore our not so immediate surroundings extraordinarily difficult.  Analogously, cultural gravity is what enables us to authentically enter a particular time and space – to know it personally and deeply.  But it can also trap our imaginations and stymie us intellectually and creatively.  The longer we live with in a particular brand of cultural gravity (geography, tradition, denomination, etc.) the harder it will be to enter new ones with any degree of receptivity or discernment.

    Anyone who has ever lived cross-culturally has experienced this tension.  It is why new cultures can be hard to adjust to and why we may have a hard time (or outright fear!) returning to the culture we came from.

    As one who has had some varied over-seas experience and has moved from the suburban mid-west, to urban So. Cal, to some blend of suburban/urban culture in the midsouth, and now lives outside of Chicago, these are some thoughts I have been having.

    In Part 2 I plan to offer some reflections on what I think cultural gravity has to do with missional churches.

    • Share/Bookmark

    Posted in chicago, church, culture, memphis, midwest, missional, suburban, travles, urban

    Christian Community Development Association

    October 21, 2008 // No Comments »

    Leaving this afternoon for Miami along with some other friends for the CCDA conference.  I have been looking forward to this conference for quite some time and plan on blogging and twittering some of my thoughts and experiences through the week as I am able.

    There is a Facebook group if you are intereted in joining.

    Tomorrow I’ll be in a workshop that has to do with creating urban/suburban partnerships and here’s a list of the speakers for the week.

    • Share/Bookmark

    Posted in CCDA, conference, justice, urban

    Walking and Books

    July 19, 2008 // 3 Comments »

    Caught something about “Walkable Neighborhoods” over on Joe’s blog today.  He pointed to walkscore.com – a site that will tell you how walkable your neighborhood is.  On the site, they have this to say about walkable neighborhoods…

    Walkable neighborhoods offer surprising benefits to our health, the environment, and our communities.

    Better health: A study in Washington State found that the average resident of a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood weighs 7 pounds less than someone who lives in a sprawling neighborhood.1 Residents of walkable neighborhoods drive less and suffer fewer car accidents, a leading cause of death between the ages of 15–45.

    Reduction in greenhouse gas: Cars are a leading cause of global warming. Your feet are zero-pollution transportation machines.

    More transportation options: Compact neighborhoods tend to have higher population density, which leads to more public transportation options and bicycle infrastructure. Not only is taking the bus cheaper than driving, but riding a bus is ten times safer than driving a car!2

    Increased social capital: Walking increases social capital by promoting face-to-face interaction with your neighbors. Studies have shown that for every 10 minutes a person spends in a daily car commute, time spent in community activities falls by 10%.3

    Stronger local businesses: Dense, walkable neighborhoods provide local businesses with the foot traffic they need to thrive. It’s easier for pedestrians to shop at many stores on one trip, since they don’t need to drive between destinations.

    My new neighborhood scored an 82/100!

    Also, in my ongoing effort to try and make as many of my normal purchases from people and places that make positive and conscientious contributions to society, I wanted to point out betterworld.com.

    Better World Books collects and sells books online to fund literacy initiatives worldwide. With more than two million new and used titles in stock, we’re a self-sustaining, triple-bottom-line company that creates social, economic and environmental value for all our stakeholders.

    Yeah, I am gonna spend a little more on books from this group than Amazon or another group like that, but I am always reminding myself, low costs almost never come without someone else paying the “price.”

    • Share/Bookmark

    Posted in books, sustainability, urban

    « Previous Entries