Dan Dick: United Methodeviations

I have a problem with Dan Dick's blog, United Methodeviations: his posts have too much content for me to process. I am constantly bookmarking his posts because they are harder to take in with a quick scan (like I give most of the blogs I read). So I bookmark his posts, and try to get back to them later, ending up with a situation like my current one where I have 11 of his posts bookmarked that I still want to read more carefully. If you aren't reading his blog yet, you really should be. In an effort to actually read his posts more carefully and share them with you, here's a summary of some of the posts I've bookmarked:

Show Me the Money Mission - talks about giving being up during the recession in congregations that are mission focused rather than self-focused. "Too many churches focus on giving to the exclusion of generosity, ignoring the fact that you can alter a person’s giving patterns (behavior modification) without helping them to become a generous person."

Theology of Worship? - questions what theology undergirds what we do in worship. Not as in liberal or conservative theology, but what it is we think worship is about. "I am not advocating a particular theology that all United Methodist congregations should subscribe to. I am reporting that the congregations experiencing the most vital, vibrant, transformational and meaningful worship (as reported by the worshipers, not the worship leaders) are those where the leaders can articulate a clear, precise, deeply spiritual, and widely shared answer to the question “what are the underlying beliefs and motivations about God and the worship of God that shape and inform what you offer as leaders?”"

Mediocrity Not a Goal and Blasphemediocrity - why do we settle for (and sometimes even only strive for) mediocre in the church? "I have a fat folder of notes, e-mails, and letters from former lay leaders, pastors, council chairs, trustees, choir directors, children’s coordinators, teachers, and team/committee chairs explaining their decision to leave their church and go elsewhere — some choosing to leave altogether. The most common thread is this — the church has broken their heart by failing to be Christian. As one powerful letter puts it: 'I am not mad. I’m crushed. I am not leaving the church because it is doing bad things. I am leaving it because it isn’t doing any good things."

How Deep the Well - one of my favorite posts, about clergy wholeness/wellness. Pastors and parishioners should really take a look at this one. "How deep is the well from which we draw? If we are not being fed on a regular basis, what makes us think we have anything of value with which to nourish others? If we are not drawing from a renewing, sustaining source, why are we so surprised when we “burn-out?” The correlation is strong and, unless we as Christian leaders reorient our priorities, the message is clear. If we do not cultivate a vital prayer life, dedicate ourselves to an intensive study of scripture and spiritual teaching, participate in worship as a fully engaged member of a congregation, commit to regular and intentional self-care — physically, emotionally, and intellectually – and nurture and protect key relationships we will not be the people God needs to lead God’s people."

Greater New Jersey Bloggers

Since I now enjoy relationship with two annual conferences, in addition to my NCNY bloggers list, I'm also adding a list of bloggers from the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference of the UMC. If you're a GNJ blogger, let me know, and I'll add you to my list. Here's who I know of so far:

Chris Heckert - Chris is a clergy member of GNJUMC, and Assistant General Secretary for the Advance at GBGM, blogs here about GBGM trips, mission stories, etc.

Joe Tiedemann - Joe pastors two churches, a long-standing church and a church-plant congregation. He blogs at Life in the Way.

Eric Helms, associate pastor at Grace UMC in Wyckoff, just started a blog, Eric's Blog.

Greg Milinovich, associate pastor at Clinton UMC blogs at agentorange (where you'll also discover that Greg's an artist - who knew?)

***updated to add:***

Pastor Blue Jeans, another Greater NJ clergyperson, blogs at Forever in Blue Jeans.

If you know of other GNJ bloggers, let me know and I'll add to my list.

The Methoblog, NCNY Bloggers

The Methoblog has been having some stressful times. If you joined the blogroll in the last few months, make sure to resubmit your site for inclusion.

I think I will soon be making a small blogroll with the growing number of NCNY bloggers.
We've got:

-Aaron Bouwens, one of my fellow ordinands, blogging at Lord If I Know.

-Andrew Glos, another pastor from NCNY serving here in GNJ. I think he's still officially in NCNY, so I'll claim him for the bloggers - he blogs at Cadences of God.

-Kurt Karandy, a CCYM alum, freshman at American University, future pastor, blogging at Curt Comments from Kurt.

-My pastor friend Richelle, who is actually a pastor younger than me (by 9 days), newly blogging at Work in Progress.

-Wes Sanders, a student at Binghamton University, who attended Exploration with me in November, blogging at Imparted Righteousness.

-**My friend Richelle just let me know that Alan Howe, another elder in NCNY, is blogging at Nexus Notes.

-**Also just found BJ Norrix's new blog, Thoughts from Dr. BJ.

If you know of any other NCNY bloggers, let me know!

Weekend Update

Nothing too lengthy and/or profound to say, so here's what's left:

- I like watching the Oscars, but I hate listening to acceptance speeches. I find them so awkward 50% of the time. I give people about one sentence to see if they will actually give a good speech, and then I hit mute until the speech is over.

- I think I like facebook better than myspace.

- I've given up Diet Coke for Lent (all soda, but I only drink Diet Coke anyway.) Two of my members challenged me - one is giving up soda and the other is giving up meat in exchange for me giving up soda. The one who said she would give up meat is being very delinquent so far (not unlike Melissa at Going on to Perfection :).) I've been wanting to stop drinking soda for a while (at least so much soda) because it seems that all those chemicals can't be very good for you, but I really love my Diet Coke, and haven't made myself take the plunge before. But I am extremely competitive, so I'm finding it easier to hold up my end of the deal this time around...

- I've added some new blogs to my regular read list: Will Samson, Lisa Samson, TallSkinyKiwi are a few to check out.

Blogroll

I've just finally done some major updating of my blogroll. It was very very sadly out of date. If I've accidentally deleted you, please let me know. I removed blogs without posts in the last month or two, and tried to eliminate duplications between my own blogroll and the other blogrolls I support.