Geez Magazine had a contest. They gathered up “30 Sermons you’d never hear in church.” Go check it out. I haven’t read them all yet, but it seems to me that I’d be happy to preach sermons like these or to hear them from others.

Here’s a snippet of one sermon:

God is bigger than every good and every bad thing we’ve done. God is bigger than every good and every bad thing that’s been done to us. God is bigger than the poor decisions we made three, five, ten years ago, and bigger still than the consequences we face now. God is bigger than our disobedience and lies, bigger than our addictions – to pornography, to drugs, to media, to television, to sugar. God is bigger than our words and behaviour. God is bigger than our sin. God is bigger than our pain. God is bigger than our happiness too. God is bigger than our right to success and wealth. God is bigger than the things we deserve. So keep the faith.

These sermons are terrific models of good preaching, actually. These 30 sermons are big in intellectual scale and faith. They are small in size. They are engaging. They would provoke deeper faith. If it’s true that we’d “never hear them in church” then we are in trouble.

Get out this graphic next time you hear someone pontificate about “Africa.” It’s a continent of vast size and even greater diversity. Let’s just focus on size. If you are in the US and you haven’t mastered life in every other state, why would you expect anyone in Africa to be an expert on the rest of this vast continent?

Graphic from Gadling.

You just can’t make this up. Right-wing Anglicans are gathering in Jerusalem now for GAFCON, or Gaffe-con. They will be in town just in time to enjoy the Jerusalem gay pride parade, according to Ruth Gledhill. I hope they all have a good time together. Frankly, I think a few of the gaffe-con types could probably be either spectators or participants, if you get my meaning.

Anyway, I wonder how Big Pete will enjoy seeing the parade?

Photo from Rabbis against Pride Parade. I’m not making that up either.

As I serve in the Diocese of Rhode Island, I’m sometimes frustrated with our off the charts stewardship. In a bad way. We are 100th out of 100 domestic dioceses. We are behind even Navajoland.

We are working to change the culture of scarcity, both in the parish I serve and in our entire diocese. But where to begin? Only Connect carries a recent story from New Vision — a fresh idea, recently implemented in a parish in Uganda:

“How can you come into God’s house empty-handed?” the pastor asked the stunned audience. “God has given you free air, which you breathe everyday but you cannot even be thankful by offering anything to his servants?” Joshua rapped. “In God’s name, I order all of you to disappear from here before he turns his anger on you like he did to the Egyptians,” Joshua roared. As if on cue, the worshippers scampered out of the church before he opened his eyes.

Read more »

Thanks, OCICBOV.

Image via Wikipedia

Our scriptures tell us that with God all things are possible. Say, for example, someone told you that it was possible to trade a red paperclip and get a house. I’m not sure if God was involved, but that really happened. A few years ago Kyle MacDonald began a series of trades. He began with a red paperclip. Wired reports that during 2005, MacDonald made a series trades “which included a movie role, a snowmobile and an afternoon with heavy metal rocker Alice Cooper — that led to the deed for his humble abode in rural Canada.”

Now MacDonald wants so trade the house for something else.

MacDonald plans to accept offers until July 11 and finalize a deal the following week. So far, he’s gotten one proposal: a red paper clip. “They didn’t say how big it was,” MacDonald said. “But maybe I’d take it.”

I have little to add. Wow. I can’t decide if this bodes well for the future of humanity, or if it’s some kind of sign of the apocalypse. In any case, I won’t take red paperclips for granted. And here I thought only red staplers had value.

Today marks the launch of Firefox 3.0. This is the best browser out there, save for a few quirky browsers that might interest particular people for specialized needs. If you’re using any version of Firefox, go upgrade now. The “check for updates” feature within Firefox seems busted, probably crushed by demand. Just point your browser at getfirefox.com and download version 3.0.

If you are using Internet Explorer, DROP EVERYTHING and ABANDON SHIP. You should start using Firefox immediately. It’s faster, safer, purer, and holier. It’s open and public. It’s built for the public good. It’s not built by an evil multinational corporation.

Read more »

Fellow blogger and prolific email-sender Ann Fontaine sent a note to the House of Bishops/Deputies email list, alerting us to a great article over at Slow Leadership. It uses whack-a-mole as a metaphor for a certain kind of bad management. Ann rightly connects this with many problems (and solutions) we face as a church.

Whack-a-mole is an intensely fun carnival game where you have to slam these moles that appear randomly in various holes. If you haven’t played it, go to the next street carnival you see and give this game a try. Anyway, here’s a snippet or two from the article:

The challenges are the ‘moles’. As each challenge presents itself to managers, they hit it hard and fast with the hammer of position and conventional wisdom. Slam! They get one. Slam! They get another one. It requires lightning-quick decision making in a fast moving game called “survival of the fittest”. It’s exhausting, but it’s also fun. Each night the players go home, knowing their job remains intact because they have successfully ‘whacked’ enough organizational problems to stay for another day.

Read more »

As I wrote earlier, the last couple of weeks were just too busy to post much here. I’m still clearing the blogospheric backlog. I thought I’d vent a little here, and let you know, dear reader, the extent to which I was busy, lest you think I’ve neglected 7WD.

I turned down a free trip to Paris.

There, I said it. I don’t usually “win” things. I don’t gamble, so that takes care of most potential winning opportunities. However, a couple of weeks ago, I entered a contest. I’m an avid reader and occasional commenter over at flyertalk.com, the hangout of travel junkies. They had a simple offer: send us an email, and you might win one of 20 tickets (likely to be business class) to Paris. And these weren’t just completely free tickets, they were tickets for the first flight of OpenSkies, which begins premium service to Paris this week. By winning, I received a ticket for this Thursday, returning Sunday. So why didn’t I say yes?

Read more »

Blogger Perpetua of Carthage ran some tests on blogospheria Anglicana. Based on the results, she concludes that conservative bloggers offer “greater intellectual engagement” than progressive bloggers. [See note below.] Setting aside the problems of machine-based textual analysis, there are other potential interpretations of the data. Maybe progressive bloggers shun pretentious verbiage? Perhaps conservatives aren’t capable of writing blog posts with the “plain meaning” that they crave in scriptures?

One big flaw in reaching conclusions based on the available data are the results of Seven whole days. This blog must be so clever that analysis was impossible. This blog wasn’t anywhere from “junior high” to “genius.” 7WD is off the charts! Is any other explanation possible? Given that 7WD offers off-the-charts brilliance, doesn’t that change the results of Perpetua’s reasoning? Based on her own logic, doesn’t that mean that the progressives win the cerebral smackdown?

My favorite feature of Perpetua’s posting is the very inclusion of 7WD among such a distinguished pantheon of bloggers. Here I thought I was toiling in quiet obscurity. Little big I know that I was writing a “well known” blog. Woot!

UPDATE: Perpetua has graced this blog with a comment, correcting my posting. She rightly points out that her post maintains that conservative blogs “require” greater intellectual engagement, rather than my summary saying that they “offer” greater intellectual engagement. I stand corrected.

(Image from jodifabulous.)

Here’s a little something to chew on. If you were concerned about the evolution from Rite I to Rite II, or if the Hip Hop Prayer Book gives you shivers, this will give you nightmares:

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From everything2, via boing boing.