I have recently become more acutely aware of the impact of my web presence — for better or for worse. While I have on occasion considered abandoning the enterprise altogether, I have decided that I am far too entrenched in the world wide web and will continue blogging for the foreseeable future. I will just have to give up any aspirations that I ever had of running for President (Note: I will finally be age eligible this September).

In an effort to add content and make Transformatum more interactive, I would like to see what kind of interest you might have with a feature called “Ask an Elder.” The inspiration comes from Ben Gray’s “Ask a Minister,” which in turn came about because of Strong Bad and Ask a Ninja. Ben has encouraged me to go for it and also noted that someone is doing a similar feature on his site called “Ask a Quaker.”

The intent of “Ask an Elder” would be to take questions about faith and vision and provide an honest and thoughtful response. Humor may well be involved, as I do have a sarcastic streak, but the main goal will be to answer the question to the best of my ability. A couple Q&A’s that have happened on Transformatum already came from Joanna (here and here).

I do happen to be an ordained elder (a.k.a., presbyter) in the PCA. If you know me then that is rather shocking, is it not? I am still waiting for the call saying that they made a mistake. The flip side, as any good church officer will tell you, is that the process of sanctification is continual and learning never stops. A Christian should never think that he has arrived. In fact, I fully expect to be sharpened, enlightened and mostly humbled by the venture.

So what say you? Don’t let the Baptists and Quakers corner the podcast market! Leave me a comment if you think it is a good idea. If you want to “ask a question” for the first installment, then please use the contact form.

By way of Stephen Levy’s Newsweek article I discovered Jaron Lanier’s essay titled Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism. Below is a portion of Lanier’s opening salvo in which he says that certain aspects of Wikipedia are a symptom of a larger problem.

No, the problem is in the way the Wikipedia has come to be regarded and used; how it’s been elevated to such importance so quickly. And that is part of the larger pattern of the appeal of a new online collectivism that is nothing less than a resurgence of the idea that the collective is all-wise, that it is desirable to have influence concentrated in a bottleneck that can channel the collective with the most verity and force. This is different from representative democracy, or meritocracy. This idea has had dreadful consequences when thrust upon us from the extreme Right or the extreme Left in various historical periods. The fact that it’s now being re-introduced today by prominent technologists and futurists, people who in many cases I know and like, doesn’t make it any less dangerous.

It prints out to eleven pages of single spaced text. Read it in one sitting if you have the time, but expect to come back to it as you unpack and digest the author’s thesis. There are a lot of ideas presented in the essay, some of which could be topics on their own. One that struck me was what Lanier said about how cloned information leads to a loss of flavor. He talk about the “anonymous, faux-authoritative, anti-contextual brew of the Wikipedia” and contrasts it to personal web pages and journals which have a text authenticating voice and personality that Wikipedia lacks.

While not the point of the passage, I find myself chasing down a rabbit hole thinking about the level of originality in the blogosphere and to what extent I/we/others are regurgitating information rather than generating new ideas and perspectives? Is my blogging a flavor enhancer, or does it lack saltiness?

So apparently the SOAP movie title is becoming something of a saying (as suggested by screenwriter, Josh Friedman, back in 2005). Use it in place of “C’est la vie,” “whaddya gonna do?” and “s**t happens.” Aren’t you just dying to use it in your next conversation?

Guy #1: I hate email spam! Is there any way to stop it?

Guy #2: Snakes on a plane, man. Snakes on a plane.

This is an extended Monday Meditation based on discussions we have been having as a Session and as a church (re: our Sunday School class). The credit for this post goes to our pastor, who wisely refrains from blogging and sticks to church newsletters.

We have been talking about how we often approach the business of the church in the same manner as a CEO would run a corporation. Any executive worth his pay scale knows that a company needs a vision statement (where you want to be), a mission statement (what business you are in and who your customer is) and finally a strategy statement (how you are going to accomplish your mission and ultimate vision). The natural tendency is to scope and set these ourselves. A church needs these sorts of things, right?

As leaders or members in a growing body, it is very easy for us to forget to whom the Church belongs. Is it our church or Jesus Christ’s? Is it what we are accomplishing, or does the momentum belong to the Lord? The reality is that we do not need to be continually coming up with a master plan. We do need to pray for, and articulate the working out of, God’s plan, but what is most required of us is the willingness to faithfully follow the trajectory in which God is leading his people.

Our vision, mission and strategy statements are given to us in Scripture. It is our act of obedience to lay hold of these by faith. And it is not rocket science, either. You do not need a PhD to understand it. The mystery of God’s will, God’s vision for his Church, is overwhelmingly simple and profound.

Our Vision

“…in the fullness of time to unite all things [in Christ], things in heaven and things on earth.” ~Ephesians 1:10

“For in [Christ] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the cross.” ~Colossians 1:19-20

Paul even says in Romans 8:18-23 that “the whole creation has been groaning” in anticipation of this vision being fulfilled. The vision is that God is restoring all things in Jesus Christ.

Our Mission

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” ~Matthew 18:18-20

The “nations” start right here, and they continue non-stop right outside of our doorstep. Our mandate, or mission, is to disciple all nations to the Lord Jesus Christ, beginning with ourselves, our families, our community, our region, our nation and our world. We cannot be faithful to our image bearing calling while simultaneously not seeking the lost.

Our Strategy

Immediately before “setting his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51), Jesus called all would-be disciples.

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” ~Luke 9:23

Thus God’s crisp, three step “Strategic Plan” in Christ: self-denial, willful death and gracious resurrection. As Francis Scheaffer says, this is the strategy, “there is no other.”

And so our prayer is that God would, by his persistent and tender grace, realize his vision in/through/by/in-spite-of us, by shaping and equipping us, for his mission, according to his strategy, for the display of his glory.

“The Floyd Landis doping scandal is a mess, and a stain on cycling. But what if it’s a scandal not caused by Landis? What if Landis is telling the truth? What if Landis has been set-up? Clutching at straws? Maybe. But this situation is not as cut and dried as the mass media likes to portray it.” Click here to read more and sign the petition.