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Finding the Groove, Free!

May 4, 2009 //
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Win a free copy of Finding the Groove: Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith by Robert Gelinas.

I highly recommend this book (you can read my review of Finding the Groove here).  Even if you are not a fan of jazz, Groove’s stories, quotes, and insights about life and the Kingdom of God are engaging and helpful.  Groove encourages all of us to compose a more creative, jazz-shaped faith.

As Scot McKnight said in his recent review:

There are very few books like this one — in fact, there is none. I really liked this book, and I will return to it over and over as the image shapes my own thinking.

Let’s have this contest run through this Friday, May 8th at 3:00 PST. [Our winners of the free copies of Finding the Groove are Daniel Li and Dave Ingland. Congrats!] Leave a comment here or send me a message on Twitter (twitter.com/headsparks) describing why music is meaningful to you — could be a favorite song and why you love it, a formative experience, etc. — and how it connects you to the life and Kingdom of God.  I’d love to hear your stories and the soundtrack of your life — I’ll choose a winner from one of the responses!

Categories books, church, community, freebies, Kingdom of God, missional, reviews

Post-Idea Camp Rodeo: Friendship (Online + Offline)

March 18, 2009 //
2

Part three of an ongoing series of reflections about my Idea Camp experience (feel free to check out part one and part two)…

After I came home from The Idea Camp, my wife commented on how completely my inner geek had been unleashed.  “I had no idea,” she said to me, shaking her head.  It’s true — I spent a good deal of the weekend bathed in the warm glow of a small army of MacBooks running TweetDeck.

I definitely experienced firsthand what Charles Lee wrote, “Social networking is more than a nice tool, it’s cultural architecture.”  For me, tech facilitated friendship.  In some cases, I was able to connect with friends who I had only known through the blogosphere; in others, I met people face to face and have since been connected online.  In both cases, the transition from online to offline friendship was pretty seamless.  Gives me some hope for facilitating online/offline friendship and community in our church.

In terms of participation, tech opened doors for people to be involved in many different ways.  As DJ Chuang observes, The Idea Camp was a great venue for connecting the online and offline worlds, “We had as many people online as in-person at the event, Q&A was interaction with both onliners and offliners, relationships initiated online came together in person, etc.”

On a personal level, it was so encouraging to gather with like-minded friends who are asking similar questions and seeking to build God’s kingdom in their local communities. Working in church ministry has an isolating effect, and sometimes it’s good to get together with people who are thinking in the same direction just to know that you’re not crazy. I heard that same refrain recently from Mike Bishop, author of What is Church?, in describing the close friendship he has built with a group of people around the country that started with the question, We’re not crazy, are we?

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Categories community, faith, health, hope, innovation, ministry

Post-Idea Camp Rodeo: Innovation + Action

March 9, 2009 //
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Round Two of my post-Idea Camp rodeo (check out part one here)…

As its name implies, The Idea Camp was all about ideas.  However, as Charles Lee says, ideas are a dime a dozen; it’s the execution of the idea that matters. (h/t: @daniwao).  I deeply appreciated that the message throughout the Camp was not about innovation for innovation’s sake but, rather, to take a hard, realistic look at what it means to generate worthy ideas, the hard work of bringing them to life, and then evaluating & reflecting on those ideas.

The Idea Camp provided ordinary people like myself unique access to innovative people & ideas.  It was great to hear some people I had heard of beforehand (including Scott Harrison of charity: water, Eugene Cho, Dave Gibbons, Jeff Shinabarger) as well as many who were previously unknown to me.  The weekend was a great glimpse “behind the curtain” of the creative process.  For me, it was less about cut & pasting someone else’s model of innovation and more about hearing stories and being encouraged to dream and act.

I loved the Idea Competition hosted at the Camp.  To me, WikiChoice (the winner of the competition) embodied the ethos and heart of what The Idea Camp is about.  WikiChoice is a great idea, born out of compassion; essentially, it’s a resource to help consumers make just choices in their purchases).  It leverages technology to promote justice (consumers will be able to find info on products & companies via the web, mobile phones, etc.).  The process of group voting (tech again) and, most importantly, sharing our gifts & talents to bring idea to life captured the spirit of collaborative action.

Even the choice to go green with schedules (the schedule was available via the web, with a few strategically placed paper hard copies at the event) was a great idea put into action.

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Categories asian american, church, communication, community, hope, innovation, leadership

Post-Idea Camp Rodeo: Collaboration + Participation

March 6, 2009 //
2

I’ve been having a hard time writing down some coherent thoughts about The Idea Camp because it was such an incredible experience for me.  I’m still trying to wrap my head and heart around it all.  It’s a bit like herding cats.

In any case, before too much time passed, I wanted to at least begin recording some of my thoughts and impressions.  I’m going to borrow newly-hairstyled Dave Ingland‘s format and break my reflections down into separate posts.

So, here’s the first round of my post-Idea Camp rodeo (each post will be titled in the both/and spirit of The Idea Camp)…

* * * * *

I loved the ethos of open-source collaboration + participation.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Categories church, communication, community, design, hope, indie, innovation, leadership, third way

The Freeze Project San Diego

March 5, 2009 //
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freeze-project-sd

San Diego area friends,

I’m so glad to announce that The Freeze Project is coming to San Diego!  In short, The Freeze Project is a creative and simple way to raise awareness about the 27 million people currently enslaved worldwide. Participants will “freeze” in place for 5 minutes and then interact with people who are interested, giving out a flyer with information about human trafficking and raising awareness.

Here’s the rundown:

The Freeze Project has already taken places in cities like Santa Monica, Anaheim and Glendale, CA, Seattle, WA and even in London (yes, that one in the UK!).  We’d love to have a great turnout in San Diego, especially since SD is a border town with lots of human trafficking issues.

Spread the word and raise your voice to help unlock freedom for those frozen in slavery worldwide!

You can view the Anaheim Downtown Disney freeze below:

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Categories art, communication, community, justice
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