Hacking.Church 02: Advent
All Things New for the Season of Blue?
Hello World
Welcome to the second edition of the email subscription for HackingChristianity.net! I’m so glad you’ve subscribed. As of publishing, we’re at 81 subscribers…and get this…72% of you opened the inaugural email last week—that’s unheard of when most email subscriptions are thrilled to have a 39% open rate!
Here’s what was published in our genres this week, and the promised exclusive content at the bottom.
Church and Christianity articles:
[NEW] Resisting the Blue Stole: An Advent Reflection, a post that I didn’t want to write about transitioning to yet another season of the church that will be upended by COVID-19. I had hoped we would be through it by now, but here we are: celebrating Advent a screen-width apart.
Welcome to Hacking Christianity 5.0 is the “welcome back” post after several months offline that explores the new logo, new features, and where we go from here. If you missed it last week, here it is again!
Geek Gospel articles:
From the archives: Tetris and Advent wonders about a feature of the video game Tetris that is essential to play, and if we try to remove it, we lose the game more easily. Likewise, we cannot rush through Advent as its preview of things to come guides us through uncertain times.
United Methodist articles:
None this week (several coming next week), but there’s no reason to not lift up another writer who has contributed to these conversations this week. UM & Global by fellow Boston University School of Theology graduate Dr. David Scott has the following articles that speak to the global perspective on UM politics and a closing one on creation care and technology:
Recommended Reading: Norwegian United Methodists Decide to Apologize to LGBT+ People
Recommended Readings: German Plans for Denominational Future Solidify
Recommended Viewing: Jenny Phillips on Green Technology and Mission
Open Tabs:
Finally, as promised, email subscribers get exclusive content not available elsewhere. Right now, that is Open Tabs: these are the windows that are open RIGHT NOW on my computer that I just can’t stand to close yet:
How do we grieve the hundreds of thousands that COVID-19 has killed? I hesitate to link to Christian Century because if you even let your hand off the mouse, it becames a paywalled article. But if you can get through it the first click, it’s got some good perspectives in it.
Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Maker: While most of the fun is crafting dungeons yourself, this might yield new layouts and considerations for folks to try out.
The Few, the Tired, the Open Source Coders: Wired examines a problem shared by churches: the super-volunteers who shoulder 70% or more of the volunteer needs. I wonder what churches can learn from this shared problem—or inform about!
Andrew Carnegie: “The organ lessen the pain of the sermon!” A funny anecdote and story about Andrew Carnegie that I’ll likely use for a music-focused sermon in the future. You might too after reading it!
Futureproof: A Road Map Through Pandemic and Beyond: I finally took the leap and I signed up for this six session course on visioning while in a pandemic. I have no idea if it will be what I hope for, but I like the two thinkers and the practitioner on the panel. If you want to join me, come on in! It starts Monday November 30th, twice a week classes for three weeks.
Well, that’s it for the last week of November, a lite email that will be paired with a heavy blog schedule next week. As we travel into the unknown of the December dark, may your companions be physically distanced but emotionally available for one another as we journey together through Advent.
Blessings and see you next week,
~Rev. Jeremy