Paul Walker asked a question of whether "blogger's block" exists. In the comments, I assured him it does...and I think I've been suffering from it. So here are a few disjointed thoughts as I take the advice of my friend, Roy Williams, and just begin to to write (with some idea of what direction I'm going in).
First, today is a new holiday in the Province of Ontario (where the Centre of the Universe is located - that being Toronto). It's called Family Day. I'm looking for instructions on how to celebrate this new holiday. Especially as our oldest, Liam, is at school in Nova Scotia, the epitome of a middle child, Rylan, is skiing with his girlfriend's family in Austria and our youngest, Kaili (pronounced Ky-lee - accent on the first syllable) is asleep in her bed - as is her mother - who was up all last night looking after her own mother. So what's a Family Guy to do. (I wrote this @ 9:30am - they are now both up... and painting.)
Actually, I have lots to do.
I'm in the middle of two large projects where I'm the creative director on one and the producer/director on the other. In both cases, I'm also writing the scripts. These projects for different arms of the same large high-tech company are a challenge as they are being presented without audio - which means I have no clever voice-over to write - but also means I can't fall back on clever voice-over to tell the stories. And the deliveries for both projects are staggered over the next six weeks. (The beta-version of one video has to be on client screens by February 28th.)
On the evening of the 29th, Imbi and I begin teaching a diploma course at Wycliffe College, University of Toronto on church and media. We are both looking forward to this, but it does add to the work load. I'll also be doing a seminar at Wycliffe's Refresh event in May on "Church in the Digital Age". Graham Kendrick is one of the keynote speakers @ Refresh and it will be interesting to catch up with him - after our March for Jesus work together, so many years ago. (Note: the Wycliffe site is down right now.) I will attempt to interview Graham on the missional conversation for an Allelon Netcast in June.
Alan Roxburgh is in Toronto this week and it's great catching up after not being together since before Christmas. Alan is spending time here writing - and is also in town to discuss the regional Allelon Training Centres that are being established in Toronto and Hamilton this year (along with other sites that will probably include Philadelphia, Seattle and Kansas City.)
Alan will also be leading a session with Pernell Goodyear called Growing Missional Leaders, at the TrueCity Conference in Hamilton, later this week. I'll probably shoot it and have it up on the Allelon site as soon as possible. Oh, and Pernell is back blogging. (And I thought I've had a few health issues. Oy!?)
I should also note that the second interview in Al's Wandering Around LA series will be up at the end of the week. Make a point of listening to the first interview with Tom Hughes here or via iTunes. [Clicking on the iTunes link will open iTunes - or at least ask you if you want to open iTunes.]
I've asked Al to take a look at Pagan Christianity and, though I doubt he'll blog about it, I will try to get some comments up here on his view of Viola's and Barna's book. And if you haven't already, you should drop by Brother Maynard's blog for his in-depth coverage of the book, as well as a three part interview with Frank Viola.
While I'm pointing you at things, check out David Fitch's new post, The Bridge Illustration, An Idea Whose Time Has Come and Gone? It's a good post, that's getting some push back @ the BHT (for the Lutheranized comment). Kingdom Grace is blogging on the Fitch video we recently put up @ Allelon. (It's a very good post on the great content in David's video.)
I also want to introduce you to a new blogger, Elle, who's blog, The Best Parts, shares some of the best sentences/paragraphs from her favourite books.
I have a post percolating on what I perceive as The Low View of the Holy Spirit that infects much of evangelicalism (including the charismatics) - and I'm finding it interesting that it seems many of the reformed folk have a higher view of the Holy Spirit than the rest of the Christian world. (I'm thinking of people like Jared Wilson, Darryl Dash, Dan MacDonald and Tim Keller here. Not those who would more accurately be called Truly Reformed - in the pejorative sense.) If you have a moment, pray that I might get a moment to finish my thoughts - with clarity.
