I lost my cell number a few weeks ago (long story) and have been wondering what number to tell people to call me on. Number portability is nice, but not always the perfect solution, and I’ve been wanting to give people a number that won’t change in six months. Problem solved.  I received an invite to Google’s new exclusive Grand Central service this afternoon, and now I have invitations to pass along to the first three people to comment on this post.

Grand Central is to phone service and voicemail what Gmail is to email. Grand Central allows you to choose a “number for life” in any area code and then connect that number to all your actual phone lines. So, I can set the order in which a caller should be connected to my various phones (cell, followed by home, etc.) and even send different callers to different phones. Mom calling? Send her to my home phone. Boss calling? Send him direct to voicemail. And manage a single voicemail box for all these phones instead of multiple voicemail and answering machines.

Plus, there are a slew of amazing features; take for example ListenIn that allow you to listen as callers record voicemail. If you decide the call is worth taking you can break in and begin a conversation at any time. If you want an invite, be among the first three people to comment to this post.

This personal reflection on the Lord’s Supper served to jumpstart my interest in Communion and forms the basis for research I’m currently doing on youth, young adults and the Eucharist.

Fast Food: Running with Jesus

We waited and salivated as we watched the huge chunks of soft French bread being unloaded from the wooden trays. I was eight, the year was 1982, and it was communion Sunday at West Hills Covenant Church — one of the few Sundays each month to which my friends and I looked forward. We knew that after the communion service the leftover loaves of bread would be portioned out to any kid who wanted a chunk — a chunk of the body of Christ — to tide us over until we got home for lunch. (more…)

Wentzel van Huyssteen, one of the most distinguished profs at Princeton Seminary, has been outfitted with a Wordpress blog (I set it up for him) and has posted a recent essay on the work of musical composer Richard Wagner. We’re trying hard to get van Huyssteen blogging regularly, but I think this will require some more effort. So why not leave a comment for van Huyssteen on his blog and encourage him to post regularly? van Huyssteen teaches in the area of science and theology (the Wagner essay is an abnormal topic for him) and delivered the Gifford Lectures in 2004. If you don’t know, the Gifford Lectures are a pretty big deal and have been delivered in the past by people with names like William James, John Dewey, Karl Barth, and Albert Schweitzer. He was also winner this year of the Andrew Murray-Desmond Tutu Prize. Stop by van Huyssteen’s blog, leave a comment, read his Wagner essay, and help us get a good man blogging.

I’m pleased to announce the public availability of the Ekklesion Meal Planner,¹ a web-based application that allows volunteers to easily sign-up to deliver a meal to friends in need. Granted, it’s a strange little application that most people won’t find terribly useful. However, if you are part of a church or organization that cooks meals for members who are sick, shut-in, or have a baby, then you may find Ekklesion to be a lifesaver. At Princeton we live in seminary campus housing and our neighbors are having babies constantly (seriously, six babies in ten days during the first part of December) and it’s tradition to provide meals for the happy family during the first month. However, overwhelming email communication was needed to coordinate this. When everyone wants to deliver a meal on the same date, or when someone wants to know who else is bringing chicken, the emails really start piling up.

So two years ago I created a simple web application that allowed people to signup for an evening, list the time and meal they’ll bring, and then receive an automatic email reminder the day before the meal is due. This was a hit, but it required that I setup a page every time someone had a baby. Not good. And after two years, an upgrade was needed.

So I outsourced the project via Rentacoder to some programmers in Islamabad, Pakistan. Yes, Pakistan. And they whipped up a very fine system that allows anybody to easily create a meal plan for someone else. Everything is fully automatic. And I like that.

Ekklesion works like a charm and makes coordinating meals a snap. Take it for a whirl; it’s free to use for anyone that finds it useful. You can even login using “example” for both the username and password in order to test the backend. I’ve already heard from two churches in the Princeton area that are starting to use the system, and I have plans to refine and expand the system this spring when I’ll sell it for a nominal charge to churches and organizations that might desire an internal planner of this sort.

If you have upgrade suggestions, comments, or find Ekklesion helpful, I’d love to hear from you.

1. Ekklesion is Greek for “of the churches.” It derives from Ekklesia. Those of you who are Greek nerds will want to know that its morphology is feminine plural genitive. [↩]

My self-imposed 12 days of blog silence (not to be confused with the 12 days of Christmas) is almost over. I realize that taking nearly two weeks away from blogging is a virtual death sentence for an upstart blog, but I’ve needed the time with my family. Anyway, posts are ready to go live starting Monday — some with substantial content, others just light and fun. Either way, I’m promising a minimum of one new blog post every day for the next several weeks. We’ll be covering some of my favorite topics: Eucharist & youth ministry; adolescents and neuroscience; technology & community; and lots of fun links to videos and other media goodies. The family is doing well. Anna is doing great. See you on Monday!

We’re pleased to announce the birth of Anna Elizabeth Zirschky at 5:18pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, December 12. She weighed 6 pounds 15 ounces and measured 20 1/2 inches long. She’s doing well and gave us plenty of sleep the first night (yay!). The full story will be posted on my wife’s blog.

Unto Us ‘Cultural Glue’ is Born: More than a quarter of adults in Britain do not know where Jesus was born, a survey has suggested. Only 12% can answer four basic questions about the nativity. Says Paul Woolley, director of the think tank that commissioned the story, “If we are serious about social cohesion we can’t afford to ignore the stories that have bound us together as a culture for 1,000 years.” Ah yes, Jesus as cultural glue. I knew there must be a reason for the incarnation, death and resurrection, but I could never quite put my finger on it. Thanks for clarifying Paul.

Indulgences, They’re Baaackkk: Actually, they were never really gone despite that whole Reformation thing. But they were at least shelved to some degree following Vatican II. Pope John Paul II offered plenary indulgences in 2000, but the current Pope seems even more fond of them and, among other recent offerings, has now offered Catholics reduced time in Purgatory for making pilgrimages to Lourdes. Too bad they’re not offering reduced airfare. Vacation anyone?

Vote Richard Dawkins for the New Humanist Bad Faith Award: Irony of ironies, voting is open for the New Humanist 2007 Bad Faith award and Richard Dawkins is among the ten finalists. Votes will “decide who will be crowned 2007’s most scurrilous enemy of reason” and so far only 2,082 total votes have been cast. Although I have to admit there are some other doosies on the list, wouldn’t it be fun to see Dawkins crowned? His rabid and dogmatic atheism is as distasteful as the religious fundamentalism he hopes to counter. Go and vote, and pass this link along. Voting closes December 16. (But, hey, if you can’t help voting for Chuck Norris over Dawkins, I won’t hold it against you.)

Consumerism Doesn’t Make You Happy: A new study has found that the cost-free pleasures of life make us the happiest. Researchers interviewed lottery winners and average people to determine that life satisfaction improved as a result of the simple pleasures of life instead of big purchases. It would be interesting to correlate this study with issues of buying pain coming out of “neuromarketing” research. Also, this would be an interesting discussion starter about the nature of happiness as we head into the thick of the buying, I mean, Christmas season.

Sunday’s shootings in a Colorado church and YWAM center will likely be unpacked endlessly in news reports and op-eds in the days to come. There will be questions about why a church security guard happened to be armed. Obviously, the fact that (s)he was armed saved lives, but it will raise eyebrows nonetheless. Last time I checked, our mall security didn’t even carry weapons, much less church security (wait, we don’t have church security) and I wonder if it’s generally a good idea for churches to have armed security guards? [Update: Some news reports are now saying that the “security guard” was simply an average church member with a concealed weapons permit.]

This week’s discussions will also raise questions about church safety in general. Unfortunately, they’re unlikely to spur many congregations to consider their own preparedness for violence, accident or disaster. The irony is that while churches are often prepared to offer crisis counseling to congregants, they’ve rarely considered what happens if the church itself is the center of crisis.

The possibility of a gunman walking into your foyer is incredibly slim [view stats], but as we’ve seen several times over the past years (and twice Sunday), it’s not out of the question. What’s more likely is that someone will be hurt, maimed, or killed by more routine happenings in the life of the church. If your church owns vehicles (especially the 15-passenger type), takes youth or adults to camps or retreats, or sponsors just about any activity outside of worship (and maybe worship isn’t exempt), then you’re involved in exposing people to significant risk.

There are two reasons that the risk at church is greater than what individuals face on their own. (more…)

Following  a class discussion that included the question, “Are there any big churches in New England?” I thought I’d look for the answer, and oddly enough YSMarko linked to a recent NY Times map showing the geographical location of all 1,300 American churches with over 2,000 people in weekly attendance.  That works out to 4.3 million Americans who attend megachurches.  There are some interesting distributions, but as I suspected few megachurches in New England (despite what YSMarko assumes, New Jersey and New York aren’t generally consided part of New England).  Further information on the demographics, geographical distribution, and influence of megachurches can be found at Hartford Seminary’s Institute for Religion Research.  Click the image below to expand. 

There’s a bit of an inside joke going on in this video if you’re not familiar with PTS. Sorry for that. In order of appearance: George Hunsinger, Bruce McCormack, Stacy Johnson, Mark Taylor, and Darrell Guder.