Canadiana Dave: The New Quest for Knowledge

"Why yes, I use my iPad for data collection." I've had a few people ask me about my use of technology for research.  Frankly I have lots to learn yet, but I thought I'd share what I have discovered to date.  This is part 1 of 3.  Next week: Canadiana Dave, The Apps of the iPad.  WARNING: This video contains excessive corny-ness, but also helpful info. Youtube Link ...

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Bikers, Beer and Church

Yes, bikers and beer but first Church.  When you last went to church, did you feel welcome?  Did you think "hey, I think I'll come back" or were you just glad when the Minister said "Amen" and you could exit.  In the course of my research I have visited many churches.  None were unwelcoming, but some were extra friendly.  One mails out Tim Horton's gift cards to first time visitors (Tip: always fill out the visitor's card.)  Yes, that got my attention and I don't even drink coffee!  Other churches had an excitement...

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Juggling, The Beatles and Intersectionality

Last week I had the privilege of participating in the 1st Religion & Diversity Project's Doctoral Workshop in Ottawa.  Under the direction of Prof. Jim Beckford, nine doctoral students shared their research, discussed theory and plotted dissertation writing.  We learned a lot and had fun. Today's post however is about a theoretical concept we considered in our workshop: intersectionality as demonstrated by juggling to the Beatles. Hey, I'm serious so pay attention as I badly explain (no laughing or eye-rolling allowed.) ...

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Digital Religion

Now I've done it. My paper proposal has been accepted for the 2012 Digital Religion Conference. Held at the Center for Media, Religion and Culture in Boulder, Colorado, the conference will draw together scholars of religion and media with producers of religious media. Boulder, Colorado...in January. No, I don't ski. I am told there is a great Sherpa restaurant in Boulder so that's on the itinerary. So my proposal: The Theology of Information Seeking: Understanding Church Leaders’ Source Selection in a Digital World. I will argue that leaders cite theological orthodoxy as an important criterion for selection of information sources, but will then frequently cite materials outside of their...

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Making Leaders

Who do leaders turn to when they want to grow their leadership? On September 29-30 I had attended the Global Leadership Summit, a webcast conference on Christian leadership, hosted by the Willowcreek Community Church, an evangelical mega-church of 24,000 attendees. The conference was attended by 165,000 leaders meeting at sites in 70 countries. I met with the several hundred leaders at a Canadian site at Stoneridge Fellowship. The conference was about Christian leadership, though not necessarily church leadership; many of the speakers and attendees were from the business world; and not all were Christians. One central idea is that wisdom can be found in many places. Consider the panel of speakers: Bill...

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Being courageous

This week I went to see "Courageous", a new movie by Christian filmmaker Sherwood films in association with TriStar. The heroes of the story are a group of cops who are wrestling with a more challenging calling, being fathers. They are faced with both work and life challenges, and the audience gets caught up in their personal tragedies and triumphs. If you go, bring lots of tissues, especially if you are a parent. Yes, I'm serious, the message is heart-rending. The movie is a challenge to fathers to step up, and take that role seriously. This movie comes from a un-apologetically evangelical Christian worldview, which I think surprised some local reviewers. To be honest I had mixed feelings...

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Amazon and the For-Fee Library

So the rumour goes that Amazon is trying to convince its publisher friends to allow it to create an e-book rental service. The story is that this service might be like Netflix and offer unlimited (?!) borrowing for a set monthly fee. Amazon has the reader client base already, software/hardware (Kindle) and the publisher relationships. They already have piloted a limited textbook rental service. Not surprisingly the model is difficult for publishers to swallow. Like the music industry pre-iTunes, it seems like publishers don't see that there is money to be made here. What of brick and mortar libraries? A blogger for The Guardian has suggested "If I were a librarian, I confess, I'd be putting...

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The Journey Online

The challenge of any helping role is that most of the work you do is invisible. This is the case for pastors, whose jobs involve confidential counselling, mentoring, and simply coming alongside. I remember in my early days as a student pastor having to put up with comments like "nice job, only having to work one day a week." I kept thinking that a regular 9-5 job sounded so nice! So how does one share the fullness of pastoral life without appearing to be an attention seeker? A friend at the Archdiocese of Ottawa office recently told me about Archbishop Terrence Prendergast's blog "the Journey of a Bishop." Posting nearly everyday, he chronicles events in the life of the church, both local and...

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Eulogy for a bookstore and a short rant

On December 31, 2011 the Baptist Bookroom will close after fifty years serving the needs of the Convention of Atlantic Baptist Churches. It was likely inevitable; the brick storefront model is passing away. I have ordered a few items online from them, but as it is a province away I never visited in person. I took a few minutes to write and ask the folks at the Convention office "So what's next?" Yes, this business model has failed, but the need for good Christian educational materials remain. Yes, there are good online sources like CBD or directly...

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Here comes the bride...and the ipad?

I've argued that technology is subtly changing how people practice their faith. Even familiar rituals get transformed. Sometime ago I shared an example of a wedding procession that became a viral video hit. OK, that was good but this is better: the Huffington Post posted a story about Renee the bridesmaid who couldn't travel to the wedding so...she joined by ipad via Apple's video app facetime. Webcams are ok to watch, laptops are bulky, but the ipad was just right. I recently attended a work meeting by ipad. I sat at one side of the table and could see and hear and participate. But is it ok to be part of a wedding virtually? What is it like to be groomsman? Can you actually sign the register...

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When its personal...

Sometimes research can get personal. It happens when you find yourself joining your subjects under the microscope. At the recent CAIS conference I presented a paper entitled "Beyond Belief: Prayer as Communication in Information Seeking." I'll write about that later this week. It was a positive experience and I received lots of excellent feedback.When you study peoples' lives, it is difficult to remain detached. The researcher balances the objective ("etic") viewpoint, and the "insider's" ("emic") perspective. When I study another culture, it is...

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SciFi and Human Nature

Outcasts is a new miniseries on the Space Channel, a post-apocalyptic storyline developed by the BBC. The premise is that we have devastated the planet earth and in 2040 we must leave to start over on another planet. Our new home is called Carpathia, named after the ship that rescued survivors of the Titanic disaster. Most evacuees don't survive the trip but a colony is established, and the story begins ten years after the initial landing. Can we really start over?We discover quickly that the colonists have personal baggage, some from earth, but also guilty decisions made since planetfall. The spacecast blog notes: "The characters are presented with the failings of the human race - will knowing...

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Healthy in Body and Spirit

So I'm sitting in a session on Health information seeking in everyday life at the Canadian Association for Information Science conference. Not my usual topic, but I was interested in how the presenters, Jennie Abrahamson & Victoria Rubin and Shelagh Genuis were approaching their research. Abrahamson & Rubin's paper was "'Your Doctor Won’t Tell You This ...': Expert and Lay Perspectives in Health Communication Discourse," and Genuis' was "Constructing sense from uncertain and evolving health information."Suddenly my ears perked up; I was hearing familiar themes. People are wrestling with health challenges, and are seeking information. They talk to health professionals, but also friends,...

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"Do I mow the lawn today?" and other theological questions...

Judgement Day. May 21, 2011. 6:00pm.So says the Harold Camping of Family Radio ministries, a Conservative Christian evangelistic ministry. Important to Christian theology is the idea of the end things ("eschatology"), whether it be "what happens when I die?", "what happens to the world?", "is there a heaven?", or "is there a hell?" The Bible says alot about end things. These are important faith questions. The danger arises when answering those questions becomes the consuming passion, and not living out our faith. Perhaps Harold Camping is sincere and convinced. Tomorrow he will be a very disappointed man.Judgment Day prophets have been around for a very long time. In fact, the Gospel of John...

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Reports of the Church's demise are exaggerated.

CNN's Belief Blog recently posted an entry entitled "My Take: How technology could bring down the Church." Lisa Miller argued new technologies like Bible apps, podcasts and streaming video will undermine the need to actually attend church. She wrote "With Scripture on iPhones and iPads, believers can bypass constraining religious structures - otherwise known as “church” - in favor of a more individual connection with God." She recalled how the printing press democratized the interpretation of the Bible furthering the growth of the protestant movement.I'll admit that I also had concerns about the negative impact of new technologies on the Church. First, lets clarify something: the European/North...

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Easter: a website

ChurchCrunch blog posted a cool Easter website (remember to scroll down.) The splash page is interactive and offers a linear narration. It is an invitation to a Easter Celebration. Obviously they put a lot of resources into this web ad. After a viewed their presentation I began to wonder who these folks were. Hmm. Not much on the website. Oh, a facebook page...ok, not much here but there is a link to another facebook page, Rock Harbour Church...and a link to the church website. I had to wander about the social media a bit but I did find out what they believe.They have carefully considered and well articulated teachings. So why hide them? Are they trying to focus on the central message? Avoid...

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Our (Virtual) Siberian Visitors

I shot an arrow into the air,It fell to earth, I knew not where;For, so swiftly it flew, the sightCould not follow it in its flight.H. W. LongfellowAs many of you know I run the video camera during our church's services. The services are streamed live using a service called LiveStream and archived for later viewing. Usually we have only a few viewers for the live stream, and a number more who watch later in the week.I remember when my siblings and I were young and we were snow bound on Sunday, Dad would sit us down in front of the TV for Rex Humbard or a similar preacher in lieu of church. The streaming service is a different experience; not Rex and the folks in far off Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio....

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"My Confession..." Part 2

So here is the test! As I discussed in my last post, I've downloaded the iPad Confession app, and I am going to give it a whirl. No, I'm not Catholic so this is new territory. I am hoping to discover how intuitive this is, so my apologies to my Catholic friends if I appear clueless...(more so than usual.)Step 1: Add new user - Name, Sex, Birthday, Vocation, Last Confession (umm...), Password.(Apparently vocation means: single, married, priest or religious [order]. ) Here goes...am I going to get Vatican spam now?Step 2: Select 'Act of Contrition'????...

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"My confession..." Part 1

I've been playing with a borrowed Apple ipad and exploring it how it can enhance teaching. I've enjoyed the personal applications as well (book readers, recipe files, games, and educational tools like the NASA app.) Whatever your interest, as the guys from Apple would say "there's an app for that." Yes, I know a few reps and they do say that.Now as tech blogger EnGadget writes: "Are you a sinner? There is an app for that." You might have seen the news story about the Catholic church's Confession app? For my non-Catholic readers, Confession, or...

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Before the Internet?

It wasn't so long ago I using telnet on dialup to access the library catalogue. Can you remember back pre-internet? We phoned people, even wrote letters...on paper...with stamps! No email. No Youtube. Not even google. This week Egypt went back to the pre-Internet days when the government pulled the plug of internet and cell networks to quell protests. In Canada we have the CRTC decision which might mean the end of unlimited internet downloads. Just when iTunes and Netflix started having more to watch than cable. Coincidence?Life is become entangled with the internet these days. I've been thinking of the churches that have enthusiastically adopted technology. New forms of church have been created...

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Dream, dream, dream...(What I want to be when I grow up.)

Let's face it, we all have to pay the bills (bobs, visas and BMOs). But what would I do if I was free of that obligation. What would a theologian / librarian / sociologist of religion do if he could do anything? I think I would build a Christian Resource Centre. Say what?! What the heck is that?Well let's build one together.I envision it has part of a local church, but open to the wider community: individuals, churches and organizations.It will have a library with resources for faith building, and christian living: books and DVDs on topics like ethics, parenting, dealing with divorce and grief; materials for theological and Bible study, for personal growth and for small groups.It will have...

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