Month: May 2011

i’m starting the initial research for my d.min project. there has not yet been a lot of research in collaborative sermon preparation so i don’t have a ton of resources to dig into. i have found this two papers that are very interesting and should be helpful.

here they are:

• a thesis paper evaluating collaborative preparation methods
• collaborative preaching from the margins – this is by dr. john mcclure, one of the few professors i can find who have written on the subject. dr. mcclure uses a group that specifically pulls in people “from the margins of society” for sermon prep. its very interesting.

i’ve also run into several reviews of the book by michael pasquarello III’s “CHRISTtian preaching: a trinitarian theology of proclamation.”  while the works is not specifically on collaborative preaching it looks like it might offer some interesting theological insight. i may have to get it. here’s one such review.

i just saw this snickers commercial. i think it is great. of course, i haven’t been nor have i had a loved one attacked by a shark. i probably would have a different view if i did. i assume the group that has actual connections with a real shark attack are very small so snickers is probably safe here.

 

i’m pretty pumped. today i accomplished a first for me … i caught two muskies in one day. i’m not really a muskie fisherman. i would rather fish for smallmouth and therefore that is what i usually do.

i think smallmouth bass are the king of freshwater fish. they fight wonderfully, are very dramatic with all their jumps, are incredibly aggressive attacking things that there is no way they could actually eat, and are plentiful. i can go out on a good day and catch 50-100 14” smallies. that’s a wonderful day. since smallmouth are so awesome i don’t usually put much effort into catching muskies.

don’t get me wrong muskies are awesome too. they put up a fight unlike much else. it’s just that they are pretty rare and when i go out i want to catch something. there is a reason they call muskies the fish of 10,000 casts. i know plenty of people who have fished in wisconsin all their lives and haven’t caught a muskie. the only reason i catch the two i normally catch a year (i’ve caught two every year we’ve been in wisconsin) is because the point area is crammed full of muskie and my friend andy lickel is an amazing guide (take a look at the muskie andy caught sunday and compare my little guys to that monster). i usually catch one at the beginning of the season and another at the end. that’s the way it has gone for three years. that is until today.

today i caught two muskies while fishing for crappie. neither one of the was huge (both around 30ish) but i still caught two. it was a pretty good day.

btw, here’s the first smallie of 2011. he wasn’t very big and he fought almost as good as the two muskies. i love smallmouth bass.

infocus just posted the results from their “worst powerpoint slide” competition (these slides were actually used and not false creations). the slides are awesome.

i am constantly amazed at some of the presentations i see. sometimes these are in churches and other times they are in lectures (community and classroom). some of the presentations are horrendous. why should i listen to you when i can read your information off the screen faster than you can talk about it? why use presentation slides that actually distract from the message you are trying to convey.

TED talks and death by powerpoint changed the way i use presentation software. they both use presentation software amazingly well by keeping it very simple. if you watch a TED talk video you will normally find that their presentations slides are VERY SIMPLE. the speaker’s slides are usually just images or small phrases.

here are the simple design rules from “death by powerpoint” that i try to follow

• one point per slide
• few matching colors
• very few fonts
• photos (not clip art)

i generally use my slides for the small segments of scripture, single words, and LOTS of imagery. i believe most of the threads would tell you that they remember the points of the message better by the images i use than they do anything else.

the irony is that i have actually seen someone do an absolutely terrible presentation on how to use powerpoint effectively in sermons. it was an awful presentation that demonstrated the exact opposite of what the presenter was trying to convey.

the above image is of a zimbabwean 100 trillion dollar bill (worth around $1-$1.50). i just read a story about them being sold on ebay for around $5 as collector’s items. i may have to get one of these or convince my kids to buy me one for father’s day.

for 11 years i have been carrying around a 20,000 rubel and 50 cordoba note in my wallet. i’ve kept them there to remind me to pray for GOD’s work in belarus and nicaragua. they serve as a pretty good reminder for me. every time i buy something i see them and try to say a quick prayer.

life has been pretty busy recently. it has been good also … but busy. therefore, i have been more focused on the tasks at hand than i have been blogging. this makes me a little sad because every now and then i like blogging. the busyness will subside soon because i am about to be through with the seminar work for completing my d.min. woohoo!

of course, this means that i will now begin working on my project (since the d.min is a professional versus terminal doctorate it means that your dissertation MUST be practical in its nature, i.e. i have a project rather than a traditional dissertation). i finished my preliminary proposal last week (you can view it here) and we’ll see how that goes. i like the idea of it. it’s basically a study of how trinitarian and incarnational theology should effect the preparation of weekly sermons. in other words, should the fact that GOD is community in his very nature (i.e. the trinity) and the fact that GOD typically preforms HIS work through the agency of HIS people (i.e. incarnation) effect how many voices from HIS church are involved in the preparation of the weekly sermon and, if so, how can the church collaborate on the sermon?

this may not interest you but it does me. if you are thread then there is a chance that you might be asked to participate within my project. i’m going to do an A/B/A/B test to determine if sermons that involve collaboration within preparation have more impact than those that don’t.