Besides, crazy questions have led me to clarify my own theology several times on this site.
@AffableGeek oh, I was stalking you yesterday (because I stalk smart people. really. it's a good thing. Plus, why else do we put our site links on our profiles?) and was wondering, do you have audio recordings of any of your sermons? I was looking over some of the outlines and they look pretty neat.
@AffableGeek wow. that's great! I will most definitely add you to my non-existent prayer list! (non-existent meaning I keep telling myself to actually write it down, and now I am)
@waxeagle well, let me know if you find it lacking. I'm pseudo-technically in charge of it, even though we're paying for the CMS and it's mostly run/maintained by mSites/church secretaries.
we actively support both Santos Buendia (a church planter) and his brother Moises (who is in charge of a church in the slums of Lima) and just helped Abel out of seminary, so we've got lots of connections even without the trips
@waxeagle man, that'd be a killer considering how hard it is to get the support I need
@ElendiaStarman do you have a more contemporary worship service?
@waxeagle yeah, we started with MTW for our german missionary, but eventually finished by ordaining him as an assistant pastor in our church (since there's virtually no reformed church in Germany to ordain him)
@ElendiaStarman ah, okay. I'll try not to burn you. (I tend to get passionate about contemporary worship services. Not that they're all bad, but often degenerate into superficiality. Just like traditional services degenerated into stodginess. I just opened a can of worms, didn't I?)
@ThomasShields not exactly, I personally prefer a strong mix of both elements, part of the reason I drive 45 minutes to church is because I like our church's service. We use modern music, but retain a lot of the traditional liturgy...its a strange amalgam, but its actually what i prefer
@waxeagle ah, interesting! My church is pretty traditional, but we're certainly not stuffy old puritans (I use that in the purely stereotypical sense of the word. Puritans were quite awesome.) I'd personally like to see us add some instruments (but maintain the older music style)
@ElendiaStarman yeah, we sing a lot of hymns, some with traditional melodies some with newer ones. We also sing a lot of more recent praise songs, its a mix
@ThomasShields Have you been to King's Chapel? its just down the road :)
(they have nearly a goram orchestra and their music director does a lot of the choral and instrument arrangements himself, they are quite good)
Earlier, I visited my campus' interfaith chapel and walked around. At one point, I pulled a book of hymns off a shelf cart and was looking around in it. Near the beginning, there was a little explanation on the morning prayer tradition, which apparently derives from a parallel tradition in Judaism. I found it pretty cool. At one point, I mused to myself that people nowadays focus on the style, not the content.
Similarly, I don't really like rap, which meant that when two rappers were singing a song at a Christian conference two weekends ago, I didn't like it at first. Then I reminded myself that worship is not about us, but about God, so I started rapping along. :P :D
@ElendiaStarman not likely. Unless they make major theological changes to hymns in the name of political correctness and non-offensiveness...let me find one...
gah, not having any luck. Last time I was at UU church was a christmas day "celebration of light" which covered the winter solstice celebrations of several major religions.
We sang christmas carols that were carefully crafted not to offensive to Jews or anyone else...
@ThomasShields lol not my church thank goodness. Unitarian Universalists pretty much espouse whatever they feel like, provided its non-offensive... (it's my grandmother's church...didn't really want to go, but it was lunch sigh)
@waxeagle looked at it a bit, but it's too expensive. I'm headed for Georgia Tech, but I've got a cousin who might go there, so i'd definitely visit her if that was the case
@ThomasShields oh yeah, that doesn't get you anywhere, you've gotta get one of the good scholarhsips to get it into a reasonable ballpark. I was lucky my parents were poor and my grades were good...
@ThomasShields no, I was at Covenant in the Engineering dept, but it's a combo program with tech. I already had CS credits and could finish that up quicker than engineering so I did that instead...
@ThomasShields 3 years of Covenant + 2+ years at tech. you end up with 2 degrees (BA natural sciences, BS engineering). the Calc/Physics at covenant are very rigorous, can't comment on the couple of engineering courses they offer as the professor who was doing them when I was there has passed away, but I'm sure the quality is still high...
the big advantage is that you get the "covenant core curriculum" which is good, but can be quite boring
@ThomasShields yep...course you could end up like me, married after your sophomore year, changing your major before the senior year you didn't think you needed to CS which is where you should have been all along :)
@waxeagle since you used the phrase "passed away", funny story... our assistant pastor had just passed his ordination exams, so our "senior" pastor sent out an email titled "Clif Daniell passed!" , and some of us completely misinterpreted it before reading the actual email...
@waxeagle haha, I don't plan on it. Funny, I actually want to get a Math/CS degree and upon graduating promptly go to seminary. Nice mix of my interests, I suppose, and I could have a fun tent-making profession.
We definitely don't want the .SE bit, anyway. And I personally don't like the cross (especially since it's sans-serif, and the letters are serif). (I also don't like big letters in the middles of words generally.) And, is it just me, or is the kerning a bit off?
@ThomasShields Well, the problem is that the T is, conceptually, an odd letter to highlight. It's the end of a morpheme, not the beginning of one. Of course it does look vaguely cross-shaped (the cross symbol possibly derives from the worship of Tammuz), but that's not a good reason for assaulting grammar!
@ThomasShields That all said, I don't really consider myself part of this community. I just hang out here sometimes when I'm bored. So take all my opinions lightly.
yeah, good point. Obviously we can't cover all the bases; no matter what we come up with there's going to be somebody who doesn't like it. But that's probably a higher-priority one.
@ThomasShields Meh. The Witnesses know they're unusual. I suspect the finished design will have a cross in it. Probably a fish too, despite my objections.
8O ... ... ... Oh...my...God. This is absolutely incredible beyond measure. "The heavens proclaim" for sure. VERY worth watching the full hour. VERY worth it.
And much thanks to [a friend] for showing me this. O.O http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGeSRyzN49Q