Author Archives: Kevin M. Watson

Why I Love Amazon

12 Saturday Jan 2008

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I love amazon.com. I know I am a pawn in their evil consumerist schemes, but I find myself using amazon.com more and more. Here are some of the things I like about amazon.com.

  • Great prices on new books and if you spend more than $25 the shipping is free.
  • Excellent inventory and a centralized place to find books to link to in blog posts.
  • The way that you can use it as a research tool for books in an area. When you look up one book that you know is a good example of what is out there on a certain topic, amazon will list several other books that are related. Of course they do this in the hopes that you will buy even more books, and I sometimes do! But I have found it to be a very helpful way to get quick general surveys of the literature available on a certain topic.
  • The ability to create a wish list to keep track of books that I want to read in the future. You can rank each book based on the priority level that you want to read it. The rationale for this is similar to the rationale for using del.icio.us, because you can have access to it anywhere you can get on a computer. Plus, other people can find your amazon wish list and buy stuff for you. If you want to see an example of a wish list, or keep up with the books that I am interesting in reading at some point you can check out my amazon wish list here.

What about you? Are there any other uses that you have found for amazon.com or sites like it?

Full disclosure: Amazon.com did not pay me any money to write this post. (But if anyone from amazon.com out there wants to send me a gift card, I would definitely be open to that!)

I Am Sorry

10 Thursday Jan 2008

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The book unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christians… and Why it Matters has really stuck with me these past few days as is evident by this post and this post. I have found myself thinking about all of the people who are represented in the survey data that is presented in unChristian and I have found myself wishing that there were some way to let them all know that Christians are supposed to do better. I have found myself wanting to say that there are Christians who do truly love you where you are at. And I think this is true. I at least know that my faith tells me that Jesus loves you.

But in my anger and frustration at other Christians who have not loved people different than them well, I started to become uncomfortable and realized that I also have failed to love my neighbor as myself. Sometimes I ignore or don’t see others who are hurting. Sometimes it is hard for me to know how to love someone who is living a very different life than I think God would want them to live. But I agree with my friend Joseph’s comment in one of my previous posts that God has never asked me to show more love or grace to anyone else than God has already shown to me.

So, I want to say that I am sorry. I am sorry for my failure to love my neighbor as myself. If you have ever felt unloved by my actions or inactions I am sorry. I am without excuse, because my faith tells me to love my neighbor as much as I love myself.

I remember reading in one of Donald Miller’s books (I can’t remember which one it was… Blue Like Jazz?) that several Christians set up a booth on a college campus to confess their sins to others on campus. It was a powerful story and to me represents the kind of humility that Christians need to risk showing to others. This gave me an idea – If you have felt unloved or hurt by something a Christian has done to you, I would like to apologize to you. I want to tell you that I am sorry for the pain that you have felt. If you want to leave a comment with a specific way that you have been hurt or wronged, I would like to specifically apologize to you.

What We Can Learn from unChristian

09 Wednesday Jan 2008

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Yesterday I posted some brief thoughts about unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity… and Why it Matters by Kinnaman and Lyons. I had a light bulb moment this morning where it occurred to me that what the survey results that Kinnaman and Lyons report shows is that a very important question, maybe the most important question to young adults when they are interacting with others is: “Do you love me?”

A quick look at the list of negative attributes that are attributed to Christians (hypocritical, too focused on gaining converts, antihomosexual, sheltered, too political, and judgmental) shows that a unifying theme is that young adults feel like Christians do not love people who are different than they are. The question they are asking the church is: “Do you love me?” And the answer they are telling us that they are hearing is a resounding “No!” For me this is a powerful realization for two reasons:

  • Because I think there is a lot of truth to it. Christians often are not good at really loving people who are different than they are. We often aren’t even good at loving other Christians from different backgrounds. (One of the most harsh and unloving reactions I have ever had came from a conversation I tried to start with a Christian from another tradition where I was trying to learn more about the differences between us. I am not saying that I was perfect and blameless, but I felt ridiculed, disrespected, and unloved.)
  • The second reason this is a powerful realization is because Jesus commanded us to Love God and love our neighbor. And I think he actually meant it. Jesus did not say love God and people who think and live just like you do. He said love God and love the other people I created in my image.

I think that coming to actually love people who are different than us is one of the biggest challenges facing the church. If we do not love other people, no matter how they are living, we are disobeying the commands of Christ and we are not living out our faith. If that is the case, no wonder people aren’t bursting through our doors wanting what we have. Why would anyone want to join a group that they feel hates, despises, or looks down on them?

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

My those who call themselves followers of Jesus Christ go and do this.

unChristian

08 Tuesday Jan 2008

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One of the books I got for Christmas was David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons’ unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity… and Why it Matters. Kinnaman and Lyons take a hard look at the way Christians are perceived by 16-29 year old Americans. The feedback they get is not flattering and it is tough to swallow. The main value in this book is simply the recognition that young adults do not find a whole lot to like about contemporary Christians. The point of the book is not whether these perceptions are fair or accurate, but that this is the way Christians are perceived. The research in this book was done by the folks at the Barna group and they found that 16-29 year olds think that Christians are:

  • Hypocritical
  • Too focused on getting converts
  • Antihomosexual
  • Sheltered
  • Too Political
  • Judgmental

I appreciate the way that the author’s take these perceptions seriously even though they stick to their evangelical worldview. They discuss the perception that young folks have of Christians acting unChristianly and they offer a way to engage with that perception. For example one chapter addresses the perception that “Christians show contempt for gays and lesbians.” They argue for the new perception “Christians show compassion and love to all people, regardless of their lifestyle.”

The major strength of this book is that it takes a serious look at how other people see Christians and it resists the temptation to a defensive reaction. This is a helpful model that it seems to me that all Christians can learn from.

Have you read this book? What are your reactions?

First 5 Books of 2008

04 Friday Jan 2008

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I have already shared my Top 5 Books of 2007. Here are the 5 books I am most looking forward to reading in 2008:

  1. I Come Away Stronger: How Small Groups are Shaping American Religion – Ed. Robert Wuthnow
  2. Deepening Your Effectiveness: Restructuring the Local Church for Life Transformation – Dan Glover and Claudia Lavy
  3. Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations – Bishop Robert Schnase
  4. The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788 – 1800 – Jay Winik
  5. Three Simple Rules: A Wesleyan Way of Living – Rueben P. Job

And it just so happens that I got all five of these books for Christmas! Lucky me.

If you are interested you can find a list of books that I don’t have that I am hoping to read eventually here.

What books are you really looking forward to reading?

    Top 5 Books of 2007

    03 Thursday Jan 2008

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    I know I am a bit late for 2007 year in review reflections. However, I need to do something to get my mind of the embarrassment that OU suffered in its blowout loss to West Virginia last night. (Seriously, what was that onside kick in the 3rd quarter about?) So, I am focusing on something pleasant this morning, the five best books I read in 2007. Here they are:

    1. The Religion of the Heart – Ted A. Campbell
    2. Restoring Methodism: 10 Decisions for United Methodist Churches in America – Jim and Molly Scott
    3. The Theology of John Wesley: Holy Love and the Shape of Grace – Kenneth J. Collins
    4. Irresistible Revolution – Shaine Claiborne
    5. Simple Church – Thom S. Rainer and Eric Geiger

    What were the 5 best books you read in 2007?

    Understanding the Quadrilateral

    02 Wednesday Jan 2008

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    I just finished a book that I wish I had read before writing my ordination papers: Wesley and the Quadrilateral: Renewing the Conversation. This book has essays by Wesley scholars W. Stephen Gunter, Scott J. Jones, Ted A. Campbell, Rebekah L. Miles, and Randy L. Maddox. Gunter is the editor with Jones writing about Scripture, Campbell tradition, Miles reason, and Maddox experience. If you have not read this book and you are a Methodist pastor you need to read this book. If you have heard the phrase “Wesleyan Quadrilateral” and wondered what the heck it meant, you need to read this book. If you already think you know what the Quadrilateral is all about, you still need to read this book.

    Here are a few quick quotes from the conclusion:

    There is an underlying premise in our chapter on Scripture, and it would read like this: If United Methodists generally speaking have interpreted The Book of Discipline to mean the Scripture are our foundational and primary authority in theology, faith, and practice, we have not done a very good job of making this clear to our constituencies (131).

    The temptation to total skepticism that is implied when we recognize the “conditionedness” of our knowledge through experience is usually avoided for a very practical reason: it is not viable to be a total skeptic. What is common among us is to invoke the perspectival nature of mediated experience as a preemptive shield: “That is only your perspective. I am entitled to my own!” While Wesley did not hear this particular modern response in his day, he does potentially provide a way through the impasse — he continually exhorted the early Methodists about the importance of “Christian conference,” specifically for nurturing the lives of holiness and for deciding debated issues in theology. No one person’s perspective was to be privileged over another’s, and the collective perspective of all gave the advantage of a mutually arrived at conclusion. (137-138)

    These are just some quotes that spoke to things I have been thinking about. But this book does an excellent job of explaining what Wesley would have meant by Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience; and how Methodists ought to use these tools today. Simply a wonderful book.

    Back into the Swing of Things

    01 Tuesday Jan 2008

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    I had a great Christmas and was blessed to get to spend time with both sides of my family. It was also a bit tiring as we were on the go quite a bit. I started to post some of my thoughts about 2008, but for some reason my editor keeps removing all of the indents and line spaces that are normally automatic. I was starting to get very frustrated. So, I am changing pace and will just say that I am looking forward – after a nice break – to getting back into the swing of things.

    I will try again tomorrow, and hope that the blogging gremlins have gone away. Hope your 2008 is off to a great start!

    The True Meaning of Christmas – According to Linus

    24 Monday Dec 2007

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    I wanted to share with you my favorite sound bite about the true meaning of Christmas. Sometimes you just can’t say it any better than Linus, especially when he is just citing Scripture! I seriously love this clip.

    I hope you will watch it with my best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year.

    Performance Enhancing Feeds

    21 Friday Dec 2007

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    With all the talk lately about performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) in baseball, I got to thinking: What can I do to give my blog a competitive edge? That’s when I saw wordpress’s announcement – Enhanced Feeds liven up your feed. I learned that you can now digg my posts, you can stumble upon them, or you can simply recognize how deli.icio.us they are! This also brought back to my mind a post I had skimmed about how one blogger started getting tons of traffic simply by being stumbled upon.

    In the interest of fully disclosure, I am not really sure yet that I really understand what any of this means, but all the cool blogs have them. I guess that kind of goes back to the steroids mentality, if everybody else is doing it… You should check out digg it, stumbleupon, and del.icio.us. Digg is “a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web.” StubleUpon “discovers web sites based on your own interests, learns what you like and brings you more.” Del.icio.us is “a social bookmarks manager.” Based on my very limited experience stumble is pretty fun if you just have time to kill and are wanting to browse random but interesting sites. Del.icio.us is actually the one I think has the most potential benefit for me to personally use. Digg and Stumble seem more like ways that you can bring traffic to my blog by clicking on them. So, by all means digg, stumle, and del.icio.us this post. Who knows, maybe it will be the most popular post I have ever written…

    Are any of you familiar with these? If you use them, which do you particularly like and how do they help you?

    (Oh, and in case you missed the sarcasm, let me explicitly state that I in no way support the steroids culture of baseball. And for the record, my blog is clean and has never failed a performance enhancing feed test.)