Hit the Back Button to Move Fwd by Gavin Richardson

year that was 2008 : year that will be 2009

we are upon a new year. as is the customary we all look back at what 2008 was for us and what 2009 we hope to be. so, what happened in 2008? well...

• we introduced Eikon, our artistic communities, to our youth & church community. we expanded to have a writing and improv group this fall to add onto our photography groups. my hope is to take the failing game room and turn it into a studio room for visual arts.
• my goddaughter Madalyn Rose Richardson was born in march. we are all super pleased & it was fun to be there to take photos and play. luckily she looks a lot like her mother.
• our conference terminated the children's and youth ministries positions at the conference staff level. this was a sudden surprise and being the conference youth coordinator i was a portal for much frustration. this was a stressful time for erin & myself. lots of energy and prayer went into conversations and plans. in the end we actually improved our standings by establishing a fulltime youth & young adult person. but it didn't resolve the hurt from poor decisions and poor communication.
• nt wright came to nashville as part of his 'surprised by hope' book tour. it was amazing to see the array of people who came out. it was a fun time for erin and i to be geek theologians for the night together. we also had a good time with thunder & emily afterwards tasting some new brews.
• general conference happened this year in my united methodist church tribe. cool experience for that was going totally add and watching in second life with a bunch of other church nerds. it was actually quite helpful to keep up and have others explain 'what the hell just happened?' kind of stuff.
• i finished up our conference's youth ministry institute 2. it was a great experience. i graduated from youth ministry institute one some years back so getting around a bunch of youth leaders again and talking some serious shop was good fun.
• jason & i went to willow creek for shift conference. i was on invite from the willow folks and was happy to take up their hospitality. maybe they will ask me back to take photos for them as they are still using them for their promo stuff.
• the summer came and went with missions experiences and other trips, not to mention vbs. i was really tired at the end of this summer. i think i am still tired from the summer.
• took a great vacation with my family to fort morgan alabama. it was a great week. perfect place, perfectly on the beach. did the labor day weekend house boat trip with erin's fam. milestone of this trip, her dad and i went to play golf and i broke into the 70's. first time since early college days, 10 plus years, i have done that (i basically gave up golf after tanking & not making alabama's golf team).
• i got a pedicure.. the first for me & for someone who wears flip flops year round, probably something i should do again.
• my alama mater, the university of alabama, made its resurgence back onto the college football landscape. hate to say it but i really do have an emotional tie in with my bama football and it was a great fall.
• we finished out 3rd phase of our reminagining the youth lounge project. this was the intensive and highest impacting phase. the youth and the church are well pleased with how it turned out and seeing that we didn't stray from the original plan the youth devised some 2 years prior i'd say our discernment process that went into it had a bunch of God written onto it.
• the phillies won the world series.. i'm still thinking that was a dream.
• erin & i took an excursion out to albuquerque for the christian educators fellowship conference. i was teaching a series of technology & social media workshops. 
• my adoptive little brother (i am the adopted oldest son of the piper family), andy piper and his sister becky, opened up pied piper eatery. we are really excited for them & the restaraunt is doing really well.
• last big thing, i got asked to be on the board for the united methodist reporter communications. i'm pretty stoked about this one.. actually really stoked. they were also so kind to have me as a special commentator. 
• the only other thing, which will lead into 2009, erin & i started actively trying to have kids. so far, nothing to report which is okay, we are still just a few months into giving this a go.

so we get into 2009

• want to have a little richardson of our own.
• i hope to get into better shape. would like to loose like 50lbs. i lost like 20 over '08, but i think i gained most of it back as i never started a work our regiment.
• i want to finish more books this year. last year i started more books that i didn't, or am still trying to, finish.
• buy less stuff. this goes for me personally and professionally. one our church is in a budget crunch, so its necessary, but for ecology reasons.
• put together some long standing high impact projects. i've got some stuff in the works already that i hope will be some real impacts on church, community, and family.
• deepen 5 relationships a month. this might be a dinner/lunch conversation or doing something energetic.
• get outdoors. part of loosing weight is so i can fit back into my rock climbing harness (safely), so i don't have to "buy" a new one, and give us an old/new thing to do with our free time. also want to try out 2 new caves. this i'll have to do with my brother, erin doesn't like the caves.
• write more.. this might be an ebook, paper book, bunch of articles, or all the above. i want to take all these thoughts and put them into some framework to share with the world.
• take an extended retreat to a monastery. its been 2 years since i did my last extended retreat. i feel due.
• downsize the stuff of our life.. literal stuff and calendar stuff. i did better in 2008 than in prior years. the thing i didn't do well is that i stacked stuff, so i had spurts of many things.
• find a rhythm to my spiritual life. being a youth minister is tough, so many odd hours and demands of time & energy. i seek to find rhythm to life
• did i mention grow the family? yeah, that will be a big one and will probably reframe just about everything else on this list.

i wish & pray the best for you my friends in 2009.
shalom
-gavi

desiring the undesirable : homeless and hungry in our world

i ran into rudy rasmus this summer at soulfeast at lake junaluska. i wasn't a participant of soulfeast, but i got to meet him cause my people knew his people and i am just so important.. not really. he was standing in the doorway going to some workshop when people i did know intro'd me. from what i gathered he was quite the spiritual leader for the group at soul feast. buddy jay voorhees really liked him and contemplated growing the braided beard look.

the folks at the circuit rider have in circulation an article he's written on ministry with the homeless and hungry in our society titled desiring the undesirable that is a definite read.

monday music : zehnder music review

a first for the monday music is to review some new music. this stuff came to me via the ooze. i've often wondered what would emergent music sound like? after brian mclaren wrote his manifesto to worship songwriters some years back i have been looking out for those who might fit into taking that seriously.

the zehnder guys give their angle on it. here is a video of them doing the song of peace hymn.

So Who's Zehnder? (found at their website)

Twins Tom and Tim Gibbs Zehnder compose, arrange, perform and record as an indie worship band based in Los Angeles. Tim plays bass and doumbek, Tom plays guitar and djembe, and the two raise their voices together in elaborate duets. They serve a local church with their music, L.A.'s Immanuel Presbyterian Church.

A few accolades: "Zehnder communes with those who hear their music." -Ched Meyers | Author/Speaker/Theologian | Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries "Take a unique harmonized vocal sound and a punchy groove and combine that with provocative lyrics and you start to get a sense of Zehnder." -Rev. Dan Hoffman | Co-Executive Director | Hollywood Urban Project

For more about Zehnder

i am not the aficionado of music, but what i liked about these guys is that they take some chance with their lyric. its not repetitive chorus which gets taken into a quick circulation of the worship spectrum, but there is rounded thought mixed in with their lyric. i would liken their songwriting to more a folk songwriter. the sound of the group i might describe as an experimental acoustic. even their rap song "justice jam" (which is probably my favorite) is bass lined with a chello (or what sounds like chello).

youth ministry 3.0 : emerging youth ministry observation

i was given youth ministry 3.0 by the folks at youthworker movement and asked to give a recommendation on whether it is a must read, okay read, and on down the line.

knowing mark oestriecher through some mild interactions and consistent reader of the marko blog, even read the precursor postings that lead up to the writing of this book i was very excited to get a hold of a copy and start reading.

some of my thinking points

• i read this book in one sitting.. not sure, but i think that is a first.. it isn't a long overly drawn out book, which i can appreciate. the basic framework of the book goes through a basic understanding of adolescent development then history of youth ministry leading into the futurist thoughts on where this new phase we will be finding ourselves in regards to youth ministry. i call it futurist in that some of the basic methods for analyzing the future trends is looking at the historic path and the consistent behaviors of the target group.
• some of the voices that marko uses for giving language to this future are the like of kenda creasy dean and many from the emergent/emerging/missional church generative friendship. so if you are familiar with what they are saying then you will probably find threads you already resonate with in y3.0.
• the adolescent section dragged for me. being an early childhood and human development person in college all the adolscent stuff was basic.. but, for those who have no training or education in human development and/or life stages then its a good primer to get you started in the know. i've leaned on my adolescent development knowledge for years and still have my text books (which might be in need of some updating).
• the history of youth ministry is brief and very general. it basically covers the evangelical spectrum and grazes a few thoughts on mainline christian practice. now, this could be attributed in part to that evangelical contexts were the first to be doing a 'youth' ministry. if that be the case it should be explored what spiritual formation when a youth was immersed into a full life of the church instead of being separated out. some of this could be hashed out reading four views of youth ministry
• i cannot express how much i support some of the ideas that marko shares in being ready to deconstruct the old forms of youth ministry. he doesn't put out what youth specialties will be doing next as the next form or youth ministry, as he confesses he doesn't even know, but that a change is happening and to ignore it will only lead you aimlessly into the wendy's black hole (you'll have to read the significance on that one). marko's greatest gift to the youth ministry world is giving some language to those are feeling frustrated that what you have been doing does not work to bring about some change. change is not hard within a church context, but you need to be able to speak to it.
• i was super pleased to see the word 'discernment' in the book. as i was reading and hearing marko say 'i don't know how this will turn out' or 'can't tell you what it will look like for you' i was sitting saying, you need discernment.. a few pages later, that is what marko suggested (and i was well pleased). the practice of discernment with your adults and youth alike is a powerful time of reshaping and anticipating the needs of your youth community. the youth minister will/should become more of a spiritual director in this regard cultivate a community that is intune with their cultural context. i would suggest additional reading of practicing discernment and the art of spiritual direction
• i like the idea of encouraging folks to become a youth culture anthropologist. its not hard to start into things like that. getting on the ypulse email list, cpyu email list, using google reader to subscribe to some blogs (like mine, haha) and news outlets, then using google news to send you news articles on keywords (ie. youth culture) is an easy way to observe some of the trends. beyond what i have mentioned personally subscribe to wired magazine, which throws out gems like snack culture. i also pick up a futurist magazine every now and then. a cheaper thing i do is watch my youth cruise through youtube and their behaviors.
• the "communional" idea is worth more discernment. the best part is that marko gives his own language spin to it. language will take you far in moving forward in shifting sands of youth ministry.

so as the folks who gave me the book asked. would i say this is a must have? no.. conditional that you are reading a whole lot from other places. is this a good read? certainly.

is it worth your time? if you are feeling that you are not making a dent and wondering if there is a different way? for sure. if you are looking for some language to help reshape some change this is a good starting point.

unfettered hope : technology and commodification of parents

...the development of the technological milieu has caused parents to lose the natural authority they held when their children needed them to learn skills to survive. The device paradigm of our culture has also eroded parent-child relationships, for young people can easily envision their parents only as the device from which they can derive commodities of toys, money, clothes, or technological gadgets.

from unfettered hope, by marva dawn

basin & towel : more monday music

i have been wandering through the michael card collections since monday's music post. this one called basin & towel i remember from some worship services we did at mountain top some time back. modern telling of a parable?

unto us a child is born : its all the talk

merry christmas all! i hope this day brings great joy to you.

in participating in service last night i was pondering the birth of Christ through the book of Saint Luke.

i got this imagery of joseph & the shepherd guys telling stories and jabbering on about this birth of a boy. the image was this photo of my brother when our newest richardson, baby madalyn, was born.

shawn & i at one time (many years ago) were both emt's and had been trained in emergency deliveries. madalyn's wasn't an emergency, but the doctors asked shawn if he wanted to catch her. shawn quickly jumped in on that and he was happy to tell us about how it all went down.

i can imagine joseph and the shepherd guys jabbering on about how cool this was.

"yeah, so you wouldn't imagine it.. i had these dreams.. we made this huge trek.. then mary.. i had to figure something out so i improvised, pulling a mcguyver to find a cradle and some shelter.. figured who would bother us out here. all the good places were taken."

what Christmas is all about : merry Christmas all!

this is just one of my favorites of all time, the whole special is great, but this is just a classic moment in tvland.

new board news : dallas as a third home

you may have missed my announcement on twitter a few days back.

last week i was asked, and said yes, to being a member of the board for the united methodist reporter communication. from what i gathered they want some of my perspective on church & social media, my propensity to speak my mind, as well as my strikingly good looks. haha!

this isn't the first time i've been asked to be on a board, but it is the first i've said yes too a board. the timing feels right and it fits in with one of my many passions. the umr offices are in dallas, so if you are in that part of the world give me a shout. i'll be down in the middle of january and periodically after that.

there are some friends i've made over the years of participating & cultivating the methoblogosphere that i look forward to working with & getting to know more in real life.

anyways, just thought i'd share.

jesus drafted my fantasay football team : complete silliness

i used to do the year round fantasy stuff, nfl & baseball being my primary leagues. i even did some hockey and golf. i gave all that up and now focus on one nfl fantasy team with my sunday school class fellas. not sure what to name myself i called myself 'shalom prophet'.. not quite sure why, but it's been a lot of fun claiming that God tells me who to draft or start. this wasn't my best year statistically (though i did have michael turner on my team, Jesus told me he'd be good) but i still managed to get to the championship game again. again though, i lost. my counterpart jim, who was my whipping boy sent me this video as the secret to his success.

tennessee conference position updates : what a long strange trip its been

our conference office sent this announcement out just last evening via our listserv.

The new Directors of Children and Family Ministries and Director of Youth and Young Adults will be announced in January. Before that announcement the CCOCM Personnel Committee wanted to update the conference on the procedure.

The 2008 Annual Conference voted to have the job descriptions approved by the CCOCM before the interview and hiring process could begin. Prior to the development of the job descriptions, listening sessions were conducted with the existing Children's Council, Youth Council, youth, workers with youth, young adults, and interested persons. These listening sessions refined the direction of the CCOCM and lead to the development of the job descriptions approved on September 25th.

A national search was conducted for both positions. Ten resumes were submitted for the Children and Family position and the Personnel Committee picked four applicants for interviews. The President and Vice- President of the Youth Council were added to the Personnel Committee and were valuable participants in the selection and interview process. Thirty-eight resumes were submitted for the Youth and Young Adult position and five persons were selected for interviews.

Opal Ransom, Chair of the CCOCM Personnel Committee, said, "We have sought to be fair in the hiring process and I am very pleased with the candidates we have selected."

i am pretty close to these situations, so i was at first confused.. why give an announcement that you are going to announce seven days (at least) from now? especially when holding off information got in the way of the original process that has led us all the way to here.

for those that do not remember, i became the face and an undermining voice (in some opinions) with my position at conference youth coordinator and this blog here, not to mention all the various social networks that i am a part of or created, when our conference office terminated both our youth & children's positions at the conference level for a joint position. part of that firestorm came because communication was not in a timely manner, ie. now. people were not getting information from the office so they talked to whomever they could, and sometimes just created stuff. i have taken some responsibility for some of the information that went out, partly because i wasn't being called or communicated with either. i did, as i do, tried to convey as much information without telling people what to think. i never told someone what to write or call and say,.. anyways, thats old news i care not to relive. i have pissed off some people, made some new fans, become fan of many people, and all in the name of holding together our conference youth ministries. since we went from a joint ministry person to a full-time person (which is actually an improvement from where we were) i consider our groundswell of people to have some element of success. but as with anything like this, no one wins happily.

back to my initial confusion.

what is in this news alert is true. i can speak for the youth portion of this process. myself, opal, loyd, brad (the new incoming youth coordinator back during all this) and an assortment of youth, young adults, and youth leaders got together a number of times to talk about ministries in the conference area. we dreamed up some big stuff and challenged each other. we then produced a document based on that which contained some plans, a description of sorts, and some goals to hit for an incoming person. no one asked me to be on the personnel group to go over candidates, knowing my track record with some of the people, i didn't expect to be invited either. i know who we hired and i am very content with that decision. i have also known who we hired for the children's position, which i am indifferent about that. from the children people i've communicated with, they know too.

what our conference leadership needs to learn from this (and i know you read this), is that appropriate communication is needed. now 'appropriate' is a perception term, so let me share that the perception is 'now' or like yesterday. no, its not fair all the time, but with people finding out that there was a plane crash or terrorist attack via hyper news outlets as twitter acts frequently, people are only going to be more expectant of information they care about quickly. going days weeks, months, without saying anything is giving your audience license to create and say whatever they need to fill their information gaps. you allow people like me to speak & give words to others opinions, which may or may not be a good thing. bad communication undermines peoples confidence in you and your mission.

a great case in point in the obama campaign using various tools to keep people, in the know. their only slip up seemed to be when the txt updates for vp candidate were lost in a huge database of people that the news got to burst the story before millions got their message. he's keeping to that communication commitment by doing weekly 'fireside' chats via youtube talking about what/why of some of his decisions. wonder if he will share why he's chosen rick warren?

this process has gone on for over 9 months now, its time to say something. name people and lets move on.

monday music : Jesus is our jubilee

not being a nashville native i have adopted some of the norms of the nashville culture. one of the norms of being in nashville is that you don't "out" the celebrities. they are regular people and you let them be regular. since nashville is a country music home this is rather easy for me. being from the philadelphia area there was maybe one country station and going to alabama i tried to give country a go, but it didn't take. some of the icons i can point out, the dolly or... well, the dolly.

this not 'outting' the celeb became a big thing when i was working for awhile at rei in brentwood (a camping co-op store for those that don't know & a tn town where a lot of celebs reside). people would come in and i'd ask them if they were a member (a common question when you visit a co-op) and i'd get their name, jackson, brooks, etc. i knew of people, so i would realize that they were somebody.

i lost my cool though, once.

i had this very ordinary guy stop in buying some stuff. i rang him up, his co-op membership was under his wife's name, not a problem. he gave me his credit card and i looked at it for signature and matching name. when i saw his name it said 'michael card'.. my eyes widened and i looked up at him and sneaked the question "are you, the michael card, the musician?" he answered back "yes" and didn't look to pleased about it. so i needed a recovery.. i responded back with what was amazing brilliance "i know one of your old piano teachers." note: this was not a lie, rolland puckett who went to church with me. rolland is an older gentleman who was a concert pianist and would play his steinway in the church sanctuary at night. i'd sneak in and listen to him, it was a real joy and we had a good friendship. anyway, back to michael. he replied back "really?" i said, "yes, rolland puckett is a very good friend." michael's shoulder's let down, we talked about rolland a bit and the gear that he was purchasing for a 2 week romanian mission he was undertaking at that time. i was on cloud nine. went home and told my brother who i ran into and he was stoked too. i told other folks about my run in with michael card, but they were like "who?" yes, he's more the artist for the church geek.

michael was never the most well known artist. he didn't fit the trendy mold of contemporary christian music. his stuff was challenging too. none of his stuff is fluffy & couldn't really get adapted to the growing worship music scene. he talked with a lot of the words and metaphors you see in the emergent community now, only this was steeped in more liturgy and lived out in the early & mid '90's, long before that stuff start.

so, in this time of advent i share with you michael card's song jubilee. i would also suggest his song with phil keaggy 'poem of your life'

unicef : photo of the year

i think many of us know of unicef for the little boxes they make for kids to go around and collect change. i am thinking about that change as i see this photo gallery submitted for their photo of the year. the winning one is called 'walking barefoot through misery' taken by a 21 year old girl.

things on tab : stories sex religion church teens and technology

as part of my new integration of lifestream stuff into my blogs newer look. i've been plugging a lot of stuff into my gavin del.icio.us account. so you can track back to these and other links of interest long after this posting (and others) have cycled out of view. i'm working on figuring out how i like stumbleupon or digg.

• simply my favorite story of a teenager & faith that i've read in a long time. here is his official website & a powerful youtube video testimony
• in similar news, jolly blogger announces he has cancer
• a big deal with the episcopalian church break up is, what to do with the property? the umc has the same set up, so this is interesting news for me.
• the wifey wanted me to read this.. its true, i have bad sleeping habits. sage advice?
• i'd say this is pretty darn cool for perkins school of theology
• poor pastor, at least he's got his congregation
• muslim teenagers growing up in america. not so easy to keep to traditional rules
• 10 questions that separate girls from women.. how do you answer?
• some united methodist churches talk merger
• inside of the bernard madoff's 'scam of the century' (though, this century is kinda young)
• phyllis tickle and peter rollins talk emergence shop
• a lot of folks upset or happy about rick warren doing the invocation. this one caught my eye though. ben witherington always has a thorough thought on the subject
• if you missed my sex week challenge article
• reverend mommy's prayer musings and her last supper lunch box
• locking down your own data
• turbulent cleric on reimagining the world a sermon of sorts
• asbo jesus at it again
• sky lowe mccracken highlights the troubles of a methodist university
• chris brogan on the distinctions of a blog post versus twitter post & how to see that in the whole social media spectrum
• is a green shift in home ownership going to save economic times?
• jason's many hats
• newspapers are still figuring out the whole conversation thing, by techcrunch
• top 10 photography tips and tricks plus why you should shoot in raw format
• josh's guide to God blessed college football bowl games

christmas day experience : not so peaceful after all

the other night we had our live nativity at church. it was great fun, partly cause i was not in charge, seeing people get dressed and all ages of the church getting together. then seeing people slow down or honk as they drove by to take a look or pull into the parking lot to pet obama and mccain llama's. it was crazy. it reminded me of years ago when i attended the children's service back at my home church where it was what i felt was a bethlehem experience. so i naturally loved this recent asbo jesus, not so peaceful night.

youth marketing trends : ministry still applies

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: teens kids)

the part that caught my eye first was #4, marketing is no longer something that you do 'to' youth but 'with' youth. sounds like relationships, which should be at the heart of ministry.

last minute toy store : getting filmed by the news

Originally uploaded by gavoweb.

i am actually amazed this photo turned out so well. took with my cell phone which is not the best of cameras, while standing on the front steps doing crowd control.

this is one of my senior hs and college guys getting filmed by fox news helping to take items to peoples cars who were helped by the last minute toy store. i'll be heading back there again today. i'm just running a little late.

i don't know if it made it onto the news or not. this was the article they have online about the last minute toy store.

sex week challenge revist : commentary for umportal

a few weeks back i made a simple commentary about ed young's sex week challenge to his congregation. amy forbus asked if i would expand on my feelings for a commentary for the umportal. i'm never short on something to say so i gave it a go. it will go into print for the reporter next month, but is online now as 'sex challenge misses the mark.'

....

Having followed Mr. Young closely and watched his sermons online, I know he has some good reasons why sex is an important part of a marriage relationship. But his pandering with the news media outlets and their need for one-line quotations only simplified an otherwise complicated issue.

Let me suggest we should not be talking about sex as a “foundation” for our marriages. Before we should be having sex, we should figure out how we are friends with our spouses and others. If we are to “reclaim sex” as God’s great gift from the seduction of culture we have to start at the deep core, not the symptom. The deep core we need to address is how we are friends in love, not lovers in bed.

---

go read more of why sex challenge misses the mark

wrent band : evening with

this evening we welcomed the music and message of wrent. wrent is a group of made up of jennafer & brady who are using their gifts of songwriting & performing to help change the world and bring to light the ills of poverty in the us & world. wrent came to us via one of our youth. they were the worship band for camp kanakuk which one of our families loves. our youth brought up the possibility and i was happy to play host. didn't know much, anything, about the band at the time, but i trust my kids. i liked their sound that i heard over the net. i became more a fan tonight after knowing really what they were about and deeply listening to some of their songs.

looking for a group for your next retreat or event? i'd recommend. looking for a special group with a message for youth to be change for God's kingdom? i would highly recommend.

as is customary, we take a lot of photos.

ordinary radicals review : my life as i knew it

some time back i ordered my own copy of 'the ordinary radicals' a documentary by jamie moffett and focusing on the people and experiences that circled around the jesus for president book tour.

i was super stoked about the documentary. had these ideas of all the different people it would profile and story.

when i got the documentary i watched it at the first opportunity. my emotional reactions were somewhat uneasy, there was some stuff in there that made me uncomfortable, which i felt strange about because all the concepts and ideas were things i have been familiar with through readings of shane's books or others. many of the people in the video i had heard of and got what i would expect. but some of the lesser known, or unknown folks, stories were way powerful.

the documentary got really long for me. almost 2 hours in length it felt long. i might have done a shorter movie length with continued stories on a website. that might allow for more adaptability and continued conversations.. might even have a place where people upload their own videos of stuff they are doing.

at the end of it all the documentary ended up in moorestown, nj which was funny to me. i went to church at first umc in moorestown, growing up next door in cinnaminson. i spent many years with the people of moorestown. they were doing a contrast of moorestown and camden, which only are about five miles apart (with cinnaminson in part of the middle of that 5 miles). camden is notoriously one of the most violent and poverty stricken places.

what is funny to me is that i hung out in camden too. it was for various reasons, but i remember doing a driving lesson through parts of camden to pick up the next student. there was shopping spots and even a night club as i remember visiting. in my early days of hs we played various schools from in and around camden in sports (that changed when our schools restructured the whole league system). the waterfront was built up with the aquarium and concert amphitheater to check out. then there were my emt days where we went to cooper hospital over and over again. though i knew camden to be a dangerous place by reputation it was never some huge stark contrast.. but then again, back in those days moorestown isn't what it is today either. the divide of haves and have nots may have just gotten so much bigger.

back to ordinary radicals. its a good movie, great for stirring conversation. wish it was shorter to get allow people to get to that conversation without feeling they are leaving something out. as for teaching spots it has some great testimonies to pull from to share specific thoughts on empire, money, mission, homelessness, government, and more.

family heirloom : prayer station video

this is a prayer station idea that didn't make the cut onto my worship feast prayer stations cdrom. this features my bud jonathon with a few kids talking about 'family heirlooms.' i think it didn't make the cut cause jonathon's voice got lost in the space, so volume might have to be turned up. you can still hear clearly enough, promise.

Family Heirlooms : Prayer Station from Gavin Richardson.

you can purchase the worship feast prayer stations cdrom amazon : cokesbury

the richardson clan : my girls

Originally uploaded by gavoweb.

two of my girls on saturday hiking the narrows of harpeth. not much of a hike, length wise, but the top of the bluff is quite a vertical climb. erin you recognize. the old gal is coe (co-ee). she's been with me for over 11 years now. ain't they good lookin?

sunday signs : don't be sad

its been awhile since i picked up a fun church sign that would be worthy of crummy church signs. where do we go with this one? the fact that you've taken a rather complex theological concept, not to mention strong faith statement, into a cheesy one liner? is it the plea?.. no, its the the total cheese factor. God doesn't need our cheese.

tis the season : tale of the christmas pickle

i've often wondered about the christmas pickle when it appears every year in our ornament assortment. 'what is that story again?" thanks to my friend newscoma for rooting up this tale of the christmas pickle.. well, sorta. &:~)

in other holiday traditions, we all should recycle the 12 days of christmas, asia style like amy has.

anticipating the vision : meditation with nouwen

The marvelous vision of the peaceable Kingdom, in which all violence has been overcome and all men, women, and children live in loving unity with nature, calls for its realization in our day-to-day lives. Instead of being an escapist dream, it challenges us to anticipate what it promises. Every time we forgive our neighbor, every time we make a child smile, every time we show compassion to a suffering person, every time we arrange a bouquet of flowers, offer care to tame or wild animals, prevent pollution, create beauty in our homes and gardens, and work for peace and justice among peoples and nations we are making the vision come true.

We must remind one another constantly of the vision. Whenever it comes alive in us we will find new energy to live it out, right where we are. Instead of making us escape real life, this beautiful vision gets us involved.

you can get get meditations sent to you from the henri nouwen society

anthropology & youtube : user generated video and web 2.0

this is a presentation by mike wesh who brought us digital ethnography & some of the great videos on web 2.0 and a vision for students. its a fifty min presentation so you might want to watch when you have some time. there are some real jems in here so give it a go.


in the early i like this quote. "that the web is not about information, its about linking people.. linking in ways that can't even predict." i love the tensions highlighted between our values of individualism & community.

wrapping up a week : a whole lot of inspiration

this little gem is making its way around the internet. a brilliant little piece that i would classify as 'someone who has too much time on their hands' put together some of the most inspirational movie speeches into one of the more, yet rambling, inspirational youtube speeches. i will be laughing hysterically when i see this at the end of someones workshop/talk presentation

three year anniversary : confused, but she still said 'sure'

oh, it was just three years ago this day that i got down on a knee in front of erin's family & some of my own plus a few best friends and asked her to marry me. she was way confused by the whole "operation marriage proposal," but she did agree to marry me. life had been wonderful since erin agreed to go out with me some three years prior, so i was excited that she would go along with my plan to continue the fun. Love Ya Wifey! thanks for saying "sure"

charity vs justice : her name is heather

two weeks ago we had adam, who is an understudy to our senior pastor, come and share with our youth his experience as a us-2 missionary and his passion for social justice issues.

one thing that adam said to the kids, that convicted my soul was how he saw charity vs justice. charity as he saw it was alleviating the short term problem or taking care of an immediate need, justice was finding out the reason for the problem and doing something to prevent it. i am a good person, with a load of compassion (that might get me in trouble sometimes). my heart breaks, for people in need, but asking myself what i have done for helping alleviate the problems or system that makes that need ever present i have to say i'm a failure. now, adam did go on to say acts of charity are good and do help, but for me i don't want to ignore a problem..

so i then drove down to nashville to meet up with folks from the national youth workers convention for a twitter meet up. as i parked in my special locals parking (my secret) i walked out of a garage and saw her... i didn't know her name, i just knew one thing about her, she was/is homeless... she was asking someone for money and i thought 'what to do here'.. i was going to have to walk past her. i could do some of the rhetoric i've gone through in the past asking questions to make sure they know where help is (the rescue mission, room in the inn, the soup kitchens in the neighborhood).. i could say i don't have anything, when i know, i have plenty.

i walked up to her, i looked at her, she started her story. "hi there sir..." and on she went. i looked at her, asked "what is your name?" "heather" she said. "what can i help with?" she just asked for food. so i asked her to walk with me. she waited outside the convention center (her insistence) and i bought some food for her for that moment and something she could hold onto for later. i brought it out to her, she thanked me, i just said you are welcome and said something like 'bless you & hope this helps.'

i walked from that park bench to the old spaghetti factory some three blocks away pondering what i had just done. was i dupped? maybe.. was it the right thing to do? maybe.. was it charity? surely.. was it justice? i cannot say that it was.

ariah posted this video and it had me thinking again of this moment.. justice is so involved. do i have the place in my life that i can truly participate in, develop, or find a home in social justice to ignite a passion? its funny being in ministry it sometimes seems counter intuitive to actually be in ministry. this video though gave me much to think about. brought to us from effective stewardship

i was encouraged to see others of my youth ministry colleagues taking care of heather and others of our nashville homeless population.

what is your charity? and what is the justice you seek out?

remembering thomas merton : remembering father louis

today is the anniversary date of the passing of thomas merton, or father louis merton. i've mentioned before his impact on my life. today i want to share a prayer that comes from new seeds of contemplation.

Justify my soul, O God, but also from Your fountains fill my will with your fire. Shrine in my mind, although perhaps this means “be darkness to my experience,” but occupy my heart with Your tremendous Life. Let my eyes see nothing in the world but Your glory, and let my hands touch nothing that is not for Your service.

Let my tongue taste no bread that does not strengthen me to praise Your great mercy. I will hear Your voice and I will hear all harmonies You have created, singing Your hymns. Sheep’s wool and cotton from the field shall warm me enough that I may live in Your service; I will give the rest to Your poor. Let me use all things for one sole reason: to find my joy in giving You glory.

Therefore keep me, above all things, from sin. Keep me from the death of deadly sin which puts hell in my soul. Keep me from the murder of lust that blinds and poisons my heart. Keep me from the sins that eat a man’s flesh with irresistible fire until he is devoured. Keep me from loving money in which is hatred, from avarice and ambition that suffocate my life. Keep me from the dead works of vanity and the thankless labor in which artists destroy themselves for pride and money and reputation, and saints are smothered under the avalanche of their own importunate zeal. Stanch in me the rank wound of covetousness and the hungers that exhaust my nature with their bleeding. Stamp out the serpent envy that stings love with poison and kills all joy.

Untie my hands and deliver my heart from sloth. Set me free from the laziness that goes about disguised as activity when activity is not required of me, and from the cowardice that does what is not demanded, in order to escape sacrifice.

But give me the strength that waits upon You in silence and peace. Give me humility in which alone is rest, and deliver me from prise which i s the heaviest of burdens. And possess my whole heart and soul with the simplicity of love. Occupy my whole life with the one thought and the one desire of love, that I may love not for the sake of merit, not for the sake of perfection, not for the sake of virtue, not for the sake of sanctity, but for you alone.

For there is only one thing that can satisfy love and reward it, and that is You alone

passing in memory : the Reverend Ben Alford

today our conference lost one of its beloved pastors. the Rev. Ben Alford. being new to the tennessee conference i do not have the history as many of my friends do with ben. i met him some 6 years ago when he was like a pastor in residence for the very first youth ministry institute, which i was a part of. i couldn't explain it all, but i just liked the guy, a whole lot. he was energetic, fun to talk with, knowledgeable in that wise way, and he just seemed to care a whole lot about us youth workers.

in the years following we've enjoyed the colleague relationship, exchanging conversations and telling some stories at the annual conference or whatever the big event was at that time. the last time i saw him was at hank thompson's funeral of which he presided over as pastor. he told some stories of his own fight with lung cancer (which is what took hank's life, and was something they continued their already set bond with) which had me in tears. i'll miss ben, he was one of my favorite pastors in this conference & i know he was for many others, he was one of those beloved pastors.

this is a letter written from the family.

Hello all -

Dad passed away this morning after his long struggle with lung cancer. He passed peacefully, surrounded by his family.

We cannot adequately express how grateful we are to all of you who sent cards, emails, and letters during Dad's illness. The outpouring of love lifted him up, and lifted us all. There will be a memorial service to celebrate his life at Madison Street United Methodist Church in Clarksville on Sunday, December 14, 2008, at 2:30 p.m., with reception and visitation following the service.

As Dad requested, in lieu of flowers memorial gifts can be made to the Ben Alford Church Leadership Scholarship at Martin Methodist College, 433 West Madison Street, Pulaski, TN 38478, or to Port Royal United Methodist Church, 2997 Highway 76, Adams, TN 37010. Thanks again for your love and generosity.

The Alford Family

monday music : its special

i pondering some music to get into and possibly share. i don't know why this came to mind, might be because of all the college bowl talk, but i started thinking of a weekend at penn state with my sister and bunch of her's and my friends. one of things we went to was some lake party. it looked like it was going to be something really cool, but i rained so much it put a damper on the party. one thing that did happen was 38 special. they were the band for the concert/party/festival. i always liked them, but never had seen them in concert before or since.

life of the blog : this week in retrospect

as i am doing every now and then, during this 4th year anniversary of ye' ole' blog i'm pulling out some posts that are significant to me for some reason.

• part of me is that i am an ambitious slacker..
• had an advent district worship service where we did prayer stations, choir of angels was my fav
• i began pondering the brilliance of henri nouwen's "clowning in rome"
• still one of my favorite morning prayers
• i wasn't then & i am still not, a fan of the war metaphor in youth ministry

prayer stations slideshow : a photo share

for a workshop i did yesterday with our youth ministry institute participants i shared this slide show of some of the prayer stations i've constructed over the years. i have more ideas in written form at my prayer station index. i will also be working in the next few weeks to clean up my data so i will probably run across some other 'pre-blogging' experiences that i will post.

second life : the underpinning of why

philip rosedale the founder of second life on why building it and what its importance is from ted conference. one of the things he mentions that i found interesting, never having even considered it, was that some hundred thousands of people can be on a site like amazon, but you can never interact with them. the idea there is proximity but not able actually interact.

i am of the opinion that an avatar based social network will be the next thing from a facebook or myspace. with the interactions young adopters have with webkinz or club penguin, then older and young adult adopters getting familiar with worlds such as world of warcraft.

if you are on or getting on second life look me up, gavin tellig, i hang around koinonia church where i live out my punk monk life.

i am second : next generation testimony

jared turned my attention to the site "i am second" which is a series of testimony videos where the gist is, 'i was first, but came to know Christ and know now, that i am second.' the videos are not terribly flashy, with effects and all, but powerful with just lighting and the stories.. oh the stories.. this one jared shared and is, so far, the one i've connected with. not because i've been a drug user or even a huge korn fan,.. maybe it was the connection with the child (which i'm not a dad yet either, but i get the kid connection). if you haven't seen it yet (its starting to make rampant across the blogosphere) check out "i am second"

warmth in winter : our undignified promo

i am moving most of my video stuff over to vimeo. the quality seems to be better in replaying videos than youtube and since youtube decided to throw in the search bar (lame) it seems an okay time to go elseware. this particular video is a promo video we threw together for our upcoming massive youth retreat, 'warmth in winter,' its the largest event of the tennessee conference of the umc.


Warmth in Winter 2009 : Undignified from Gavin Richardson on Vimeo.

new look baby! : be my friendconnect

for those of you taking in the feed of this site won't see this, unless you actually click to this post or others, but i'm doing some redesign of the ole blog. its still very rough, but its late and i don't want to mess anymore with it. but its going somewhere that i like.

the idea for the redesign has been in my head for months, i just haven't done it. so i just started, a detriment to my sleep schedule, and its turning out pretty good. my idea was to clean up the mass of links and stuff on the front of the site and put in just a few posts with a number of lifestream feeds. i am spending more time on twitter and facebook spots, not to mention google reader. where a few years back any interesting link or video that came down the pike became a blog posting, well now some of that is a tweet or a reader share. i'm using friendfeed for the lifestream currently. its okay but i haven't been able to tweak the colors. they say i can, but i haven't figured it out (remember its late too).

one other new thing, it might stay, it might go, is googl's new friendconnect. if you would be so kind to my ego and join gavoweb.com's friendconnect i'd be stoked by it. it looks like it is some cross of a lifestream meets mybloglog community.

basically there is so much more that i participate in on the web than just this blog, so why not develop a portal that indicates & gives a glimpse into my world. the rest of the old stuff will be moving over to the 'pages' that may stay at the top, maybe not.. we shall see, till then, actually show up at the site and tell me what you think, or join my sites friendconnect

things on tab : oh what i'm pondering

its about time to offload some the many things of interest i've got on tab

• leaving lustvegas, oh that sermon series i am such a fan of
  
• the social media cloud
• you need year round thanksgiving
• engaging youth in worship
• 8 social media monitoring tools
• why are young adults leaving the church?
• mistakes of social media marketing
• why some methodist's don't 'claim the name'
• wired's composition of snack culture (oldie, but goodie)
• high school ethics
• new barriers to college entry
• advent experiential worship courtesy of jonny baker
• photoshop ho-hum color into a wow!

daily prayer txt : sharing in my advent chronicles

i am opening up my daily prayers to be shared with all who wish to be a part. what i've done, and am going to do, is send out a txt msg, once a day (usually in the mornings) with some part of my daily prayers through the rest of advent that spoke to me. could be a scripture, could be a quote, could be some names i am lifting up.. who knows. you don't have to respond back unless you want, but i share this as maybe this will be uplifting to you and a deeper meditation for me.

sign up to be a part of my daily prayers via text message