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By Richard Hamilton, December 11, 2009 9:42 am

March 27, 2007 I wrote the 7th post on epicdialogue called: “Starving For A [Good?] Cause [And A Little Attention]“ highlighting the ridiculous attempts of “J” to get Sanjaya booted from American Idol to restore the shows “dignity” through a hunger strike (which I’m fairly sure she was not really following through with, but whatever). Her hunger strike drew a little attention, but failed to produce immediate results.

Hunger strikes can be powerful tools of attention grabbing, especially if the cause is fitting. I recently became aware of one such cause.

My friend Amanda Hoos introduced me to Brandt Russo and his cause. Here’s what he is setting out to do:

I’m going to go on a hunger strike to raise awareness and the much needed funds for these children. I’ve decided not to eat again starting Sunday, December 6th, until I can raise $15,500 to help Ryan Alexander of Not Fashionable in his quest to end hunger by us helping him provide medicine to deworm 1,000,000 children.

The World Health Organization states that intestinal parasites eat up to 20% of a child’s nutritional intake a day, so deworming is a big deal.

Self Sacrifice + Raised Awareness = A Good Cause

Check out Operation Starvation and consider contributing to the cause.

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By Richard Hamilton, October 30, 2009 11:41 am

I have formulated a new mission statement for epicdialogue.com:

Our mission is to globally facilitate leading-edge collaboration and idea-sharing in order to create ‘outside the box’ thinking with 100% on-time delivery.

Okay…actually I didn’t. I was playing with a free app on my iPhone called “Mission Statement Generator” by A2rt. This app helps get the “creative” ball rolling for those writing organizational mission statements. Here is another one I generated with the app:

We have committed to holistically create alternative catalysts for change and continue to promote ‘outside the box’ thinking while maintaining the highest standards.

I’m sure many of us are involved with organizations (i.e. churches) that have developed a missions statement strangely reminiscent to the ones above. Most I have read (or written for that matter) are are poor copies of the trendy church of the month and shed little light on the actual identity of the organization in question.

This makes sense in some ways. The cards are stacked against the statement writer. It is a daunting, dare I say impossible, task to sum up a community, organization, or movement in a few short phrases. Words are woefully inadequate. Add to this the fact that people’s expectations are so bland and formulaic.

So, why do we do it? Partially, because it was all the rage in businesses 25+ years ago. But also because people want to know what they are getting into. We want to know what to expect of our churches, organizations, employees and the like. And of course, what they expect of us.

This makes the mission statement dangerous territory. If we say we are a community that loves, we sure better love. Or, if we say we exist to serve our community, that should be something we actually do. We are tempted to express our goals and ideals in these type of statements, but they must be tempered with a dose if reality. Unfortunately, many organizations have a skewed self image.

How does your church (or whatever) approach the “all important” mission statement?

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By Richard Hamilton, October 29, 2009 11:17 am

This video was featured on brandedwithlove.com by Jason Bedell the other day and today on CollideMagazine.com today. Tech + Soccer = Good Stuff!!

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By Richard Hamilton, October 15, 2009 10:48 pm

I found this through an old post on a site I recently rediscovered, When Religion Meets New Media. Its was created by commoncraft.com last year. Interesting analogy

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By Richard Hamilton, October 14, 2009 2:11 pm

…fortunately, only 14 people go to the Amazing Grace Baptist Church. Unfortunately, they are not the only ignorant people running around making fools of themselves supposedly in the name of God. It is also unfortunate that this is getting noticed because people tend to lump all things named Christian in the same pot. Check out what the Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton has planned for this Halloween.

According to their website, they are burning all English bible translations other than the KJV. They call these “Satan’s bibles.” Be warned, if you go to their website you will be inundated with ignorant spew set to hillbilly music. They are also burning Satan’s music, and Satan’s popular books.

Where to start. I could talk about all the mishandling, poor translations, and outright mistakes in the King James Version. Or I could address the way language changes over time and how a lot of the texts not only are hard to read, but don’t mean the same thing in contemporary vernacular. Maybe, it would be good to discuss the process of how the Bible came together in the first place and how if we honestly evaluate the cannon over the years, preservation doctrines become indefensible (especially in regard to the KJV). It might be important to evaluate some of their arguments and show how many of the KJV only claims are distortions at best (like when it is said that modern translations remove the word God).

But, I think there are bigger issues afoot. Namely issues of arrogance and ignorance. Unfortunately, these often go hand in hand.

There is also a touch of irony in the church’s name (although it is only irony if you know nothing about churches). All the talk of saving souls and amazing grace, but there doesn’t seem to be a shred of love in that place. Their actions are the exact type of hyper-religious absurdity Jesus fought to destroy.

Sadly, well-intentioned, good-hearted, followers of Jesus will be lumped in with this nonsense. Not only do these people make Christians look foolish and insecure, but they make the Jesus distasteful to people who desperately need him.

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By Richard Hamilton, October 1, 2009 11:34 pm

The 75+ videos from The Nines are now available for viewing. Check them out here.

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By Richard Hamilton, September 25, 2009 9:50 pm

DreamF – Focus from Adam Joy on Vimeo.

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By Richard Hamilton, September 25, 2009 11:48 am

-Attended 2 workshops by Mark Moore from Springfield, VA on social justice at Abilene Christian University’s Summit. Malnutrition kills at 3 times the rate of the Rwandan Massacre. You can check out his latest project at mananutrition.org; they are making nutrition packed peanut butter to distribute.
-”In our souls we long for a resolution to the conflict we experience.” Donald Miller at Summit
-Got to hang out with an old friend, David Klein. Things are always more interesting when DK is around.
-I discovered how bad it can be to have an outdated GPS.
-Ordered Donald Miller’s new book, “A Million Miles In A Thousand Years” from Amazon for $11.69.
-Finally finished reading “ReJesus” by Alan Hirsch & Michael Frost. Review coming soon.
-Started reading a little Kierkegaard (“Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing”). Currently wrestling with one of his thoughts.

Therefore, do not raise objection against the confession that there is no point in confiding to the all-knowing One that which he already knows. Reply first to the question whether it is not conferring a benefit when a man gets to know something about himself which he did not know before. A hasty explanation could assert that to pray is a useless act, because a man’s pray does not alter the unalterable. But, would this be desirable in the long run? Could not fickle man easily come to regret that he had got God changed? The true explanation is therefore at the same time the one most desired. The prayer does not change God, but changes the one who offers it…. Not God, but you, the maker of the confession, get to know something by your act of confession.

-I love that Barnes & Noble now has free wifi!

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By Richard Hamilton, September 24, 2009 1:58 pm

Traveled to Abilene Texas this week to catch the last two days of Summit at ACU. A major factor for me choosing to make this trek through the deep recesses of the Texas hill country was opportunity to hear Donald Miller. Miller’s work is among the best of our time. Powerful, accessible and real. He is an incomparable story teller who deeply understands the human experience. Of you haven’t read his work, you should.

Miller’s latest work, “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life” was recently released. I haven’t picked up a copy yet (mainly because I am already carrying a stack of unread books with me, a few of which I hope to write about soon) but, I did get to hear Donald contextualize and read a chapter for “A Million Miles.” What I was every bit as compelling as I have come to expect from Miller. While I can’t attest to the whole work, I feel comfortable recommending you check it out.

I would love to hear from someone who has made it all the way through “A Million Miles.”

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By Richard Hamilton, September 16, 2009 2:14 pm

I know I’m late to the game, but I wanted to throw in my “two cents” about the Nines. For those of you unaware, The Nines was a series of 75 – 9 minute videos by christian leaders, hosted online as a massive video conference by Leadership Network and Catalyst. By most accounts, the Nines was well received. Their site reports, “During the day of 09/09/09, there were over 20,000 total IP addresses that connected at one time or another to watch part of the conference. There were over 60,000 hits to our video servers throughout the day. We used 8.7 TB (terrabytes) of data to stream the more than 1,685 days of viewing time. THE NINES was the most tweeted topic on Twitter for about three hours on 09/09/09. In fact, over 6,000 tweets contained the hashtag #thenines.” I watch a great deal (but not all) of the videos.

A lot of people have chimed in (both during and following the event), but there were a least two presentations on a topic that I have not seem people responding to. (Admittedly, my circle of friends does not encompass the thousands who watched.) That topic is ethnic diversity.

Many of you know, the church I work with here in San Antonio is bilingual; I am keenly aware of the issues and struggles in blending cultures into one faith community. (Not to mention my experiences and struggles growing up and working in the South or my ministry time on the outskirts of Dayton.) There is something beautiful and mysterious though when people develop a bond and share life together despite (or even because of) their difference. I believe this is too important to be pushed aside.

So, back to the Nines. Scott Williams of LifeChurch.tv and bigisthenewsmall.com made his video available, but it seems to have been taken down already. I guess that’s what I get for waiting a week to post this. I’m hoping they plan to make all the videos available soon.

Mark DeYmaz of Mosaic Church also addressed diversity during the Nines. As a followup, he posted 25 FAQs re. the Multi-ethnic Church. There, he defines “ethnic diversity” and how it exists as a movement of churches:

I intend it as general and inclusive of ethnic, economic, educational and generational diversity within a local church. In fact, I believe that ethnic and economic diversity are two sides of the same coin and that educational privilege is most often a factor of economics. So when I’m talking about a multi-ethnic church, I’m thinking of one that reflects diversity in a variety of forms beyond ethnicity.

I have my reservations about some of the specifics he lays out, and really don’t understand his concerns over churches being reflective of their communities (as opposed to meeting his percentage goals), but the issue of churches being so homogeneous (and I believe often intentionally so) is important enough to me that I am willing to consider his points.

So what’s the deal? Why are churches so divided? Why is Sunday the most segregated day of the week (to paraphrase MLK)? Seriously. Look around you. The American landscape has changed. I doubted I would see an African American elected as President of the US in my lifetime and am proud to live in time when that is possible (and I’m only 29). It seems like our society has come so far, but as is so often the case, churches are decades behind. And I believe this is an area where followers of Jesus should have been leading the charge.

So I guess I’m left with a few questions. First, why is this even still an issue? And Second, what can we be doing to fix it? If we could just skip trite answers, cop-outs and finger pointing usually associated with this topic, that would be great.