Anabaptism

Jul 3, 2019 ∞

Find #MennoCon19 daily news at the “KC Sauce”.

Jul 2, 2019 ∞

#MennoCon19 Delegate Report Day 1

I arrived early (very early) to Kansas City, with plenty of time to get registered and reacquainted with the KC Convention Center before the begin of our Journey Forward: Peacemaking workshop.

The workshop started with singing Longing for Light and My Soul Cries Out/Canticle of Turning. A beautiful way to begin a peacemaking gathering!

We engaged in “speed networking” to meet a few other participants and share what organization(s) we were representing, what peacemaking activities we are involved in, and what we were excited about for the gathering.

Our facilitator (the same who helped facilitate our denominational discernment at #MennoCon17) worked with us through several methods for examining and discussing what we are experiencing with peacemaking. These included introspection, paired discussions, small group discussions, and various all-room activities.

Some of the peacemaking topics our communities and organizations have been engaging in: Some of our local peacemaking partnerships: Some of our worldwide peacemaking partnerships:

Several themes emerged multiple times or in multiple groups throughout the day, including:

expanding our peacemaking activities beyond the struggle against militarism and overt violence
an increasing acknowledgement and focus on the sources and systemic issues that contribute to violence
an acknowledgment of the intersections and interconnectedness between many of those issues
an increasing understanding of ways we have been complicit in those systems
struggles with strategizing or building effective coalitions when there are so many fronts in the struggle
placing great value in relationship-building and local peacemaking partnerships

During Open Space Technology time, I hosted a group to discuss the idea of aligning our church body by watersheds, instead of governmental boundaries (and our current Districts and Conferences). Watershed discipleship breaks down barriers between urban and rural people. It also highlights the many ties among ecology, economy, politics, and other factors affecting those people whose well-being and fates are tied together. While we know there are potential challenges (such as practical implementation issues and avoiding exclusionary “local nationalism”), looking at peacemaking through this lens yielded fruitful conversation and many ideas. We also discussed that church communities can start partnering in their watersheds, regardless of denominational structural changes.

The peacemaking gathering shared many options for initiatives we could take after the gathering, and there was resounding agreement to have further engagement and sharing on these topics.

We closed the gathering with communion and blessing.

Later, the whole convention had our first worship. This year, adult and youth worship are combined. There’s nothing like 3000+ Mennonites singing together. “How can I keep from singing?” 🎶 (Worship sessions will be streamed live all week, if you want to follow along.)

I appreciated the “land acknowledgment”, with respect shown to the place we are inhabiting and the First Nations that stewarded it. I also appreciated that the worship team brought a variety of instruments and music, and that prayers were heard in many languages, including American Sign.

Executive Director Glen Guyton reminded us that we are a diverse group, but that he hopes “we are unified in our desire to bring healing and hope to the world.” May it be so.

Jul 2, 2019 ∞

That’s a lot of Mennonites #MennoCon19

Jul 2, 2019 ∞

You know a peacemaking workshop is off to a good start when you start by singing Longing for Light and Canticle of Turning 🎶 #MennoCon19

Jun 27, 2019 ∞

I ’m a delegate at the Mennonite USA convention next week. AMA.

Jun 15, 2019 ∞

Indiana Michigan Mennonite Conference delegate: bylaw tune-up passes nearly unanimously.

Jun 14, 2019 ∞

Sadness as four congregations left Indiana Michigan Mennonite Conference for non-welcoming church associations. May they someday find the welcome table.

Jun 14, 2019 ∞

Indiana Michigan Mennonite Conference Delegate update: Leadership slate approved at 97% Spending plan approved at 100%

Jun 14, 2019 ∞

Q&A with Glen Guyton, Executive Director for Mennonite Church USA

Jun 13, 2019 ∞

Big snapper at Camp Amigo

mp-photo-alt[]=

Jun 12, 2019 ∞

“Everybody’s dressed as though the whole congregation might just go on a hike afterwards.” - my sister-in-law, describing modern Mennonites.

Jan 31, 2019 ∞

Introducing Blog Categories and Specific Feeds!

Good news! Per this announcement, Micro.blog now supports categories, and therefore, so does this blog.

Categories allow you to view or subscribe to a selection of blog posts related to a certain theme. My collections could evolve over time, but you can always see the live list at the top of my archive page. I created the following breakdown, which most of my posts will fit into:

Anabaptism - Anabatism, Mennonites, and faith from those perspectives (RSS Feed)
Digital Minimalism - intentionality around use of tech (RSS Feed)
Games - a broad category for card games, board games, role-playing games, party games, live action games, and video games (RSS Feed)
Humor - satire, comics, etc. (RSS feed)
Ideas - food for thought, strategy, politics, philosophy, theology, psychology, etc. (RSS feed)
Resilience - information/cybersecurity, sustainability, emotional & psychological resilience, posts from my Newsletter/Podcast (RSS feed)
Review - year-in-review, looks back, but also comments on books, tools, video, music, events, etc. (RSS feed)
Soccer - maybe I should just make this “sports”, but I really only share about Soccer (core teams: Indy Eleven, US Women’s & Mens’s national teams, Chelsea FC) (RSS feed)

Questions? Comments?

Mar 12, 2018 ∞

Food for Thought: 2018-03-12

I waited too long to publish this last batch, so the list is long. Hope you find some of these interesting! Recommend your own in the comments:

This is a hilarious and informative philosophical response about “puzzles for libertarians". (I’m probably one of the few people who reads both Current Affairs and Slate Star Codex.)

I’ve shared quite a bit about the Attention Economy. Richard Beck, here, brings that conversation out of the realm of advertising, software, etc. and into social interactions.

Startup Bros are buying up other countries because they’re realizing they are accelerating the demise of their own.

From Current Affairs, The Nice Cop, an article by someone who was friends with the killer of Philando Castile.

"It is ridiculous to think that you can arm your police with a military-grade arsenal, tell them that everyone they see is a potential threat, and not have bloodshed in the streets….It may be a necessary evil to have some units of armed police, but they should be few, small, and lightly-armed with pistols, shotguns, and rifles….In the event that unarmed police had to confront armed suspects, they would do what cops already do: call for backup.”

You’ve heard about the various folks repenting for what they’ve done to attention with tech. Some of them are banding together at Humane Tech to make things better. Here is their first resource page. Lots of good advice on there.

I like these “25 Principles of Adult Behavior”

"We’re ultimately after justice, not fairness. And by stopping with fairness, we are shortchanging the people most at risk.” from The Problem with Building a “Fair” System

"It’s not beneficial to us to turn content recommendations over to an algorithm, especially one that’s been optimized for garbage.” From Facebook is Killing Comedy

Related: YouTube: the Great Radicalizer: “It seems as if you are never ‘hard core’ enough for YouTube’s recommendation algorithm. It promotes, recommends and disseminates videos in a manner that appears to constantly up the stakes.”

“Get out of jail free” cards. Remember, even “benevolent” discrimination in execution of the law leads to further inequalities.

"Creating a social stigma around people who refused to cede the street to cars was a means for car companies to redirect blame back onto victims and strengthen motorists’ claim to the right-of-way.” On the Creeping Criminalization of Walking

’When you create a Human+AI team, the hard part isn’t the “AI”. It isn’t even the “Human”. It’s the “+”.’ Humans are good at asking questions. AI are good at answering them. This “centaur” pairing is effective.

We all know hiring for security expertise is difficult. Here’s a heatmap including supply/demand ratios by state.

Where countries would be in Pangea.

Cool infographic about the naming of tea in different languages.

Another cool infographic about happiness.

This idea of “Near Enemies” is a very useful concept.

"Smaller crowds outperform larger crowds and individuals in realistic task conditions.” Anybody have a copy of this article?

Dec 20, 2017 ∞

📚 2017 Book Recommendations

Goodreads made this list from my reading, but here are my direct recommendations:

Non-fiction:

Changing Lenses: a life-altering introduction to Restorative Justice.
Weapons of Math Destruction: this book about big data misuse was a great resource for my talk on big data security (Security Thinking for Big Data).
Conflict is not Abuse: A nuanced, challenging, imperfect, and incredibly important book about how we respond to conflict, and how trauma- and supremacy-based anxieties affect those responses.
How to Win Friends and Influence People: classic advice, though some of the examples haven’t aged well.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: introduces them well with a story, ends with a good reference to the ideas.
Reviving Old Scratch: Richard Beck of Experimental Theology addresses the tendency towards secular humanism within progressive theology.
The No Asshole Rule: good advice for how to prevent (or deal with) bad workplaces.
Getting to “Yes”: classic negotiation advice.
Utopia of Rules: a philosophical exploration of our relationship with bureaucracy.
Irresistible Revolution: an autohagiography of radical christian experiments. For a heroic everyday method for Christian living, see: Stranger God.

Fiction:

The Dispossessed: This is a wonderful take on sci-fi that explores work, societies, and beliefs. Our means are our ends.
The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear: beautiful bardic fantasy. (These were re-reads)
The Seventh Princess: I’m amazed this fantasy book for children isn’t still in publication.
Fight Club: strange writing style, but better than the movie. Really good, assuming you read both the problems and “solutions" as satire.
Warbreaker: this is my favorite Cosmere/Sanderson book. (This was a re-read)
Slaughterhouse Five: so it goes, but it doesn’t have to.
The Handmaid’s Tale: maybe this time a dystopian work will warn us off?
The Rise and Fall of DODO: almost as good as Anathem.
The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance: The Stormlight Archive take a long time to get going, but end up being worth it. If you’re reading Stormlight Archive and missed the novella, get lifted up by this bit of awesome: Edgedancer.
The Butcher of Anderson Station: read this novella after the first Expanse book.
Dragonsong: this was my first Pern experience, and it was really good.

What are your recommendations?

Jun 15, 2017 ∞

🕊 We now officially have 4 Indianapolis-area Mennonite churches in MCUSA. Welcome to our Chin sisters and brothers at Emmanuel Living Christian Church!

Feb 26, 2017 ∞

I'm so glad First Mennonite Church has been working through Letter from a Birmingham Jail. It's been one of my favorite works for several years. Here's one of our readings from today:

"I have heard numerous southern religious leaders admonish their worshipers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers declare: 'Follow this decree because integration is morally right and because the Negro is your brother.' In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say: 'Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern.' And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular."

Mar 17, 2016 ∞

This is why people don't often trust churches when they talk about "community"

Permit only

Feb 16, 2016 ∞

Food for Thought: 2016-02-16

Really good article about Bernie Sanders, and more generally, voting: Don’t Change the Players, Change the Game.

This is why I want you to read Changing Lenses by Zehr:

“The simple fact of the matter is the criminal justice system is meant to punish, not protect. I don’t care about seeing him punished - I would rather he get better. And they’ve done nothing to protect me - it’s only made things worse and become another weapon in his arsenal, and the arsenal of the people out there way scarier than him."

Remember the toy company (VTech) that was hacked? They now have Terms of Service that says they aren’t responsible for hacks. People are rightly outraged that this would fly, but this is nothing new for ToS and EULA, unfortunately. It is commonplace for companies to claim no responsibility. (Whether those terms hold up in court or not is another question, and part of the problem.)

Read these concerns about the future of Consumer Reports. I wonder how much our current content/marketing setup is a driver for this?

French supermarkets are now going to be required to donate (and not spoil) their unsold food. I’m not sure the situation in France, but in the USA, this would be an example of the government “saving” us from problems the government created in the first place. Stores are required to remove still-edible food (example), so naturally hungry and/or frugal people try scavenge it. Furthermore, stores are sometimes held liable if scavengers are harmed while acquiring that food. So, stores increasingly decide to protect themselves from problems that were thrust on them.

twtxt is another decentralized microblogging option.

Richard Beck has started a new series on “The Power of the Powerless”, dealing once again with institutional power.

Micah Redding suggests we consider “Minimum Viable Theology” and makes his case.

Apr 4, 2014 ∞

Well, at least the first score on Indy Eleven #IXI on their home field was by a Mennonite. (Femi Hollinger-Janzen)