What I Am Up To

I thought I would just share for a few minutes some odds & ends of what I am involved in right now. Perhaps other folks might be interested in some of this.

1) I am reading an awesome book right now, John Swinton's Raging With Compassion: Pastoral Responses to the Problem of Evil. One of Swinton's arguments is that Christians have gotten too caught up in the wrong questions when it comes to responding to evil. We often try to come up with defenses of a loving, caring God. Unfortunately, most of these defenses create their own problems without dealing with the actual suffering that evil can cause. This is a very readable book so far, no real deep unfamiliar theological terms. To check out more on Swinton, click here.

2) I have been invited to be a part of a panel discussing collegiate ministry and churches on Saturday, August 9 at First Baptist Church of Greensboro. This is part of a larger conference being provided by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of NC. The conference is 10-2:30. I have attended this conference in the past and found it to be a worthwhile opportunity to interact with other people who have a passion for ministering with college students. For more info, you can go here.

3) The next meeting of the Religious Community for Public Transportation is this Thursday at 7 PM at First Baptist Church of Elon. This is a group of religious leaders who are coming together to discuss the need for an expansive public transportation system in Alamance County and how churches can be a motivational force in this movement. I would encourage any pastors in Alamance County to come out Thursday night for this meeting.

4) Not only am I on Twitter (twitter.com/mmofield) and Facebook, but I am also using FriendFeed now (friendfeed.com/markmofield). There has been a lot of discussion online about FriendFeed replacing Twitter because of a slew of technical problems Twitter was experiencing. I for one am not sure this will happen. For one thing, Twitter has been much more stable in recent weeks (maybe feeling the pressure from FriendFeed?). Second, I think they serve 2 different purposes. The brevity of Twitter is perfect for sharing quick thoughts and updates, while FriendFeed is a much better option for more involved interaction with ideas. I invite you to follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and Friendfeed. I am not posting directly to Friendfeed much yet because no one is following me there. However, as I add users, I will begin putting more there.

5) Finally, on a technical note, I downloaded Firefox 3 a couple of weeks ago. Can I just say that I absolutely love it! If you are not using it yet, it is definitely worth downloading if for no other reason than some of the addons are great. I especially recommend Yoono, an addon that compiles and updates Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, and all kinds of other social services.

Talk to you later!