By: Sam Stephens on May 30, 2014
Over Coffee written in simple conversational style brings to surface the need for a faith based dialogue of a topic that remains quite sensitive to the conservative church. The author Dave Thompson has done remarkably well in his attempt to reduce the distance between differing perspectives and bring them to dialogue. First, there is the…
By: Garrick Roegner on May 30, 2014
Wednesday night from my hotel room in the Sants neighborhood of Barcelona, as I read through Team of Rivals (don’t worry this post is not about Team of Rivals), I watched as a 4 hour street battle unfolded below me. Fires lit up the main streets as about 1000 leftist okupas (occupiers) battled the mossa…
By: Sharenda Roam on May 29, 2014
“Over Coffee, “ a book by Dave Thompson, is a fictitional conversation between himself and a pastor regarding a gay church member. The church member desires to be a part of the church and also partnered with his current love interest. In this book Thompson mentions a study by Dr. Alfred Kinsey. The Kinsey Scale…
By: David Toth on May 29, 2014
I appreciated Dave Thompson’s book, Over Coffee, for pressing the importance of dialogue when engaging others with different points of view or with those who are in various stages of position development. However, I was disappointed that it was a fictional story. I imagine it would not be difficult to find pastors who would be…
By: Chris Ellis on May 29, 2014
For Baptists, my church is quite progressive. Among other thing, we’ve ordained women since the 70’s, and we fought for civil rights in the 50’s. We don’t take all of scripture literally, though we do take it seriously (to be honest we’re progressive for Baptists, but conservative for the rest of Christianity). It’s these kinds…
By: Fred Fay on May 29, 2014
This will be my second blog on David Thompson. I have met him twice for conversations about gay couples and the church’s response. Since then, I have read his short book called Over Coffee in which he has a conversation on this subject. He converses with a pastoral character composed of many conversations he has…
By: Phil Smart on May 27, 2014
Michael Sam, Jason Collins, Brittney Grinner and Robbie Rogers – athletes who “came out” in the most difficult environment, professional sports; football, basketball and soccer respectively. The conversation has begun in one of the last bastions of heterosexual life – ESPN. But the church can even become a more hostile environment. America is becoming more…
By: Sandy Bils on May 26, 2014
Beginning of this year Thomas Hitzlsperger, a famous former football player from Germany came out as gay and generated intense media interest. In Germany, as in many other countries, soccer players have been very cautious about sharing information about their private life. Hitzlsperger came out in an interview with the newspaper ZEIT. In the conversation…
By: Sam Stephens on May 19, 2014
For years, I have desired to learn Spanish, and then I have wanted to improve my guitar playing skills and I have wanted to learn to fly … and a hundred other things. I have started on a couple of the above on several occasions, never getting any farther than the first few steps or…
By: Clint Baldwin on May 19, 2014
For this last week, a goal was to focus on practicing a “new” skill for twenty hours in hopes of acquiring at least rudimentary capability with that skill. The idea for this endeavor arose from the text, “The First 20 Hours: How To Learn Anything…Fast” by Josh Kaufman. My initial idea had been to add-in…
By: Mark Steele on May 19, 2014
Most people I talk to have some form of a bucket list. A bucket list are those life time goals most want to complete before they die. The concept was popularized by the movie with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman called The Bucket List. The bucket list can be goals like learning a new language,…
By: Telile Fikru Badecha on May 19, 2014
Josh Haufman, The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything…Fast, is a very fun read. Haufman shares so many great ideas on how to learn new skills. The author argues, “deliberate practice is the core of skill acquisition” (p.4). He also recommends the idea of “sufficiency” as a key to rapid skill acquisition (p.5), thus…
By: Sandy Bils on May 18, 2014
…for God has already approved what you do. (Ecc 9:7) I was always bothered by the fact, that I had no traditional knowledge passed over by the region I come from in Germany that had something to do with lucullan knowledge and the traditional foods and drinks from there. If you’re from Bavaria, you know…
By: Bill Dobrenen on May 18, 2014
I bought a good Canon camera in October after returning from the London Advance. I wanted one just like Ashley’s since her pictures were so good! For the most part, for the past several months, my camera has remained in its case. This assignment, however, prompted me to take it out of the case and…
By: Miriam Mendez on May 18, 2014
When I first learned of this assignment my mind was flooded with so many possibilities. Perhaps I can learn to build a website or some other technological skill. Or I can learn how to knit and gift family and friends with scarfs or socks for Christmas! Or I can re-learn Greek so that I can…
By: Mitch Arbelaez on May 18, 2014
The first struggle I had was to chose only one thing to learn. I, like Haufman have that “Renaissance man temperament.” Call it what you like, I have one. You know, “the dream list,” “the wish list,” “the what-would-you-do-with-a-million-dollars list” or “the bucket list.” So many things to do with so little time to accomplish…
By: Michael Badriaki on May 18, 2014
From childhood, I was encouraged to always be willing to learn as much as I can. For some, learning new things is an option, but for most people in Africa, learning is a necessary skill for survival, connectivity and earned success. Learning and education are themes I grew up around. The opportunity to learn different…
By: Richard Volzke on May 17, 2014
Kaufman, in The First 20 hours: How to Learn Anything…Fast!, provides a checklist of things that we can do to help ourselves learn a new skill more effectively. If we follow his recommendations, Kaufman suggests that we may be able to learn a new skill in approximately twenty hours. Research the skill and related topics. Jump…
By: Sharenda Roam on May 17, 2014
Josh Kaufman, in his book “The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything Fast,” he determines that, well, anyone can learn pretty much anything fast. There were several thing I considered learning: how to draw, a new language, advanced piano ear-training. However, ultimately I chose “a lovable project” and something out of necessity. I recently…
By: Garrick Roegner on May 17, 2014
This week in our D.Min program we were tasked with reading Josh Kaufman’s book The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything… Fast! Kaufman’s book is basically a guide on how to break down skills into component parts and tackle the learning process in an organized and logical series of steps. Kaufman greater and more…
