This blog is seven years old today. Can you believe it? I kicked off my first blog on October 8, 2004 and started this blog on April 30, 2005. How the religious and digital landscape has changed! I wonder where I’ll be in another seven years.
- Comment
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Curious Christian 
Congrats, my friend.
LikeLike
Congratulations! Long may it continue!
LikeLike
have another great 7 years. i am in sydney on tuesday if you want to celebrate with a drink
LikeLike
Congrats, Matt… Not a lot of “cyber-things” last that long! I wonder how many more and what kind of real-time friends you will have made through the site after another 7 years has gone by?
See you Friday night @ Soup’n’Soiree!
If anybody would like to come to the following event happening at my husband, Andrew’s and my house (Not tallskinnykiwi Andrew), PLEASE feel welcome to call me during business hours on Sydney 02 9439 5000 and I’ll give you the street address 🙂
*Lively discussion and Food for thought about “How Jesus read his Bible” – be prepared for some paradigm-shifting implications for the way we live out life and faith NON-violently in a multi-faith society. Soup will be served while we have opportunity to ponder with autho…r, Michael Hardin and his wife on the PhD research and writings which provide a new lens for viewing reconciliation and peacemaking. Performance poetry is more than likely to appear during the evening’s proceedings!*
Network with people from the AAANZ
Anabaptist Association of Australia and New Zealand
LikeLike
Yeah, it was a good night, alright! Who’d ‘ve thought soup, poetry and theology could mix so well… must have been the interesting bunch of people who turned up! If anybody is interested in catching up for further similar soirees, please feel welcome to call me on the Sydney number during business hours and I’ll let you know about future events 🙂
LikeLike
congrats Matt. What do you see as being the big changes?
steve
LikeLike
Sorry folks. I’ve been preoccupied elsewhere and am only now getting a chance to catch up with the comments. Thanks for your kind words. And thanks Lucy for the soup!
Steve as for what have been the big changes. I could list many but three stand out in particular.
Firstly, the shift in public attention from “irreligious spirituality” to “new atheism”, in the blogosphere and beyond. It suggests a certain degree of normality creep since irreligious spirituality certainly hasn’t gone away. Irreligious spirituality is just part of the furniture now (despite the fact we still don’t always understand it).
Secondly, the splintering of the emerging / missional conversation, as Christians shifted from talking about what they were against (modernist, funamentalist, unmissional, constantinian Christianity) to what they were for (on which there was not nearly so much agreement). Fragmentation rules more than ever.
Thirdly, the diversification of social media and the race to the shallowest and broadest end of the pool. I find the shift from blogging to microblogging has overall led to a decline in the quality conversations. Despite the exponential growth of online conversation, intelligent conversation is harder to find.
LikeLike
Congratulations! Your blog is officially a second-grader. Isn’t it weird how quickly time passes by? I, for one, can’t believe that I’ve been a children’s minister for as long as I have—just last month I celebrated ten years! An entire decade! To be honest, it freaked me out. I remember my first class just like I taught them yesterday.
LikeLike
It looks as though, after seven years of plenty, we are now in for seven years of drought 😦
LikeLike