Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Have You Met Ted?

TED (Technology Entertainment Design) is a truly fascinating phenomenon. Online, it's a series of talks on all manner of things. I listened to a few today while working. It both illustrated my own ignorance while simultaneously exciting me -- I was learning about all kinds of amazing things and types of thought. Very cool. I've only scratched the surface, it'll take me some time to work through all the current ones, but some really great thought. And probably quite a few more books to add to my book list.

Here's one I found particularly interesting... One profound quote from it: "All the salvation of the world requires is the intelligent pursuit of self-interest."

I've also been listening to Relevant Magazine's podcast. They have Dan Hill, a pastor from Santa Cruz on it. He's coming out with a set of books "They Like Jesus, But They Hate Church" (for church leaders) and "We Like Jesus, But We Hate Church" (for everyone else). Sounds interesting. Basically he said that his research showed that people are really spiritual, hungry, and accepting of the message of Jesus. But so much of their view of pastors and church are fed by the bad examples in the media. And that churches have focussed so much on "community" that it's become closed to those who aren't in the church and that people are now afraid to associate with and/or share the message with those outside their circle of comfort and security. Really interesting.

And then you can't forget the Lost podcast from last week... was with the woman who takes the scripts and has to figure out how to shoot them... what settings they'll need, what kinds of technical stuff (like 17 dump trucks full of shaved ice to turn a street in Hawaii to a street in New York in the dead of winter) or an abandoned military post in Hawaii into an active military post in the middle of Iraq.

And also, I recommend the Scrubs podcasts. They stick together two people from the show (cast and crew) and they talk while watching an episode. Really fun stuff, some great insight and you get to hear the actors in a new light. I swear, it would just be awesome to have Ken Jenkins -- who plays Dr. Kelso -- over for a Scrubs marathon. He is like the nicest guy and he just laughs so hard and earnestly at stuff.

1 comment:

James said...

Corrections And Whatnot

1. I gave up on the Relevant magazine podcast. I honestly don't understand these people or what they're trying to do. I get that I'm at least 5 years older than their target audience, but I'm not sure even 5 or 10 years ago I would have got them. If I had an iPod and iTunes and Podcasting had been invented.

2. The book is actually titled "I Like Jesus but I hate church" or something closer to that -- operative correction being "I" for "we." Apparently aimed at those who identify with Jesus but have a negative impression of church and pastors.