Updates: Family Photos, Courses, Books, Calendar, Facebook, LinkedIn, Favorite Podcasts

A few of you have emailed to ask about the delay in posts.  My family
and I are well!   I am loving my doctoral work here at Duke!   All is well.   

Two excuses about blogging:
(1) Blogging about politics and abortion will definitely make blogging feel like a burden!  (See my last post and comments).   The topics in this post are much lighter!
(2) I have so many things I want to blog about that are related to church leadership but I just haven't found the
time.  I think my coursework and family should get priority and the
blog comes sometime later as I know you all agree!

In the meantime, here are some updates.

Family Photos  

We had some new family photos of our family taken: Amy, Ryan (2 1/2) and Jacob (5 months) and me.  One is posted to the right.  The album is here. 

Courses

My courses this semester are:

1. Scripture and Ethics with Richard Hays and Allen Verhey
2. Church and Ministry in the New Testament with Richard Hays
3. Theology of Mission with Laceye Warner
4. Leadership with Allan Lind at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business.  I am just sitting in on this one.  Duke's business school, Fuqua, is ranked #9 by US News & World Report, #9 by BusinessWeek,and #12 by Forbes. 

Books

I have also updated the books I am reading this semester in the right column.

Calendar

I am preaching at:

• Clayton Presbyterian Church pastored by Monte Johnson in Clayton, NC on March 30th.
• Granville Chapel pastored by Andy Perrett in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada April 20th.

At both places my title is "Good News: Jesus is Enough" from Colossians 1:22-23 and Acts 11:17-18.

My wife Amy is speaking at the Granville Chapel Women's Retreat April 17-20 and then preaching at Granville Chapel April 27th.

I will also be at the "Jürgen Moltmann Conference" – the Society for Pentecostal Studies and the Wesleyan Theological Society Joint Meeting, hosted at Duke, March 13-15, 2008.  Calvin's James K. A. Smith will also be here. 

Facebook

Being a professor at Taylor University the last couple of years, I have been on Facebook for a while.  I recommend it as a way to connect with high school and college friends.  I don't use it for much else though you can spend lots of time on it! I recommend just putting up a profile and then waiting for friends to find you!  Facebook can produce a lot of emails unless you limit
it to just Friend requests.  You have to join Facebook to see my full profile.  See my Facebook profile at this link.  My profile is a good example of a pretty basic one.    

LinkedIn

I am also on LinkedIn which is a networking site.  My LinkedIn profile is at this link. 

Favorite Podcasts

My favorite podcasts are (in alphabetical order):

• BusinessWeek – Cover Stories – interesting to hear an interview between the executive editor and writer of each week's cover story. 
• BusinesWeek – The Welch Way – interesting to hear former CEO of GE and business management guru Jack Welch answer questions. 
• Catalyst Podcast – great interviews with church leaders
• CNN Reliable Sources – video podcast that you watch.  Great to hear media critics discuss how the media has covered the stories in the news each week. 
• NBC Nightly News – Amy and I often watch this at night when it downloads between 9:30 pm and 10:00 pm Eastern time.  It is on TV at 6:30 pm but we usually miss it. 
• Lots of preachers

These links will only work if you have iTunes installed (which is a free program).  I have explained podcasts before at this link.

Music

I am loving using Pandora for internet radio.  Free!

Firefox

If you are an Internet Explorer person, I would encourage you to try Mozilla Firefox which is very similar to Internet Explorer but I find it much faster in opening.  It is a free download.      

Home Page – iGoogle and Gmail

My home page tabs are iGoogle and Gmail.  I am enjoying them both. 

Photo

I also have a new photo on my blog biography page.