I am astounded by the incredible diversity and unity of the Church online. Boundaries which seem impenetrable in the real world are crossed daily, friendships are forged and experiences shared and enjoyed which transcend denominational, theological and historical limitations. There are no walls separating us by age, gender, race, nationality, location, position or appearance.

We are one Church, one body of believers, united by Christ and connected through the wonders of the Internet.

Every other week, Bridget Chumbley and I host a Blog Carnival. If you don’t know what that is, then in the simplest terms, we pick a topic and everyone writes a blog post on that topic an posts it on their website the same day. Either Bridget or I (depending on who’s hosting that week) then provide a place where everyone can share a link to their blog post, so that anyone and everyone can find all of the posts and go read them.

The carnival has been going for a couple of months now and I have been astounded by the number of people who have joined in, this week we had 42 entries! That number is especially surprising considering the topic this week was ‘grief’.

Thank you SO much everyone who has taken part so far, you are really appreciated.

One of my main aims in starting the carnival was to help the Church find each other. This blog is about Rediscovering the Church, and I’m discovering that the Church are amazing, if we just shut up for a moment and give them a chance to speak.

I love that people are getting a lot of traffic to their blogs and are receiving lots of comments on their posts. It’s wonderful to see people connecting like that.

We have:

• Catholics
• Non-denominationals
• Orthodox priests
• Baptists

… and any number of other denominations represented in the carnival and yet we can all find ways to intersect and share together through our real experiences with life and God.

The next carnival is over at bridget’s place on December 15th. The topic this time is ‘Church’. We’d love for you to join us in the carnival – and feel free to invite all your friends too!

One thing I have been trying to work out is how do we share the love more evenly? It seems that the first few people to post their carnival entries get a dozen or so comments and loads of visitors and then, by the time you get down to #40, there are only one or maybe two comments on each post. How can we even it out so that everyone is getting visits and comments?

Another question I have been wrestling with is how do we remind people that the carnival is coming. We use Twitter effectively for reminders but people who haven’t given in to the tweeters miss out. What can we do to include people outside of the twitterverse more effectively?

I made a proposed schedule of carnival topics (listed below) and have had some changes suggested (highlighted in red). What do you think? Is this a good schedule? What changes would you like to see?

• November 3rd – Remember
• November 17th – Community
• December 1st – Grief
• December 15th – Church
• December 29th – Book (what’s the best one you read in 2009)
• January 12 –Lust
• January 26 – Love
• February 9 – Joy
• February 23 – Peace
• March 9 – Patience
• March 23 – Kindness
• April 6 – Goodness
• April 20 – Faithfullness
• May 4 – Gentleness
• May 18th – Self-Control

Today, October 26th, is Nick the Geek’s birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, NICK!

(you can find Nick at his blog or on Twitter, if you want to wish him a happy birthday)

I’d like to take this opportunity though to celebrate the whole Church, not just Nick.

Birthday’s are a special time to take a day to recognize and give thanks for the gift of life that God has given us.

Of course, we remember and thank God for his gift of life and new life in Christ every day, but I believe it is good to make a special day of celebration every so often – and yearly seems as good to me as any other.

This blog is about my journey to Rediscover the Church, to find out who they are and just how broad and diverse our family truly is.

With the millions, or even billions, of family members out there, there is no way I could mention them all by name on their birthdays (I simply don’t know all their names… yet) and besides, I’d have to do a birthday celebration on this blog every day.

So today, as some of us celebrate that God has given Nick one more year of life, I would like to you to join with me in celebrating the birthdays of the whole Church.

To God be the glory for the life he gives us and the wonderful gift of salvation through his son, Jesus Christ!

Happy birthday, everyone, whenever your birthday might be. I’m sure glad that you’re part of the family!

Book week is coming to an end!

I made this book week because I read three books last weekend and spent the week reviewing them and highlight some great Christian authors.

I have decided to end book week with a bang, sharing with you the details of some great current and aspiring authors. Hopefully you will find some people on this list you have never heard of and will be inspired and blessed by their writing.

• Brian Russell
  Blog:  http://briancrussell.net

  Webcomic:  http://theunderfold.com

  Twitter:  @brian_russell

  Genre:  Thriller/Suspense/Supernatural

  Unpublished as of now, but I’m working on several things including co-authoring a book with Larry J. Leech about an Angel of Death who decides not to do his job anymore and upsets both Heaven and Hell.  (This one gets me most excited!)

  _________________________________

• Billy Coffey
  Blog: http://billycoffey.blogspot.com
  Twitter: @billycoffey
  Genre: Novelist
  I won’t mention my book…yet. But give me a month or so and you’ll be begging me to shut up about it already.
  _________________________________
• Anne Lang Bundy
  Blog: http://building-his-body.blogspot.com
  Twitter: @Anne4JC
  Genre: biblical fiction, represented by Rachelle Gardner of WordServe Literary.
  I’m presently unpublished.
  _________________________________
• Eric von Mizener
  Blog: ericvonmizener.blogspot.com
  Twitter: @Psalm51
  Genre: Creative Non-fiction (Spiritual Memoir)
  _________________________________
• Tiffany Stuart
  Website: http://www.teawithtiffany.com/
  Twitter: @TiffanyStuart
  Genre: Christian devotions and articles.
  Hope to write a devotional book someday called Stop, Look and Listen. Sharing how God uses the simple, the everyday, and the ordinary to reveal Himself and speak to our hearts.
  I’ve written numerous times for Focus on the Family, both online and in print.
  _________________________________
• Amy Sorrells
  Blog: http://amysorrells.wordpress.com
  Twitter: @amysorrells
  Genre: nonfiction narrative, Christian
  Books: Two in proposal stage: one is a nonfiction narrative and the second is a memoir.
  _________________________________
• Brenda Coats
  Blog: http://www.prairiebren.blogspot.com
  Twitter: @PrairieLady
  Genre: Published in compilation books.
  _________________________________
• Patricia Miller
  Blog: patriciamiller.blogspot.com
  Website: www.patriciamillerbooks.com
  Twitter: @PatriciaAMiller
  Genre: Children’s fiction and non-fiction
  Writing credits: Magazine article: Highlight for Children.
  _________________________________

Strangely, none of the people I know who have had books published recently have asked to be on the list, but that’s OK. What I did get were responses from a few people who don’t write books but do write regularly (and well) online, so I wanted to share their details with you too.

• Bonnie Gray
  Blog: FaithBarista.com
  Twitter: @TheBonnieGray
  Faith Barista serves up shots of faith for everyday Christian living!
  _________________________________
• James Nored
  Website: www.missionaloutreachnetwork.com
  Twitter: @JamesNored
  I just discovered James and he writes and also does seminars on missional outreach. I’m going to be checking out what he can teach me about being more missional in my thinking!
  _________________________________
• Chris Sullivan
  Blog: www.chrissulli.com
  Twitter: @ChrisSulli
  Chris gave up everything to go out to the Dominican Republic as a Missionary/Consultant/Blogger.
  _________________________________
• Amanda Sanders
  Blogs: amandasandersblog.net and redhotmomma.net
  Twitter: @AmandaSanders1
  Amanda writes RedHotMomma.Net, which is one of my favorite blogs (please write more often, Amanda )
  _________________________________

If I have missed anyone who asked me to include them PLEASE let me know, I tried to remember everyone but if you slipped through the net, it wasn’t personal!

Today, is about the writers, so if you’re not on this list but would like people to know about you and your writing, leave your details in a comment below so we can all find more great stuff to read!

I am SOOOOO busy today. I now have four hours left to do ten hours of work….

I’m off to a writer’s conference this weekend. I’m nervous but it should be fun. Then, when I get home, God willing my apostolic mentor, Rob, will be here waiting for me. I’m so excited to spend time with him, but there’s lots to do before then!

No time for a real post today – but I received an email from a brother in Christ in Kansas City, MO today and wanted to share it with you. Can you do anything to help them?

From: John Wiley, Pastor of The River Christian Fellowship, Raytown, MO.

The Kansas City Star (circulation around 1 million) ran a front page story today about the Foursquare church I pastor and the former hospital building we just purchased.

We bought the building to open a Dream Center in Kansas City. (If you don’t know what a Dream Center is go to www.dreamcenter.org) The hospital has been vacant for 10 years. It’s 3 miles from my church building.

The purchase price of the hospital is 1 million dollars. The owners are giving us 2 years to pay them. There is no interest, just 1 million dollars due in two years.

We close in 60 days. We need $60,000 to bring to closing. Three weeks ago we had $3,000. As of today we have $30,500.

We are praying for 60 people to give $1000 each to get us in the door.

The building is in very bad shape. Once we have repaired it, it can hold about 300 people.

Here is a link to the story: http://www.kansascity.com/637/story/1198372.html

All the way in,
John Wiley

You can contact John through his church’s website: www.rivercentral.org or on Facebook or you can send me a message and I’ll put you in touch with him directly.

**** UPDATE ****

You can donate to the Kansas Dreamcenter here if you wish:

So… is God speaking to you right now to partner with this small church and do something BIG?

I’ve seen the Church in action doing what the Church should be doing and I’m excited.

Yesterday I posted on this blog about a friend of mine who has just written her first blog post. Her name is Christina. If you haven’t seen her blog, you can find it here.

In my post I asked y’all to go visit her blog and give her some encouragement.

As I see it, one of the primary functions of the Church is to encourage each other. We all need encouragement and we can all find ways to encourage each other.

A whole bunch of you lovely people out there, none of whom I know personally except through the wonders of the World Wide Web, went and visited Christina’s site and some even left encouraging comments.

I wanted just to say THANK YOU! That’s the Church being the Church. That’s the Church encouraging each other.

It doesn’t matter where in the world we are, we can encourage each other and lift each other up because we’re one big ol’ family!

So thanks guys!

Especial kudos to those who have commented on her blog thus far:

• AndyC
• Katdish
• JasonS
• Jamie
• John
• Sherri

Oh yes, while I’m on the subject, why not check out Dan’s site and see if you can help?

A long time ago (almost 18 months ago), I was looking into what Web 2.0 is and I found this video which gave me some concerns. I started blogging about it but never finished writing the post because I just couldn’t put into words how I felt.

However, Web 2.0 does have some things to teach us about the Church and… well, let me explain (with a huge over simplification):

Web 2.0 is the next generation of web usage. It’s not an entirely new Internet rather it is a new way of using the Internet to communicate.

Look at any website and you are seeing two things (hopefully):

1. Design
2. Content

There is a distinct difference between the two. 

• Design is aesthetics, visual appearance, it’s all about looks.
• Content is information you are trying to communicate.

Until now, most of the web has been taken up by sites which define both the design and the content. People spend a lot of time and effort on making the site look good, in fact the design can be almost as important as the content.

With Web 2.0 however, content and design are largely separated and although you will still find the content on designed sites, you will also now be able to access it completely free of any design.

Take this blog for example. You may be reading it at http://blog.hafchurch.org/peter whereby you are seeing both my design and my content. However, I know that quite a few people read this through a feed reader and rarely ever view my site. These people are reading the same content as you but are viewing it on a screen which has a design of their choosing. Different people use different feed readers, which each display the text in a different way. Some people may even be seeing this content displayed on another website which has been designed by someone else.

Design and content are separated. You are free to read the content without the restraints of my design. I am quite happy with this. It’s not the look that is important, it’s what I say, the content which is important.

As I have been thinking about this, I have been thinking about different church fellowships, different expressions of the church.

You can walk in to our home church and get the same message about the need for salvation as you would get if you walked into the Hanford YMCA where The Oasis meet or into the old electricity office in Rosamond now called The Praise Inn or into one of thousands of other church fellowships around the world.

You see, the design of the expression of the Church is different but the basic content is the same.

I think God is more of a Web 2.0 kind of guy. God is very concerned about the content, He has given us the bible which tells us what to teach… but how we teach it, well, that’s more flexible.

God is inspiring people to ‘do church’ differently. That means that one way is right for some people while other ways are right for other people.

Of course, there are always things we need to modify, things we need to tweak, no church fellowship is perfect but I think it always comes down to this… content is more important that design. 

What are you more concerned with? The content of your church fellowship or the design?

In my journey to rediscover the Church, I have found that a lot of them are out there in ‘the blogsphere’.

That doesn’t mean they’re only in the blogsphere, many, in fact most of them are involved to some degree in their local fellowships. It does, however, mean that they are there, opening themselves up to the Body at large, fellowshipping through blog posts and comments, encouraging, teaching, comforting, supporting and building up the body of Christ.

The Church is out there, out here, doing some of the stuff it should be doing, being the priesthood of believers, being the family that God wants us to be, that He created us to be.

To honor some of those that I have found whose blogs I love to read and some of whom have touched my life personally, I thought I’d list just a few of my favorites for you to read if you’d like:

Joe Stallard - Joe has an amazing testimony, you can read about it at his site. Joe has also been giving me some personal advice and support and I very much appreciate his knowledge and understanding.

Cerulean Sanctum - Dan Edelen’s blog is one that I started reading a couple of years ago and then lost contact with. I have just started reading it again and I just love the depth of his understanding and the hard-hitting accuracy of his posts.

The Church for Men, Florida – Mike Ellis writes some incredible stuff. I wish I could copy most of his posts and claim that I wrote them. He’s a man who thinks like me and acts the way I ought to act! Check out this post for example.

Trey Morgan – Like Mike Ellis, Try is hard hitting, straight forward and amazingly clear in his message. I am inspired, encouraged and  reminded by his blog.

Attention Span – Rev-Ed is funny but at the same time, his posts are deep and meaningful.

There are plenty of others and if you know of one that you think I’d love, please leave a comment with a link so I can look it up.

Finally, check out the video on this post of Mike Ellis’