Speedlinking - April 2, 2008

• The Carbon Credit Crunch makes a provocative comparison of carbon credits with a church practice.
• How could existing congregations respond positively to new congregations in their area? Check out - How Would You Respond?
• This is very cool - Brian Dettmer’s insanely creative Book Autopsies.
• An insightful take on politics and religion at Obama gets it: The church is not just its preacher.
• Kem Meyer passes along Google’s design guidelines.
• Robin Russell interviews Adam Hamilton about his new book at Q & A: Finding that place in the middle.
• Joseph Yoo is looking for thoughts on reaching non and nominally religious young adults - What Would You Do?
• Managing Urgencies from Seth Godin - Is this your church?
• Recipe For a Road Trip tells the story of the Resurrection IT team preparing to head out on the road.

The Process of Politics

Nicole and I went to the democratic caucus tonight at Leawood Middle School. It was great to be a part of the political process.

We arrived around 6:50 with 7:00 PM the cutoff time to get in line. The parking lot was absolutely full and we had to park in a neighborhood five or six blocks away. We hustled over and got in a line that was about a block long. We filled out the paperwork to affiliate ourselves with the democratic party to be able to participate in the caucus.

When we got in the building, we signed in, turned in our paperwork and made our way into the cafeteria as the gym was already full. The Clinton supporters were on one side of the room and the Obama supporters were on the other side of the room. Once all of the registered democrats had signed in within the gym those supporting Obama moved to the gym and those supporting Clinton moved to the cafeteria.

Gathering at the caucus in Leawood Middle School

We heard a speech from a Clinton supporter and from an Obama supporter and then lined up to be counted. We were organized to stand into parallel lines and each line counted itself by starting on one end and turning to the person behind you for the count to continue. The results were gathered from each line and the results counted.

Obama supporters lining up to be counted

The results in our precint:
Barack Obama - 1983
Hillary Clinton - 423

Then we transitioned to a time of electing the delegates that would represent this precinct in the third congressional district gathering in April. This was a much smaller group. We stayed until the end and really enjoyed the event.

Selecting delegates to represent the precinct

A woman at the election of the delegates said that four years ago there were 30 people at the caucus in this precint. There were over 2300 people this year. That is amazing.

I do think that this is a historic year in politics. Things can change and we can be a part of it - yes we can.

Seeing Gray - Wrap Up (6 of 6)

At the beginning of 2008, we started a conversation around the sermon series Seeing Gray: Faith Morality and Politics in a Black and White World at Resurrection. You can see my video responses to each of the sermon themes at these links:

• Where Faith and Politics Meet - Week 1
• Bridges and Wedges - Week 2
• What to do? Two Rules to Live By - Week 3
• Stage Five: When Christians Grow Up - Week 4
• A Vision for America - Week 5

It has been an experiment in the new use of technology at Resurrection through the Seeing Gray You Tube Channel. I really did not know what to expect when the site was set up. The response was not overwhelming, but I think that it was an important step for the congregation in leveraging technology to build a Christian community where non and nominally religious people are becoming deeply committed Christians.

What did you think of the series overall? What were some of the strengths? What were some of the weaknesses? How about the use of YouTube? Good? Bad? Indifferent?