dormant

so bejustice is going to lie dormant for awhile as i focus on another blog for a bit:

http://joeldaniel.wordpress.com

i plan on covering many of the same topics there, but also dabbling in youth ministry & a few other odds & ends.

i would like to maybe do more stuff with this sometime in dedicated venue, but for right now i only have so much time & wasn't really doing much of anything because i couldn't do everything. so i'm trying a bit of refocusing. we'll see how it works. please join me over at http://joeldaniel.wordpress.com

World AIDS Day (repost from Facebook)

Hey everyone...
I haven't been able to spend as much time this year researching and blogging in advance of World AIDS Day on December 1st, but I thought I'd take a couple minutes to post a few resources here. Please take some time in the next couple days to read, think, and pray for the millions of families and individuals around the world who suffer from or are affected by AIDS. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me...

Every December 1st is World AIDS Day, a solemn day of awareness and response to the devastation of the AIDS pandemic world wide. There are a variety of opportunities to participate, including many online educational resources.

Consider changing your Facebook profile picture (and other profile avatars) to a World AIDS Day ribbon for the next few days (or at least December 1st). You could also include it as part of your email signature. You can download one here:
http://www.chapelaids.org/d8

As part of my responsibilities at The Chapel last year, I had the opportunity to put together a website that can act as a prayer path as you think about AIDS. Even though I've moved on, they've updated it and are promoting it (Yeah Chapel!) again this year. Take half an hour or an hour on the 1st and walk through it: http://www.chapelaids.org

Last year I tried to blog once a day every day for the month prior to World AIDS Day on my blog, http://bejustice.blogspot.com. While I didn't succeed, I did blog about 2/3 of the days & put up lots of good resources and some questions to help us think through things. I started on October 31st (here: http://bejustice.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html) and then just click on the 2007, November archive on the right hand side of the screen to read any of the posts that you would like.

A few general sites:
http://www.unaids.org
-the main UN AIDS site. great resources & lots of educational material.

http://www.worldaidsday.org
-the main UK site for World AIDS Day. while being UK specific in some things, it has a lot of relevant international information as well.

http://www.worldaidscampaign.org
-the main World AIDS Day site worldwide. Great resources & thoughts.


If you want to really learn a lot, watch this documentary the Frontline (on PBS) made in 2006. It's the most thorough overview of AIDS that I know of. It's 4 hours long, but is broken up into easily watchable pieces at their site. It's definitely worth the time it takes to watch:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/aids/

There is SO MUCH info available about AIDS online if you take a look. I hope you'll join me in the next few days in thinking, learning & praying for this humanitarian crisis.

we live in an age of Jesus Junk...

one of my hero's in middle school ministry is a guy named Marko. he's got an ongoing series on his blog (which he updates at an unbelievable pace) called "Jesus Junk", where he posts for all his fine viewers (such as myself) some item that would be laughable if it weren't for the fact that it were real.

anyway...was over at relevantmagazine.com today and saw a link in their newsfeed to this article by abcnews.com about WWJB (what would Jesus buy) that reminded me of marko's posts. by the way, on a side note, can we let the WWJD puns die already? honestly.

back on topic, though, the article got me thinking about the many ways in which we've lost sight of God's economy. i am well aware that money won't solve the many problems in the world today (poverty, health, slavery, torture, war, etc), but it seems to me that rather than providing or buying Christian kitschy crap (as if our consumeristic mentality needs anymore inspiration), we'd do well to come up with creative ways to throw our finances into ways that would tangibly help the majority of the world that isn't swimming in their resources Scrooge McDuck style.


now there are some really good places out there doing this in a variety of ways (a few of which are highlighted on my sidebar to the right). but i'm interested if anyone else know of any that they think are particularly novel or worthwhile in their pursuit of this? just throw your two cents into a comment...

PEPFAR renewed

President Bush signed an extension of PEPFAR (President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) yesterday, tripling the amount committed to AIDS, Malaria, and Tuberculosis over the next three years. When Bush spoke about this in his State of the Union address during his first term in office, it was a historic moment for the fight against AIDS, being the largest ever monetary commitment by a US President to this cause. By expanding the amount committed and lowering the stipulations applied, Bush is, despite his many flaws in foreign policy, showing the possibility of what a truly compassionate, redemptive, and hopeful foreign policy could look like.

-Read the AP article here.
-Michael Gerson's op-ed piece on the topic in yesterday's Washington Post

Envision the Future: A Declaration for the Common Good

Envision...Part III of ???

Last week I had the opportunity to help out with Envision '08, a gathering diverse Christ followers (racially, geographically, educationally, theologically) for 3 days of dreaming about how to live out the call God has placed on our lives to be his justice-bearers in the world. Here's the document that was settled upon on our final day...

Envision the Future: A Declaration on the Common Good

I still have more thoughts from the time to process, but I'm the midst of a service trip in North Carolina, so it'll have to wait. I might have some time tomorrow...

interesting

you might want to watch this a couple times...

Flobots - No Handlebars

might makes right?

some other good quotes...

Part II of ?? of my thoughts & responses to Envision '08

"our response to temptation should be looking towards God's wooing of us rather than disciplining a resistance of our will alone" - Lisa Sharon Harper

"all temptations are temptations are a temptation to do something good. The greatest temptations are not the temptation toward "the bad" but the temptation toward the almost god" - Shane Claiborne

Shane talking about intentional community ... "everybody wants a revolution, but nobody wants to do the dishes..."

"We are the Good News. We shouldn't be chasing people down the street to force the into the good news. They should be chasing us down the street because we live in such a way that we are the good news." - Brenda Salter-McNeil

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i have a few other bigger ideas i want to blog about in response, but haven't had the time yet...but check back again & i will as soon as possible.