I’m thinking about maybe trying to post here daily during Lent, kick-starting my way back into more frequent blogging. However, since my other vague Lenten intention involves reducing the time I waste online, I’m not sure how this is going to shake out. Two days left to decide if I’m looking at feast or fasting!
Speaking of using my online time more wisely, I finally got around to setting up a Google Reader account, so now I can catch up with all the blogs I follow without clicking through to each of them. What took me so long? Following my favorite sites — from excellent Godblogs to friends’ personal updates to cute pictures of baby animals — is now a streamlined, easy process. I don’t miss anything, and neither do I waste time clicking on sites that haven’t been updated in ages. Sweet!
Here are just a few of the Christian-education-related posts that have caught my attention recently:
- I was struck by the opening quotations from Jeff Gaines in this post on A Church for Starving Artists. Moving from a fact-transmission model of education to a spiritual direction model is not only a matter of curriculum (though I do think the new UCC Faith Practices resources might help); it’s also a shift in our attitudes and expectations as educational leaders.
- I’ve long been a fan of the “Ask the Matriarch” Thursday feature on Rev Gal Blog Pals. This week’s question concerned the thorny issue of attendance, which we’re struggling with this winter at Smithfield as well.
- This post on Theolog questions whether youth belong in youth groups, or if teenagers should be integrated into the broader church community. (My personal opinion: why not do both?) There is a lot of thoughtful discussion in the comments.
- I cannot remember how I found my way here, but this post from last February on a blog called Journey Through the Field of Life has forty fun suggestions for Lenten practices.
- Pearls Before Swine, my favorite comic strip (and frankly, pretty much the only consistently funny traditional strip out there at the moment) had a moving tribute to the author’s father-in-law last Sunday. File this one in the “funeral homily” folder.
Because surely we can do better than this.