Tag Archives: social media

Satur-deja Vu

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December 25th is not really Jesus’s birthday. This is not breaking news. Let’s stop pontificating on when sheep are kept in fields, whether or not it snows in Israel (it does) and making arguments for when his actual birthday is. Christmas has been celebrated on December 25th since A.D. 336, during the reign of Emperor Constantine. He made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. Setting that date may have been an effort to weaken established pagan traditions, rather than following them. Hanging wreaths, decorating trees and lighting candles (and by extension strings of lights) have pagan origins. Celebrating the birth of Christ – the incarnation – is uniquely Christian. It’s not about a baby in a manger; it’s about the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy. It’s about John the Baptist leaping in his mother’s womb and Mary and Elizabeth being filled the Holy Spirit. It’s about the angel appearing to Joseph and Mary and the faith it took for them to travel to Bethlehem. It’s about angels bringing good tidings of great joy and wise men traveling from afar to worship him. It’s about the deity of God being robed in flesh and walking among us. It’s about the point of contact between heaven and earth. It’s about the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, the first page of a story that ends at the cross… which for us is only the beginning. So don’t worry about the day. At this point the Julian calendar is off by 13 days and observant Jews probably ignored it anyway.

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Book Review: The Great Digital Commission

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At the end of Jesus’s earthly ministry, he issued what we most often call the Great Commission for his followers to go into all the world and share the Gospel. Acts 1:8 is often cited as the biblical basis for sending missionaries but it echoes the Great Commission command to go to the whole earth and bear witness. It is a basic tenant of the Christian faith that believers are to spread the good news of Jesus Christ.

In The Great Digital Commission: Embracing Social Media for Church Growth and Transformation, Caleb J. Lines begins by addressing the continued need for evangelism in the world today. Many congregations are in decline, particularly in mainline Protestant denominations, because too many churches have become social clubs or platforms for political agendas. Our main concern as Christian communities needs to be what it always has been, sharing the good news that Jesus welcomes all and is the only path to salvation. Evangelism needs to make a comeback in both personal, face to face contact in the real world and online using every social media platform. Lines points out that 84% of American churches have a website and/or a Facebook page so most recognize the need to reach a digital audience. Some of those websites are dated and many Facebook pages are used sporadically or often not at all. Fewer congregations can be found using Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.

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The World is a Smaller (Digital) Place

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Long distance telephone service used to be a thing. When AT&T was split from Bell Systems (sorry about the ancient history from my childhood) federal regulators sought to bring competition to the long distance marketplace. AT&T, US Sprint, MCI and others advertised heavily to woo customers to choose them as their long distance carrier. It used to be that the longer the distance a call covered the higher the rate was. I myself may have been given a stern talking to for running up a huge phone bill, over $150, while talking to a girl over Christmas break while in college.

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Blogrolls: Your Comments Welcome

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blogrollIn the early days of blogging, anything before 2010, building a healthy blogroll is how bloggers formed communities. I would list blogs on my blogroll that had something to offer my readers/followers. If other blogs were listing you then that meant a wider audience, more exposure, and a good sign that you were doing something right. From a strictly reader point of view, if you enjoyed a particular blog then chances are you would enjoy some of the blogs that blogger enjoyed reading and recommended. Blogrolls, Real Simple Syndication (RSS) and blog aggregators were the tools of the trade back when regular folks dreamed of quitting their jobs and blogging full time. Continue reading →

Satur-deja Vu

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Screenshot 2020-06-08 at 6.31.56 AM

The world has gone nuts. I can’t help but feel that without Covid-19, resulting in quarantine and economic shutdown, people would either be at work or busy with summer activities and not have time for some of the foolishness we see right now. I’m not talking about protests or riots. I mean the really wacky stuff: Continue reading →

Why is Nobody Talking About the Starbucks Advent Calendar?

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I can’t believe plain red cups are the biggest trending story in social media this week but like I’ve said before no news is good news. So let me put on my Christian blogger hat and do the dance.

Screenshot 2015-11-10 at 10.59.11 AMUnless you’ve been hiding in a cave, you probably recognize former pastor Joshua Feuerstein from his viral video. He infamously pranked Starbucks into selling him a $4 cup of coffee. The evangelist is outraged over Starbucks “war on Christmas” that produced this year’s plain red holiday cup. The lack of snowflakes, doves and trees led Feuerstein to declare that Starbucks hates Jesus. The video describing the prank – that’s a screenshot on the left, no I’m not linking to it – has been viewed 14.5 million times since last Thursday. He told the barista his name was Merry Christmas so they would have to write that on his cup. He’s been drinking the Charlie Sheen Kool-Aid and considers this “winning.” Like I say, he tricked them into selling him coffee. They never saw it coming. Continue reading →

Age of Disinformation

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We live in the Information Age. Pretty much the whole of recorded knowledge from all time is available in a few clicks. Most of us use the technology that makes this feat possible to look at funny cat pictures and argue with total strangers. The proliferation of social media and instant publish platforms means that any one of us can have a global audience, but you need a sensational event to document if you want your Facebook post or Instagram pic to go viral. Case in point: How many have seen this image in the last week which supposedly shows Houston under water?

Screenshot 2015-05-30 at 8.11.23 AM

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Thank You for Following

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200 followsI’ve been blogging since 2008. Back then everything was about blog rolls. If other bloggers listed you that was a good sign. I worked to build a useful blogroll so that readers could interact with my blog friends and vice versa. Today blogs have integrated with social media. There are over 150 followers of the Master’s Table Facebook page and sharing any blog post with Facebook or Twitter is as easy as one click.

For those of you who follow – via email, RSS feed reader, social media or what-have-you – thank you. That’s all. From one Christ follower to another, peace and God bless.

Phil Robertson, A&E, and the Beliefs of True Christians

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phil A&E has suspended Phil Robertson from the reality series Duck Dynasty, and the Internet is blowing up. It has nothing to do with anything said or done on the show, but remarks he made in an interview with GQ magazine. Here is part of what Phil said:

“Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.”

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