Wednesday, June 30, 2010
eyes wide open: a visual of out of bounds church
I was bored last night. I should have been marking, but I was looking begging for a distraction. I found it by plugging various bits of my writing into wordle. Very sad I know.
Now again tonight I should be marking. Again I’m looking begging for a distraction. So why not blog the result. Even sadder I know.
Here’s chapter 3 of my Out of Bounds Church?
And here’s my sermon, a chapter, in Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross: Contemporary Images of the Atonement
And here’s my chapter on Spirit with popular culture, in The Spirit of Truth: Reading Scripture and Constructing Theology With the Holy Spirit
I like Wordle. But now I have run out of distractions ….
Posted by steve at 08:50 PM
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Was it accident or design that you offered us a tritheistic set of Wordles? (God and Jesus were so small in the third one, as to be invisible, ditto God and Spirit in the second, Jesus got into the first but quite small… just wondering aloud…
PS this is not meant to be a clever takedown, I am really interested, the combination of Wordles and theology is too much for me to resist 😉
Comment by Tim Bulkeley — July 1, 2010 @ 4:20 am
Tim, that’s classic. Absolutely classic. Totally unintentional. 3 is the usual preachers technique, but the selection was random. Amazing that the chapter from the Out of Bounds? book I chose to Wordle is also the 3rd chapter.
Does this show how subconsciously Trinitarian I am? Or dangerously Tri-theistic? Or does seriously in need of a life:)
steve
Comment by steve — July 1, 2010 @ 9:30 am
Not that sad from a compositional point of view! What interests me is the word ‘diamond’ in the middle picture. What does it mean in the context of the other words? Any comments?
Comment by Ingrid — July 2, 2010 @ 4:58 am
Ingrid, probably best way to explain is to provide the opening few paragraphs of the sermon/book chapter. Here tis …”A diamond is an object of love and beauty. It is a gift given and received at precious, intimate times.
To fully appreciate a diamond and all of its depth and intricacies, you need to turn it. You need to see all the faces and watch how different lights make the diamond dance in different ways.
The gospel, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, is like a diamond. It is a gift of love, given and received at precious, intimate times. It has many faces and to appreciate it fully you need to see them all: Jesus as a victor, a sufferer, a martyr, a sacrifice, a redeemer, a reconciler, a justifier, an adopter and a representative. So, leading up to communion throughout this year, I am going to be turning the diamond of the gospel. I do not want to be a pastor that shrinks the gospel. Nor do I want to offer you only one side of the diamond. I want communion to be for us a time of love, a precious, intimate time. I want communion to be about depth, us watching as different lights make all the faces of the diamond dance in new ways.
Today, I want to polish the diamond face of Jesus as our representative, as our new Adam ….” and continues in the chapter …
Comment by steve — July 2, 2010 @ 9:47 pm