The good folks that run the BibleTech conference have made the MP3s of each of the sessions available for your listening pleasure! If you care to hear my voice and ideas for 45 minutes or so, click on this link to get to my conference presentation. Enjoy!
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At the end of March (the 27th and 28th, to be exact), Logos Bible Software will be hosting the BibleTech:2009 Conference.
I will be presenting at the conference on a subject that, I feel, is of the utmost importance: the Near-Future of the Bible. You can check out my workshop's description here.
Lately I have been doing a lot of thinking on the impact of the future on the Bible, and how the two will intersect. As an introduction to my thoughts, I recently wrote an article for an upcoming issue of Collide Magazine. I was able to interview a number of simply brilliant people for that article, and love the fact that my editor gave me a few (hundred) extra words to hash out my thoughts.
I've got a couple of other future-thinking things that I'm working on, but nothing to say about just yet.
On a personal note, getting these opportunities is - quite simply - a dream come true. Anyone who knows me or follows this blog would know that I've taken classes on Futures Studies, that I've written pieces of fiction on the far-off future of the Bible (that I still need to complete...), and that I sometimes struggle with backtracking to the present when I see the implications of the future. To have the trust of people not only here at LifeWay, but at Collide, Logos and elsewhere that my ideas have worth and merit is a blessing beyond my expectations.
The hardest part is moving ideas from percolating in my head to relevant concepts for consumption; please continue to pray for me that my words and energies might be constructive and provoking rather than meaningless dribble.
Somedays you just want to cheer and yell and be happy; some days you stand in amazement at the opportunities that lie before you.
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I just finished up my first Futures related article that will see print. Written for Deacon Magazine by LifeWay, the article covers the very basics of Futures research and study: why we should do it and a few short paragraphs on how. I would love to push out the "how" a little further, but I was limited to 1200 words (I wrote over 1400, like usual). Here's to hoping this article makes and impact and helps get the church thinking/talking about what the future might be.
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Way back in June of 2007, I was contracted to write an article for Deacon Magazine. LifeWay works on a very far ahead schedule for their magazines and that first article I was contracted for should be out this coming quarter's edition of the magazine.
Mid-January I was contracted to write for Collide Magazine. A couple of days ago, Scott McCellan announced on the Collide blog that the March/April issue of the magazine (with my article on multi-site church technology in it) went to press. It's exciting to finally know that a piece that I worked on is on it's way in the mail to my hands. Hooray! You can subscribe to the magazine here.
In other freelance news, Deacon Magazine has contracted me for a Futures-related article. This is incredibly exciting for me as Futures research for the church/technology is where I'm heading a few years down the road. I'm in the Futures degree program at University of Houston, so it's pretty awesome to be able to write about the topic already. Not sure how I'll crush my thoughts down to 1200 words... but we'll see how it goes!
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i've started up another blog to keep my futurist work seperate and presented a bit different. if i post anything there that i think is fitting for this blog too, i'll be sure to throw a link up on here. check it out at nextquestions.com!
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So this semester I began my Master's degree in Studies of the Future. The program is offered by the University of Houston and is one of the premier schools for such a degree. Periodically I will be posting assignments and ideas from my coursework here on the blog. I hope to eventually get to a point where I can go into a little more detail here as to my thoughts on how futures studies can effect the church and the spiritual life.
One of this weeks assignments was to do an "elevator pitch" on what Futures Studies is. Basically, two paragraphs on how we would explain Futures Studies to someone quickly. And so, without futherado, an elevator pitch by Aaron Linne:
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The key concept to Studies of the Futures is that it is plural. Any work that is done in the field is about the potential futures and finding a way to best prepare for all of them. It’s not simply about knowing what the future is going to be; that is impossible. Instead, Studies of the Futures is about discovering what the future could be; what it most likely will be, what we’d want it to be, and – just to be complete – a few ideas of what kind of future could be created from unpredictable wildcard event.
The work of Studies of the Futures is much like the opposite of anthropologists. Futurists take the little things about the future we might be able to tell, whether from current trends and statistics or known current research that is happening, and expanding that out to a future that may be applicable to the future study we are partaking in. Just as anthropologists can then learn from the past, we seek to learn from the small gleam of the future we can understand. This is the reason for studying to futures; future to learn what actions to take today.