Author: Kyle
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Resolving to be changed—by religious change
I’ve been doing the “year in review” thing over the last few days. As I look back on my year in media, the item that jumps out to me as the most surprising is a little video I made. Y’all and others shared it enough when I posted it to Facebook in April that I felt the need…
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Beyond alarmism about kids and screens
If there’s one thing I learned in my history of communication class, it’s that the introduction of new technologies is usually met with a strange cultural cocktail of utopianism and alarmism. It’s at once hilarious and disturbing to hear people responding to the social disruption ushered in by the telephone* or even the chalkboard. Reading accounts like these…
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Listening and sharing for humanity’s sake
I just moved to my seventh state. Still, I can’t stop thinking about number three. I don’t know if it’s the palm trees, the general upheaval from moving, or something else I can’t yet put my finger on, but my childhood years in Florida (ages 4–8) have been much on my mind as we’ve been starting…
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Guidelines for curating religious resources
Note: I created these guidelines for curating religious resources while on the staff of the Center for the Ministry of Teaching (now Lifelong Learning) at Virginia Theological Seminary, in collaboration with Robbin Brent Whittington and the Center for Spiritual Resources. Since the CSR is no longer in operation, I have obtained permission to republish them here…
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The “whole armor of God” and the gospel of peace
A sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost: 1 Kings 8:22-30, 41-43; Psalm 84; Ephesians 6:10-20; John 6:56-69 ** This week I repeatedly re-lived a memory from, I think, my junior year of college. I was walking down Regent St. in Madison, WI. I was talking to my mother on my brand new cell phone: my…
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Could a chatbot help get people praying?
A good friend of mine developed a well-known chatbot for a faith-based organization. On a recent skills-exchange fun day, he showed me around the automation tool he uses. Thus was born CCP Prayer Guide. As I wrote on Facebook when introducing him to the world, Please talk to my chatbot. He’s a really dumb spiritual…
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Destined for Adoption (Baptism & Ephesians 1)
A sermon for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost: 2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19; Psalm 24; Ephesians 1:3-14; Mark 6:14-29 ** “If … you ever chance to spend a little time around a Substance-recovery halfway facility … you will acquire many exotic new facts.” Thus begins my favorite passage in David Foster Wallace’s 1996 novel Infinite Jest.…
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In praise of improving stock photo libraries
When I recently commended a particular online discussion tool in response to a query on the Forma Facebook Group, a friend noted “I wish it was a little prettier. But that’s the curmudgeon in me.” I contend that you don’t have to be a curmudgeon to want learning tools to be beautiful. No less an educational…
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Teaching Sermon: The Eucharistic Prayer
A sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Easter: Acts 8:26-40; Psalm 22:24-30; 1 John 4:7-21; John 15:1-8 This sermon was preached as part of an Eastertide series examining different parts of the Sunday liturgy. You can find the “Praying Cards” I mention near the end over on Creative Commons Prayer. ** “Do this in remembrance of…
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Visualizing religious affiliation over time
I’m currently working on a presentation about my research proposing that we more actively investigate alternatives to what I’ve been calling Sunday School As We Know It. As a part of that work, I’m arguing that we need models that take more explicit account of religious diversity and work toward what Mary Hess calls a…