My flip answer to "Why CWM" is, "It meets at 5pm on Sundays, so it conveniently doesn't conflict with any of the other church I might do" -- though that's not entirely true. Given that I will actually admit that CWM feels the most like "my church home," it seems incumbent upon me to actually think through why that is -- though it's also a good exercise (for a lot of reasons) to examine that question for all the places I church.
After service, Tiffany told me that CAUMC is having a visioning committee and they want a couple people from CWM to be on it and she thought I would be a fabulous choice because "You bridge communities well." I laughed and said I didn't know about "well." (Though her other question to us the congregation was, "What are you called to do?" and more and more recently I've been thinking that the answer to that seems to be: dialoguing between opposing factions, problematizing things and pointing out the other side, mediating between parties.) The committee meets Tuesday nights, so I can't go, which I'm kind of glad of 'cause I have no idea what input I would have. I'm touched that Tiffany thought of me, though.
Apropos of that and of the fact that I've been thinking off-and-on about the purpose of worship service since reading Mark Allan Powell's Loving Jesus, this evening I read "Monkey business" by L. Gregory Jones (Christian Century, September 09, 2008).
***
I added all my ext.school books (22 RED and 2 econ) to my LibraryThing (and finally changed my location on both LT and GR). I geeked out on how many other LT members have my books.
In order, from most to least:
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
815 other members
The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America by Jonathan Kozol
264 other members
The Culture of Disbelief by Stephen L. Carter
247 other members
A New Religious America: How a "Christian Country" Has Become the Worl ... by Diana L. Eck
133 other members
Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction by Eugenie C. Scott
55 other members
The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today by Alan Sears
34 other members
Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins by Percival Davis
34 other members
Democratic Education (Princeton Paperbacks) by Amy Gutmann
22 other members
Educating the 'Right' Way: Markets, Standards, God, and Inequality, Second Edition by Michael W. Apple
13 other members
Not in Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design Is Wrong for Our Schools by Eugenie C. Scott
11 other members
Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools by Jonathan Zimmerman
11 other members
Does God Belong in Public Schools? by Kent Greenawalt
9 other members
Religion and American Education: Rethinking a National Dilemma (H. Eugene and Lillian Youngs Lehman Series) by Warren A. Nord
8 other members
Bridging Liberalism and Multiculturalism in American Education by Rob Reich
7 other members
Essentials of Economics by N. Gregory Mankiw
6 other members
The Fourth R by Joan DelFattore
6 other members
Diversity and Distrust: Civic Education in a Multicultural Democracy by Stephen Macedo
5 other members
The Secular Revolution: Power, Interests, and Conflict in the Secularization of American Public Life by Christian Smith
4 other members
Democratic Schools, Second Edition: Lessons in Powerful Education by Michael W. Apple
2 other members
Educating for Intelligent Belief or Unbelief (The John Dewey Lecture) by Nel Noddings
2 other members
Surviving Diversity: Religion and Democratic Citizenship by Jeff Spinner-Halev
2 other members
The Bible and Its Influence, Student Text (Bible Literacy Project) (Bible Literacy Project) (Bible Literacy Project) by Cullen Schippe; Chuck Stetson
No other members
Overcoming Religious Illiteracy: A Cultural Studies Approach to the Study of Rel ... by Diane L. Moore
No other members
Study Guide for Mankiw's Essentials of Economics, 4th by N. Gregory Mankiw
No other members
