Tag Archives: tony jones

Business & Marketing

I Hate Public Speaking

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Giving a presentation on the Table Project at my church.

This week I gave two presentations, which is funny considering how much I hate public speaking. The first was a demonstration of the social networking site the Table Project to a small crowd at my church (I blogged about that for the Table). The other was a Q&A on writing copy for churches at the Social Phonics Summer Camp in Minneapolis. To my amazement, the Social Phonics talk went on for an hour and a half.

I made it through both events (though nearly lost my voice after both) and people seemed to like what I said. I actually got some laughs and some tweetable comments at Social Phonics. That always helps.

I initially turned down the offer to speak at Social Phonics, but eventually I gave in to the pleading from Tony Jones. He offered to do the presentation as a Q&A if that’d be easier for me, and I was amazed at how much easier that was. It probably helped that Tony has some pretty good emcee chops, but I felt a lot more comfortable and actually knowledgeable as I talked and didn’t have to feel like Mr. Presenter Man.

I actually found all this presenting rather stimulating. I had some really good conversations afterword and was able to make some good connections, both network-wise and idea-wise. My list of articles to write for Church Marketing Sucks just tripled. Not that this introvert will be starting a speaking tour anytime soon, but sometimes it’s good to get out of your comfort zone and discover that it’s not that scary.

Plus with techno-wonder Nick Ciske speaking before me and the aforementioned Tony Jones, it was like a Billy Graham reunion. Back in the day I used to edit the BGEA site passageway.org, Nick would code it and Tony was a contributor. We just needed Steve Knight and Matthew Taylor.

God, Church & Stuff, Sexuality

The Civilized Church

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We talked about gays in church yesterday, so how about gays at Christian rock festivals today? Po-mo emergent guy and fellow Twin Citizen Tony Jones offers an interesting recap of a panel discussion held at the recent Cornerstone festival titled “Gay Rights or Wrongs.”

I’m very interested in this conversation as it relates to Christianity because it’s so difficult. But that also makes it dangerous. It’s easy to stick your foot in your mouth (or in someone else’s) and easily offend. That’s not my intention. And I’ll be honest and admit that it’s an issue I don’t have a solid stand on. I’m swayed by arguments on both sides and see positives and negatives to both cases.

At any rate, I thought one particular comment in Tony’s piece was interesting:

What, I asked, does the church do to a boy who is born with undescended testicles? Is Jesus’ day, he would have been thrown into a field to die of exposure, but we would consider that inhumane. However, where does that person fit in our communities of faith?

The first century response is shocking. But if we harbor prejudice or worse, outright hostility, to someone in that situation, are we any less inhumane? If we’re not willing to welcome a hermaphrodite (or anyone else for that matter) into our congregation with open arms then we’re just as inhumane as the first century people who toss that infant into the elements. We think we’re civilized because we’ll save that child. But if we give that child a cold shoulder or a strange look when we encounter them as an an adult then we’re just as uncivilized.