My 5 favorite items of the past week and why I like them.

1. My Take: Read the Bible, even if you don’t believe in it, CNN Belief Blog.  I love this appreciative take on scripture: how it opens up meaning in other venues of life, how it illuminates the conundrums in life, how it calls us to think for ourselves.
2. Church reaches out after shooting, West Virginia Conference News.  This is a neat new church with probably the best pastor in our conference.  It reminds me of how the church is called to a different manner of responding.  I suspect that churches do this sort of thing all the time.  It’s just nice to see it recognized.
3. What does it mean to hallow God’s name? Ancient Hebrew Poetry.  This site is a recent discovery for me and a real gem.  It is scholarly, biblical, pastoral and important.  This site reveals to me a lot of my ignorance.  I think I am smarter for having read it.  This post discusses the role of community in understanding scripture.
4. Why Social Media is Important to Faces of the Mine, West Virginia Uncovered.  Faces of the Mine is an online memorial to the victims of last year’s Upper Big Branch mining disaster.  It is a project of the WVU P.I. Reed School of Journalism.  This post tracks how social media has supported the Faces of the Mine project.  It is a brief but detailed look into utilizing social media.  There are probably a few churches that can learn from this.
5. The Future of College Ministry: Credibility over Credentials, Red Letter Christians.  This article surveys changing trends in campus ministries.  Campus ministry is moving away from the teacher-student model to a more familial one.  The article praises the work of a campus minister who frequented the campus coffee shop where “the gay and lesbian and bisexual and emo and dark-reserved-misunderstood-artistic-type students” hung out.  Guess where the biggest Bible study on campus is.