Friday reading

It's Friday. Yay! Long weekend ahead. Yay! (Not that I'll be going anywhere, but sleeping in is always good.)

A few worthwhile things to read this weekend.

Jordon Cooper and friends have posted the first issue of Resonate Journal. What I've read so far is interesting. The theme this month is liminality -- the concept of threshold, which I first became familiar with as a grad student in mass communications. An anthropologist named Victor W. Turner talked about it a lot (and converted to Roman Catholicism) and I always found the concept applicable to our life in Christ. We are on the threshold of the throne room, we are always in a state of process, of moving from one thing to another. Anyway, there's some good stuff here and worth thinking about. (Also, Jordan has become a permanent fixture on my prayer list as he deals with extremely serious health problems.)

(added later): Jordan added some thoughts today about "church." Jordan's comments about the fact that a lot of people who need Christ can't get to church at the traditional times because they have to work resonates with me. But how does the church deal with that? He points to an interview with a guy named Pete Ward who wrote a book called "Liquid Church." It's an interesting concept and there's some validity to the idea that the church is people much more than it is a place. (I'm married to a nonconformist who always questions why we need buildings, so this is not a new concept to me.) I'm not ready to give up gathering with a local congregation on Sunday morning, but being a part of the body of Christ is always much more than just going to church. Interesting stuff here.

J. Mark Bertrand has added another publishing credit -- a very good story in The New Pantagruel called Midafternoon Apocalypse. He also discusses the story in his post today at The Master's Artist.

Dave Long, at Faith in Fiction, asks some good questions about Writing Despite the Bible. The post has already generated a ton of comments.

Stay safe and have a good weekend. Keep praying, for victims of Hurricane Katrina and for others. As a nation, we believe that taking action involves going somewhere, giving money, doing something. God reminds me that prayer is doing something, too.