16 Mar 2009

software development and models of church

Twice in as many months I have encountered a great illustration of a theological / ecumnenical issue illuminated by a comparison to software. At a conference I attended at CMU Doug Gay from the UK was trying to explain how he liked "high church" liturgical practice but couldn't buy the hierarchical forms of church government. He said he wanted to "unbundle" the software from the Operating System like the EU forced Microsoft to do. He wanted to use a "high church browser on his low church operating system".
Today I read a cool commment by Jane Stranz on her blog Of life, laughter and liturgy . . .
"Do we want cathedral ecumenism (top down, institution driven) or bazaar ecumenism (networked, organic)? The idea for these two terms actually comes from software development. So do you want a microsoft or a linux trinity, word or open office ecumenism? Let's open the theological software bazaar."
I hadn't heard the Cathedral and Bazaar image before but it reflects perfectly my emerging convictions about how ecumenism really works. Our present reality is that people don't care about our denominational affiliations, its the job at hand that gets them excited.

5 Mar 2009


For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to shovel the driveway and a time to just sit back and admire the snow,

a time to wake up and a time to sleep in

a time to spring forward and a time to fall back

THIS SUNDAY WE SPRING FORWARD. DON’T BE LATE FOR CHURCH!