I just stumbled across a Chi Alpha blogring on Xanga. It’s pretty small now and everyone seems to be from one campus (the one I ministered at previously), but it’s still cool.
If you’re on Xanga sign up!
Retreat Rocked
College Winter Retreat was great, but I’m just now recovering from all the work. I was really pleased with out everything turned out. Our speaker, Sam Huddleston, really connected with the students and challenged them deeply. The students were responsive to the challenge and were touched by God. Everything was good! Numbers were up (a lot), the location was phenomenal, and the core goals were accomplished. Woohoo!
You can check out our retreat photos–some of them are quite good.
Off to Retreat
I’m coordinating the district college winter retreat this weekend, so Paula and I are heading up today to start getting stuff set up.
I’m pretty excited–our attendance is up by about 60% over last year and so it feels like we have a lot of momentum going into it.
On a more personal note, around half of our Stanford Chi Alpha group will be heading up. Paula and I are deeply excited about that. In our experience, few things cause a group to bond as much as a road trip to and from retreat along with all the fun things that happen while there.
Strongbad Videogames
On a more frivolous note, there’s a new Strongbad email with four video games at the end!
Flannery O’Connor on writing Christian fiction
Take heed, all you budding novelists — Flannery O’Connor has shown the way! Read all about it in O’Connor v. the Antichrist.
A few quotes from O’Connor taken from the essay:
“If you live today you breathe in nihilism. In or out of the Church, it’s the gas you breathe. If I hadn’t had the Church to fight it with or to tell me the necessity of fighting it, I would be the stinkingest logical positivist you ever saw right now.”
In her most famous statement about her work, she explained that “to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures.”
“All my stories,” she wrote, “are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it.”
O’Connor once wrote that “more than ever now it seems that the kingdom of heaven has to be taken by violence, or not at all. You have to push as hard as the age that pushes against you.”
Check out the essay (or at least check out some of O’Connor’s books).
New Chi Alpha Video Blog
The National Chi Alpha office has just released another video blog.
Check it out!
Photo Gallery Updated
Photos from the crab boil are now in the photo gallery.
We’ve got some pretty good shots this time, if I do say so myself.
By the way, you can call Nathaniel “Freddy” from now on.
Happy New Year
Paula and I got back from our holiday travels yesterday. We’ve been busy little bees.
We visited San Diego with Brian and Cecilee Orme (they lead Chi Alpha in Salt Lake City) and had a blast! We were actually working (inspecting potential conference sites), but it was a lot of fun.
Then we got home, finished our Christmas shopping, and hopped on a plane to New Orleans Christmas Eve. We had a great time with our families (and they had a good time examining Paula’s pregnant belly), and then turned around and came home.
If you’ve emailed me in the last two weeks, rest assured that I’ll get back to you. I have a few hundred messages to plow through, so it may take a little while.
Happy New Year!
Artificial Cowardice
Tolkien fans might be interested in this news story about the complex simulation program that created the climactic battle scene in the Return of the King.
“For the first two years, the biggest problem we had was soldiers fleeing the field of battle,” Taylor said.
“We could not make their computers stupid enough to not run away.”
Now that’s artificial intelligence!
Christian Professors Help Out In Afghanistan
Rebuilding Afghanistan U is a fascinating story of how well-educated Christians can make a difference.
It talks about how the International Institute for Christian Studies sent professors to Afghanistan after the war against the Taliban to rebuild their higher-education infrastructure.
The group is very picky about its candidates’ credentials (a graduate degree is a must), experience, and Christian witness. Only one of 10 applicants gets accepted. When Communist countries ask CEO Daryl McCarthy for teachers, he says something like this:
“You want experienced, hard-working, ethical professionals? We’ll get them for you. In fact, IICS is so particular that we make sure that every one of them is a Christian.” Says McCarthy: “It’s fun to hear the foreign officials say, ‘Ah, yes, very good. That’s what we need.’ ”
The article is fascinating and well worth a read.