Matthew Paul Turner, author of Provocative Faith (which I reviewed here and here last year) has written two books in a four-book series entitled “What You Didn’t Learn from your Parents About…”.

I was once eloquent enough to say this about the author:

Turner’s refreshing honesty and vulnerability are clear throughout.

For now, I’ll take the shortcut of posting the YouTube video for his book about Christianity, and a link to the video about his book on Christians and sex.

It seems from the videos that this observation about Provocative Faith will also hold true for his new series:

He is…dealing with the problem of writing about topics for which everything has been said. It’s hard to say something new and powerful about love, or following Jesus, or Christian community. The way forward, of course, is telling stories, at which Turner excels.

The Christianity and Sex books are available now, and the final two (on politics and money) are coming in 2007.

This is what my blog looked like in March 2003. Hehehe.

Kiva is a microfinancing venture started by geeks from TiVo, Google, and PayPal. Here’s how it works:

There are currently 27 businesses looking for funding, 98 that have been fully funded, 593 that are currently paying back their loans, and 22 that have completely paid back their loans. Kiva was founded in 2004, and the average loan period is 6-12 months, so it’s still in the early stages.

Kiva is nothing if not savvy. They partner with local organizations which actually give out the loans, and partner with PayPal to handle the payment processing. Since transaction costs are usually prohibitive for microfinance projects, PayPal has made a phenomenal difference by waiving all transaction fees for Kiva.

Like many nonprofits that connect individuals in need with individual donors, Kiva provides journal updates on their website and via email, so you know how the person you funded is doing with their business. The local organizations provide these updates as well as manage the money transfer between Kiva and the loan recipient.

Being founded by geeks, Kiva is also very web-savvy. They have Amazon.com-like website badges, so you can not only invest in a microbusiness, but encourage others to do the same. I’ve invested $50 that I earned from WebbleYou, my webhosting business, in Sikinanene Saunyi, bumping her “funded” percentage from 6% to 17%. She needs $425 to buy six steers to raise and sell, to support her family of seven.

Today is Saturday, and I’d like to have Sikinanene fully funded by next Saturday, September 30. She needs $375 more, and I want to emphasize that this is a loan, not a contribution. Until Sikinanene is fully funded, I will dedicate 100% of my WebbleYou webhosting revenue to investing in her business.

You will (most likely) get your money back, though you won’t earn interest. Kiva’s infrastructure is already funded, so they have 0% overhead, meaning 100% of your investment goes directly to the entrepreneur. Loan FAQs | More info on microfinance

Help me out. Post this code in a blog entry (all on one line):
<SCRIPT type='text/javascript' src='http://www.kiva.org/banners/bannerBlock.php?busId=884'></SCRIPT>

Let’s get Sikinanene and other entrepreneurs funded so they can lift their families out of poverty. As a broader challenge for the emerging church and the blogosphere, Kiva needs $14,225 to fund all their current applicants. A few mid-sized churches could come up with that investment in a weekend, and if it were given as a gift, it would be a perpetual investment - after one applicant paid it back, another could borrow it, and the cycle of good would break the cycle of poverty. I think Jesus would like that.

UPDATE: As of today, Monday, September 25, Sikinanene has received all $450 she needs to buy her steers. I have no idea how much of that came from readers of this site, but I’m very glad to hear it. If you sponsored her and would like to leave an anonymous comment saying how much you contributed, it would be great to know whether this blog made a difference. I’ll leave the sidebar badge there, with someone new.

Watch it here. I was there with Daniel.

Last Wednesday, Daniel and I went to see Jim Wallis at Seattle First Baptist Church. He was in town as part of his book tour for God’s Politics, and I believe the event was taped by CBS (I don’t know if the segment has aired yet).

I haven’t had that much firsthand experience with Wallis or SoJo, and I must admit to writing him off as a classical liberal in the past (though I did see the light last November).

Wallis is very consistent in his message, emphasizing the same points in the book, in his speech, and in numerous interviews. In just a few minutes on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Wallis describes his deeply biblical vision for:

• Addressing poverty
• Promoting peace, and not the Iraq war
• Promoting faith-based political activism for progressives, not just conservatives

He refers often to the biblical prophet Habakkuk, and talks about starting a social justice movement fueled by faith, much as the civil rights movement was. Unfortunately, Wallis says, it has become taboo for progressives to include any mention of faith in their political efforts, but this is a huge mistake, because faith is the main reason many progressives work for social change in the first place.

I’m reading the book now, and it really resonates with me. I will be posting some quotes soon.

The Revolution Conference is coming up soon. Cleave already has a great post on it, which I have stolen below:

The Revolution Conference

You Say You Want a Revolution
Date: November 3-4
Location: Seattle, WA
Visit the Website
Visit the Conference Blog
Purchase Tickets

What is the “You Say You Want a Revolution” Conference?

• It’s a gathering of today and tomorrows most innovative Christian thinkers, leaders and influencers.
• It’s response to past traditions, a challenge to today’s assumptions and an announcement of what’s around the corner - all in one
• It’s the only Christian conference you will attend that features non-Christians

Featuring:
Brian McLaren, author of The Secret Message of Jesus

George Barna, author of Revolution

Jim Henderson, author of a.k.a lost

Plus…
Mary Kate Morse
Jason Clark
Joseph Myers
Chris Marshall
Kevin Rains
Rose Swetman
Jason Evans
Nancy Murphy
Deborah Loyd
Peter Walker

You Say You Want A Revolution
Like electricity this church already exists its but lies dormant. Every year Off The Map gathers for a couple of days to consider, reflect, celebrate and learn what this new kind of Church might look like. We bring together…[read more]

I have always enjoyed Off the Map’s conferences, and everyone involved is wonderful. I’m a little unsure what to think of this one, though, because it’s so different from previous Seattle OTM conferences. OTM is no stranger to big, normal churches, but this one is at Overlake Christian Church, a hugenormous megachurch in the ‘burbs.

It’s also $100 or more, which is way more than previous conferences.

I do admire the way OTM is (and always has done a great job of) reaching out to traditional churches and helping them come to grips with the changes the emerging church is already well aware of. Last year’s conference was fantastic.

My advice? Read the books, and only go if you haven’t been to an OTM event before.

Jesus Camp (previously) is stirring up some serious controversy.

This Denver Post article (thanks, Felker!) describes all kinds of negative reactions to both the movie and the version of evangelicalism it represents:

[Ted] Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, said he “can learn as much about the Catholic Church from ‘Nacho Libre”‘ - a campy wrestling comedy starring Jack Black - as a nonevangelical can learn about evangelicalism from “Jesus Camp.”
…
In an e-mail, he called the film yellow journalism, with “a strong agenda like any Michael Moore film with the cinematography of ‘The Blair Witch Project.”‘ link

To be clear, the film is not produced by Michael Moore, though it is showing at his film festival, over the objections of the film’s distribution company. Apparently Moore is too inflammatory for conservative audiences. Like conservative Christians are going to love this film in the first place.

Dan Kimball, Emergent dude and author of Postmodern Worship, was dismayed at the film’s portrayal of evangelicals:

I hope that Christians and Christianity will get a better understanding in our culture than what is portayed in this “Jesus Camp” movie or in movies like this. The unfortunate stereotypes keep on being reinforced.

Becky Fischer, the pastor and campmeister “featured” in the film, actually responds in the comments to Dan’s post. The comments are in reverse chronological order, so start at the bottom.

The IMDB user reviews are illuminating. One says:

During the question and answer session, Ewing and Grady indicated that while they were both fairly secular, big city Democrats, they honestly liked the people in the documentary. In their view, the people in the documentary followed the law, and they worked to make the country better as they saw it, so what’s wrong with that? They expressed interest in making a follow-up movie in five years to see whether the kids’ faith survives puberty. It would certainly be an interesting experiment. They indicated that Fischer and the families that were profiled had seen the final project and thought that it was a fair representation of their lives. Fischer even thought that she could use it as an evangelical tool! At the same time, the audience I saw it with was overwhelmingly liberal and they also reacted positively (and, I’ll say, with a fair degree of shock). To me, that says that Ewing and Grady did a nice job of ensuring that their biases did not show through into the movie, leaving audiences to read into it as they choose.

I will definitely be seeing this film and watching the reaction to it closely.

• The primary election is tomorrow. Vote YES on I-88, which increases property taxes a wee bit to fund schools. We desperately need this. (Note: this is my own opinion and not that of my employer).
• I saw the monorail stopped over Denny Way this afternoon. No idea why.
• In other awesome, Metroblogging points out that the following will be happening at the Seattle Center tomorrow:
  1) American Idol auditions
  2) Voting
  3) Talk like a Pirate Day
• Caffe Zingaro on Mercer (near the Rep) has won the place in my heart that I reserve for the best cappuccino I have ever had (after three months in Europe and four years in Seattle, no less).
• Speaking of the Rep, they now have $10 tickets for educators. Nine plays for $90 is just about the best season ticket price to anything I have ever heard of. Offer expires Oct 31.
• I found a Motorola RAZR on my bike ride yesterday. Shocking details to follow. UPDATE: Here’s the post about the RAZR that’s truly a SRVIVR.