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My Faith Story – (audio chapter) from “MySpace to Sacred Space”

Friday, February 13th, 2009

My Faith Story (new podcast)

February 14, 2009 by christianpiatt

My wife, Amy, and I wrote a book a couple of years ago called “MySpace to Sacred Space: God for a New Generation” (Chalice Press). One of the main themes of the book is that young adults, many of whom feel alienated from organized religion, are seeking meaningful connection with one another. We believe one of the best ways to nurture this sort of connection is through sharing our stories.

In the book, Amy and I both share our own stories of our relationships with faith, religion and God, and so I created this audio chapter of my own personal journey.

Click here for my WTFWJD Author Podcast .

Like any relationship, there are good and bad times, but in all, I’d say it’s been worth it.

You can also subscribe to the podcast, where I’ll continue to add other audio chapters and interviews with some interesting folks, on iTunes, Podcast Alley, Podbean or at my personal website which you can find at www.christianpiatt.com.

Let me know what you think, and please check out the book if you dig the podcast.

Posted in Audiobook, Blogroll, church, culture, faith, Music, Podcast, Uncategorized | No Comments »

My CDs and Podcast, all up now on iTunes

Friday, February 13th, 2009

If you pull up iTunes and search “Piatt,” you can find my podcast and both of my new CDs featured in the top window. Pretty groovy.

The podcast is free, of course, and the CDs…well, they’re worth it in my humble opinion.

Please check it out and share with friends, family and enemies. Gotta get the word out, yo…

Peace,

Christian

Posted in Audiobook, Blogroll, church, Columns, culture, faith, Music, Podcast, Pulling the Goalie, spoken word, technology, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Pomegranate Phone says a lot about us

Thursday, February 12th, 2009

If you have not yet heard about the Pomegranate Phone phenomenon, you’ve missed the latest buzz:

http://www.pomegranatephone.com/

The ad reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Homer talks about
how great bacon, pork chops and ham all are, and when Lisa explains
they’re all from the same animal, Homer rolls his eyes skeptically. “Oh
sure,” he says, “some maaaagical animal, Lisa.”

The Pom, which boasts a HD projector, 50 language real-time voice
translator, on-board coffee maker, electric shaver and, of course, a
harmonica, is said “magical animal.” Problem is, it’s a big, fat,
would-be awesome fake. I knew, as I was watching the phone suck up a
glass of water and spit out piping hot coffee from a modified K-cup
insert, that it was a viral video scam.

But there was this little part of me that cried out, “hey, I want to
be able to shave while speaking Farsi, playing the blues and sipping a
latte! I want it, I want it!”

The very fact that the Pomegranate is even within the realm of
comprehension is phenomenal in itself. I mean, I just picked up a G1
“Google Phone,” which sports a touch screen, full qwerty keyboard, web,
email, camera, and a high-speed connection. I can look up anything in
the universe by voice command on Google and look up any product in the
world and compare prices by snapping a picture of the bar code. I can
have my phone “listen’ to any song being played digitally and it’ll not
only find the album cover, artist, publisher and year released, but
it’ll also link right to Amazon MP3 or iTunes so I can download it to
the on-board MP3 player.

Ten years ago, I was considering my first mobile phone, whether I
really could use it or not. Now, I not only have the G1 wunderkind
phone, but as soon as I saw something better, even though my logical
mind kept reminding me it wasn’t real, I longed for it. I pined, I
coveted.

At the heart of the technology industry is a delicate dance between
wooing you with a seductive dance for the new, while also making you
dissatisfied with it, pretty much as soon as you get it. Thus the cycle
begins again. Though the Pom is laughable now, I’m sure there’s some
geek somewhere that’s watching this viral ad and thinking, “yaknow, if
I tweak my iPhone just so, I bet I could make it brew coffee…

Who says our economy’s in trouble? God bless human innovation, combined with an insatiable desire to consume.

Posted in Blogroll, Columns, culture, G1, iphone, Music, pomegranate, technology, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Church 2.0: Spider vs Starfish (Part one)

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

Church 2.0: Spider vs. Starfish (Part one)

By christianpiattWritten and posted originally on  NewsMuse, the DisciplesWorld blog.

I’ve been asked a number of times to speak to various churches and other leadership groups about young adults, their relationship to organized religion, and their take on – and use of – technology. Unfortunately, church and technology tend to generally mix about as well as the football team and chess club. Neither the two shall meet, right? Who needs technology to find God, after all?

Sure, a few of us may have put up a screen to show words to our praise songs, and we may have even had a kid from the youth group throw together a website for us…which hasn’t been updated in about forty-seven years or so. As they say in the twelve-step tradition: how’s that working out for you? Folks generally fall into one of two categories. Either they are terrified by technology and want to have nothing to do with it in church at all, or they see it as some sort of silver bullet that, if aimed properly, will magically fill the now-empty pews with young families.

In truth, neither perspective is particularly realistic. For one, technology isn’t going anywhere, so by ignoring it, we risk making our churches even more irrelevant. On the other hand, if we hope that technology – or emergent worship, whatever that is, or a groovy website, or even a podcast – will save us from a fate we’re hoping to avoid, we may be putting way more trust into a handful of tools than they deserve.

Rebecca has invited me to contribute a few pieces to the NewsMuse blog, for which I’m honored and grateful. In future installments, I hope to share some ideas about how technology can be used to complement a vibrant ministry, as well as dispelling some misconceptions about technology, digital media, social networking, emergent worship and so many of these postmodern-emergo-hip buzz phrases we hear so often, yet about which we understand very little. So stay tuned to explore questions with me such as:

What exactly is “Church 2.0?”

Are you a Spider Church or a Starfish Church?

What do young adults really want from organized religion?

What the heck does it mean to be postmodern, and what is emergent worship?

Until next time!

Christian Piatt is the author of MySpace to Sacred Space: God for a New Generation, and Lost: A Search for Meaning, and he is a columnist for various newspapers, magazines and websites on the topics of theology and popular culture. He is the co-founder of Milagro Christian Church in Pueblo, Colorado with his wife, Amy. For more information about Christian, visit www.christianpiatt.com.

Posted in Blogroll, church, Columns, culture, faith, technology, Uncategorized | No Comments »

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