Project Gathering: An Invitation for Fellowship

This is an invitation that is not time sensitive. There is no RSVP or expiration date. There is however, a genuine and sincere interest in you becoming a part of a special conversation.

This is an invitation to be part of a gathering of believers, a community of disciples interested in praying for, conversing about, and learning of the problems of unreached people's all over the world, and how you as a disciple of Christ can bring to them what they have been waiting for since the beginning of their existence: the Gospel.

To each person involved in the conversation, this could look world's apart. Has Christ commissioned you for full-time Christian service as a doctor? Consultant? Programmer? Has he been calling you to be a part of mobilization? Creating awareness? Or perhaps something as simple but of immediate and dire importance, prayer?

My wife and I invite you to contact us in hopes of developing much needed fellowship on our part, and we hope, benefiting you with friendship and an opportunity to explore the call God has given to each one of us, on your part.

This can take the form of a local visit, a dinner, a tea, a Skype conversation, a phone-call, or even becoming pen-pals.

If you read this and know that the Holy Spirit is directing you to finally explore that burden He has placed upon you, but never thought to discover, please e-mail me at krisheiple@gmail.com or leave us a comment on this blog.

In Grace and Peace and hope for tomorrow,
-Kristopher and Christy Heiple

Social Network Analysis: Rediscoveries

Lately, I have been noticing that common sense and wisdom are often lost in the murky waters of our time. A society where the old are forgotten along with their wisdom, and books are geared toward the lowest common denominator does not a well informed community grow.

Every once in awhile I peruse the front page of Google Books to see what is circulating in their library. Today I saw a title "Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications" by Wasserman and Faust.

The beginning of Part I reads

"The notion of a social network and the methods of social network analysis have attracted considerable interest and curiosity from the social and behavioral science community within recent decades. Much of this interest can be attributed to the appealing focus of social network analysis on relationships among social entities, on the patterns and implications of these relationships."

Later the writers brief their intention of the book as "analyzing social network data."

Christians have discovered over the centuries that social networks are the most powerful tool for the spread of ideas, organization of communities, and positive growth of relationships. Rodney Stark gives insight on this issue in his "The Rise of Christianity" where he succinctly outlines the spread of the Christian sect in the empire through a sociological method.

It pays to pay attention to history and the wisdom that she passes down. Otherwise you might find yourself writing a book on new phenomena.

Attendant Gifts and T-Shirt Art

The most pressing wedding plans have been taken care of. Alls that’s left are some minor purchases. We are saving up coupons for flowers, pillows, and cake decorating items. Attendant gifts also need to be got, but, what do grooms buy for their groomsmen? Flasks, inscribed beer glasses, stock in Playboy, and even real estate on the moon. I was hoping to get something practical, like knives. The gender specific gift ideas that I have found so far are interesting insofar as they tell the pulse of American masculinity (what do they do in other cultures?) and the culture of ‘wedding’ in the States.

Also, after being introduced to some of Francis Schaeffer’s thought this year in Escape from Reason, I can digest some of his theses on this new age of art or un-art or antiart. Even so, I cannot give Schaeffer my vote of confidence because I believe he gives his analysis so quickly without much detail–I believe he would point to artists with great potential pouring time into using cotton t’s as a gallery and venue for ‘transcendance’ as a turn in the wrong direction.

Woodrow Wilson and My Summer Reading

I've amassed a queue of books to be read this time of year, as I do every year, and am treating myself to biography first, Woodrow Wilson: World Statesman.

A stack of this year's First Things and a close look at Bonhoeffer's Ethics also remain to be finished.

I am not a prolific reader and by the amount of posts on this shabby journal, a prolific writer either. But I find solace in words--both written and those to be written. There is a slowing down, a relaxed pace that welcomes reflection and fair-minded judgment I find when enabled to survey the collections of voice and vision.

What are you reading?