A little present for those Presbyterians (PCUSA) gearing up for ordination exams this week. Just a reminder of how wonderful — and wonderfully ridiculous — our tradition is. Thanks to all those who helped — both PCA and PCUSA alike.

A couple of Jesus-y/Presbyterian-y (specifically PC[USA]) things:

1) This past summer I pulled together a rather large post analyzing the PC(USA)’s 2008 vote on whether or not to ordain LGBT folks as clergy.  I also offered a few crystal-ball predictions as to how things might look during the PC(USA)’s 2010-2011 vote on a similar overture – Amendment 10A.  A LOT has happened since then (lots of voting, etc), so I’m preparing a couple of posts (or maybe just one big mega-post) that discuss (1) the current voting tally/analysis/situation for Amendment 10A and (2) how this process may have played a role in the recent events that startled many in the PC(USA) – that is, the actions of “The Fellowship” and the supposed “response” that was the Next Conference.

In light of this, I want to welcome anyone who wishes to offer me information ahead of these posts; feel free to share any articles, videos or tweets that you found helpful in clarifying these subjects, or you can even just leave your opinion/informed speculation on things in the comments box below!

2) Keeping with this “let’s update things!” trend, I also wanted to update the slideshow that I posted last year about Social Media and Christian Community.  I delivered the presentation again two weeks ago at the Episcopal Village Conference Northeast, and wanted to share the new and improved version with any interested parties (all two none of you).  Admittedly, it’s not very effective without the words that accompanied it (I typically use presentations as visual aids as opposed to self-contained presentations), but I figured I’d drop it here just in case. Also, SlideShare doesn’t preserve the transparency of my slides, so they look significantly less pretty than they did on my computer…just saying. (sorry, perfectionism is a cruel beast…)

That’s all for now, but again: please comment if you have anything to share.  And keep an eye out – I’ll be back here soon!

The picture below is the creation of my cough-medicine induced stupor.  I have no idea 1) why I chose this quote, 2) why the paper is texturized or 3) why there are coffee stains on said paper, but look: I made ribbons!  And there are cool fonts!

the first time I posted this, I misspelled "quotes." Meds are ridiculous.

Go Vote.

Then make some calls to get other people to vote.

That is all.

What’s worse, mornings are notoriously awful in the Boston area. The winter months are overwhelmingly drab/dark and there are a LOT of them (Spring? What’s that?). People in the Boston area often buy sunlamps to beat the looming seasonal depressing, and my own University thinks it’s a big enough problem to provide sunlamps for FREE to anyone to requests them.

In short, mornings can be pretty awful here.

In light of this, a few months ago I started something called “Jack’s Morning Optimism Project.”  The premise was simple: every morning I (or one of my friends) would post – over Twitter – a video/song that was, well, optimistic in nature.  It was just an attempt to find small little sparks of happiness that would begin everyone’s day, and it was a fun little experiment to find “optimistic” things on the web.

As it turned out, people were really into the idea: despite the fact that I never advertised the concept, I frequently received submissions from friends (and friends of friends) who wanted to contribute. Suddenly, the small group steadily grew to a much larger group of people with slightly happier mornings.

And then I stopped.  Because, you know, I got busy.

This morning, however, I woke up to a gloomy, grim day – the clouds are out, the sky is dark, and the entire Boston area was cast in a shadow of gray.  It was dark. It was gross. It was, in short, a less-than-optimistic morning.

And then I watched the video below, and I remembered how flippin amazing our world is.

In sum, I’ve decided to re-start my Morning Optimism Project (hooray!). You can consider the video above my first entry, but rest assured: there are lots more.

If YOU, however, want to submit something to the project, you’re welcome to as well! Just @-me on twitter (@jackmjenkins) or shoot me a line over email or facebook.

Hey, I’m not trying to change the world here, I’m just trying to remind myself and everyone else how awesome of a place it already is.

1) I’m in a podcast! So, the super-awesome guys over at the Nick and Josh Podcast (an emergent church-ish blog run by two awesome dudes) interviewed me this past week. (Crazy.  I know.)  They wanted to know a bit about (1) my Obama Campaign Experience, (2) my work with Social Media and (3) the Church is ALIVE Project. They asked really nicely, so I told ‘em. 

If you’re curious about any of those things (or just want to hear my soothing voice) just click the play button below and give it a listen!  (Be Warned: I’m a fast talker.)

2) I’m in a book! A few months ago I was asked by the fabulous Becky Garrison to write a short piece for a book entitled Starting From Zero with $0: Building Mission-Shaped Ministries on a Shoestring.  Becky was the author, and the contributors were an all-star cast of generally awesome church folks.  Somehow they let me slip in, and I got to write  a little bit of the technology section.  Specifically, I wrote about social media, and how it’s a lot cheaper for churches to use it than you think…

If you want to know MORE about the book, however, you should buy it – because it’s published now!  It’s out-of-stock at Amazon at the moment, but Church Publishing still has ‘em ready to buy, hot off the presses.  Stop by and pick one up!

Go ahead. Click it. Buy it. You KNOW you want to...

3) I led a workshop! This past weekend, I was blessed with the chance to attend and lead a workshop at the Episcopal Village Conference in Baltimore, MA.  I, of course, am not Episcopal (Presbyterian for life – recognize!), but they seemed to be the forgiving sort and let me stick around anyway.  My workshop was on – you guessed it – “Social Media and Christian Community.”  I was lucky to have two great groups participate (it was delivered in two sessions) and the slideshow below was my actual presentation.  If you want more info, I can pass along my hand-out sheets as well.  Enjoy!  (NOTE: Slidshare butchers some of the slides.  They were prettier when I presented them, I swear)

The first is a little 45-second test track, seeing how a harmonica jives with the two ukulele tracks.  I made it on a Thursday, so I call it “Thursday.”

The second is a much longer test track, this time seeing if I can actually record something while using an iPhone and those tiny little white earbuds.  Turns out it’s more difficult than it sounds (it’s sometimes hard to hear the base track, so I – as you’ll hear – will miss a coupe of notes here and there), but it’s still a pretty powerful tool.

In the spirit of my ever-pervasive creativity, I named the song “Monday”, because I…err…made it on a Monday.

Yay for music!  And for ukuleles!  And for iPhones!

…And for procrastinating and not doing Hebrew!

As soon as the image below makes any sense to me, I’ll be back.  For reals.

Hebrew is hard.

First: This past week I was fortunate enough to a make a little excursion to Newport, RI with some old college friends.  Our destination was the Newport Folk Festival, a chill-yet-bigtime festival held in and around an old colonial sear fort.  Acts included the Avett Brothers, the Swell Season (the guy from Once), O’Death, The Low Anthem, Yim Yams (the Dude from My Morning Jacket) and the David Wax Museum (wo were easily the best show I saw there, but who are WAY better live than on their album), just to name a few.

Simply speaking, it was flippin’ awesome.

Amidst the musical wonderment, however, I took the opportunity to play with the video capabilities of my new iPhone 4.  It was nothing fancy – I literally just held the dang thing up and pressed “record.”  Still, the results were pretty fantastic, as can be seen below.  Note: while raw video from the iPhone is SUPER high-quality HD video, my “basic” account with Vimeo only lets me upload videos at a certain resolution, and the exporting process from iMovie took some quality out of it as well.  Still, it’s a fun little proof-of-concept for things to come.

Here’s a higher-quality example of my clip of a tide pool.  This is still significantly lesser-quality than the original video, but it gives you an idea.

Second: In prep for the festival, I held a little jam session in Harvard Yard with a friend (Daniel Harper) from undergrad.  I recorded it as a vertical movie (which can be seen in its full glory here), but I just thought I’d share my jamination with you all. (and if you need a harmonica player in Boston – let me know!)