Twitter as your News Source

If you are anything like most people you think you are nothing like most people. Also you may want to find one of the most convenient ways to access all the news you want in a one-stop-shop across a variety of devices (smartphone, computer and tablet).

You may say: I’m on Facebook and I don’t need another social network. Well, depends on your definition of “social”. To me Facebook is about the “Who?” whereas Twitter is about the “What?”.
As for News: On Facebook I don’t learn about news but I learn about my friends’ reaction to them. That has social value for me but may not always be news.

If you can admit to being anything like most people you may be able to find something that fits your needs among Android’s Top 4 free news apps:
1. Flipboard
2. CNN
3. FOX News
4. USA TODAY
Disregarding Number 1 – which really is more of a social aggregator than a news app – you will recognize three major media outlets that you know from TV, Radio and print. That means you could visit their websites on your computer and have their respective apps installed on your respective devices.

Or: You can use Twitter for all of the above.
If you were to follow CNN Breaking News @cnnbrk, Fox News @foxnews and USA TODAY @usatoday on Twitter you could easily follow everything that interests the most people without multiple installations and having to go to websites all the time. It is just conveniently delivered to your twitter feed. Be aware though: Twitter is just as social as Facebook: your friends are there and will follow you. You may end up engaging with them over there and it will be different from what you do on Facebook. Also Twitter gives you more opportunities to follow decision makers and stars more directly. Just look at whom I am following. And also please follow me @danielhaas

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Wealth in the Bible

Wealth as a Blessing
- Abraham’s servant celebrates his master’s wealth in Genesis 24:34-36
- Solomon’s kingdom is blessed with riches according to 1 Kings 10:23-25

The Dangers of Wealth
- Living under the influence of money can be dangerous according to Ecclesiastes 5:10-6:2

Criticism of Wealth
- The prophet Jeremiah speaks out again injustice in Jeremiah 17:5-13
- “the borrower is the slave of the lender” is among the warnings of Proverbs 22:1-16

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Poverty in the Bible

The reality of poverty:
- Nathan raises the problem of Wealth Inequality in 2 Samuel 12:1-4
- Elisha helps a widow in financial distress according to 2 Kings 4:1-7

The fight against poverty
- Laws to protect slaves and borrowers in Deuteronomy 23:9-25
- Protection for Orphans, widows and aliens according to Deuteronomy 24:5-22
- Remission of debts during the Sabbatical Year according to Deuteronomy 15:1-18

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Treating email like just another social network

It’s very early in the year and I seem to have a problem:
The two email accounts that I use have a combined 11,572 emails in their inboxes.
This I would consider a problem because my view of email has evolved like probably everybody else’s:

Email is electronic mail – that’s why we call it that.
You use proper greetings and salutations, the whole etiquette is that of a full-blown letter.
To this very day Outlook is the gold standard for email and it tries to simulate real hard copy letters to the very details of a paper clip symbol for an attachment.

One problem is: there are way too many emails. And most emails are not from people. These days email is mostly automatic notifications of all kinds – not really a letter anymore but an endless flow of updates.
Second problem: Email is no longer in the Outlook on your computer. I check them on my phone and my tablet way more often than I do sitting down at the desk. That has dramatic effects for email consumption: It blends with texts and social media status updates. There is virtually no difference in handling the apps for email, facebook, messaging or twitter on a mobile device.

I used to file every email I received in the appropriate folder just like you did with paper letters back in the day. When Gmail came around it replaced folders with labels which was a huge progress back in 2004. Now even that seems to be obsolete!
What’s the point of keeping yourself busy archiving emails? Regardless of your email provider they all have decent search functions these days. There is no need to put them in folders, archive or label them. From now on I will just leave them where they are: in the inbox. I will continue to respond in a timely and professional manner but the whole processing after that I will just not do anymore.

I am happy with the way I manage my social media accounts.
When I see a facebook post I either let it go, like it or comment.
When I see a tweet I either let it go, retweet or comment.
I don’t know why email in 2013 should be any different:
When I get an email it either triggers some sort of action on my site or not.
I’ll just let it fly by like any other post or tweet.
Basically 2013 will be the year I start treating email like just another social network.

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Same procedure as every year

Sure enough we watched Dinner For One – same procedure as last year:

For the past few years we’ve also added this spoof:

Another major change is that we got to watch it all on our American TV
thanks to the YouTube for Wii app :-)

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My Top Five Posts of 2012

It’s that time of year again – a time to highlight this year’s most popular posts:

1. Our Green Card Timeline
2. Time to move
3. Church Online?
4. Education Costs
5. Gay Scouting

Which one is your favorite?

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Connecticut Weeps for the Children of Newtown

A Prayer from the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ:

Thank you God for little children.
For they bring joy to their parents
And to their grandparents
And to their sisters
And to their brothers.
And to their teachers
And to the world.
And know that you are God
And know that they are loved.

Thank you God for little children
They like to paint
And jump rope
And hear stories
And share secrets
And give hugs
And blow kisses
And know that you are God
And know that they are loved.

Thank you God for little children.
Bless them when life treats them meanly.
Bless them when someone comes and hurts them.
Help them know that you are God
And know that they are loved.

When a little child
Dies
Thank you God for taking them to heaven
And keeping them safe
In your special place
Where children’s souls
Run in heaven’s fields
Play in God’s sandboxes
Jump rope from cloud to cloud
And blow kisses to angels
And leave behind memories of their hugs
And see that you are God
And know that they are love.

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BYU Christmas Interview

Here is my Christmas interview with BYU radio comparing German and American Christmas traditions and explaining the liturgical tradition on the Mormon channel:

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The effect of church tax on church membership

In their study “The effect of church tax on church membership” Teemu Lyytikäinen and Torsten Santavirta examine the effect of church tax on the church membership decision using Finnish data.

Church Tax
Finland, Austria, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland all impose some sort of church tax for members.
Membership or affiliation to a state church in Finland implies that an individual is allowed to participate in religious services provided by the church and contributes to the church’s finances through payroll tax. The tax rate is between 0.75 and 2.25 percent of the individual’s taxable earned income (wage and certain benefits less deductions) varying across municipalities.

Effect on Church Membership
Our estimates for the price elasticity of church membership suggest that, even though many people who leave church may perceive the high cost as the principal reason for opting out, at the level of the whole population membership decisions are not very sensitive to economic factors.

via

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Set the labels free

They are at it again: The overseers of labels indulge in self-righteousness once more.
Denny Burk is happy to take on the role of being the keeper of the label “Evangelical”. For that he looks to David Bebbington’s quadrilateral: “According to Bebbington, evangelicals have four leading characteristics: biblicism, crucicentrism, conversionism, and activism.”

That is a very revealing definition because it is full of -isms. An -ism is usually an ideology that is based on, well ideas. The God of Evangelical Theology is not an idea:

In this sense I call myself evangelical and totally reject any of these -isms. I take evangelical literally to be derived from euangelion, meaning “related to the Gospel”. Whoever calls themselves Christian relates to the Gospel in one way or another. If Burk & Co want to claim authority over labels they might as well beat that dead horse from precisely one year ago again and forbid Mormons from calling themselves Christians.

Set the labels free and celebrate diverse conversations! Today I celebrate Rachel Held Evans anti-definitions from What “evangelical” doesn’t mean to me:
“It doesn’t mean allegiance to a single political party.
It doesn’t mean restricting the roles of women in the home and church.
It doesn’t mean interpreting an ancient Near Eastern creation account as science.
It doesn’t mean an absence of liturgy, sacrament, and tradition.
It doesn’t mean individualism.
It doesn’t mean certainty. ​
It doesn’t mean opposing gay rights.
It doesn’t mean Southern Baptist.
It doesn’t mean unilateral support for Israel.
It doesn’t mean lack of ecumenicism. ​
It doesn’t mean exclusivism.
It doesn’t mean exclusion.”

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