{"id":59,"date":"2011-11-02T13:41:02","date_gmt":"2011-11-02T17:41:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redchairblogs.wpengine.com\/holymoly\/?p=59"},"modified":"2011-11-02T13:41:02","modified_gmt":"2011-11-02T17:41:02","slug":"blackberry-season-at-spiritual-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/2011\/11\/02\/blackberry-season-at-spiritual-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Blackberry Season at Spiritual Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

So the news of the week at Spiritual Life, besides great programs on The Problem with Evil<\/em>, and the Black Jew Dialogues<\/em>, over a dozen regular weekly Bible Studies, and the three weekly worship services, is that Anne Gibbons and I got new cell phones.\u00a0 We actually got Blackberries<\/em>, otherwise known as \u201cSmartphones\u201d (a name which somehow makes me feel inferior).\u00a0 An important thing to realize is that ministry type folk have counseling skills, skills for leading worship and preaching.\u00a0 We are good at public prayer, asking questions about shared values, thinking about and acting on social justice questions, and being present with the community in good times and bad.\u00a0 Neither of us received our call to ministry or our calls to Lynchburg College because of our technology skills.<\/p>\n

I have had a Blackberry before, but I am actually a Palm Pilot<\/em> user from 15 years ago.\u00a0 Anne has had a basic flip phone, but has her Blackberry<\/em> set up and going; I am still having some trouble getting my email to interface.\u00a0 (Interface wasn\u2019t an SAT word in my generation.)\u00a0 Since my email was hacked last week too, I am very thankful for our ITR department and particularly Julie\u2019s help as I navigated the tragedy.\u00a0 I confess that I spent the first 12 hours thinking that I had just somehow forgotten my password.<\/p>\n

I run into the most trouble in life when I try to do things that are outside my areas of strength.\u00a0 We all have areas that we are intuitively more gifted about than others.\u00a0 That is what makes a liberal arts education so important, since we explore the full range of the academy and get a sound general knowledge base before focusing on an area of particular interest or intellectual curiosity.\u00a0 It is important to stretch and grow, but to do that consciously.\u00a0 When we are outside our \u201cgift zone,\u201d we need to ask for help and mentoring.\u00a0 We need to read an article or seek advice of a person with different talents.\u00a0 We have to put ego aside and realize that we always have things to learn\u2014and there are always things that others can do better and more efficiently than we can.<\/p>\n

My new Blackberry is a reminder that I have gifts and graces for ministry\u2014and that I will always need the gifts of others do my best.\u00a0 I have growth edges that often stick out and talents that sometimes go unnoticed.\u00a0 My prayer for you this week is that you will do the things that you are good at and that you can ask for help for the areas you need the gifts of others.\u00a0 I hope your present area of service is related to your strengths and that you will continue to grow on your rough edges.\u00a0 Together we have the gifts to change our corners of the world.<\/p>\n

Blessings,<\/p>\n

Stephanie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So the news of the week at Spiritual Life, besides great programs on The Problem with Evil, and the Black Jew Dialogues, over a dozen regular weekly Bible Studies, and the three weekly worship services, is that Anne Gibbons and …<\/p>\n

Blackberry Season at Spiritual Life<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stephanie"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1QIf6-X","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}