Tim Keel's Blog

Connect Colorado

I am in Denver, Colorado, to speak at a conference called Connect Colorado: Vintage Campus Ministry. It is a gathering of campus ministers and we are meeting up in Golden at the Colorado School of the Mines. I speak today and tomorrow and then fly home late afternoon.

My friend Todd picked me up at the airport and we headed straight up to Golden (home of Coors Brewing). I love Golden. It's a beautiful old town in the foothills of Denver. When we lived in Denver we would periodically hang out in Golden. Todd and I grabbed some lunch and then walked around a bit. Right through town runs a small, clear mountain stream and there were kids everywhere jumping into the water and letting the current propel them through the small rapids. I wish I had brought some scrubby shorts and tennis shoes. As I was standing there taking it all in, about to step my foot into the water - HOLY COW...pain. I got stung by a bee. I haven't been stung in a long time apparently because I have no memory of it hurting like that. Crikey.

Anyway, though it will be a quick turnaround, I am really glad to be here in this beautiful place and I am looking forward to spending time with the people gathered for the Connect conference. My two presentations are "Elemental Faith: A Vision of Vintage Ministry," and "Intuitive Leadership: A New Paradigm for Leadership Among God's People."

Worshipodcast Interview

Kevin Gibson came and spent about 30 minutes interviewing me for his podcast. We had a good conversation facilitated by astute questions. Kevin serves in a Southern Baptist church north of the river. You can listen to the interview by clicking on the link below.

Worshipodcast Interview

A Stroke of Insight

Jill Bolte Taylor is a brain scientist who experienced firsthand the impact of a stroke on the human brain. I started reading her book, My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey, last week and it is a fascinating read.

The book is described in this way:

On the morning of December 10, 1996, Jill Bolte Taylor, a thirty-seven-year-old Harvard-trained brain scientist, experienced a massive stroke when a blood vessel exploded in the left side of her brain. A neuroanatomist by profession, she observed her own mind completely deteriorate to the point that she could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life, all within the space of four brief hours. As the damaged left side of her brain--the rational, grounded, detail- and time-oriented side--swung in and out of function, Taylor alternated between two distinct and opposite realties: the euphoric nirvana of the intuitive and kinesthetic right brain, in which she felt a sense of complete well-being and peace; and the logical, sequential left brain, which recognized Jill was having a stroke, and enabled her to seek help before she was lost completely. In My Stroke of Insight, Taylor shares her unique perspective on the brain and its capacity for recovery, and the sense of omniscient understanding she gained from this unusual and inspiring voyage out of the abyss of a wounded brain. It would take eight years for Taylor to heal completely. Because of her knowledge of how the brain works, her respect for the cells composing her human form, and most of all an amazing mother, Taylor completely repaired her mind and recalibrated her understanding of the world according to the insights gained from her right brain that morning of December 10th.

I am fascinated by how our minds work and how the working of our minds shapes our perceptions of reality and how we engage it. In fact, I spent nearly a chapter describing the right-brain/left-brain dynamic and how our culture is shifting from a left-brain dominant to a right-brain dominant reality (and how such a shift impacts culture and what the implications for faith formation might be) in my book Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor, and Chaos.

I just discovered that Jill Bolte Taylor was featured at TED and that you can watch her TED Talk. Enjoy.

An Afternoon Game at the "K"

Blaise and I snuck away for an afternoon Royals game. I love day games in the middle of the week.

Unfortunately it's the 3rd inning and the home team (wearing the sweet powder blues) are down 5-0. Greinke has given up six hits. Oy! Since he was promoted to the number one spot following the All-Star break he has been brutalized. Come on Zack. Go Royals.

Reclaiming Paul Video #2

Reclaiming Paul Conference

This fall, Jacob's Well will play host to a theological conference that I could not be more excited about. The title of the conference is, "Reclaiming Paul: The Apostle in the Emerging World." Andy Johnson, a New Testament professor from Nazarene Theological Seminary (in Kansas City, Missouri) began developing this event some time ago. I was pulled into the planning conversation over the last year. It is going to be a great event.

The event is presented by NTS and co-sponsored by Emergent Village. Over the years Emergent has partnered with different schools, publishers, and churches to create space for important conversations between leading theologians (Stanley Hauerwas, Walter Brueggemann, Miroslav Volf, John Caputo, among others) and everyday practitioners in a creative and generative manner. Like I said above, Jacob's Well has the privilege of hosting the conversation in our space. The dates for this event are October 22-24. Also, just a quick warning: the cut-off for registration is 300 people. If you think you might be interested in participating in this event, it would be good to register in advance of the time. Click here in you want to do register for the event. Click here to see the conference itinerary. Speakers and presenters can be seen on the main conference page linked above. And here is a brief, boiler-plate description from the main conference site:

"Reclaiming Paul: The Apostle in the Emerging World" brings together Pauline scholars and emerging church leaders for a robust theological conversation on Paul and the Church. This event will include four major presentations by Pauline scholars, responses by emerging church leaders and a variety of related workshops/breakout sessions. There will be plenty of time for interaction between the conferees, Pauline scholars and emerging church leaders.

There is also a blog that has been set up that will include resources and pre-conference information and conversation. Check out the Reclaiming Paul blog. One of the first entries on the blog is a discussion between myself and John Franke about Paul, the Scriptures, the local church, and this conference. John is a professor of theology at Biblical Theological Seminary outside Philadelphia. When he was in town for the Allelon Missional Training Center event we did in June, we sat down and reflected about the topic at hand.

Testing the New iPhone Typepad Application

It's been a crazy full couple of weeks, one of which was a great family vacation in South Dakota. You truly can't believe how beautiful SD is. I'll post a few of the 600+ pics I took there in awhile.

In the meantime Apple released the new iPhone 2.0 software update this morning on iTunes. My favorite upgrade is the Application Store with hundreds of third party applications. Thus this post: Typepad released a free app for posting remotely from an iPhone. I pulled the .jpg Apple logo from my iPhone photo library and have typed out this text in approximately four minutes. Not bad. We'll see how it works.

I like Apple.

[Update: So it works pretty well, with a few caveats. First, it is impossible (as far as I can figure it) to know how the .jpgs will load. Obviously the one above is huge and highly pixelated so I will have to figure that out (I am going to leave as is for illustrative purposes though it is driving me crazy). Second, once you post from the Typepad application, that is it: no editing, no deleting. WYSIWYG. Even so, good stuff.]

A Woman Responds, Pt. 2

I received another email from a woman in the JW community in response to the "Neglected Women of Faith" series we've recently completed.

Here are a few of her reflections:

"I moved to KC a year ago to work on the media team of a local ministry after spending four years in Chicago and graduating from a [conservative Christian college]. I found JW through word of mouth. Loved the creativity. Loved the community. For someone who’s had the most conservative of theological upbringings, it’s been a mind bending year of learning for me, to be honest. But I am learning and soaking it in. Just wanted to let you know I enjoyed the series we just worked through. I’d heard the passages you taught explicated and exegeted about a million different times and ways throughout my education. But this time it was as if they were illuminated for me. I didn’t feel like you had any agenda, just truth in love. When Deth first introduced the series I thought, 'Isn’t this kind of splitting hairs? I don’t personally feel repressed and there seems to be bigger issues we could concentrate on.' But now that we done some learning thoughts are being unlocked inside my head and rusty doors are starting to creak open. Maybe this runs deeper than I previously thought. Maybe I’ve even been subject to it. And now, where do we go from here?"

Indeed.

17 Days and Counting...

Just saying that I am excited. That's all.