Entries from April 2007 ↓

I’ve always loved the First Mover speech from Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale. So here is a little lyric I wrote inspired by that concept and my son’s experience moving from San Antonio to Kerrville when he was just a year old. (We actually moved on his birthday!)

Underneath the text of the poem, I’m embedding a little podcast if you want to hear me read it. (I feel strongly that poetry should be experienced out loud.) 

You know you want to read this poem.

Continue reading →

Just after the dawn of blogs in 2002, a secret cooperative of techie pastors and Bible scholars went into hiding to produce a new translation for the twenty-first century.

It’s the Geek Standard Version.

Continue reading →

This is day two of the High Calling blog tour. During this tour, I’ve been talking about a side of editing most people don’t think about—an editor’s role in helping to unify the vision for a publication or a publisher.

Most often, that kind of work takes place on the level of sentences and paragraphs. I ask whether a particular idea or clause or phrase or word effectively communicates the vision I’ve been called to defend. But sometimes it happens at the philosophical level. Sometimes I get to step back and think about overall strategy. How do we teach people the value of…

Yesterday we had some great comments, observations, reviews, and even audacious questions. Like this one from Eve Nielsen.

Continue reading →

Are you making a difference or are you earning a check? That’s the key question we ask readers at one of the sites I edit: TheHighCalling.org. And its something I’d like to think about philosophically for the next few days as part of the High Calling Blog Tour.

We just went live this weekend with our new design, and I have to say I am just pleased as punch that this thing is off the ground.

Continue reading →

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Good Word Editor!

In my dreams… Where the whole world values diction and syntax and language control as much as I do. (Hey, people, communication matters!)

So who am I going to rescue today?

Continue reading →

“What?!” you say. “But an author is almost like God. Authors create a universe and inhabit it with people and weave the tapestry of their fates.”

Just stop, okay? Besides being borderline blasphemy, it isn’t that simple. Sure, authors have a tremendous role in the creation of their book, but they are hardly like God creating in a vacuum. They receive all kinds of help from agents and editors and publishers and even ghostwriters.

Read the rest of this essay at Writer… Interrupted.

After a year of hard work, we are finally launching our new and improved TheHighCalling.org. I’ve put together a little social media press release as best I can to help everyone out. Find out more about it at my new page: High Calling Blog Tour.

Obviously, anyone and everyone is invited to participate. You don’t get anything except a whole lot of related link love, and a chance to create some community over the next few days.

Although I have to say that the audio embed is pretty darn cool.

Let me know if you are interested.

On April 23 - April 25, we will be leading a blog tour of our new site, TheHighCalling.org. Comment on this page below if you are interested in participating. Each post on the blog tour should…

1. Talk about the new site, now live at http://www.thehighcalling.org. Consider doing one or more of the following:
   · Review the site’s new functionality. Be kind, but honest. And above all be specific. What works well? Why?
   · Review the site’s content. Find some article or interview or story that strikes a chord and discuss it. (Feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of the article on TheHighCalling.org that links readers to your blog.)
   · Embed sample audio from the site. Just paste the code right into the “html view” of a post. See below for more information on this.
2. Link to the site. If you are willing, we’d appreciate a link directly to the membership page at http://www.thehighcalling.org/MyHighCalling/Register.asp. Like this: become a member of TheHighCalling.org.
3. Link to the other participants to keep the process fully transparent:
   Gordon Atkinson, L. L. Barkat, Gina Conroy, Craver VII, CREEations, Milton Brasher-Cunningham, Mary DeMuth, Karl Edwards, Emdashery, Every Square Inch, Green Inventions, Amy Goodyear, Marcus Goodyear, Al Hsu, Jennwith2ns, Charles Foster Johnson, Mike McLoughlin, Eve Nielsen, Naked Pastor, Ramblin Dan, Charity Singleton, Stacy, Camy Tang, Writer… Interrupted 

INTERVIEWS You May Want to Explore

• Interview with Ralph Winter (producer of X-Men)
• Interview with Bishop T. D. Jakes
• Interview with Eugene Peterson (translator of The Message)
• Interview with Peggy Wehmeyer (former ABC news correspondent)

AUDIO PARABLES You May Want to Explore

• High Calling Parable: A Lens on the World
• High Calling Parable: Bailey’s Blessing
• High Calling Parable: On the Fast Track

ARTICLES You May Want to Explore

• Article by Gordon Atkinson: A Burning Bush Would Be Nice
• Article by Chris DeVinck: How to Love Your Work and Your Coworkers
• Article by Charles Foster Johnson: God’s Grammar for the New Year
• Article by Al Hsu: The Long Ranger is Not a Team Player
• Article by Scot McKnight: Who Do You Think I Am?
• Article by Mike McLoughlin: Forgive Them? But They Fired Me!
• Article by Camy Tang: Even Pitbulls Make Mistakes

CODE FOR EMBEDDING AUDIO

Click here for the code to embed our audio player right into your blog: embedhighcallingaudio.txt. Then just paste the code into the HTML edit view of your blog. (But ignore the title links.) It will look like this:

On the Fast Track

IMAGES YOU CAN USE:

 

 

CONTACT INFORMATION:
Dan Roloff, Editor-in-Chief and Publishing Manager
Marcus Goodyear, Content Editor
Or comment below.

This Social Media Press release is based on the template designed by Shift Communications.

Some of my blogging friends are still talking about Karen Hancock’s Christian fantasy novel, Return of the Guardian-King. I thought I would highlight some of my favorite bits of wisdom they’ve shared over the past two days:

Continue reading →

Note to all of my virtual friends: I’ve been completely overwhelmed by the generosity and authenticity of your comments lately! Thank you so much. I look forward to interacting more intently as soon as our new and improved TheHighCalling.org is almost under wraps—later this week!

Over the next few days, the Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog tour is featuring Karen Hancock. 

Return of the Guardian-King, the fourth book in a series, is a fine example of high fantasy. That is to say, Karen Hancock creates a self-contained world, a sweeping Tolkein-esque epic of politics and war and love and the followers of “Eidon, Lord of Light, Creator of All, Defender of Man. Soon may he come, and swift be his judgment.”

Hancock follows a story-telling pattern laid out by C. S. Lewis in his science fiction series and later in Narnia. God appears and redeems other worlds under other names.

Continue reading →