Then, at the end of Dale’s morning talk, just before lunch, he held up a copy of Gordon’s book RealLivePreacher.com and read from it for about ten minutes. Gordon’s fictionalized versions of gospel stories breathed new life into the old text. (The book is still available for purchase  here.)

From that day, I was hooked. I became a regular reader of RealLivePreacher.com. I started emailing Gordon. I hired him to write articles for our online magazine about God and work at TheHighCalling.org. To date, he has written fourteen articles for us, nearly a record, including titles like Thus Spake the Head of Marketing, God Doesn’t Reward Bloody Knuckles, and Zacchaeus Was a Wee Little… Mafia Don.

As you can tell, Gordon has a way with titles. He also has a way with videos. One of my early impressions of Gordon came from a video he recommended called the Monkey Chow Diaries. (I watched the first episode again today. It is still funny, and it still raises interesting questions about what it means to be human. Are we, after all, just big monkeys?)

Then, Gordon himself followed up with the Communion Taste Test video. A bit longer than the Monkey Chow Diaries, this video is funny, irreverent, and oddly poignant.

Around this time, we started to notice a strange trend in our web traffic. Every time Gordon posted an article on TheHighCalling.org, our traffice increased five fold. Some of these folks were coming to us from RealLivePreacher.com where Gordon always dutifully linked to the article with his nifty promotional manner. But others were coming from copycat bloggers. They saw Gordon link to his own article, then they went back to their sites and linked to the article as well.

And we’re not just talking about a small amount of traffic. That first year, Gordon himself sent us more referral traffic than Christianity Today’s FaithInTheWorkplace.com. I won’t go into all of the details of those various relationships, but suffice to say Dan Roloff and I took notice.

We decided to have lunch with Gordon since he lives in San Antonio, just an hour south of Kerrville. It was at TGI Friday’s I think. Or Bennigan’s. Maybe Gordon will remember. At that lunch, he drew some things on a napkin, explaining how SEO worked, how blogs created a hefty portion of the search engine’s metadata, and a bunch of other things that are really cool, but much too boring and technical to talk about right now.

Essentially, he wrote the social media version of ”Let It Be” right there on a napkin next to his Diet Coke. He always drinks Diet Coke.

That was the beginning. I won’t go through all the iterations of the High Calling Network, but we’ve had many. We sold it internally to our advisory council for TheHighCalling.org.  We built and rebuilt the architecture with Chris Cree. And finally, last Spring, we grew beyond our ability to listen and had to close everything down for a few months.

During that time, Dan Roloff and Gordon and Chris and L.L. Barkat and others took a long hard look at what it would take to build a community in the right way. We studied IdeaCamp. We studied marketing reports. We talked with other bloggers like Darren Rouse at BlogWorld, Tall Skinny Kiwi at GodBlog, and Liz Straus at SOBcon 2007. Finally, we produced a long business plan that nobody read, but that had so much heft that people began to think we knew what we were talking about.

Who knows if we really do. But we’re going to take a good hard stab at it. And Gordon Atkinson–RealLivePreacher.com, my good friend, my favorite Baptist, and a man who can lead a mean Franciscan Retreat–he is going to help lead the way.

Now, the sermon is over. It’s time for the altar call. Are you ready to take action? Here are three steps to consider:

1) Read: If you haven’t seen Gordon’s series about Online Retreat–you need to take a look.

2) Consider: If you think you might be interested in the High Calling Network, read a little about us, read some of the ways you can participate, and consider joining the network.

3) Watch: If you’ve never watched the Communion Taste Test video… BEHOLD!

Of course, the other duties of my job still call. Analytics, editing, and the burdensome trips to Laity Lodge. (I’m joking, of course. Those things are a complete joy–especially Laity Lodge.) This weekend, the Chrysostom Society is coming out. They are an exclectic and hilarious group of Christian writers who gather every year to encourage each other. I could drop names, but they might not appreciate that.

Mostly, I’m just there to talk with the few who write for us at TheHighCalling.org. It is an odd form of hospitality to be present for the weekend just in case someone needs an extra ear.

Since many of them are poets, here are two poems in honor of the folks I’ll be with this weekend:

Cruise Control

A hearse is trucking down I-10
taller than my compact corolla
and I wonder if drafting behind
will save me some bucks in gas
or at least distract me with the curve
of a coffin shining in the back.

Epiphany

We put our Jesuses in the attic
after Christmas, buried in boxes
between plastic wreaths and cheap lights.
I rarely think about the idle figures
when I fetch luggage for business trips.
Near the boxes, the space is a maze
of pipes wrapped in thin foam, too thin
for January freezes when water reminds us
who is in charge. So here I am,
my breath like a pillar of cloud.
When the pipes crack, the water sprays.
There is no controlling this flood
and the damage it causes, soaking
through our Christmas, baptizing Santas,
Rudolfs, wreaths, and every single Jesus.
These are my sons in them I am well pleased.

As a kid, I loved loved loved legos. I confess that I still love them. A typical Saturday at our house will be cartoons on the Disney channel with legos spread across the living room. Pure joy.

I don’t build much with legos during my work day, though. Mostly, I build with sentences now. You can read more about this video and how it relates to work on HighCallingBlogs.com, a site about the interesection of faith and work.

I have to admit it was satisfying to pack away the season of clutter and lug it up the attic ladder into the darkness.

But I don’t mind any of those things really. The problem with seasons of feasting is simple. We don’t know how to stop feasting. Christy a new member of the High Calling Network talked about this in her post: Eat from the Pantry Challenge. She has aptly categorized this post under “frugal family living.”

I usually like being frugal. Some people have even accused me of being a cheapskate, but I resist such harsh titles.

But Christy is taking it to a whole new level. She says,

My goal is to spend no more than $250 on groceries for eight people this month, while eating through our supplies.  Why so much?  We eat heavily from fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables. Our garden supplies nothing, and our freezer is not currently loaded with enough produce to get us through the month.

$250 for an entire month? I’m not sure we could do that. Maybe I’m just a foodie. Or maybe I just want to support my boss who owns the grocery chain where we shop. Still, I applaud Christy for that goal. It would be interesting to see exactly how she plans to pull that off in terms of menus and grocery trips.

Christy also laments about the excessive gifts of Christmas. She says,

I over-spent.  Part of me would love to bid farewell to Legos and babydolls and new slippers on Christmas… thus maintaining an even clearer focus and eliminating overspending.  The other part of me, however, loves watching my children thoughtfully plan, budget, sew, shop, wrap, relate the story behind the gift, and delight in the recipient’s joy, all in conjunction with Christ’s birth.

This inspired me to share a bit about gifts. First, I believe the gifts are important for teaching kids to be excited at Christmas. Of course, sometimes the excess is too much. Sometimes a family may need to go counter cultural for a season in order to remember the reason we celebrate.

But more and more I think God wants us to give good gifts to our kids. We have to teach them to be generous by example.  Howard Butt, the guy who owns the grocery company, explained it pretty well a few seasons ago when he talked about Longing for Super Presents. That article and its sequel are two of my favorite pieces he has written

In the Goodyear family, we have tried to contain the materialism by adding additional structure. We give four gifts. 3 from the wise men–gold (for fun), frankencense (for the spirit), and myrhh (for the body). Then Santa brings something too. Because Santa is just cool that way.

This year gold was cash. Myrhh was bath soaps and bubbles. Frankencense, quite the controversy, was five times the cash as gold but it had to be donated to a charity. At the time, it felt like we may have hoodwinked our kids on that one. But then Santa’s gift reassured them that there was enough abundance to give AND receive.

Maybe it is too late for a Christmas post. Maybe I should share some of the nitty gritty back ground stuff that is coming along with HighCallingBlogs.com. But today, I just felt inspired by Christy and wanted to share this post here.

If you have a moment, drop in on Christy at Notable Blogger and tell her hi. And see if you can’t get her to share the formula for that kind of fantastically frugal grocery shopping!

Chosen as “The Best of 2009” by TheHighCalling.org.

On a side note, I feel the need to share why I’ve been pretty quiet here at Good Word Editing lately. In the blogosphere, I’ve moved to a lot of behind the scenes stuff lately. I talk with high calling bloggers on the phone, in webinars, via email, via a new basecamp tool for the editorial staff.

Also, I’ve been working hard on a full business plan for this nonprofit blog network. We’ve written out weekly deliverables for various tasks, hourly estimates, hourly pay rates (most of it is volunteer, though), special perks we can offer, etc. Fleshing things out has been a great challenge. Selling the idea internally during our budget season has been an even greater challenge. (That process is still going on, but I’m hopeful we’ll receive permission to move forward a few small steps.)

And, I’ve continued to work on TheHighCalling.org and some other internal writing projects. Out of that comes some cool things like our “Best of” campaign.

I still have plans to participate in the 12 Blogs of Christmas project going on at HighCallingBlogs.com, but my 12 Days may be the actual 12 days, rather than the 12 days prior to Christmas. Or I may drop this ball entirely. Only time will tell.

At any rate, if you missed the interview with Michael Card, now’s your chance to click over and check it out. You may also be interested in the other content chosen as Best of 2009.

What with budget season and everything else, it has been a dry spell for blogging lately. More and more, I’m interested in poetry for this place. Too bad it promises to talk about editing too.

Someday perhaps I will rebrand this site, get a new URL, and redirect my google juice.

In the meantime, those of you looking for editing are just going to keep finding poetry. Like this:

Serendipity

When a man wanders
lost in woods or words,
wonder lies behind
every leaf and letter.

Read other Random Acts of Poetry today on HighCallingBlogs.com. Thanks LL for leading that!

Image by Bernat Casero.

Can I share my excuses first?

Here’s the problem. Writers write a lot. They send a lot of emails. Just sorting through those emails takes an enormous amount of time.

Also, this one: Editing is deeply relational. Relationships take a lot of time. I do my absolute best to email back, but sometimes it takes me weeks. The oldest email I have to still respond to is from 10/8. That’s you, William. I’m sorry. It was the last in a string of exchanges we had.

Every time I email someone, I get another email back–which expects a quick response.

Believe me, this is not the way I would prefer to work. I wish I had time to answer everyone promptly. But this month I’ve been in budget meetings and marketing meetings and strategy meetings about building readership. Sometimes we even have meetings about the meetings we’re going to have later. My calendar tells me that meetings mean “none of us is as dumb as all of us.” That’s funny in a cynical way, but most of these meetings are really important. They are about stewardship. They are many heads in the room so that we can make wise decisions.

Forget all of my excuses, though. Here’s the real problem.

Agents and editors need grace. We really do have your best interests at heart. We really want to see your work succeed. We really want to take you out for coffee and ramble away with you all afternoon until the sun goes down and we feel jittery from all of the caffeine.

But our desk phone is ringing. Our email is dinging. Twitter is buzzing on the cell phone. Our families are waiting at home even though the work day ended 30 minutes ago. We’re running as fast as we can.

Sure, the system is broken. Sure, we are broken too. The whole world is broken, but we’re doing the best we can.

I like budget season because it forces us to put our money where our mouths are. All of our talk becomes a list of action items that either get approved or don’t. I love the certainty of the budget season. I love going to our leadership and saying, "Here is how we’re interpreting the vision. These are the actions that we think best embody our words."

Then they say, "Yes! Well done good and faithful servant." Or else they don’t. Either way, our talk turns into very tangible direction.

Related to all of this, I read a good article from Gary Klingsporn this morning about work and God. I remember editing this piece a few weeks ago. We adapted it from a sermon outline he originally wrote for our free sermon notes service to pastors who are looking for material on faith and work.

This morning, I was especially struck by an idea from his article. He explains, "One of the main barriers to turning knowledge into action is the tendency to assume that talking about something is equivalent to actually doing it. How true I think this is of love in the Christian life. We talk about it all the time, but talk can easily become a substitute for action."

Here are some other great thoughts from Gary’s article:

• Love in Action at Work and in the World | SERVICE – Bible Reflection

  • What does it mean to “lay down our lives for others”?

  • God calls us to open our hearts to the needs of people around us.  This involves practical, concrete acts of love in the ordinary matters of everyday life.

  • Love is something we do, not simply something we believe. It’s not pious talk, but committed action.

  • What are the needs of people around you at work? How can you address those needs with more than words?

  • What would it mean for you to reach out to someone in your workplace with an act of love?

NOTE: This post is also an experiment to see how it works to highlight and blog using my Diigo account. Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Sometimes I Cannot Always Be There

If only I had the knowledge
or experience or energy,
I would see the glory of my son
in white robes and black stole
open his mouth in a wide O,
the sound of his voice blending
with other children’s voices all
filling this place with expectation:
A man can rise from the dead.
A virgin can conceive a son.
The worst thing in life is not
death, but life without belief
that life can be better.
After tricks or treats comes All Saints.
After the candy comes communion.
After the costumes come new robes
all the same for all of them who sing.

NOTE: Lots of cool things continue to go on at HighCallingBlogs.com as that community builds its energy and momentum. We’re hoping to receive approval from our sponsoring organization to open the network again on January 1, 2010. In the meantime, I don’t have much energy for GoodWordEditing.com except to toss up some of the poems I write. (Especially considering how much of my personal energies are currently diverted to helping my agent sell my zombie book.)

I don’t know, L.L., if this poem qualifies for the prompt Sam listed at the bottom of his faith and culture article at HighCallingBlogs.com last week. It is a love poem of sorts, but not following the rules you laid out.

One of the people here, Jozef Luptak plays cello like I’ve never heard. The first evening he played a piece from Bach’s Unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 1 (from the prelude, I think).

I wrote a poem about it.

The Price of Renewal
for Jozef Luptak

The cold hearth may hold fire when the front comes
where the cellist plays. His arms carve the sound,
not for us, not for himself, but just because
the silence must sometimes be filled
with something besides words and squeaking
animals. We hear them by the door, surprised
each time the pinched strings sing
impossibly high. They could be bats or mice,
vermin that incarnate what Bach first said
years ago and again today with a time machine
made from maple and sheep gut and a life
time of learning the skill to speak
and sing and play for the dead.