Progressive Faith Con Blog

After a cyber "rain out" the Carnival has set up shop here. Next week, it will be at A Small Group of Thoughtful, Committed Citizens. Don’t forget to barrage us with submissions at ProgFaithCarnival-at-yahoo-dot-com. Be sure to put "Submission" in the title line. If you’d like to host, put "HOST" in the title line. We will love you forever for doing that. On to the midway: Mata joins us for the first time and a rant and flowers and wonders about the presence of God. Raising Kaine, another newcomer, publicizes a rally to Save Darfur. Yet another newcomer, Happening Here, offers a look at pending legislation. Elsewhere, we find some Guerrilla Marketing for churches. Next door we find blooks from bloggers. We discover as well that there will be no Hogwarts in Georgia. Also, we cast a light on the invisible government. Pause and consider the nature of purity and impurity. It can make you question the way things are. Perhaps you can have a walking meditation. Where does faith leave strangers in a strange land? Perhaps Jung could help interpret. Soft wood and terrorism - guess which one is a more realistic sticking point for US-Canada relations. Maybe we should share a story and know each other better. Is it too loud? Should we turn up the volume? Even with the volume low, there are some truths that cannot be denied. Sometimes they need to be revived with new language. But you cannot shut out people from remembering the holy or discovering the holy. Church and state mix to the peril of both. Yet some must be reminded of this reality. Two masters cannot be served - the power of money will always come through. So will spirituality. This, too, is our heritage of wisdom. And, lest we forget, miracles occur everyday. Help us determine the schedule for the upcoming Blog Con.

The conference schedule has been a major focus for the planning committee lately. It’s still a work-in-progress, of course — hence the "v2.1" at the top; we’ve already been through several iterations, and there will surely be more. With that disclaimer, here’s our current draft. Questions, comments, and suggestions all very welcome. 

Once we have a finalized schedule, we’ll start looking for volunteers to help make these things happen: folks to collaborate in creating and leading the worship, folks to moderate different panels and sessions, etc. (We’re operating more-or-less on the unconference model, so we’ll be depending on everyone who comes to contribute to the various conversations. We’re all about collaborative conversations; we’re bloggers, after all.) For now, weigh in and let us know what you think!

 (By the way, I’m planning to post again soon with some thoughts on what "ecumenical worship" can mean; so if you have thoughts or questions about that, bear with us, you’ll hear from me again soon…)

DRAFT SCHEDULE FOR THE FIRST PROGRESSIVE FAITH BLOG CON, V2.1

FRIDAY JULY 14

afternoon — arrive, check into hotels, get conference packet & badge (Emily R. has offered to help with this)

7pm — welcome; ecumenical Jewish worship (led by Rachel of Velveteen Rabbi, Andrew of Semitism.net, and others TBA)

8:15pm — blogger dinner, social gathering

SATURDAY JULY 15

breakfast on your own

8am — ecumenical Buddhist meditation (led by Lorianne of Hoarded Ordinaries)

9am — kick off the morning events

9:15-10:30am — Panel 1: Roots and Branches, The Nature of Our Community

* Ecumenical and interfaith blogging engagement
* Challenges and blessings of pluralism
* Reaching out to those more conservative than we

10:45-12:15 noon — Breakout Session One: Religion Blogging

We’ll do this in two sessions of 45 minutes each. Bloggers can choose one breakout session in each group.

First Breakout Session by faith affiliation/interest:

* Jewish blogosphere
* Christian blogosphere
* Islamosphere
* Buddhist blogosphere
* Other affinity groups as participation warrants

Second Session around three topics.  Choose one:

* Blogging about Scripture
* Blogging about Ritual
* Blogging about Meditation

12:15-1pm — Lunch break

1-2pm — Panel 2: Talking Tech

* Read Me!  Increasing Site Traffic
* CSS, Podcasting, and New Software
* Building our internal network

2:15-3:45 — Panel 2: Faith and Politics, A Path to Engagement

* Relating faith and political action
* Blogging and its place in the history of progressive faith activism
* Faith is bigger than partisan affiliation

4-5:30 — Breakout Session 2: Politics

We’ll do this in two rotations of 45 minutes each; the same three topics each rotation.  Attendees get to do two of the three.

* Int’l Relations/War on Terror/Peace
* Poverty and Hunger in the US
* Responding to the Religious Right

5:30-6:30 — Free time! :-)

6:30-8:15pm — Dinner break

8:30pm — ecumenical Muslim salaat/namaz (maghrib prayers, followed by remarks or Q-and-A; leader/s TBA)

9pm — Roundtable: What Does Progressive Faith Mean?

Featuring:

* Rabbi Arthur Waskow
* Rev. Dr. Bruce Prescott

…and others, TBA!

(Read roundtable participants’ bios here.)

10pm — Latenight gathering (would people enjoy an open-mike? acoustic music?)

SUNDAY JULY 16

9am — Brunch

10:30am — Christian ecumenical worship (led by Chris of Even the Devils Believe, with others TBA.)

11:30 — Brainstorming session: Where Do We Go From Here?

12:15 — Closing circle & goodbyes

(Afternoon: optional sight-seeing trip into NYC for those who are sticking around?)

Technorati tags: religion, politics, progfaithblogcon.

Hi All,

Thanks much for all of the thoughtful suggestions that were sent in through the listserv and Rachel’s comment board.  A few of us have taken a stab at some synthesis of all of that material into a somewhat coherent agenda. 

Can’t stress enough that this is just a draft!  Please leave comments.  Also, this program clearly doesn’t include any of the worship or social activities that have already been discussed.  The plan is to mash this panel agenda with the prayer times and social activities in order to have an actual working agenda by May 1!  I know, hard to believe. 

Happy Commenting…

Welcome to the new Progressive Faith Con Blog — the blog home of the Progressive Faith Blog Con. (You’d probably figured that out already, right?)

If you’re reading this, perhaps you already know that we’re planning the first-ever gathering of bloggers of progressive faith — by which we mean bloggers whose faith is progressive, and also bloggers whose progressivism informs their faith — for the weekend of July 14-16 in Montclair, NJ.

Since this is a gathering created for bloggers, by bloggers, we figured it made sense to have a blog of our own. Subscribe if you’re interested; we’ll be using this blog to post information about the schedule as it coalesces (expect to see that by May 1), food and lodging options, entertainment, and some of the terrific bloggers who we already know will be joining us.

And by all means, please register (look in the right-hand sidebar for the link) and comment on what we say here! We’re bloggers; we’re all about the conversation and the interconnection. So if you have thoughts on what we’re up to, do tell.

(Speaking of interconnection, if you wanted to link to us, we wouldn’t mind…)

Stay tuned!

We’ve got some nifty new Prog Faith Blog Con graphics, which you’re welcome to use on your site or blog. (Please save them to your own hard drive and upload them to your server, instead of just linking the images here.) Enjoy!