My experience with Examiner.com...so far

My blog has been a bit empty lately, except for book reviews, for one reason.  I started writing a column (now 2) at Examiner.com.  I'm now the "St. Petersburg Frugal Family Examiner" and the "St. Petersburg Frugal Living Examiner."


I have no plans to get rich doing this.  The pay is roughly $1 per article, if the article has a local focus (not too difficult to do).  Examiner is a little vague about how all the page usage translates into payment, but it appears that it's roughly a penny a page view (assuming the viewer lingers on the page long enough to read part of it, and isn't just passing through).


I'm enjoying the writing aspect of this: figuring out the best way to communicate to a web audience, crafting headlines that are search engine friendly, planning what stories to cover and when.  It keeps me in the discipline of writing, which has made writing articles for submission to other publications easier.  I love the research aspect: finding press releases, clipping items from the newspaper, rediscovering all the places where information is posted on the web.  I feel like I'm back at the reference desk.


But the most rewarding aspect has been saving my family money--which is why I picked the "frugal" topics over the others.  I've discovered new ways to stretch our budget.  I've visited some new resale shops in our town.  I've enjoyed talking with local shop owners, bankers, clerks, and other moms.  I'm doing what we moms do anyway--figure out how to get the best deal on anything. Only now I'm sharing it with the world. Well, my little Internet corner of the world.


How's it going? So far so good.

A Pretty Sorry Lot

“If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we're a pretty sorry lot.”  1 Cor. 14:19 The Message

What do you do when you’re a pastor who no longer believes in God?  Tufts University’s Center for Cognitive Studies confidentially interviewed five ministers who no longer believe in God.  An article, featuring the results of two interviews, appeared in our local newspaper last Sunday.

When I read the first interview, I thought, “Mister, you need to resign. Quit posing and quit the pulpit.”

I sought out researcher Daniel C. Dennett’s website and read the rest of the study.  Each interviewee was able to perform great feats of mental gymnastics that allow him to feel that he is a “believer,” although he doesn’t believe in anything but himself.

I’m not shocked, just saddened, and outraged.  Years ago, while attending a conference, I encountered this sort comfortable pluralism in a pastor my age.  I was surprised at how quickly he abandoned the truth of the gospel once a minor celebrity at the conference scoffed at the notion of a God who will, one day, pronounce judgement. [Yep, Jesus was pretty clear in Matthew 25]  I saw, that day, the infant “tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.” (Eph. 4:14)

I was stunned then.  I’m not stunned anymore.

But I’m still outraged. As I read through the study I was ready to reach for some sackcloth and ashes.  “Repent,” I thought, heartbroken for their souls,  “Or at least have the integrity to resign and do something else.”

Do they themselves have doubts about continuing in ministry. Yes, but why abandon the paycheck?  And why give up that good feeling you get when you’re helping others.

But helping others to what?

At least one man questioned his own motives early on, but quickly found his conscience soothed when he asked, “Am I posing? Am I being less than authentic; less than honest?”

Yes, you are posing.  You are not “caught in a trap, cunningly designed” as the study declared.  And you’re not “brave” as the study proclaimed you to be.  You're lost. Terribly lost.

Yet, there is still hope for the lost. I know.  I was once lost too.

Researching Ruth

Been working on my "Ruth" Bible study tonight.  I'm all set to teach chapter two on Sunday and I began working on the text of the introduction for the study--no more bullet points and "who's who" table on a handout.  I need to get the intro pulled together so I can start looking toward publication possibilities.

It's getting to be less of a stretch to go from "scholarese" to easy-to-read.  I'm greatly encouraged by classmates who have been giving me feedback and cheering me on.

I got off on a bit of a research tangent again at Aish.com between the book of Ruth, Shavuot (when Ruth is read in the synagogues), and the study of Torah which is done on Shavuot.  All the time I'm reading I have Acts 2:1 in mind.  Thousands of Jews gathered in Jerusalem for Shavuot when Jesus' followers received the Holy Spirit. Pentecost forever tied to Ruth.  

Just can't help but think that Ruth was on the disciples' minds when the Holy Spirit came rushing in.