Some people use social media to let it hang out, warts and all.
In the case of the Rev. Scott Carnes, it's brain surgery and all.
That meant tweets sent from his hospital bed; iPhone photos of an MRI scan and the back of his scarred, shaved head posted on Facebook; a short video of groggy, post-op commentary shot immediately after a second surgery and later uploaded to his blog.
It's all part of his philosophy that, at its core, ministry is about relationships - both with other people and with God.
He uses social media and other online tools as ministry aids - successfully, in my opinion. I've written about that in a story posted today.
Scott and I met through the United Methodist Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns, on which he recently finished eight years as a board member. As a Facebook friend who also follows him on Twitter, I've admired the matter-of-fact way he has reported on his medical journey and, like others, was rooting for his recovery. Sometimes, he sounds like an excited computer geek rather than a patient when he marvels over how the doctors can look inside his head.
In other posts, he is candid about his deep love for his wife, Carrie. "I never imagined finding a relationship that would fuel my spirit the way my marriage has," he wrote.
Everything is linked to his faith. In "Joy in Ritual," a May 11 post on the "Scott & Carrie's Musings" blog, he compares the difficulty of disrupted household routines because of illness to the difficulty of establishing a regular prayer life.
I admit to being baffled by the idea that Facebook can be worth billions of dollars and agree that Twitter can be vastly overrated. But the extensive and often unintended ways that people can connect through the internet, consequently developing or redeveloping relationships, are hard to dispute.
Scott gave me an example of one such connection. His wife's twin sister, Katie, a real estate agent in St. Louis, took an elementary school friend and her boyfriend out to see some properties. The former classmates had not been in touch much, so her sister was surprised to learn that the couple had picked up on "Scott & Carrie's Musings" through Facebook and were immersed in the medical drama.
"She told Katie that it's like a soap opera and they'll call each other when there is a new post up," he reported.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Friday, March 16, 2012
The role of another "Lin" for diversity
In the midst of the media hype surrounding Jeremy Lin, the new NBA star, the New York Times recently turned a spotlight on another young man named Lin.
This man, Lin Dakang, spends his days delivering Chinese takeout by bicycle on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. A cover story in the March 4 Sunday Metropolitan section detailed the hazards of the road, his tips and his petition for asylum on the grounds of religious persecution. His asylum petition has been granted, the Times reported.
I was particularly intrigued because he attends worship services in Mandarin at the Fourth Avenue United Methodist Church in Brooklyn and represents a denominational effort toward diversity that could be replicated elsewhere.
This Lin is from Fuzhou, the capital of the Fujian Province in China. His journey is much different from that of Knicks sensation Jeremy Lin, also a Christian, the son of Taiwanese parents, who grew up in northern California and graduated from Harvard.
Many Chinese from the villages and towns around Fuzhou have come to New York. I learned that in 2004 when I took a tour of the ever-expanding Chinatown with Ken Guest, a fellow member of the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew, who had just written a book, “God in Chinatown: Religion and Survival in New York’s Evolving Immigrant Community.”
After I read about Lin Dakang, I asked Guest – an associate professor of anthropology at Baruch College in Manhattan – for an update on the Fuzhounese and their Christian connections. “Guys like this guy in the story are everywhere,” he said.
Chinatown-based employment agencies team up with a dozen different Fuzhounese-run, long-distance bus companies that carry workers around the U.S. “Pretty much every little town between here and the Rockies has a recently-opened takeout Chinese place or an all-you-can-eat buffet,” he told me. “Those are almost all run by Fuzhounese. And the workers all come from New York City through those employment agencies.”
Guest, who is at work on a new textbook for Norton called “Cultural Anthropology: a Tool Kit for a Global Age,” said his recent studies indicate that 50,000 Fuzhounese restaurant workers are “in circulation all the time.”
Some of these workers are Christian. Of the four Protestant churches in New York that specifically cater to Fuzhounese immigrants, the congregation that Lin Dakang is part of shares Fourth Avenue church with a long-time Hispanic congregation. Called Tian Fu, the congregation is led by a clergy couple from Fuzhou and is recognized by the United Methodist New York Annual (regional) Conference. “They pack out the church every Sunday, twice,” Guest said. “It’s the biggest Fuzhounese church in Sunset Park (Brooklyn).”
While Tian Fu’s core membership is New York-based, he explained, the rest are transient. The congregation can draw 700 people on a Sunday, “but they’re not the same 700 every week.”
That’s precisely why church involvement is often “crucial” to the emotional and social survival of these immigrants, he said. Along with the spiritual support comes practical advice on topics like jobs, lawyers and health care. “It’s sort of like building a Christian kinship network,” Guest told me.
Seems like just the type of network that could fit into the United Methodist connectional system.
This man, Lin Dakang, spends his days delivering Chinese takeout by bicycle on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. A cover story in the March 4 Sunday Metropolitan section detailed the hazards of the road, his tips and his petition for asylum on the grounds of religious persecution. His asylum petition has been granted, the Times reported.
I was particularly intrigued because he attends worship services in Mandarin at the Fourth Avenue United Methodist Church in Brooklyn and represents a denominational effort toward diversity that could be replicated elsewhere.
This Lin is from Fuzhou, the capital of the Fujian Province in China. His journey is much different from that of Knicks sensation Jeremy Lin, also a Christian, the son of Taiwanese parents, who grew up in northern California and graduated from Harvard.
Many Chinese from the villages and towns around Fuzhou have come to New York. I learned that in 2004 when I took a tour of the ever-expanding Chinatown with Ken Guest, a fellow member of the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew, who had just written a book, “God in Chinatown: Religion and Survival in New York’s Evolving Immigrant Community.”
After I read about Lin Dakang, I asked Guest – an associate professor of anthropology at Baruch College in Manhattan – for an update on the Fuzhounese and their Christian connections. “Guys like this guy in the story are everywhere,” he said.
Chinatown-based employment agencies team up with a dozen different Fuzhounese-run, long-distance bus companies that carry workers around the U.S. “Pretty much every little town between here and the Rockies has a recently-opened takeout Chinese place or an all-you-can-eat buffet,” he told me. “Those are almost all run by Fuzhounese. And the workers all come from New York City through those employment agencies.”
Guest, who is at work on a new textbook for Norton called “Cultural Anthropology: a Tool Kit for a Global Age,” said his recent studies indicate that 50,000 Fuzhounese restaurant workers are “in circulation all the time.”
Some of these workers are Christian. Of the four Protestant churches in New York that specifically cater to Fuzhounese immigrants, the congregation that Lin Dakang is part of shares Fourth Avenue church with a long-time Hispanic congregation. Called Tian Fu, the congregation is led by a clergy couple from Fuzhou and is recognized by the United Methodist New York Annual (regional) Conference. “They pack out the church every Sunday, twice,” Guest said. “It’s the biggest Fuzhounese church in Sunset Park (Brooklyn).”
While Tian Fu’s core membership is New York-based, he explained, the rest are transient. The congregation can draw 700 people on a Sunday, “but they’re not the same 700 every week.”
That’s precisely why church involvement is often “crucial” to the emotional and social survival of these immigrants, he said. Along with the spiritual support comes practical advice on topics like jobs, lawyers and health care. “It’s sort of like building a Christian kinship network,” Guest told me.
Seems like just the type of network that could fit into the United Methodist connectional system.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
The Jeremy Lin indicator
“Lin-sanity” took hold of my Bronx living room last Friday night.
Like many New Yorkers, we were cheering on the unexpected rising star of the Knicks. Jeremy Lin, a Harvard grad who had been nearly invisible before as an NBA player, was defending, dribbling and shooting his way to a career-high 38 points in that night’s home game against the Lakers.
It wasn’t until the next day that I thought about the fact that the couple who had joined us for dinner – our fellow cheerleaders for this new basketball star of Taiwan origin – were from families who had immigrated from Brazil and Guyana. The beauty of it all made me smile.
To me, Jeremy Lin is an indicator of both a growing U.S. ethnic diversity that no longer is confined to New York and California and the continuing way in which racial stereotypes are being shattered as our multicultural society gains acceptance, particularly among young people.
The fanfare over Jeremy Lin has not yet abated. By Wednesday this week, the rejuvenated Knicks were on a seven-game winning streak and Lin had set an NBA record for the most points (109) in the first four starts.
In Lin’s case, what has been particularly intriguing is the side focus on his Christian faith. The New York Times has had at least three stories in the past week on the faith issue, including one about Asian-American young people who had gathered in a bar to watch Friday’s game. “If Lin’s storybook week captured the imagination of New York City and the wider sports world, it hit the community of Christian Asia-Americans like a lightning bolt,” writes Times reporter Sam Dolnick.
Even more interesting was a first-person column in the sports section, in which reporter Michael Luo writes about his common ground with Lin as an Asian-American, a Harvard grad and a fellow believer. “An Asian-American Christian? What’s that?” he acknowledges. “Many in this country have probably never heard of this subcategory on the religious spectrum.”
United Methodists have because we have our own Asian-American congregations. But, the problem, in my opinion, is that our denomination hasn’t done nearly enough to reach that population – or any other U.S. ethnic minority group, including African Americans.
Our expanding membership base outside the United States is considered a cause for celebration. Why are we so resistant to diversifying – and thus increasing -- the shrinking U.S. membership? Yes, we pay lip service to diversity through a few noteworthy plans or projects targeted to specific groups. But where is the overall strategy? Where is the monetary commitment? Where is the spiritual mandate?
United Methodist leaders are absorbed right now over how to restructure church operations to achieve denominational goals, with a proposed plan set for discussion and a vote at the upcoming 2012 General Conference in Tampa, Fla.
Representatives of United Methodist ethnic/racial ministries say there was little or no consultation with their groups regarding the restructure proposal. They are concerned the plan will render them even more invisible than they already feel.
Jeremy Lin used to be invisible to sports fans and the NBA. Now, he’s not. How can we make the need for greater diversity visible to the church?
Like many New Yorkers, we were cheering on the unexpected rising star of the Knicks. Jeremy Lin, a Harvard grad who had been nearly invisible before as an NBA player, was defending, dribbling and shooting his way to a career-high 38 points in that night’s home game against the Lakers.
It wasn’t until the next day that I thought about the fact that the couple who had joined us for dinner – our fellow cheerleaders for this new basketball star of Taiwan origin – were from families who had immigrated from Brazil and Guyana. The beauty of it all made me smile.
To me, Jeremy Lin is an indicator of both a growing U.S. ethnic diversity that no longer is confined to New York and California and the continuing way in which racial stereotypes are being shattered as our multicultural society gains acceptance, particularly among young people.
The fanfare over Jeremy Lin has not yet abated. By Wednesday this week, the rejuvenated Knicks were on a seven-game winning streak and Lin had set an NBA record for the most points (109) in the first four starts.
In Lin’s case, what has been particularly intriguing is the side focus on his Christian faith. The New York Times has had at least three stories in the past week on the faith issue, including one about Asian-American young people who had gathered in a bar to watch Friday’s game. “If Lin’s storybook week captured the imagination of New York City and the wider sports world, it hit the community of Christian Asia-Americans like a lightning bolt,” writes Times reporter Sam Dolnick.
Even more interesting was a first-person column in the sports section, in which reporter Michael Luo writes about his common ground with Lin as an Asian-American, a Harvard grad and a fellow believer. “An Asian-American Christian? What’s that?” he acknowledges. “Many in this country have probably never heard of this subcategory on the religious spectrum.”
United Methodists have because we have our own Asian-American congregations. But, the problem, in my opinion, is that our denomination hasn’t done nearly enough to reach that population – or any other U.S. ethnic minority group, including African Americans.
Our expanding membership base outside the United States is considered a cause for celebration. Why are we so resistant to diversifying – and thus increasing -- the shrinking U.S. membership? Yes, we pay lip service to diversity through a few noteworthy plans or projects targeted to specific groups. But where is the overall strategy? Where is the monetary commitment? Where is the spiritual mandate?
United Methodist leaders are absorbed right now over how to restructure church operations to achieve denominational goals, with a proposed plan set for discussion and a vote at the upcoming 2012 General Conference in Tampa, Fla.
Representatives of United Methodist ethnic/racial ministries say there was little or no consultation with their groups regarding the restructure proposal. They are concerned the plan will render them even more invisible than they already feel.
Jeremy Lin used to be invisible to sports fans and the NBA. Now, he’s not. How can we make the need for greater diversity visible to the church?
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