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On returning to America, finding nothing has changed except a bunch more people are needlessly dead, and mostly leaving again out of indifference

So I did that fast from America thing. Pretty much. I looked in on the election now and again, and I had a nosey at what Matthew Paul Turner and Rachel Held Evans had to say a couple times, just to be sure. American Christianity and politics have not found any sanity since June. Mostly I found out I didn’t miss anything too much. Of course, that could be because of all the blood-pressure-raising ‘entertainment’ that British Christianity and politics have been providing of late.

Here is who is going back into my feed reader for 2013: John Michael Greer, Love is What You Do and Larry Shallenberger. That’s it for now.


27 December 2012
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In olden times before phones were smart we called this a ‘blogroll’

A thing we old people like to do to amuse ourselves is to subscribe to ‘blogs’ via ‘feed readers’. Many of you youngsters won’t understand these things because you haven’t found the secret click combination to get outside of Facebook or else you aren’t sure what to do with writing that is longer than 140 characters. But some of you kids might want to experience the old-fashioned Internet. If that’s you, there is a small chance you may enjoy some of the things on the non-exhaustive list of what I like to read and look at.

Comics, illustration, design

  1. Doodlemum – these are way better than doodles
  2. Dresden Codak – cyborg sci-fi in a weird world
  3. False Positive – webcomic tales of the surreal, fantastic and macabre
  4. Happle Tea – a funny and insightful webcomic about mythology and other things
  5. Hark a Vagrant – Kate Beaton is excellently superly excellent
  6. Doodlemum
  7. Illustration Art – insightful commentary on the world of illustration
  8. Jill Lorraine Turpin has a great take on family life
  9. Marlo Meekins is much funnier and stranger than most people
  10. Nimona – when the sidekick has actual powers and doesn’t follow the supervillain rules
  11. Punching the Clock – surviving the daily fail of big box retail
  12. RUTH AND ANNABEL RUIN EVERYTHING – it’s in all caps for a reason
  13. Ryan Andrews – beautiful engrossing short story comics
  14. Sin Titulo – It’s going to take a while to read, and it will suck you in. Clear your afternoon schedule
  15. The Abominable Charles Christopher – he’s actually not abominable at all
  16. the johnson banks thought for the week is the blog of my favourite UK design studio
  17. Thrillbent’s Insufferable – What happens when you’re a crimefighter and your sidekick grows up to be an arrogant, ungrateful douchebag? What on Earth could draw the two of you back together again?
  18. Willow Wood Starfall – gorgeous comic in a nouveau style
  19. XKCD – a webcomic of romance,
    sarcasm, math, and language.

Lots of words in a row

  1. Doors of Perception – John Thackara’s blog about design, energy and the planet’s future
  2. Heresy Corner – questioning received wisdom on culture, politics and religion
  3. Kester Brewin – Peter Rollins’ mate writes about pirates, theology, education and stuff
  4. Michael Rosen – author and former children’s laureate blogs mostly about education, especially how Michael Gove is ruining everything
  5. Peter Rollins – pyrotheology
  6. What If? – the author of xkcd answers hypothetical questions with physics and funny

Good blogs I’m not reading right now because I’m taking a break from American Christianity and politics

  1. Greg Boyd – with all the shouty Calvinists about it’s nice to be reminded the bible has other salvation metaphors and visions of eternity
  2. Matthew Paul Turner – obvs
  3. John Michael Greer – Druid perspectives on nature, culture, and the future of industrial society. Don’t let the ‘druid’ throw you. This guy is a genius
  4. Larry Shallenberger – author, pastor, writer of this blog that I really like even though he sometimes writes about sports
  5. Love is what you do – she’s actually living the gospel in real life
  6. Rachel Held Evans – obvs
  7. The Beautiful Due – I’m not a fan of poetry. I love this guy’s poetry
  8. Two Friars and a Fool – theology and culture with an emergy kind of vibe

What do you like to read and look at?


21 August 2012
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On leaving America

11 years ago Christine and I with our 2.5 year-old son left the United States to live in North Wales. We set out to make a fresh start, and we did. But I sort of failed at something. I never really left America. I blame the Internet.

While Christine and I were starting fresh and getting healed up from a full term stillbirth and some whacked out ideas about God and the response of a church that didn’t know what to do with an unhealed dead baby, I sort of stayed in America. I kept up with American politics and Christianity via the Internet. Being the Internet, it was kind of a cartoon version of American politics and Christianity.

It was fine for a while. Some bits were very good: I found Greg Boyd, Rob Bell, John Michael Greer, Shane Clairborne and Larry Shallenberger. Other bits were bad. My evolving views made my wonderful sister and brother-in-law angry and lost me a really good friend.

Lately, America has just been making me mad. I’m cheesed off that American Christians are still debating whether or not women can do the same jobs as men or be considered their equals. I’m cross that they are still trying to decide whether or not LGBT people get to be counted as fully human. I cannot endure one more pastor with perfectly reformed theology expounding ad nauseum why a different conclusion than his is Dangerous. I’m sick of the fake miracles and the politics of fear. (‘AMERICA IS DOOMED!’ Of course America is doomed, not because it has a black liberal president but because America is an empire and all empires are doomed.) I don’t have the stomach for this presidential election. I don’t need to hear the latest pronouncement by the church’s prophets of Baal about what kind of prayer and fasting we need to do for the next 40 days to make sure God doesn’t lightning bolt the country. I have no interest in what the evangelical pope has to say about anything. I’m sick of the megachurchcorp CEOs and their obsession with their big numbers. I’ve had it with the whole thing. I have no grace to offer.

I realised a couple days ago that the problem isn’t America – okay, actually the problem is America and its stupid paranoid greedy consumer religion. But that’s not my problem. My problem is that I’m making it my problem. I live in Wales, UK. My job is to serve and love people in Wales. Raising my blood pressure over what the Americans are doing is stupid and dumb. I’ve been stupid and dumb.

I’m going to stop.

American Christians are on their own journey. My meddling in it displays a serious lack of faith in the Spirit’s work in those Christians and an unwillingness to fully concentrate on the work I’m doing here. It’s time for me to leave America – for real – and keep my face pointed in the same direction as the plough.

This is what I’m doing. Until the end of 2012 anything to do with American spirituality or politics is out of my life, the good and the bad. (The exceptions are family and friends, of course. And I’m keeping Josh Garrels in my playlist.) Basically I’m cutting out a bunch of podcasts, books that I may have read, blogs, Twitter accounts and all their links and link and links. Here’s a list for people who like lists:

This will give me space to clear my brain. Once I get to 2013, I’m not sure. My goal is not to pretend that America doesn’t exist or has nothing spiritually good to offer. Rather, I want to return (metaphorically) full of grace and love and no longer fighting against a bunch of rules and ideas that haven’t actually applied to my life for years. It may take me more than six months to get there.

This is obviously a big overblown statement full of broad brushstroke characterisations. It says more about me than it does about the United States. That is the point. I want to expose my own dysfunction so that it is clear (to me probably more than anyone else) why I am doing this. It also makes me kind of accountable. If I announce something on the Internet, I am a lot more likely to do it. Also, I tend to make big overblown statements about things that don’t need big overblown statements.

If you are an American reading this blog, you are welcome to keep reading and to comment. I’m not going into hiding.

Finally, thank you, Greg Boyd, Rob Bell, John Michael Greer and Shane Claiborne and so many others. You have helped me to become a better person. I’ll be back listening to you again, maybe as soon as next year.

I start as soon as I finish my last book on spirituality by an American author for now. (The book is Falling Upward by Richard Rohr. It is the perfect book for where I’m at right now.)


4 June 2012
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A poem for commenters on blogs

I had a conversation with a stranger
on the web who read
half my words but not my heart,
yet he knew exactly what I thought.
It turns out what I thought
wasn’t what I thought I thought.
And the thoughts I thought
I ought notta thought.
But thankfully I’ve got
him to sort me out.


27 May 2012
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Look who’s here

My weekly comic telling the story of The Reverend and Amy used to live on Tumblr, but Tumblr did not have all the awesomeness I required and Kate Beaton thought it was a good idea, so I brought it home. Have a look. If you haven’t started reading The Reverend and Amy yet, now is a good time. We’re only six pages in.


24 February 2012
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Practical theology for dealing with Them

One really frustrating thing that has come out of the Rob Bell Love Wins controversy is that a bunch of Christian bloggers have made strong calls for the rest of us to show civility, respect and even love towards Christians that we don’t agree with.

That pretty much sucks. Civility doesn’t get clicks. Respectful dialogue takes time, and it’s boring usually. Love gets you nowhere with the guys down at the pub. It’s all pretty lame compared to a vitriolic rant or a one-sided polemic.

The problem is that a surface reading of the New Testament seems to pretty much back up these so-called Christians with their calls for moderation and kindness. The writers go on and on and on about loving fellow Christians and brothers and enemies and everybody. It gets tedious.

BUT — this is where I get you off the love hook — if you are willing to spend three to four minutes thinking creatively, you can come up with a reason — probably several reasons — why the people you disagree with are either Pharisees or Ravenous Wolves.

What you decide these disagreeable people are depends on what you want to do. If you want to call down woes upon them, go for Pharisee (Matthew 23:13-18). If you prefer to warn the stupid gullible people that listen to you, call them Wolves (Matthew 7:15, Acts 20:29)

I know this takes a little work, but for the sake of your conscience it is important to have a biblical justification for your seemingly unchristlike behaviour. And when the extra visits to your website and back thumps at the coffee shop and amens at church start rolling in it will be totally worth the effort.


8 April 2011
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Death is a farmer

Larry Shallenberger writes a really good blog. His post today was so good that I drew a picture for it — I draw pictures on my iPhone — and thought about how the Farmer o’ Death is a lot like The Powers in (what little I know about) Walter Wink’s ideas.

It’s a short post, and it starts like this:

Death is farmer who rises before dawn and eats the same plate of eggs and bacon

And drinks bitter coffee from the same ceramic mug that his son bought him when he was in the first grade, just before he joined the Army.

The farmer grabs his faded cap and ambles to the barn and resurrects his faithful tractor thinking about the weathered fence his wife has been begging him to paint

And that dripping faucet.

The farmer absently guides the blades to a field he does not…

Read the rest of Larry’s post.


9 March 2011
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Opinion ate (the Internet)

Everything I have considered posting the last few days has involved something negative about someone or something. I’m right, obviously, but there is already an entire Internet full of people who are right telling us what’s wrong with everything. So here’s a happy face:

Also, definitely spend five bucks and 90 minutes on Rob Bell’s The God’s Are Not Angry. The first half will totally help you get the Old Testament — Yay Levititcus! — and I’ll tell you about the second half once I see it.


3 March 2011
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A notable new blog

My beloved wife and former writer here is gracing the internets once again with her poetic and insightful writing on children’s ministry over at the the official i61 Kids blog.


21 August 2009
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Tum tum te tumblr

I have this blog on Tumblr and I’m posting to it more and more and I love it because it is so easy and fun and I don’t feel the need to improve it. My thinking at the moment is that the beloved D Train is going to reserved for writing about Important Things for now at least.

Bonus: My Tumblr blog automatically imports anything I write here.


27 March 2009
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Beware of bold pronouncements

Over the last few months I have enjoyed some serious world-rockage thanks to Surprised by Hope by Tom Wright, Starting a House Church by Larry Kreider and Floyd McClung, and The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch, plus a bunch of podcasts from Greg Boyd and Rob Bell. Now it’s the bible’s turn.

Over the next three to five weeks I plan to read the New Testament. I will be looking specifically at what it looks like to be a follower of Jesus, both individually and as a community of Christians on a mission. The purpose of this is not to know more stuff, rather, I want to make whatever changes are necessary to orient my life around God’s mission on Earth (John 3:16) and my place in that mission through the new birth (John 3:3).

This is more of a read-and-reflect than a study, so I will be using my handy dandy TNIV Books of The Bible. I plan to write about what I read here. And I’m off…


10 February 2009
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In case you were wondering

Blogs and other things on the interwebs that one or both of us like, not including the dreaded Facebook or most of Flickr.

Friends & Family
Alex and Tara
i61 – our church
Rachel Devine
Joy Unexpected
Tony Allen Mills
Kids International Ministries
Steve & Gill Houghton – our pastors

Other Ministry & Church Stuff
The Ongoing Adventures of ASBO Jesus
Children’s Ministry and Culture – one of my favourites
Floyd & Sally McClung – pioneers of missional ministry, pioneering again in South Africa
Greg Boyd’s Blog – my very favourite blog
Letters from Kamp Krusty – American Christian culture is funny
Learning from Sophie
Naked Pastor
One for the road… – Hooray for more Paul Mayers!
Out of Ur – Christianity Today’s leadership blog

Environment, Sustainability & Peak Oil
Doors of Perception
The Archdruid Report – my second favourite blog – the insights into human beings and civilisations are superb

Design, Illustration & Type
Exljbris – free quality font foundry
Illustration Art – beautiful pictures, sharp commentary
The Johnson Banks Thought for the Week
Marian Bantjes – my favourite illustrative designer

Everything Else
Blue Sky Living – positive (but not cheesy) living
Flagrant Disregard
The Happiness Institute
Sasha Dichter’s Blog
Seth Godin’s Blog
Funny/interesting people on Twitter


10 February 2009
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Play

And we’re back.


9 February 2009
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Pause

D Train is taking a break for a while. Hopefully we will be back fairly soon. Meanwhile, we’ll catch you on Facebook or something.

Happiness,
Jeff


7 December 2008
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My important blog

For me, life is about connections. Synapses in your brain, hugging someone you love, flying halfway around the world – it’s all about connecting. One of the ways I like to keep my connections interesting is to read widely online.

Using Google Reader I follow an archdruid, an open theist, a naked pastor, a koala in Scotland, one of Britain’s best designers, a senior karate instructor in Hawaii, a director at Acumen Fund and a lot of other great, intelligent, witty people.

I learn a lot from them. Because the Google people are clever, I can choose the best of what I read and share it on this page:

Jeff Gill’s shared items

If you were subscribed to this page over the last couple weeks you would have learned about planting the gospel vs. planting churches, why trust is more useful to you than hard facts, a great free day out with your kid, the startling news about evangelical teens and sex, why previews are better than reviews, and much more.

Please have a look and a read. Maybe add the feed to your Google Reader. If your reading is interesting and varied too, why not start sharing? A lot of people are probably interested in the best of your blogroll.


4 November 2008
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Eight reasons not to use lists

Keith Johnson is the Ah Ha Architect for Group Publishing. I don’t know what that means, but I think he’s great, especially when he lets rip with a rant on the blog he writes with Larry Shallenberger. His most recent is majestic with ALL CAPS and bold type and exclamation marks!!!. The article is great but his comment (No. 5) is my favourite:

Try this instead: “Have One Point”!!! That’s It! And state, “this was my observation, and you might have another one, that is why I left point #2 BLANK…

Go have a read. It will get you all hyped up for your pastor’s Sunday sermon.


28 September 2008
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The ongoing journey to freedom

Are you reading Paul and Sonya Armstrong’s blog posts about how they are getting out of debt yet? Start now!

We tried numerous times to curb our spending; sell things we didn’t need, look at our budget (bought books on budgets and management of money, software and programs). And it came in spurts. When the bills piled up and we felt like we were breaking, we got “real serious” about our spending. But we’d go right back to our pattern. I’d get something at McDonald’s or Chick-Fil-A or Wendy’s for lunch, I’d buy a CD, something for my camera, get office supplies; Sonya would buy inexpensive shoes for the kids, clothes at Target, we’d eat out every now and then (to be with friends, etc). Little things. None of them wrong, but it gave us a small excuse to avoid real change. Change that went beyond numbers. We resisted a first step in a real direction toward change.

At the heart our problems was fear…


27 August 2008
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The Mustang 1

Honey Gold 1965 Ford Mustang 2+2

This is me in my first car, a 1965 Ford Mustang 2+2. I had it from about age 17 to 19 (1991-1993). It was the coolest and fastest car in my circle of friends. It had a 302 cubic inch engine (sadly not the original 289), three speed manual transmission (who needs gears when you have that much power?), and an original – but non-working AM radio (which was fine because it had dual exhausts with no mufflers). My dad and I restored it together.

This car, how I got it and why I got rid of it will be the subject of my next few posts in which I will write about the Word of Faith movement, free will and miracles.


18 August 2008
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I thought I would...

…try a little post from my iPhone 3G.

That’s all.


12 July 2008
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Rearranging the deck chairs

I moved things around on the edges of the ol’ blog today. The only real change of note is the feed of stuff I think is worth sharing (top right, just under Christine’s latest photo).

There are many people who write more important, more interesting things than I do. Thanks to Google I can share the best of it with you. It tends to be stuff focussed on children’s and youth ministry, some interesting theology, and mind expanding insights from the Archdruid and the Martial Artist. Feel free to subscribe or visit my ninja-themed* shared items page.

*Choice was limited; ‘ice cream’ and ‘sea’ didn’t appeal to me.


15 May 2008
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Blogging will turn you into a self-righteous [insert naughty noun of your choice here]

It’s easy. Just make sure your feed reader is stocked with a steady supply of bloggers you agree with. Make sure you cut out most of the non-Jesus blogs so that all your culture comes filtered and packaged like a carton of Tesco Value apple juice. When you are not online, try to be in your church office. It’s comfortable there. Read enough rants conversations about Mark Driscoll/John Piper/Bill Gothard/Some Other Reformed and/or Fundamentalist White Male to be at least strongly tempted to write something about him yourself – nevermind that he’s on a different continent and spends a big chunk of his life trying to connect people with Jesus. Once you’ve got all that in place, sit back and enjoy the slide into becoming exactly the same kind of [naughty noun] that only a few years ago made you think seriously about whether or not you actually could carry on being a Christian for much longer. Don’t think twice about any of this until your 15 year-old throws out a statement like, ‘You don’t like anything that’s different.’ Immediately deny it and try to ignore its truth by reminding yourself that you aren’t narrow like all those other people. You’re just right. You’re a pastor at the hottest church in [your region], for crying out loud. Carry on with some success until you start to prepare to talk to your teenagers about an area or two where they aren’t acting like Jesus. After you have been crushed by the weight of your hypocrisy, you might find repentance is the best tool for re-inflating your lungs.


2 May 2008
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Essential reading for youth ministers

Design project deadlines and Easter deadlines are keeping me from writing the ten blog posts in my head and adding a new section to the site. Nevermind. In the meantime, all people who are involved with church and teenagers must read this blog: Once a Youth Pastor

Personal experience in youth ministry shows me that the #1 indicator of a teen’s spiritual longevity and commitment is the degree to which parents are involved in their kid’s spiritual development. The #2 indicator is the degree in which a teen connects with an older spiritual mentor outside the youth group.

Got it? #1 is parents. #2 is mentors. That’s the starting point for the reasoning that follows.

Now, what do most churches with “effective” youth ministries do? They hire a youth pastor.

I’ve come to believe that this is one of the biggest barriers to #1 and #2 happening! That’s right. In most places, the presence of a youth pastor is the biggest barrier to overcome.

Also related are these two articles that Christine and I wrote about a year ago: Community and Youth ministry is broken, but should we fix it?


17 March 2008
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Sunday evening reading

Tia Lynn has started a very promising series on God’s design for women at Abandon Image. She starts here with good definitions of egalitarianism and complementarianism. Her second post speaks brilliantly about NOT glorifying the consequences of the curse of Genesis 3. And I love the fourth post about Deborah. It shows the things you can find in the bible when you are willing to put aside your grid and read what the text actually says.

Greg Boyd has written a very good (and long) review of Chuck Colson’s latest book God and Government: An Insider’s View on the Boundaries Between Faith and Politics. Okay, the review is actually more of a device to allow Greg to groove (he’s a drummer too) on his vision of the kingdom of God. It’s very much worth reading.


9 March 2008
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Her humps

While we are all waiting around for me to have time to write the next installment in our money story, let’s watch Alanis Morrisette’s rather brilliant satirical cover of the Black Eyed Peas song My Humps.

In that same vein, have a read of Tia Lynn’s article on the book Ten Lies the Church Tells Women and my Seven Cheers for St Paul.


28 January 2008
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Jeff said I have to write again

Jeff said that this blog was nothing without me. Jeff said that if I wrote something here our popularity would go through the roof and people would be clambouring, begging, offering large amounts of money etc, for D-Train T-shirts, D-Train coasters, D-Train hoodies and mouse mats…

We’ll See. Maybe I’ll start writing stuff. For now, I’ll inform you all that… I Turned 30 Yesterday.

30!

What? Already?

Shock, Shock, Horror.


11 January 2008
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I, Jeffrey Gill, do solemnly resolve...

Master at work

… to be a better blogger in 2008.

Earlier I blamed Christmas busy-ness for my recent lack of substantive posts. But I must also accept some of the blame because of the amount of time I spend with my 58 blog subscriptions on Google Reader.

So here is my rule for 2008: Write first. I will write something for this here blog every day (pretty much) before I go read what other people are writing. I won’t post an article every day, but I will aim to at least one and preferably two substantive posts a week here.

Happy new year.

Amen.


30 December 2007
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