In an effort to “lighten our load” a little bit, Sarah and I went through all of our books last night and set aside over 180 paperbacks, 40 hardcovers, 22 reference books (Bibles, Biblical reference books, language books, etc), 27 DVDs and 3 DVD Boxed Sets. These are books we’ve read, ones we don’t think we’ll read anytime soon and others we’ve collected along the way. In fact, many of these are brand new, or in very good condition. Others have some underlining/highlighting in them. At any rate, we want to get rid of them. So, if you live around Princeton Seminary, please give us a call (609/933-4000) and then stop by and look through all of the books. That way you can save on shipping; if you live further away, browse through the list and see if there are any you’re interested in and we can ship.
Pricing: The paperbacks will go for a $4 donation minimum + $3 for S&H. The DVDs will go for a $5 donation minimum + $3 for S&H (boxed sets $15). If you would like to donate more to the Walker Cleaveland Moving Fund, you can feel free to do that, but all we’re asking for is the minimum of these prices.
So if you are interested in any of these (and live in the continental US), please email me the names of the books/DVDs you want, and I can ship them to you. For now, I’m only going to be making the PAPERBACK BOOKS and individual DVDs available for people on the website, just because shipping hardcovers is more expensive. But again, I am posting the entire list of what is available if you’re local, below. Come check out some great deals! Read the rest of this entry »
A few people have been asking about the weekend we just spent out in Berkeley, CA. Sarah and I flew out so I could interview for a high school youth ministry position at a large evangelical PC(USA) church in Berkeley. If you only want the short version of the story, the job didn’t work out. This complicates a lot of things in our lives, and means - at least for now - that I’m planning on working at Starbucks (or wherever we can get health insurance) and doing Cleave Design on a closer to full-time basis.
I’m still trying to process how to share the longer version of what happened. We flew out for this job interview feeling pretty positive both about the position and my chances for getting it. I’d had great interactions with the folks from the church prior to the interview, and it seemed like a ministry position that could work out for a few years. It was at a large (over 1600 members), more conservative evangelical church - which, if you follow this blog at all, you might wonder “Well, that’s an interesting fit for you, Adam.” And you’d be right - I had known it was not going to be an exact fit from the beginning. But I was hoping we could figure out a way to negotiate that and still partner together in ministry to high school students.
However, over the course of the weekend, it became more and more clear to Sarah and I that this was not going to be a good fit for us. Let me say upfront that the church took good care of us. We stayed with a wonderful and gracious family (who even loaned us there Lexus convertible to drive around in for 4 days). We met with many people from the church and had some great interactions. I also got to have dinner with some high school students on Friday night and teach Sunday School as well. These were probably my favorite times the whole weekend - my time interacting with the students, and envisioning doing ministry with them. These were times when I felt energized and most alive.
But throughout the weekend, it became more and more apparent to me that the church had a lot of questions about me and my theology, some questions about my ability to teach the more conservative theology of the church in good conscience and were really focused on certain issues like pluralism and sexuality. My blog was also brought up a few times, specifically my post on Faith House Manhattan. I think if I had not referred to this faith community as “a beautiful portrait of the kingdom of God,” it might not have raised the red flags that it did for some folks in the church.
By the third interview, it felt more like an interrogation than a conversation about a possible ministry partnership. There is a lot more I could share, but in the end, Sarah and I realized this was not a place for me - it was not a good fit for us. I’ve been able to reflect more on the decision to withdraw from the process with Sarah, Kenda Dean and others, and it’s been encouraging to hear affirmations of our decision as the right thing to do. In some ways, this weekend was a blessing (even though it now brings about some pretty big financial struggles). It was a blessing, and an unexpected gift, to receive some clarity about my call to work with youth and young adults. I’ve wondered all along if that’s really where I wanted to be - but through a variety of circumstances, that call was clarified this past weekend. It was also a gift to find out that the church was not a good fit prior to actually taking the job. We have to trust that God has something waiting for me in the East Bay that will be a much better fit than this position would have been. We don’t see anything now, but we have to trust.
Finally. When I signed up for the Dual Degree at Princeton Seminary, I didn’t think 4 years would be that much different than 3 years - but it is. It means you go through senioritis twice - it means that all your friends you came into seminary with get to graduate, find cool jobs and go on with their lives while you’re still taking classes, writing papers and trying to stay semi-interested in school. But it’s done. Four years of seminary and I’ll graduate with the Master of Divinity and Master of Arts in Youth Ministry degrees in just a few days.
I get a lot of emails from folks who are checking out Princeton Seminary and have questions about it. So, I’m always answering questions like “Do you like the seminary?” and “Is Princeton too academic?” and “What are the professors like at Princeton?” I guess now that I’m done - the question I have been thinking about recently is “Would I choose Princeton if I had to do it all over again?” Honestly, I don’t know the answer to that question. When I was at the Everything Must Change Tour, one of the co-sponsors was Mars Hill Graduate School (not connected at all with Marky Mark’s Mars Hill Church), a school I looked at for awhile when I was looking at seminaries. Back when I was looking, I was told their MDiv program was still in the very early stages, and not quite as solid as their Counseling program. The more I hear and see the type of education that is happening at MHGS, the more I wish I would have looked more into the program.
When I was at the Everything Must Change Tour, I got the chance to speak with Samir Selmanovic. I’ve run across Samir’s writings before, as he has a chapter in An Emergent Manifesto of Hope entitled “The Sweet Problem of Inclusiveness: Finding Our God in the Other.” He’s also currently working on a book for Baker Books entitled Losing My Religion and Finding the Kingdom of God.” Samir is beginning a faith community in Manhattan called Faith House Manhattan. I got a chance to speak with Samir about the community a little bit, and found his hopes for the community incredibly inspiring and hopeful myself. The mission of Faith House Manhattan is below:
OUR MISSION: We want to start a new kind of community in which we can discover The Other (individuals or groups other than those we belong to), deepen our personal and corporate journeys, and together participate in repairing the world. In this endeavor we will honor and learn from teachings, practices, and suffering of people from religions, philosophies, and worldviews, different from our own. Instead of isolating ourselves into like-minded groups or melting together into a single-minded organization, we will learn to live together with our differences and in a way that contributes to the wellbeing, peace, joy, and justice in the world. In this endeavor we will always be a courageous, hospitable and learning community.
I think this is a beautiful portrait of the kingdom of God and I only wish I lived in Manhattan and could take part in such an experiment. Certainly it will not be without its own challenges and difficulties, but what a wonderful possibility for community, hope and working together for the kingdom. Of course, Samir and this faith project will obviously (and unfortunately) be criticized by folks like those at Apprising Ministries, but I hope they are able to find encouragement within their community and from those who aren’t able to be a part of the community but support their goals of learning from the other, deepening their lives and healing the world.
A friend of mine is walking in the AIDS Walk NY with a team called Supersnack. Last year, Supersnack raised $33,091 and this year they’re hoping to raise $50,000. One of the ways that they’re raising money is by hosting a benefit show at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple on May 16th. Their show has quite the line-up, including The Mountain Goats, John Oliver (The Daily Show), Rock Plaza Central, Dave Hill (Comedy Central, UCB) and more special guests as well. 100% of the proceeds will go to benefit AIDS Walk NY. More details on the show can be found at Supersnack.org.
If you’re not able to go to the show, but you’d like to contribute to walk, you can do so by supporting my friend here or you can support the team generally here.
I think I’m supposed to be looking on Craigslist right now for apartments, but I’m experiencing a bit of information overload. I know we’re not the first people to have to find an apartment from across the country, but it sure is a difficult process. We are hoping to try and find a place in the Berkeley area (which also includes Emeryville, Oakland, Alameda, etc.) this weekend when we’re out there for my job interview. But it seems to be a very daunting task.
As I mentioned in a previous post, we don’t want to find a place that’s where all the other white, middle-class folk live. I’m not interested in finding a gated, apartment complex, or living in a homogeneous neighborhood. I want to be able to live with and learn from people of other backgrounds and life-experiences. But, we also know that we want to live somewhere that’s safe. Safe. What exactly does “safe” mean? I guess, at first, I think I want to be in a place that seems “safe” enough to walk Sadie around the block late at night. “Safe” enough that we can feel fine about coming home late at night and walking from the car (wherever we have to park it) to our home. But, my friend Charlietwittered a good question to me re: the idea of a neighborhood as “safe.” He wrote (or tweeted): “Depends on your definition of ’safe.’ After all the suburbs can be dangerous to our souls, right?”
So, all good things to think about. So far we have four appointments at apartments/duplexes for this weekend, assuming they are still available. Right now, I have a favorite but don’t want to get my hopes up too high. If anyone has done this before - gotten an apartment through Craigslist - any advice would be very much appreciated. If we could find a place this weekend - that would be ideal - but we also don’t want to be pressured into any place.
As some of you know, Sarah and I met at a conference put on by the Fund for Theological Education (FTE) because we were both Ministry Fellows. I follow what’s happening at FTE for a variety of reasons, including the fact that my face is somewhat plastered all over their website and because I’m always interested in free money from Lilly. I recently had a conversation with the Director of Communications, Kerry Traubert. They are opening up a new position at FTE (which is based in Atlanta) and are currently looking for an Editor for Web, Print and New Media Communication. If you are possibly interested in this position, you can view and download the job description here.
I’ve been hearing about the Envision Conference through quite a few friends recently. You can find out information about the event here, but it is going to be at Princeton University June 8-10 and it has an amazing lineup of speakers who will be there, including Shane Claiborne, Brian McLaren, Kay Warren, Miroslav Volf, Jay Bakker, Bart Campolo, Rich Cizik, John Perkins, Jim Wallis and many more. What is unique about this conference is the desire of the planning team to seek out speakers and practitioners from an incredible diversity of denominations, political persuasions, ethnicities - folks from the far right, far left and everywhere in between. It looks like they are offering an early-bird price of $49 (I think there are only 10 spots left at this price - then it jumps to $249). This would be an incredible deal - something that you wouldn’t want to miss if you are in the area.
They are also hosting an online dialog May 12-14 to help create a vision statement, “Envision the Future: The Next Decade.” The following information is from the Envision planning team:
You can register now here to participate! You can help set directions for change with JUST TWO HOURS, of your time - even if you cannot attend the conference June 8-10, Envision: the Gospel, Politics, and the Future.
You can log in from anywhere in the world and discuss the issues we must push for in the next ten years. Don’t delay, register today!
I just signed up for Revolution MoneyExchange (HT: Josh Brown) - which is very similar to PayPal, although it doesn’t charge any fees - which is really nice. I haven’t played around with it a lot yet tonight, but the only thing I notice is that, unlike PayPal, if you want to send or receive money, you need to have a Revolution MoneyExchange account. It’s in the BETA stage right now, but they are offering a free $25 if you start up an account (I just signed up and instantly received my $25). If you sign up by clicking on the image below, it’s true that I will receive $10, but I will be giving some of that to Josh’s Indian Taxi Fund, and some of it will probably be used to help move us across the country in about 3 weeks.
This past weekend, I was able to participate in the Everything Must Change (EMC) Tour, held at the Latino Pastoral Action Center in South Bronx. We had a few folks from the Princeton cohort who went up for the weekend, and I think everyone really enjoyed themselves. It was a great 2-day event, and there were people there from Jersey, Manhattan, some folks from the UK, a guy from Puerto Rico, folks from other areas of the East, and quite a few of the local, indigenous leadership from the South Bronx. The Latino Leadership Circle was the main host for the event, so we had a lot of interaction with the local Latino/a leadership - which was great. The local leaders blessed us with a unique perspective, challenged many of us who were not from the area, and shared their gifts with us. One of the women connected with the Latino Pastoral Action Center is really gifted in a form of spoken word they call “flo-etry” and she shared with us twice. I was able to capture a portion of the first time, and you can listen to it here.
I had some good conversations with folks who I met at the conference, including with Doug Wysockey-Johnson, who heads up the Faith@Work, and Samir Selmanovic, who is the Program Coordinator for a new faith community called Faith House Manhattan (I will share more of what they’re doing in a few days).
May 15, 2008 
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Adam Walker Cleaveland: I am a 28 year old 
