Thursday, March 27, 2008

Gathering

We will have more info on our annual (x2) gatherings planned for this summer very soon. Jon is marshaling all our forces to make some decisions, after which we will be able to send out the news to you--

What we can tell you is that we are planning two DSC conferences this summer, to give more options for travel and to cover a wider breadth of topics. June in Charlottesville, VA; August in Asheville, NC. More to come soon.. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm ready to see your faces again. It's been too long.

As we'd like this blogspace to become more and more of a hub for our far flung DSC network, we will be offering ways to connect and prepare for the conference in the months ahead. Discussions, reading lists, introductions, etc. We look forward to seeing you here, and seeing you there.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Blogs, RSS, subscribing and the like

We thought we'd spend a moment pointing out the hand dandy links at the top right of our webpage. One of the most important developments with content online is the ability to set up feeds that bring the content to you rather than you having to go to the content. We have two options for subscribing to the blog: one is by email delivery (mainly, when we post, you will get an email with said post), the other is by using RSS, which feeds into a reader (like this one) where you can access many feeds at the same time. If you aren't familiar with the concept of feeds, check out Feed 101 a Google guide that explains it better than we could.

Speaking of blogs, one of our own, Joel Wassinger, has started a blog and occasionally gives us the inside look at his thoughts towards God, faith, doubt and all the rest. Most recently:

"I have been troubled–deeply troubled–by the Crucifixion from when I first perceived it. I am, I confess, still puzzled and disturbed to think that Justice and Wrath and a Father God could require it. At some level, faith compels me to understand the Father’s love in this awful, ugly moment–this cruel silence at the center of history–but it is a thin strand of faith, blind, indeed, and confused and frustrated. But nothing so consistently moves me as Christ’s sacrifice and, I suppose, in the final analysis, that the willing Son convinces me of His Father’s goodness."

We're often uncomfortable and wrestling with that cruel silence. We've got words to speak into it, and Joel is one person leading the way in that regard. Thanks Joel!

Thursday, March 13, 2008

A Place Apart

This week on JRL's blog Jonathan featured his new meditation cards which were inspired by the similar work of Paul Grout, someone who has been an influential presence and speaker at the last several Dandelion Seed Conferences. Thinking about Jon's cards got us thinking about Paul and we rediscovered the A Place Apart website (where Paul is director). For those of you who know Paul or want to get to know him, visiting their website is a good place to start.

A Place Apart defines itself as: "a teaching community where all types of people can come for a time to break from the world and rediscover the new way of living introduced by Jesus Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit."

In the last year A Place Apart has been fortunate in acquiring further property to host a modern day "monastery" and also completed significant renovations at the property. They have a new virtual tour of the place hosted on their site and it's worth taking a look.

Some DSC folks have been out to Putney, VT and have experienced A Place Apart's hospitality first-hand. In particular, a group from DSC partnered with A Place Apart to record the Vermont Project in July 2006.

A Place Apart also keeps a blog where you can keep up and join in on their news as well. If you aren't familiar with A Place Apart, or you'd like to spend time with Paul Grout and his crew again, they are hosting several retreats in the coming months.

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Sharing Resources: contributed by Amber Butler

I often troll the Internet for information and advice regarding the business of music. Last week I stumbled across an excellent little e-book that I immediately felt I wanted to share with the DSC community. The book is targeted directly at the music business but I agree with the author that it shares principles about online presence and marketing strategy that are applicable to all businesses, particularly for small businesses in the arts industries.

Andrew Dubber, a music industry professor at Birmingham City University in the UK wrote “The 20 Things You Must Know About Music Online” as a series of posts in 2007 that turned into an e-book which you can download and share for free. I found his advice very insightful and timely. It’s a challenge to take our selves seriously and take the online medium of marketing seriously.

For example, one of the things I love about this book (besides all the very practical organizational and technical advice) is thing number 1: "Don't believe the hype." Dugger tells us not to buy into the idea that you can just post stuff online and become an overnight success. The Internet is one of several avenues to market your product and you'll make the most of it when online strategies are paired with the offline, more "traditional" ones. This is an important introduction to a book that is all about how to best leverage your online presence.

Check out his blog, New Music Strategies, for other cool ideas.