Sent: 2007-01-28 11:37:39 (PST)
To: buzzard@bayardtayloronline.com
Subject: PowerPoints

"Before you dive, get the big picture."


Fellow Buzzards,

The people at Camarillo Community Church have done a bang-up job of promoting and advertising an upcoming series of Blah/worldview meetings (Jan. 28; Mar. 4; May 6; June 3) -- two sessions per night, eight sessions in all.

They've opened it up to high school & college students and their parents, 20-somethings and anybody else who wants to come as part of their monthly "Community Nights."

They've published notices on their Sunday School bulletins, wrote up a little article on their monthly newsletter, and even created some space on their church website for it at http://camarillocommunitychurch.com (scroll down the middle column and see a bunch of Blah stuff).

In addition, I have created:
1. A 15-30 second PowerPoint plug for a Blah series;
2. A PowerPoint and activities for Session 1.
3. A PowerPoint and activities for Session 2.

If you are interested in finding out more about these resources, and/or perhaps making a reasonable offer of payment for them, please contact me. I'd love to get some other people trying this stuff and seeing if it can be useful and time-saving for them in their efforts to teach the biblical worldview.

--Bayard

Sent: 2007-01-20 17:48:20 (PST)
To: buzzard@bayardtayloronline.com
Subject: A post-doc in Canada

"Before you dive, get the big picture."



Fellow Buzzards,

Before January gets away from me, let me tell you some really cool stuff that might really encourage you.

This week I got acquainted (through email) with a post-doctoral student in Canada who’s recently read Blah. I found out he's using it in friendships with both Christians and non-Christians.

After some preliminary introductions, I asked him the Goldilocks & the Three Bears question: “Did you find the book too hard, too soft, or just about right?”

I was wondering if maybe Blah would be perceived as too childish by someone working on an advanced-advanced degree.

He answered, “I didn’t find the book too hard or too easy. It obviously is not a full academic treatment of the subject, but I found it to be very relevant to my own life and my understanding of others. I think the book did a good job of organizing and categorizing world-view information, but I will probably need to read it once or twice again to more fully absorb the information within.”

I guess it wasn't too kiddish a question to ask.

The second question I asked him was: "So -- Blah has been helpful for you personally in processing worldviews. What about in being more confident and effective in representing Christ in a pluralistic setting like a university?"

I gave him some background: "At Brown U., for example, the students learned the 6 diagrams so that when they got in conversations with people, they could draw the diagram closest to what the person was saying and ask -- does this pretty much represent what you're saying? (Get info.) Then they're able to say, can I show you my worldview? (Show a drawing of the biblical, and put a little cross in the physical universe box to indicate that God became a man in Christ. . ."

My new friend said, "The book and the diagrams have been useful to me in representing Christ. A Chinese student here who doesn't believe in God was sharing with me about her life, and I used the diagrams to illustrate her world view as well as mine. These made it easier to point out some of the weaknesses in her own view -- namely that we can't experiment with what is outside the box. She has read the book now, although we haven't had a good follow-up conversation about the book yet."

To me, this response was incredibly exciting because on his own my new friend was doing what we'd just been learning about how to do at Brown.