Life is Ministry: Looking Back at 2008

If you are new to Life is Ministry than I want to welcome you! I began blogging in 2004 on the Swainlife Blog while I lived in Spain as a way of staying in touch with friends and family. Slowly, over time, that blog morphed from a blog about family news and ministry in Spain to more of my thoughts on how best we, as Christians, live lives of ministry in this changing world.

Over the years I have enjoyed this platform as a way of communicating ways that I am personally being challenged in my own journey of faith in Christ. I believe that that ministry is not reserved for an elite few nor is it limited to churchy stuff and because of that this blog looks at a wide range of issues and how they affect Christians in our ministry to others. If you enjoy what you read then I would invite you to subscribe to the RSS Feed (Go here to find out more about that). I was just looking back over the blog for 2008 and wanted to highlight some of my favorite posts from the past year.

Missing the Point- Searching the scriptures and still missing the heart of God.
Food Crime- A connection of food and violence.
Universal Health Care- A good idea? If not, what can we do better than we are doing now?
Pursuing God in a Technological Age and the Secular versus the Sacred- Two powerful Tozer quotes
Practical Ways to Support A Missionary- This will be especially important in 2009 if financial trends continue in the same direction as 2008.
Ministry in Suburbia- Some of the challenges Christians face as well as some ideas for living and ministering in Suburbia.
Is Christ Divided? Rhetorical question by the Apostle Paul. His answer-"No". Reality in today's world? I doubt it.
Human Trafficking- The new lucrative trend in the black market
What is Necessary to be the/a Church? A look at what we have become and questioning if it is what we should be.
Our First Allegiance- Some thoughts on politics
Addicts Make the Best Church Leaders- Hello, my name is sinner!
Faith of a Mustard Seed- A story of faith in inner-city Chicago.
Will the Real JC Please Stand Up?- Molding Jesus into our image (what???)
Low tech Espresso and Making the Perfect Coffee- This is a gift to my friends who love coffee!

2008 Favorite Blogs Roundup

I wanted to share some blogs with you for the holidays in case you find yourself surfing the web and aren't sure where to go. I subscribe to all of these blogs in my reader and hope you enjoy them.

Art and Design
Design Milk Full of beautiful furniture and design ideas
Elite By Design Web design and Photoshop Inspiration
Photojojo This is a great site for photography tips and gadgets
WebUrbanist Urban design, culture, travel, architecture, and alternative art

Random Interests
Problogger An excellent site with tips to improve the quality of your blog
BoingBoing Bizarre news from all over the web
TreeHugger Everything environmental and green
Freakonomics A look at the world through stats and figures
Lifehacker Life tips and downloads
Sharkride Cutting edge technologies
Don't Taze Me Bro Documents of the abuse of power by those in authority

Science and Technology
Both Ted Talks and Pop!Tech have awesome videos of thinkers from our time who are on the bleeding edge of their field of study
WIRED Technology news
Discovery Science news

World News and Insight
Google News The best web based news service available. You can customize it to follow your own specific interests and it collects data from all the world's news aggregates.
Fox News and CNN are good to read side by side to see what is happening in the USA. Fox leans to the American right and CNN to the American left, so reading both you have a better chance of distinguishing the truth.
BBC is one of the best sources of world news
Al Jazeera is world news from a middle-eastern perspective

Ministry
Tall Skinny Kiwi This is one of my favorite Christian blogs.
Beauty and Depravity The is the blog of a Seattle Pastor Eugene Cho, that I just began following.
His church also runs the Quest Cafe and I find his articles very thoughtful.
Mustard Seed Associates this is a blog run by a Christian group living in intentional community
Todd Hiestand is a pastor who has a blog devoted to missional living in suburbia
SmartChristian keeps it's finger on the pulse of Christian news

Just for Fun
ThinkGeek Great gift ideas for the geek in your life (wink, wink)
Woot! Random item that is on sale for one day only
FAIL Blog Pictures and videos of failed moments

Chicago Blogs
Here is a link to some of my Chicago Blogs of Note

Do you have a favorite blog not listed here? Leave the link in the comments and I'll check it out.