Importance of Crisis for Humanities

Sam Harrelson on June 19, 2014

We religion majors don’t do so bad, either…

Defying all conventional wisdom and their parents’ warnings, most English majors also secure jobs, and not just at Starbucks. Last week, at the gathering of the Associated Departments of English, it was reported that English majors had 2 percent lower unemployment than the national rate, with an average starting salary of $40,800 and average mid-career salaries of $71,400. According to a 2013–14 study by PayScale.com, English ranks just above business administration as a “major that pays you back.”

via Crisis in the Humanities Has a Long History | New Republic.

Remember, crisis comes to us from the Greek word for “choice.” The humanities will always have a love for crisis / choice and that’s what makes it a remarkable human endeavor.

“What Should I Be When I Grow Up?”

Sam Harrelson on June 18, 2014

Dear Mary Hudson and Laura Cooper,

You’ll inevitably ask “what should I be when I grow up?” when you’re in high school if not before. You might not say it out loud to me, but you’ll whisper it to yourself. I already see it in both of your eyes when I tell you about my clients or you see Merianna preach or you visit Mommy at the hospital. You’ll have plentiful options.

So, here’s my advice (my mom gave me this gift, so I’m passing it on to you)…

Merianna and I were having a long conversation about education and learning on the way back home from a trip to Asheville last weekend when the topic of high school came up. I hadn’t thought much about high school lately, mostly out of embarrassment. My dad always thanks Wofford College for turning me into a young man. It took some time, but I think I realize what he meant in that I was just not a sentient being in high school. I remember glimpses and events, but I was a different person in high school in terms of personality and countenance.

All that to say, I do remember enjoying my classes in high school. As I related to Merianna, I don’t remember doing much homework but I was always interested in what I was learning to the point of taking classes my senior year rather than taking half the day off (yes, I was a dork).

It was during that senior year that I had a teacher I always respected tell me it was time to focus and start figuring out my specialty. Despite going through most of school in a fog, I remember this conversation clearly as it continues to impact me today. He was well meaning, but his advice caught me off guard as I loved the idea of studying physics, world history, art history, computer science, and philosophy all at once.

His advice was sound. I had a great opportunity to go to a prestigious college despite my circumstances. My family made many sacrifices for me to have that possibility and I had seemingly worked hard for the chance. It was time for me to figure out if I was going to be a doctor, a lawyer, perhaps a scientist or businessman.

When I got to college, I started down the path of a chemistry and computer science double major. That seemed logical and allowed me a couple of options in terms of career and life. All of that changed during a class on the Old Testament with Prof Bullard. At Wofford, a college with a strong identity of liberal arts learning for all students, there was a requirement for a number of history, literature, and religion classes. I was enjoying college so much after my freshman year that I decided to stay and take summer classes for those requirements (to get them out of the way, and all) rather than head home.

The first day of Old Testament class, I realized I had made a mistake. I was not going to be a computer science / chemistry major. I wasn’t going to earn a B.S. degree and move to California and start my own “internet cyber-economy company” (hey, it was 1996…we talked like that). Instead, I was going to be a religion major.

I walked to the registrar after the first day of OT class and changed my major. My family was supportive but didn’t seemed thrilled. Even I was confused. However, I knew it was the right path for me. I didn’t want to specialize.

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Walt Whitman

Along with my religion classes, I had the chance to take whatever fancied my liking from Shakespeare to more computer science classes to sociology explorations of MLK to ancient art history. I was not following my high school teacher’s advice. I was embracing all that liberal arts had to throw at me, and I loved it.

However, what was I going to do after graduation? Well, graduate school of course!

I had an amazing opportunity to go to Yale and spend two years learning about religion, art, archaeology, and life outside of South Carolina. When I finished my studies there, I moved back to South Carolina and decided to teach (10th Grade English). That led to a series of teaching jobs in middle school (mostly 8th grade Physical Science, American History, Algebra, and English). In the midst of that I worked for a few marketing agencies, started my own, and went to seminary (and taught adjunct Old Testament for grumpy freshpeople at 7am).

I didn’t specialize. I didn’t whittle down my career choices or my specialties. It hasn’t been easy, but I love that my bedside table has books on a number of different subjects.

What prompted this reflection was a comment last week from a follower of mine on Twitter asking if they should follow me if they were only interested in hearing about a given subject. “Nope,” I responded. Life isn’t a content consumption project, and the content I produce ranges from tech to marketing to religion to history to NASCAR to whatever else I like to enjoy and learn about. That’s not some form of ADD or having a “scattered brain.” It’s curiosity. And I embrace it (and encourage you to as well).

Don’t settle, don’t feel like you need to ever narrow yourself down to a certain subject to gain more listeners or followers. Be yourself and embrace knowledge and curiosity.

Or as Wendell Berry put it rightly, practice resurrection:

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

It won’t be easy. You’ll have to make your own “job” but you’ll eventually enjoy it. Our economy in 2014 is already pointing towards a future where your generation will be tasked with doing just that as we transition from industrial to internet revolutions. But you’ll be fine. Study, read, and keep imagining. Look for ways to take what you’ve learned and improve the lives of others. You’ll create your job and live happily.

Love you,
Sam

Sam, what computer should I buy?

Sam Harrelson on June 18, 2014

I get the “Hey… you know lots about computers. What computer should I buy? I don’t really want an iPad because I like keyboards.” conversation often. Whether at a party, a church event, a meeting with a client… it seems to happen at least once a week.

So, here is my answer (well, the Summer 2014 version at least).

The Acer C720P Chromebook.

That’s my Acer C720P alongside my brand new Macbook Air 11 in the photo above (well, it’s technically Merianna’s). The Acer cost me $279 and the Macbook cost me $1100. That alone is a big differentiation for many people. However, the Chromebook is a little workhorse of a computer. I literally use it to run my business when I’m on the road, and frequently at home or in the office.

“But Sam,” you say, “aren’t Chromebooks useless when they aren’t connected to the internet? I need to do things on my computer besides just check email.”

That might have been a logical reason for why you should buy something like a cheap Windows computer from Best Buy rather than a Chromebook last year or especially two years ago. However, Chromebooks have progressed a great deal over the last few years (especially months) and now allow for offline applications, heavy graphics programs, and using or editing media like video or audio in addition to all the goodness that comes with web apps in 2014. Even games are catching up.

Plus, it has a touch screen. I maybe use it twice a day, but when I do it’s pretty nifty.

For 90% of people, a Chromebook is a fantastic choice as Google continues to optimize and improve the ChromeOS experience.

The Verge agrees with me today (go read their review for all the specs and details):

The best Chromebooks combine high-end touches with low-end prices, and the C720P has more of both than most. First and foremost, it has a latest-generation Intel processor. That alone makes the C720P feel like a fully capable laptop, not a tablet or smartphone. If you’re looking for a Chromebook to use as your primary computer, don’t buy anything without Intel inside. The C720P also has all the ports and trappings you’d expect from any good laptop, a keyboard that works fine without being totally exceptional, and a really good trackpad. This is a pure workhorse machine, but it’s truly a workhorse.

via The best Chromebook you can buy | The Verge.

So save yourself the trouble of buying a cheap windows laptop or the expense of buying a Mac if you’re going to be doing mostly web intensive things or office related activities. If you need a computer that will handle Adobe Illustrator, 324 Excel macros, and your Sony video editing software… buy all means buy a $1,000 + Windows or Mac machine. Most of us don’t need that, just as most of us don’t need a pick up truck (although I do love mine).

What Does the Future of Church Have in Common with Raising Guinea Pigs?

Sam Harrelson on June 10, 2014

One of my driving reasons for starting ministrieslab as a “church” is the realization that what church means is changing quickly. In my mind, ministrieslab enables its members as ministers with the resources needed to engage in the world. That differs from church that sees itself as the center of a Christendom like culture in which the Gospel and Great Commission rule the land and all are members of the big church downtown.

Here’s John Backman reflecting on something similar on Lauri Ann Lumby’s blog:

My wife and I raise guinea pigs. That makes us part of an obscure hobby with maybe 1,000 other folks across the U.S. We meet at shows, often in barns, wearing jeans and sweats sprinkled with animal hair.

A hobby this small has its own dynamic, and it’s much like a family. We attract colorful eccentrics and needy people. We gossip, fight, and disagree about silly things. We may be “related,” but we are very different. We also rally around one another in times of crisis.

And in most cases, we have found a place where we can be fully ourselves. That makes our hobby a sort of living laboratory for how to see and embrace people as they are, warts and all.

In other words, without even thinking about it, we are living into Jesus’ vision of community.

This type of community-as-church is my hope for minstrieslab and one of the main reasons we’re using tools like our Reddit subreddit as a place to facilitate community and encourage people to either participate anonymously or join in.

I’m no Paul for sure, but I look to his example of taking Gospel out of Jerusalem and the Galilee and out into the uncharted more Hellenistic audiences of Turkey, Greece, Italy, and the Mediterranean as inspiration as I head back to finish my MDiv. It wasn’t a completely popular decision among the earliest founders of what would become Christianity as evidenced in the New Testament and extra-biblical sources (especially Galatians). In a modern analogue, there’s a vast sea of cultures that are made vibrant by tools like the web that have a great deal of potential to add to the fabric of Christianity (christianities) in our own era. I want ministrieslab to play a role in these communities much as the same way that organizing forces help guinea pig enthusiasts find their own voices.

ministrieslab looks towards a future of church that is very much like Paul’s own Hellenistic Mediterranean.

More from John Backman that describe some of this…

This would be a massive shift. The Church would no longer be a nexus of power, but rather a facilitator of service. It would stand on the sidelines, the way a head coach does. The game happens on the field; the coach simply gives the players the necessary resources and guidance to play well. It is an important role, but not the central role.

With the Church’s facilitation, people could immerse themselves in the world more fully oriented and better equipped to love all, accept the outcast, be vulnerable, and commit to others in a way that does not end with the first falling out. People living like this could do a world of good. The treasures of the Church would be used in service to humanity. Christendom would inform individuals and cultures rather than trying to control them.

via Where Will the Future Church Meet? Not in Church – Guest Blog | Lauri Ann Lumby.

That’s where I am with ministrieslab. I have no idea where it is with me yet. I can’t wait to find out.

In the meantime, join our community if you’d like.

Back to Seminary

Sam Harrelson on May 30, 2014

I’ll be returning to Gardner-Webb’s School of Divinity this fall to finish my Masters of Divinity. Since Harrelson Agency is doing well, it can afford (demand?) that I take a few days for classes while still having a hand in day-to-day operations. I’ll be working on both seminary and the agency as well as ministrieslab moving ahead (more on that in a second).

Gardner-Webb Divinity and I go way back and have more history than I can remember over this past decade. I first started the MDiv program there in 2006 while building the marketing agency as well as teaching undergrad Old Testament as an adjunct there for a little while. In 2009, after the death of my mentor and great teacher Dan Goodman, I received a great opportunity to go back into the classroom at Spartanburg Day School and I knew I had to follow that path.

I’m glad I did. I found my amazing wife at Spartanburg Day and watched her struggle and wrestle with her own call to ministry. She blazed through Gardner-Webb Divinity and impressed me beyond words with her devotion to her call an her passion for authentic ministry. Merianna graduated this year with her MDiv and is now pastor at Emmanuel Baptist Fellowship. I’m so proud of her for too many reasons to list, proud of her congregation, and proud of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of SC for responding to her voice and ministry.

I’m not deciding to do this lightly or with the goal of following a traditional form of ministry. Instead, my ministerial focus will be on a startup church I’m hoping to build in the next few months/years/decades called ministrieslab. We’ll be using Reddit, bitcoin, Twitter, meetups, mobile, our app, and in person fellowship to help enable every member to be a minister and focus on causes like my own Hunger Initiative while still participating in CBF life.

Think authentic missions in the post church-as-cultural-hegemony world that focuses on community. See /r/dogecoin if you need a non-religious example of what transformative community can look like despite the absurdity (almost as absurd as religion). Imagine if Christianity were actually a lifestyle. It’s going to be fun, challenging, nightmarish, and uplifting. I’m sure I’ll be writing more here as I get ministrieslab off the ground.

I view ministrieslab as the culmination of my work in marketing, religion, tech, entrepreneurism, etc and a catalyst for the kind of change I think God wants me to enact in the world. I’ve got enough experience with startups to know what’s ahead and I don’t take it lightly.

I have to thank my amazing wife for pushing me to listen to the still small voice of my call that has been persistent in my life since I was 13. I also have to thank Thomas for being there, always challenging and supporting me. Also, Kheresa Harmon at Gardner Webb Divinity is an amazing counselor along with Jay Kieve and Debbie Haag at CBFofSC.

More on ministrieslab soon. In the meantime, here’s my Pilgrimage Statement that I wrote as part of my (re?) application to Gardner-Webb Divinity explaining the opera in my head…

Constructs such as fate and purpose do not appeal to me. Instead, because of my education and life experiences, I choose to view the world with a more critical lens. However, incessant gentle prodding from a hand unseen drives me towards an extended realization that to be fully actualized I must throw myself into the fiery and mysterious darkness of Sinai where God’s voice still hovers and beckons humanity to listen.

This pilgrimage has not been easy by any sense of the word and the decision to answer this call does not bring comfort and peace to me. This Damascan Road has been long and arduous and only now are the blisters healing on my eyes. I’ve consistently sought out other paths and avenues for my service, but none have proven satisfactory to the unending whisper that never leaves. Despite the difficulty of the path so far, this is a decision that I have to make because of the persistence of the call.

As I approached college age, I spoke with our Pastor frequently about the ministry and the steps which needed to be taken. I led our church’s youth group and gained experience in the pulpit both in our church and in surrounding churches in our association. However, as I entered college, I decided to major in Chemistry and Computer Science and take Religion classes as electives because of my own doubts about my ability to live up to the standards I set for myself and I felt were expected of me. Nonetheless, I quickly discovered the continuing hush whispers summoning me to a life in the ministry would not cease.

It was during an Old Testament summer school class my freshman year that something sneaked up behind me, tapped me on the shoulder and made me realize everything I had missed on the road of life up to that point. This was exciting, this was real. That day, I became a Religion major, eventually joined the pre-ministerial society and became an assistant to the Chaplain.

However, my self-doubts were in constant competition with my path. Ultimately, this struggle between doubt and calling came to a critical point during my time at Yale Divinity School and led me to pursue a Masters in Religion and the Arts rather than the MDiv. After teaching for a couple of years, I decided to complete the MDiv at Gardner-Webb in 2007. That process was challenging, enlightening, and completely affirmed my calling. With the death of Prof Goodman in 2009, my own personal theology was challenged to the point where I decided to go back to the classroom as a teacher rather than try to finish the MDiv at that time.

Part of me knew I would eventually return to Gardner-Webb to finish the degree and get my ministry off the ground in a meaningful way for both myself and the Kingdom. It has been a period of soul searching, deep prayer, and conversation with loved ones. However, that still small voice of calling that has been in my life since my childhood is still pushing me down the road to enter pastoral ministry.

I realize now that this crux in my life has provided me with the valuable experience of eight years in the classroom as well as time in the business world creating my own successful marketing agency from scratch. Being a middle school teacher has brought me closer to the various roles of a minister in a way that I would have never been exposed to otherwise. Bootstrapping my own company and having it become profitable has equipped me with tools and skills relating to business that I will bring to my ministry. Those experiences have helped to forge my identity and my theology significantly, and will allow my pastoral ministry to be more enhanced.

To successfully cultivate a theology of ministry in the context of church leadership, it is incredibly important for me that people who have professed faith in Jesus and carry the name Christian understand the depth and ramifications of bearing that self-imposed burden. In my own personal theology, this is not a simple or easy. This is beyond difficult and requires both a sense of a developing biblical worldview as well as the ability to always be a lifelong learner. Professing a faith in Jesus is a deadly serious affair that radically transforms a person and binds them to both the cross and the historical imperative of acting to bring about the Kingdom of God. In other words, as I grow in my own theology and faith, I am learning and realizing more that calling oneself a Christian is not something to be taken lightly. Coming to understand the power associated with that self-identification is a gift which church leaders can bestow upon congregants.

Along those lines, understanding that a person has a deep sense of call to a ministry as a vocation and then acting upon that call is an incredibly intensive, personal (yet community-minded) and radical experience. As I grow in my own faith and come to understand and reconcile my own sense of calling more through the years (a process which I hope never ceases), I am continually realizing that a calling to the ministry is not something that is to be taken lightly or without proper understanding of one’s own limitations, abilities and potential. The backing of my wife, family, and church community at Emmanuel Baptist Fellowship has been so edifying. However, this radical experience has also been challenging and my ministry will seek to honor their support and sacrifices as well as welcoming the kingdom of God into our creation.

The road ahead for my life in the ministry is more challenging than I can ever expect. Comfort and ease are not the objectives of my life as a minister. However, the mysterious darkness which covers the path ahead like a thick fog gestures to me to follow and I cannot ignore that quiet voice which is like a nocturnal lullaby of hope and love. The vocational objectives of my ministry will be shaped by my unending belief that God is calling us all to partake in the richness of the Universe and that we must have eyes to see and ears to hear these soft invitations in a world corrupt with violence and greed. In order to partake in this cosmic communion, we must change as individuals and as a global society. We must consider the lilies of the fields in all that we do.

My objectives as a minister will find their bedrock in the sharing of this opportunity to make real the words of the Sermon on the Mount. As I continue my journey into the metamorphosis of becoming a pastoral minister, I feel my lips being touched with the hot coals and the Seraphim offering the chance for me to have audience with God as I continue down that mysterious path. This choice was not effortless or convenient; however it is the choice that I make so that I may serve my God and my fellow humanity.

Against the Natural Order of Things

Sam Harrelson on May 27, 2014

A seemingly prescient revelation from Douglas Adams as I come ever closer to turning 36:

Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

via Cory Doctorow writing for Tor Books in a piece titled You Are Not a Digital Native: Privacy in the Age of the Internet.

As someone who first got on the internet at age 12 thanks to a very nerdy friend back home in rural South Carolina and then the world wide web the next year (thanks to that same friend who would go on to move away the following year but exposing me to the wonders of bulletin boards for long distance communication in 1994… wonder whatever happened to him?) and still thinks the web is revolutionary and has found a career in it, I can relate.

Personal Domains as Apps

Sam Harrelson on May 26, 2014

I keep wondering what to do with this site.

For a long time, I’ve been an advocate for folks having their own domain and using that as a “blog” of some sort to share ideas, thoughts, creations, stories, writings, photos, videos etc. When I was a middle school teacher, I was especially insistent about this to the point of having all of my students set up blogs for their portfolios (many of which still use the domains they set up years ago according to my Feedly account, which is great to see).

However, we are moving from an era of writing-for-the-web first into a nascent ecosystem of writing for an app first. Rather than concentrating on their websites as well developed marketing vehicles complete with many pages, subpages, and temp landing pages, many of my marketing clients these days (at least the smart ones that listen to me) are focusing on the notion that the mobile web (and / or apps) is the more profitable place for focus.

We’re watching companies like Google, Dropbox, Yahoo, and Facebook break down their once monolithic web portals into divergent apps that separate out their photo, newstream, chat, and video components. Even companies like Twitter have Vine. It’s a fascinating phenomenon that will only accelerate in the coming months and years as the web continues to change and bifurcate its various evolutionary chains. The web that my four and six year old knows will be very different than the web I’ve known for twenty years because of this evolutionary path as well as the rise of wearables, the web in our vehicles, and the “internet of everything” that will continue to bring transformations to our human dwellings.

In the meantime, I’ve been wondering about the nature of this personal namespace. I still think everyone should have a personal domain that they call their own. I love and cherish the idea of a web that is federated and based on a model of flowing river that routes around problems rather than being a flow of syrup that is held up by any barrier that is put up by walled gardens and monolithic user experiences. However, that’s not in the schadenfreude of 2014. I’m constantly caught up in the ease and reliability of using Facebook or Twitter as my blog, Instagram as my photo sharing service, and GOogle+ as my repository for photos and videos that are for family only.

But what if there’s a middle ground?

What if personal domain blogs (or portfolios if you will) have the possibility to be “apps” that represent our own content and offer an experience of who we are to interested people? What if these types of personal blogs like what you’re reading is less of a blog in the 2005 sense, and more like a “sam harrelson” app that gives glimpses into thoughts that I want to communicate and share? It’s a matter of semantics, to be sure, but in this case words do matter.

Introducing Project Willie and Project Waylon

Sam Harrelson on April 25, 2014

I’m excited that we’re launching a couple of new services for clients and potential clients this weekend (gotta beta test, you know… weekends are the best time for that!). We already offer our clients some pretty excellent services from overall marketing strategies to website design and development to social media management to affiliate marketing management to product design and development to billboards to … well I could go on forever.

However, we’re primarily offering these services to people or businesses or groups or churches on a more limited budget that want to have the ability to work with a marketing agency but might not have the funds to do so in the capacity that most agencies require:

1) Have Your Own Company/Church/Group Website: We’ve been calling this “Project Willie” for a couple of reasons we won’t disclose (to quote Willie), but the idea is that for an one time payment of $499 and $50 a month for hosting costs, you’ll get a professional and responsively designed clean and unique website that will serve you well for years and years.

We talk to so many businesses/groups/people/churches who want a well designed site on their own hosting plan but can’t afford the thousands of dollars it can take to accomplish that.

This is my attempt to help with that.

So for $499 and the $50 in hosting, they’ll get a great site, unique logo, email addresses, a web host, etc.

2) Learn About Your Own Site (why aren’t people finding us? why aren’t we ranking better in Google?): We’ve been calling this Project Waylon, and the idea is that you’ll get a complete diagnostic of your site at a high quality level from the point of view of a marketing agency that works with Fortune 100 companies on these same topics for $199. Phone calls or emails…whatever is most convenient for you.

Not only that, we’ll hook your site up to Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools and make sure you have the tools and insights you need to have a site that people discover and share.

It seems like common sense, but there’s a literal ton involved in figuring this stuff out, and we’re hoping to share our expertise with you for a reasonable cost.

More soon!

Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)