Tag Archive - Ft. Worth

Suburban Spirituality: Contemplating Through a Move

May 13, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Ministry-Theology with 8 Comments

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[image by jdnx]

Transitions
I decided I wanted to write something a little more personal over the next few weeks…something that has been on my heart, raised questions, and has me awake at night…sometimes.

For those of you who don’t know, my wife, baby daughter and I have been living in Dallas since August of 2008. We moved here from Los Angeles, and have been excited about this phase of our journey. But there are lots of adjustments as one would expect.

Where to live? Career changes? New friends? New church? Etc? It all becomes pretty tiresome and weary. My wife and I talked the other day about how we haven’t had much constants in our marriage life. It’s been crazy busy with graduate school early on, new baby, moving, new jobs, etc.

Where to Live in DFW Metroplex?
And now we are in the midst of a new decision. Where to live in the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex?

That may not seem like a big deal, but it is. Because where we plant down roots can/will have strong influence about what our life looks like in some way. The friends we make. What my new private practice will look like. Settling down in a church. Whether my wife needs to continue working or not. Spirituality.

The Article That I Keep Thinking About
And as we contemplate this decision I can not but keep hearkening back to an article written by David Goetz for Christianity Today…way back in July of 2003. The article is Suburban Spirituality: “The land of SUVs and soccer leagues tends to weather the soul in peculiar ways, but it doesn’t have to”.

If you have not read this article…you must!

I’m going to be playing off this article for the next few weeks, and focusing on various topics and questions that have been raised for me:

  1. What does it mean to be a good steward financially?
  2. What does it mean to be content with where you live?
  3. How do we faithfully live out where God has placed us?
  4. What does it mean to be planted in a church community and not shop around?
  5. What does it mean to not be judgmental towards suburbanites or urbanites?
  6. What happens in our thinking from being single, to marriage, to having kids, as far as influencing where and how we want to live?
  7. What can we live modestly/frugally, wherever we live?
  8. How can we be creative with our finances in helping support others?

I have other questions, but let me just stop there for now.  These questions will in fact take on new life and new forms as I write, but I just wanted to give you some food for thought. And I’m lining up some guest bloggers who have written passionately on some of these things.

There are many factors and life experiences that have shaped me into who I am, and as I wrestle through this move, my desire is that I continually strive to be more faithful to who God desires me to be and how he wants me to live.

Two Great Therapy Blogs

May 1, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Technology-Social Media with 5 Comments

There are some great therapists out there who have a blog which I enjoy reading…and which I think you will too. Luckily for me, the two I’m highlighting today are in the Dallas-Ft.Worth Metroplex, which means I have had the opportunity to connect with them and pick their brain about therapy, as well as the topic of blogging and social media.



First Simple Marriage. This is the blog of Corey Allan, whom you can also follow on Twitter @simplemarriage.



Second I Choose Change. This is the blog of Jennifer Ryan, whom you can also follow on Twitter @ichoosechange.



There are some great blogs out there that focus on the topic of relationships (marriage, parenting, dating, etc.), so if there are any that you particular like reading, leave their url in the comments below so I can post on them. And don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @rhetter.

Taking the Stigma Out of Mental Health with the Help of Social Media

April 21, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Technology-Social Media with 0 Comments

3336971302_613f580637The other day I received an @reply from Mikey Ames on Twitter with the message,

@rhetter SM mental health, Vancouver- http://tinyurl.com/dhd2y4

When I opened up the link I read this,

Mental Health Camp – a Conference about Mental Health and Social Media

with the following synopsis,

MentalHealthCamp is a conference about the intersection of social media and mental health. What is social media? Social media is the online practice of sharing personal opinions, insight and content (of text, images, and music). Examples of social media are blogs, Facebook, YouTube, flickr, and Twitter. And mental health? For the purposes of this conference, mental health is the wide spectrum between mental wellbeing (e.g. experiencing a minimum of stress, anxiety and interpersonal problems) and serious mental illness (e.g. heroin addiction, schizophrenia or anorexia). We are also including issues such as ADD. After very positive feedback to a panel discussion about social media and the stigma of mental illness at the 2009 Northern Voice blogging conference, a spontaneous decision was made by some of the attending bloggers that this topic is something that cries out for more attention. We are asking questions such as * How can blogging help decrease the stigma of mental health? * How does someone with a mental illness navigate the waters of anonymity in the transparent world of social media? * How is the journaling that happens in blogging similar to or different from journaling for healing? * How can social media participants with mental health issues help each other?I absolutely love this concept, and my only regret is that I can’t get there on such short notice. But I have been using social media for a long time and have been trying ways to connect it in the mental health, therapy and counseling settings. If you look at my blog I am attempting to use some social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed to bridge the often isolated world of therapy, with the community of social media.

Though the field of psychology and the practice of therapy is rooted in a long and rich historical tradition, I have always tried to push against the stigma that is often associated with mental health…or with someone going to see a therapist. Maybe I see less of a stigma because I have gone and do go to therapy myself, or maybe it was living in California all those years where having a therapist is right up there with having a physical fitness trainer.

I think there are a lot of things that can be done to slowly erode away the stigma of therapy and mental health, and I think this generation is ripe to break down many of those stigmas that have kept so many people for so long from getting help. I will be interested to see what comes of this gathering, and I hope that we can put one together here in the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex in the coming year as well. But for now I will have to follow the work of Raul from Hummingbird 604 and Isabella from Change Therapy. And hopefully I will get a chance to connect with them via social media.

[image from publik15]

2009 Goal of “Taking Online Community Offline” in Progress…

January 16, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Technology-Social Media with 6 Comments

17264693If you have been reading my blog lately you know that I posted a couple of entries related to this post, “Taking Online Community Offline:” What I’m Doing About It And My 2009 Goal.

What is my 2009 Goal?

“meet & have coffee with every person in the DFW metroplex that I’m connected to on Twitter, Facebook or my blog. Cool?”

It began with a simple Tweet on November 14th and has now become a movement into becoming more and more real everyday.

So I’m going to give you all a weekly update (if some of the goal is met)…but let’s see how it goes.

January 7: Though Greg Atkinson is one of my buddies and we hang out on a pretty regular basis, my lunch conversation with him that day was a really great way to start off the year. We talked about some deep issues and I was able to walk away with some newly needed focus in some areas of my life. Greg is an awesome guy and knows everyone in Dallas and all the best Mexican food restaurants. Follow Greg on Twitter. And follow his work with Church 2.0 on Facebook.

January 8: Now this day was too huge, that I’m not going to even try to mention names. I know I will leave someone out on accident and I don’t want to do that. But it was an epic day at ChurchTechCamp:.Dallas. About 78 guys and 2 girls from all over the DFW Metroplex, Oklahoma, etc. Too many conversations to mention each one, but great things came out of it, and you will be hearing more about some of the individuals as we spend time together over this next year. But I will give a shout out to Tony Steward who is the brainchild behind ChurchTechCamp. I don’t get to hang out with him too often, so it was a privilege to watch him in action.


#ctcdallas from Tony Steward on Vimeo.

Later that evening I went over to John Dyer’s house for dinner. If you don’t know John Dyer, then you need to know him and his blog, Don’t Eat the Fruit. It is one of my favorite blogs on technology and the church. I’m learning tons from him. He and his wife were gracious hosts and I enjoyed getting to have dinner with Greg Atkinson, John Saddington, Ben Dyer, Ben Jordan, Rick Smith, Camron Ware and Paul. It was awesome, and I will be hanging with all of these guys throughout the year.

johndyer_rhettsmith_johnsaddington1January 9: Well, 5 days of hanging out with John Saddington aka ChurchCrunch guy came to an end. I met John on line a couple of months ago and we were able to hang out for about 2 weeks from the December 28–January 9. I really enjoyed spending time with John and not only did we have fun, but I was really challenged in a lot of ways in many areas of my life. Even though he lives in Atlanta we have struck up a great friendship…I will definitely be crashing his couch in the future.