Where is the next Great Good Place?

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Where is the next Great Good Place?

The following is branched off my Blog Entry Is There A Great Good Place For Me?

Larry and I had intersecting passions -- his is for theological books and "places" to explore them (something more than the simple display and selling of them, but a place for dialogue; and so most of the signs and brochures for Old St. George's include the description: A Great Good Place for Community Spiritual Renewal. I had the electronic communication passions, having just complted the year before a Master of Arts in Religious Communicaton at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, and Ken Bedell, my advisor (and still a good friend and still very much an advisor) had been instrumental in showing me and convincing me that Online Community was indeed an issue to which the Church must be perpared to participate. Larry also was and is a coffee nut (no pun intended) --- and veru much an expert in that field. So books and coffeehouses surrounding them is of particular interest to him. It was through Larry that I first became aware of The Great Good Place theme about which Ray Oldenburg has written and coined the title. Old St. George was included in Oldenburg's later and more recent book, Celebrating the Third Place, and Larry wrote the Chapter on it.

Larry and I have had many long conversations, some of them long emails since I have moved to Nashville (I moved in 1997), and nearly all of them have been about how I might help Old St. George's create more of a sense of "their kind of place" in the online space. My New Media Communications opening page on my website (now it is a part of this theoblogical.org website at this link) introduced my work's goal : "A Great Good Place" for Theological Community....at times I called it "A Great Good Place in Cyberspace", but it seems that Cyberspace is decreasing as a popular term for online communications.

Before I go to have another one of those "long chats" with Larry, now it is a matter of much higher urgency, because since Thursday, ny future is wide open since I have been dismissed from my job.....my "former job" . Aside from sending out resumes and emails to people who are "in my network" and have connections inside the Internet/Church/Ecumenical circles, I am having to devote any further "reflection" time to how my "true job" needs to come into fruition; a job that I have had precious little time to fully develop, except for the fact that I have gained a tremendous amount of technical and Web programming experience to go with my Theological Training (M.Div. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary 1981, and M.A. in Relgious Communications --- designated MARC, United Theological Seminary, Dayton, Ohio, 1991).

Many future weblog entries in the next few days , aside from reporting on job hunt issues, will be commenting on what I find (and don't find), which will inevitable lead to rantings about why this isn't a bigger issue in the theological community than it is.

Back to my Entry Is There A Great Good Place For Me?

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