I don’t think I’ve ever valued time more than I do now. My days are filled to the brim with engineering challenges while my nights are packed with family, laughs, walks, baths, and bedtime stories. All of that means that carving out time to read and write has become quite the challenge.
And it doesn’t seem like things will be slowing down anytime soon. The *big* news in the Vogt household is that we are pregnant for the third time! At least I think that’s what this sign means:
So with more family responsibilities, blogging here has been a little sparse. However I’m still committed to posting a few times a week and I have a number of book reviews and special giveaways already scheduled to run.
Yet while posting here is my first priority, I’ve also been busy elsewhere. Here’s what I’ve been up to the last few weeks:
Patheos Book Club
The Church and New Media book was featured for two weeks as part of the Patheos Book Club. A number of people wrote articles about the book but here are a few of my own:
- Coming Soon: National Youth Sunday, 2009? – If the Church wants to reach young people, she needs to create new media that is beautiful, smart, and conversational.
- Social Media Salvation – Priests and Atheists Dialogue on YouTube – Fr. Robert Barron’d unique strategy to dialogue with unsuspecting atheists through video comments.
- Social Media Salvation – Blogging Her Way From Atheism to Catholicism – How blogger Jen Fulwiler found faith through the blogosphere.
- Ancient Religions and New Media: A Match Made In Heaven – An interview I did with secular social media expert Neal Schaffer over at his popular site, Windmill Networking.
- “Catholic Dads Podcast” – Me and Jason Ward from CatholicDadsOnline.org had a great time discussing the Church, new media, and Catholic social teaching.
- Interview at the #chsocm Blog – A great discussion with Catholic social media guru Meredith Gould.
- New Media Missionary – An interview with the folks at Fathers For Good, a tremendous site sponsored by the Knights of Columbus.
- “In the Heartland” with Bishop Pates – A radio interview I did with Bishop Pates of Des Moines, Iowa and Dr. Tom Neal, a personal mentor, about faith and new media. The interview was a prelude to my talks below.
A couple weeks ago I was in Des Moines, Iowa to give a handful of talks on new media, catechesis, and parenting. The wonderful St. Joseph’s Educational Center has posted a couple of them online:
- Sailing the Digital Continent: Evangelizing in the Age of New Media – Given to Catholic school presidents, principals, administrators, and theology teachers from around the Midwest, this talk explored how schools can use new media in their catechetical mission.
- Your Family and Cyberspace: Raising Saints in the Digital Age – This event was for parents throughout the Des Moines diocese. It was designed to teach them not only how to mitigate the dangers of new media, but how to harness the power of these tools to actually raise saints.
So that’s what’s been going on with me. What’s been happening with you?