Ask a stay-at-home dad...

Today we pick up our popular "Ask a…" series again with "Ask a stay-at-home dad." 

In July of 2009, Sonny Lemmons chose to put his 13-year career in Higher Education Administration on hold to become a full-time stay-at-home dad - despite the fact that he had never changed a diaper before his son was born. Originally from Mississippi, Sonny has worked at both public and private universities in the areas of Leadership Development and Academic Advising. He has also volunteered and served vocationally in ministry positions at churches, ranging from youth and college groups to team teaching and creative teams. His wife Ashley currently serves as the Assistant Director of Residence Life at the University of South Carolina.

Sonny has spent most of his free time in the last three years (aka "Malakai's nap time") documenting life as a stay-at-home dad from a faith-based perspective. His essay "Committing Professional Suicide" was selected as the lead article in the anthology series The Myth of Mr. Mom, which peaked as the #1 eBook on Fatherhood at Amazon.com. Sonny will also be published in two books later this year from Civitas Press: Not Afraid and Finding Church. His essays on life and faith have been featured at Prodigal Magazine where he has recently been added as a Featured Writer, as well as at Church Leaders and Faith Village. 

Sonny blogs at Looking Through the Windshield, and he routinely posts the cutest photos of his kid or commentaries on coffee and craft beer on Twitter, so be sure to check him out there. 

You know the drill: If you have a question for Sonny, leave it in the comment section. At the end of the day, I’ll pick the top seven or eight questions and send them to him. We'll post Sonny's responses next week.  Be sure to take advantage of the “like” feature so that we can get a sense of what questions are of most interest to readers. 

Ask away! 

(You can check out every installment of our interview series—which includes “Ask an atheist,” “Ask a nun,” “Ask a pacifist,” “Ask a Calvinist,” “Ask a Muslim,” “Ask a gay Christian,” “Ask a Pentecostal” “Ask an environmentalist,” “Ask a funeral director,” and  many more--here.)

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Ask a transgender Christian...

Today, as we continue our popular “Ask a...” interview series, I’m pleased to introduce you to Lisa Salazar, a Christian who is transgender. 

Lisa was born in Colombia, grew up in California and moved to Vancouver, BC in the early 1970s to start a successful career as a graphic designer and photographer. After living for 25 years as a devoted husband and father, Lisa was diagnosed with gender dysphoria. She had struggled with a gender identity that did not conform to her biological sex ever since she could remember. She says this diagnosis was both a blessing and a curse. Though it offered an explanation for her years of struggle, confusion, and guilt, it did not offer any simple solutions.

It would take another ten years before she could come to terms with the diagnosis. She first had to reconcile what the doctors said with her faith in Jesus Christ. For years, she had used clobber passages in an attempt to correct the flaw and fight the spiritual battle. It was Jesus’ words on eunuchs that finally bridged the gap between faith and her medical condition. This allowed her to begin the difficult process of transitioning from living as a man to living as a woman; transforming her body medically and surgically. She knew it would impact the most important people in her life—her wife and three sons. For years, she had shown her love for them by attempting to die to herself daily, suppressing who she was.

In 2007, she came to the point where the most loving thing she could do now was to choose life, even if this meant making hard choices. She began her transition in July 2008. “This is not what I wanted to do—it is what I had to do," she says. "There was no thrill in this. My decision had nothing to do with courage; it was an act of desperation. The alternative was dying."

Lisa has written her autobiography, Transparently: Behind the Scenes of a Good Life, which is available on Amazon. She has given sensitivity workshops at Gay Christian Network, companies, high schools, and churches and hopes to do more in the future.

You know the drill: If you have a question for Lisa, leave it in the comment section. At the end of the day, I’ll pick the top seven or eight questions and send them to her. We'll post Lisa’s responses next week.  Be sure to take advantage of the “like” feature so that we can get a sense of what questions are of most interest to readers. I’ll be monitoring today’s questions to ensure that they are appropriate and respectful. 

(You can check out every installment of our interview series—which includes “Ask an atheist,” “Ask a nun,” “Ask a pacifist,” “Ask a Calvinist,” “Ask a Muslim,” “Ask a gay Christian,” “Ask a Pentecostal” “Ask an environmentalist,” “Ask a funeral director,” and  many more—here.)

Ask away! 

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Comment Policy: Please stay positive with your comments. If your comment is rude, it gets deleted. If it is critical, please make it constructive. If you are constantly negative or a general ass, troll, or hater, you will get banned. The definition of terms is left solely up to us.

Ask an indigenous theologian...

We struggled a bit with exactly how to identify our guest today—“ask a Cherokee?” “ask a multiculturalist?” “ask a radical Cherokee Jesusee guy?”  That’s because Rev. Dr. Randy S. Woodley  is many things: a teacher, a writer, a missiologist, an activist, a poet, an historian, a former pastor, a Cherokee, a Christian, and a missionary.

Randy grew up in the multiracial Willow Run district of Ypsilanti, Michigan during the turbulent 1960s. He is the youngest child from a working class family with deep southern roots. A legal descendent of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, Randy has been active in service among America’s indigenous communities since 1984. Currently, he serves as Distinguished Associate Professor of Faith and Culture and Director of Intercultural and Indigenous Studies at George Fox Seminary in Portland, Oregon.

Randy and his wife Edith (E. Shoshone/Choctaw) lead a local Native American gathering at their home in Newberg, Oregon under the auspices of Eagle’s Wings Ministry. They have four children and a small, semi-sustainable farm. The Woodleys have developed a uniquely holistic model of service among Native Americans called “Ministry in a Good Way” out of which grew in 2004, a 50 acre sustainable farm and Christian community called Eloheh Village for Indigenous Leadership and Ministry Development. At Eloheh, the Woodleys taught sustainability, eco-justice, microeconomics, leadership and mission. In 2008 they gave up their farm and were forced to disband the community due to continued violence and political pressure from local White Supremacists.

Randy became a nationally known figure when he pastored the Eagle Valley Church (EVC) in Carson City, Nevada. EVC served as one of only a few authentic culturally indigenous churches and it became a model for Native Americans in the US and Canada. For over two decades, he has been considered an early innovator in the Native American cultural contextual movement.  Randy’s ministry has always preached a gospel concerned with both personal reconciliation and societal justice. He has battled systemic racism in both local communities and institutions, suffering the loss of a home, a career and threats against his life and family.

Randy has authored many articles and contributed chapters to several books, including theDictionary of Scripture and Ethics, An Emergent Manifesto of Hope, The Justice Project, The Global Dictionary of Theology, and his first monograph, Living in Color: Embracing God's Passion for Ethnic Diversity. His new book, just released this summer from Eerdmans Press, is Shalom and the Community of Creation: An Indigenous Vision. He is a founding board member of NAIITS, the North American Institute for Indigenous Theological Studies and is active in ongoing concerns of emerging faith expressions, diversity, eco-justice, reconciliation, ecumenism, inter-faith dialogue, mission and indigenous peoples.  His blog posts can be found on Ethnic Space and Faith, Emergent Village Voice and God’s Politics (Sojourners). And if, like me, you plan to be at Wild Goose West in a few weeks, you’ll get to say hello to Randy in person, as he’ll be presenting there!

You know the drill: If you have a question for Randy, leave it in the comment section. At the end of the day, I’ll pick the top seven or eight questions and send them to him. We'll post Randy’s responses next week.  Be sure to take advantage of the “like” feature so that we can get a sense of what questions are of most interest to readers.

(You can check out every installment of our interview series—which includes “Ask an atheist,” “Ask a nun,” “Ask a pacifist,” “Ask a Calvinist,” “Ask a Muslim,” “Ask a gay Christian,” “Ask a Pentecostal” “Ask an environmentalist,” “Ask a funeral director,” and  many more—here.)

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Comment Policy: Please stay positive with your comments. If your comment is rude, it gets deleted. If it is critical, please make it constructive. If you are constantly negative or a general ass, troll, or hater, you will get banned. The definition of terms is left solely up to us.

Ask a funeral director...

Today we get back to our interview series with something a little out-of-the-ordinary: Ask a funeral director. 

Caleb Wilde is a licensed and practicing funeral director in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.  He was born from a Romeo and Juliet romance, as his father and mother are the son and daughter of two competing funeral home families.  On his father’s side, Caleb is the sixth generation of Wilde funeral directors and he would be the fifth generation on his mother’s side, giving Caleb eleven generations of genetically engineered undertaking pedigree. (At a young age, Caleb had hoped that this genetic combination would produce mutant funeral powers, but he says that,  alas, at the age of thirty, he has yet to experience anything that could make him into a superhero.)

Caleb also has a graduate degree in theology and will soon have a certificate in thanatology.  He was recently featured on ABC’s 20/20.  He is currently a consultant for a National Geographic project on death.  He blogs regularly at www.calebwilde.com, and is nearing the completion of a book that journals how death has buried his perspective of God.  Caleb hopes to pursue a Ph.D. on the intersection of God and Death.  He is currently without a publisher and a university, so if you can provide either, he promises that undertakers are the last people to let you down. 

Caleb didn’t want to be a funeral director when he grew up.  He always wanted to be a missionary.  After two years with YWAM (Youth with a Mission), he decided that he was called to be both.  For the past 10 years, he has served God in the darkness of death, where God and humanity often intersect.     

And, yes, Caleb does do the embalming.  And, no, Caleb has never seen a ghost … Caleb just thought he’d answer those questions before you all asked.  From topics like postmortem priapisms, funeral etiquette and green burials; to missional living and grieving as an act of worship, Caleb is willing to answer any of your questions. 

You know the drill: If you have a question for Calebl, leave it in the comment section. At the end of the day, I’ll pick the top seven or eight questions and send them to him. We'll post Caleb’s responses next week.  Be sure to take advantage of the “like” feature so that we can get a sense of what questions are of most interest to readers.

I've been a longtime reader of Caleb's blog and am thrilled to introduce him to you again today. (He wrote a guest post for us last year entitled, "What do you have to know to be saved?")

Ask away! 

***

See  the rest of our interview series here.

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Comment Policy: Please stay positive with your comments. If your comment is rude, it gets deleted. If it is critical, please make it constructive. If you are constantly negative or a general ass, troll, or hater, you will get banned. The definition of terms is left solely up to us.