Thanksgiving is just a few days away, and the ConversantLife.com team of bloggers are adding their holiday thoughts to the site throughout the week. A few of the topics include:

General Thanksgiving Message

• John Mark Reynolds will be sharing his “Thanksgiving Morning” article in follow up to “Morning in America,” as well as putting up a podcast on Thanksgiving morning.    John Mark is the founder of the Torrey Honors Institute and an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Biola University. His blog at www.conversantlife.com/johnmarkreynolds will be exploring:

• How dark economic times remind us of what is important.  
• When looking at what is important we need to consider both the transcendent and the material.  
• Thanksgiving is a little feast, followed by fasting, followed by the bigger feast of Christmas – and Thanksgiving reminds us not to be discouraged by fasting.
• Thanksgiving morning can remind us that feasting can follow fasting even in the economic world.

Local Thanksgiving Message

• Crissy Brooks will be discussing Thanksgiving and your neighbors.  She will also be posting a vodcast on the topic.  Crissy is the Executive Director of MIKA Community Development Corporation in Costa Mesa, CA, dedicated to identifying and enabling the leaders of 6 low-income neighborhoods to transform their communities through community building, youth programs and other community driven initiatives. See www.conversantlife.com/crissybrooks

Global Thanksgiving Message

• Lisa Borden will be exploring a global perspective of Thanksgiving, as an American living in Tanzania.  Lisa left the US in 1984 and has been exploring the world ever since. She can be found at www.conversantlife.com/lisaborden.

Pastoral Thanksgiving Message

• Mike Erre, teaching pastor from Rock Harbor Church in Costa Mesa, CA will be discussing a Biblical perspective on Thanksgiving.  He holds an M.A. In philosophy from Talbot School of Theology and is the author of The Jesus of Suburbia, Why Guys Need God, and the upcoming title Death By Church, releasing in January 2009.   (Mike’s “Thanksgiving as a Way of Life” blog is available in its entirety at the end of this email. Feel free to use as part of your Thanksgiving programming.)

Each of these projects will be posted throughout the week. However, if you would like an early copy for use on your media outlet, please let me know.  Also, all four of these bloggers are available for interviews throughout the Thanksgiving holiday.

In the few months that the site at www.ConversantLife.com has been active, it has already attracted a growing audience that is young, literate, educated, and committed to serve their community and world.  Not since Gutenberg invented modern printing in 1455 has there been a more dynamic shift in the way content is transferred and delivered.  By using the best that new media has to offer – a robust Web 2.0 social networking platform supporting Web 3.0 credentialed content – ConversantLife.com is creating a path for the next generation of spiritually “revolutionary” communicators.  


We are thankful for you!
The ConversantLife.com Team.
http://www.conversantlife.com

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For more information on CONVERSANTLIFE.com, or for the opportunity to interview any of our Thanksgiving bloggers, please contact:
Lori Lenz – FrontGate Media
714-553-5181
lori@frontgatepr.com



THANKSGIVING AS A WAY OF LIFE
by Mike Erre, www.conversantlife.com/mikeerre  

Adam and Eve had it good! Living together (naked, no less!), in perfect union with each other and God in a garden whose name meant “delight.” No guilt, no shame, no grief, and no death.
 
There was only one restriction: don’t eat of the fruit of a specific tree. In a garden full of “yeses’ there was only one ‘no.’ Of course, we know how the story goes. The tempter comes and his first move is to direct their attention to the one thing they couldn’t have.  And the rest, as they say, is history.
 
Human nature hasn’t changed much since then. We can have a life full of blessing, but our temptation will still be to focus on what we don’t have or can’t do.  Why is it that ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ are two of the hardest words to teach our kids?
 
Our world helps to foster this sense of entitlement. A nice house, good health, great vacations and living beyond our means have become fundamental American rights. Delayed gratification has gone missing from the cultural landscape. Contentment and simplicity are merely nostalgic remnants of a by-gone era.  Hundreds of commercial images a day are designed to cultivate a dissatisfaction with what we have and to focus our attention to what we lack. These days, it seems the tempter has a marketing plan.
 
Why is it that the day after our national celebration of “thanksgiving” – the day we are supposedly grateful for what we have – is the biggest shopping day of the year? Are we missing something?
 
So maybe thanksgiving shouldn’t be a holiday. Maybe it should become a way of life where we begin to orient ourselves around what we have and not what we’re missing.   Maybe the key to resisting temptation is cultivating that kind of heart.

This article is available for your programming use.  Please credit ConversantLife.com.