THIS IS SUBVERSIVE

This is Subversive

"What is Subversive? It’s a systematic overthrow of one system or power by those working from within. Jesus said the Kingdom of God was immediately accessible to all who follow Him. This is the Gospel message. This is subversive." - (from the main page at www.keithgiles.com)

Some of you on this e-newsletter subscription have been here from the beginning, some of you have only recently jumped on, some of you may still not really know just how you ended up getting this in your in-box every week...so, I thought I'd take some time and make sure everyone on this list is caught up with the story so far.

WHO?
My name is Keith Giles. I'm 40 years old. I've been a free-lance writer for over 16 years now. I've also been a licensed and ordained pastor for about as long. Incidentally it's also about how long I've been married to my love Wendy. We have two great boys, Dylan (11), and David (9). We live in Orange County, California.

THIS NEWSLETTER:
My reason for starting this e-newsletter was so that I could create an audience for my various articles on faith, discipleship, social justice, spiritual transformation and missional life.
For me, all those things are wrapped up into one interconnected glob. I can't think of discipleship to Jesus without confronting the need to love and serve the poor, and this is part of my ongoing spiritual formation and outward-focused life.

This newsletter also provides me with a reason to write something every single week.


HOUSE CHURCH:
About a year ago I left the traditional church-plant that my family had been part of for over three years and we started a house church called "The Mission".

The story of how the house church got started and how it developed over time, what God taught us, etc., has been chronicled here and some of the basic info is online at the little-seen "Mission House Church" website:
http://subversiveone.blogspot.com

WHERE ELSE CAN I FIND YOUR STUFF?
I currently write a regular monthly column called "Subversive" (of course) over at GINKWORLD.NET
http://www.ginkworld.net

..and I post articles over at SeedStories.com on occasion:
http://www.seedstories.com

You can also find articles over at Neil Cole's CMA Resources, SoulSurvivorUSA.com, Next-WaveMagazine.com and various other places. Honestly I find stuff all the time on websites that never asked my persmission to publish my articles. It's like Easter morning!

HOW DID YOU COME TO THIS PLACE?
I used to get paid to interview comic book writers and artists over at ComicBookResources.com and I had my own little comic book universe-in-progress called Plastic Animal Studios:
http://www.plasticanimalstudios.com

I also played with a little arts and culture idea called "Parabolic Journal" and the results of that are online here:
http://www.parabolicjournal.com

THE STORY SO FAR...
One day, after a God-ordained lunch meeting with friend and artist Scott Laumann (WWW.SCOTTLAUMANN.COM) I decided to scrap the comicbook/sci-fi stuff in favor of writing things that were more "meaningful" and for the Kingdom.

That's how I ended up writing a column called "Subversive" (what else) over at RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM.

It was my very first interview for that column with Todd Hunter that blew my mind and set me on my current course pursuing The Kingdom of God, spiritual transformation, serving the poor and living an outward-focused, "missional" life.

CURRENT EVENTS:
About six months ago I left a marketing position with Soul Survivor USA (http://www.soulsurvivorusa.com) and I've been doing contract work for the last six months as I wait to see where God will lead us next.

Currently I'm doing contract work for "Arms Of Love" (http://www.armsoflove.org) trying to help them promote a 2-day conference in March called "Children At Risk" (http://www.children-at-risk.com) featuring Os Guiness, David Ruis and an army of others speakers and worship leaders.

WHAT'S COMING UP IN 2007?
Last year I spent my spare time writing a book, actually two of them, and my goal for 2007 is to publish at least one of them.

This will also be the year I discover a new full-time job (Lord willing) and I also anticipate that our house church will have to split into a second incarnation due to growth issues. (Our living room isn't big enough).

STILL READING?
If you're curious you can download some of my sermons online by going to my main website (http://www.keithgiles.com) and clicking on the left-hand side under "Podcasts". (You don't need Itunes or an Ipod, just click on the link and it will start playing in your web-browser.)

CHEESE!
If you'd like to see my photos you can visit my Flickr site here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/46151765@N00/

FEEDACK:
You can email me here:
"ELYSIANSKY" (at) "HOTMAIL" (dot) "COM"
*remove the quotes and stuff and you can shoot me an email

AND...
I have a MySpace Account but honestly I'm hardly ever there:
http://www.myspace.com/keithgiles

FINALLY:
I'm very excited about what God has in store for our family in this new year. I have dozens of articles I want to write, and I'm putting the final touches on those two books, so please keep reading these things as they come.

I also really enjoy the dialog and feedback from you people so don't be shy about sending me an email now and again to let me know what you think about what I've written.

Happy New Year!

Peas,
Keith
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