South by Southwest Missionary Opportunity

I need your help. Merrill Wade, rector of St. Matthew's in Austin, has a great idea:

Each spring the South by Southwest Festival is a major event bringing musicians, filmmakers and others to Austin.

One of the facets of the music component of the Festival, apart from the some 1,500 bands that play all over creation, is daily presentations at the Austin Convention Center for the musicians and those in the music industry.

Most of the presentations are in the form of panel discussions. The panel discussions cover almost any music issue you can imagine.

Here is the part we need help with: panel presenters’ make application with South by Southwest and are chosen, in part, by the support the suggested panel receives from the public, in form of votes and comments on the idea.

Merrill Wade has applied to present the following topic, Spirituality for Nomads.

His goal is to use that hour to describe classical spirituality and to lay groundwork for travelling musicians to order their lives around some useful spiritual practices.

Linking to the proposed presentation on the South by Southwest website is a bit tricky, here is our best bet at directing you.

1. Go to the link: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/

2. Once you get to the link, scroll to the bottom and click on the SXSW Music Conference programming proposals link.

3. This is where it gets tricky. There is a Search feature for you to type Merrill's name into to find his actual proposal, (Merrill Wade) which is necessary because the SXSW website constantly scrambles the location of the proposals. You will never find the proposal in the same place twice.

4. Suggestion: that you do NOT use the Search blank but click on the Search Options link just to the right of it, which is more reliable. Type his name into the space for Organizer and my proposal will come up. Click on the proposal title and you can see what I am doing. At that point, you will be required to register in order to vote. It is quick and easy.

5. Help by voting thumbs up as often as you are willing. Also, post comments and questions for me about the proposal itself on the blog space at the bottom of my proposal. And bookmark my page and you don’t have to go through all of the above again.

South By Southwest expects its applicants to show initiative in getting their panel presentations approved. So, please give me a hand!

So, lets get Merrill a place on the ticket....lets get the Diocese of Texas a voice at South by Southwest!