Lenten greetings friends. I know I normally do the boring 'notices' type stuff on a Monday under the heading of SPLURGE but this week has seen a certain amount of slippage, Wednesday therefore is the new Monday and the following is what you may (or may not) want to know.
If you are planning to go an hear Kenda Creasy Dean in Oxford they have urgently sent out a new booking form so you know that cheques need to be payable to 'Oxford Youth Works' .... I've uploaded the new form here.
Dan Kimball posted an interesting thought when he postulated that the Da Vinci Code is a more honest point of engagement for us as Christians than the Narnia offering. I think the Da Vinci Code will lead to some fascinating conversations and those groovy people at REJESUS have written some useful stuff. (Incidently I cannot follow the Da Vinci court case at all, If the writers of the original idea were claiming that there work was an historical examination, then what's wrong with a story been woven around that. You can't claim something to be non fiction and copyright the data surely (even if it is barking mad). BTW I don't think Mark Berry liked the book!
Andy Goodliff is heading up a Lent blog that starts today. There's also space to contribute to it too. Details here The Grace Lent blog is also well worth tuning in to. NYMO (Northampton Catholic Youth) have put together some lent videos which you can download to your ipod! Find out about it here
The Hambleden Valley (near High Wycombe) are having a service in Holy week. This 'Passion' event will be on April 10th and have an international flavour as there will be Norwegians and Swedes taking place. It would be great to support this event with youth groups from the locality ..... who would have the opportunity to be involved. Please invest time in this one if you can. Thanks :-) For more details contact me. If you are in Buckinghamshire then May 6th should go in your diary as YOUTH FOCUS have a very useful training day. Details here. Download file
And finally: In light of my limited Skateboard-ability I was surpised to get an e-mail from across the pond asking me to mention Brand X Skateboard ramps. Alain seems like a top bloke and reckons they'd still be a good deal even with shipping, so if you're in the market get in touch.
Ian, re Dan Brown... you are right(ish) on both counts... no I didn't like the book, I read 'Angels and Demons' first, reading "DVC' felt like deja vu! On the court case - yes you are right that they are getting themselves in bit of a mess over the copyright issue... what is interesting is the claim over the 'architecture' of the book, I guess the charge is that DB took their narrative (their book is a story of their 'discoveries' not a pure 'text' book), added "characters", through in the odd murder and hey presto! Mind you I don't think they will win because of the copyright issue! Shame really...mmm I wonder if he could be charged with plagiarising his own previous books???