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March 29, 2007
Blogus Interruptus
I'm sorry to say that there will be no new posts here for the next two weeks with 'normal?' service not resuming until April 16th. Tomorrow night is that start of my international speaking tour! *Laughing* I actually get on a coach at 19:15 with 51 other people and we arrive in Switzerland at about 15:00 on Saturday. I'm the speaker, helping out in the kitchen and the Courier (in charge of not losing people at Motorway service stations), I'm (jokingly) claiming it as an international speaking tour as knowing me I'll be talking all the way through France, Germany and Belguim en route :-) I'm looking forward to the ministry opportunity, seeing the mountains and getting in Some skiing, and bizzarely, the coach journey as I love trucking through Europe at night. Nice!
The second week of Easter will see me taking some R&R with the family (actually thinking about my 3 wonderful children 'R&R with the family' is probably a contradiction in terms) and hence I don't plan on using the computer.
So, I wish you a reflective Holy Week, a celebratory Easter and for those as fortunate as my self in getting some time off, rest and refreshment. I'll be back to daily posting on the 16th and in the meantime I HIGHLY recommend the good folk on the blog roll down the right hand side. Shalom
Posted by ian at 11:19 AM | Comments (4)
Yellow
Posted by ian at 08:47 AM | Comments (3)
March 28, 2007
Cheesy but made me Smile
Stephen the Vicar sent me this mathematical model of giving 101% (click on continue reading), it's kind of cheesy but made me smile. It also fits (a little) with the previous post.
(It also proves numbers can be moulded and that somebody with a calculator had WAY too much time on their hands)
From a strictly mathematical viewpoint:
What Equals 100%? What does it mean to give MORE than 100%? Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%? We have all been in situations where someone wants you to give over 100%. How about achieving 101%? What equals 100% in life?
Here's a little mathematical formula that might help you answer these
Questions:
If:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Is represented as:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26.
Then:
H-A-R-D-W-O-R- K
8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98%
and
K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E
11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96%
But,
A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E
1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100%
AND, look how far the love of God will take you
L - O- V- E-O-F-G-O-D
12+15+22+5+15+6+7+15+4 = 101%
Therefore, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that:
While Hard work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get you there, it's the Love of God that will put you over the top!
Posted by ian at 10:36 AM | Comments (5)
Dynamic and Enthusiastic
I was just listening to the radio and heard of a School that was trying to recruit a new teacher but had their advert returned by the Local Education Authority. The advert was censured for containing the words 'dynamic' and 'enthusiastic' which, in the view of the Authority, were words that could be considered Ageist.
I disagree that these are ageist terms and I also got to thinking about us as Christian Leaders. My view is that we should all by Dynamic and Enthusiastic regardless of age. I may be playing with etymology here but stay with me.
Enthusiasm is at root, 'entheos' meaning to have God in you or to be in God. Enthusiasm flows out of being centred in God, ergo ALL Christians should be enthusiastic. The word Dynamic is also interesting, its root is 'Dunamis' (Power). Romans 1:16 tells us that the Gospel is the power (dunamis) of God for the salvation of everyone that believes while Eph 1:19 says that this is the 'dunamis' at work in us. My thesis being that this should have an internal and external effect in our lives, an outflowing dynamic that co-exists with enthusiasm.
This was my thought process on the way to work this morning, it's not a complete piece of work but I'll lob it into the blogosphere anyway. (Just to be clear though I am not saying (or experimenting with) the idea that all Christian leaders need to be extroverts, FAR FAR from it, but I think Godliness does lead both to a dynamic and enthusiasm)
Posted by ian at 07:20 AM | Comments (6)
March 27, 2007
Recommended Youth Ministry sites
Tim has flagged up his recommended best five sites
for Youth Ministry, well worth a look.
You're welcome to pop back here afterwards :-)
Posted by ian at 08:11 AM | Comments (0)
How did you become a Christian?
I'm just filling in my CRB and application form in order to be a leader on an Urban Saints holiday in the summer. There are a whole bunch of questions including,
"How did you become a Christian?"
I think it's too early in the morning for such a complex and technical theological question so I've just scribbled this as a response,
"I'm unsure of the full soteriological details but it definitely involved the work of the holy spirit!"
I've been much better behaved with the CRB form and have not put anything silly, not even listing 'Mr Youthblog' in the 'other names you have been known by' section :-) I don't like forms ..... I think I should probably apologise right now to all the leaders I've ever made to fill out forms.
Posted by ian at 07:32 AM | Comments (6)
March 26, 2007
God Tube
Just to let you know that GodTube has just popped onto my radar screen. It's exactly what it says: YouTube, the Christian variety. Not wishing to get into a debate here about how often Christians feel the need to re-create something in their own image, so I'm not going to :-) I think GodTube will be useful for me though when I want to be able to circulate or host videos that make no sense outside of their specific context.
It doesn't officially go live until May 1st but it is up and running.
Hear Chris Wyatt talk about why he set up GodTube
Posted by ian at 03:13 PM | Comments (3)
March 25, 2007
A Sacrament of the Imagination
Listened to a Fab sermon on Revelation this morning that included this great quote:
[The book of Revelation]
"We could do without it; it tells us nothing we could not learn elsewhere in Scripture. But Jesus has given it to us as a sacrament of the imagination, to quicken the pulse and set the soul ablaze over the gospel which all too often we take for granted." Michael Wilcock
I thought this was a great take on the last book of the Bible. It also amused me as it reminded me of an incident from our Church weekend away a few years back. We used to play 'Just a Minute' with one added extra dimension. You had to compete to speak for a minute without repetition, deviation, hesitation or HERESY! I was on the verge of bagging a round on Revelation and beating the vicar when I happended to say (under competitive pressure) that John, in his writing, was 'out there with the fairies,' prompting the vicar to leap in with an upheld charge of heresy, thus giving him the last few seconds, the points and the game! (I'm now largely over this wrongful accusation of heresy and the resulting crushing defeat)
Posted by ian at 09:11 PM | Comments (2)
Preparing the talks for the ski trip
Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.
Posted by ian at 07:51 AM | Comments (2)
March 23, 2007
Making me laugh
Steve Tilley flags up that plans to celebrate his Dioceses 1100 birthday with a walk around the boundary may present an exciting and thoroughly Biblical challenge!
and
The Catherine Tate sketches from Comic Relief on Fiday
Posted by ian at 09:30 AM | Comments (0)
March 22, 2007
Thursday splurge
Youthblog would like to apologise for the poor service on the blog yesterday! Taking a tip from our train companies I shall adopt a 'It's not our fault' type air and say that it was the wrong type of html on the lines AND remind customers that any posts under a day late are not actually late by our definition!*
Enough pseudo train-esque excuses: Lets board the 09:45 Christian Youthwork special:
1. John at Christinanzine asked if I could include a link to their Christian news, views and debate site! Job Done :-) 2. Oakwood Youth Challenge, who I mentioned an age ago are now fully up and running with a mahoosive list of activities and a residential centre. The Centre is over near Bracknell so would be ideal for Berkshire youth groups to do day visits and the like. (BTW our next Network meeting of full timers will probably meet there). 3. Huntercombe Young Offenders Institute (again Berkshire) are looking to recruit a Christian Youth Worker to do two sunday mornings a month with the chaplaincy team. This is a paid role and ideally they are looking for some musical ability (more details from me). 4. Urban Saints (nee Crusaders) have a rather fine residential week for 10-14 yr olds called "Smallwood Again" running from Aug 4-11th, they are really short of female leaders and a cook team. If you can help them or make this need known, that would be fab! 5. Knowing how busy Youth workers are here's your chance to swot up on all the films you missed with each one reduced to five seconds! ht to Tim
On the Scrounge:
I have 7 family services to write for the rapidly approaching Ski trip. Any Holy Week creative assemblies, preaches, ideas or resources would be HUGELY appreciated :-) Thanx
And finally .....
Superheroes mindful of the need to set an environmental example have been downsizing their cars. The fuel savings have also been very beneficial to the Bat-budget.
* For non UK readers, our train companies do not class a train late unless it is delayed by more than an hour! (Whereas, I was once in Germany when someone from the station personally apologised to all the passengers because the ICE was 3 minutes late)
Posted by ian at 09:44 AM | Comments (1)
March 21, 2007
Apologies for the late running of this blog
If you've been wandering why you couldn't get onto Youthblog all morning, then you are in good company because so have I. Apologies for the 'outage' and normal service will be resumed tomorrow with an epic splurge of information.
Posted by ian at 01:03 PM | Comments (0)
March 20, 2007
Bethlehemian Rhapsody
Looking for a re-telling of David and Goliath for a family service? This may be what your looking for, Genius!
The band are called Apologetix and you can find more about them and other stuff they've done here.
Posted by ian at 08:36 AM | Comments (5)
March 19, 2007
Cannabis
Was gobsmacked to read this as a headline yesterday, 'Cannabis, an Apology' from the Independent (It was them that led the campaign for it to be de-criminalized 10 years ago). The evidence of the dangers have been growing for a while but I thought devoting the front page to an apology and a warning was a great piece of journalism. Well worth a read!
Posted by ian at 04:29 PM | Comments (2)
Wii Risk assessment
Commenting to the article below on the Nintendo Wii, Miz flagged up this site that records some of the chaos that has ensued from playing Wii! He also speculated about a risk assessment, so I've written one!
Just to reiterate that I think the Wii is fab but here's the risks and recommended responses if you are going to get one for the youth group :-)
In Word format Download file and as a PDF Download file
Posted by ian at 10:53 AM
March 18, 2007
Wii Me
My shoulder hurts!
I've just got back from a most excellent weekend away in the company of a bunch of blokes who I've had the privilege of counting as friends ever since we were in a youth group together back in the day.
Anyway, the shoulder ..... as well as walking on the Malverns, good food, praying together, listening to music, mellowing and good conversation we spent quite a lot of the weekend playing on a Wii games console, a totally new experience for the majority of us. As the Wii is in the realms of stuff that youth leaders might want to hear an account of, I thought I'd post a general review and shoulder warning!
The Wii rocks. It's great fun and operating as it does from a motion sensor that you hold in your hand, is very active AND engaging. To play the tennis game, you have to play tennis (including a lob and smack type move to serve), to Box, well you have one gizmo for each hand and you fight (This means that watching someone else play is even funnier than playing), anyway you know all this but I couldn't post a review without the broad overview. I was really impressed with how sociable it was, four player golf or bowling for example as you pass the controller to the next person and virtually hit or bowl, FAB! The graphics and interface are really well thought out and you pick up the play really quickly, the Wii making it more of a challenge as you improve. I also liked the humour and creativity in creating a Wii-me Wee-me (as it were). The weird stuff though is how physically demanding games like tennis and boxing are, the idea that you could actually get fit playing a computer game is a weird one. There is a 
danger (which they constantly warn you about) that you may injure yourself or others as your arms flail about the place. What I found though (and we've finally got to the shoulder) is that swinging your arm to connect with a virtual tennis ball is brilliant BUT the fact there is no ball that actually has a decelerating effect on your swung arm means that it gets really uncomfortable after a while, your muscles acting as the impetus and the brake is not something that they take readily too. This is just one issue though and actually I give the Wii a massive thumbs up for fun and more importantly creating an active game in which participation of a group of people is possible and a great laugh. (oh and projecting the images through a data projector onto a BIG screen works really well).
It'd be interesting to see how it worked buying one for the youth group and I would love to hear if anyone has. It certainly works better for involvement and fun than a PS2 et al in the corner of a youth group IMHO.
Posted by ian at 08:10 PM | Comments (3)
March 16, 2007
Feel good Friday
Wishing you a really great 'feel good friday'
(all credit to Holy Phil for unearthing this gem)
Posted by ian at 10:24 AM | Comments (0)
March 15, 2007
Predicting the future
I have never been very good at predicting the future (and have no reason to think that in the future I will be better at it) but encouragingly lots of other people aren't either. For evidence of this I shall cite Space 1999, or in fact any number of TV programmes that attempted to paint the future as they saw it!
But I have a futuring project to do! I have to present to the other trustees of Woolhope (Small residential centre in the country side that sleeps 21 people) a look at how changing Church or youthwork trends might impact it's use for better or worse AND how it might need to change, or indeed close. At this time bookings are fine and it ticks along nicely but we are taking the chance to ask some questions:
> Does the small self catering centre have an ongoing role or not?
> What trends in Church and Christian Youthwork might affect this or require a change of emphasis?
> Are youth leaders looking more for bigger centres with everything laid on?
In fact no piece of trend analysis or residential reflection is outside the boundaries of this discussion.
So Grasshopper*, I need your wisdom please
*If you are not familiar with the Kung Fu TV series back in the day then this reference can be ignored
Posted by ian at 11:28 AM | Comments (2)
March 14, 2007
Death by Powerpoint
Powerpoint is a great thing! It has the potential to enliven communication, to reinforce the message being delivered and to give multimedia impact to presentations. All good eh, So how has something that was created for good been so often corrupted into an evil hi-tech purveyor of boredom?
You know what I'm talking about right? "Death by Powerpoint" where each slide uses a natty entrance to reveal row after row of bulletted text. This text is THE presentation and is read out to the audience a bit at a time just after each new line appears. For the full slideicidal effect, the speaker should turn and read it off the wall mounted screen giving you their back to view while you read the words, AND then hear the words! This is the evil manifestation of Powerpoint where a boring 'communicator' gets to feel like a good communicator because it's no longer a talk but a full blown presentation! I feel pretty strongly about this and would like legislation whereby any Powerpointer who commits this crime should have their laptop confiscated and have to enter into a restorative justice programme where the audience explain how their will to live was evaporating away during the presentation.
The Youthblog Postulate: You need to be capable of communicating without Powerpoint if you are ever going to fully utilize the communication potential of Powerpoint.
Powerpoint (IMHO) Should:
1. Reinforce and illustrate your communication
2. Be visually interesting
3. Not use too many types of transition and entrances/exits in one presentation
4. Visually fit with the tone and gravity of the presentation
5. Be put together when you are clear about the message you are presenting (not be put together because you are not clear)
6. Be the tool not the driver
7. Be the subservient partner in a double act with you, not be the star
Interestingly the worst examples I can recall have been delivered by statutory based professionals rather than folk in the faith sector.
Here's a present from Youthblog. Download file
Laminate this and keep with you in case you find yourself dangerously trapped in a "death by powerpoint" scenario
I'm open to other thoughts and tips, oh and confessions of those that inflict 'death by Powerpoint' on captive audiences!
Posted by ian at 12:39 AM | Comments (9)
March 13, 2007
Do blogs distract from work?
Today I'm conducting some research into how much of a distraction this blog is from doing the Youth work related stuff you are supposed to be doing! Please let me know how long you spent here today :-)
(If you are picking this up via a reader you'll miss the distracting nonsense below and hence the excuse for the 'research' )
Posted by ian at 12:29 AM | Comments (15)
March 11, 2007
This n That
Regular readers of the blog (hi mum*) will know that Monday is often a splurge like post whereby all the news and info I've been sent ends up here just in case it's useful to someone! Tradition also dictates that before I begin the earnest business of the notices I have to blather on about my weekend a bit!
(This is your cue to ask how my weekend was)
Oh, my weekend. Well, not much to tell really. Shopping for a Mothers day card,* Painting a bedroom, went out as a Family for the WORST meal in the world ever (big temptation to name and shame the pub involved), oh and finally got back on the racing bike and got some miles in. I also spent the entire weekend trying hard to ignore the Grove book deadline on Monday ..... *Darth Vadar type breathing* "Denial is strong in this one!"
Anyway, the totallity of 'This n Thatness' follows:
Soul Survivor have started a project called AOK Friday, AOK stands for 'Acts of Kindness' and there'll be a new AOK every week on their Soul Action page. This coming Friday is COMIC RELIEF so you could maybe do your AOK by being silly and making people laugh (sounds like one of my normal days).
STREETBRAND is a new Faith-based Youth Culture magazine and they asked for a plug! Meanwhile over the other side of the pond, Jordy wanted a plug for their Prayer for Youth page. If you are noticing a "Can I have a plug" trend developing here then you are not going to be disappointed. Scott e-mailed me (and to be fair is probably sending me the book) and asked if I could mention, How to build a lasting Student Ministry!
If you've ever added Roy Hutchinson to your blog roll, please note that he is no longer blogging and outside of his control, some less than helpful web content is now occupying his old URL. He's asked me to put a plea out to check your blogroll and remove that LINK if it's still there.
In Oxford News: The new Bish' gets inaugurated on June 8th and I'd love to take a Christian teenager along with me for them to be involved in the prayers during the service. If you know of a Christian teen involved in an Anglican church in the Diocese who's got a loud clear voice and wouldn't mind me writing a letter to their headmaster/mistress explaining why I need to spring them out of school for an afternoon, let me know eh!
Recruitment: A Church in Sandhurst are looking for a Youth Worker. Download file
Blog Wise: I've just deleted a couple of hundred bits of SPAM, I think one or two pieces of proper comment may have been flushed by mistake (oops), so if you have been discomblogulated, my apologies :-)
And finally ......
My excuse for being off the pace with my cycling this weekend, it's not me, it's the bike:
*For the record, my Mum doesn't read this blog (so much for family loyalty)
Posted by ian at 07:27 PM | Comments (4)
March 09, 2007
Why do you do what you do?
If you are in Christian Youth Work in a paid role, and if you have 5 minutes and 24 seconds free then please grab this survey, fill it in, save the changes to your hard-disc then e-mail it to GBenson.
By altruistically supporting this research you'd be helping someone who is trying to write a Grove booklet ....... a group of people with whom I have a lot of sympathy! Download Survey (40kb)
See ...... that was more fun than the stuff on your to-do- list, wasn't it!
Posted by ian at 10:56 AM | Comments (1)
March 08, 2007
MySpace, blogs, new media: Opportunities, risks and response
As promised I’m writing up the ‘Can Blogging serve Youth ministry?’ workshop which explored opportunities and issues around Blogging, Social Networking and forms of new media:
The workshop started with a reminder that technology makes a lousy master but a great slave, how then could any of these media improve communication and aid the vision and goals of the work that you are doing?
BLOGGING:
Blogs can be used VERY effectively as a cheap and easily updatable website for your work and have the added advantage that your young people can also comment on the blog. We also explored using blogs as a way of sharing your ongoing faith journey and as an opportunity to learn and explore.
We flagged up the dangers of offending, judging, feeding one’s own ego, breaking confidentiality and inappropriately specific naming of events or people. For a useful framework for what blogging should be, the Skinny on The Spirituality of blogging and his Bloggers prayer are must reads.
For a free blog, check out Blogger or Wordpress. If you are prepared to pay a few pounds a month I highly recommend Typepad.
SOCIAL NETWORKING:
This was where the most energy and interest lay. The 101 is that Social Network sites are a web page that marks (or advertises) you and lays out your picture, interests, a blog AND then allows you to network with known friends and make links with news ones. MySpace is the biggest but there are plenty of other examples like Bebo and Facebook to name two. The opportunities here are HUGE with so many young people having a presence on Social Network sites, this is a phenomena you NEED to understand and explore as your young people spend a significant amount of time in this arena. This information raises the question should we have a MySpace presence for ourselves and/or our group/Church? The answer is tricky I believe! Social Networking sites are brilliant and an exciting and innovative way of using cyberspace. They do however expose young people to predatory sexual attention which could range from annoying to very dangerous indeed. (MySpace have four major cases against them in the States).
So, having a site for you/your group, Yes or No?
On the Yes side, this is where young people are, this is a way in which they make connections, it’s a great opportunity to build and develop relationship, the blog that’s incorporated has the advantages I’ve detailed, young people are more likely to check your site and see the updates and plugs for events. It also allows you to dialogue more easily with young people about their sites (many young people assume that its a domain that their parents, youthworkers are not part of).
On the No side: By having a MySpace (or other) you may be inadvertently endorsing Social Network sites with the very real Child protection issues associated with them.
S.N sites have a minimum age limit (which young people often get round by claiming to be the correct age) so will this exclude some young people OR encourage them to ‘adjust’ their age slightly. The other issue is a common youthwork one of ‘boundaries!’ How do you form boundaries when if you have a personal MySpace site (or it includes personal information) would then enable young people to click through to your friends?
What I do want to say though is that Social networking is great and there are lots of positives. What I'm wanting to do is explore what it means for youth workers and the way that we engage with it in a thought through and boundaried framework.
If you want to read more: This paper by Danah Boyd is really good on the advantages over the disadvantages and presenting MySpace et al from an Adolescent viewpoint
My recommendations:
1. You should get to grips with Social Networking sites!
2. If you are going to have a page it should be group or project specific and real thought be given to boundaries. You should also spend time looking at the Privacy and Security options contained in whichever site that you use.
(When your site is about the group or the Church (rather than you) then young people being on the site as 'friends' or them including the site as 'friends' is less of an issue).
3. If you have a site then this information should be included in the programme that goes out to parents, maybe with a line that notes that the group are not encouraging young people to start of Social networking page themselves and the Youth Leader is available if parents want to chat more about MySpace etc).
4. You should be working with your young people to explore the opportunities and risks associated with S.N sites and help them to be Web Smart. (It’s also a great opportunity to explore with them about image and value and what defines them).
One of the alternatives in to set up a Social networking group on NING which will give you your very own site/group and gives you control over the group and membership. (Richard Peat develops pro and cons of NING here)
OTHER STUFF:
We touched on issues around Instant Messaging and Text which I believe to be an excellent tool for Youth work/ministry. In case it's useful here is the downloadable Oxford Diocesan Policy on Electronic Communication.
We didn't really have time to go into Habbo and Second LIfe (or Teen Second Life) but they are well worth knowing about.
USEFUL RESOURCES:
The Think you know site from the CEOP.
The SALOS (The Safe Online Outreach Society) pages
Posted by ian at 09:32 AM | Comments (4)
March 07, 2007
Matrix the Conference
The Matrix conference was ABSOLUTELY fab and remains my favourite gathering of Christian youth workers. The level of input, honesty, discussion and engagement has been awesome and it's been so encouraging to chat with so many folk who have a radical Christ centred ministry among young people.
If you've popped into the Blog as a result of Matrix, Hi!
Re: MySpace etc
As promised I will upload all the stuff from my Workshops on Blogging, Social Networking and the like, but that will be tomorrow as I'm exhausted now (but in a good way)
Shalom :-)
Posted by ian at 12:27 PM | Comments (3)
March 06, 2007
Adrian Plass
Had the pleasure of listening to Adrian Plass last night and he was reading stuff from his latest book, Bacon Sandwiches and Salvation, in which he defines various words or concepts.
Under 'C' are his notes on the word, 'Camel.'
Camel: Commonly described as a horse designed by a committee, as opposed to a PCC* which is more like a committee designed by a camel.
*Parochial Church Council
Posted by ian at 08:46 PM | Comments (0)
Leadership
The Matrix conference is proving to be enormous fun AND faith/thought provoking. I enjoyed (and was challenged by) James Lawrence of CPAS who delivered an incisive overview and framework for Christian Leadership. James wrote the 'Growing leaders' and the 'Arrow' leadership courses, significantly CPAS are now developing a new 'Growing Leaders' specifically for young people!
James used this video to illustrate a point this morning ........ ENJOY:
Posted by ian at 11:58 AM | Comments (6)
March 05, 2007
Monday Monday, sounds good to me
*Klaxon*
Official, Ian's about to ramble warning!
Someone once said that Monday is a terrible way to spend one seventh of your life, but I'm not sure I agree, I like Mondays and have no desire to shoot the whole day down. The weekend as ever has Wooshed past themed by words such as playing, decorating, cleaning, preaching, cycling, preparing, washing, folding and reading, BUT now it's Monday, alive with possibilities ....... and, inevitably, lists of things to do!
Currently: I'm finishing the preparation for "Can blogging serve youth ministry?" to deliver at the MATRIX conference. It's going to be a workshop that launches from blogging but goes onto explore New Media and the possibilities it offers (as well as the risks). I'll post the whole thing on the blog so there's no need to actually come to the seminar :-)
Talking of blogs: Aaaaaarrrrrrrghghghghggh, SPAMMERS! I'm getting hit with about 150 pieces of Spam a day and am more hacked off than a hacked off person that's very hacked off. LEAVE Youthblog alone!
While I'm rambling: I was up in Oxford yesterday preaching at an experimental Cafe style Church service and thoroughly enjoyed myself. There was a great community feel to the Church and people had naturally mixed at the various tables, it was awesome to be part of such a great mix. We explored 'Learning together' by learning together and exploring Discipleship (which is essentially being a Learner eh!). The congregation were really up for participation. Fab!
And finally: Some of you know how much I struggle when I'm in the Office for more than an hour, could this be the answer for me ..........
And finally Again: (I've noted that preachers often have two or more lots of 'and finally'). If you are coming to the MATRIX conference I'll see you there eh!
Posted by ian at 08:33 AM | Comments (1)
March 02, 2007
Vista Verification
I had a quick play on VISTA this morning and I really like the interface, however this Video does make a very accurate point .......
Posted by ian at 11:24 AM | Comments (10)
Hot Fuzz
I went to see Hot Fuzz last night and for the most part thought it was brilliant. I haven't seen Shaun of the Dead so I guess I'm playing catch up on this style of comedy but the graphic 'comic' horror violence took me a bit by surprise and I'm not sure I was entirely comfortable with it, BUT I guess the squirm factor is one of the films deliberate aims.
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost were absolutely outstanding and had an amazing cast of actors backing them up. The story as it unfolds melds reality and implausibility brilliantly, the writing is great. The film is an odd mix of laughter, absurdity and genuinely touching moments, it has a great storyline that evolves (or descends) into an extraordinary ending with the film gathering pace all the way. It's strange but compelling!
Violent: Yes
Bad Language: Yes
But overall a thumbs up for Ealing Comedy meets Horror wrapped up in Theatre of the Absurd.
Posted by ian at 08:07 AM | Comments (3)
March 01, 2007
Urban Saint (nee Crusaders) Camp
I'm going to be on team for a Crusader Camp in the Summer which is FAB! I'm off down to the New Forest with a swarm of 12-15's (I'm not sure of the correct collective noun?) and am looking forward to it enormously. The only downer is I need to re-qualify as a Lifeguard and this is tricky because:
1. I'm 40
2. I cannot find any courses that run with sufficient notice to organise my diary around
3. I find swimming boring
4. The qualification takes a FULL-ON five and a half days
5. I'm 40 (did I mention that one?)
On the plus side though I've qualified quite a few times before and hence know what I'm doing. Sadly I have the knowledge rather than the physique, ho hum!
(BTW, If anyone has got any contacts for Lifeguard training schemes I'd love the info, Cru/CYFA no longer run one)
Posted by ian at 12:45 PM | Comments (1)