Thursday, August 21, 2008

Solar Crash


I’m glad to have found Lon’s blog, Solar Crash – where heaven and earth collide - which I stumbled across blogsearching “Erwin McManus”, in light of my current iPod marathon of Erwin’s Mosaic podcasts which I got into during my recent holiday.

There’s lots of thought provoking and creative stuff on there.

Lon also blogs at One Life

Pop over and say “hello”, and tell Lon Johnny sent ya!

Pax

J

Thanks for the pic, Lon

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

New books from "Mission" Al and Frosty


…really glad to get a heads up that Alan Hirsch has a couple of new books coming out later in the year – a guide book for communities to take some practical steps in the direction outlined in Alan’s excellent Forgotten Ways book, and another collaborative effort with Michael Frost call reJESUS; A Wild Messiah for a Missional Church

…and I quote

This is a radicalizing book that aims at helping the church recalibrate itself around Jesus as the protoypal Christian. It is what I would call a missional Christology. And it is wild!

No doubt, both books will be hugely useful, and create a bit of a stir in the blogosphere.

I’ll be trying to grab a copy of each as soon as I can.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Welsh Retreat


Well, we're back from a couple of weeks of holiday.

Week one, we chilled at home, and I wrestled with an IKEA wardrobe, which seemed to take the whole week to assemble! All the same, it was so good to get up when my body was telling me to do so, instead of when my Blackberry's alarm told me to. It was even better to hang out with Janet, Mia and Noah. I love to spend time with them, and this was the best opportunity to do this for quite some time.

Week two we travelled to West Wales to stay at the beautiful Cerrig Llwyddion in Camarthenshire. This was our chance to really chill and relax in the most wonderful peaceful environment. Check out the site if you are looking for a quiet friendly place for a family break, or a venue for a retreat. The Barn can take up to eight adults. Highly recommended!

The kids loved the easy going nature of the place, and being around the chickens, pigs, cats and Murphy the dog.

Even though it rained pretty much every day, we still mananged to hit the beaches along the Ceridigion coast every day. Mwnt became a favourite.

I didn’t manage to do as much reading as I had planned, but did manage to whizz through one of the Oxford University Press’ cute little Very Short Introductions series on “The Celts”, which was OK, if a little bit heavily skewed towards the Breton part of the equation, with only cursory mentions of the Scots. (hence my interest). As a series of books, though, I think they are worth exploring.

..caught up too with some excellent podcasts from Eric Bryant & Erwin McManus at Mosaic, and various bits from Mars Hill, particularly preaches from Steve Chalke & Phyllis Tickle …just quality stuff.

Thanks to Linda & Julie for making our stay so special. (and thanks for the pic to illustrate this post)