Brrrr!!! Is it cold here, or is it just me?

I found this little snippet on the always interesting Way Out West blog from Mark Berry

I’ve pinched a big chunk of Mark’s post to share with you here:

Is "Church" like living in a cold climate? Odd question to ask during the summer I suppose but the more time I spend outside of "Church" the more it looks like a bunch of people trying to survive in sub-zero temperatures

... we huddle together for protection, we surround ourselves with layer upon layer of insulation from the climate (culture) around us and pray for Summer... we pull our lifeblood back from the extremities into the centre spending more and more time at this meeting or that, this group or gathering or that

... I know many good Christians whose whole life is lived in "Church", whose diary is jammed with "Church" events (the workplace being the only exception) and whose social life is spent entirely with "Church" people (families often the only exception) trouble is it seems to me that living like this means sooner or later the extremities will die and ultimately it is not the way to survive...

Now, where’s my woolly hat? Summer’s coming to an end!

Happy Birthday, Sir Sean!

Andy Greig is fundraising for Bone Cancer Research Trust - JustGiving

Andy Greig is fundraising for Bone Cancer Research Trust - JustGiving

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Green Goodies

…lovin’ this range of beautifully designed eco-friendly compostable dinnerware from Verterra.

HT to Fast Company for drawing my attention to it

For even more green goodies, check these out

Is Brian McLaren LOST?

This little post from Shaverrhea! tickled me, pointing out the likeness between Brian McLaren and LOST’s John Locke.

I don’t know about you, when I watch a TV show, I kinda find myself being drawn to the main guy – you know, the leading man, as if in some way I was walking in his shoes – the hero, the loaner etc etc.

When I started watching LOST, I realized who I identified with most – John Lock – was simply…..the OLD GUY!

BTW, if you haven't read any Brian McLaren stuff, you really should.

The Secret Message of Jesus is awesome!

Delusional #2 Preface

Dawkins tells me in the preface to The God Delusion that if the book works as he intends then “religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down”.

I don’t consider myself religious, and have some issues with religiosity of my own. I do, though try my best to follow the teachings of Jesus, so I’m not sure if I fall into Richard D’s categorisation or not.

More over, before I’ve even reached the bottom of Page 1, a litany of the worst of religion is outlined to attempt to resonate with John Lennon’s IMAGINE line, “and no religion too”. It’s disappointing that Dawkins rather lazily includes references to Northern Ireland’s “troubles”, along with other extreme and heretical examples of Christianity and the violence of other religions.

I’m metaphorically folding my arms and saying

you’ve got to do better than this, Richard.

Delusional #1

I’ve been in equal parts inspired by Jon Ronson’s TV show about attending the Alpha Course, Adam Rutherford’s blog (although it’s not really a blog) at The Guardian on the same subject, and a little bit of dialog I’ve had on new friend Graham Smith’s blog GrahamInTheRoom in response to his post “Camping it up- Dawkins style!” to actually get hold of a copy of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion” and read it to see what all the fuss is about.

It seems only polite.

Perhaps even more ambitiously, I’m going to attempt to scribble down a few of my thoughts down as I go which I’m happy to share here.

Don’t expect them to be coherent, definitive or especially enlightening, but I’ll try my best to be at least make them honest.

Now, although I’ll make every effort to be balanced, I come to this with some baggage of my own.

Right of the bat, you have to understand that I’m a follower of Jesus…a Christian.

From what I’ve seen & read of Dawkins so far I’ve found him quite mocking and cynical – at least as much as he is skeptical. I’m also slightly suspicious that his associations with projects The Atheist Bus campaign and Camp Quest UK have as much to do with promoting his book sales as anything else.

I also have to fight against responding to his cynicism with cynicism of my own.

(Like: Be careful with the RichardDawkins.net site. If anything ever needed a shot of Intelligent Design, this is it!)

So…in attempt to counter my prejudice, here’s a little vid in which he’s perfectly charming and warm.



No promises – but, I’ll try and do the whole book. Hope I don’t stop with this pre-amble alone!

SAY

I LOVE this little graphic from The Salvation Army's Youth dept on the West Coast, USA.

We’ll be back right after these messages!

HT to JD Blundell & Jonathan Brink for making me aware of this great vid