Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Smile!

I'm gonna nail my colo(u)rs to the mast.

I like Barack Obama!

Barack Obama's amazingly consistent smile from Eric Spiegelman on Vimeo.

Monday, September 28, 2009

CNNGO




I just stumbled on this fascinating brand new site from CCN.

I’ve only had a quick scan so far - so this is no definitive summary - but CCNGO seems at first sight to be a entertainment-weighted online crossroads focussed on the amazing cities of Bangkok, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Shanghai, Singapore and Tokyo.

The world continues to shrink and bump together.

It’ll be interesting to see how this shapes up.

Grim



I’m being encouraged to take up the Grim Challenge

I’m close to making a decision

Friday, September 25, 2009

This is our earth

Angular, funky and fireproof



I kinda like this weekend home in Malibu, featured in today’s LA Times.

Angular, funky and fireproof.

There’s a nice slideshow of shots from around the house that’s worth checking out.

HT Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times for the pics

Thursday, September 24, 2009

This is our world…

This is our world…




HT to Jason Salamun for pointing me in the direction of this fascinating vid.

Paper Birds



Croydon Community Against Trafficking is presenting The Paper Birds Theatre Company performing ‘In a Thousand Pieces‘in the town in November, examining the truth about sex trafficking in the UK.

It’s said to be a hard hitting and troubling piece about the illegal trafficking trade, following the story of a young woman sucked into the whole nightmare.

Get there, and get informed.

This is all too real

Friday, September 18, 2009

Fairtrade Dairy Milk

...now here's a way to celebrate...

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Izzard: I couldn’t not….



I couldn’t not post something about national treasure Eddie Izzard’s most recent staggering achievement.

Eddie has run a mind blowing 43 marathons, completed in just 52 days. (give or take)

Some time today he should reach Trafalgar Square in London and bring the whole thing to a close.

Here are a couple of accounts of the story in The Guardian and The Independent

This kind of feat is an amazing testament to the human spirit, and the utter lunacy of Mr Izzard.

Inspirational!

If you want to stump up with some cash in aid of the charity Eddie’s running for, you can do that here

Alternatively, if you’d like to help with the charity I’m running my measly half marathon for in October please go here.

(Quite frankly this is my preferred option)

HT - Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images Europe, via Zimbio

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Generalize



OK.

This is a blogpost that will mean most to you if you are involved in some way with The Salvation Army.


If you’re not, it may be a bit of an insight into our culture:

Toronto based Geoff Ryan has written a post on the excellent Rubicon site summarizing what he thinks is important and significant for the role of our head honcho, the General of The Salvation Army. The global head of our movement.

It’s a complex job, and takes a lot of unpacking but - for me - Geoff has written an important, perceptive and wide ranging piece that addresses many of the issues that challenge us in these early days of the 21st Century.

I would encourage Salvationists to read it.

HT to TheRubicon for the image

Ed Living Jesusly



During a freezing winter visit to Michigan last Christmas and New Year, we took advantage of our closeness to Grand Rapids and hauled ourselves over to the celebrated Mars Hill Bible Church.

I’d wanted to go there to hear Rob Bell speak…in his natural habitat.

Initially I was disappointed to learn that Rob wasn’t around that day, but the visit was wonderful all the same.

The guy doing the teaching was Ed Dobson. He spoke well - very well; and I was grateful to have discovered him, and have listened to more stuff on Mars Hill’s podcast pretty regularly. I had noted in a blog post at the time..

Today’s teaching came from Ed Dobson, sporting a spectacular beard of quite literally Biblical proportions. At first I surmised this was just Rev Dobson’s particular preferred fashion arrangement, but he unpacked a little of the back story as part of his oratory. We learned that Ed is coming towards the end of a year of living as closely as he could in line with the teachings, example and life patterns of Jesus.

So, now it’s really exciting that Ed’s experiences have been documented in a book, with an accompanying website.

I haven’t had the chance to read the book yet, but I definitely recommend a visit to the site, and encourage you to you check out the vid.

Thanks for your inspiration, Ed!

Keep Living Jesusly

Follow Ed on Twitter.

HT to Zondervan & Living Jesusly for the image

Friday, September 04, 2009

New from Flannel: “We are Church”



Flannel – the guys behind the NOOMA series of short films that have had such an amazing impact in the Christian community and beyond in recent years – have announced a new project in development.

“We are Church” sounds like it’s going to be something really special and worth keeping your ear to the ground for.

Flannel have teamed up with one of the very finest communicators out there at the moment, Francis Chan, founding Pastor of Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley CA, and author of “Crazy Love, Overwhelmed by a Relentless God”

Check out here to see Francis unpack a little about what’s ahead.

HT to Cameron for the excellent image

Podcast…a new experience




I’m an avid listener to podcasts. It’s one of the ways – along with reading and manic Twittering – of making the time go faster as I cross London on my regular commute.

Bizarrely enough, today I listened to the Something Beautiful podcast featuring…..me! A new experience, and - as I write this post – an incomplete one.

I’ve not managed to listen to it all the way through myself yet, so disclaimers may follow later!

From the offset, I have to point two things out:

1. I feel more like a Celt than an Anglo! In my clearly excited state entering the wonderful world of podcasting I managed to tell Thomas the exact opposite when we were riffing on Scottishness, accent and identity.

2. Much as I think Erwin McManus is a top man, and we have a number of mutual friends, I can’t claim – as Thomas suggested – to be speaking to Erwin on a regular basis, hanging out at Starbucks together, shooting hoops or any other such liaison

Erwin’s ministry simply has had an impact on my life, and for that I’m grateful. I’ve heard him speak here in the UK, he’s regularly one of a number of great communicators in my iPod earbuds, I’ve shot him a coupla Tweets and Facebook messages - but that’s as close as I’ve been.

So….if you’ve got some time to spare…you might wanna check it out. A good exercise would be to scribble down all the people who get a name check on this podcast and go and search them out.

It’ll be way more impactful than listening to me blethering on!