Song for Africa

A good buddy of mine, Nik Pears (formerly of The Rattling) is the Director of the Social Entrepreneurs Project at AIDS Orphan Charity HOPEHIV.

Please do not miss the opportunity to support their work, by downloading the
single 'We Believe'; Song For Africa on iTunes.

If you would prefer to buy the CD single, including artwork etc, please visit Song for Africa

ALL PROCEEDS from the sale of this powerful song of hope, recorded by a massive 400 voice gospel choir,will go directly to support the work of HOPEHIV as they help rebuild young lives devastated by HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa.

PLEASE SUPPORT this fantastic project and incredible charity.

TRY BEFORE YOU BUY - if you don't have iTunes and want to hear a bit of the song,check out Song for Africa's MySpace

(By the way, I guess the artwork is from my blogging mate, and all round good Egg, Lard of Lard Designs & Lardmonkey fame)

Slightly Salvation Army?

WARNING: Sally Army Specific post on the way ;-) (with resonances for other Christian denominations!)

One of my e-mail buddies, Pernell Goodyear, who I'm yet to meet in the flesh has posted a some really interesting thoughts on people's impressions and experiences with church/denomination identification/branding?. Pernell is the main man at The Freeway in Hamilton, Ontario - a small, local church community and coffee house with definite roots in The Salvation Army.

The gist of the post is I guess "how much do we need to broadcast & display that we are part of The Salvation Army"*

*These are my words - not Pernell's.

The whole post is worth a read, as well as the responses.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's a bit of mine:

One thing I do worry with about the SA's branding and the message it conveys is what the broader world - most particularly in North America – seems now to understand about our movement. From here, what I see is a huge imbalance which seems to have the general public seeing us as some kind of social service agency that has taken a lurch to the political right. The big corporate picture isn’t really reflective of what we are internationally. Recently I've been reading some secular blogs which have really saddened me and made me want to jump in and say "that's not the Sally Army I recognize or belong to!" Maybe we have to look at ourselves more closely, right some wrongs if they are there and find ways of graciously & lovingly reaching out to those who have such a low opinion of us. Maybe we can only really do that on the ground.

Pre Crime Time

Minority Report was a great movie, with one of the best near-future representations of it's time, including the cool touch screen sequence where David Beckham's new best friend, Tom Cruise deftly waves, gestures & air-taps thin air to control the data in front of him.

DJChung has a post where the fantasy meets reality. Check out the cool vid here. It's Pre Crime Time!



DJChung's blog is well worth checking out for a bunch of reasons: Here's the bio:Director of Digital Initiatives and Asian American Church Research at Leadership Network and Executive Director of L2 Foundation — developing leadership & legacy for Asian Americans

Just Stop and Think

Randy Bohlender's post about a short video he had discovered got me interested. Check out what Randy says:

In the film, entitled "Stop and Think", he carries his surfboard toward the beach and talks to the camera. He does not reference scripture by chapter and verse, although he paraphrases quite a bit. He talks about God's laws and how we all fall woefully short. He talks about God's pain upon seeing His Son mercilessly crucified. He talks about God looking to humanity searching for a bride for His Son. And Chan is getting the smackdown for it.

There are a host of bloggers who are frying him for his weak presentation of the gospel. They're accusing him of watering it down, not telling the whole story of propitiation and substitution. They're blasting him for neglecting to mention the exclusivity of the Gospel as opposed to other world religions.

I have never heard of Chan before this morning, but it was a quite moment in our house so I watched the whole film. I think it's ok.


This really intrigued me, so I just watched it, and waited for the big tipping point, perhaps where his theology would come crashing down - the scary diversion into uncomfortable territory that challenged my down the line beliefs - the veering off to a tangent that made me say "whooaa there!"...but it never seemed to come. That's unless I missed it?

I think I agree with Randy: Production is great - message pretty solid - appeal is broad but uncompromising. Seems fine to be.

Thanks for bringing it to my attention, Randy.

Check it out for yourself at Just Stop and Think

While you're at it you might want to check out the elegant Cornerstone Community Church site too, where Francis Chan - the guy who "stars" in the vid is the Pastor.

Cornerstone is Simi Valley, CA, USA

Peace & Blessings

J

Americanism

A very good non-blogging mate of mine has been browsing johnnylaird, and remains one of those folks who still don't get the appeal of blogging.

Only thing he didn't like was that I liberally use a lot of Americanisms in my writing. '”What a yankee-doodle-dandy and English Scottish bloke you are” he says

Re the American-isms – I had noticed that myself, and I’m not sure why it’s happening. My buddy(there I go again) is not the 1st person to comment on it, though. My only (albeit feeble) excuse is that I work with Nigerian, Italian, Indian, German, Swiss & French colleagues in the office, spend most of my time in dialog(gue) with Japanese & American suppliers, have just spent 10 days living with my American family, am married to an English girl of Jamaican/St Lucian descent who regularly drops into patois at home, work at the Church with a Leadership Team made up of a Welshman who’s last two positions were in the north of Scotland & Zimbabwe and a South African lady married to an Argentine. I read & comment mostly on American & Canadian blogs, get my daily news from CNN, watch UK TV channel, “Five US” on Freeview all the time (love CSI), live next door to a Palestinian, am still addicted to US mags like WIRED , Dwell & Fast Company and my new neighbo(u)r on the trombone bench in my Sally Army Band is Californian!

Go figure! ;-)

I'll be there for you...

Just wanted to share a pic of some of my friends & family..My family are my friends, and my friends are my family

EXILES

I've come pretty late to the party with this book, having gotten a heads up from Pernell way back in July 06.

On a recent visit to Salisbury Cathedral I managed to pick up a copy in a nearby Christian bookshop, so I've made a start on it, and it presents quite a challenging read.

There's plenty of good stuff on the web too, to give further background on author, Michael Frost, his community Small Boat Big Sea, and his ideas about the book.

Recommended

Challenging Rhymes

Sometimes you stumble across something that hits you right between the eyes. Let me share something I found, quite by accident, which has had this effect on me.

Big thanks to Oliva Munn for bringing this to my attention.

Check out the challenging rhymes here

The ‘following jesus’ manifesto

Hat tip to Transitionpete, and in turn to Spitbox via [rhymes with kerouac] for pointing me in the direction of these wise words:

Stop talking about Jesus. Just stop. If we loved the people around us half as much as we say we love Jesus the rest of this manifesto would be entirely redundant.

Live a secret life. Invest the time, effort and vulnerability necessary to delve deeply into the scripture and prayer. Spend long periods of time in stillness. There is no shortcut to this, there is no other way. Without a deep and secret life we soon find ourselves talking about Jesus instead of being like Jesus.

Stop pretending. I’m a Christian, and I suck. So do you. Let’s get that out of the way, shall we?

Give more than you get. There will always be more than enough.

Be present for those around you. Following Jesus has nothing to do with your work, your resume or your income. In fact, nothing that matters does.

Treasure broken-ness. Our broken places are sacred spaces in our heart. Honour them. Value them. In doing so you love the unlovely, publicly declaring the beauty of God’s image in everyone. Greet the broken with comfort and cool water.

Throw a party.

Know Jesus well enough to recognize him on the street. This is rather important, because he can always be found on the street - and he usually looks more like a pan-handler than a preacher.

Accept ingratitude and abuse as a fixed cost. Embrace them, and then go the extra mile.

If you follow Jesus, you will anger religious people. This is how you will know.

My life through magazines

For almost as long as I can remember, I’ve been an avid magazine reader, and have always had at least one favo(u)rite that I’ve been buying month in month out.

Right now, I’ve reduced myself down to just one, which I buy regularly. WIRED is the current mag of choice.

I’ve tried to think, and outline the list of mags that were part of that journey, so - from memory & as chronologically as I can remember– here goes:

LookIn
Custom Car
Guitar Player
Downbeat
Metropolitan Home
WIRED
Straight No Chaser
VIBE
Business 2.0
Fast Company
LEADERSHIP
Dwell
Grand Designs

...an hono(u)rable mention also has to go to Trailrunner. This is a great mag, but only represents something I aspire to, rather than something I do. My running is limited to the odd mile and a half stagger around Oxted.

Gordon's alive....alive....alive...

My own hiatus was nothing compared to Gordon's at UrbanArmy.

Thankfully he's back, and no doubt will continue to have a lot of good stuff to say.

Gordon was one of the fisrt blogs to really grab my attention, and I love the comprehensiveness (is that a word?) of his profile:

"the thoughts and theological reflections of an insignificant Salvation Army officer trying to show true hope, grace, love and freedom in a significant way. URBANarmy -is a story of Missio Dei driving an all-encompassing grace-centred mission. URBANarmy – is an open compilation of lessons learned from day to day ministry, dialogue and reading."

Sounds good to me

Now I just wanna see Nick start again!

Hiatus over

Most of the folks' blogs I read give good warning of some wonderful & meritous reason why they are gonna take a blog break, but I just ground to a halt over Christmas & New Year.

Fotunately Los gave me a little prod, which I'm extremely grateful for.

Looking forward to gearing up again, and sharing my thoughts..such as they are...with all of you.

Los' Beard

Ragamuffin Soul Carlos Whittaker's beard or no beard dilemma was an instant source of inspiration, and got me to coming up with this funky little rhyme:

"Go with the fuzz, cuz.
It's not that it's weird, without the beard.
It's just that the stubble can keep you outta trouble."

...instant inspiration from your question, Los.

Thank you, and goodnight!

TAGGED: Five Things

As I’ve been tagged by the Headphonaught, I really have to respond, so here goes with my 5 things:

1. As a little kid, I used to drag a piece of string behind me, calling my imaginary dog “ Come on, Patch!

2. My attempt to go back to University as a mature student to study Ethnomusicology was well and truly scuppered by a train wreck of a performance audition on the trombone

3. I once tried to learn Japanese from a set of audio tapes, but it all came to a complete halt when the car the tapes were in was torched after having been broken into.

4. My Uncle was a US Marine who went to Vietnam and never got out alive.

5. I used to play in a Blues Brothers tribute band called the (Roland) Booze Brothers

I don't know if the following folks read my blog, or would be up for responding, but my 5 to tag would be:

Anita
Carlos
Fernando (He's done one already)
Scott
Ubertech
Maria

GTD

We had our Company “bash” at The Roxy Bar & Screen on Friday, and each of us were given a book as a little present.

Having been introduced to the concept of Getting Things Done and the whole Life Hacking thing, through the blogs of Ubertech, and Scott Hodge, I finally got my own copy of Dave Allen’s GTD book, which I hope to start reading over the Christmas break.

Hope to learn some good stuff.

If all of this means nothing to you, check out some of the links

The Singing Company

I've stumbled across a little ideosyncratic gem thanks to Jeremy Watt (who I don't know).

The Singing Company are a Salvation Army worship group using old skool songs, with a new twist.

I've only heard a coupla snippets but it sounds really interesting, and worth further investigation.

Kinda like the knowing retro styling too

Brian Orme

Lately, I've started to read another new blog, which I can recommend.

Brian Orme is an associate pastor at Community Church near Dayton, Ohio and his blog roll shares a number of names with mine.

Tony Morgan
Scott Hodge
Andrew Jones

On top of that, one of his boys shares his name with my boy Noah.

One to watch!

Forever Young

Hat tip - once again - to Pernell for reminding me about the phenomenal folks of the Young At Heart Chorus

I first became aware of the Chorus when I saw a snippet of an amazing octogenarian performance of The Clash's "Should I Stay Or Should I Go?"

English TV have being airing a show about the Chorus just this week, and parts of it are hugely moving. One of their members had passed away on the day they were due to perform at a prison.

They decided to play the gig, and sang "Forever Young" as a tribute to their friend - arms ourstretched. It was beautiful, and left the listening prisoners & staff in tears. Gotta say, that's how it affected me too.

Inspirational!

Seperated at birth?

Does anyone else recognize the similarity between my good buddy, and Managing Director of S,P&S, Trevor Caffull and the hip celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal?

Introducing the SupperClub

CAUTION: Sally Army-centric post on the way:

..I stumbled across this really interesting site this morning.

Here's how they describe themselves:

"The SupperClub is a gathering for theologically thinking Salvationists eager to share new ideas, provocative research, decent food and good times. The club will gather Salvationists for food and theological discourse, facilitate theological reflection and discussion for a 21st Century Salvation Army and promote innovative thinking around the broad range of issues effecting Salvation Army theology and mission."

The SupperClub is hosted and organised by Gordon Cotterill, Adam Knuckey (secretary), Katie Newton, Stuart Watson, Russell Rook (chair and of Director of ALOVE) and Matt White.


My guess is we're gonna be hearing a lot from these folks!