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

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!

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

Posted using ShareThis

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

Age, Hierarchy, White and Western

OK. Sally Army blogpost warning:

The always insightful Joe Noland offers some thoughts on next 2010’s Raised Up Salvation Army World Youth Convention in Stockholm, Sweden.

Joe - now retired - has been a very senior Salvation Army officer in the US for years now, and one of very few who have any kind of web presence through his blogs Slightly Irrevevant and Slightly Irregular.

(Another notable who has embraced the web to some effect is Australia South’s Jim Knaggs)


Here are some observations from Joe about the Convention:

Four things immediately jump out at me: Age, Hierarchy, White and Western. This is not a criticism, rather an observation. No question each presenter being extremely qualified in his or her particular subject matter, and the conference will have an impact, no matter.

I can’t help but wonder, however, why there are no youth presenting. And where is the young Senior Soldiery voice in all of this? What about the ethnic and cultural diversity? Some of our strongest, committed young voices are ministry-minded, non-officer, Soldier employees. It just seems to me that we should be asking and listening, not telling. Leadership needs to understand and grasp the wants, needs, desires and cultural differences of this emerging generation if we want to reach them quantitatively and qualitatively that is.

Again, let me emphasize that this should not be construed as a criticism, only an opinion and observation, placed out in cyberspace for some stimulating mulling over, hopefully. Whatever, you can count on my prayer for the success of this conference, and for a Spirit-filled blessing upon each presenter, whoever they are.

Having bounced around the curiously old school website myself, I have to say I concur with Joe’s thoughts.

You have to wonder if there are signs here of a disconnect between the leadership & the grassroots?

Should we also consider the possibility that we are once again falling into the trap of cocooning in our Salvationist culture, whilst at the same time being far removed from the world our kids inhabit?

Any comments?

Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary to my brother-in-law & sister in law!

You are both an inspiration and I'm glad to have been wholly embraced by your family.

Twenty years is some achievement.

Mahalo for all the special times, and here's to the next 20!

Aloha!

Revolution Hawaii have updated their site, and it’s a looker!

It’s not the first time I’ve given this great ministry a mention on my blog, but it’s definitely worth giving them another shout out.

Follow them @revhawaii

I can dream…

There are days when I dream of living in a beautiful beach side house with my wonderful family. I think I may have found the people I’d go to if I wanted to build that dream house.

HT to the fabulous Dwell mag for pointing me in the direction of this New Zealand based architectural practice, Crossan Clarke Carnachan. Their buildings are spectacular, yet simple; beautifully integrated into their environment.

I can dream…

For an extra bonus check out this unrelated project on Hawaii’s North Shore

Nooma: Shells

This Rob Bell vid was used at Church on Sunday.

I wasn’t there.

I missed it

I’d like to have been there

…but I wasn’t

Check it!

It takes about 10 minutes

Take the time

Grace & peace

J

Salvos Out There

Great new vid from The Salvation Army Australia Southern Territory

My wonderfully brave & faithful friends

On The Move from BlueDoorMinistries on Vimeo.

Check out the vid from Dana Byers, as she tells something about the amazing adventure her husband, Chris and the kids are about to embark on.

More details here