Friday, 21 October 2011

New World: Old World

 I have just been reading an excellent piece in 'Down the Avenue' on a talk by Prof Anne-Marie Slaughter (from Princeton) : A New Networked World Means Rethinking Professions

 















Figure: "The Whole Internet," a popular visualization of the diffusion and interconnectedness of the global Internet. Image ©1999 Peacock Maps, <http://www.peacockmaps.com>.


It's all about Foreign Policy but it equally applies to the Mission World  .....

We're at the beginning of a new world, she asserts

"Where we're going is bottom up: build local and go global"

Advice that she gives:
1. Don't just stand there, do something.
2. Connect, but not too much. Do not connect all the time. Be focused about their networked communications and don't overdo it.
3. Small is beautiful. She refers to Clay Shirky's work. If you want to get the energy of collaboration, you want small communities to be more effective.
4. Portals and plug-ins everywhere. Government has always thought in silos. Open government is about breaking down those silos. 
5. Self-organization is better? The power of what we see in the Middle East is self-organization. Government needs to facilitate not do.


The whole idea of what foreign policy is going to change profoundly. She says, "If we're going to do this, we're going to have to change the way we think about our professions."
In a New World, we have to think about existing professions differently and gives the following 'spot-on' answers.

  • Editor (old world) to Finder, Mapper (new world)
  • Publisher (old world) to Aggregator (new world)
  • Reporter (old world) to Verifier, Curator (new world) 
  • Public Relations (old world) to Convener (new world - person who brings together lots of actors)
  • Diplomat (old world) to Connector (new world)
  • Leader (old world) to Catalyst (new world)
In these new roles, she concludes, we can build a networked world, one that is open, working from the bottom up. And, as a result of this, foreign policy will dramatically change. Enter, the new actors on the global open platform political stage.

The implications  for Mission are equally old world: new world.  In our new decentred, interconnected world, we need new paradigms.  Network Mission requires new ways of organising.......
 

Wednesday, 5 October 2011

Bert Jansch - Legendary Folk Guitarist















Bert Jansch died this morning, at the age of 67, following a two-year battle with cancer ( a friend Graham notified me by email and sent me the links below). He was a great guitarist and below are some of his all time greats. You probably have your own favourites ....




and a fabulous YouTube clip of Angie


I particulalry loved his album 'Avocet' 

There is his obituary in the Guardian

and an old clip of him performing 'Black Waterside' 







    

Tuesday, 4 October 2011

carmina gadelic


















God to enfold me,
God to surround me,
God in my speaking,
God in my thinking.
God in my sleeping,
God in my waking,
God in my watching,
God in my hoping.
God in my life,
God in my lips,
God in my soul,
God in my heart.
God in my sufficing,
God in my slumber,
God in mine ever-living soul,
God in mine eternity.


Ancient celtic oral traditions - carmina gadelic

Read more at Celtic blessings
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

Sunday, 2 October 2011

How different Christian denominations see each other



How different denominations view each other. A fantastic infographic. Posted by ThomastheDoubter 

Thursday, 22 September 2011

Modern Worship by 'Holy Parodies'

A 'sobering' parody of modern worship by 'Holy Parodies' and 'the don't worship this way band'. It's available as a free download.




If you've got 46 minutes and are up to it you can even watch the sermon by Dr David Uth (I didn't bother)

If you like this sort of thing you might also like  another 'parody of modern church services ' Contemporvant'

Thursday, 15 September 2011

Special FX church























The image is a bit of a doodle that became a version of Rublev’s Icon of the Trinity crossed with a hint of Eric von Daniken ‘Chariots of the Gods: I remember asking 'was God an Astronaut’ as a youth)



The mysterious visit of the 3 men/angels in Genesis 18, who somehow represent the Trinity in Orthodox thinking, lends itself to a bit of speculation, full of mystery.
My picture came about as a result of drawing the halos which somehow looked like space helmets, and it sort of took off from there...... !
I can vividly remember watching the Apollo moon landings, so maybe in our age its appropriate to portray the church in these cosmic terms...

A MISSION-SHAPED GATHERING

CMS was hosting a visit by 4 Korean clergy, who wanted to look at Mission Shaped Church. We attended the Fresh Expressions and Pioneering conference run by centre for Pioneer Learning It was too good an opportunity to miss.
Over 50 participants gathered from mainly from Europe - Scandinavia, Germany, France,
Scotland. US and Canada: Australia and New Zealand. Plus the 4 Koreans.
The centre is run by Dave Male with input from Andrew Roberts on the Mission Shaped Ministry (MSM) course, Adrian Chatfield on mission-shaped spirituality. Bishop Graham Cray on the mission shaped movement; and Mike Moynaugh on mission-shaped theology. Everything was mission shaped. Even the sandwiches were mission shaped (they were nice triangles!)

SPECIAL EFFECTS

Fresh Expressions is often abbreviated as FX. For me that is Special Effects (I remember the movie of that name and FX2 the deadly art of illusion. Maybe that is what the Church is seeking to do - add some special effects making it more trendy, more audio-visual, more sexy, more appealing in the 21st century. enabling church to take somehow off.
Special effects can be gimmicky, all about lights and tricks and illusions. there can be expectations on pioneers to be similarly gimmicky.
Yet I was struck by how 'ordinary' many FX churches are : Messy church; Cafe church; Network church; rural church; Cell-church run by people who are trying to be essentially Mission-Shaped.
We visited Thirst a Friday morning Cafe Church meeting in a school and Cambourne, an ecumenical (Anglican Baptist Methodist URC) Church which started in a garage and a Doctors surgery and now has an expandable A-frame church building in the middle of a new Estate. And there was nothing gimmicky about them. They were ordinary people trying to make the church relevant to their context.

PIONEERING - TO BOLDLY GO

Like the star ship enterprise, there is a sense of pioneering being about 'going boldly where no man has gone before' A lot is experimental and exploratory, tentative and partial informal and flexible.
Pioneers are people who don't quite fit in with the centre, and like to push out into unexplored territory, they are happy on the edge.

IT'S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE!

Graham Cray reminded us its not rocket science. a Fresh Expression is defined simply as 'a form of church for our changing culture, established primarily for the benefit of people who are not yet members of any church'
The Archbishop of Canterbury coined the phrase Mixed Economy to describe the range of church, traditional and modern , fresh expressions Not either or but BOTH/ AND. "celebrating and building on what is mission -shaped in traditional forms of church and finding new, flexible appropriate ways to proclaim the Gospel afresh to those who do not relate to traditional ways" Permission has been given to allow Church to take off.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS

Back to the Trinity and Rublev's ICON. Mike Moynaugh reminded us that the Missio Dei originated in the Tri-unity of God, drawing us into Communion. Mission is the eternal decision of God the Trinity 'communion in mission;
which the church takes and becomes 'community in mission' The church is misisonary and 'becomes missionary by attending to each and every context in which it finds itself' - 'The word became flesh and moved into the neighbourhood'
There is a sense that in Church, (FX or not), we are creating something 'other worldly', because in church we encounter the Divine....  sort of 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'

Wednesday, 14 September 2011

Yeshu Satsang Toronto



an excellent example of multi-cultural worship from Yeshu Satsung Toronto, recommended by one of the participants at the recent Fresh Expressions and Pioneering conference.   Similar to Pal Singh's Sanctuary in Birmingham. It also reminds me of the music of Aradhna