Thanksgiving

It’s Thanksgiving in the US today (hurrah, quiet day in the office!) and although I don’t really get the American-ness of it all, I can understand the sentiment of ‘let’s think what we are thankful for.’ So off the top of my head – what am I thankful for today?
A warm and cosy roof over my head; enough food so I don’t go to bed hungry; running water and 24/7 electricity
A job that I love
A close, loving and supportive family
Old friends and new friends
A year of great opportunities including a trip to the US
People that understand me and my sense of humour
Being more or less solvent
Being pretty fit and healthy
Being able to see the funny side
Great technology that keeps me connected and entertained
That I am confident in being this current version of Me.

Thanks, God.

Digimission

I’m not sure I am qualified to talk about the Digimission project and digital mission, since ‘real’ mission is a concept I neither fully understand nor am engaged with. However, if we want to use all the communication tools we’re blessed with, we need to understand them and I’ve been in the midst of a lot of discussion about new media and Web 2.0 lately. So partial qualification there. And my part-time research – looking at ‘old’ new media, church websites, means I’m relatively knowledgeable about what is happening there.

This research suggests there is still a huge gap between what churches as individual organisations are doing with web 1.0 – a static website – and where the rest of society is. You might have the most vibrant congregation and the most blessed successful church going, but if you don’t show up on Google, someone from a few streets away looking for a local church might never know you’re there. But this ‘get them to come to us’ mentality is not how I understand the concept of mission. It’s the going out there.

So how do you do that digitally?

 First I think you have to do it well. One has to engage with the technology. If Dr John Sentamu can tweet, so can you. These technologies are not just the preserve of teenagers. In fact, the average user of Facebook or Twitter user is, in the US at least, in their thirties. (Figures from Pew Internet & American Life project).

And literate. So forget the corny down-with-the-kids text spellings. One has to understand the way digital communication happens. It’s mobile. That means small screens, short sentences, designed to be quick and easy to digest. (Yes, I know – almost the complete opposite of ’serious’ faith).

It’s fast. There’s no point in spending hours on content that’s out of date within minutes.

Who are the leaders? We all know Stephen Fry tweets. Who else is worth following? Who else writes good blogs that will give you good ideas, inspiration, help you negotiation pitfalls? (I don’t have answers here).

Perhaps we should engage more with the rest of the blogosphere. Let’s add our reasoned comments to blogs that extol racism or extremism. Let’s do that as ordinary citizens, rather than sermonising in the comments box. Let’s exploit the connectedness we have as individuals through digital media and not allow get sidetracked by the kind of theological wrangles that affect the church.

For my next challenge…

I’ve just signed up for the Great Bentley half marathon in February. It’ll be two years since I ran that, my first proper long race. I came 27th from last – there’s photographic evidence elsewhere on this blog.

I have a different set of challenges this time. 13.1 miles doesn’t sound the terrifying ordeal it once did when I had yet to run ten. But this time I will be training on my own, through the darkest bits of winter, whilst juggling more commitments at home and work. I have more experience of races and I know how cold and windy it can be!

Glory of God – what does that mean, exactly?

Just back from a lunchtime session with other Christians at work. We’re a fledgling group trying workplace fellowship out for size and getting to know each other. Today we were looking at 1 Corinthians 10:31 and pondering on what exactly we mean by the Glory of God. Will let you know if we come up with an answer…

Grim weather

The weather forecast promised wet and windy weather today and they were spot on. This morning I stayed in bed, watching the rain drip from the balcony, the pansies being blown about and the leaves falling from the trees. 1 November; two months left of 2009 and I am left wondering where the time has gone. What have I achieved this year?What plans have I laid and failed to follow… and which have been the profitable side alleys I’ve been down?

I don’t mind the changing of the seasons; I like living in a country with definite seasonal periods. It’s an Ecclesiastes 3 kind of day – the way the falling leaves remind me of the ‘time for everything’ – spiritual as well as practical. Today I feel a bit out of sorts, a bit down in the dumps and feeling sorry for myself. But tomorrow will be different. And I take heart from that, and thank God for the blessings I do have – even if that is a struggle some days.

A marathon a month

Since my New Years’ Resolutions started in September, I have been making a real effort to get out for a run at lunchtime. So far I’ve managed two a week. My 20-minute run (once round Smithfield and back) is about 2 miles. My next effort is to ramp this up to three a week, giving me 6 miles just in my lunchbreak. If I manage that for a whole month, that’s almost a marathon: just in bite sized pieces.

Dear Church…

I’ve been reading a few parish profiles lately. It’s made me more aware than ever that churches just don’t know what to do with people like me. Most of these parishes proudly feature their work with families, their men’s breakfasts, the outreach to the elderly. None mention any kind of support for adult single people.  By rights of course to fit into the church I should be married with a couple of kids so I can fit neatly into the Mums’ groups; but do all mothers only ever discuss children? Where do adult Christian working women get together to chat and pray about the challenges of being a 24/7 Christian? Not the existing groups, as they’re all held during the day.

Many meetings seem to be held at times that are fantastic if you work locally. But even the parishes that admit to having large commuter populations still have sessions starting at 7pm or 7.30: are they accessible to someone leaving their office at 6pm?

Churches are rightly concerned with their youth work. And the elderly. But many churches claim to be a ‘church family’ when what they really are is a church of families. From these sidelines it seems that if you order your church organisation around these family units, those that don’t fit fall through the cracks. Parishes seem to be able to recognise some kinds of people that don’t ‘fit’ – but us adult single folk are just left to get on with it.

Conservative Bible Project

Please, please, please … someone tell me that this is a joke?

Rant update

After I posted the last entry regarding the need for Notes for the Rest of Us, UCB came up trumps. The last four days’ readings have discussed the times in life when praying feels like throwing pennies into a black-hole sized wishing well. I have also just finished reading Alister McGrath’s Doubt in Perspective which is an honest discussion of some of the things I’ve been thinking. And on the back of that, I have gone back to my copy of the Screwtape Letters. I read this once, a couple of years ago when everything in life was, well, not exactly rosy, but probably I was more hopeful. At the time I thought it interesting, amusing – but now, when I struggle with pessimism and cynicism and would prefer to slap the happy clappers than join in… well, now, the message comes into its own.

Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never in greater danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending to do our Enemy’s will, looks around upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys. (p40 in my 2002 edition).

It is rather reassuring that one can identify exactly the issues, threats and doubts encountered. Somehow this makes it all more believable than the prounouncements of well-meaning friends; it also highlights hidden and ingrained attitudes of my own that could bear examination.

Religious writers

I was given a set of Bible reading notes recently – New Daylight. I keep referring to it accidentally as Living Daylight, but that is another issue all together. They seem OK, but I have a couple of issues with some of the daily notes.

Firstly, some are a bit thin on theology/ instruction/ education. Don’t get me wrong, when I’m reading these on the 08:00 from Colchester I don’t always want a lesson in Greek or Hebrew. It would be nice, though, if the notes went a bit deeper into the text. Each day only has about 400 words, so this is a tall order, I know, but sometimes it feels as if we merely skim the surface with a nice story to illusrate the point. It’s like the start of a sermon, the joky bit at the beginning, but without the actual meat of the message.

Secondly, and this really does make me cross -  if the writer only has 400 words, should they waste space on stories about their life? I nearly threw the book out the window after a few days when the writer spent a paragraph telling me about their sunny vicarage, toddler and au pair. Is that really a good use of space? Is that really a God-inspired piece of writing?

Who is writing for the rest of us? Who is writing for people who don’t have ‘perfect’ lives? Who don’t feel particularly blessed in their circumstances, whose faith is sustained not by a joyful sense of wonderful God-given things but by a grim determination not to turn away from a God we don’t understand? Let’s call ourselves the Psalm 13ists. Let’s rise up against glib proclamations. Let’s band together and write about life from the bottom of the spiritual valley, not from the glorious mountain top. And in doing so, we might encourage the poorer, the transient, the doubters, the kind of people who sit at the back of a church and wonder what on earth these people are getting that they are not.