We have tried to put together a course that engages with some of the recent conversations about atonement and our theology of the cross. Some things people have said about the cross have been a little controversial (and we like being controversial), but there is much to learn from reflecting on the different ways the bible and theologians over the centuries have spoken about the cross.

We are particularly thankful for the work of Tom Smail in his two books on this subject: Windows on the Cross and Once and for All. This course is based quite heavily on these books but tries to offer an opportunity for disciples of Jesus to spend some time reflecting on the meaning of cross. We have tried to use movie clips and other things from popular culture and to give people space to reflect on as much as debate some of the issues.

We ran this course for the first time in a multi-denominational setting during Lent and found a very positive response to the course. We also were encouraged by the way people engaged with this material. You can download the complete course for FREE from our new resources site talk2.org.uk.

We simply offer you this material, hoping you may find it useful in your setting.

His Christian faith led him to forsake his status and wealth in order to confront the Emperor Diocletian with his persecution of a minority. He eventually paid with his life. This is the story of St George’s that we need to rediscover. We lack a subversive saint who champions the cause of the underdog, the misfit, the little guy who dares to speak out against the powerful.

The dragon St George confronted was more like the beast of Revelation – an imperial power to be resited. He stuck up for a minority group and confronted an oppressive power.

St Georges’s Day should become a Day of Dissent when we mark and celebrate the noble, alternative English tradition of rebellion against the abuse of power (the pro-democracy Putney Debates, the equality-seeking Levellers, the anti-slavery abolitionists, the women’s suffrage movement, conscientious objectors and peacemakers, anti-racism campaigners, human rights activists, those struggling against debt and poverty, and many others).

It would be great to have an extra national holiday to celebrate this kind of englishness, but I fear those who want such a day have not realised that the one they champion is so interested in minority groups and subverting the powerful.

The background to Jonathan’s article in the Guardian is unpacked further in his great article on Ekklesia.

Photo from Johnny Vulkan on flickr

Official Opening

The Baptist 2nd November 1888

The Baptist was printed on just one massive sheet of paper folded to the newspaper format and was full of adverts for the strangest of things. The back page (seen in photo) has a full page ad for Cadbury’s claiming their product’s purity. I guess no one had heard of Fair Trade, or Kraft for that matter, in those days. I also discovered recently that the organ we have just removed was probably paid for by money from a merchant involved in the slave trade! History can be a bit grubby, like these papers full of brick dust.

The Baptist 2nd November 1888

The Baptist 2nd November 1888

It isn’t everyday you get to do a bit of archaeology.

Click on images to take a closer look.

Part of Steve’s solution was to introduce the conference to the “Lowry loop”. I found it interesting that so few had heard of it. I have been using the OOOOHS, and WEEEEEEEs since they showed us this stuff at college. It transformed the way I approach a sermon, even if the congregation may not think it has transformed my delivery. Interestingly many who had never come across this concept, seemed to realise that when they had preached well, their natural instinct had led them to preach in this looping the loop way. We all listened attentively to the first sermon we heard after all this, but I never saw Phil Jump (our Regional Minister) doing a 360 at any point during his sermon.

Steve only really scratched the surface, but here are a couple of books from my shelf that unpack this approach to the task of preaching in more detail. Including the book from Lowry and some sermons from someone who is renowned for her approach to preaching.

The Homiletical Plot: The Sermon as Narrative Art Form

How to Preach a Parable: Designs for Narrative Sermons

Mixed Blessings by Barbara Brown Taylor

Unfortunately I never made it down to south shore to try a very literal looping the loop sermon. The Revolution was the first 360 degree looping roller coaster in the UK.

Post image from John Burke on flickr.

Luke’s account of the calling the disciples in this week’s gospel reading, focusses on Peter, someone who Luke will follow throughout his two epic narratives of the fishermen from Galilee. Luke tends to minimize Peter’s failings, at least when compared to the other gospels. In Luke’s gospel Peter doesn’t try to deflect Jesus from his path of suffering for example. This encounter in Luke 5:1-11 is the start of the journey for Peter.

First, what difference does a lab coat make? In Cloudy with a chance of meat balls, Flint’s mother gives him a lab coat that makes him believe he can invent like the pros. The trailer makes this point pretty well. For Peter, the barrier to his full participation in the kingdom is his sense of unworthiness (“Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”).  But Jesus believes in him.

Then after a long run of failed inventions, Flint finally gets it right as his attempt to cure world hunger works (though rather too well if you watch the whole film)! Peter’s haul of fish shows the kind of thing that might happen later in his story, if he is willing to overcome his fears and follow Christ.

There are a few clips from Cloudy with a chance of meatballs on WingClips or it is now out on DVD.

You can view The Baptist Google Map on the BUGB web site.

It is divided up into regions, so for me that is the NWBA (and I was sure that we had a church in the Isle of Man!).  It is kind of interesting to see the patterns of where churches have sprung up. It would be quite nice to see them all in one map, rather in regions, that way you would get a feel for the distribution of churches across the UK. But I guess the data becomes rather difficult to manage.

Is your church visible?

In terms of finding a church though, you can’t beat just typing “church St Helens” in Google and clicking on maps. This is after-all how most people will find your church. I have also noticed that people sometimes write reviews of the churches they visit on Google maps for all to see, which is a rather more public church critique than the famous Mystery Worshipper site.

Dovedale Baptist Church in Merseyside, for example, has 1 review: “Lively family Baptist Church near to Penny Lane in south Liverpool. Sunday service 10.30am. There’s Junior Church for the children. The minister, Wayne Clarke, also presents “Daybreak” on BBC Radio Merseyside on Sundays.‎” – I have my suspicions that this review may not be entirely independent, but there are no rules – anyone can write a review.

Our local Catholic church received a very warm review: “This is a lovely small church with a great atmosphere and a lovely priest”.

So does your church appear on Google maps when you search for your town?

adding your church to Google maps

If you have told Google maps about your church, then it will appear with your web address and even a picture if you choose. To create a decent Google map listing for your church you need to add it as a local business. Google’s help page explains more about creating a map entry.

Happy New Year!

Click on an image to enlarge.

You can also browse and download other sizes of these images on my flickr page.

How to create images like this:

1. Assemble several crazy teenagers willing to work together. This exercise does require teemwork to produce the more complex images.
2. Equip them with a selection of light sources. If you can find some with different colours, that can be useful. The blues in our images come from a lightsaber!
3. Set up a camera on a tripod, as it is important the camera doesn’t move. You need a camera with manual settings control to set an exposure time of about 6 seconds.
4. Turn out most of your lights. It doesn’t need to be completely dark, and in fact it helps to be able to see your camera settings. Images can be manipulated later on your PC to darken background.
5. Get your artists to imagine they are painting with their torches on a large canvas in front of them but in reverse. Start with easy stuff, like writing their name individually, then move on to making images together. Getting one to stand still, while others give them wings or horns can be a fun way to begin. Then we worked through the nativity story and they came up with the ideas.
6. Three, two, one, go…Press the shutter and encourage your artists to fill the canvas and the six seconds with their artwork. Turn torches off when finished, otherwise you get blobs of light!
8. We also had the camera set up plugged into a TV to give the artists some instant feedback on their work. Each image takes several attempts before you get the right picture. Seeign it on a larger screen helps to work out where you are going wrong if your angels look more like clouds.
9. Then use Picassa (or similar) on your PC to make background disappear (we used the shadow slider) and then crop.

vimeo is a community based video sharing site that encourages collaboration and creativity. It is a much friendlier and a significantly more creative community than the likes of YouTube. Since I first discovered vimeo, I have been taking particular note of those videos that inspire living the Jesus way – motion graphics, modern parables and real-life stories that help reflect on what it might mean to be a disciple of Jesus today. So to keep it all tidy, I started a new vimeo channel called LifePixels.

One my latest finds was this parable about finding the perfect church by KORE.

More on the LifePixels channel.

We decided to use, with some minor tweaks the fantastic series of prayer stations suggested by Erica Schemper, which are based on the words of the Lord’s Prayer.

I guess some people hoped the whole world would turn up to pray, but prayer tends not to be such a crowd puller. Each day people have come and spent time quietly praying, guided by the stations. Some of us have stood at the door of our church and asked passers-by what we should pray for. And so this week our church has been a place of prayer. Interesting how they are often anything but.

There are also lots of other great ideas for imaginative praying on the Creative Prayer web site. Many people find it hard to know where to begin with prayer and are often helped to know that all the senses can be used when drawing close to God.

2 more days to go. It has been a good week.

As the lectionary picks up readings in Job over the next few weeks, it is an opportunity to reflect on the question of why bad things happen to good people, and whether our own theology is at all helpful when responding to others in times of tragedy.

If you are after something much deeper, and it will take more than Lego to deal with the huge questions that this book poses, Carol Newson’s The Book of Job: A Contest of Moral Imaginations is well worth looking at. As is July 1999’s edition of Interpretation (Vol 53) which has a series of articles exploring the book of Job.