If you’re running a Cafe Church or have a church where you can use video easily, then this can certainly be used in a discussion of vocation. It can also be used in talking about God’s will, about ‘when bad things happen’ and the good things that can come from failure or difficult times.

Click here to view the embedded video.

To quote Steve from 8:10 into the video:

“Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

and from 12:32 into the video:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

I also didn’t know he had learnt a love of typography and seen its importance for computers right back from the earliest days; a theme I pick up in my little book about projection and worship (plug, plug).

Rest in peace, Steve.

I still think this is brilliant, even though I posted it last year. Happy Easter everyone. Resurrection: Rob Bell from The Work of Rob Bell on Vimeo.

Oh and my kids love this one… so enjoy the Easter linebacker too. Booyah! It ain’t about the bunny…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Photo by Aaron Phelps

This year on Good Friday and continuing my tradition, a piece of graffiti artwork to delight the eyes and challenge the heart. Although I don’t know who produced the artwork, the photo was taken in Brighton, England, by Aaron Phelps.

I love this image. To quote St John of Damascus (quoted often in my recent dissertation/book):

‘Visible things are corporeal models which provide a vague understanding of intangible things. Holy Scripture describes God and the angels as having descriptive form, … Anyone would say that our inability immediately to direct our thoughts to contemplation of higher things makes it necessary that familiar everyday media be utilized to give suitable form to what is formless, and make visible what cannot be depicted, so that we are able to construct understandable analogies.’

This may not be media in the classic sense, but it is familiar and everyday and placing the face of Christ beneath a convenient ‘crown of thorns’ from everyday life, I think, is brilliant. It enables me to ‘construct understandable analogies’.

There’s another layer here though. For Brighton locals, they will clearly see the West Pier in the background. Left to rot after it was closed in 1975 when it gradually and slowly crumbled, what was left finally succumbed in 2003 when it was gutted by fire. While there are plans to build a new i360 ‘Brighton Eye’ on the site, I’m not quite sure where they are up to. Maybe there will or won’t be some resurrection here.

But to think of the crucified Christ on Good Friday, his crown of thorns prominent, amidst the debris of human existence, broken dreams and destruction, certainly rang true with me today.

I find this story interesting on two levels.

The press’ fascination with quirky Vicars

It seems that, every now and again, you can pretty much guarantee that the press will fall over themselves when clergy adopt new technology.

In 1997, the Church of England’s clergy generated headlines with Visual Liturgy. There was the London Vicar who did a service blessing mobiles and laptops in 2010. So has it ever been, I would imagine. If a Vicar dares to adopt some new technology or has the temerity to do something that is vaguely in keeping with the times in which they live, it is seen as a novelty and, ipso facto, newsworthy.

I don’t know if Andy Alden was the first Vicar to sign up on Twitter; perhaps he was – but I’m aware of plenty of such clergy so it did make me chuckle to see the press only catching up with the fact and dubbing him as the first with their ‘novelty Vicar’ angle.

One of the interesting things in the Sky TV news report was the incongruence between how they portrayed Rev Alden and his church and what they then showed in the news footage. We are told that this church is desperate to reach out to a younger audience but then shows a very large congregation of all ages at worship. He didn’t look that desperate to get a younger audience – I think they’re there already.

Even if you might wonder if they all turned up because Sky were there, that cynicism is quickly put to bed by the fact that the church has been re-ordered, carpeted, nice chairs instead of pews, screens on every pillar and a wifi set-up. These things do not pay for themselves and take a certain level of critical mass in the congregation before you can get it going.

The potential for worship with new media

I always knew it would be the case but, as soon as my dissertation is finished and handed in and turned into a book, the use of technology moves on and leaves it out-of-date! I guess I was hoping for more than a few days of relevance.

Actually, that’s not entirely true because the dissertation does include some discussion of the potential in new media to go in new directions with the classic sermon even if tweeting your questions to the preacher wasn’t one of the things that I mention directly.

Several emerging models of church make use of social media in a variety of ways and the ‘dialogue’ sermon that includes questions and answers has been something much talked about, but less frequently attempted, for some time. Jonny Baker has written about ‘slaying the sacred cow‘ (opens PDF) of the sermon and, culturally, many have wondered about whether giving someone a platform to monologue really works in our society anymore.

Rev Alden has the dialogue sermon working, not in an emerging model, but in the classic inherited mode of church that works on the basis of attracting people in, rather than going out. In that sense, it’s much closer to some of the things I am working with right now. I might have to find an excuse to visit Weston-super-Mare since I’d love to see it in action and I’d be very keen to have a go at shaping a sermon that is brief, to the point, but then leaves plenty of space to respond to the tweets. What fun!

What is it about? Well, the snappy sub-title gives you a clue: the ‘pastoral, theological and missiological dimensions of digital projection and computer technology in worship’.

In essence, I started researching and writing because, while I was aware of various books out there that look at the practical dimensions of what happens when churches use projection technology to worship, I felt that no-one was writing about what happens pastorally and theologically when projection is utilized. Furthermore, I felt it was influencing mission and I wanted to think about and address those issues.

I am a fan of projection, but I’ve also seen it used badly and in the book I try to exhort people to think about why they’re using it and what for. In some cases, it is better not used.

I’m also keen that people get a lot more creative than most churches are currently. It is only when we really try to push what digital technology can do for us in worship that we open up some new vistas and allow God to speak in fresh ways.

Regular readers will know that, for the longest time and for a host of different reasons, my Masters dissertation has been an ongoing project but I’m very glad to have drawn it to a close and it is now with the markers in anticipation of my final deadline next Friday.

With the kind permission of Anglia Ruskin University, who share the copyright with me for the next twelve months, I’ve been enabled to publish print-on-demand via lulu.com and you can now get hold of an adapted version of the dissertation as either a book or an e-book.

• Purchase a hard copy of Hands free worship (£6.99).
• Purchase the e-book of Hands free worship (£4.67).

If you get a copy and read it, please do let me know what you think. I value the feedback.

The top ‘trending’ topic was that Archbishop Rowan Williams had announced his intention to step down at the end of this year. There had been rumbles for a while within church circles but I guess I was ignoring the rumours in the hope that the rumbles were wrong.

Already, various reviews and ‘obituaries’ of his ten years as Archbishop are starting to emerge both in print and online and, inevitably, they all make enormous play of the politics that he has had to engage in. The church has faced a perfect storm of cultural influences that have meant it has been an almost-impossible time to lead the worldwide Anglican Communion, regardless of any of the personalities involved.

One factor has been that cultural norms on sexuality in the western world are such that the United States’ church has been discussing issues concerning homosexuality and other forms of sexuality since the mid-sixties. They would say they haven’t been moving quickly in this area at all. Meanwhile, in Africa and the Far East, the subject is taboo and is still not up for discussion even today.

Another factor is that we live in a networked world. Primarily, people have found that geographical territory and boundaries are much less dominant. People instead affiliate in networks of the like-minded, wherever they may be.

So, regardless of who was Archbishop at a particular time, when one American diocese appointed a gay man as their bishop, the worldwide reactions were entirely predictable. The Americans thought they had got to such a point after much deliberation and prayer over many years. For the Africans, it was too fast and without any kind of consultation to which they had been party. In the aftermath, the networked nature of our world meant that conservatives in Africa and other developing countries joined forces with like-minded people in America and created churches within churches including ‘cross boundary’ activity that has put pressure on the very structures through which we relate to each other.

Archbishop Rowan has often been labelled as a bit weak because he has often sought to hold the middle line and has refused to come down hard on ‘offenders’. For example, he refused to conduct votes at the 2008 Lambeth Conference and instead opted for little focus groups of discussion.

There’s nothing weak about this gentleman. He has stood in the midst of some tremendous cultural forces, some very different global cultural norms and, like a showground strongman holding two horses pulling in opposite directions, he has tried to hold the whole thing together.

In 2008, I wrote him a letter of support to which he responded and said that he believed unity was absolutely key. He said he would do all he can so that, on the day of judgement, Christ would not ask him why he had not done more to hold the people together.

It is not weakness to sit in the middle of all that and try to hold things together, even if some would much rather you started throwing your weight around, disciplining people here and forcing your opinion through over there. It takes great strength to try and stay the course in the midst of such a storm. It takes great humility to be thinking of what the judgement seat may hold for oneself and what Jesus Christ himself would say to you when the world is screaming in your ear.

It may not make the newspapers, but it has been under Archbishop Rowan that the ‘mission-shaped’ church agenda has taken off and mainly because of his own leadership and emphasis.

Where the parish system has been creaking, he has overseen the development of Bishop’s Mission Orders. When I was ordained, other colleagues in my year group were amongst the first to be ordained as pioneers; men and women who, in the past, would have been labelled as troublesome or ‘square pegs in round holes’ or plain just rejected. The House of Bishops has undergone a startling number of new appointments in the last ten years and a good number of the new boys (and sadly it is still just boys) are mission-minded. There are churches that are growing, and not just in London, and different parts of the Western world are starting to look to the UK for lessons in how to reach out in post-Christian contexts.

Archbishop Rowan has also been prescient in his comments on the state of British society at several times in the last ten years; not least in commenting on the state of society in the run-up and then also the aftermath of the riots in 2010. He faced up to Mugabe and demanded an end to the persecution of Anglican Christians and told the Bankers a few home truths to boot.

The bookies have already started making the odds on who will replace Archbishop Rowan (you can get 20-1 on our own relatively new Bishop of Rochester) but whoever it is, they will have some enormous shoes to fill and I think we’re all going to miss him very much indeed. As the saying goes, sometimes you don’t realise how much you’ve lost until it’s gone.

“You were just a small bump unborn for four months then torn from life.
Maybe you were needed up there but we’re still unaware as why.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

I have no idea, to be honest, to any of those questions but I find myself sorely tempted to start swearing this evening after reading a big pile of garbage being served up like cold school dinner over on the Guardian website today.

Apparently, they say, church schools shun the poorest pupils. No doubt, there will be more weeping and gnashing of teeth by secularists (or perhaps just triumphal cries) while the middle classes tut knowingly. But before you absorb too much of this headline, let’s drill down a bit into the article.

First off, there is the fact that the journalists seem not to know the difference between a ‘faith school’ (set-up to educate kids and propagate that particular faith) and a ‘church school’. Clearly, these journalists hadn’t read (or had forgotten) Bishop Nick Baines’ article for their very same newspaper in July last year in which he clarified the difference:

“A church school – in the way the Church of England understands it – is not confessional. Church of England schools are established primarily for the communities they are located in. They are inclusive and serve equally those who are of the Christian faith, of other faiths and of no faith. Their Christian ethos is underpinned by Christian values concerned for the wellbeing of all in the community, irrespective of religious, cultural or socio-economic background. Rooted in an understanding that we “love God and love our neighbour as ourself”, they seek to offer the highest quality of education and care for all pupils – reflecting both the teaching of the Gospel and the mission of the Church of England to serve the whole community.”

If they did know the difference, they might also realise that a great number of church schools are ‘voluntary controlled’ which means they have absolutely no control over admissions. So how these schools can be “have been picking pupils from well-off families by selecting on the basis of religion” is beyond me.

But even allowing for that, assuming we are talking only about the voluntary-aided schools as a fraction of the overall, we get into the real kicker in this sorry reasoning. The Guardian’s method involved analysing the proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals but with all schools designated for children with special needs taken out.

Problem 1. Free school meals is not necessarily a brilliant indicator of poverty. It is an indicator, but what about all those families who don’t apply because they don’t want to admit they need the help? Furthermore, another article from the Guardian in 2008 suggested that half of the pupils in the UK below the poverty line aren’t eligible for free school meals.

Obviously writing for newspapers doesn’t really mean you have to have read what your colleagues are writing (or have written) as well. I guess they’re probably too busy to do their homework properly.

Problem 2. If you take out all the schools that have special needs units, you are probably going to be taking out a good proportion of the church schools and other faith schools that work in the most disadvantaged communities.

Disadvantaged areas have higher then average levels of special educational needs. Many such schools have special needs units attached. Take out their statistics and of course it’s going to look like the data is badly skewed.

This is a terrible article based on a terrible, inaccurate premise and it denigrates the brilliant job being done all over the country by teachers, governors, and parents in church schools and faith schools (which are different) who are all trying to help kids who need that help the most.

Jessica Shepherd and Simon Rogers. Back of the class, the pair of you.

With Sunday’s lectionary readings still fairly fresh in my mind and my Masters dissertation on projection and the use of new media in worship freshly handed in, this is a beautiful re-imagining of Jesus’ walk out into the Judaean desert all those years ago.

Well, at long last, it got done.

The dissertation is handed in, finito, complete and over.

Furthermore, various people have expressed interest along the way in the subject matter and so it has long been in my mind to re-hash the content into a book form and self-publish with Print-on-Demand.

At the present time, I am in negotiations with the university to make sure that I am free to do this without any problems and so I can’t promise at this stage if it will see the light of day soon (if at all), but I hope to tell you more in due course including (if you’re interested) where you can get hold of a copy.

I couldn’t resist showing you the mocked-up jacket though! I know it’s vanity publishing in one sense but its done with a purpose since the material has intrigued a good few friends in discussion and I’d like to share my research and ideas with others if they are interested to read the work. There’s far too much poor use of projection in church to sit on this and not share it, I think.

What’s it about? Well, my basic premise is that using digital projection in church worship changes more than just the practical dynamics. Subtly, I think it shifts aspects of pastoral care, theology (both in terms of how we speak of God and think about human beings) and also how we do mission. I am a supporter of projection but I advocate judicious and wise use and sometimes being willing to switch it off and not use projection when its not appropriate to do so. Ultimately, what I try to promote is a ‘harder way’ that asks leaders and computer operators to think a bit more carefully in pursuit of use of the technology that seeks God’s glory and the encouragement of the faith community.