johnnylaird

Having alluded to my plans to initiate

“some kind of increased & enhanced online activity”

in this earlier post about my life in 2010, I thought I’d sneak out a little about where I am with this, outline some of the useful resource sites I’ve been frequenting and explain – in case anyone reading this doesn’t know – what “woodshedding” is.

First up, my good friend JD Blundell was kind enough to make mention of me planning to beef up my online activity on his post “10 Kingdom bloggers to watch in 2010”, which in turn has turned up on Darren Rowse’s influential Problogger site.

New tools – resources I’m exploring:

Wordpress

A migration to Wordpress is looking likely for my new main blog. It seems to be it’s going to give me what I’m looking for aesthetically and in terms of the bells & whistles I’m looking for. Thankfully I’m picking the brains of buddies who have the technical nonce and good design taste to help me pull together a smokin’ new look!

Problogger

Problogger has been a regular landing spot for me these last few weeks, as it’s quite probably the best single resource out there for anyone trying to intelligently explore how to create revenue streams through their blog. What I like about Darren is that he’s not a fast buck, “get rich quick” huckster, but rather someone who seems to operate with an impressive level of integrity.

Recently I’ve read a post by respected online buddy Fernando Gros about “Pure Blogging”, transparency and honesty where he asks the question

“How upfront are we about our reasons for being in this game?”

This is a timely reminder for me in this transitional period for me and my blog.

Will my new site have a commercial element? Yes it will.

Web Worker Daily

Another great site for resources, ideas and inspiration is Web Worker Daily – great for someone who has recently migrated from office to home office. It’s rammed with good stuff

Freelance Advisor

At this point, I’m spending a little less time with this than the other sites, but Freelance Advisor’s local – i.e. UK – perspective is helpful, and I suspect may be increasingly so. There were a couple of podcasts that were interesting light relief during those early days of this journey when the UK was on lock down because of the January snow.

If it floats your boat check out “Making a living without a job” Part 1 and Part 2

Woodshedding

…perhaps a little off topic, but it you ever were a jazz aficionado, you’ll be familiar with the concept of “woodshedding”, that preparatory time when a jazzer takes them self away to the “woodshed” – a place of privacy and seclusion; hones their skills, works on their chops, does the ground work, practices like fury, getting ready to come unleashed themselves to the world.

I doubt any “unleashing” is going to go on, but this is the place I’m at right now. I’m woodshedding.

The first time I heard the term, I think it was in relation to the mighty genius that was Jaco Pastorius.

You may not want to check our any of the sites, podcasts or links I’ve suggested above….but you really do need to check out Jaco. For me, there has been no better bassist.

…good to see that the incredible 24/7 Prayer Movement Leader, Pete Greig is featured on the most recent cover of RELEVANT Magazine.

24/7 is one of those movements that search for what God is blessing and rides the wave!

In the beginning there was chaos, naivity and passion…but they followed the Spirit and have blossomed in ways they would never have imagined.

Check out these short movies for a flavo(u)r

HT to Dana and Chris for the heads up about this post about Empty Churches on Billy Ritchie’s blog.

A couple of paragraphs caught my attention:

Now the church is more than a building its people but somehow I think that one of the reasons these churches are empty is because they stopped serving their community a long time ago.

How about us all looking at this a different way. At the same time as this decline there is also stories of growth all over the country. Many churches taking on building projects. What if we all forgot denominational divides and gifted each other property. What if a church on the edge of closure struggling to keep up a building were to find a church that was bursting at the seams and say here is your answer.

….some really interesting things to think about.

Thanks, Billy

I’ve become interested in the slow movement over the last year or two, as I often struggle to justify and see the real core benefits of the extraordinary pace of urban life these days. Quite regularly it feels like the wheels could fall off at any given moment.

With this in mind, it was good to have an article from the excellent online ‘zine Worldchanging bounced over to me via Twitter flagging a book by Carl Honoré, In Praise of Slow…something I have to check out.

There’s another site you might want to visit that focuses on the SlowHome. Lots of interesting bits about healthy vibrant neighbo(u)rhood, beautiful eco design and architecture.

In a not entirely unrelated piece in London’s throwaway freebie commuter rag this morning , the METRO listed Michael Pollan’s In Defense Of Food as one of it’s Food Books of the Year. Although I can’t say it’s a maxim I’ve wholeheartedly adopted yet, Pollan’s

“Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants”

mantra has a lot to be said for it. Maybe a good New Year Resolution for me.

Also, anyone who champions the idea of leisurely meals in the company of friends as the way forward gets my vote!

Russ Rook, who had formerly headed up UK Salvation Army Youth initiave ALOVE has now moved on to pastures new with his new project, Chapel Street.

Check out the vid for some background info:

Russ has been an innovative and prophetic voice in The Salvation Army for a number of years now, and was a significant player from day one in the Roots movement, which has been hugely influential over the last decade as the SA in the UK re-visited it’s early “roots”, and grappled once again with what it means to be missional today. Here’s a few thoughts about the 2008 Roots event that I wrote down at the time.

I guess there are some parallels with the move that Russ’ good friend and early Roots pioneer, Phil Wall made when he left the full time employ of The Salvation Army to start the wonderful HIV and Aids charity HOPEHIV some years ago.

Both Phil and Russ are still deeply involved in their local community in a Salvation Army context at Raynes Park Community Church, who’s modest website belies a vibrant, active Christian community with a heart for mission in that part of London.

It will be interesting & exciting to see how this pans out, as Russ steps out in faith. I’m sure Chapel Street will be one to watch.

Since I spent a couple of days last week immersed in the teaching of Mike Frost at two different events run by the Evangelical Alliance, I’ve made a few scribbles, as much for my own benefit as anyone else’s, to try and unpack the thoughts & ideas that grabbbed my attention.There was so much to take in that these notes should not be regarded as comprehensive or definitive in any way….it’s just a note of some of the things that impacted me.

It was good too to hook up with top fellah, Krish Kandiah.

First off, I guess it’s important to understand that I came to hear Mike having read a two of his books at least a couple of times each, and also having heard his friend and missional compadre Alan Hirsch earlier in the year. Essentially, I’ve already bought into the notion that MISSION needs to be the first organizing principal of Church……

Mike posed three big questions:

1. To whom shall I go?
2. Who will go with me?
3. Where will we meet them?

It was clear from the get go that Mike was not pushing a model (“I don’t have a model!”) or template for missional Churches to plug into, but rather was exploring the bigger picture of the reasons for Mission (Theologica, Cultural/historical and I guess what I would call the ethos of the Church) drawing on his conviction that God is a “sent” and “sending” God. Although Mike has an amazing head-knowledge about being missional, and is quick to acknowledge the influence of folks like Lesslie Newbigin and David Bosch, for me it’s his experience as a practictioner in his own smallboatbigsea community there in Manly, Sydney that is the most telling. (note to self: If I ever get to Oz, must visit smallboatbigsea!) If you want to get more of a feel of the Manly vibe, you might want to check out this post from my bloggin’ buddy Hamo at Backyard Missionary.

Frosty is completely sold out on Jesus and a master story teller who’s passionate and emotive retelling of Scripture would be well worth listening to alone, even without all the great stuff he outlined about mission over the two days. I don’t think I can effectively summarize everything he said – I’m just not that good a writer, but I can recommend, once again, the books I’ve written about on this blog. (Search “FROST” in the blog search window, top left). Neither can I do justice to capture in a few clicks of my keyboard how moved I was when Mike was recounting tales of people’s responses when he’d asked them “so….you’ve never had a religious experience?”. To hear of the supposedly non-believing mother ponder the meaning of life, and where it comes from when – for the very first time – she draws her new born daughter to her chest, or the surfer who – feeling the huge undulating swell of the mighty Pacific before he caught that amazing wave – bristles with a knowledge that somehow, somewhere there is a force so much bigger than he can really grasp…is that not a religious experience?

I liked a powerful phrase Mike used about Jesus followers marinating ourselves in the Gospels, and the notion that we should be trying to be ever more like Jesus. Good advice.

Although Mike kept most of the stuff about smallboatbigsea on the back burner, it was good to hear little snippets about some of the stuff they did there in their own context and community. He talked about being more of an “infiltrating” Church than an “inviting” Church, so clearly they are more about seeping into the cracks and crevices of that particular stomping ground than simply setting up their Church stall and expecting people to come to them….inspirational. It was fascinating to hear that during the early days of smallboatbigsea they identified two hangouts – The Artichoke and the Ivanhoe Hotel – as somewhere where they could live out their “sentness”, not with an agenda somehow targetting unsuspecting non-Churched folks, but rather simply as part of this calling to a missional lifestyle…following the Missio Dei into strange places.

In fact, the third place – as identified in Ray Oldenburg’s The Great Good Place – features often in Mike’s stories of the missional Church, with references to Pittsburg Hot Dog Restaurant Hot Dogma (which I understand eventually changed its name to the equally imaginative and witty “Franktuary”), the Four Olives Deli, again in Manly where Mike regularly breakfasts with two other guys who together form their Discipleship, Nurture and Accountability group, or DNA, to the kids life saver club, where parents sit on the decks drinking coffee chatting about their kids, life and the universe.

It’s this whole , expansive, and very rich life that makes the incarnational Church so…….attractive. Hope you catch the playful, subtle irony of that sentence! If the Missional is about “going”, then the Incarnational is about “going deep”.

I was also interested in the challenge to the notion that busyness in Church somehow equates with effectiveness. I loved Mike’s little illustration of the Pastors who’s dialog is often preceded with the greeting “How are you? Busy?”
Mike’s reply has become “Busy…I’m not busy, I’ve got all the time in the world…what do you want to do?”

This just goes to illustrate the power of the maxim “No time for relationships – no time for mission”…something important for me to bear in mind. In my local context we’ve been wrestling with this, so it was good to be reminded that if you release people from Church commitments – as we have done to some small extent – you must also model and provide missional opportunities….. stirring up latent missional potential.

“God is already at work in the places where you have been sent”

For much clearer and more eloquent unpacking of Mike’s talks, try here and here.

I heard a great quote from Church Under the Bridge’s Jimmy Dorrell.

This isn’t word for word, but Jimmy was having a gracious & affectionate pop at Post-Modern Churches by saying something along the lines of some people thought all you needed for a post-modern Church was

“a couch, a candle and a copy of the Matrix”.

There was no malice, or agenda….it was just a very funny line that had me laughing out loud as I listened to a podcast on my iPod on the train to the office.

More significantly, what Jimmy had to say about Church & Mission & the marginalized was on the nail. Jimmy wasn’t a name I was familiar with so I Googled him, bounced through the Wiki and found the site for his Church Under the Bridge. As I write this, I haven’t had the time to check much of it out, but the things he had to say certainly inspired me. I’m looking forward to finding out more…

A little later in September I’m hoping to head over to Moot – if my diary doesn’t get too rammed – to hear Mustard Seed Associates’ Tom Sine speak..

Tom has just released a new book called The New Conspirators

This should be an interesting evening for all kinds of reasons:

• It’s always good to hear up close what writers have to say about their own work
• An opportunity to see the work of the guys at Moot, a community who seem to be doing some really interesting and creative things
• Another chance to break outside of my tribal box, and hook up with other Jesus followers. I’ve been really encouraged lately when stepping out a little like this. In fact, I’m starting to feel the stirrings of something very special about the opportunities that are coming my way, and the relationships that are quietly building in the background. There’s a feeling of inter-connectedness and authenticity that seems like a God-thing. We shall see…

This London event is free…..but you do have to book your place.

For booking details you can go here

I’ve lifted this straight from Danielle Strickland’s excellent ArmyBarmy Remix blog.

Danielle had mentioned that she knew of some people who use a few spiritual inventory questions to keep themselves in check. In what she describes as “the spirit of authentic discipleship” Danielle proposes some questions for consideration:

Are you friends with someone who is not a Christian?

Do you have friends in low places?

Are you aware today that there is nothing you can do to save yourself from sin? And how have you tried to produce your own righteousness?

Have you embraced a culture that is totally different from your own? If so, how?

Do you forgive freely?

Have you lavished resources on hospitality and fun recently? How did you feel?

Is there ‘dirt’ under your fingernails? Have you done something that required ‘work’?

Have you given something precious away –freely and without regret?

Have you gone swimming at the beach and rolled in the sand?

How often do you read a good secular book?
Have you ever sat in a bar and conversed with the occupants?
Do you protect the reputation of colleagues when they are criticized?
Do you own a hiphop CD?

and many more… the key is trying to live a Kingdom life – not just a religious one. The difference?

life that grows – not diminishes

life that is full – not empty

life that is abandoned – not restricted

life that is alive – not dead

This certainly challenged me…