johnnylaird

Online buddy, Martin Thompson, who blogs at Missiome and was one of my early points of reference when starting on my own blogging journey is going through a rich vein of form at the moment with a quick succession of really good honest and exploratory posts about faith.

Martin’s thoughts have a lot of resonance for me, so I thought I’d share the posts in order just to give others who may not be familiar with Missiome to discover what he has to say.

• beliefs 1 – God
• beliefs 2 – God continued…
• beliefs 3 – Jesus
• beliefs 4 – the spirit…
• beliefs 5 – belief
• beliefs 6 – church
• beliefs 7 – the bible

HT to Martin for the image, and for articulating stuff that I’ve thought about, but never really put down in any readable fashion and adding so much more to the process

More on Missiome at johnnlaird.net

My Church community – The Salvation Army in Croydon – has been holding a Christmas Concert in the Fairfield Halls in the town for close to fifty years.

It’s a great way to start the Christmas Season with Carols, music from our Bands and Choirs and a traditional Nativity Presentation.

This year is no different, so if you are close to Croydon and would enjoy this traditional family event check out the details on Facebook,  email christmasfairfield@croydoncitadel.org or hook up with the Fairfield box office.

• Celebrate Christmas Show Facebook Event
• Fairfield Box Office
• More on Croydon at johnnylaird.net

Not since this post about Salvationist soul singer Samuel Ljungblahd, have I been so knocked out by a performance by one of my tribe’s music groups.

These guys are a Salvation Army choir from Mizoram in North East India

Enjoy, and be blessed!

My good buddies at Kore UK are upping the ante with their new consultancy site – aheadintheclouds

Matt & Juls are two of the most talented people I know, and I’m constantly in awe of their creative and cognitive gifts.

If you need what they offer, you should get in touch with them.

They rock!

Also, you might want to check out their other brilliant sites; the also brand new and cool as… unrelated sources, Worth the Ask and viewfromtheoffice

• HT to Aheadintheclouds for the image
• More on Kore at johnnylaird.net

Now, a term like “bitch up” is one I’m neither particularly familiar with or would claim as my own, but the vid is a so powerful, so moving, so authentic…that it demands inclusion in this blog.

I love this Eliot Rauch directed piece which I came across on via David “Ellis” Barnsley AKA Little Warrior

this KINGDOM from phos pictures on Vimeo.

Eliot is a deeply talented director, who has the the ability to capture profound and deeply moving stories in his short movies.

Absolutely well worth exploring…

A few days ago the vid below was creating quite a buzz online. I picked up the vibe from a Cory Doctorow tweet quoting Jim Gilliam

“I don’t have faith in the Internet, I have faith in people connected through the Internet “

The phrase grabbed me (even though when you listen to the vid, I think you’ll see it’s a paraphrase.) The sentiment is intact, though, and it’s fascinating.

Now – depending on your worldview, and your theology – some of Jim’s talk could be pretty uncomfortable listening, yet I found it deeply interesting, it’s message actually quite subtle and profoundly moving.

If you have passed by this blog more than a couple of times, you’ll know I’m a Jesus guy, a follower.

That said,  I’m becoming increasingly convinced that our feeble efforts to understand and explain God – even through Scripture – fall way way short of the mystery of it all, as we scrape around trying to compress and shrink …and box in the Divine to fit into our limited understanding of all .

So, I can feel at least some resonance with many of the things Jim Gilliam is exploring here.

If you want some other stuff to make you think why not check out this, or this

Any thoughts people?

Sometimes someone’s story grabs you so powerfully you just feel compelled to keep revisiting it.

That’s the way it is for me with Ed Dobson.

I first became aware of Ed when I took a trip to Mars Hill in Grand Rapids, MI…ostensibly to hear Rob Bell speak.

Rob wasn’t there, but Ed was and preached up a storm, and engaged me in such a way that I’ve tried to keep tabs on what he’s been doing since then.

Ed’s latest initiative is “It Ain’t Over” – the first of what promises to be a series of short films from Flannel, the guys who brought you Nooma and the BASIC series. In it he explores big questions of life and death, all of which is made more profound that Ed suffers from ALS, aka Lou Gehrig’s Disease – a debilitating form of motor neuron disease.

He’s probably be embarrassed to read this, but Ed has become something of a hero of mine; for the grace he shows, for his rich Northern Irish wit, for his willingness to change and most of all because he tries to Live Jesusly.

More on Ed at johnnylaird.net

HT to Ed for the image.

Rooted & Linked from Parish Collective on Vimeo.

Parish Collective…“a growing collective of churches, missional communities, and faith-based groups which are rooted in neighborhoods and linked across cities.“

… a sterling group of folks are involved in this brilliant new initiative.

Lots of resonance for me here

In just a few short weeks – June 23-26 – a new festival will occur in Shakori Hills, North Carolina. Taking its inspiration from the UK based UK festival Greenbelt, Wild Goose promises to be an amazing weekend, a gathering of tribes of followers of the Way of Jesus and others drawn to a chance to be together, to share in great music and other creative arts and to explore spirituality and what it means to fight for justice.

The Wild Goose is a metaphor for the Holy Spirt.

I’d love to be going, but that will have to be another time.

Wild Goose Festival – June 23 – 26, 2011 – Shakori Hills Farm, NC from Wild Goose on Vimeo.

If you are over there – whatever you think and believe – and you have the means, I’d strongly recommend you check it out.

Wild Goose Festival – June 23 – 26, 2011 – Shakori Hills Farm, NC from Wild Goose on Vimeo.

I’ve been fascinated to discover this beautifully put together short of a discussion clip from the originsproject.org where fellow Awaken Group alumni Dave Gibbons invites his friend and colleague Erwin McManus to expound on his relatively recent transitional shift towards multiple areas of art, entrepreneurship and ministry with initiatives like Temple Bags.

The vids is not new, the event it briefly refers to has been and gone, but it’s still definitely worth a look because of Erwin’s shared story, and the way the whole thing has been produced. It’s been put together by Trey Ordoñez, who clearly is a man who knows how to craft a great film, as you can see for yourself if you explore his work a little more at his Treysreel site.

Mission with Erwin McManus from Trey Ordoñez on Vimeo.

Erwin is surrounded by a sterling bunch of friends, including my buddy Eric Bryant and another recent Something Beautiful guest Amenda Brown. It’s quite a crew!

Hope you enjoy the films, and find what Erwin had to say as inspirational as I did.

• More on Erwin at johnnylaird.net
• More on Dave Gibbons at johnnylaird.net
• More on Eric Bryant at johnnylaird.net
• Amena Brown
• Treysreel