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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Please check out The Natwivity…follow Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, wisemen & others on Facebook & Twitter as the Christmas story unfolds. Get involved!
There aren’t many people who’ve been in some way part of my life as long as Chick and Margaret Yuill. They’ve been family friends since before I was born by virtue of the wonderful kindness and care shown to my own Dad by the other Chick Yuill….Chick’s Dad. In fact, in my infant years Chick was known to us as “Young Chick”. I’m old enough to have very clear memories of travelling to London from Bellshill in Scotland to witness Chick and Margaret being commissioned as a Salvation Army Officers in the Royal Albert Hall.
By some strange synchronicity, following that Commissioning – Ordination, if you will – the first community the Yuill’s pastored was in Archway in North London, where two young sisters – the daughters of a Caribbean couple – were part of the Sunday School. Years later, Chick and Margaret conducted the my Wedding to one of those sisters, drawing together two strands of their story, at once rekindling, affirming and strengthening deeply rooted relationships.
The Yuill’s ministry has always been relevant and in touch with current culture. In fact, I love the fact that they recently – despite a period of resistance – embraced Facebook in a big way after having taken themselves along to see “The Social Network”.
Here’s one of Chick’s first FB Status updates:
“Having just watched the movie ‘The Social Network’, I have decided the time has come to join Facebook and get into the 20th century. Then I realised it’s the 21st century (!) so I’m still catching up…”
So, it’s exciting for me to know that Chick will have a new book published early in the New Year.
Chick’s forthcoming Moving in the Right Circles explores discipleship, picturing it as a series of ever-widening concentric circles:
• walking in the company of Jesus
• growing in the community of believers
• engaging with the culture of the times
• looking to the coming of the King
Early publicity describes the book as “dynamic and punchy” – which could just as easily apply to marathon running Chick himself – and expands by saying
“Too many people find their experience as Christians incomplete and unsatisfactory…
But life with Jesus is meant to be an all-encompassing adventure.
The books that come from Chick are always more than worth a read, so I’m pretty confident this one will be no exception. Hook yourself up with it!
Chick spearheads the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity’s (LICC) Imagine project in the North West of England. He has spent over thirty-five years in full-time ministry, mostly leading and pastoring local congregations in the UK and the USA. He has been married to Margaret for over 40 years.
“Social Media for Social change” will explore the medium is changing the way we relate to one another each day, and how Jesus following digi-nauts & netizens can harness the power of Social Media (I’m still using these words while I still can) to bring social transformation.
One of many exciting things about this particular event is the fact that author, futurologist and man with the best hair in all Christendom - Leonard Sweet – will be hooking up live.
It’ll be good to see my buddies from Kore UK lighting up the conference stage as well.
…hope they turn the heating up, though!
Tomorrow, at some unearthly hour for a Saturday morning, I’ll be hooking up with the indubitable Mr Jonny Rose and heading over to the Christian New Media Conference at City University in town. (that’s London town)
I’ll be wearing my Kore Trustee hat, as effectively I’m there in that capacity.
…looking forward to having another f2f with Bex Lewis as well.
If you’re there too, and bump into me…please say “hi!”
