Indexed: X=Y, Joy = Bacon
The other day, a friend Dylan introduced me to Indexed, a blog of insightful but funny graphs like this:
I’m now absolutely hooked, so wanted to point you towards it and share some of my favourites with you:
2010
Missional Community Practices?
A couple of years ago, when Mike Frost was in the UK, there was a big trend towards using community practices amongst those who were part of or leading missional communities. A few different communities, including The Lab, tried out a routine of simple weekly practices that were designed to encourage an everyday, intentional mission lifestyle.
I was wondering what your experience with community practices has been? Do you think they are a good idea? And how much is an overload of different things to do in a week?
Missional Viewpoints 4: Mission as Transformation
In what ways is transformation a metaphor for mission, and how does this affect our understanding of mission and the way we approach it?
Transformation is a key element of mission – and it’s also one of the big indicators that our missional work is having an effect.
But what if rather than looking at transformation as a result of mission, we looked at transformation as a metaphor for mission itself?
Mission isn’t for Communities or Individuals, but for People
Mission and Learning – Part 2
Church programs or individual lives?
Is engaging in mission the job of communities of people together – or is it primarily about individuals living intentional lives of mission?
Part of the discussion following my last post on Mission and Learning was about whether missional engagement and learning should be understood as a group process or as an individual process. Is it that we each have an individual call of join God’s mission or is mission something which must be worked through in community?
5 Top Blog Posts for January
So, over the last month I’ve been attempting to organise my blogging a lot more, focusing on investing time in the topics I want to research and learn more of and trying to be more methodical and more consistent with my writing.
I’d like to invite you to read over some of the popular posts you missed, and feel free to comment or discuss anything you find interesting. Here are some of the posts over the last month which have proved most popular with you guys:
AVATAR: 4 Perspectives on the Top Grossing Film Ever
Avatar is now officially the top grossing film of all-time worldwide, making (so far) $1,849,317,325 at the box office – that’s 1.85 billion dollars. I saw it a couple of weeks ago and was captivated simply by the sheer epic proportions of the film, let alone the wealth of meaning and metaphor behind it.
Since Avatar’s release bloggers, journalists and critics have attempted to analyse and reflect on the meaning behind the film. Here are four very different perspectives I’ve read recently, which all bring a different insight into the film’s setting and storyline:
Mission as Identity
We need to understand participation in God’s Mission as part of our very identity as followers of Jesus. Tim Chester got it spot on, writing on his blog yesterday:
For many people mission has become an event. We have guest services. Evangelistic courses. Street preaching. Youth programmes. There’s nothing wrong with these things. But mission is more than a slot into our schedules. It is an identity and a lifestyle. Mission is about living all of life, ordinary life, with gospel intentionality.
Are you a Consumer or a Commodity?
Or both?
Part of my dissertation reading has been Zygmunt Bauman’s book, Consuming Life, which describes and explores some of the implications of living in a consumerist society.
Bauman very quickly makes the connection from a society oriented around consuming products to a society which also finds itself consuming each other:
Haiti: The Church’s Finest Hour
World Relief has been empowering local churches to respond to the disaster in Haiti. From their news update:
Haiti’s local churches are rising to the challenge in their quake-ravaged communities – feeding and providing shelter for thousands of the most vulnerable survivors.
By the weekend, four local churches partnering with World Relief will be feeding 9,500 people hot meals – rice and beans for lunch and porridge for dinner – every day.
A local church in the Carrefour area has opened its doors to those who lost their homes, providing refuge for nearly 6,000 people in the community. Stepping out in faith, Pastor Jean Bathard Anthony began feeding the people with what few supplies he had. Now World Relief has come alongside Pastor Jean, assisting with food and water.
Haiti Emergency Appeal
Some of you may have noticed that I’ve added banners for Tearfund’s Haiti Appeal to the blog over the last few days.
Please consider either giving through Tearfund, an agency I trust wholeheartedly, or by following their link to the Disasters Emergency Committee website – and pray.
For more news and prayer points on the situation in Haiti click here.
