Tag: Books

Jan201004

Reflection & Contemplation, Twelve Days of Christmas

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Eleven Pipers Piping

On the eleventh day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Eleven pipers piping,
Ten lords a-leaping,
Nine ladies dancing,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

Today is the eleventh day of Christmas, and the penultimate day of our brief series where we’ve been using the popular folksong to explore some of the building blocks – or launching pads – for the  Christian faith. Today, the eleven pipers piping stand for the eleven faithful disciples.

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Dec200929

Reflection & Contemplation, Twelve Days of Christmas

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Five Gold Rings

On the fifth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Five gold rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

Continuing our series on the Twelve Days of Christmas, we’re looking at the different Christian symbols applied to the folksong. The idea behind these meanings is that then the song can be taught as a kind of teaching song to help learn and remember some important “pillars” of faith. Today is the five gold rings – which symbolise the first five books of the Bible, also called the Books of Moses, the Pentateuch or the Torah (Jewish scriptures).

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Dec200928

Reflection & Contemplation, Twelve Days of Christmas

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Four Calling Birds


On the fourth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

There is a general consensus (at least on Wikipedia) that the Calling Birds aren’t actually “birds that call”, but that this line is actually a corruption of “Four Colly Birds”. A colly bird is, apparently, olde English for a Blackbird.

The four birds respresent the four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

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Oct200912

Church & Ecclesiology, Culture, Society & Mission

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“Come, change the world with us”

Be the Change

In his video for The Nines, Rick Warren talks about the need for a process of discipleship in a lot of the churches he is aware of. The question a lot of church leaders are asking is ‘how do we move people along from a needy attitude towards faith to a more committed “what can I give?” attitude?’

Is the problem that this is the wrong question? Instead, perhaps we should be asking questions about the way we market our faith in the first place?

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Sep200904

Biblical Studies, Culture, Society & Mission, Missional Viewpoints

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Missional Viewpoints 1: Mission as Liberation

Banksy

How does the image of mission as liberation help us in understanding how God is at work in the world around us, and how we can get stuck in alongside him?

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Apr200907

Books

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5 books I really need to get around to finishing

I have a really bad habit of starting to read books and not getting around to finishing them. Here’s the five I currently have on the go:
  1. Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith – Shane Hipps
  2. How (Not) To Speak of God – Pete Rollins
  3. The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative – Christopher Wright
  4. ReJesus: A Wild Messiah for a Missional Church – Hirsch and Frost
  5. Preaching Re-imagined – Doug Pagitt

What books are others working their way through at the moment?

Feb200910

Biblical Studies, Culture, Society & Mission, Reflection & Contemplation

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From the garden to the city

14th century tapestry depicting New Jerusalem

I’ve been thinking recently, inspired by some stuff from a recent lecture at CYM, about the whole biblical meta-narrative – and in particular this idea of the story beginning with the garden and ending in the city. Beginning with Eden and ending with the new Jerusalem. I think I’ve read a few authors who have pointed this out and tried to draw observations from it – in particular recently Rob Bell’s new book and NT Wright’s Surprised by Hope.

It’s really interesting to see how we can play around with the interaction between this little bit of theology and all kinds of ideas about the way society and culture develops.

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Jan200913

Culture, Society & Mission

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Aesthetics, Branding and Power

Billboard in San Francisco

“Aesthetics are the post-modern currency of power”

There’s that classic statement about the modern world that “knowledge is power” – characterised in the way that any product which has some kind of “scientifically proven” stamp or someone in a lab coat supporting it is instantly trustable. We defer to those who have more knowledge than us. Knowledge, if you like, is the main currency of power – organisations trade useful information for power.

However, in a post-modern or hyper-modern world (or whatever other term you’d like to use) we find ourselves in an environment where information is more and more freely available to anyone. Now it is no longer the information itself gives individuals or organisations power, but how an organisation markets or brands that information that gives it power.

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Jan200908

Culture, Society & Mission

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First day back at college: Assorted Thoughts on Culture

So had my first day back at CYM last Wednesday – and began the Culture, Society and Mission module. Here are two quotes and thoughts I had:

“Aesthetics are the postmodern currency of power.”

That probably needs further unpacking in a future post. And:

“Critiquing a modern faith from within modernity is like describing a box from the inside.”

Today began to sketch out the concept of culture, beginning by looking at a theology of culture – from the garden to the city. Then we went on to take a detailed look at modernity – it’s origins, vague characteristics, and then onto a critique – as well as looking at the church in the light of modernity.

We also went through the opening chapter of H. Richard Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture - which I had my first look through in the first year during a theology module. Really good, classic, go-to book.

Dec200930

Books, Film, Links, Resources & Media

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Best of 2008: Stuff that’s changed me

Its usual around this time to bloggers to start putting lists together to sum up the previous year – so I thought I’d provide my own. Here’s my list of a few films, albums, books, people, videos – whatever – that have left their mark on me this year. In no particular order…

Film: Changeling

changeling 2 Best of 2008: Stuff thats changed meIn the second half of this year, Changeling was the film that hit me the hardest (Trailer here). What hit me was just how easy it was for these people who really thought they were doing the right thing to get it so wrong. Angelina Jolie played a very different role really well.

Blog: The Forgotten Ways – Alan Hirsch

Throughout this year, Alan has managed to regularly turn out thought-provoking posts about missional, liminality and communitas on his blog. This is one of the few blogs in my reader that has no unread posts.

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