http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1211780

This is interesting:

“Ditching the teacher-centred, authoritarian pedagogy many mature academics were trained in…seemed like a good idea,” she writes. “Promoting active and engaged students, appealing to student interest and promoting a more community-based and democratic enterprise made sense.”

However, today’s student-led learning environment, which stresses the importance of student voices and experiences, has led to a loss of teachers’ authority within the classroom, she contends.

Read full story.

Last time I met with Mary she’d been helping teachers to teach scientific material using Angry Birds… even I would like to learn more science then! Connect with Mary Jackson on LinkedIn.

There is an epidemic among female academics. It is called “impostor syndrome” and it can affect even the most steely of professors.

It is said to take effect when a call comes through from a press office or television researcher, asking for an “expert” in the academics’ subjects.

“Their depth of knowledge may be vast but women often think: ‘There’s someone better suited than me,’” explains Donna Taberer, head of public service partnerships at the BBC Academy, a training centre with an industry-wide remit. When a man takes the call, more likely “he says yes and works it out in the taxi on the way to the studio”.

Read full story, more info on the BBC, and I’ll be keeping an eye on @TheBBCAcademy

In the past few decades, the fortunate among us have recognised the hazards of living with an overabundance of food (obesity, diabetes) and have started to change our diets. But most of us do not yet understand that news is to the mind what sugar is to the body. News is easy to digest. The media feeds us small bites of trivial matter, tidbits that don’t really concern our lives and don’t require thinking. That’s why we experience almost no saturation. Unlike reading books and long magazine articles (which require thinking), we can swallow limitless quantities of news flashes, which are bright-coloured candies for the mind. Today, we have reached the same point in relation to information that we faced 20 years ago in regard to food. We are beginning to recognise how toxic news can be.

Read full story. Always interesting to think how much easier it is to give up following the news, etc. as the ‘big stories’ still come via Facebook/Twitter, etc…  and this story came via Rachel!

Officially I’m working on a review for Resurrection Year, but as that’s not out til the end of May, and as I enjoyed that book so much – plus what Sheridan has written for #BigRead, I decided to order Unseen Footprints. I’ve enjoyed meandering in and out of the book throughout the past 3-4 months… and it is eminently dip-in-and-outable.

If Sheridan hasn’t yet met with Brian Draper, I think they’d get on exceedingly well, as this book reminded me of much of the material that Brian has encouraged me to engage with. Sheridan has drawn from a great range of sources, including The Bible, U2, The Lion The Witch & the Wardrobe, Philip Yancey and many more. At one point he has a conversation with God, based on comments on his blog… to which God replies:

I do not need your worship. I never have. I want a relationship with you – communication. And amongst other things, worship is your expressing to me in a word and action why you value me, the painter of sunsets, the originator of beauty, the one greater than all splendour combined.

Great stories, great pictures .. and eminently revisitable.

Ha, yes, I can get overloaded with options, so interesting piece of advice came into my mailbox recently from Marianne Cantwell:

Stop the overload. Stop kidding yourself that the solution to being confused about all the options in front of you is to get more of them. The moment someone says “hey have you thought of this completely new and unrelated path?” when you are already overwhelmed with options? Slap in your earplugs and go “la la, I can’t hear you!”. After all if you can’t see the wood for the trees, the answer isn’t to add more trees.

Read more from Free Range Humans, who recommends that you focus on the options in front of you, rather than than putting off making a decision whilst you wait for other options.

So, I started reading this a while ago, and then picked it up not long after finishing Ruth Roberts book… and do you know what, they ask some remarkably similar questions, but come to rather different conclusions…

Much of this book is funny, some of it misses the point, and some of it makes me uncomfortable … but one thing you can’t accuse Marcus Bridgstocke of is of picking on any particular religion (or non-religion). Though he’s – at the moment – decided on secular humanism … non of the main faithss, and atheism itself, escape his wit and humour (nor does his middle-class-ness).

As I’ve been looking at ways to engage graciously with other Christians (or anyone to be honest – there’s lots of things we can disagree over) … this bit particularly struck me (although there’s often a deeper theological reason for disagreements, but we just don’t seem to be good at expressing it):

Religious people will fight over almost anything. In a loving and forgiving way, of course. Take two people born in the same community, educated in the same school: they go to the same places, drink in the same pubs, they attend the same church, they read the same Holy Book. But crucially, one of those books is printed in Arial font, the other in Times New Roman, and that’s it. There’s a schism. A fight over the font, which I’m certain must be blasphemous. There then follows a thousand years of bloodshed. ‘Don’t talk to them, they’re Times New Roman Catholics’. This is war. They all say ‘Oh, no, ours is a peaceful faith built on charity and forgiveness,’ and they mean it too. Until they meet almost anyone who doesn’t agree with them and then it’s fighty, smashy, kicky, punchy all the way. ‘Did you come in the side door of the church and sit near the altar? Die, heretic.’

Makes me think back to what we were talking about at Spring Harvest. Going back to ‘the source‘, and focusing on what’s important, rather than the many small things that we argue about!

So, this book arrived on my doorstep Thursday.. and having read Ruth Roberts (pseudonym) tweets – and judging a book by its cover – I thought that my brain could cope with this whilst drowning in flu. I was right, although there’s no doubt that the book raises some deeper questions that could do with deeper thought, but it’s my favourite kind of book – honest, vulnerable, grappling with the deeper things in life, but maintaining a sense of humour throughout… with the added interest that Ruth used to work for News of the World, and despairs at the gulf between faith and the media!

Having grown up in “in the church”, but having changed flavours of churches (Breathren, Baptist, Anglican, Methodist – and any that spoke English whilst travelling) – I’ve experienced both “everything looks normal” and “why would you do THAT?” … and I still remember the conversation I had with a friend about the Scientologists and their belief that aliens came to earth in ice cubes and populated the world … and she said – well, what you believe looks just as weird to me! Glad to see that my head is not the only one that aches when wresting with such things.. including whether social action on its own is OK, or whether it needs to be accompanied by the spoken gospel.

A few bits that I love from the book, as Ruth (writing for Christianity Magazine grapples with being a new Christian in Church):

To be honest, I don’t care what other people get up to. It’s their business, not mine, and as far as I understand it, we’re not supposed to judge.

She simply prays for those around her, with no likelihood of ever knowing “effectiveness”… and tries to understand reactions to those Christians who make it into the public eye — we complain about the media, but get excited when a Christian gets some online space.. but then tend to criticise those who are doing so for not being ‘humble’ enough, and seeking to further their own agenda …

I love the fact that when Ruth first re-entered the world of church, she found a deeply accepting church who just accepted James/Ruth living together, and accepted them as they were – the message she walked away with from that church was “total grace”. Training as a coach – it’s been one of the biggest emphases – people start where they are, and you can’t get them to start from anywhere else – it’s not possible!

I want the God who preaches good news to the poor, who comforts the broken-hearted, proclaims freedom for the captives and releases darkness for the prisoners.

And Ruth encounters that typical experience for the media – the “only people who will stick their necks out and take a ‘position’ on things are the people who hold very strong views. And they seem to get all the attention.”

And this one had me nodding my head vigorously, as I think about the ways that we engage 24/7 online/offline:

Sometimes I wonder why we spend hours devising new and exciting ways of drawing people into church when it can all be ruined by a thoughtless comment or a bitchy remark… I know that Christians are only too human, but how do people like my brother and the woman I’ve just seen get beyond these bad experiences and meet the real Christ.

And then, as Ruth writes to her Dad:

So far I’ve learnt that Jesus is quite keen on breaking rules and getting people to work things out for themselves… It’s not rocket science, is it? If church is seen as a place of judgement and rules rather than a place of compassion and safety, people are not going to come through our doors.

So often we see those within the Church using the Bible as a weapon, seeking verses that support the position – throwing those backwards and forwards until your head spins… and as Ruth says – few of us have time/aptitude for theological study and so feel bewildered by the debates raging around us…. and those observing the Christian faith wonder why they would want to get involved in something that’s so split.  The book moves through questioning whether this is all worth the time, but pleasingly, doesn’t end with everything tied up in a neat little bow… questions are there still to be answered, life is to be lived, but a peace underlies it all.

AT a time when the majority of householders will soon be single people, the church remains obsessed with being family friendly.

That’s one of the key findings from a major new survey on singleness in the UK church, completed by more than 3000 single Christians – the largest-ever on the subject. Starting next week (Thu 11 Apr), three talks will take place in London to present the initial findings.

After more than a decade serving single people through Christian Connection, founder Jackie Elton became increasingly concerned both by the lack of thinking in churches around singles and the difficulties her members experienced. Many have simply given up on church.

‘The world is changing, but churches aren’t learning how to reflect these changes,’ explains Jackie. ’I was amazed at the huge response the survey received. The floodgates opened. The survey proves many churches are not meeting the needs of the growing number of single people.’

‘He or she moves from being in the majority to the minority in friendship groups,’ explains Jackie. ‘This ushers in a number of vexing  questions.’

#BigRead13 Thoughts

Really grateful to those who have stuck with this through the whole process, has been some real little encouragements, as we think about Easter … and the year ahead – what difference has engaging with the various online materials for Lent made to our lives? Dealing with the subject of death is always a difficult one, but this is such a lovely picture in The Last Battle:

But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

The Hebrews verse calls for us to recognise that we are aliens in this earth… but clearly that that doesn’t mean that we are not part of this earth whilst on it! What would we like to be written on our cover page/gravestone? I still think mine would be “She lived life to the full.” 

… and still deeply encouraged by everything shared by #digidisciple – continuously working to add coherence, etc.. whilst maintaining individual voices… what’s on their cover pages?

#BigRead13 Thoughts (C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle)

“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now…Come further up, come further in!”

This evening in The Big Top at Spring Harvest Minehead (1) – our final challenge was if we believe in Revelation 21, also the verse that we’d chosen today, that if we believe in it – we need to live our lives as if our lives on earth matter… although this world may be but a shadow of the one we are invited to for eternity, it has been given to us, and we are called to a life of action, to let others know that a life of love awaits them … not to be hanging around at the edges, but to ‘come further up, come further in…”

#BigRead13 Thoughts

Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.

Looking forward to heaven some point (no more weary, shattered old mind/body), on a more earthly plane I’m looking forward to catching up with @onlinepraise later.

#BigRead13 Thoughts

Well, there’s a challenge for those of us who feel time poor from ‘The Screwtape Letters’ … and our attitude to time – we feel we own 24 hours day, begrudge the time we give to work and view:

as a generous donation that further portion which he allows to religious duties.

Psalm 39:4-5 (New Living Translation)

“Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be.
Remind me that my days are numbered—
how fleeting my life is.
⁵ You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand.
My entire lifetime is just a moment to you;
at best, each of us is but a breath.”

It has become a standing (sigh) joke in my life that I’m always busy, never knowing when to slow down – even trying to do ‘I’m not busy” for Lent -which is TEN MINUTES a day has not worked every day … although I am spending time gradually sorting out processes that should create space in the long term.  IT’S MY BIGGEST CHALLENGE – AND WE LOSE AN HOUR TONIGHT!

@40Acts

That’s a really encouraging point to finish on – all of our stories are important – and just because of our media saturated culture we should not value to dramatic ‘conversation’ over the slow-burn brought up in a Christian family story – amen! I have found it encouraging when in sessions about ‘sharing your testimony’ when people share what God has been doing recently – it’s not all about the conversation testimony – though that’s a time of great joy!

Brian Draper: Lent 40

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

As spotted on Facebook today, which I then tweeted: ”Nails didn’t hold God to a cross. Love did.”#EverythingChanges Six hours, one Friday – by @MaxLucado.

At housegroup earlier this week we were discussing similar to this seen on Facebook also:

I used to think it must have actually been pretty easy for Jesus to die on the cross. After all, he’s God, so surely could handle a few nails in his hands and feet. Then I realised it wasn’t about the physical suffering … it’s about the weight of having every wrong doing that ever existed and ever will exist on his shoulders. And not just a few lies or a bit of speeding on the way to work, but every rape, torture, murder and unthinkable crime against humanity.

And my timelines on Facebook and Twitter are full of ‘It is finished’, etc (haven’t noticed so much of #EverythingChanges yet), but trending are Justin Bieber and The Voice, with the only reference to what’s going on the cheery “Happy Good Friday”.

#BigRead13 Thoughts

This video also came through my Facebook feed (see what connections we can make on a day off that’s a day focused on God – all at once!) and I thought fitted really well with today’s theme of ‘seek and you will find’ – rather than searching for happiness in so many different places (not sure if the computer in the video is intended to equate to computer = bad, but I don’t think so!)

@40Acts

I’m not sure how I feel about today’s challenge, and it really is a challenge. I’ve got Stephen Cherry’s Healing Agony in my reading list pile as I have much to think about on this issue. There’s things that I’ve struggled to say “I forgive you” and mean it … and then I feel like I’m “failing” – yet something else to beat myself up about… I’ve forgiven some pretty massive things, but struggling in particular with someone who said they didn’t have to talk to me about what forgiveness was required for because God had already forgiven them… and that was enough – but I’m sure there are parts in the Bible that talk about also settling up with your human counterpart if you know that you have done something that requires forgiveness… and then trying to remember the forgive 70×7 when someone who’s hurt you badly does it all over again in the way that they deal with the process of trying to find ways to come to terms with things & move on… It’s a long journey without a simplistic answer.

Brian Draper: Lent 40

The 7 sentences Jesus said on the Cross:

1. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do …”
   
2. “Truly I say to you, today you will be in paradise.”
3. Jesus said to his mother: “Woman, this is your son.” Then he said to the disciple: “This is your mother.”
4. “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
5. “I am thirsty”
6. “It is finished.”
7. “Father, into your hands I commit my Spirit”

With some great insights as to how these tied into his ministry, and how we are to remember that “In Him was life”. Remember. Remember. Remember.

http://www.seedresources.com/view/images/last-supper-window

#BigRead13 Thoughts

Ah… being ‘imprisoned in the mind’… Romans 12:2 obviously sprang to mind as I was preparing today’s reflection (along with Joyce Meyer, though I’ve only ever read one of her books!) – I like the New Living Translation:

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. New Living Translation (©2007)

The extract from The Last Battle may come from the scene where those who believe in Aslan have gone through into the Shed and found themselves in an amazing, fertile land… but those who have been pushed in and don’t believe sit playing games because they think they are restricted by the walls of the shed (all a bit Matrix!). It brings to mind debates about facts/science, etc… I totally see no incompatibility between science/faith, but I have spoken to some who if they can’t engage with it with one of the 5 physical senses, or see proof of it – can’t conceive of it … that seems sad. As Michael Ward said yesterday on the webinar  - God is bigger than us, he created us – if we could fully comprehend him then that wouldn’t make sense…. we are finite and he is infinite.

This leads me to a bit of thinking about what does it mean to ‘transform’ – and I like this first definition on Wordnik “To change markedly the appearance or form” … is it noticeable that we are in a relationship with Jesus?

@40Acts

As I’ve been preparing for Spring Harvest over the past few days, along the theme of ‘reconnecting with ‘The Source’ – Jesus & his words, then learning to “be”, then “say”, then “do”, I’m going to emphasise quite heavily the idea that – particularly in the online spaces – it’s about “BEING’ – living the Christian life 24/7 so that people can see… but that does also mean that we need to be prepared for our testimony. I used to give my conversion testimony regularly as an Oak Hall leader, but there are also what’s God doing right here/right now to be aware of… and am I prepared if someone asked me NOW … me being me I’d want to check my notes.

Bekah Legg gives some helpful advice…

• Know the core elements of your story, the important parts – rather than a script
• Be prepared for the ‘movie trailer’ version, and someone wanting more detail
• Don’t slip into Christianese…
• And most importantly  – LISTEN – the person sat with you is more important than anything you have to say.

Brian Draper: Lent 40

Carl Jung: “You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.”

I guess this is like ‘actions speak louder than words’, although as Brian says – we are more than our actions.

Archbishop Oscar Romero:

We cannot do everything,
and there is a sense of liberation in realising this.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.

Can we sum up our Lent journey in 6 words - coming to my mind is “Busy. Stop. Busy. Think. Busy. Be”?