Tim Abbott

The influence of TV

The all pervasive influence of TV has claimed another victim.

My 19 year old beer connoisseur son has been watching back to back episodes of Frasier and has thus been inspired to start drinking sherry. As a responsible father I have felt it necessary to help him in his research.

We need a revolution of the self

Wise words from Mark Sayers about what's missing in our conversation about the reimagining of church.

Links for today - 080312

Here are some links to useful stuff and fun stuff...

First the fun stuff;

Stuff White People Like  Wryly observed commentary on our middle class western lifestyle.
[Thanks Joel]

Useful stuff;

Free Mac Software does exactly what it says. Simon Elliott is a teacher in Cornwall and the brains behind thefreemac

And dafont is a site with nearly 8000 free or nearly free fonts all neatly organised and regularly updated.
[Thanks Tom]

Unphotogenic

Research by Canon (UK) reveals that 86% of Brits believe they're unphotogenic. The report goes into greater detail about our greatest worries (stomachs and chins, apparently) and the various ways in which we try to look our best, even resorting to re-touching.

Of course, I refute these findings absolutely and present my Facebook profile picture in evidence.

Information

The information we can access, and the way we access it, has changed out of all recognition in the last 10 years. This amazingly creative video tells that story.

Six major shifts

Thanks to Rick at Blind Beggar for flagging up a post from Chuck Warnock over at Confessions of A Small-Church Pastor highlighting six major shifts taking place in churches.

1. The shift from observation to participation.
2. The shift from religious education to spiritual formation.
3. The shift from “what does it mean” to “what does it say to me” in Scripture reading.
4. The shift from “hereafter” to the “here-and-now.”
5. The shift from the individual to the community.
6. The shift from belief to practice.

The ability to spot what's really going on and to express it so clearly and succinctly is a rare gift - I encourage you to read Chuck's post first hand.

Faith, belief and superstition

31% of people who say they're 'not religious' believe in ghosts.
62% of people believe we have a soul.
Christians are (apparently) more likely to read their horoscopes than average.

Ben Schott's Almanac of belief in The Times reveals what we Brits believe about faith and superstition this Halloween.

In rainbows - a tiping point?

Everybody's talking about it, Radiohead's new album In Rainbows being released on the internet on a 'pay what you think it's worth' basis.

Over the last five years or so it's become more and more obvious that the traditional distribution model for getting music from the artist to the fans is under strain. CD sales have fallen, downloading and file swapping (most of it illegal) has risen exponentially. Somewhere in the middle old style fixed price distribution has formed an uneasy marriage with new style music downloads in the form of DRM restricted online music stores, though in reality this has become just another market segment rather than the new dominant model. The obvious and uber-simple concept of just letting your fans download your tunes has been at odds with the question, where does the money come from to pay for music production in the first place?

Enter Radiohead who, whilst not the first to offer their music this way, appear, thanks to their huge popularity and devoted fan base, to have marked a tipping point in a new model of distribution that embraces the new of downloading with the old of fan loyalty. This is no longer the market economy, but the gift economy. The band 'gifts' their work to the world and the world 'gifts' their money in return.

Of course, the gift economy only works so far - Radiohead can afford to do this because they are already well established and have a fan base loyal enough to cough up a bit of money. The average seems to be about £4 according to research into 3000 downloaders by music industry newsletter Record of the Day, though about a third didn't pay anything at all. Already other big names, including David Bowie, Jamiroquai and The Charlatans are considering distributing their music in a similar way with others looking on in  interest. These bands make money from gigs, so there's always the possibility that getting their tunes into more people's lives could mean more people at gigs. And no matter how generous you feel, musicians, producers and studios still need to be paid somehow, so there's little sign that gigs will soon be on a gift basis too.

In an interesting parallel, Gerd Leonhard, author of The Future of Music has recently started publishing his next book for free on this blog, one chapter at a time. His blog-book, End of Control  explores "how technology is shifting control over media to the people formerly known as consumers".  Chapters one and two are already out.

Dove - "Onslaught"

There's a new video from the Dove campaignforrealbeauty called onslaught here. It depicts the barrage of unreal images and stereotypes that influence young girls' self image with the simple message, "Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does".

The Dove campaignforrealbeauty web site contains a range of ideas and resources for mothers, daughters and mentors working with young girls. There's a lot there, even though finding some of it (or remembering how to get back to it) can be a bit of a challenge.

Many of us have used the previous Dove video, evolution which depicted the transformation of the image of a model. There's also a downloadable video here which revolves around the image of a boy and a girl and  takes a slightly more documentary view, spelling out the techniques used in a bit more detail. Well worth a look.

[ via: ypulse]
 

Journey into Wholeness

On Saturday I was at the Journey into Wholeness stall at the Mind, Body Soul Exhibition in Colchester. This is the sixth year that JiW, an inter-church group, has run a stall at this annual weekend supermarket of beliefs, therapies and health products.

Centrepiece of stall was a giant 8' x 4' image of Christ painted over the course of the event by artist David Hollingsworth. People stopping to chat were invited to contribute their thoughts about, or experiences of, faith, belief or God or to record their own responses to the image of Christ on an A7 size piece of paper. These contributions were later incorporated physically into the painting.

The painting, and the fact that it was all happening right before your eyes, drew attention in a way that I don't think anything we've done before has managed.

As with last year, my overall impression was that most people were not particularly seeking, just lost, or confused. Some I spoke to weren't even very sure why they had really come or what they were looking for. One lady I spoke with had lost her son to a misdiagnosed ulcer, had a daughter with a new and constantly screaming baby and was looking after her mother with Alzheimer's. Although she had the memory of a faith, shortly after the death of her son she consulted a medium who she believes was able to connect her to her dead son.

How could I stand in judgement over her decision when, as far as I could tell, the church had been absent when she needed God's presence and God's people most. I offered to pray for her, which she gladly accepted and we stood there in the aisle for a few seconds as I asked God to draw near to her in a way that she would be able to recognise. I hope he does.