So is it true?

Here's a few recommended links to blogs and websites which tackle the truthfulness and relevance of the Christian faith in the face of common challenges and modern ethical and spiritual issues. These were all pinged my way after asking for recommendations on a Facebook page, so I thought I'd post them in case anyone else found them useful

https://christianity.org.uk/  website with lots of links, topics and things to explore on spiritual questions.

https://www.rzim.org/watch  lectures on a range of different topics around faith, world religions, science, moral issues etc. Nabeel Qureshi (one of the speakers) is highly recommended

https://benjaminchangblog.com/  good blog by scientist and Christian by Benjamin Chang, with blogs, articles and videos on a range of topics

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings articles by William Lane Craig, who does lots of public debates and discussions on the Christian faith, the evidence for it, and some of the common challenges to it. Lots of videos and other materials on the website.

One that's been around for a bit longer is the L'Abri fellowship, founded by philosopher and evangelist Francis Schaeffer, and they have a vast online library of lectures and talks on modern thought, philosophy, psychology and Christianity. A real treasure trove http://labri-ideas-library.org/index.asp 

Random Jottings: Bishops, Bad Weather, Baptism and Byyyy Eck Lad

Wells MP Tessa Munt has written (presumably at taxpayers expense) to the CofE to ask why the Bishop of Bath and Wells will no longer live in the Bishops Palace. "One of the charms of the palace was the possibility that one might just run into the bishop or his wonderful wife in the grounds, and in my view, it is a great shame that the chances of being blessed in this way are reduced almost to nothing. Unless Ms Munt is happy for her constituents to wander around her front garden on the off chance that they might bump into her, I really can't see what the problem is. The Palace will remain, the Bishop will still work there, it will still be open to visitors. And the Diocese will benefit from having a bishop who can get some proper time off, rather than living over the shop trying to avoid politicians.

The Sun once again shows its contempt for ordinary people. I don't imagine its much fun living in Mulcheney at the moment, using it as a backdrop for a cheap publicity stunt is pretty dire. Maybe they'll be sending a page 3 girl to a Syrian refugee camp to cheer people up there? I'm sure that'd work a treat.

In other weather related news. Hell has frozen over. I guess a lot of other stuff will happen now.

Delighted to find out I'm still a Northerner, even though I've now been in Somerset longer than I lived in Yorkshire.

I've been trying to avoid getting too far into the kerfuffle over the provisional, experimental, temporary baptism prayers: various links to opinions here, and this is a good piece. And this is the only revision that would be acceptable to the Daily Mail.

Was really encouraged by this, the amazing diversity of God's church in the UK. And here's an article on our little corner of it, due in the local paper tomorrow, weather permitting.

In case you missed it, Dave Walkers cartoon advent calendar kept me amused for most of December, and it sees him restored to rightful prominence in the Ebuzzing blog list.

If you're looking for some new blogs to browse for 2014, The Church Sofa has some suggestions. I'd want to add the excellent Cookies Days, which along with Quarentia was my most fruitful source for good links and inspiration last year.

Blogs worth a browse

Good to see God and Politics back at the top of this particular blog rating site - possibly helped by the CofE now including blogs in its daily updates, as well as the continued excellence of the site and its content.

A couple of sites I'd not noticed before are now in the Ebuzzing top 20 for Religion and Belief, both worth a look, for different reasons:

Thorns and Gold by Tanya Marlow, mum, bible teacher, counsellor, ME sufferer. Her latest guest post is by Katharine Welby, and is excellent.

Though it's not strictly a blog, the Joint Public Issues Team of the Baptist, Methodist and URC churches has lots of provocative stuff on poverty, energy, environment, benefits, and everything from a theological critique of the use of drone strikes to how the church can respond to the housing shortage. Really worth a few minutes digging.

UK Snapshot: post-christian christenings, faith-based politics, changing churches.

1. The BBC has a piece on '10 ways christenings have changed', in advance of Prince Georges baptism later today. The last 2 of the 10 are an improvement, but I'm not sure about the rest! One thing is certain, we've moved on a long way from the original idea of godparents as potential surrogate parents who would step in if a childs birth parents were martyred for their faith.

update: one of the trends - increasing numbers of godparents - is followed religiously (if that's the right word) by Prince George, who has 7. That makes for an interesting precedent: the most I've ever agreed to is 6 (bartered down from an original 16!), and I encourage people to aim for 2-4. 

2. Labour MP Stephen Timms highlights a recent Demos report (free download) which argues that faith groups are more likely to be sympathetic to left-wing perspectives than those of the right, and that "faith is a very good starting point for politics, and for progressive politics in particular, because faith inspires, on a large scale, exactly the values that can make politics work: responsibility, solidarity, patience, compassion and truthfulness."

3. Christian Today has an interview with Phil Potter, new national head of Fresh Expressions for the Anglican church. "my vision is to see the culture of the church itself change. That change would see it becoming a culture which welcomes and embraces an ongoing cycle of transformation and renewal for the sake of the Gospel." You might almost suspect he's been talking to his boss. The CofE has tended to change in nausea-inducing lurches, we don't seem to be able to celebrate anything good without erecting a Grade 1 listed monument over it. 

To review, decide, plan and change on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual cycle is a good spiritual discipline both for the church, and for individual Christians. The irony is, we have the resources in our tradition to do this: from the Catholic side, Ignatian prayer (with the practice of a daily 'examen of conscience', a spiritual review), and from the Protestant side the idea of 'semper reformanda' (such fun we still cit it in Latin) - 'constant reformation' as the guiding principle of the church. But it's our attitude to those same traditions, our idolisation of them, that makes change such hard work. 

General Synod blogs

Quite a few people are blogging from within about General Synod, which closes today. Here are a few of them:

(updated to include....) Bermondsey Vicar not a blog I'd come across before, but looks good, nicely written.

Nick Baines, Bishop of Bradford (who won't have a diocese much longer..)

Stephen Lynas, Bishops Chaplain from Bath & Wells Diocese

Jeremy Fletcher, Beverley Minster (I think that's a place, not the name of the first female CofE Bishop, though you never know)

Dave Walker, 1000 words in visual form.

The General Synod blog

Thinking Anglicans has lots of reports (mainly focusing on women bishops/sexuality. What do Anglicans think about every 7 seconds?)

Church of England Newspaper live blog, which reads like a Twitter feed. or tennis match text commentary.

Steve Croft, Bishop of Sheffield.

any more out there?

New Year, New Blogs

Just in case you're getting a tad jaded with reading posts about sex at Thinking Anglicans, posts about sex at Anglican Mainstream, posts about sex at An Exercise in the Fundamentals of Orthodoxy (there's a pattern here - Ed), here's a few new blogs to look at.

These are culled from the Ebuzzing 'religion and belief' blog lists, they rank them each month but the data collection is seriously up the creek. Most of the top ones will probably be familiar, so these are from the lower reaches, but worth a look.

Resistance and Renewal: great passion for justice and the poor, I wish we were having more of our Anglican discussions on blogs like this, and topics like this.

The Vicars Wife  - latest post is a very useful and powerful set of questions to use at the start of a new year. Print them off and book that quiet morning now in an undisturbed place.

Thorns and Gold - on faith and suffering, Ht The Church Sofa 2012 awards

Jake Belder - mainly about theology, some good links, almost 10 years in the blogosphere which makes him a serious veteran.

Living Wittily  really good, better to visit than me try to describe the content & style. Great reflection on Rowan Williams recently.

Psephizo: no I don't know what that means either. Blog by Ian Paul, tutor at St. Johns Nottingham, very clear and easy to read, if you're a preacher, worship leader, interested in Biblical studies or Anglican matters it's worth a look.

Just Luckie - doesn't blog very often, but some excellent reflections.

Thomas Creedy - I couldn't really cope with the interface on this, but that's because I'm an old fuddy duddy who likes words and text, rather than things that look like an Iphone. So if you're under 40 you'll  probably be ok.

Talking Christian good spread of topics, easy to read, lively style.

Lovely Links List

A recent Jubilee + conference on 'Churches that Change Communities' - lots of talks and presentations now online, on things like food poverty, housing, ex offenders, mental health etc.

Presentations and audio from the recent Headroom conference on faith and mental health are now online.

The latest Research Bulletin from the Church Army's Sheffield Centre is now online. I must admit I still can't tell my modal from my sodal, and I'm not sure I want to, but I'm sure it's all very important.

I subscribe to the Lead On email from CPAS every month, it usually has a thought provoking short article and lots of good links to websites and leadership resources.

The new Mission Scene newsletter from the Baptist Union is just out, this is one ebulletin I read cover to cover every month, great way to find training opportunities and learn about new mission initiatives.

Archdruid Eileen has posted 'her' 3000th post. Cue rejoicing all round. This is the kind of creative mind we need to redraft the women bishops legislation.

Whilst we're on anniversaries, the excellent God and Politics has been going for a year now, a deserved popular and well recognised blog. It's worth reading what Gillan thinks he's learned over the past year, both about blogging, and about God and Politics.

Bible - Visuals and Infographics

In the hunt for some good images for a Bible Sunday display, here's a few links for people who like their information in picture format:

Visual Unit: superb, maps of Bible stuff, philosophical systems, periodic table of the Bible, timelines, etc.

Tim Challies 'Visual Theology' series, nice way of presenting things.

Old and New, which is part graphics part art

and a list of other links here.

favourite so far is this one by Chris Harrison. Try and guess what it is before you see if you were right.


There must be more, any pointers?

Update: some graphics and stats here on access to the bible worldwide. Thanks to Eddie Arthur for that one.

Light Relief

Long, long ago, in a Christendom far, far away, people like me had to rely on learned journals like the Winebibber for satire. Then came Ship of Fools, which, after what seems like decades, has kept its comic edge whilst at the same time feeding ideas to the mainstream: I know of at least one Diocese that now has trained Mystery Worshippers.

Here's a few other centres of light relief
The Church Sofa, which is on a bit of a roll at the moment

The New Wineskins Dictionary all those tricky churchy jargony terms explained

'Tea and Cake or Death'/Anglican Memes an evolving online collection of funny stuff.

confusingly Cake or Death cartoon site by Alex Baker

Stuff Christian Culture Likes even though its based on US Christian culture, there still far too much of it that applies to the UK.

The Beaker Folk of Husborne Crawley one day, in 200 years time, historians will be poring over the final days of the CofE, and this will be the only thing that makes any sense.

and some old favourites
The Ongoing Adventures of ASBO Jesus  Jon Birch's cartoon site, remains prolific

Cartoon Church more of an archive site now, very much worth the £35 a year for a license to reproduce the cartoons in notice sheets, publicity, Deanery bulletins etc.

for more serious links, the Ebuzzing 'Religion and Belief' top blogs has been updated for October, the mechanics for this site seem to be seriously broken, but it's quite a good way to find new blogs.

Gold in them thar blogs

A superb post at Quarentia, on how one church tackled the subject of depression, some good ideas, resources and creative tips.

No congregation, no problem! Very funny piece from Edward Green, for anyone who's ever used a 'no organist, no problem' CD in their church. And for those who haven't.

Churches having an impact on their communties, via God and Politics. The original Big Society.

House of Bishops statement - links roundup and thoughts

The original statement from the CofE, on the House of Bishops 2 amendments to the legislation on women bishops. You might want to read this later, unless you have a PhD in law, theology and English grammar.

A translation of the statement into English by Unshaun Sheep.

Pete Broadbents explanation of what the amendments mean. He also chips in to this comments thread at Thinking Anglicans.

Bishop Alan offers some analysis and comment.

Nancy Wallace doesn't know what to make of it. I suspect she's not the only one.

Thinking Anglicans has the predictable responses from pressure groups Reform ('disappointed') and WATCH ('disappointed'). Forward in Faiths response is more positive and graciously worded, but still slips the 'd-word' in near the end.

Ancient Briton doesn't think much of the WATCH response, and Radical Disciple doesn't think much of Reforms'

Good post from James Ogley, who sees a legalised 'third province' emerging.

Telling Secrets reckons the Queen needs to have a word

Lay Anglicana thinks that a lot will depend, not on the legislation itself, but on the leadership of the next ABofC

Archdruid Eileen rounds up the press coverage, sort of.

update 1: Andrew Brown comment piece for the Guardian.

There's a blow by blow account of the debates within the CofE here, if you're a real anorak and not fed up with the whole thing already.

My thoughts:
1. When one persons discrimination is another persons theological integrity (or vice versa), we're clearly at an impasse. The choice is whether to make this a red line issue, or attempt to stay together. When we tolerated senior bishops who didn't believe in the risen Jesus (who knows, we may still have some), should we have split then? Should we split now? There is no way to express the views of both WATCH and Reform within a single church. So, do we have 2 separate churches, or try to accomodate? Which is more Christian?

2. My brief take on the amendments is that it's an updated version of Resolutions A&B and flying bishops, to accomodate conservative evangelicals. It provides an institutionalised way of rebelling against the 'liberal' leadership of the church - is this a clever CofE response to the sabre rattling from Southwark, or an impossible line to hold?

And by the way, talk of a 'stained glass ceiling' does the supporters of women bishops no good at all. Ordination is not a career, becoming a bishop is not 'promotion'. But if you want to talk about opportunities to serve, gifts to be used in the service of God's kingdom, and the building up of the church, then I'm all ears.

Update 2 (Sun pm): some more links. Archdeacon in the Dales argues that the CofE can't have it both ways, Church Mouse just wishes the powers that be would get on with it and doesn't think the Bishops amendments amount to a great deal. Thinking Anglicans rounds up a few more links. Miranda Threlfall-Holmes wonders what the long term effects will be, and whether 'pick your own episcopacy' will work.

Update 3:  perceptive post from John Richardson, in response to Miranda Threlfall-Homes piece, and the sabre-rattling from WATCH.

Update 4: Rachel Hartland and Seeker and Lay Anglicana all worth a look, WATCH aren't the only supporters of women bishops, and it looks as though their more strident response doesn't sum up everyone's position.

Saturday Sweep

Some inspired speech-bubble theology at Madpriest

God and Politics on the shrinking Big Society, and why the church bucks the trend.

Connected to this, there are an increasing number of local studies on the contribution of faith groups to their communities. 'Faithnet Southwest' co-ordinates our local ones, and findings on North Somerset and Bristol are available, one of the rest of Somerset has just been published. More on that next week, if I get the chance to read it in detail.

The Beaker Folk visit Mornington Crescent

In this Depression Awareness Week, numpty corner is hosted by eChurch blog, via Channel 4.

I normally can't be bothered keeping up with all the politicking about the future of the Anglican church, but have suggested in that cauldron of in-depth theology, Twitter, that the ABofC's job should be split in 2, one to run the global Communion (if that's possible) and one to lead the CofE in mission. It looks like GAFCON like the idea. If you don't know who GAFCON are, don't worry. Or read this, and worry a great deal.

And Richard Franks blog in general, if you've not already had a nose around it.

word of the week: if a congregation can’t afford to repair or improve its cathedral (or church?), then it should leave it and build a new one, perhaps from cardboard, which would probably meet its needs more economically. Or if the cathedral is really of sufficient historic interest, its administrators should be able to raise the funds for its upkeep from other sources, such as charging tourists for admission. If, however, the historic interest is largely in the mind of the Victorian Society, then they should be responsible for the cost of preserving the all too abundant heritage of their favoured period. (Peter Kirk)

Advent and Christmas Links

4 good collections of links and resources for your perusal:

Jonny Baker, including beach hut advent calendars, advent tweets, videos, art etc.

Christine Sine, always excellent, lots of good Advent resources, meditations, poems, videos

Internet Evangelism Day, all sorts of bits and bobs, including the splendid Beatbox Nativity

Evangelical Alliance has a compliation of Christmas quotes, research and statistics, including how much people plan to spend, attitudes to Christmas cards, including one survey which has the majority of respondents declaring that Christmas is overrated, primarily for children, and that Jesus is irrelevant to how they spend it. Also surveys on mental health, debt, and a startling mince pie.

Round up of Roundups

Somewhere in the blogosphere is an exhaustive list of other people's lists. This isn't it. As someone who doesn't often do lists of links, I'm very grateful to those who do, and save me masses of time trawling the net in the process. Here's some links to recent roundups from the blogosphere I've enjoyed (or which, to be honest, I stumbled across because they linked here).

Mark Meynells Treasure Maps, from his Quarentia blog. They come out monthly, and have all sorts in. Great stuff.

Dreaming beneath the Spires

David Cooke's Saturday Blog Sweep.

Bible Gateway link roundup, for people into Bible-related stuff. And even people who aren't.

The Church Sofa weekly roundup.

Seekers Friday Five

If you like American leadership blogs where everything is presented in list form, then here's one from Perry Noble.

If you don't then you're probably hoping that Lesley will reinstate her Wednesday roundup, in between offereing a running commentary on all things to do with women bishops.

And for something completely different, try the Giants Shoulders Blog Carnival, a monthly round up of blog posts on the history of science. Latest one at Early Modern Experimental Philosophy (now that's a blog title), Octobers at Gurdur.

And whilst paying homage to lists, thankyou to Tim Chesterton and Vic the Vicar, who've both said kind things about this blog when listing some of the blogs they enjoy. Apologies to Vic that I've not yet taken up his challenge of dishing out my own 'versatile blogger' award. Maybe one day!

There must be dozens of others. If you know of them, let me know. I'm always up for a few more short-cuts...

Comings and Goings

The late lamented Beaker Folk of Husborne Crawley have updated us with the whereabouts of their merrie band of oddbods. Meanwhile Archdruid Eileen has reappeared, or perhaps regenerated, Time Lord style, in the world of Thomas Hardy. I'm sure it makes sense to somebody.....

More permanently, Revd Alan has hung up his keyboard

Farewell of a different sort to Ruth Gledhill, whose blog is now going behind the Times paywall, taking it out of mainstream circulation. I think that rather defeats the point of blogging, and from the comments left on Ruths blog it doesn't look like many of her readers will be prepared to pay up to read it. We shall see. The Times site now looks like an expanded front page, but you have to register/pay to access the main content. I imagine other papers are watching with interest.

Still on paywalls, having found the Church Times cricket reports were fully available last week, they've now gone behind the subscriber paywall again. We're through to the quarter-finals, though depending on how that goes it may be best to keep it hidden!

Newish on the blogroll
The Vernacular Curate

I've probably linked to Bosco Peters Liturgy blog before, but its much more interesting than the title suggests!

Christian Intel Daily is a good site if you're laid up with the flu or can't sleep, an ecletic collection of news, blogs, etc. It's US based, judging by the content, but there's quite a large blogroll to work through.

Now that the whole SPCK/SSG debacle is over, Phil Groom can be found on the Christian Bookshops blog, keeping an eye on the Christian publishing industry, book trade, marketing tactics and other issue. I liked this story:
what can we do as Christian booksellers and retailers to help those whose lives and relationships are blighted by porn?
The Kotisatama Christian Bookshop in Helsinki came up with a simple answer when an organisation called the ‘Freethinkers’ launched a campaign offering people pornography in exchange for religious literature: they offered people free New Testaments in exchange for their porn magazines.
That’s what I call mission on the high street.

Well worth a look

Following up a footnote, I had a peek at http://www.emerging-church.org/ which is a collection of emerging church/fresh expressions resources put together by Richard Seel. Richard used to work for the BBC and is now a minister in Norfolk, involved in cafe church and training.

I thought the site merited a post all to itself, as it's got lots of helpful material:
1. Book notes: brief summaries and notes on a big range of books, covering things like alternative worship, cafe church, leadership, new monasticism, preaching, small groups. There's a paragraph or so on dozens and dozens of texts, enough to give a flavour of what it's about and whether it's worth looking at. (If you want a more meaty version of the same thing, Alison Morgans fantastic site has longer summaries of lots of key books on prayer, apologetics and ministry)

2. Video resources for worship: helpfully indexed by different parts of the service (welcome, confession, prayers etc.). Not such a big collection to be overwhelming, but plenty of good stuff.

3. C21st Church a course Richard teaches to lay leaders in the area, full teaching notes for 8 sessions covering culture, worship, preaching, spirituality, the Bible etc. Plenty of good material in this to mull over (or borrow!!!) If it came with powerpoints then Mission Shaped Intro would be up for some serious competition.

4. Some papers and reflection on Xpressions Cafe, the local 'fresh expression' which Richard is involved with, a cafe church in a rural setting which runs in 4 zones at the same time - cafe, families, exploring faith and a contemplative zone, allowing people to move in and out of the different zones all as part of the one event.

This is a really interesting approach instead of having 1 event and then trying to provide something else as a lead on (e.g a community cafe, then trying to encourage families along to Messy Church), it runs them all at the same time, in the same complex of buildings, so that people can base themselves in the cafe but explore the other zones at the same time. The latest Encounters on the Edge from George Lings has more about Xpressions Cafe, which is where I got the footnote from!

Another story about a similar kind of project tomorrow...

Seen Elsewhere: atheists in strange places, attention-seeking, and Allah (or not)

Heresy Corner gives a brief run-down on the 13 people making up a new faith advisory council for the government.

David Hayward gets in touch with his inner atheist, so does Friendly Atheist, who asks if atheists have an inner theist. This is getting complicated.

Mark Meynell has an amazing visual of the 63,000 or so cross-references in the Bible. Good piece there also on how we make use of online sermons and worship. The problem with audio or even videos of sermons is that they can kid us into thinking we’re part of the church experience – when we’re far from it.

Carl Trueman on blogging and attention seeking:
We mediocrities struggle at a different level, hoping that our own petty contributions, irrelevant and ephemeral as they are, will be puffed and acknowledged by others; and, in a sense, there is nothing we can do about that. I am a man divided against myself; I want to be the centre of attention because I am a fallen human being; I want others to know that I am the special one; and as long as the new me and the old me are bound together in a single, somatic unity, I will forever be at war with myself

Dave Walker has a roundup of various responses to the clergy bullying stuff earlier in the week.

Archdruid Eileen wades into the moral stir-fry that is Celebrity Big Brother.

The Vicars Wife is collecting school prayers. So if yours has mysteriously vanished, she's probably got it.

Eddie Arthur has some good reflections on whether a Malay Christian can call God 'God' in their native tongue. Or 'Allah', as they would say.

Light Reading for Christmas Eve

Whilst you're waiting for the clock to tick round to 11pm for 'midnight' mass, or even just to pub opening time, a few bits and bobs:

Rick Warren on helping people to beat materialism at Christmas time.

Paul Walton, quoting a Faith Central piece about being a Muslim at Christmas
For Christians, Christmas is about celebrating the birthday of a sacred person: the embodiment of nobility, generosity, compassion and justice. These characteristics can be emulated by anyone from any religious background. Amid the media hype building up towards Christmas there is little focus on the great characteristics of Jesus and what we can learn from his life.

Even though I do not celebrate Christmas in the real sense – as a university student, for instance I would often work long shifts as a medical operator on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day enabling my non Muslim colleagues to celebrate the birth of Jesus, I do actually celebrate and cherish his birth and his life on this earth by truly loving him and trying to exemplify his noble characteristics in my own life.

Ruth Gledhill on John Sentamus seasonal message to the Ugandan government, and the UK immigration authorities.

A seasonal message from the Beaker secularists.

A New Labour carol service from Dungeekin
Away in a manger, no crib for a bed,
The little Lord Jesus lay down his sweet head,
And then Social Services saw where he lay,
And they claimed child neglect and they took him away.

Seen Elsewhere: from Spare Food to Santa

Dave Walker has info on the 'Feeding of the 5000' event in Trafalgar Square, attempting to feed 5000 people on food thrown away by supermarkets.

'Regulation pop at journalists by bloggers' corner: Mark Pack suspects that Christian media outlets are perpetuating the 'Winterval' story long since the facts have departed. Meanwhile Nick Baines has a robust response to mainstream press treatment of his comments on Christmas carols, and the ides that we could think about the words we're singing.

Maggi Dawn is doing her level best to keep tabs on Advent resources and happenings. Speaking of which, here's a great Christmas poem by Gerard Kelly, 'Behold I Stand'. The link takes you to a site with several other poems, 'Christmas is Waiting', also worth a look.

When the night is deep
With the sense of Christmas
and expectancy hangs heavy
On every breath
Behold I stand at the door and knock.
When the floor is knee-deep
In discarded wrapping paper;
And the new books are open at page one;
And the new toys are already broken,
Behold I stand at the door and knock.

Abandon Image has a good piece 'Sometimes It's Easier to Worship at a U2 Concert than a Church' with the perceptive observation It hit me. A lot of U2's lyrics are words that I actually CAN say to God, whereas a lot of worship lyrics are words that I WANT to be able to say to God. While most worship songs are true, they sometimes feel dishonest.

Welcome to the blogosphere Arun Arora, who I think used to be John Sentamus comms officer and blogs at The Carpenters Apprentice

Events in Winchester diocese, with serious cuts in the diocesan budget, generated a lot of heat. Among the 'light' were good articles from John Richardson on how the CofE can deal with having fewer full-time clergy: Part 1. Part 2, Bishop Alan, and from the thick of it Dark Side of the Moon, written by Anglican chaplain Yellow, funding for whose job is one of several cut by the Diocesan budget. According to his latest post, students at Southampton Uni have already raised £1000 towards funding of the post - the money has been cut, but the post hasn't. Now that would be an interesting discipline for parishes.... If you're not a student, that doesn't stop you donating.

For the more active, good to see the churches in Taunton getting into the spirit of things as part of the late night shopping there (Ht Killing the Buddha, of all people), or if it's wet, the Ecumenism Game c/o the Beaker Folk: 'you have a monopoly on truth, go back 5'.

If you want pictures, try 'the years most amazing scientific images' (no hype then) including this one of a device to measure the methane output of a cow. Wondering about putting one on my kids...

Finally, thanks to PaxtonVic for this lovely Christmas prayer. She also has some thoughts and background on St. Nicholas, who's saints day it was yesterday (corrected - I originally said 'today', which on 7th Dec is wrong! That'll teach me to schedule posts for the day after I write them).

Walk softly, as you go through Christmas, That each step may bring you down the starlit path, to the manger bed. Talk quietly, as you Speak of Christmas that you shall not drown out the glorious song of angels . Kneel reverently as you pause for Christmas, That you may feel again the Spirit of the Nativity, rekindled in your soul. Rise eagerly, after you have trod the Christmas Path, That you may serve more fully, the one whose birth we hail.

Seen Elsewhere: Brown, Bibles and Fresh Expressions of Catholicism

Both Matt Wardman and (more trenchantly) Nick Baines come out in support of Gordon Brown, against the Sun's attempt to stir up trouble over his letter of condolence. Lanky Anglican is even less impressed than Nick Baines, which is quite an achievement.

internet Monk is starting a series on Christians and mental illness, should be worth following.

Cranmers Curate asks about the best place for CofE Curates to be trained.

Thinking Anglicans has all the latest on the Fresh Expression of Roman Catholicism recently announced by the Pope. I was interested to see what Catholic bloggers made of it, What Does the Prayer Really Say? has a good discussion, and Sub Tuum is positive. Meanwhile Clayboy translates the new document into plain English, cracking piece.

Talking of Catholics, the Herald has an interview with Paul Staines, aka blogger Guido Fawkes, reflecting on his Catholic upbringing.

The Vicars Wife is reviewing Childrens Bibles. Very useful this side of Christmas, in case you were thinking of one as a present.

I note in passing that normally by this time of year the CofE has published confirmed attendance statistics, along with data about the number of ordinations, age of clergy and things like that. Last years came out in October. Nothing so far. I hope the folk in the stats department haven't been laid low with swine flu'.

What annoys you about worship, sorry, church services? Thought-provoking post by a drummer (yes, a drummer) at Musicademy. For all of those who like to think about what they're singing and doing in 'organised' worship.

BBC4's History of Christianity is pretty good so far, well presented, imaginitive, and by starting with the Eastern rather than Western church, Diarmaid McCulloch has started with one of the bits we know least about, and started well. The Open University has a number of links and resources connected to the series. There's also a survey, which is mainly aimed at Chrisitans who don't go to church, though it looks like plenty who do have filled it in! Interesting that work is the most common obstacle to people finding time for church, and that more people pray daily than attend church weekly, there clearly are folk who have a living faith that doesn't depend on regular churchgoing.