Chariots of Fire resources

Chariots of Fire is back in the cinema in July, in time for the (warning, copyright violation ahead) Olymp*cs. Damaris are producing a suite of resources, video clips etc. for churches to use alongside it, like the one above. Good discussion starters, and a great movie. And hardly a sponsors logo on show. Those were the days.

Proost Advent Resources

There's lots of good stuff out there for Advent, Proost are one of my favourites, and they now have an Advent Calendar too, courtesy of Si Smith. Here's a few of their bits and bobs:

Advent Calendar - 25 images by Si Smith, plus a meditation for each day, available electronically.

Nativity Figures - these are really good, download the images then print them out on white card. Had great fun making these a couple of years ago in a Christmas service.

9 lessons and carols animations - by Jon Birch (ASBO Jesus), flash animations to show during the readings of the traditional 9 Christmas readings. Youtube preview here.

Silent night movie, also by Jon Birch.

nine - 9 artistic pieces to go with the 9 lessons and carols.

All available for download.

Or use the 'Advent' tab below to browse resources from other places.

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...

Multimedia Advent Resources from Proost

Recent email:

PROOST.CO.UK

Advent Extra
We usually send one e-mail a month from proost. But we're making an exception this month as we have had a late advent arrival. Lat year Beyond's beach hut advent calendar - opening a beach hut on the sea front in Brighton with an art installation inside really caught the public imagination. It's being repeated this year. But they have also produced a physical advent calendar with each door being one of the beach huts from last year. It's only £5. Get your order in quick and we'll post it to you straight away. If you are outside the UK it won't make it - sorry!

And just a reminder of the other advent reaources:
9lessons - a flash animation new this year with 9 loops realting to the traditional 9 lessons for christmas

nine - nine artists interpret the traditional nine readings with 6 movies and 3 songs.

25 - Si Smith's amazing cutout and make nativity characters and advent calendar and comic.

wait - Vaux's simple but powerful movie and liturgy on waiting in advent.

silent night - a movie that's ideal for pretty much any Christmas service

Greenbelt pocket liturgies book Standing In The Long Now. This is a compilation from various creative worship communities who took part in the Greenbelt festival this year and has some wonderful things in it.

Happy Advent and Christmas!
Jon, Jonny, Aad
http://www.proost.co.uk/

'Test of Faith' - new science and faith resource.

Test of Faith is a new site on science and faith, linked to an upcoming film and book. It's been put together by the Faraday Institute for Science and religion, and promises a release of materials on July 3rd.



The site says:
There is a huge need for accessible materials on science and Christianity for churches, and others who are interested in these issues. With the Faraday Institute starting up at the beginning of 2006, this was the ideal opportunity to fill the gap.

It already has an excellent links section, and promises of short articles, film clips, materials for use in church, interviews with scientists etc. Youtube section here with the above clip, plus other materials. Looks very promising.

Ht Evangelism UK.

Dave Walker Cease and Desist: another way

One of Dave Walkers archive posts mentions a letter sent by SSG to Phil Grooms website, asking for some inaccuracies to be taken down.

The letter begins:
Dear Sir;
I write to request that you kindly remove the following from your website which I was most shocked and disappointed to read when perusing it today:

That's the way to ask for things. I still don't quite understand why that approach wasn't taken with Dave's blog. Specific things, and a polite request to have them removed, and a presentation of the true facts of the case. I don't think Dave has ever had one of these letters, which makes it all the more bizarre that he's suddenly asked to take 75 posts down and threatened with libel if he doesn't. Even if there is any merit in the libel charge (which I don't think there is), it can only apply to 1% of the content of the posts, most of them would still be fine to keep in the public domain.

Meanwhile the Cartoon Blog/SPCK/SSG saga has made the Britblog roundup, and inspired ASBO Jesus to a second cartoon. I have also found Muslim, atheist and political websites today which mention the story. Ministry of Truth has updated their post on the legal side of things, if you're interested in the detail.

For the record, as soon as Dave (and anyone else who has recieved one related to SPCK) has their Cease and Desist notice withdrawn, I will probably stop commenting and linking on this case. I'll take soundings, but would also then like to close down the 'We Support Dave Walker' Facebook group a week or so later, to give people the chance to make friends with each other before it goes offline. That will be job done as far as I'm concerned. But in the meantime.....

PS I'm not sure when Phil Groom gets back from holiday, but just in case he has a legal document on his mat and you're interested in salvaging the SPCK/SSG blog , it might be worth a few of us popping over and saving some of the contents....

Update (lunchtime) the SPCK/SSG blog is back open for business, and taking comments again, with the wise counsel that folk stick to facts. Outside of the Cartoon Blog, this has been the best running source for information on SPCK, and is run by a bookselling insider with knowledge of the industry. The site is specifically for news and information about SPCK and related issues.

Video Resources for Easter

If you're concerned that the Easter Linebacker doesn't quite send the right Easter message, a few other places to go:

Proost have some new Easter movies, short creative visual meditations, some excellent stuff, you can see snippets of them and buy online for a very reasonable price. Much less than Sermonspice, home of the Linebacker.

Wingclips allow you to download free movie clips with a relevant message - some excellent ones for Easter from X-Men, To End All Wars, and Ice Age. For a subscription fee you can get higher resolution clips, but the quality is ok even on the free ones, and they have an excellent, and evolving, index of themes and clips. Ht Jonny Baker for reminders about these 2.

ReelWorship have some excellent video clips for background, meditation, pre- and post-service. Hoping to use some of these for Good Friday. The picture here is from one of their videos.

If you just want stills, there are some high quality images of crosses from around the world at the Barnabas/BRF site, and a resource book you can get to go with them.

'40' by Si Smith, great Lent resource

I know, we've barely said 'cheerio' to the Magi and it's nearly Lent. That's the lunar calendar for you. With 3 weeks to Ash Wednesday, here's a link to the brilliant '40' by illustrator Si Smith.

The full series is available as a download from the Proost website. If you go via the new improved CMS, you get it at the utterly scandalous price of 99p.

More Lent links in the next week or two.