Warning Sign Generator

I'm sure there's a proper liturgical use for this Warning Sign Generator

But even if there isn't, it's a very useful resource. Thanks to the CPAS Church Leadership magazine for signposting (badoom tish) this one. Great idea in the latest edition of the mag for a Pentecost service using warning signs.

Alternatively, if you need a sign for Flammable Peroxides, then Online Sign is the place to go.

Over to you folks. What kind of warning signs do we need in church?

Oh yes, and at the same site you can visit a Tombstone Generator. Obviously a virtual one, rather than one which sends large marble slabs shooting out of your DVD drive.

Labservatism, and other animals

Regardless of your politics, this is a very clever bit of propaganda.

Many of the professional commentating class are talking about how the election will be won or lost on a particular gaffe or inspired line, or voting one another onto the list of top political journalists. This all sounds a bit prehistoric to me: what if the best lines come from the voters themselves, perhaps some clever Iphone app which asks you 10 simple questions and tells you which party comes closest to your views, or some bit of adbusting on a party poster which, like many bits of comedy, tells the truth in a much more powerful way than a pre-digested soundbite?

I must confess that the more portentious and knowing the political commentators try to sound (at the moment our TV is so scrambled we can only get BBC, you can join the dots yourself!) the more I wonder how many clothes they are really wearing. It's in the interests of political commentators to portray themeselves as influential - after all, their next pay increment depends on it. I'm sceptical. Yet at the same time there's no point hyping new media as being a big player when we've not yet really seen the evidence.

Facing Easter

Easter Live is a really creative way to engage with the Easter story on Facebook, an array of different characters, each with a character profile, posting at regular intervals on what's going on over the next few days. Excellent.

Or here's another version of the Passion according to Facebook, which is both inspired and very funny, even funnier if you've read/seen the Da Vinci Code.

Have a great Easter. Christ is Risen!

(cartoon c/o Dave Walker. Jon Birch also has a good one)

Pros and Cons

Joe Haward sums up a lot of what I was feeling about blogging at the start of Lent, and still feel to a large extent now:

So I'm checking my blog a lot, reading other people's blogs and spending my time like this. I've noticed that it's starting to have an impact on my prayer life and spiritual health, so it is a problem. Therefore I'm going to have a break from all things blog. I need to have a spiritual workout.

It was noticeable how many bloggers were reviewing their blogging around the start of Lent: Doug Chaplin and Maggi Dawn decided to change their patterns, others quit for the season, I left it open about whether to resume or not.

And to be honest I'm torn. In the 'against' column is everything I wrote 7 weeks ago, plus a few observations since then:
- It feels like I have a lot more time than before

- It feels like I have more energy, and am less preoccupied than before

- Resisting the temptation to opine on things was quite a test, but a good one. I don't
suppose anyone noticed the world ceasing to turn.

- I'm getting to bed a bit earlier, and with less on my mind, because there's no longer the wondering of whether anyone's left a comment during the 10 o clock news. On a couple of occasions I've had awful nights after getting a critical comment or two, and spent hours stewing over them. Not good. Nick Baines notes in his Radio Times column this week (well worth a read) that you have to have a bit of a thick skin to do this. I don't have one of those.

But there's a 'for' column too:
- I enjoy it

- Blogging gives me the chance, and the challenge, of interacting with other points of view and processing my thoughts. Writing stuff down helps me to work out what I think.

- It's a way of continuing conversations begun elsewhere, occasionally sparking off comments on Facebook, or people from other local churches chatting about something I've written, or once in a blue moon actually printing it off for their church leadership to look at.

- With 85 Google Reader subscribers, 490 Twitter followers, plus other links in sidebars and on Facebook, there's a reasonable network/audience linked here now. It doesn't mean that that many people read this thing - I'd be concerned at the waste of time involved if they did. But it does mean that the blog, sometimes, can be a useful signpost, or part of a campaign. Perhaps it would do better at that if I got back to the original goal of this thing, which was to be a place for resources and discussions about mission. It seems to have splurged all over the place a bit!

- One or two comments here, and people I've spoken to, have said how much they appreciate this blog.

- The election: though the overload of verbiage which accompanies it probably won't be any the better for me hopping aboard the bandwagon.

It's a tricky one. I remember a saying 'the good is the enemy of the best' - we're tempted by the things which seem good, but sometimes they get in the way of something better. I don't really want to lose the greater peace of mind, sense of time, and easing in skittishness which the blogging fast has given me. The issue is whether I've the self-control to engage in blogging at a lighter level than before. This is my 1500th post. Is that a good place to stop, or just a good place to take stock?

PS if it's an April Fool you're after, the Guardian has a cracker on Labours new election tactics.

Taking the Eggs out of Easter

Yup, it's the Easter Linebacker again. Don't show this to 7 year old boys, they might get the wrong idea about Easter....

Shelf Stacker and Vicar

The BBC have just posted this short piece about a vicar near Nottingham who works at his local Sainsburys (as he has done for the last 16 years) and combines his shop floor duties with his calling. I like his image of himself being a 'suspension bridge' between formal church and people in the everyday world. It does feel like that sometimes! Good for him.

Trafalgar Square Passion, Good Friday.

website here. It doesn't have many extra details, but I guess not many are needed. Last time I checked the weather for London on Friday it was going to be fair but windy. Local weather looks foul, so perhaps our open air Easter Egg hunt might have to be amended.

Elsewhere, you can 'follow' Easter on Twitter, or join a Facebook group which follows Easter in real time through the week from the perspective of a variety of witnesses. Or get that book down that says 'Bible' on the spine and read a bit of it. I wonder how many people will follow virtual versions of Easter without actually reading the originals?

Stations of the Resurrection

A new collection from illustrator Si Smith, creator of the inspired '40' series, depicting the resurrection appearances in modern day Leeds. You need to subscribe to the CPAS leadership magazine to get all 12 on download, but having wondered about subscribing for years, this might tip me over the edge.

Stanley Spencer, Si Smith. What is it about those initials and contemporary resurrection art?

For each cartoon, the CPAS mag has a bible reference, ideas for creating a focal point, a reflection, action and prayer. As 'luck' would have it, I ordered my free preview copy of Church Leadership a few weeks ago, and hadn't actually opened it until just now. Cafe service for a week on Sunday now sorted......