Fresh Expression of Small Groups

thanks to Vernacular Vicar for this one.

Pornography consultation: what about Freeview?

The government is consulting on whether to move the goalposts on access to online pornography. The current default setting is that, unless people opt out, you can get at pretty much anything on the web. This is like moving into a new house and accepting an open sewer running past the front door. I'm hoping the government switches to an 'opt in' version, where the default setting is that you can't see people degrading themselves and one another via your computer.

But why stop there? Following the digital switchover, open sewers have been installed in the corner of every living room in the land (if you're lucky enough to have a living room - anyone in a house built since 2000 will be lucky to to have room for a TV).

Along with Freeview comes a batch of 'adult' channels which are installed automatically, and then need to be blocked. There's probably an army of enterprising teens who have already hacked past their parents password to get round this.

If it's good enough for the web, it's good enough for TV too. Adult content shouldn't be part of the standard Freeview package, and adult channels shouldn't be automatically installed on free digital services.

Its enough to make you Scream

The £74m spent on Edvard Munch's the Scream could have helped 1.3m people in the East African famine. But it didn't, it was spent on a painting, and everybody clapped. I've yet to see anything in the news coverage or comment that's questioned  a value system which thinks this is ok. I don't think God is clapping.

Eventually, moth and rust will destroy this picture, and one can only hope this becomes a moment we look back on with shame.

When I can't think what to blog I just nick a funny picture from Facebook

If someone can explain this, that would be lovely.

The Trouble With Men

ITV1 has a documentary at 7.30pm on 'the hidden epidemic of male depression'. There's not a massive amount of programme information around, but it should be worth a look. ITV's Penny Marshall talks more about the programme here.

Total Politics has noted this week how few MPs own up to mental illness or depression, despite how common it is.

On a lighter note, here's some insight into how mens brains work.


think this might find its way into our Marriage Preparation course next year...

Not You, Surely?

I felt ashamed of the illness as I’d had such an amazing childhood – what did I have to be depressed about?! I also felt frightened, frightened that people would treat me differently and frightened that from here on in, I’d always be defined as ‘someone with depression’. The fear I felt was tangible.

It is fair to say that mostly my fears were unfounded. Being open about it all meant that I had a new found freedom. I could be honest. All those little excuses I’d made in the past to try to explain away my behaviour, were now a thing of the past.

Yes, there were some who questioned it. ‘How do YOU have depression? You’re so bubbly and outgoing.’ Along with ‘I don’t believe you have depression, you achieve so much.’

I may have seemed bubbly and outgoing on the days I actually got dressed and made it out of the house. But it was an act and it was exhausting.

read the rest here. Part of  Mental Health and Politics Week at Total Politics. Roughly one in every 5 people you meet today will have had, or currently has, struggles with depression. Can you guess which ones? Would they feel they could tell you?

Holy Week Timeline

Superb graphic produced by Bible Gateway (high res version available at the link)

HT Mark Meynell, worth visiting for links to other good stuff.

Sorry about the way it spills over into the sidebar, it was that or a very small picture.

A Bible for those who don't read the Bible

The Bible Society has just launched 'Who?', a rewritten New Testament aimed at those who don't read the Bible, which includes the 3 synoptic gospels merged into one.

Our world is an extraordinary place, a place of breathtaking beauty and fragility. It teems with life in mind-boggling variety, from the things we can see – birds, fingers, leaves – to those we can only imagine – the furthest spinning galaxies. And it all sprang from the mind of God. Before anything existed, before the rhythm of time began, God was.

‘In the beginning’, we read, God spoke a Word of creative power and – Bang! – the cosmos exploded into being. The person we have come to know as Jesus was that ‘Word’. He was with God and one with God from the very start.

that's the start of Johns gospel, but you'd worked that out already. I really like the writing style, though I'm not sure how Paul Langham managed to do over 400 pages of it whilst running a massive church in Bristol. The other good thing is that it gives us a British alternative to the Message - a great paraphrase, but occasionally betraying its cultural roots.

More here, and the link above gives you the contents and a decent excerpt as a taster. Might be worth a look.

Or, if performance poetry is more your style, the first 4 chapters of the Hip-Hop Gospel of Luke are now up on the Beatbox Bible website.