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“Soup Kitchens For The Soul”

June 24th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted in Church, News

museumI’ve just finished reading an article from the Sydney Morning Herald on Elaine Heumann Gurian’s visit to Australia.  Elaine is the author of the book Civilizing The Museum and is a consultant to a large number of Museums, (including the Smithsonian, the Jewish Museum in Berlin and the Australian National Museum).

I was really interested in a number of things the article had to say, I really wish I could get my hands on her lecture that she was here to give:

A speech she gave at the Powerhouse yesterday, titled “The museum as soup kitchen”, examined how cultural institutions should be engaging much more creatively with the public. And not just museums, she includes art galleries, botanic gardens, historic houses and other educational attractions.

On one level Gurian means the term literally. During the Great Depression, she says, museums did act as soup kitchens. More recently, when the North Dakota city of Grand Forks was hit by a flood, the local museum became a civic refuge.

“They were a church on Sunday, a dance class on Wednesday afternoon, while still being a museum,” Gurian says.

She says the global financial crisis should be seen as an opportunity for museums to forge new links with local communities. Under her soup kitchen philosophy, museums should be satisfying spiritual, cultural and emotional needs.

Part of the problem, she argues, is that museums are still seen as elitist and inaccessible, partly “because some of them are … and those tend to look like the one in Night At The Museum“.

Too often cultural institutions are content to see themselves as repositories of “stuff”. They take care of their collections but see no real need to excite people who don’t know what’s there.

“Museums make culture visible, transforming it from an idea into something we can all see and participate in,” Gurian says. “That’s why governments fight over museums.”

Take the controversy over our National Museum when it opened in 2001, with right-wing critics – including the board members Christopher Pearson and David Barnett, and the historian Keith Windschuttle – denouncing it as presenting what some called its “black armband” view of Australian history.

“National museums of any country are always political.

Yet in its first decade the National Museum has won many awards and had record crowds. Like other Australian museums and galleries with free general admission, it also seems to be weathering the financial crisis.”

Check out the whole piece in the Sydney Morning Herald here

Ordination pt 1.0

June 23rd, 2009 | 1 Comment | Posted in Personal

P1010084I’ve been working towards being recognised as a Lay Pastor in the Uniting Church in Australia, the specified ministry is usually a pastoral ministry within a local setting, which means that traditionally LP’s have placed within congregations that are either closing down, in a time of change, who have had trouble finding a minister or in congregations that are isolated.  I found myself applying to be a LP in order for the Church to have a “space” for me, a way for the Church to understand how to be in relationship with me, as a lay person with no specification but who has a Bachelor of Theology and a number of years experience I have tended to find the Church to be confused about my position, especially when award rates and wages are discussed.

In reality the LP title (When I finally become commissioned) won’t mean much to my ministry, I’ll still continue to be in ministry where and when I feel called, until I no longer feel called, right now it means I continue doing what I’m doing.

The question I’ve been asked since being accepted as a LP is whether or not I shall consider transitioning into being an Ordained Minister, it’s a question that I’ve become used to, “when will you get ordained?” has been asked of me since I was about 20 (I used to hear it as “when will you grow up?”).  The thing is that ever since I was 20 I’ve had the gut feeling that what the Church has named as Ordination, and how they’ve understood “Ordained Ministry” is incomplete, that there’s a lot more to this than many have thought.  I’ve had the feeling that what the Church has understood as “Ordained Ministry” is in need of either dying or being re-born, and as I’ve become older and wiser and more cynical I think that I’ve come to the conclusion that we don’t do “re-born” well.  And, over time I’ve come to embrace the term “Lay Ministry” as a life-time calling, one that continues to have it’s own battles and celebrations in a Church that seems to say that it embraces Lay Ministry but continues to favour Ordained Ministry as the “norm.”

I mean, even now I’m being told that I could do a better job at advocating for Lay Ministry as an Ordained Minister, which seems like a complicated argument to me…

Be warned, over the coming months there may be a series of posts in which I unpack some of my issues, from what I believe I understand “Ordination” to be, the place of Ordained Ministry within the Church (emerging and not) and some of my gut feelings (both positive and negative) about Ordained Ministry and my future directions…

And I’ll do a bit of thinking about one of those statements that’s come to be one that really gets on my nerves… “What’s the place of ordained ministry within the emerging church” seriously, the more I’m asked that question the more annoyed I get (and that’s primarily because it only seems to be those studying for ordination and those who are already ordained that ask the question which I understood to be people asking the valid question “what about me?”)

But I won’t dwell on it too much…

Just a bit…

Wordpress

June 22nd, 2009 | No Comments | Posted in Uncategorized

I want to ask a serious question, with the latest version of Wordpress (2.8 “Baker”) being released this month with a remarkable set of functions, plugins and themes why do people still continue to use Blogger?

As someone who has used Wordpress for a number of years now I can’t see why anyone would continue to use such a faulty and extremly ugly system like Blogger.  I say this as someone who has attempted to use Blogger for a while and who has “seen the light” so it’s not out of ignorance, not is it something I say with the self-righteousness of a Mac user when talking about PCs.  Quite simply, it should be a no-brainer.

Wordpress.com offers a simple, free and remarkably easy to use system with 3GB of storage, dozens of great themes, and a long list of other features that trumps Blogger, and the huge and helpful open source community based around it is of great help if you have any questions or need some coding assistance.

If you’re still using Blogger and have not considered Wordpress can I suggest that you should go and give it a go now, Blogger’s ugly, useless and unfriendly, go and introduce yourself to one of the nicest blogging systems ever…

Link: Wordpress.com

A Confession

June 22nd, 2009 | 2 Comments | Posted in U2

I’ve been reading Steve Stockman’s Blog, “Soul Surmise” blog, and his series of posts exploring the theology and spirituality of the songs from U2’s latest release “No Line on the Horizon.” The series is an incredible collection of observations and much deeper than I could find anywhere else online, but would I expect anything less from the Author of Walk On?

Reading the articles reminded me that I have a confession to make, you see, well…

It’s hard to admit this…

And I’m afraid I’ll lose friends and readers by admitting it out loud…

I guess that I might as well get it out in the open…

I didn’t really like NLOTH, I found it to be a cd by a mega band trying to sound like a mega band, pretentious, over the top, taking itself too seriously and really self indulgent…

Infact, I’d go and say that Greenday’s latest CD 21st Century Breakdown is the type of CD I’d have preferred hearing come from U2, serious, slightly pretentious but a lot of fun as well.

There, I said it…

I’m a U2 fan and I really didn’t like the cd that everyone over 30 (except for the rare individual like Cheryl) seems to be calling a “Masterpiece”

But, if you did enjoy it and wanted to seriously think about the spiritual images of the songs can I point you to Steve Stockman’s posts?

What’s Next?

June 22nd, 2009 | 1 Comment | Posted in Uncategorized

I’ve been thinking a lot about Social Networking and Leadership recently…
One of the issues about sites like Facebook that I don’t see anyone really thinking much about is the level of control one has with their online profile. One may be forgiven to think that the issues of safety and ethics resides only with the person who’s linked to the personal profile, after all, they’re the one who updates their status, images, etc…
But with others being able to tag photos, add information, etc I’m starting to wonder if we’re moving towards a time where others may have much more control over your own online profile, perhaps you’ll continue to have primary control, but the ability for others to alter, add to and create your profile is there now, and is possibly going to continue to grow.

Moo Cards

June 20th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted in Uncategorized

minicard_cutoutI’ve been using Moo’s Mini-Cards as my business cards now since 2006, I really loved the idea of having business cards that looked a little different from the norm, and that used photos that I’d taken as the prints. Adrian’s also been using them for a while now as well.

Moo and Flickr partnered up back in 2006 which enabled people to have business cards, mini-cards, stickers, postcards and other printable items made out of photos and images that they themselves created.  Moo allows me to print off 100 cards with 100 different images, or, if I were to want 50 different images or even one image.  The result is a cool collection of prints that can be used in many different ways.

I’ve noticed that they’re starting to pop up a lot around the traps here as they become a little more popular and as people become more interested in having something a little different and that looks good to pass on their details.

Last week I ordered another 200 mini-cards, 100 for my work and another 100 for digitalorthodoxy.com and as I did I realised I’ve not every put a link up on the blog to Moo’s product line for some reason or other.

Check out Moo’s range of products here

In the News…

June 19th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted in News, Youth In The Media

Here are a few new articles I found of interest in the last couple of weeks, I’ve not had time to comment individually so this is really an attempt at closing a few tabs in the old web browser…

Pay attention to the second news article where a young girl wins the National LG Texting Championship and claims to have sent an average of 12014 texts per month!!!

a) X marks spot and many ask Y, but gen Z new kid on brand block by Paul McIntyre

Unlike their older and somewhat chastised forbears in the generation-Y camp, today’s teenagers are not besotted by fame and fortune and carry a heavier burden when it comes to career stability, ecological responsibility, social justice and what they’re looking for in their media and brand-consumption preferences.

Habbo says there are enormous challenges for companies trying to appeal to the more selfish tendencies of generation X while simultaneously attempting to woo the younger “Zeds”.

Teens today, says Habbo, are far less inclined to want to travel or work overseas and are demonstrating a surprising desire to embrace more conservative viewpoints espoused by their parents.

The fact that there are about 1.3 million of them in Australia means the marketers dream of staying hip with the teen crowd remains critical.

b) That’s text-erity: Iowa girl all thumbs, wins national title by Jason Kessler

A 15-year-old girl with a 500-texts-a-day texting habit thumbed her way to the $50,000 grand prize at the L.G. National Texting Championship in New York on Tuesday.

Kate Moore, 15, of Des Moines, Iowa, out-texted more than 250,000 participants for the texting title in New York.

Over 250,000 participants of all ages entered the competition, whose championship rounds were held in New York on Monday and Tuesday and won by Kate Moore of Des Moines, Iowa.

Some challenges were straightforward tests of speed and accuracy, but others required a little extra texting savvy. In one round, texters had to send texts while blindfolded. Another round quizzed contestants’ knowledge of texting acronyms.

The only acronym to stump every texter was PAW — parents are watching.

The fourth-place finisher, 21-year-old Jordan Rowe, saw her dreams of texting glory vanish in the “pressure cooker” round, where actors dressed as emoticons attempted to distract contestants tasked with texting tongue-twisters. Rowe failed to accurately text “Which wicked witch wished which more wicked witch in the well?” while a human emoticon talked trash about her sister.

c) Bringing Up Princess: Turning Girls Into Narcissists

The princess industry has been booming in the past few years — not just the Disney dolls and scratchy toy-store ball gowns that are a rite of passage in most American girlhoods, but a brazen new breed of princess products that target a far wider age range and tap into less seemly attitudes. The hot-pink, leopard-print princess backpacks, T-shirts, purses and bedspreads that girls are now buying (or, rather, their parents are buying for them) have little to do with indulging sweet princess fantasies and everything to do with catering to over-indulged princess egos.

Take the popular tween retailer Justice. At malls nationwide, it carries multiple “Princess” tops and accessories that look a lot more like Paris Hilton’s attire than Snow White’s. No surprise that part of its marketing slogan is “Love yourself.”

d) ‘Generation sex’ as norms shift by Debra Jopson and Elicia Murray

ANY Saturday night, teenagers are doing it in the dark places — parks, garages, backyards, beaches, schools, the backs of cars. Partying, drinking, drugs and sex, even in trees, according to 17-year-old Tania*, who lost her virginity at 13.

She knows of a girl, 15, and her 14-year-old male lover who had sex in a tree in a park because lying on the grass made them itchy. “My advice to everyone is they should not walk through a park on a Saturday night or a teenager might fall on their head,” says Tania.

Looking for a last minute idea for Youth Group tonight?

June 19th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted in Deep Justice, Youth In The Media

Then you may be interested in checking this out and getting the young people in your community to do something about it…

AI Action – Christmas Island is no place to detain children

Christmas Island is no place for children

Stanley Paste by Aaron Blabey

June 19th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted in Children's Ministry

9780670071807Stanley Paste is the 3rd and latest picture book by Aaron Blabey that introduces us to another remarkable friendship in two engaging characters.

Stanley’s really small, infact he’s really really REALLY small and he’s a bit sick of it, he’s picked on, doesn’t have many friends and has many other problems.

Stanley’s unhappy and hates his life, that is until a new girl named Eleanore Cabbage starts to come to school and a new friendship develops that changes his outlook on life.

Themes: Being Different, Things About Ourselves We Don’t Like, Bullying, Friendship, School, Being Teased

Read the entire book review here

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There Are No Bravery Points For Being A Part Of The Mob…

June 19th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted in Blogs, Leadership

Very interesting post by Seth Godin on initiators, tribes and movements here.

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