Sometimes it would be better if the speaker had rang in sick.
Challenge? Most of the time, the chllenge is to stay awake and desperatly avoid developing tourette syndrome.
times when the whole church thing is weighing down on the preacher and he/she is so tired and frustratedat a congregation that seems so stuck in it’s ‘feed me, fix me, fill me,’mentality. the “ok preacher, what do you have for me today?” attitude, that he/she is tempted to just leave a note on the pulpit saying “dear congregation, I love you but as long as you’re stuck looking to me to feed you spiritually you’ll never grow up. this is your faith, your walk with God, so I’m taking a break. how bout you feed yourselves for a bit. work out for yourselves what church is supposed to look like. I’m tired of being expected to spoon feed people so Im going to get away and hang out with God for a while. cya.”
just a thought. the preacher’s not always the problem…
nice one, tom. maybe vicars should do this. very often i wonder whether vicar and congregation are two sides of the same coin, in that one expects to feed and the other expects to be fed. and they kind of keep each other going in this way.
you’re right though, the preacher often isn’t the problem… i’ve done loads on consumerist congregations in the past, i thought i’d give them a break and have a go at dull preachers instead for a change.
nice one, captures that feeling that the preachers thinking something like – ‘I’m must keep going, till everyone’s frozen in their pews/seats, and ready to defect the pub, forever’ (where people relate like adults and there’s no expectation to just hang around for ages and ages)
Like I said with the “stoned” post, I wish someone would ask a question about what I am preaching about sometimes!! Just whack up a hand and shout “that makes no sense” at me.
Have you ever tried asking a congregation if it makes sense from the pulpit?
I hear you Robb! Ever been tempted to say something TOTALLY outrageous just to see if anyone will react? I work with youth, so i do have a little more flexibilty and i try, when i do preach, which is not too often, to make it as conversational and interactive as possible… but there are still days when i feel like i’d be better off talking to a cold stone wall.
LOL! would love to see that! Go to church, raise your hand and say “that makes no sense to me”. then, sit back and see how fast the security forces come to “politely” escort you out the door.
I pray for the day that happens in one of my youth services Laura. I’m not kidding… i would love it if one of our students stuck their hand up and said ‘Dude, you’re making no sense at all! WHAT are you talking about?’ I would love it. no kidding. on occassion when i can sit in small groups and ask about stuff they’re pretty open and sometimes brutally honest about things… in the bigger forum though it’s harder
laura… i can think of one church in my city where that might happen. your church sounds like scary s**t. are the preachers really beyond questioning?
tom c and robb. what’s the need for a preach all the time anyhow? is it really the way to go, or just a tradition that is demanded and expected?… if it is this, then do something instead of preach… maybe get the congegation doing some work for a change.
I don’t go to a church like that. I’m just saying that it does happen. The last church I attended, if you have to get up and go to the loo, you’re not allowed to come back in the santuary, even if your entire family is there. You have to go sit in the overflow area and meet up with them later.
There’s NO WAY you’d ever be allowed to actually question the preacher.
To be fair, it’s not very good manners to interrupt the sermon and say that makes no sense though is there.
Can you imagine the snarky looks you’d get from all those around you that just want service to be over so they can go to Sunday Roast or in the US, get home and watch football? They are more likely to escort you out than security is.
Absolutely Jon. over the past year particularly, we’ve been exploring and experimenting with other ways of doing things. we certainly don’t preach all the time. Sometimes you have to teach and sometimes you need to preach, sometimes we try to get involved in service projcts, or take a night dedicated to exploring prayer together, ultimately the challenge still remains to break away from the traditional models of top down leadership and allow the church to really become a community of believers striving together to follow christ and live out his mission. giving ownership is a wonderful thing… sometimes my frustration comes when the congregation seems to stubbornly refuse to take ownership of their spiritual community. I’m not sure I’m making a whole lot of sense here, your cartoon seems to have hit close to a lot of the thoughts and stuggles i’m in the midst of right now. i’ll stop rambling now!
actually, tom, you are making a lot of sense. i understand and empathise with your point fully. i did a cartoon a while back of church on the breast. i’m pretty sure this is similar. the hope for the church is that we all do take responsibility… i hope there are those who encourage you and appreciate what it is you are doing. i certainly do.
hi laura. i wonder what it is that drives people to go to church when they’d rather be watching football… guilt, perhaps?
also, i reckon it’s fairly bad manners to get up and bore people for 45 minutes… at least it should be considered so. it sounds like you’re better off out of the last church environment you were in. where do people get off on the sense of their own importance?!
I’m so glad our pastor doesn’t “blah blah”… but I tried a church once (before I found my current one) where the pastor did blah blah the whole time about politics… to a nearly empty church. I was disgusted. And I don’t think Jesus or God were even mentioned in the sermon. I went back, thinking I might’ve caught him on a bad day. (Besides, the stained glass windows were lovely…) Anyway, it was just more blah blah.
I tried another church where the pastor screamed so loud (to packed pews) it was more painful than a rock concert. He did mention Jesus and God, though. I never went back to that one and can’t figure out why so many people voluntarily endured that punishment.
I think I’ll email my pastor right now and tell him how much my family appreciates him.
At my church we had 25 pews and four of them were badly weighted so that if you leant back on one, it would fall backwards! They usually stayed against walls.
In my church, the priest or the deacon preach. To be fair, I think the deacon is better bacause he seems to put more effort in (presumably because he’s less experienced and feels a bit insecure about that). Our last priest was wonderful, real, vulnerable and spoke from the heart (which I think is key) but used to apologise if he spoke for more than 10 minutes. Although he had a significant ‘fan base’ he had plenty of detractors, too. The new guy speaks v-e-r-y, v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y to try to stretch his sparse content out to 10 mins. I like my local Anglican church because they have 2 vicars and a growing army of lay readers so there is plenty of variety. Also they invite parishioners to preach (with support and guidance from the clergy) from time to time. What better way to deal with a critics than to let them have a go!
Well I never ever thought I’d say this but……
the vicar of the church I meet with, is just rocking
no blah blah’s just good dialogue and loads of opportunity to chip in and go… huh? you what?
Sermon with dialogue now that is an art form !
It’s funny, I view my self as being “emerging church”
but I attend an Anglican church and like my vicar !
Jon, it depends on the context. I personally have a background as an RE teacher so I think of it as teaching rather than preaching.
For a 9AM spoken BCP service? Yes I would preach.
For a 1030 family service, any amount of crazyness could ensue. Once I put a full suit of real chainmail on a small kid and gave him a real sword. Once I poured rice pudding over action man. Once I showed a section of Lord of the Rings – that got complaints
For a wednesday night Alt. Worship gathering, it could be anything. Once had a young mother in hysterics because she’d just put her todler to bed after a party and come to church to find childrens party food all over the place!
People don’t like it when you break them into discussion groups in my experience…
it must be a really hard job… trying to do something that will be of value and bringing the congregation along with you. people don’t like to discuss because they’re either lazy or shy or feel like they don’t know enough… how do you go about getting congregation to be community if they don’t even want to talk with one another?… or is community not what they’re after. i just don’t get the point of church if it’s not about community.
I agree. Unfortunatly it is often a group of people who only meet on a Sunday for 1.5hrs without talking to each other.
I remember when I first started following JC being asked simple questions in bible studies and thinking it must be a trick question beacuse it was obvious. I lways assumed that anything to do with church was shrouded in mystery like the Masons, secret knowledge that needs to be unlocked. Then someone turns up and says “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved”
Tom C, 13, it’s so important for Everyone in the community to take charge of their spiritual development and growth. Keep encouraging your flock, they’ll do it in the end.
In our congregation we’ve “come of age” after 25 years and Steve just wants all of us to become everything God wants us to be, he sees us all as equal, things are beginning to happen because people want to do them themselves, and it’s beginning to flourish.
Keep at it, I hope for you and your congregation all the best.
there are some good leaders making comments on this site. thank you for being open. i’m with sarah in wishing the very best for you guys and your flocks.
I think it is to do with teaching and learning styles. Church (in its trad, Sunday form) attracts people who learn through the reading and aural aspects of learning. People such as me who learn through kinaesthetic forms of learning or (independent learning) are left behind. Church fills up with people who can sit still for 20-45-60-120 minutes whilst someone talks to them. The feedback (great sermon vicar) is therefore skewed by the audience learning styles.
I think the solution is not to change Sunday but instead add other stuff at other times. That way the community cares for everyone around and within it rather than just the attendees.
Often “getting on with what we are supposed to do, being a Christian community” seems to be “we’re going to carry on regardless and justify our position as being in opposition to consumerist church”.
Aaagh!!! Learning theory!!! Don’t do this to me Robb!!! As you will be able to appreciate, I have had it up to the back teeth with learning theory these past few months!!!
Seriousy, though, I take your point. Sadly some styles of presentation can be very dull. Dull presenters can make the most valid content boring and good presenters can make a valiant effort with lousy content. As a teacher you will try to make the same point in a variety of ways to make it register with as many of your students as possible. Variety is, after all, the spice of life.
Can we look forward to mini whiteboards and pens being given out as we enter the building? Now there’s a thought…no, not to score the sermon…
been watching the series ‘the power of the planet’ on the bbc. man, i wish we’d had this stuff in geography at school… exams would have been a breeze and i wouldn’t have had the need to play truant.
I thought it was very good. I know very little about it. The geography dept keep giving me things that looked dated when I was at school – like horizon and text books with the US in the middle. It kept a difficult class interested by the topic for a change.
Well, Jon, as we have discussed before, you are old enough to my ever so slightly younger brother. Do you remember when to have a film at school was like an annual treat – a crackly old projector and the big screen in the hall. I think we’d just about acquired our first VCR by the time I left at the end of 5th form, as Year 11 was then. It was one of those big old ones with piano key style controls….But we were happy…
hi, cool points about learning styles, though also think we communicate via our whole body.
so the preach given through gritted teath, or in a spirit of guilt, even if the content is supposed to encourage, will leave one somewhat despondant after ten min or so – why are these guys talking for more than ten min anyway?
What I’d LOVE is for us all to just turn up and just meet together, and see what happens.
It won’t happen of course, and that’s OK (there’s too many ways people feel safe with a certain som’in), I just hold it up as a picture in my mind and it gives me hope, I try to express that freedom in how I act with my brothers and sisters.
The nearest we get to it is our 2nd Sunday service when the kids are in, we have videos, meditations, all kinds of stuff.
I’d love it to be a place where say an elder sstands up and exhorts us because he (she!)’s just been given something wonderful to say, then they sit down, then maybe some poeple dance, some children speak…
I don’t know, we ARE working towards that.
Just we come out of a Graeco Roman culture not a Hebrew one; gonna take some time to drain out the stuffiness.
But I’ve said it before I’ll say it again the most important thing is Love, she’s so beautiful…we can do anything when we love each other, because our perspective changes and we just want what’s best for the other person. It gives us patience and heals our wounds.
Sarah, yeah it would be bizarre to meet up – quite scary, in fact. You should get yourself along to Greenbelt (if you don’t already go) – for an informal meet in the midst of a ton of other inspiring and amazing stuff.
Give me laughter as well as love – I’d rather have those two things than a lottery win.
My first teaching block was exhausting but very positive in lots of ways. I’m off to Seville in Spain in January for 4 weeks. I’m kind of looking forward to it but I’m also terrified and I will miss my family like you don’t know what. Thank you for asking, Sarah.
I’ve read a lot of the comments. There’s no reason you can’t make your sermons a dialogue- though it might take some work. We’ve been doing it for a while now, and at first it threw people off that I actually wanted them to speak up and ask questions, and dictate the flow and direction of the conversation. Now, it’s like I can’t stop them from piping up (which is a good thing), and we’ll actually do an hour and more just talking back and forth and asking each other questions. Some things that helped set the tone: Not dressing up in suit and tie; sitting down in a chair just like every one else; getting rid of the microphone (and obviously pulpit if I am sitting); sitting in a more conducive arrangement (circle, etc.). Even the youth love it and feel safe contributing.
Sometimes it would be better if the speaker had rang in sick.
Challenge? Most of the time, the chllenge is to stay awake and desperatly avoid developing tourette syndrome.
Comment by Robb — December 17, 2007 @ 2:48 pm
hahaha!
Comment by jonbirch — December 17, 2007 @ 3:35 pm
there’s the other side to this too,
times when the whole church thing is weighing down on the preacher and he/she is so tired and frustratedat a congregation that seems so stuck in it’s ‘feed me, fix me, fill me,’mentality. the “ok preacher, what do you have for me today?” attitude, that he/she is tempted to just leave a note on the pulpit saying “dear congregation, I love you but as long as you’re stuck looking to me to feed you spiritually you’ll never grow up. this is your faith, your walk with God, so I’m taking a break. how bout you feed yourselves for a bit. work out for yourselves what church is supposed to look like. I’m tired of being expected to spoon feed people so Im going to get away and hang out with God for a while. cya.”
just a thought. the preacher’s not always the problem…
Comment by Tom C — December 17, 2007 @ 5:36 pm
nice one, tom. maybe vicars should do this. very often i wonder whether vicar and congregation are two sides of the same coin, in that one expects to feed and the other expects to be fed. and they kind of keep each other going in this way.
you’re right though, the preacher often isn’t the problem… i’ve done loads on consumerist congregations in the past, i thought i’d give them a break and have a go at dull preachers instead for a change.
Comment by jonbirch — December 17, 2007 @ 5:45 pm
nice one, captures that feeling that the preachers thinking something like – ‘I’m must keep going, till everyone’s frozen in their pews/seats, and ready to defect the pub, forever’ (where people relate like adults and there’s no expectation to just hang around for ages and ages)
+ Guiness on Tap!
Comment by su — December 17, 2007 @ 6:19 pm
harsh but true.
Comment by jonbirch — December 17, 2007 @ 6:20 pm
Like I said with the “stoned” post, I wish someone would ask a question about what I am preaching about sometimes!! Just whack up a hand and shout “that makes no sense” at me.
Have you ever tried asking a congregation if it makes sense from the pulpit?
Comment by Robb — December 17, 2007 @ 6:36 pm
I hear you Robb! Ever been tempted to say something TOTALLY outrageous just to see if anyone will react? I work with youth, so i do have a little more flexibilty and i try, when i do preach, which is not too often, to make it as conversational and interactive as possible… but there are still days when i feel like i’d be better off talking to a cold stone wall.
Comment by Tom C — December 17, 2007 @ 6:41 pm
LOL! would love to see that! Go to church, raise your hand and say “that makes no sense to me”. then, sit back and see how fast the security forces come to “politely” escort you out the door.
and no…i’m not kidding.
Comment by Laura — December 17, 2007 @ 6:50 pm
I pray for the day that happens in one of my youth services Laura. I’m not kidding… i would love it if one of our students stuck their hand up and said ‘Dude, you’re making no sense at all! WHAT are you talking about?’ I would love it. no kidding. on occassion when i can sit in small groups and ask about stuff they’re pretty open and sometimes brutally honest about things… in the bigger forum though it’s harder
Comment by Tom C — December 17, 2007 @ 6:59 pm
laura… i can think of one church in my city where that might happen. your church sounds like scary s**t. are the preachers really beyond questioning?
tom c and robb. what’s the need for a preach all the time anyhow? is it really the way to go, or just a tradition that is demanded and expected?… if it is this, then do something instead of preach… maybe get the congegation doing some work for a change.
Comment by jonbirch — December 17, 2007 @ 7:01 pm
I don’t go to a church like that. I’m just saying that it does happen. The last church I attended, if you have to get up and go to the loo, you’re not allowed to come back in the santuary, even if your entire family is there. You have to go sit in the overflow area and meet up with them later.
There’s NO WAY you’d ever be allowed to actually question the preacher.
To be fair, it’s not very good manners to interrupt the sermon and say that makes no sense though is there.
Can you imagine the snarky looks you’d get from all those around you that just want service to be over so they can go to Sunday Roast or in the US, get home and watch football? They are more likely to escort you out than security is.
Comment by Laura — December 17, 2007 @ 7:12 pm
Absolutely Jon. over the past year particularly, we’ve been exploring and experimenting with other ways of doing things. we certainly don’t preach all the time. Sometimes you have to teach and sometimes you need to preach, sometimes we try to get involved in service projcts, or take a night dedicated to exploring prayer together, ultimately the challenge still remains to break away from the traditional models of top down leadership and allow the church to really become a community of believers striving together to follow christ and live out his mission. giving ownership is a wonderful thing… sometimes my frustration comes when the congregation seems to stubbornly refuse to take ownership of their spiritual community. I’m not sure I’m making a whole lot of sense here, your cartoon seems to have hit close to a lot of the thoughts and stuggles i’m in the midst of right now. i’ll stop rambling now!
Comment by Tom C — December 17, 2007 @ 7:20 pm
actually, tom, you are making a lot of sense. i understand and empathise with your point fully. i did a cartoon a while back of church on the breast. i’m pretty sure this is similar. the hope for the church is that we all do take responsibility… i hope there are those who encourage you and appreciate what it is you are doing. i certainly do.
Comment by jonbirch — December 17, 2007 @ 8:17 pm
hi laura. i wonder what it is that drives people to go to church when they’d rather be watching football… guilt, perhaps?
it sounds like you’re better off out of the last church environment you were in. where do people get off on the sense of their own importance?!
also, i reckon it’s fairly bad manners to get up and bore people for 45 minutes… at least it should be considered so.
Comment by jonbirch — December 17, 2007 @ 8:24 pm
I’m so glad our pastor doesn’t “blah blah”… but I tried a church once (before I found my current one) where the pastor did blah blah the whole time about politics… to a nearly empty church. I was disgusted. And I don’t think Jesus or God were even mentioned in the sermon. I went back, thinking I might’ve caught him on a bad day. (Besides, the stained glass windows were lovely…) Anyway, it was just more blah blah.
I tried another church where the pastor screamed so loud (to packed pews) it was more painful than a rock concert. He did mention Jesus and God, though. I never went back to that one and can’t figure out why so many people voluntarily endured that punishment.
I think I’ll email my pastor right now and tell him how much my family appreciates him.
Comment by Lori — December 17, 2007 @ 9:05 pm
At my church we had 25 pews and four of them were badly weighted so that if you leant back on one, it would fall backwards! They usually stayed against walls.
Comment by Eric — December 17, 2007 @ 9:21 pm
In my church, the priest or the deacon preach. To be fair, I think the deacon is better bacause he seems to put more effort in (presumably because he’s less experienced and feels a bit insecure about that). Our last priest was wonderful, real, vulnerable and spoke from the heart (which I think is key) but used to apologise if he spoke for more than 10 minutes. Although he had a significant ‘fan base’ he had plenty of detractors, too. The new guy speaks v-e-r-y, v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y to try to stretch his sparse content out to 10 mins. I like my local Anglican church because they have 2 vicars and a growing army of lay readers so there is plenty of variety. Also they invite parishioners to preach (with support and guidance from the clergy) from time to time. What better way to deal with a critics than to let them have a go!
Comment by Carole — December 17, 2007 @ 9:30 pm
lori… i reckon he’d appreciate that.
eric… sounds like alot of fun to be had with unbalanced pews… so long as they were the only things in the church to be unbalanced.
carole… come ‘an ‘ave a go if you think yer ‘ard enough!
Comment by jonbirch — December 17, 2007 @ 10:28 pm
Well I never ever thought I’d say this but……
the vicar of the church I meet with, is just rocking
no blah blah’s just good dialogue and loads of opportunity to chip in and go… huh? you what?
Sermon with dialogue now that is an art form !
It’s funny, I view my self as being “emerging church”
but I attend an Anglican church and like my vicar !
Messed up or what??
;]
Comment by kick-hat-snare — December 18, 2007 @ 12:09 am
Hi Kick-hat-snare
I’ve had times like that, when the main church has felt really real and a good place to be.
and am wondering what it means to you, when you say you view yourself as ‘being “emerging church”‘?
Comment by subo — December 18, 2007 @ 7:48 am
khs… you may just have the best vicar it’s ever been my pleasure to know.
Comment by jonbirch — December 18, 2007 @ 8:12 am
Jon, it depends on the context. I personally have a background as an RE teacher so I think of it as teaching rather than preaching.
For a 9AM spoken BCP service? Yes I would preach.
For a 1030 family service, any amount of crazyness could ensue. Once I put a full suit of real chainmail on a small kid and gave him a real sword. Once I poured rice pudding over action man. Once I showed a section of Lord of the Rings – that got complaints
For a wednesday night Alt. Worship gathering, it could be anything. Once had a young mother in hysterics because she’d just put her todler to bed after a party and come to church to find childrens party food all over the place!
People don’t like it when you break them into discussion groups in my experience…
Comment by Robb — December 18, 2007 @ 12:08 pm
it must be a really hard job… trying to do something that will be of value and bringing the congregation along with you. people don’t like to discuss because they’re either lazy or shy or feel like they don’t know enough… how do you go about getting congregation to be community if they don’t even want to talk with one another?… or is community not what they’re after. i just don’t get the point of church if it’s not about community.
Comment by jonbirch — December 18, 2007 @ 2:28 pm
I agree. Unfortunatly it is often a group of people who only meet on a Sunday for 1.5hrs without talking to each other.
I remember when I first started following JC being asked simple questions in bible studies and thinking it must be a trick question beacuse it was obvious. I lways assumed that anything to do with church was shrouded in mystery like the Masons, secret knowledge that needs to be unlocked. Then someone turns up and says “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved”
Oh, right…
Comment by Robb — December 18, 2007 @ 2:42 pm
Just to put my tuppence in, I can’t sit still for 40 mins with one-way input!
Cool if becomes discussion…but some of our bros and sisses get a lot from the talks.
They just not my deal man.
I like it with the kids!
Love ya!
Sas x
Comment by Sarah — December 18, 2007 @ 10:31 pm
Robb, 23, we like discussion groups x
Tom C, 13, it’s so important for Everyone in the community to take charge of their spiritual development and growth. Keep encouraging your flock, they’ll do it in the end.
In our congregation we’ve “come of age” after 25 years and Steve just wants all of us to become everything God wants us to be, he sees us all as equal, things are beginning to happen because people want to do them themselves, and it’s beginning to flourish.
Keep at it, I hope for you and your congregation all the best.
Yours,
Sarah
Comment by Sarah — December 18, 2007 @ 10:36 pm
there are some good leaders making comments on this site. thank you for being open. i’m with sarah in wishing the very best for you guys and your flocks.
Comment by jonbirch — December 18, 2007 @ 11:54 pm
Sarah 27
I think it is to do with teaching and learning styles. Church (in its trad, Sunday form) attracts people who learn through the reading and aural aspects of learning. People such as me who learn through kinaesthetic forms of learning or (independent learning) are left behind. Church fills up with people who can sit still for 20-45-60-120 minutes whilst someone talks to them. The feedback (great sermon vicar) is therefore skewed by the audience learning styles.
I think the solution is not to change Sunday but instead add other stuff at other times. That way the community cares for everyone around and within it rather than just the attendees.
Often “getting on with what we are supposed to do, being a Christian community” seems to be “we’re going to carry on regardless and justify our position as being in opposition to consumerist church”.
Comment by Robb — December 19, 2007 @ 11:03 am
Aaagh!!! Learning theory!!! Don’t do this to me Robb!!! As you will be able to appreciate, I have had it up to the back teeth with learning theory these past few months!!!
Seriousy, though, I take your point. Sadly some styles of presentation can be very dull. Dull presenters can make the most valid content boring and good presenters can make a valiant effort with lousy content. As a teacher you will try to make the same point in a variety of ways to make it register with as many of your students as possible. Variety is, after all, the spice of life.
Can we look forward to mini whiteboards and pens being given out as we enter the building? Now there’s a thought…no, not to score the sermon…
Comment by Carole — December 19, 2007 @ 12:24 pm
Robb, 29, you’re dead right mate.
I must learn kinasethetically too cos I don’t learn through aural only.
And I think you’re right about the solution too.
Let’s hope that can happen.
Take care mate,
Yours,
Sarah x
Comment by sarah — December 19, 2007 @ 1:11 pm
been watching the series ‘the power of the planet’ on the bbc. man, i wish we’d had this stuff in geography at school… exams would have been a breeze and i wouldn’t have had the need to play truant.
Comment by jonbirch — December 19, 2007 @ 1:24 pm
I showed the first episode to my year 9’s. We’re doing volcanoes and earthquakes. I’ve never taught geography before in my life, I’m an RE teacher…
Comment by Robb — December 19, 2007 @ 1:42 pm
Some similarities…!
Take care mate,
Sas x
Comment by sarah — December 19, 2007 @ 11:14 pm
what did you think robb?… i thought it was awesome.
Comment by jonbirch — December 19, 2007 @ 11:37 pm
I thought it was very good. I know very little about it. The geography dept keep giving me things that looked dated when I was at school – like horizon and text books with the US in the middle. It kept a difficult class interested by the topic for a change.
Comment by Robb — December 20, 2007 @ 3:10 pm
just reread it!
“the US in the middle” …of the world map.
Do’h
Comment by Robb — December 20, 2007 @ 3:12 pm
i get you.
there was no telly shown at secondary school in my day… i would have learned tons in tihs way. i’m a documentary freak!
Comment by jonbirch — December 20, 2007 @ 3:30 pm
Well, Jon, as we have discussed before, you are old enough to my ever so slightly younger brother. Do you remember when to have a film at school was like an annual treat – a crackly old projector and the big screen in the hall. I think we’d just about acquired our first VCR by the time I left at the end of 5th form, as Year 11 was then. It was one of those big old ones with piano key style controls….But we were happy…
Comment by Carole — December 20, 2007 @ 8:31 pm
Carole, We had a big old telly on stilts with awnings on the sides to keep the sun off the screen. Remember the clock that used to count off to zero?
How’s your teaching going?
Sas x
Comment by Sarah — December 20, 2007 @ 11:04 pm
hi, cool points about learning styles, though also think we communicate via our whole body.
so the preach given through gritted teath, or in a spirit of guilt, even if the content is supposed to encourage, will leave one somewhat despondant after ten min or so – why are these guys talking for more than ten min anyway?
Comment by su — December 20, 2007 @ 11:50 pm
hey carole… your comment took me back. my experience was exactly that!
Comment by jonbirch — December 21, 2007 @ 3:16 am
Ya know what.
What I’d LOVE is for us all to just turn up and just meet together, and see what happens.
It won’t happen of course, and that’s OK (there’s too many ways people feel safe with a certain som’in), I just hold it up as a picture in my mind and it gives me hope, I try to express that freedom in how I act with my brothers and sisters.
The nearest we get to it is our 2nd Sunday service when the kids are in, we have videos, meditations, all kinds of stuff.
I’d love it to be a place where say an elder sstands up and exhorts us because he (she!)’s just been given something wonderful to say, then they sit down, then maybe some poeple dance, some children speak…
I don’t know, we ARE working towards that.
Just we come out of a Graeco Roman culture not a Hebrew one; gonna take some time to drain out the stuffiness.
But I’ve said it before I’ll say it again the most important thing is Love, she’s so beautiful…we can do anything when we love each other, because our perspective changes and we just want what’s best for the other person. It gives us patience and heals our wounds.
Lots of love and peace to you all,
Sarah x
Comment by Sarah — December 21, 2007 @ 8:51 am
Sarah, yeah it would be bizarre to meet up – quite scary, in fact. You should get yourself along to Greenbelt (if you don’t already go) – for an informal meet in the midst of a ton of other inspiring and amazing stuff.
Give me laughter as well as love – I’d rather have those two things than a lottery win.
My first teaching block was exhausting but very positive in lots of ways. I’m off to Seville in Spain in January for 4 weeks. I’m kind of looking forward to it but I’m also terrified and I will miss my family like you don’t know what. Thank you for asking, Sarah.
Comment by Carole — December 21, 2007 @ 9:18 am
beautifully put, sarah.
wow carole… seville. be thinking of you.
Comment by jonbirch — December 21, 2007 @ 10:12 am
Carole – will be thinking of you.
Jon, thanks.
Sas x
Comment by Sarah — December 21, 2007 @ 10:50 pm
I’ve read a lot of the comments. There’s no reason you can’t make your sermons a dialogue- though it might take some work. We’ve been doing it for a while now, and at first it threw people off that I actually wanted them to speak up and ask questions, and dictate the flow and direction of the conversation. Now, it’s like I can’t stop them from piping up (which is a good thing), and we’ll actually do an hour and more just talking back and forth and asking each other questions. Some things that helped set the tone: Not dressing up in suit and tie; sitting down in a chair just like every one else; getting rid of the microphone (and obviously pulpit if I am sitting); sitting in a more conducive arrangement (circle, etc.). Even the youth love it and feel safe contributing.
Comment by Cody — January 5, 2008 @ 7:00 pm
great to hear, cody! it really can be done!
Comment by jonbirch — January 5, 2008 @ 7:25 pm