David Couchman’s blog on living in today’s world in the light of the Bible.
Jan 29th, 2010 by David
The February ‘Seize the Day’ podcast is now online.
In it we’re talking again to Bob Hopkins, of Anglican Church Planting Initiatives, about the ‘Clusters’ model of church – also known as ‘mid-sized missional communities.’ In this, the third of three conversations with Bob, we’re talking about how to make the transition to a clusters-based church.
Jan 23rd, 2010 by David
The iPhone will change our lives.
In my forty-year love affair with all things digital, there have been just a few defining moments, ‘aha’ moments when I’ve realised that everything has changed.
One was when, as a sixth-form student in Fareham in the early 1970s, I was one of a small group of favoured maths students. We were allowed to travel once a week to Southampton, to use Southampton Institute’s IBM 1170 computer. (Southampton Institute is now Solent University, and the mobile phone that I’ve just discarded in favour of an iPhone had considerably more power than that 1170.)
IBM’s Thomas Watson once famously predicted that the world demand for computers could not exceed about five. I realised, even in the 1970s, just how wildly wrong he was.
Another ‘aha’ moment came the first time I saw Windows 3.1. It wasn’t the windows, icons, or the mouse that lit my fire: it was the realisation that you could have several applications all going at once, and could move information between them.
A third ‘aha’ moment was the day I installed my first broadband connection. After playing around for a while, and being amazed at how quickly emails could be sent and received, I started worrying about how to disconnect… because surely if I left the connection up, I would be racking up a bill. And then the penny dropped – this wasn’t just fast. It was on all the time. I didn’t need to disconnect.
Now, of course, we take broadband, multi-tasking, and massive processing power for granted.
But the iPhone will change everything. For the first time, we have a device that can connect to the Internet just about anywhere, and can handle ‘normal’ web sites without emasculating them like most mobile phones.
Of course, the change is not just the iPhone. There will be other, no doubt more powerful, devices. But five years from now, we will take for granted that we have always-on broadband Internet access in our pockets wherever we go. And this will change our lives.
Jan 20th, 2010 by David
‘The last 15 years have changed our world for ever,’ claims Tony Whittaker, coordinator of Internet Evangelism Day. ‘Digital media are transforming the way we communicate, behave and even think. If Facebook was a country, it would have the fourth largest population in the world.’
Internet Evangelism Day is a strategic resource to help the worldwide church understand these issues and use the Web to share the good news of Jesus. It is both a year-round online guide and an annual focus day – to be held this year on Sunday 25 April.
Churches are encouraged to use Internet Evangelism Day resources to create a presentation for their members on or near that Sunday (or at any other time they choose). The IE Day site offers free downloads: PowerPoint, video clips, handouts, drama scripts, music and posters. These enable any church (or homegroup, college, or conference) to build a customized program, lasting from five minutes to fifty.
2010’s focus day will be the sixth to be used by churches around the world since the initiative’s launch in 2005. Over this period, digital media have developed dramatically with the advent of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, plus the growing use of mobile phones to access online services.
IE Day’s website is also a one-stop resource covering many subjects including: how to build a church website that is ‘outsider friendly’, using Twitter in evangelism, and ideas for blogging.
Perhaps surprisingly, you do not need to be technical to share your faith online. And you can volunteer to be an email mentor to inquirers with several large online outreach ministries.
Internet Evangelism Day is coordinated from the SOON Ministries/WEC International office near Derby. It is supported by a wide range of leaders and groups. ‘I am glad to commend Internet Evangelism Day,’ says John Stott.
View the resources:
http://www.InternetEvangelismDay.com
Online resources roundup
Internet Evangelism Day online resources include:
A new guide on how to avoid ‘Christianese’ jargon by evangelist and communication trainer Rusty Wright:
http://www.InternetEvangelismDay.com/christianese
‘Desperately Seeking Lodgers’ – a short story illustrating the pitfalls of church websites:
http://www.InternetEvangelismDay.com/church-evangelism
Self-assessment questionnaire for church websites with free personalized report:
http://www.InternetEvangelismDay.com/design
How to use popular culture as a starting point in evangelism:
http://www.InternetEvangelismDay.com/popular-culture
Internet Evangelism Day’s speaker panel offers a range of speakers qualified to address conferences, seminars or college students about many areas of digital evangelism:
http://www.InternetEvangelismDay.com/speaker
_______________________________________________________________________________
All IE Day’s resource articles are free to reproduce online and in print.
IE Day is an initiative of the Internet Evangelism Coalition, an umbrella group of online ministries based at the Billy Graham Center, Wheaton. It is completely free and has no fund-raising component.
This news release is also available online in Word format: www.InternetEvangelismDay.com/latestnews
Royalty-free photos to accompany any story relating to IE Day: www.InternetEvangelismDay.com/photos
Interviews available: www.InternetEvangelismDay.com/publicity
More article ideas: www.InternetEvangelismDay.com/free-articles
Jan 13th, 2010 by David
Richard Dawkins claims that God is a delusion and that religious faith is evil.
But in recent decades scientists have made a series of remarkable discoveries which show that the universe is a very unlikely place. It bears all the marks of being deliberately designed as a place for us to live.
This is genuinely new evidence that points to the reality of the Creator. So the physicist professor Paul Davies says ‘The impression of design is overwhelming.’
Responding to this opportunity, Focus is producing a series of short videos called ‘God: new evidence.‘ They explore how these recent scientific discoveries point towards God’s reality. We have a really excellent line-up of contributors, including John Polkinghorne (former professor of Mathematical Physics at Cambridge University) and David Wilkinson (principal of St. John’s College in the University of Durham).
We will be distributing these programmes on DVD and online through Youtube.
My personal vision is that a million people will watch the ‘God: new evidence’ videos over the next ten years.
Can you help us to reach a million people? We need to raise a total of $50,000 (£30,000) to produce and publish these programmes. (About $29,000 / £18,000 of this has already been given.)
Our next milestone is to raise $4000 (£2500) to purchase a DVD duplicator. Can you help? You can give online here (US $) or here (UK £).
Richard Dawkins says ‘The question of whether there exists a supernatural creator, a God, is one of the most important questions that we have to answer.’ He is absolutely right. Will you help us to make a public response to this question, and to reach a million people?
Focus has a long history of successfully harnessing the powers of technology to bring significant issues to the attention of audiences who may otherwise not have engaged with them. This project brings together some excellent contributors to address one of the defining questions facing our society in a clear and relevant way. I am glad to commend it to you. (John Risbridger, Minister, Above Bar Church, Southampton).
This excellent video resource will help people to realise just how incredibly finely balanced the universe is. The contributors are experts in their fields and are great at communicating big ideas in very accessible ways. This is going to be extremely useful. (Tony Watkins, Damaris)
Once again Focus is producing what promises to be an excellent resource to give Christians confidence in their faith and tools to engage effectively in mission and evangelism (Dr. Krish Kandiah, Director of Churches in Mission at the Evangelical Alliance.)
Dec 11th, 2009 by David
Just posted on the web site, reviews of ‘Should Christians Embrace Evolution?’ and ‘Darwin, Creation and the Fall,’ both recently released by IVP.
Go here to read the review.
Dec 9th, 2009 by David
With all the ferment about Copenhagen, there’s been an interesting debate developing on Krish Kandiah’s blog about Climate Change.
So OK: Krish and I have been talking about the possibility of having a debate about Climate Change on the Slipstream podcast.
There are plenty of people who can speak with authority who are climate-change believers. But do you know anyone out there who is a climate-change unbeliever, who can speak with credibility on this subject? This needs to be someone who is a Christian, preferably Evangelical, and who is based in the UK.
I would like to underline that we don’t need suggestions for climate-change believers! But if you can recommend any climate-change skeptics who fit this bill, I’d love to hear from you.
Dec 3rd, 2009 by David
The December 2009 Slipstream podcast is now online. It comes from the Evangelical Alliance’s Digimission Day – an event to explore how technology is shaping faith, church and mission.
More and more of us are spending time online – on social networks, blogs, Twitter, and more. Digimission explores how the new digital technologies change the mission of the Church. Are social media a distraction from mission or a new mission field? There is a collection of really helpful talks from, and interviews with, Adrian Warnock, Jonny Baker, Maggi Dawn, Mark Meynell and Krish Kandiah.
Nov 25th, 2009 by David
One problem facing missional churches is the tension between gathering for worship, teaching and encouragement, and scattering in mission.
The Seize the Day podcast for December is now online. In it we’re talking again to Bob Hopkins of Anglican Church Planting Initiatives, about the ‘clusters’ approach to church, and how this balances gathering and scattering.
Nov 11th, 2009 by David
Keeping up to date with the moving goalposts in the world of new media.
Nov 4th, 2009 by David
The Slipstream podcast for November is now online. 2009 is the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, and the 150th anniversary (this month) of the publication of ‘On the Origin of Species.’
Evolution continues to be a contentious issue for many Christians. In this anniversary special Slipstream podcast, we talk to Denis Alexander from the Faraday Institute, author of ‘Creation or Evolution: do we have to chose?’ and co-author (with Nick Spencer) of ‘Rescuing Darwin.’ We also talk to Ranald Macaulay from Christian Heritage Cambridge, author of ‘Rescuing Darwin or wrecking the Faith?’