Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Storytelling

Listening to examples of the power of telling a story well. So impressed by Kym Lardner's storytelling that I'm listening to on a CD while I type... and only just managing to type between laughing so hard!

At the moment a fantastic woman who is part of the current storytelling block course being run here is staying with me. She's letting me listen to her CD of stories. Her resources for the course are really cool.

The point of the storytelling course is to help people going to far off lands use storytelling as a way to tell those they meet about Jesus. After all there are very few people who don't like a good story. The Bible itself is full of them. Some of the best stories are in the Bible. I'm pretty jealous I can't sit in on the classes.

But I wonder how much we are trapped in our mentality that stories are only for kids... frankly I've always enjoyed kid's stories hugely. I love cartoons, picture books, fairy tales. The world of imagination is just so exciting. That's why I've always loved the Bible as well. As a kid it seemed like the ultimate treasury of stories. And there was always another one to find, one that was only half remembered, or a favourite to re-read.

Hence my excitement (and jealousy!) at people learning how to tell stories really well. Jesus is exciting, so let's share Him in an exciting way.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Quote of the day

I got this from a friend pasting it on Facebook and it is really my quote for today, so I thought I'd share it. Apparently it's from Donald Miller in the book "Searching for God knows what".

"...what we really need is God. What we really need is somebody who loves us so much we don't worry about death, about our hair thinning, about other drivers pulling in front of us on the road, about whether people are poor or rich, good-looking or ugly, about whether we feel lonely... we need this; we need this so we can love other people purely and not for selfish gain, we need this so we can see everybody as equals, we need this so our relationships can be sincere, we need this so we can stop kicking ourselves around, we need this so we can lose all self-awareness and find ourselves for the first time, not by realising some dream, but by being told who we are by the only Being who has the authority to know, by which I mean the Creator."

And that sums it up for me today.

Tiredness

Yes, after such a sleepless and therefore far too late night, I am quite tired today. I've got the whole thing going on: scratchy eyes, flushed cheeks (am I the only one who gets really hot in the face when tired?!? I seem to be...), inability to concentrate on the task at hand and much more ability to drift from task to task basically accomplishing very little.

So how is it that I seem to have my best ideas at these times and that God seems to use these times to create deep desires to pray within me? The more I think about it the more I think there might be a cosmic plan in progress to make me less dependent on my own capabilities.

But that might just be the tiredness speaking.

To tattoo or not to tattoo...

It is indeed the age old question. Is a tattoo just a little bit too hardcore? Even for me?! I've got 7 piercings which grew to that number without me noticing. Just for those wondering I have 3 in each ear and a nose piercing. It's not anything weird.

I won't get any more though. 7 is the perfect number.

So back to tattoos.

I'm concerned that it seems a sudden jump up from piercings which can after all be removed. No such quick fix for tats.

And of course they have really come to be the next big thing. So much so that I think they might be a bit "so last year" instead of "so hot right now".

So why am I thinking of one?

I guess it seems to sum up how I'm feeling about my commitment to God and to the role He seems to have given me in mission right now. I want a permanent sign of my commitment to my end of the bargin - faithfulness to His call. Although honestly He gives me the ability to be faithful so actually I contribute very little.

So in light of that, a tat seems a small commitment really doesn't it?

Mission & church

So I know I'm not the only one who struggles with church and mission not seeming to be linked together very well. Question really is, what can be done about it?

The mission agency I'm part of has some pretty cool glocal workshops they do with churches to help them in getting a picture of mission and how they can play a part in it. Ok yes I'm obviously biased but I'm not really about promoting them here, although of course I think they're great or I wouldn't have joined them. I really say that in the interest of being open about who I am and where I come from. Everyone has a bias - I'm just trying to let you know at least one of mine!

The point is that I'm thinking about the various tools being used by so many different people and wondering what we can do better.

Might have to Twitter about it and see what my peeps come up with :)

The difficulties of names

I can't deny I felt more neurotic than when I was trying to name something living when thinking of a name for this blog. How is it that I would be so worried about this and not worry when my friend Tommo named my cat for me?

(Tommo is an incredibly passionate, exciting and interesting guy who named the cat "Nowlock". In hindsite I possibly should have taken more care naming the cat. It ended up thinking itself so powerful it could take on a car. Not unnaturally, it lost that fight.)

But when thinking of a name I was reminded of when I was thinking of taking on a possible new role a couple of years ago. My role at the time was using a admin @ company type name, which I confess annoyed me. I was doing a number of things in the role far more than admin, and I wanted to be a person at the end of the email. So a friend (who in the interests of my own personal safety shall remain nameless) suggested a range of highly inappropriate email addresses for me. Some of her suggestions came to mind and I decided on the shorter of these. I didn't think superhotintelligentmissionschick was quite right somehow.

I never took that job.

Shame.

Could have been interesting discussing my email name.

Late night musings

So how is it that it's almost always the middle of the night when inspiration hits?

Am I the only one this happens to? Surely not.

Is this normal? ...but sometimes it gets hard to tell what's "normal" and what's... well... "not so normal"... Who gets to decide normal anyway?

I've been on Twitter for a few weeks now - and thoroughly loving it too - and am just so impressed by the quality material I see on there that I started thinking, well, I guess I can try too... I certainly have plenty to say. And I'm frequently told I'm opinionated. Isn't that one of the prerequesites for blogging?! Hmmm.... that could potentially offend the people I'm saying I've been so impressed by. Have to hope they're forgiving.

Ok let's get real - they won't ever read this so it doesn't matter.