EN98 Tabloid Culture
01/11/11 13:11
(Ha! I made a mistake - the text is actually Matthew 7v6}.
This is another take on the phone hacking issue. In recent weeks I have been utterly engrossed by the Leveson enquiry. Hearing so many people recount stories of personal abuse at the hands of the sales/ratings-hungry media has been a bit of a shock. So shameful.
The passage in the sermon on the mount is a good warning against this kind of thing.
You and God, God and You?
27/10/11 14:42
I recently did a series of teaching/preaching slots for an 11-14year-olds weekend away with my Church. Here are the slides that summarised a lot of what I was doing. Seasoned Youthworkers will spot that it is a fairly simple Gospel outline. I include them here because they might be of use to someone out there. Get in touch if you want to use them. Click to enlarge.
1: You and god. The lower case g is deliberate. I was asking a few questions about what our genuine thoughts are - separate from parent views etc. How do we picture the idea of a divine being?
2. God and you! I then turned the tables and posed the thought that if God is in fact real, our ideas are less important than His. What does He make of us? That is the real crucial question - a bit like John Blanchard posing ‘Does God believe in Atheists?’.
3. We then did a massive group session involving reflecting on what makes us who we are, what our current gifts and blessings are, plus how we view the future. What do we hope for?
4. I then rehearsed the amazing Gospel big storyline: firstly that God has given us everything but we have shut him out. We are a bit like insurgent rebels.
But also we are victims in some measure. We live with the ‘virus’ effects of sin and often suffer in a dark and broken world.
What does God really think of us? He knew that we wouldn’t stand a chance at the judgement and sent Jesus to gently rescue us from hostage hostilities while also dealing with our rebellious track record.
The cross of Christ is the decisive master stroke, the special move, the ultimate in rescue activity.
5. We can now begin to reconsider our vision of a life in the future with God living in us and us in Him. Through Jesus there is the most wonderful opportunity for a life of fulness and hope.
1: You and god. The lower case g is deliberate. I was asking a few questions about what our genuine thoughts are - separate from parent views etc. How do we picture the idea of a divine being?
2. God and you! I then turned the tables and posed the thought that if God is in fact real, our ideas are less important than His. What does He make of us? That is the real crucial question - a bit like John Blanchard posing ‘Does God believe in Atheists?’.
3. We then did a massive group session involving reflecting on what makes us who we are, what our current gifts and blessings are, plus how we view the future. What do we hope for?
4. I then rehearsed the amazing Gospel big storyline: firstly that God has given us everything but we have shut him out. We are a bit like insurgent rebels.
But also we are victims in some measure. We live with the ‘virus’ effects of sin and often suffer in a dark and broken world.
What does God really think of us? He knew that we wouldn’t stand a chance at the judgement and sent Jesus to gently rescue us from hostage hostilities while also dealing with our rebellious track record.
The cross of Christ is the decisive master stroke, the special move, the ultimate in rescue activity.
5. We can now begin to reconsider our vision of a life in the future with God living in us and us in Him. Through Jesus there is the most wonderful opportunity for a life of fulness and hope.
EN94 Smugness Hacking
05/08/11 20:17
So who hasn’t heard or been intrigued by this story?
I have been listening to this unfold for what feels like ages and ages - I meant to do something on it months back but never got round to it. In the end this was a good thing because it has really hooked into the public consciousness.
There are so many interesting angles on it that I felt a little bewildered by where to start. I asked a few friends to give their gut-level reactions and I had some helpful and interesting perspectives. This gave me enough of a feel to launch out on the cartoon.
Here are the (anonymous) responses.
Me: What is your one-line gut level Christian response or reflection on the whole phone hacking saga? I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips. Its another classic example self-righteous moral outrage that turns a blind eye to the public lust for gossip and the political lust for power/money/influence that encourages these things to happen. We all have a bit of Jacob in us and need God to change our hearts.What made us so desperate for that kind of news that no-one cared about the source?Symptomatic of a sinful nature. To sin and hide it cover it up. Misuse any technology.As a Christian, remember God has no need to tap your phone to see your wrongs. If you don't want it known don't do it! XIt is sad, but there are bigger injustices out there. Why are we so upset by this, but not by other violations?Easy to pontificate when the curtain has been pulled back, need for a distinctive voice when the world is on the side of the Murdochs.Sin is manifested in many and various ways - only Christ has sacrificed himself for wretches like us.Gut level - a great, interesting story of crime + corruption in high places.Numbers 32:23: “...you may be sure that your sin will find you out.” This applies to everyone. The hacked. The hackers. The writers. The readers. Their world is built on what others think of them. The hacked weep that their carefully constructed media image is blown. The hackers that they were caught. The writers that their fiction of the "public good" is revealed as calculating. Only the readers get a free ride at the moment. There is a greater judgment coming. There is an opinion on their lives that will trump all others. that should be our chief concern.Rather than joining in the condemnation of those who have done wrong, let’s be like Jesus and live in contrast to the world around us – loving the criminals (recognising that we are among them), showing grace and mercy to those who sin against us, thereby showing that through Jesus there is an alternative way. That is not to say that phone hacking and dishonesty do not matter – far from it, they nailed Jesus to the cross! – but we have all sinned, we all need forgiveness and as God has shown us grace, we should also show grace to others.
Thanks to everyone who took part.
Church Growth Illustrations
13/07/11 21:04
Some general illustrations to illustrate some strategic thoughts on church growth.
The Plant: TWADRIP
11/07/11 21:16
From the leaders’ blog:
This summer seems the right time to enter the next phase of that original vision and say goodbye to a few of those ‘things we’ve always done’.
EN92 Being Somebody (via Twitter)
30/05/11 08:55
Some people tweet/update as though they were breathing. It seems that the oxygen of self-proclamation is something our modern lungs cannot do without.
This cartoon has been a long time coming. The text in Matthew 6 points to the deep and wonderful spiritual reality of having a Heavenly Father who sees and gives worth. No need to 'put out' because He has given out.
NB: yes there are tons of great uses for Twitter and no I am not having a downer on what is basically a fab thing. This is mainly picking up on the inherent tendency we have for finding security in public acceptance rather than in God via Jesus.
LWH13 Temptation/Lent
13/03/11 21:32
From the Long Walk Home blog:
"Sit for a moment with Jesus in the desert. Sit and feel the strength of the temptation he was under and see how similar that temptation is to the ones we face each day. To grasp the power for ourselves or to submit to someone greater.Thank him that he knows what it’s like to face that. Thank him for not giving in and be in awe of the Son with whom God is well pleased."
EN88 Crime Statistics
26/02/11 10:27
The police launched a crime statistics website last month which maps reported crime rates in your locality. The site crashed as huge numbers of people crowded the server for a glimpse of how their area was viewed (and yes I was one of them). It is definitely an interesting move and connects with an important issue.
One tendency within human nature is to pass off personal responsibility for wrongdoing as something that either isn't our fault or doesn't matter. The sermon on the mount (and later sections in Matthews Gospel) has much to say about the way the religious authorities (in this case the Pharisees) had minimised God's standards to external appearances of conformity.
If a person is going to experience God's grace in Jesus, then they need to switch from a superficial rating of crime to something more sincere and heartfelt.
Angel&Boy
02/01/11 14:45
I started playing around with my iPhone and doing a bit of a mashup with a few different apps until I came up with an alternative cartooning/illustration style over the holidays¹. Here is the result. Don't worry that it makes little sense - it sort of fits into the obscure wordless cartoon thing I have been into for a while now.
The story is kind of about someone finding faith when the other person shares the Gospel story with them.²
¹more details of my experi-mentalism can be found on the scrapbook site here.
²yes I used/borrowed the icons for the most recent epiloguetv cartoon about Wikileaks.
The story is kind of about someone finding faith when the other person shares the Gospel story with them.²
¹more details of my experi-mentalism can be found on the scrapbook site here.
²yes I used/borrowed the icons for the most recent epiloguetv cartoon about Wikileaks.
EN82 Attachment Disorder
30/07/10 11:00
The Bible text is found here.
I was thinking about how Social Networking devices like Laptops and Phones can get in the way of important relationships - especially God.
EN80 Heart Spill
02/06/10 14:39
The recent Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill is reportedly the worst eco-disaster in US history. The powerful image of this stuff leaking endlessly into an unsuspecting environment is disturbing to say the least. This is the kind of image that Jesus evokes in Matthew 15 when he talks about the natural condition of the human heart. Though wonderfully made in God's image, we are also capable - and regularly achieve - the most polluting of choices.
And by this, I am not necessarily talking about being some kind of Hitler figure. We often recognise that we let ourselves down in ways that seem surprising. When a person looks honestly at their life they often see that life took some darker turns because of deep-rooted selfishness that they were often powerless to prevent.
The Bible is wonderfully clear on the solution to this issue - there is a theme that develops throughout the Old Testament timeline of people being made 'new' in some special way. This culminates in Jesus Christ, who make the explicit promise to not only 'top kill' the rusty pipe of sin, but also replace the flow with something altogether different - something linked to source and giver of life: God Himself.
EN77 Worldly/Heavenly Wisdom
04/03/10 19:34
Happy New Year: The Jesus Comic!
01/01/10 07:49
What a fab way to start the new year. After two years of work, this was released onto the iPhone/iTouch app store:
Some blurb from a recent e-newsletter:
Jason Ramasami is an RE teacher who wants to make the Bible memorable and accessible to students who may have little or no interest in following the Christian faith. Two years ago he embarked on the ambitious project of creating a wordless comic of the main events of Jesus' life for visual learners.
Somewhere along the line the project developed further into an iPhone/iPod Touch app that was approved in December for worldwide distribution.
The Jesus Comic (which is easily searchable in iTunes) is a 150 page comic that moves through 12 chapters and is intended as a discussion kick-starter - not a replacement for the Bible. So far feedback has been very positive -
"This comic is really inspiring; the first genuinely fresh retelling of the good news about Jesus that I have seen in ages. It manages to be faithful to the original text, yet visually creative at the same time. Required viewing!"
"It provoked discussion with my wife, our son and daughter. They spotted some stuff that I didn't and I spotted some that they didn't. This was fun!”
The accompanying website gives some further guidance on interpreting the bigger Bible narrative, but the main idea isn't to be a digital tract but an intriguing and fresh way of reflecting on the life of Jesus.
Jason is asking people to have a look and to recommend/rate it if they enjoy what they experience.
More info website:
http://www.thejesuscomic.com
App store link for the full version:
http://www.iTunes.com/apps/jesuscomic
App store link for the free sampler version:
http://www.iTunes.com/apps/jesuscomicnativity
Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Jesus-Comic/222779070030?ref=nf
Twitter feed:
http://twitter.com/theJesusComic
Some blurb from a recent e-newsletter:
Jason Ramasami is an RE teacher who wants to make the Bible memorable and accessible to students who may have little or no interest in following the Christian faith. Two years ago he embarked on the ambitious project of creating a wordless comic of the main events of Jesus' life for visual learners.
Somewhere along the line the project developed further into an iPhone/iPod Touch app that was approved in December for worldwide distribution.
The Jesus Comic (which is easily searchable in iTunes) is a 150 page comic that moves through 12 chapters and is intended as a discussion kick-starter - not a replacement for the Bible. So far feedback has been very positive -
"This comic is really inspiring; the first genuinely fresh retelling of the good news about Jesus that I have seen in ages. It manages to be faithful to the original text, yet visually creative at the same time. Required viewing!"
"It provoked discussion with my wife, our son and daughter. They spotted some stuff that I didn't and I spotted some that they didn't. This was fun!”
The accompanying website gives some further guidance on interpreting the bigger Bible narrative, but the main idea isn't to be a digital tract but an intriguing and fresh way of reflecting on the life of Jesus.
Jason is asking people to have a look and to recommend/rate it if they enjoy what they experience.
More info website:
http://www.thejesuscomic.com
App store link for the full version:
http://www.iTunes.com/apps/jesuscomic
App store link for the free sampler version:
http://www.iTunes.com/apps/jesuscomicnativity
Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Jesus-Comic/222779070030?ref=nf
Twitter feed:
http://twitter.com/theJesusComic
EN73 The Mustard Seed
04/11/09 15:18
This piece has a whole host of problems. It started as something to do with the BNP claiming Jesus' point of view for their racist agenda and then became something more to do with being possessively small-minded with the Gospel growing. There are also problems with my application of scripture. Sigh.
But I really like the artwork.
EN72 Damn Good Works
30/09/09 07:34
Mark Meynell has a really worthwhile blog that manages to get the right balance between the lighthearted and personal/serious/critical. He recently wrote this post quoting Tim Keller at length. The end quote from the cartoon above is taken from that post. I have changed the word 'Pharisee' for 'religious people'.
Before I spoil things, it is worth reading Mark's webpage to get a clearer view on what this section is about.
The epilogue text can be read here. It is a story where Jesus makes the important distinction that our external reputation/deeds cannot disguise inner pollution.
EN68 Spotting Specks from the Media Plank
03/06/09 19:18
The Matthew 7v1-6 text is crucial to understanding this one. You can find it here.
My main motivation for this cartoon came from a couple of places
- Susan Boyle and the MP expenses scandal. I had used the plank-in-the-eye idea previously on the Brand and Ross cartoon mainly because I felt that while it is easy enough to fire off smart comments about the failures of other people, Jesus gave the stark warning in Matthew 7 about how we judge. Thanks to Joe Davis for his thoughts on this too.
So, anyway - these topics have been raging in the news across the last few weeks and it has become something of a frenzy! I thought that while it might be easy enough to say stuff about how bad the MPs have been, I wondered if there was something more important to reflect on in the way we have responded to the corruption...
Hidden Treasure: Matthew 13v44
08/05/09 12:50
EN67 WYSIWYG
05/05/09 20:10
The glorious news is that Jesus unlocks slavery in all sorts of ways. I have been thinking a lot recently about the kinds of twisty paths that social-networks lead to. This cartoon picks up on three tendencies and brings three texts to bear upon them: Matthew 11v28, John 10v3-5 and Matthew 13v45 (you might have scroll down to find the exact bit).
Some further comments on the background materials:
WYSIWYG is a really great term for this cartoon (admittedly a bit exclusive but if you understand what it means it makes perfect sense). Thanks to he-who-hunts-heads for the idea which rescued me from another line that was admittedly a little negative (originally I had out ‘No more 2 faced twits’).
The main idea was brewing from a number of different directions - Andy Hickford (at Maybridge) has recently made a few helpful cautionary comments about facebook double standards, and there has been tons of Twitter stuff in the media generally.
EN61 Brand and Ross
01/11/08 20:08
The Bible epilogue text can be found here and here (you will need to scroll down to find the exact part).
Yes, it was a major media event - perhaps whipped up by people who didn't like these two presenters, perhaps an indication of how disgraceful licence-fee wages are for such childish antics, perhaps a sense of people getting ready for harsher financial times. Anyway - it dominated the news for some time and so I weighed in with this piece that has two main ideas in it:
1. The observation that speech can do plenty of damage (as is so well observed in the James text)
2. That making denouncing statements when we are also casual with our own speech is a risky position to be in.
On the whole this isn't really one of my favourites. I think that the plank in the eye bit is the best part just because it looks amazing to have a plank sticking out of a face like that. The other part isn't great mainly because doing likenesses isn't a personal strength.
EN53 Insincere Incarnation/Celebrity Saviours
01/03/08 13:54
This was inspired by two things:
a. a chat with Eric Harmer about church planting and how 8 years is considered short term if you want to make a lasting impact to difficult social situations
b. the excellent TV series 'Boys Can't Sing' which epitomised the celeb-saviour idea I am portraying here
EN41 Polluted Heart Spillage
01/02/07 13:53
The Bible epilogue text can be found here (you may have to scroll down a bit to find the exact part...).
It was pretty shocking to see how open people were on TV about stealing stuff from the Napoli that wasn't theirs. It was a bit like the scenes of looting during Katrina in the sense that it was in broad daylight and there was an atmosphere of 'normal rules don't apply'.
This strip is linking two ideas - pollution from the Napoli and pollution from the human heart. The bible text epilogue is pretty straight forward about how corruption comes from within. In the time when Jesus said it, he was challenging the idea that religious external observation could make you right with God, whereas the reality is that inside you are rotten and God sees it.
People might not be openly interested in the idea of an all seeing God, but the Napoli event certainly did demonstrate something of the inner moral workings of ordinary people.
I wanted to try and link up some pollution coming from the Napoli and somehow join it to the thieving person but it didn't really work all that well. I also went through a whole load of other versions: one was about the reverse miracle of turning expensive wine barrels into expensive water butts. I liked it but no one got it...
EN35 Safety in Numbers
22/08/06 13:52
The Bible epilogue text can be found here (you may have to scroll down a bit to find the exact part...).
Prejudice among trained professionals is something that is always shocking and hard to cope with especially when it is something highly personal that is at stake. This is a generalised reflection based on something I had heard from the lips of someone who should really have known better. The person in question had expressed the view that if you are a christian you are too narrow and should revise your 'wrong' ideas as soon as possible.
The composition aims to link the downward despondency of the christian in the tunnel with the security of the crowd before heading for the damning conclusion.
Christians can be guilty of smugness about the end of this life and it's terrible consequences before God. I wanted to portray the christian here as I think true believers will be at the end - surprise at just how sunny things are going to be. If we really knew how good it was going to be it wouldn't be a faith thing would it? I am looking forward to being surprised at just how great things are going to be.
EN27 Bowled Over
01/12/05 13:51
The Bible epilogue text can be found here (you may have to scroll down a bit to find the exact part...).
This one had something to do with reflecting on retirement issues. I think that that there may have been some pensions related stuff in the news and I wanted to handle it obliquely. I didn't really feel confident dealing with it head-on but this taps into the general idea of what you are ultimately basing your security and hopes on. I think that the Bible text (above) is the best explanation here, so I won't waste my shallow breath.
Occasionally I have departed from the regular format and gone for something almost parentless. The main idea is to establish the window discussion before revealling their ultimate fate and blindness to the impending hit.
I really dislike bowling and when I go I usually look for some creative way to avoid actually playing it - like writing stupid things on the scorecard, or throwing in the most anti-competitive way possible. Once I went to a place that had a speedometer display so I was overjoyed to be aiming for the slowest throw ever. It was hilarious. I find bowling alleys very depressing because they usually have unhealthy food. I don't like the shoes either...