Faith is not quite the leap into the dark that many people assume.

It is usually about making a reasonable jump based on trustworthy information. Buying a car or house, meeting up with some new friends from work, following a direction using satnav - all of these are expressions of faith where the ‘believer’ has listened to something and then acted on it.

A student recently asked me about proof and I answered with a diagram which eventually became this cartoon. You can only finally have proof when you have taken the step of faith. You can only be sure of your purchase once you have it in your hands, you know that you believed your friends correctly when they arrived at the place that they had promised.

Similarly, when Jesus promises new life, forgiveness, joy, hope… that he will take up residence in your life with a fresh vibrancy - all of this remains uncertain unless you 1. take in the information (which means mainly absorbing the content of the Bible) and then 2. make faith steps based on it.

My personal experience is that when we listen and then respond to the call that Jesus makes on our lives - THEN he brings proof in His own time in His own way. While I am very happy (and willing) to discuss the trustworthiness of the Bible documents I cannot prove the reality of a living God. That is an experience that is open for you to find out for yourself.

This challenge is both scary and exciting.

Thanks to Mike Tindall for suggesting the text.

Tags: Faith, Evangelism, Father, Grace, Jesus, Joy, Listening, Prayer, Redemption, Repentance, Crisis, Thankyou

From Genesis 14.
Commissioned by Scripture Union for the Wordlive site.

Tags: Faith, OT, Redemption, Crisis, Scripture Union

(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.

Tags: Crisis, Phone hacking, Sin, Hypocrisy, Truth/Lies, Jesus, Wisdom

From the Long Walk Home blog:I’m continuing to realise again and again that the one thing I really crave is recognition in this life. … I get anxious when this doesn’t happen, I think my life has stopped being meaningful or helpful because no-one has told me that I’ve made a difference, said something useful or specifically pointed out how much they like having me around… I crave the adoration of those around me way too much. I can tell this because when I don’t get it my insecurities threaten to engulf me in a tide of dark thoughts about how useless I am and how no-one will like me.

Tags: Crisis, Joy, Father, Isolation, thelongwalkhomeblog

From the Long Walk Home blog: 3 years in an admin job feels like failure…I believe the big fat lie that there is no dignity in this work, that there is no reality in this kind of work.

Tags: Admin, Crisis, Truth/Lies, Joy, thelongwalkhomeblog

From the Long Walk Home blog: Life has been pretty hard around these parts recently, hope has been something to be fought for, clung to and I’ve had to remind myself not to despair or give in. That’s not an easy thing to do when you are just clenching your teeth grimly wish hoping that things will be ok. Thankfully that’s not the kind of hope I’ve been clinging to. Psalm 114 points us in a very simple way to the bigness of the God who defines Hope and whose character we Hope in.

Tags: thelongwalkhomeblog, Crisis, Faith, Wisdom, Storms, Prayer, Joy, Holiness

I had written this lengthy post but in the end I guess the picture should speak for itself.

Jeremiah 31:33-34: “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbour, or say to one another, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

Tags: Steve Jobs, Crisis, Jesus, Redemption, Sin, Storms, Wisdom, Truth/Lies, idols

Lamentations 3v19-24: I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”

Tags: Crisis, Storms, Repentance, Sin, Devil, Discipleship, Faith, Father, Holiness, Isolation, Friendship, Law, Listening, Prayer, Redemption, Truth/Lies, idols

From Joshua 2.
Commissioned by Scripture Union for the Wordlive site.

Tags: Scripture Union, Death, Evangelism, Faith, Friendship, Grace, Listening, Mission, Crisis, Wide/Narrow

Originally from Isaiah 46.
Commissioned by Scripture Union for the Wordlive site.

Tags: idols, Crisis, Sin, Isolation, Scripture Union

Originally from Acts 27.
Commissioned by Scripture Union for the Wordlive site.

Tags: Crisis, Storms, Faith, Scripture Union

Originally from Psalm 109.
Commissioned by Scripture Union for the Wordlive site.

Tags: Sin, Crisis, Storms, Faith, Scripture Union

From the Long Walk Home blog:

“There is big lovely truth to be gleaned from this Psalm.  Read it through again. This Psalm tells us what a good life really is- it’s life as it’s meant to be lived, a life that starts with fearing God, delighting in his commands. Life with God should lead us to this kind of life. It might be worth looking at what that life looks like. It’s a life of compassion, graciousness, generosity, a life of righteousness and justice.…The weird thing about all this is that we read this Psalm and almost write it off as unattainable or fanciful that we could live in such ways. However, we follow a man who did walk such ways here on earth, and we walk in his footsteps. I’m pretty sure that I’m not going to suddenly become like this overnight but I am sure that these are the kind of characteristics I want to ooze out of me as I live this life. I want to live this kind of good life.”

Tags: thelongwalkhomeblog, Jesus, Grace, Crisis, Heaven, Faith

What a fellowship, what a joy divine,
Leaning on the everlasting arms;
What a blessedness, what a peace is mine,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.

Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms;
Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms.

O how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way,
Leaning on the everlasting arms;
O how bright the path grows from day to day,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.

What have I to dread, what have I to fear,
Leaning on the everlasting arms;
I have blessed peace with my Lord so near,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.

The magnificent epilogue text can be read here.

Tags: Crisis, Death, Faith, Jesus, Friendship, Heaven, Isolation, Prayer, Thankyou

Before this post fills with pungent bitterness I will just get it out of my system and move on: we paid a lot of money to take our child to see the ‘Mr Men Live’ roadshow and were utterly disappointed. It was mainly a very-thinly arranged set of miss-aimed karaoke numbers with little to make up for the promise of seeing those people of Hargreaves’ creation. He would be ashamed of it, I am sure.

Now I have vented - and if you are still reading - I will add that those expensively disappointing seats provided me with the inspiration for how to frame this personal tale of frustrated hopelessness. While I have experienced/shared a number of serious lows, I am confident that in Jesus there is always hope which is well qualified and can draw relief from the gloomiest of depths.

Are you facing anything similar? Is the path you are on unendingly grim?
Put yourself in the hands of the most qualified One. Trust me when I say that he can be found through trust and a simple prayer. When life is so very tough, what can you stand to lose in turning to King Jesus?

The wonderful epilogue text can be found at the end of the passage here.

Tags: Crisis, Devil, Evangelism, Faith, Jesus, Grace, Isolation, Joy, Redemption, Storms, Thankyou

From the leaders’ blog:
When we were first planning The Plant, a very wise man suggested we ask ourselves this: “If you were Satan, what would you do to try to stop this church from flourishing?” Forewarned is forearmed as they say.
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Tags: Devil, Faith, The Plant, Crisis

Come back for more - this is a twelve part series.

Many thanks to Martin Saunders at Youthwork Magazine for commissioning this series.

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Tags: Youthwork Magazine, Jesus, Wisdom, Friendship, Isolation, Redemption, Repentance, Technology, Holiness, Grace, Faith, Evangelism, Crisis, Bible

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! X
It 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.

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Tags: Phone hacking, Conscience, Crisis, Grace, Hypocrisy, Judge, Mobile Phones, Politics, Repentance, Sin, Truth/Lies

This is from Job 32 where Elihu finally vents his frustration at the ineptitude of the three 'wise' friends. I love this one because it trades off of my extensive knowledge of that terrible Hulk tv show from when I was kid.

Commissioned by Scripture Union for the Wordlive site. Thanks Eddie.


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Tags: Crisis, Listening, Patience, OT

Delightfully, while this cartoon is a tad messy it paved the way to a wonderful year of working with Youthwork magazine and a whole new format. Modern Parables!

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Tags: Crisis, Facebook, Twitter, Jesus, Thankyou, Wisdom

I think that Barnabas Fund does a good job of explaining the context.

Here he is, speaking for himself.



May the tragically sown seeds of this event be drawn into abundant life wherever this event is broadcast.

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Tags: Crisis, Death, Faith, Grace, Islam, Jesus, Mission, Prayer, Wide/Narrow, Wisdom

"Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth."

Read Job 3 here.
Commissioned by Scripture Union for the Wordlive site. Thanks Eddie.

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Tags: Crisis

From the Long Walk Home blog:

"Are we prepared to put our pride to one side, look up and cry for help? Are we prepared to admit we are wrong, put our stubbornness to one side and accept the wonder of a God who wants to help us?"

Tags: Crisis, Faith, Friendship, Grace, Joy, Listening, Repentance, Sin, Wisdom, thelongwalkhomeblog

Another short moving image version of illustrations I produced last year.

“All people are like grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of the Lord endures forever.”
1Peter 1v24-25

Tags: Crisis, Death, Evangelism, Father, Sin, Wisdom, Youth/Age, thelongwalkhomeblog

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.

Tags: Jesus, Evangelism, Crisis, Faith, Friendship, Heaven, Bible, 3D

I did a seminar on Facebook (blessing or curse?) at the Growing Young Disciples 2010 conference a couple of weeks ago*. I think I forgot just how tired extra speaking engagements leave me - I have been literally a walking dead man since.

Anyway, apart from me whining like a silly little child, it was useful for forming a few thoughts on the value and true impact of social networking via the web in these times. I probably have about three cartoons in the bag idea-wise.

Here is the first:



I just noticed that there isn't a text! Hebrews 10v24 is probably a good one. Fleshbloodspirit community has to be the true basis for growth.

*seminar notes here

Tags: Facebook, Crisis, Friendship, Truth/Lies, Wisdom, idols

Okay so I cheated a little and borrowed from my work on Kath's blog. I did have this other idea which I may yet use but in the end when the time pressure got too much I just did the necessary thing. I really like this one.

Here is 1 Peter 1.

Tags: Faith, Truth/Lies, Crisis, Patience, Father, Death

From the Long Walk Home blog:

Kath: "I wonder how many of us secretly live with the reverse of this God, a God who is uncaring, who is mean, who remembers all our wrong doing, who is quick to anger, quick to be disappointed us, who treats us as we deserve, who holds onto our sin, who hates his children and expects the world from them. Sometimes I am ashamed to admit that is the mean nasty god I avoid worshipping. I have lost the wonder, the wow, the reality that God is really good."





For the sharp-eyed among you, yes I redid them. Much better now.

Tags: Faith, Truth/Lies, Crisis, Patience, Father, Death, thelongwalkhomeblog

Latest images for the Long Walk Home blog.



Kath: "Think for a moment about all the things that are really long lasting in your life. Think about the things of permanence, things that do not rust, decay, spoil or fade. Think about how long even the most long lasting of those things is. In a world which cynically designs products so they won’t last, in a world of updates every year, in a world that throws away, consumes and has an increasing thirst for more God steps in like an ancient anachronism. "

Tags: Faith, Truth/Lies, Crisis, Patience, Father, Death, thelongwalkhomeblog

Here are a couple of images for the LWH blog piece on Psalm 101.



Kath: "This type of Psalm has a habit of making me squirm."

Tags: Crisis, Faith, Law, Listening, Repentance, Sin, idols, thelongwalkhomeblog

Here is the latest batch of images for The Long Walk Home blog. This one is a rather dark reflection on Psalm 100.

Tags: Crisis, Faith, Prayer, Jesus, Father, thelongwalkhomeblog

So anyway, a woman put a cat in a bin and was caught on CCTV doing it. It became a big thing with deaththreats, fakebook pages and the like being taken down as the bile brimmed away.



Whatever else this event signifies, it is surely interesting to reflect on what a person is like when they aren't being watched. Is this an unguarded peek into the heart of every person? Granted, we aren't all nasty to little animals, but there are inevitably some shameful things going on the unprompted depths aren't there?

My end solution makes a pretty obvious point, so I won't elaborate on it. As ever, you can click to see a bigger version.


Titus 3 says that in spite of how messy our track record - be in public or private - there is a well of unstoppable grace that filled up for us when Jesus gave Himself on the cross:

3At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. 4But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. 8This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.

Fabulous good news for those who feel ashamed of their bin habits.

More goodies...
I thought I would do one of those exhaustively tiresome posts that documents everything I did to get to the final stage, but frankly I am already tired just thinking about it... To compensate here are a handful of the roughs that led up to this one. Make of them what you will, but hopefully they will give you an idea of the drafting process.













I hope it isn't too tiresome...

Tags: Crisis, Facebook, Conscience, Hypocrisy, Law, Judge, Listening, Sin, Truth/Lies

I changed my mind on submitting this for this months' EN. Partly I was really pushed for time and I did most of it in the dark with absurbly minimal amounts of sleep, and partly I did it because I really like this style of work and want to continue pushing it in future work if at all possible.

Anyways - this is a meditation on how I want my hands to be like His hands.

Tags: Jesus, Crisis, Faith, Father, Repentance, Sin

Based heavily on some recent personal experiences, I have been reflecting on how a parent might bring comfort to a child who is having nightmares. From this I began to move further outwards and think what basis is there for any of us being comforted in the face of the ultimate nightmare of mortality and suffering.

Tags: Jesus, Adoption, Crisis, Devil, Faith, Redemption, Sunshine, Truth/Lies

My friends Kev and Kath are getting married in about three weeks. It is a massive chapter change for them and wonderfully they have included us in the celebrations. After stumbling upon a new personal style of adorning text, Kath asked me to do some more and this was the result.

It is an extended meditation on the Christian worldview narrative - from the Creation, to the Fall, to Jesus' Cross-work and finally the consummation.





May God richly bless this couple as they step out in awe of the truly BIG day. All the rest will fall into place.

Tags: Adoption, Art, Crisis, Devil, Doxology, Evangelism, Faith, Heaven, Jesus, Judge, NT, OT, Prayer, Repentance, Wedding, Sin

The latest submission for Sorted magazine.



The previous version of this cartoon can be found here.

Tags: atheism, Truth/Lies, Crisis, Wisdom, Sin, Judge

Fantastic!

I have been asked to revisit a few older EpilogueTV cartoons and reformat them for Sorted magazine. I took one of my first ever pieces (found originally here) and redrew it, making a few changes to the text, composition and pacing. The newer version is much much better and hopefully reflects some personal improvements over the five years I have been pushing these little babies out.

Tags: Jesus, Redemption, Faith, Crisis

You can find the John 3v19-21 text here.

The MP's expenses scandal has been a big thing in the media over the last month (although the Michael Jackson funeral seems to have eclipsed it somehow...). Clearly this cartoon draws it's inspiration from some of the developments in the story.

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It is well known that when the Telegraph published the details of the expenses there was plenty of public anger (EN68 alludes to some of that). But then there was a really interesting development: in the face of all this exposure a redacted set of 'official' expenses were published on the web.

Here is a screengrab from Gordon Brown's expenses:



There was an understandable further wave of outrage as people went through what was and wasn't being revealed, thus showing how inconsistent a picture was being presented. It was a very interesting story to follow and one which had a huge illustration waiting in the wings. I think the cartoon speaks for itself, but it may be worth saying that the love of God - expressed in Jesus Christ to all humanity - is so compelling that the natural tendency for humans to hide their failings can finally be let go of. It is a wonderful thing to properly experience freedom, confidence and acceptance in the sight of a Holy and Almighty Being.

Here are two prior drafts:



My first tidy version had this end section which was to confusing and wordy.



I am happy with the final outcome because it isn't simply about the text and discussion - the ideas are physically part of the event.

Tags: Crisis, Hypocrisy, Isolation, Judge, Repentance, Sin, Truth/Lies, MPs expenses

Two illustrations to come out of a message preached by Andy Hickford earlier today on Psalm 27.

Tags: Jesus, Consumerism, Crisis, Faith, Father, Holiness, Prayer, Truth/Lies, Wisdom

The Psalm 1 text can be found here.

Tags: Truth/Lies, Crisis, Death, Faith, Jesus, Listening, OT, Prayer, Sin, Wide/Narrow, Wisdom

The Bible epilogue text can be found here (you will need to scroll down to find the exact part).

Okay, so this one might not be about anything in particular, but it came out of some meditation I was doing on the text in question (Hebrew 6v13-20) and the film Broken Flowers (with Bill Murray).

It struck me that perhaps the most wonderful thing about being a Christian is the unseen stuff - that Jesus has provided believers with an eternal by-faith anchor to keep them safe during the storms (and finally the storm).

The film in question presents a man within a worldview that has pretty much no mooring. Nothing quite adds up to anything deliberately. The director (Jim Jarmusch) made something brilliant, but it certainly clashes with the joined-up-purposes of the christian view.

It is also worth saying that a. I like the film very much and that b. when things don't add up christians shouldn't be surprised because God never promises to explain stuff in this world. In fact the main thing that he does explain clearly is Christ's cross-work, which is great because it provides a foundation and context for the rest of the mystery of life.

Lord - we will trust you to do good.

Tags: Jesus, Storms, Crisis, Credit Crunch, Consumerism

The Bible epilogue text can be found here (you will need to scroll down to find the exact part).

There is a bit of a joke here that is more about the Boney M song, although it also does twist the sense of Psalm 137. The thing that got me thinking here was ho the impending credit doom really cuts away one of the most cherished idols of the modern age: materialism is particularly strife in the UK and if there was ever an evidence of people ignoring God then this must surely be it.

I was originally going to use some of the stuff in James about wealth but it felt too much like a distortion of the argument. The Peter text provides a better general response I think.

There are lots of sketchbook notes that I will hopefully upload at some point, but for now please take my word for it...

Tags: Consumerism, Credit Crunch, Storms, Crisis

The Bible epilogue text can be found here.

It is easy to take up extreme positions when it comes to something like Abortion. Shouting matches don't seem to be the right way forward for true gospel people, so I was interested in hearing the testimony of a woman who I featured in the top part of the strip. I didn't want to rubbish people who choose termination but to reflect the relative gravity of each situation.

Tags: Abortion, Sin, Crisis, Truth/Lies

The Bible epilogue text can be found here.

This strip uses a quote from one of my regular RE lessons. We were looking at the ten commandments and I was aiming at trying to get the kids to understand what the original meaning for Israel was. It was as if I had started a war or something!

The strip summarises my thoughts on the wisdom of the thinking.

Roughs

Tags: atheism, Truth/Lies, Crisis, Wisdom, Sin, Judge

The Bible epilogue text can be found here (you may have to scroll down a bit to find the exact part...).

Apologies for no extra text. I have just fractured my elbow and typing is not as easy as it was.

Tags: Wisdom, Death, Truth/Lies, Crisis, Youth/Age, Judge

The Bible epilogue text can be found here (you may have to scroll down a bit to find the exact part...).

When Saddam was hanged it was shocking to me for a couple of reasons: firstly it happened so quickly, and secondly there was footage of it on youtube.

I had heard that youtube was handy for getting to see news clips that you might have missed and it had a respectable reputation about it, so I innocently watched something entitled news/saddam/hanging... I ended up seeing some mobile phone footage of the event which had a weird voyeuristic immediacy about it.

The strip explores this a bit while posing a further question: what happens after you die? We live in such an age of visual saturation where nothing (it seems) is out of reach of prying lenses. The Bible speaks of an ending which involves a perfect judge and a fairness which no one will doubt or disagree with. It also talks of heaven and hell as the only two destinations.

The trapdoor is here viewed as doorway into something which our mobiles haven't yet been able to record, but which is freely readable in the scriptures.

The image is based on the horrid footage, and I kept things real simple, using the placing of the text and the bright under-light to suggest the obvious next bit. This is again an example of using text in the composition.

Initial feedback suggested that I had gone a bit too far with the youtube link (see below) and that the seriousness of the subject needed preserving. Thanks to Mike Radish and Mrs Rama.

Here is the first draft... spot the epilogue extra text.



I think the final hits the right note without redoing too much.

Tags: Saddam Hussain, Death, Holiness, Sin, Crisis, Wisdom, Judge, Youtube

The Bible epilogue text can be found here (you may have to scroll down a bit to find the exact part...).

This one was related to the whole Madonna/celebrity adoption fiasco that hit the headlines. Can a celebrity bypass correct protocols and take a child from africa? Isn't it in fact a compassionate move to share their lives with those less fortunate? Is it right to remove a child from his/her home situation and place them in the ultra-consumerist setting of a celebrity home?

The debates are many, but I wanted to use this situation to look at how Jesus' mission is rather like this: he snatched us from slavery to the devil and brought freedom and blessed adoption. The really great bit is that he didn't bypass any of the necessary protocols - death on the cross and a mighty resurrection put paid to any arguments about the legitimacy of the move.

I enjoyed imagining the angelic celebrations...

Scott McCloud refers to how cartoonists should try to develop the interaction of text and image in their compositions. I tried to do this with this piece after really getting a kick out the Stockholm Syndrome piece two months previously. The three panel layout is something I am really pleased with on this, and I deliberately kept to a simple stick person-type display. This is how I tend to do stuff at school when I am using my white board to teach stuff, and I think that it probably makes a good impact in my strips.

The dedication is for one of our then-newly-joined friends at church. The great thing with a real christian church is that it goes way beyond the idea of pews and formality - it becomes a family in an organic and vibrant way that people often don't see.

Tags: Adoption, Jesus, Redemption, Sin, Death, Devil, Eyewitnesses, Crisis, Holiness, Wisdom

The Bible epilogue text can be found here (you may have to scroll down a bit to find the exact part...).

Terry Wogan earns a huge amount of money. I thought that this was well worth using because it raises the big question of 'who is worth that?'. The lovely thing about being a christian is that God places infinite value on us by giving His life for us on the cross. People with little or no self esteem can be cherished and cared for in the arms of God. Amazing.

I cheated a little here. The image comes from a set of three pictures I produced for the Brighton Festival Fringe.

Tim Bongers is the dedicatee. I did this specially for him and then the EN staff inadvertently chopped off the whole right hand side of the strip... it was made worse by me telling Tim to look for it. Sorry.

Tags: Work, Consumerism, Credit Crunch, Crisis, Hypocrisy, Wisdom, Redemption, Entertainment, BBC, Terry Wogan

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...

Tags: Storms, Crisis, Credit Crunch, Consumerism, Wide/Narrow, Work, Death

The Bible epilogue text can be found here (you may have to scroll down a bit to find the exact part...).

The Christian Institute had made some responses to the discussion on a proposed 'incitement to religious hatred' law. A worrying aspect of the issue was that a law that was intended to protect religious views could end up being used to legislate against faiths like christianity. I had listened to some testimonies of people from around the world where they had been hounded and eventually thrown out of their own countries due to this kind of law being passed. I wanted to reflect on the changes implicit in this law.

A couple of my friends’ boys are mentioned in the dedication. I think it speaks for itself.

Tags: Law, Evangelism, apologetics, atheism, Wisdom, Truth/Lies, Crisis, Judge

The Bible epilogue text can be found here (you may have to scroll down a bit to find the exact part...).

7/7, as it is referred to, was yet another defining moment in our shifting culture. I reflected on the parallel steps of the bomber and Jesus, how they both involved death, both were puzzling, and yet had such dramatically different consequences for anyone connected.

Flippancy is something to be avoided with this material, and I think it manages to do that. A lot of the time these strips require you to compare parallel compositions or scan repetitive elements. This one uses that device.

Tags: Terrorism, Jesus, Redemption, Holiness, Crisis, Sin

The Bible epilogue text can be found here (you may have to scroll down a bit to find the exact part...).

The story in Luke is known as the 'Prodigal' or lost son. It is about family reunion after some difficult times. This is a slightly different take on that story about something which happened to me. The most helpful thing to say here is that part of the key for me to find reconciliation in the particular situation required letting go of past baggage - hence the bin.

This has very little text for good reason. I think it works well as it is.

Tags: Father, Youth/Age, Redemption, Repentance, Friendship, Crisis, Adoption

This cartoon suffers from the text being far too small. Give me a break, I was inexperienced with the form.

Tags: WMD's, Evangelism, apologetics, Discrimination, Crisis