Went into Glasgow city center last night with two of my boys to watch the British Superbikes do their stuff in George Square.
The pic is by my friend Tony. You can see more of his photo'd of the night here.
Went into Glasgow city center last night with two of my boys to watch the British Superbikes do their stuff in George Square.
The pic is by my friend Tony. You can see more of his photo'd of the night here.
Thursday, June 28, 2007 in Glasgow | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: british superbikes, glasgow, knockhill, motorbikes
Wednesday, June 27, 2007 in Glasgow | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: British Super Bikes, George Square, Glasgow, Rocket Man
Emma whom I met at the soliton sessions in Belfast and Portrush back in February is having a photography exhibition.
why not go along and show your support?
Wednesday, May 09, 2007 in Glasgow | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Freddie Flintoff probably Englands most naturally talented cricketer for a generation has got himself into all sorts of problems from his widely reported drinking escapades at the cricket world cup.
This in turn has sparked off a debate about whither his losing the vice-captaincy and missing one game was an over reaction to this incident. There were the obligatory phone ins on Radio 5, with many callers saying that the authorities had overreacted.
I beg to differ with this view, for it bolsters the view that getting drunk is a socially acceptable thing to do. Yet the UK and Scotland in particular has a growing problem with alcohol. In 2004 there were 8,221 alcohol-related deaths in the UK, almost double the 1991 total of 4,144. That is a staggering rise in just 13 years! If the UK picture is bleak then the Scottish context is even worse. The area I live in, Glasgow, had the highest alcohol-related death rate among both men and women in 1998 - 2004. Fifteen of the 20 UK local areas with the highest male alcohol-related death rates were in Scotland, 14 of the top 20 for women. Two out of three 16 - 24 year old males in Scotland drank more than twice the recommended daily benchmarks [Scottish health survey 1998].
Getting drunk is no laughing matter, especially as for most people this is not an unforeseen consequence of a "good night out", but is the object of the night out as for many the attitude exists that unless you get drunk you cannot have a good time.
I hope Freddie is truly sorry, I hope he gets help as his over drinking seems to be a feature of his lifestyle. I hope he does not become crickets George Best. More than this I hope that as a nation we can change our relationship to alcohol.
REport on Alcohol Related Deaths Health Stats Spring 2007 Stats on alcohol in Scotland Binge Drinking Costing Billions
Tuesday, March 20, 2007 in Current Affairs, Glasgow, Life, Sport | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Alcohol, Alcohol problems in Scotland, Alcohol problems in UK, Deaths from Alcohol, Freddie Flintoff
Stuart , Lynn and myself have started a collaborative blog. It's called Still Small Voices and looks to be a place where people seeking asylum in the UK can tell their stories. We also hope to include some "expert opinion" from people we know, practical advice and some theological and biblical reflection upon the many issues that surround asylum.
It will in many senses be un-apologetically political and social. It's our small attempt, our still small voice into a great bit world as dreamers of a better world.
I you want to share stories of asylum from different parts of the world or contribute to this in some way then let me know and we'll have a chat.
Friday, January 19, 2007 in Blogs & Blogging, Current Affairs, Ethics, Faith, Glasgow, Life, Theology | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Political blogs, Social Action, Still Small Voices, UK Asylum
Last night we travelled down from Oban to Glasgow. It was like driving a boat the rain was so bad. We hit a lot of standing water on the Loch Lomond section of the road and only some good driving and the grace of God stopped us from having a crash.
I'd already taken the decision not to go across the Erskine Bridge, but the police had taken this decision for everyone else and close the road forcing us on a diversion through Clydebank. We didn't get lost as such, we just didn't know exactly where we were! Trees down, flooding and lights out meant another couple of diversions before we made it home.
Today was some good family time with my mum & dad, my brother and his family.
Now for the joys of trying to get the kids back into something like a good bed time routine.
Monday, January 01, 2007 in Glasgow, Life | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
Colin (pictured) asks, “since the emerging church conversation has such a wide spectrum, I’m wondering what you understand by it. What would you put forward as the main tenents of your brand of emerging church? Also who of the emerging pundits would you be most sympathetic to?"
Now I’m in favour of short blogs posts, however to answer these questions I think I’ll need a rather long post! I’ve framed my response in interview style for sake of clarity.
Colin - since the emerging church conversation has such a wide spectrum, I’m wondering what you understand by it?
Brodie - “Emerging” has become a trendy almost ubiquious trem. Not everything that uses the term emerging however is connected to what most recognise as the emerging church movement. So I’ve seen advertised training events for “emerging leaders”. However this advert was not trying to attact practitionars in emerging church situations, rather it was looking to attrach people in traditional modes of church who were in areas of “junior” leadership responsibility and may become the next generation of leaders in these churches. I tell this story simply to illustrate that not everything that calls itself emerging or uses the term emerging is necisarily connected to the Emerging Church movement.
A couple of years back I was at an “emerging gathering” in London. Doug Pagitt ( a key figure in the states) was there. Part of the conversation was about the term “emerging church”, and wither it was a movement and the “danger” of it becoming a brand. Doug suggested the it’s those from the “outside” that need to name who the “other” is. Thus the term Emerging Church is to an extent an imposition of those involved in this. Those on the “inside” have to an extent legitimised this naming by using themselves, so in the USA you have Emergent Village and in the UK you have Emergent UK. These are not governing bodies, or part of some denominational hierarchy, but coilitions or collections of likeminded people normally involved in inovative forms of church planting. There’s no one doctrinal creed or statement of faith that they all would sign up to. Yet there are cominalities between them. As I said in my reply to your comment Gibbs and Bolger have to date probably produced the best work on defining the common practices of the emerging church.
So at it’s broadest definition the emerging church is anything that is trying to contextualise church in our emerging cultures. Gibbs and Bolger would however differentiate this from “seeker church”, “Gen X or Gen Y” church or “youth congregation”. Emerging church is not even alternative worship, although many involved especially in the UK scene would have their root there and if an emerging church has a formal worship service it may in form be similar to an alternative worship service.
Gibbs and Bolger identify what they call three core practices. They are (1) identifying with the life of Jesus, (2) transforming secular space, and (3) living as community. From these core practices flow a further six. They are (4) welcome the stranger, (5) serve with generosity, (6) participate as producers, (7) create as created beings, (8) lead as a body, and (9) take part in spiritual activities.
Mark Scandrette (quoted in Gibbs and Bolger) narrates this, “the emerging church is a quest for a more integrated and whole life of faith. There is a bit of theological questioning going on, focusing more on kingdom theology, the inner life, friendship/community, justice, earth keeping, inclusivity, and inspirational leadership. In addition, the arts are in a renaissance, as are the classical spiritual disiplines. Overall, it is a quest for a holistic spirituality”. On a side note I was present when Mark Scandrette had his first ever curry! Now I know this seems like name dropping and in one scence it is as I’m sure Mark would not remember our brief meeting. What it does however do is exemplify the “practice of welcome the stranger and serve with generosity”. I was in London at an Emerging conferance. I introduced myself to Si Johnston, he invited me a stranger back to his flat for a curry. Now granted this kind of hospitality happens every Sunday in many churches across the UK, but within the emerging movement this kind of welcoming is not separated off from the church service or seen as a way of getting me to your church service. The same could be said for all the other practices that Gibbs and Bolger articulate, none of them are unique to the emerging church. Yet what makes the emerging church distinctive is the synergy between these practices and the general spirituality that is shared by those who identify with the emerging church movemnt.
Colin - What would you put forward as the main tenents of your brand of emerging church?
Brodie - At this point in time I’d describe myself as some one who is hugely sympathetic to the Emerging Church rather than an Emerging Church practitioner. So I don’t have a “brand of Emerging Church”, as it’s not something that I’m actively participating in.
That said I guess I’m involved with some emerging conversations. I participated in a group of Scottish Baptists who wanted to discuss some of the issues raised in the Gibbs & Bolger book and what a Scottish Baptist response might look like. I hope that this conversation will continue and well who knows where it might lead.
Many of the people on my blogroll would either be directly involved with the emerging church or like myself would be sympathetic to it. Some I’ve managed to meet in real life - be it a beer at the organic beer tent at Greenbelt, others I know only from the blogsphere. In gereral they are people I’ve learned from and been challenged by. I found reading some of the emerging blogs particuarly useful when we still had our 8 O’clock service at QP. I guess Gibbs and Bolger would have defined us as a youth congregation rather than “emerging”, but the creativity of many of the emerging blogers helped inspire me to think of ways other than just singing songs to help young people connect with God through worship.
What I am uneasy with would be forms of church that are post-congregational. While I value the virtual relationships I have, there is still, and I think always will be, the need to come together as a community of believers reguarly. Now I think there huge scope for diversity in what happens when a community comes together and when it comes together, but for me coming together in real life is a non-negotiable. That said I think for some people who find themselves “between” faith communities, a net-worked or virtual community is a good tempoary place to find belonging and accountability.
Colin - Who of the emerging church pundits would you be most sympathetic to?
Brodie - Having studied theology together you already know some of my theological influences. What’s interesting is that they would also be major influences upon many within the emerging church movement.
The late Stan Grenz was widely respected by many emerging church leaders and Brain McLaren was representative of many in the obituary he paid Grenz.
JH Yoder would also be influential amoung Emergent’s, especially (i think) his excellent wee book, “Body Politics”.
Volf is also be well recieved in emerging circles and spoke at an emerging event state side in February this year.
The list of theologians well recieved amoung emergents would also include, NT Wright, Walter Wink, Stanley Hauerwas and yes Moltmann (but perhaps to a lesser degree?).
So I guess my studies and the theologies that started to resonate with me at college in some scenses laid a foundation to being receptive to resonating with the emerging church movement.
I’ve just finished reading Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch’s “The Shape of Things to Come”. I’d want to critque some of what they say, but on the whole I’d be sympathetic to what they propose.
Si Johnston when he bloged more reguarly was certainly an early influence and encouragement. We’ve met up a couple of times for a chat about church, culture and things emerging.
I think TallSkinny Kiwi and I would differ quite a bit theologicaly but if your thinking about the emerging church, want to know what’s happening in the world and where the Spirit might be leading then IMHO you’d be foolhardy to ignore the big man.
At the moment I’m enjoying being provoked, challenged and ispired by John Smulo. I guess a UK version of John would be Steve Hollinghurst. I’ve not managed to meet Steve yet, but if he’s ever north of Hadrians wall then I’d sure like to meet up with him and pick his considerable brains.
I could go on and on with who I’m sympathetic to, but that’s quite enough to be going on with.
Trust this answers your question’s Colin?
Wednesday, December 06, 2006 in Church, Emerging Church, Faith, Glasgow, Theology | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Emerging church
Last week the BBC ran a series of programme looking at the issue of homelessness. We only saw one of these. It focused on families and told their experience through the kids. It stirred up all kind of feeling in me. For want of a better term the families the film followed were the "honest poor". One family had been evicted because Housing Benefit had been lat in paying for their rent. The other family had been evicted as the Dad had giving up his job as a bus driver to look after the family when the mother became mentally ill. My heart just went out for this family as here was a Dad doing his best to look after an ill woman and keep his family together.
One of the most striking things about the film was just how well the kids behaved. Despite being under incredible stress the Dad, mentioned above, seemed to be doing a fabulous job at raising his kids. Sure he said some stuff to them that perhaps placed an unfair burden on them, but given the circumstanced I think he and the kids were doing rather well.
The other feeling I had was of anger. I was angry at the lack of support these families were getting. I was angry that the councils decided that they had intentionally made themselves homeless, therefore they had no responsibility to house them. Mixed with my anger was huge thankfulness. Back in the late 80's when bank interest rates when up to and beyond 16% we lost our home, as a family we became "intentionally homeless". I don't know if the rules have changed since then, but if we had been treated as the families in the film then we should not have received the council flat we did, but should have been sent to a hostel or similar.
Today in Glasgow some council workers are striking. As a result of this at least 6 families will loose their accommodation at 4pm and be left to wander the streets with no where to go! I know the Salvation Army and others are trying to take up the slack in the system to mitigate the effects of the strike, but the system is works so near capacity all the time that there is no slack.
I'm frustrated by this because apart from make people aware, apart from saying there's something wrong about all this..i can't see what else I can do. It's good to talk ....but there must be more.
One person who is doing more, and counting the cost, is John Lent. His post When Living Missionally is no fun is a must read.
UPDATE - as far as I know the stike was called off at the last minute! Answer to prayers!
Monday, December 04, 2006 in Blogs & Blogging, Church, Current Affairs, Ethics, Faith, Glasgow, Life, Theology | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
A few weeks ago Stuart wrote a post where he suggested the emerging church in Scotland
was submerging rather than emerging. Now I’m not entirely clear about what he means by this.
It could be argued that the very nature of the emerging church means that it will take the form of a submerging church. There are no Christendom steeples in this church landscape to announce its presence. So absence of evidence for a thriving emerging church in Scotland in not evidence of its absence. There may be many groups out there that Stuart, or for that matter I am not ware of.
That said Scotland is a small place and at times it can seem like everyone truly does know everyone else. So you would think that if there was a proliferation of emerging groups that they would be known about.
So here’s my take on the submerging emerging church in Scotland. I’d love to see emerging churches thrive in Scotland; hey I’d love to see the church in its diverse expressions thrive in Scotland. Ever since I started blogging, reading about the emerging church, attending the odd conference I’ve been hugely sympathetic to this approach of doing church and have whiled away many an hour day dreaming of being involved in plating an emerging church in post-modern culture here in Scotland. There are however I think some significant cultural barriers to the emerging church in Scotland that makes me think we will lag behind England, USA, Europe, Australia and NZ when it comes to emerging.
(1) Scotland has the highest percentage of its workforce employed by the Government or Government agencies in Europe. I think the figure is 48%. I spent a short period as part of this workforce when I worked for a local council. Having worked in both the private and public sectors the “culture” of the two is night and day. As a general rule of thumb the public sector tends to be Hierarchical, institutional, unresponsive to change, less productive than the private sector and highly beaurocratic. I therefore have a hunch that when it comes to church, what it should look like, how it is governed etc., we carry over something of this “public sector culture”.
(2) I have no evidence for this point, it’s purely anecdotal but I think there’s a cultural religious residue in Scotland that shapes our pscyic in a more significant way than say is the major metropolitan areas of England
. Given particularly the west coast of Scotland’s sectarian heritage perhaps we should be looking at what’s happening with the emerging church in NI rather than Manchester, Bristol, Yorkor London? I fully acknowledge that if you were to stop people on the street of most towns in Scotlandand ask them about God, the Christian message many, the majority would struggle to give a cogent answer. The vast majority of them even if they believe in God will not be regular attendees of church. (Hey I did street evangelism in Greenock3 times a week for aprox 5 years so I feel fairly safe in making this point). That said even the atheists here have an opinion on what makes a proper church service! Smells and bells (at least for one section of the community) it’s not. Neither is it labyrinths, PowerPoint meditations etc etc. Now don’t get me wrong I love all this stuff and have organised and done two labyrinth worship things. But this is perhaps more alien to Shuggy fae Barrhead than a 40 minute sermon with a hymn prayer sandwich either side! This is a long winded way of saying that I think emerging churches in Scotlandwill perhaps retain more of the forms of traditional / institutional church than in the case in many other contexts.
I remember reading Kester Brewin (perhaps it was some one else saying what he said?), talking about groups wanting to visit VAUX to see what they were doing so they could “learn” from them. Kester would discourage such visits, which on the face of it might seem rather harsh, but his rational was this;
You need to find out what it means to be church authentically in your context. So perhaps in our context the emerging church will be a bit more submerged than in other contexts? So I pray and hope for its flourishing and those in its different forms it will continue to emerge flourish and know God’s blessing.
Friday, November 24, 2006 in Church, Emerging Church, Faith, Glasgow | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Emerging Church, Scotland
I like the idea of Buy Nothing Day. You do what it says, on the 25th November you buy nothing. I guess it's a ritual of sorts whereby we call into question our relentless obsession with owning things, buying stuff, consuming more and more. It's also about empowerment, about saying that we're in control not the advertisers, marketers or shops. It's an attempt to de-throne consumerism from being no. 1 in our lives and breaking our addiction to stuff and shopping.
That said I think my wife would say "you like the idea because you hate shopping" (which is sort of true), "but if we're to get everyone we need to a present for Christmas then we need to spread when we do the shopping".
Can I pluck up the courage to suggest we participate in "but nothing for Christmas"?
Wednesday, November 22, 2006 in Current Affairs, Ethics, Faith, Glasgow, Life | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: buy nothing day
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