Imago Divina 27th June - Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Galatians 5:1-25

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Imago Divina 24th June - Nativity of John the Baptist

Luke 1:57-66

Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. Her neighbours and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him Zechariah after his father. But his mother said, “No; he is to be called John.” They said to her, “None of your relatives has this name.” Then they began motioning to his father to find out what name he wanted to give him. He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And all of them were amazed. Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God. Fear came over all their neighbours, and all these things were talked about throughout the entire hill country of Judea. All who heard them pondered them and said, “What then will this child become?” For, indeed, the hand of the Lord was with him.

Photographic reflections on the Lectionary

Yesterday at the Uniting General Council of the WCRC I went to a workshop entitled "imago divina" which was looking at how you use images on powerpoint in churches as something to enhance worship. The Rev Susan Phillips who took the workshop was very inspiring in the way that she used scripture readings as the basis for this and the effectiveness of the images she used in adding new thoughts to the text. So I thought I might start doing this as a way to reflect on lectionary passages (using textweek).

Reformed Youth Forum 2010

I'm currently in Grand Rapids, Michigan for the Uniting General Council of the World Communion of Reformed Churches. For a few days before this young people under the age of thirty all around the world gathered to get to know each other and to discuss the issues we face as young Reformed Christians. Here's a video which was made by Jessie to share an idea of some of the people who were there and to present our message which was written to present to the General Council and our churches.

Favourite free software

As a poor student I can't afford to buy lots of expensive software and so over the last few years I've experimented with lots of freeware that's available, some to download and some to use online and I thought I would share some of it. Some of these are intended to be free alternatives to expensive industry standard software while others focus on doing just a couple of basic things but are very good for that. Obviously this is not an exhaustive list and it's not meant to be a comparison either, this is just a few of the programmes I like and would recommend and I know other people have their own preferences.

Office Suites
Open Office - Probably the most famous open source software this is a free version of Microsoft Office, although that probably doesn't do it credit as while it feels similar it had it's own strengths. I doubt many people would have a strong preference for the Microsoft version after using this so given that it's free I would recommend never buying Microsoft. Of course this isn't even an option for people in some countries as Chris pointed out after his visit to Nepal.
Google Docs - This is an online programme and much more basic but very useful. I use it to do basic editing of documents and then when I want to format something I download it to Open Office or desktop publishing software. This has almost removed the need for carrying flash drives since almost every computer is connected to the internet and you can use it as storage for any file format too.

Media
GIMP - I only discovered this today when I was searching for some photo editing software and just about every list of free programmes had it at the top of their list citing it as the free Photoshop. From the little I've done with it it seems excellent so well worth exploring.
Autostitch - I've always been a fan of taking panoramas and there is a certain satisfaction in laying out photos and trying to piece them together. This is obviously more complex with digital photos but the demo version of this software which is used as the basis for some much more expensive programmes makes this as simple as selecting the photos you want to put together regardless of how complicated it seems. There are some stunning examples on their website but here's my own 8 photo panorama of the Wailing Wall and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.


Music and Video
Switch Sound File Converter - Simple programme which does what it says on the tin, converts sound files from one format to another.
Wave Pad - Very good basic software for editing the wave version of sound files. This allows you to do things like very detailed cutting of a track and fade in and outs. I've found this useful when I want to use musical examples in a presentation.
Dirpy - There are a number of websites with software allowing you to save youtube videos in various formats but this was the most professional I have used, allowing you much more flexibility than others.

Other
PDFill PDF Tools - I tend to use pdf as a format for saving and sending files once I've finished editing them, whether it's text documents, posters or sheet music. The universality makes it much easier for people to open than some other formats and you know that it will appear exactly as you have designed it, whatever software is used to edit it. The one difficulty of course is that you lose editability unless you happen to own lots of expensive Adobe software. This programme gives you some control over pdf files such as changing the order of pages, splitting files etc.
Weebly - Another area with lots of competition is free website builders. I've tried quite a few of these but never been happy with any until I tried weebly (you can see my own site here). While a lot of this choice comes down to whether you like the templates on offer I would say that Weebly is one of the easiest to use I've come across as well, basically letting you drag and drop different elements into your template and edit them there. It does allow you to edit the html code as well so that gives even more flexibility if you want it. Like a lot of these sites you can get extra functionality by paying more but even a lot of the features can be worked around if you know how (for example inserting a favicon by uploading the file onto the site and putting an html link on each page)
Free Serif Software - This is a great suite of programmes you can get for free. Serif decided that it would be good to put older versions of their programmes online for free in order to entice people to buy the new versions. However, a lot of these older programmes are still pretty good. My favourite is PagePlus which is desktop publishing software. (I've just noticed they have panorama software up now but I think it uses autostitch as it's basis so not sure whether it will really be much better.)

Edinburgh 2010 - Day 5 morning

Still typing up Days 3 and 4 of the conference but was very inspired at church this morning so thought I would share that first. We had a guest preacher at St Giles' from the largest Presbyterian congregation in the world, the Youngnak Presbyterian Church in Seoul, Korea. Unfortunately it was not able to hear him very well because the acoustic is very difficult to speak in but I got a copy of the sermon afterwards and it was some powerful thoughts on the theme of Jesus as the Messenger of the Gospel of Peace. However I was most struck today by the Anthem we sang in the choir, 'The Spirit of the Lord' by Sir Edward Elgar. The text is from Isaiah and it summed up so many of the themes of this week, particularly those about mission for justice and peace, the very theme of the sermon. It it also the most wonderfully evocative music. It comes from 'The Apostles' and here is a video of the orchestral version.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because He hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor:
he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted,
to preach deliverance to the captives,
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to preach the acceptable year of the Lord;
To give unto them that mourn a garland for ashes,
the oil of joy for mourning,
the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
that they might be called trees of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.
For as the earth bringeth forth her bud,
and as the garden causeth the things
that are sown in it to spring forth;
so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
to spring forth before all the nations.
Isaiah 61

Edinburgh 2010 - Day 2

Thursday morning started with the Opening celebration and remarkably it was possible to hold parts of it outside as the weather has been lovely. The worship continued the theme of singing songs from small countries around the world as a reminder about the breadth of the church today and the previous domination by the large colonial powers. We were told the stories of the Blind Man at the Pool of Siloam, the Woman at the Well and finally Zaccheus. After that we were asked to find two people we didn't know and ideally from different cultures and to share a Road to Emmaus moment, talking about what character we would like to meet and what questions we would like to ask them. I wandered in the warm Scottish sun (a sentence I never thought I'd type) with an Italian Roman Catholic ecumenist and a Swedish Lutheran minister and we talked about various issues surrounding churches in Europe today including the search for spirituality by people with no church connection and the deep roots that Islam is building around the world.

We then had the first Plenary Session on the topic of “Mission in the Long Perspective”. The keynote speaker for this was Dr Dana Roberts who based her talk on Revelation 7.

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.

She structured it around significant milestones for mission in the twentieth century, starting with Edinburgh 1910, moving onto the 1963 World Council of Churches Mission Conference and talking about the Christian part in fighting communism with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the protests in Tienanmen Square, using these to put our current position in context. She focused on the need for unity in mission both between denominations and between different cultures and classes. Now that we live in a post-Christendom, post-geographic, global context we need to acknowledge that common witness has diversity and pluralism embedded in it and that faith exists worldwide in different expressions with all cultures contributing to a common understanding of Christ. She concluded by saying that if we take a long view of mission then this means that we act on the promise in Revelation 7 that God will wipe away the tears from the eyes of the world that he loves and there shall be no more hunger.

This address was followed by four responses seeking to put the topic into different perspectives. Unfortunately the names of those who spoke were not announced clearly or printed anywhere so I cannot credit them all here. The first person who spoke though I can and this was the Most Reverend Brian Farrell, the Secretary to the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. He shared the idea that Catholics live by memory and that for them mission is related to the very first spread of the Gospel. He echoed a theme that keeps recurring this week that mission can no longer be imposed but must be shared. We then had an African theologian who used the metaphor of the World Cup in South Africa and particular the plastic trumpets that we will hear regularly. He said that the World Cup was a desperate attempt for Africa to be heard and that African representation is still a problem because it's only represented, not representative and the issues of the “global South” are not addressed. Revelation 7 is about fully equal human people and unless all are full and equally human this vision will not be fully realised, we must recognise the connection between the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth. This theme was continued by a representative of the Orthodox Church and judging by the response of some delegates this was an issue felt deeply by those from the “global South”. Whether it is a fair assessment of the church today and particularly this conference is a big question because I think it has been recognised and articulated as an issue but it cannot be denied as a historical issue. The final person to reflect on the topic was a Brazilian Baptist from the World Evangelical Alliance. He talked about how the lack of unity in the church can be a hindrance to the church in its influence on society and the dichotomy that exists between people's experience in church on Sunday and how they live the rest of their lives. He also talked about the specific context of mission and revivals in Latin America and this was an interesting case study in how Western missionaries in 1910 didn't understand the local context at all and Christians in Latin America were left to address many issues themselves.

After lunch we moved into the first session looking at the nine parallel themes that have been studied for the last five years and are being discussed this week. The conference has been split into three streams studying three topics each and today I was looking at Theme 1: Foundations for mission. We had the chance to hear about two research projects carried out specifically for this topic. The first was looking at “Mission at the margins” and studying the marginalized Dalit community in India. This led to the idea that struggle for life is a foundation for mission and that the perspective of the discriminated and the disadvantaged should be a vantage point for mission. Also that mission can become a catalyst for forging alliances where it is based on issues of social justice. The other study was done ecumenically in the UK and Ireland and was looking at the relationships between the articulated ideals of mission and the actual practice. It found that there were huge gaps between these. One interesting finding was that people have a strong response to relational language and reject language of separation, even in churches where there is robust language used in talking about sin and salvation. There is also not a strong link between issues of mission and justice, an interesting link to the other case study.
These case studies were then used as a chance to hear about some of the transversal topics for the week, topics that run through all the themes such as mission and youth, women etc. and to talk about our own perspectives. I was in an incredibly diverse group which was completely by accident made up of an Anglican from Botswana, an American Baptist of Chinese heritage, a South Korean, a Russian Orthodox priest, a Spanish Roman Catholic nun, a Scottish priest who works in Rome, a Brazilian Baptist and then a Scottish Presbyterian of course. To talk about issues such as understanding of the trinity, love as the focus of mission and translation between God and man and between communities with people who represented every part of the world church denominationally, theologically and geographically was incredibly powerful. In the end it proved difficult for everyone in the debate (almost a hundred people) to agree a common conclusion but the richness of the different conversations in groups was so valuable and some of the facilitators of the debates were going to try and reflect as much of that as possible in time for our next discussion thread.

The end of the day was rather nice. I don't tend to like official receptions but I decided to go to the Scottish Parliament reception and was very glad I did. Partly I felt that as a Scot it was nice for me to be there with people from other countries and it also just offered a chance to get to meet people and talk. We were warmly welcomed by the Presiding Officer and I think that many of the delegates appreciated this. I had some fascinating conversations with a Baptist from Brazil and a Roman Catholic from Tanzania and it just continued the feeling that this week is as much about building relationships and an understanding of people from diverse backgrounds as anything else. While the content of the debates is important it is there relationships that are living out the gospel and demonstrating that perhaps we can all be one church after all and work together in mission.

Edinburgh 2010 - Day 1

Wednesday saw 250 delegates from across the globe gather to celebrate the centenary of the 1910 World Missionary Conference, a seminal moment in global Christianity. The theme of the conference is “Witnessing to Christ Today” and in organising this event the aim was that it should reflect the changes in the world since 1910 when the conference was almost exclusively attended by white European male Protestants. Certainly my immediate experience was that they had succeeded in this judging from the number of women and people from Africa and Asia, neither may form the majority but they certainly have a significant presence.

While it may not have been deliberate, this recognition that the church's mission may be healthier outside Protestant Europe could be seen reflected in the passage from John 15:1-11 that was read at the evening worship. This is the passage that talks about the vine and the branches and perhaps this conference will be a chance for these older churches to be challenged about pruning their branches and also for all churches to realise that they are part of the same vine.

The opening evening was a chance to meet people, worship together and to be welcomed by Scottish church leaders. I had a great time meeting people from India and Finland over dinner and then sitting next to a Malaysian and a New Zealander at the worship and welcome. Even just while meeting for the first time it was obvious how much we have to learn from each other about the different perspectives that churches around the world have on mission, scripture and community. It was also very encouraging to be at an event where people are eager to share those perspectives and learn from others, rather than just promote their own.

The next few days should be very exciting as we move into discussing a range of topics and more opportunities to meet people. You can find out more about the conference and other things being organised for the centenary year at the Edinburgh 2010 website.