Archive for the 'Media' Category

‘Supply vicars’ unable to control unruly congregation

Published
by
Jon
on 8 May 2008
in Christianity and Media
. 0 Comments

I’m loving the satirical news posted over at NewsBiscuit and this particular article caught my eye!

‘Supply vicars’ unable to control unruly congregation

Rural parishes unable to find permanent members of the clergy have been forced to bring in supply vicars whose inexperience and lack of authority has made them vulnerable to disruptive parishioners, says a new report.

One temporary priest was reduced to tears with heckling and catcalling during his sermon, and when he looked up he saw that all the church-goers had turned their pews round to face the opposite direction. ‘These young supply vicars do not have the experience to be able to hold the attention of wayward Christians,’ admitted the Archbishop of Canterbury. ‘The moment they turn their back they are pelted with screwed up service sheets and Alpha Course leaflets made into paper planes, and many of them just don’t know what to do.’

In a small church in South Devon, one vicar was subjected to mass humming, while another gradually became aware that the mumbling and feigned coughing around the congregation was part of a daring game where each church-goer had to say the word ‘bollocks’ slightly louder than the last. In extreme cases of disruption, tearful vicars have run out to the vestry and phoned for the bishop, who has had to come down and give the congregation a serious talking to.

‘People imagine that church-goers are serene and gentle people, but nothing could be further from the truth’ said one vicar who has quit the Church after the pressure became too great. ‘On one occassion I asked the elderly congregation what they normally did for Evensong, and the old ladies told me they usually did black mass and sacrificed a goat to Beelzebub. How was I to know it was a wind up? It was only when I smeared the goat’s blood on my face and saw them giggling that I realized I had made a bit of an idiot of myself.’

Genius!

Dear God

Published
by
Jon
on 23 April 2008
in Christianity and Media
. 0 Comments


Dear God is a website where people send in their ‘prayers’ to be posted on the site. Similar to the creative confessional Postsecret, the site allows people to express their emotions and sentiments to whatever higher power they believe in.

It doesn’t matter what your version of God is… Jesus, Allah, Buddha or simply a spiritual universal energy… praying to a higher power soothes and heals. It’s scientifically proven that people who pray are healthier, happier and more resilient.

An interesting idea, and one that is capturing a lot of imagination and press. Go check it out as it is equally inspirational and disheartening.

ht: Digital Orthodoxy

I want a cab, innit!

Published
by
Jon
on 13 April 2008
in Media and Youth Work
. 1 Comment

I’m loving this story about a London teenager who tried to call directory enquiries to book a cab to Bristol and accidentally ordered some furniture!

She tried to book a taxi but used the cockney rhyming slang “Joe Baxi” to the confused operator who told her they were unable to find anyone by that name.

The short-tempered woman snapped back, saying: “It ain’t a person, it’s a cab, innit!”

The operator responded to the request by locating Displaysense, the nearest supplier of cabinets, and put the woman through to the company.

She then started speaking to an equally confused saleswoman and fumed: “Look love, how hard is it? All I want is your cheapest cab, innit. I need it for 10am. How much is it?”

The saleswoman responded by saying it would cost £180.

The teenager wasn’t put off by the figure and gave her address details before saying: “I wanna pay by card, ’cause I got no cash.”

The company received an enraged phone call the following morning when the woman, who was expecting a taxi, was sent one of their retail/office cabinets instead.

You’d think at some point she’d have figured out she wasn’t speaking to a taxi firm. £180 for a cab to Bristol? Wow! I’d take the train.

Victim Treats Mugger Right

Published
by
Jon
on 10 April 2008
in Media and Youth Work
. 0 Comments

This is a great story about a social worker who while being mugged by a desperate teenager, offered the guy his coat too!

He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife.

“He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, ‘Here you go,’” Diaz says.

As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, “Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you’re going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm.”

Diaz ended up taking the teen for a meal before giving him some cash to help out. Talk about turning the other cheek!

Ht:Chewing Pixels

Man uses hedgehog as weapon

Published
by
Jon
on 9 April 2008
in Media and Youth Work
. 0 Comments


I just had to post a link to this fascinating story!

A MAN has been charged with assaulting a teenage boy by throwing a hedgehog at him.

Police said William Singalargh, 27, from Whakatane, in New Zealand’s North Island, allegedly picked up the hedgehog and threw it about 5m at the 15 year old.

“It hit the victim in the leg, causing a large, red welt and several puncture marks,” Senior Sergeant Bruce Jenkins said.

“The man was arrested shortly afterwards for assault with a weapon, namely the hedgehog.”

It was not known whether the hedgehog was dead or alive when thrown on February 19, but it was dead when collected as evidence.

I’m not sure what the teenager had done to deserve the spiky assault, but I bet it’s given him a GREAT story to tell his mates at school! Maybe we could introduce this as a new youth group game?

Mecha Manga Bible Heroes

Published
by
Jon
on 22 February 2008
in Christianity, Media, Youth Group Resources, Youth Ministry and Youth Work
. 0 Comments


Being a fan of super hero comics and Japanese anime, I was delighted to hear of Mecha Manga Bible Heroes, a futuristic retelling of David and Goliath complete with huge armoured robots (mecha) drawn in a manga style!

Alongside the various other comic and manga Bibles starting to spring up, this version will be most welcome. For more, check out the Manga Bible series starting with ‘Names, Games and the Long Road Trip‘ and working it’s way through the Old Testament, or try the Manga Bible by Siku. I’m not sure when and how the Mecha Manga Bible Heroes will be available in the UK, but it will certainly pique the interest of a number of boys in our Ignite group.

Frozen Grand Central

Published
by
Jon
on 16 February 2008
in Media
. 1 Comment

I love this creative act from Improv Everywhere. 207 people just freeze in the middle of Grand Central Station and everyone else is just confused!

Glubble

Published
by
Jon
on 12 February 2008
in Media and Technology
. 1 Comment

Glubble

Glubble is a great plugin for the Firefox web browser that gives totally FREE parental controls! There are essentially two criteria for using it:

  1. you must use Firefox for web browsing
  2. you must have children that use the internet

Aimed at primary aged children, Glubble changes the look of the browser to a simple kid-friendly interface when they log-in limiting their browsing to a variety of ‘glubbles’.

Glubbles are bundles of content from the web, either editorially selected and collected by our resident expert on child content and published in the library for you to choose from. Or they can be created by you directly.

When adults log-in, firefox works as normal giving control over the kid accounts. The great thing about this software is the interaction. Kids can send messages to other family members, request that adults allow certain sites, and search the web through Glubble’s filters.

Glubble won’t work for older children and teens who can navigate their way around a computer and launch another browser (IE anyone?) but is a great choice for allowing younger children on the web. All I need now are some kids…

Bible Text Visualisations

Published
by
Jon
on 25 January 2008
in Christianity, Media and Technology
. 0 Comments

There’s been a lot of activity recently in people mapping data from the Bible into visual representations.

Chris Harrison took the King James Version and produced some beautiful images based on the connections between the passages, before developing a social network representation and distribution of people and places like the image below.

The background is the entire text of the Bible. Floating above it are all of the biblical names. These are positioned according to their average position in the text and lines are rendered to show where the names occur. Font size is proportional to the number of occurrences in the text.

Also, in a similar vein Crossway Books have put together an interactive Social Map of the New Testament that shows the connections between each of the characters.

It’s great to see the Bible being presented in new and exciting ways that allow Christians to interact with the people and stories to see the connections. I’d love to see this kind of research developed into abstract art that illustrated the various scriptures!

ht: Happy Traveller and Think Christian

Spam!

Published
by
Jon
on 23 January 2008
in Media and Technology
. 1 Comment


I’ve had a lot of problems with Spam on this blog recently due to some changes with plug-ins. For some reason or other my hosting server can’t contact to Akismet so I’m trying out some other options which ultimately seem less than good! Anyone got some helpful suggestions?
What all this means for you, dear reader, is that you may have to put up with slow page loading and odd comments with unhelpful links for a short while until I figure out a more permanent solution. Sorry!