After 4 years of playing together as a band it looks like we can’t shake each other off and we’re destined to do more m/ m/ worshipping. We threw naming the band over to 100 thousand girl guides last summer but nothing seemed to stick. In one last throw of the dice we asked twitter. Twitter was fruitful. Twitter heard our plea and sent @revdrach who said “Metanoia“. @Duttyo says this shall be the sign…
I stumbled across this post with an awesome slide show. It is such an interesting concept that there are seemingly innocuous items that the pursuit of environmental concern is going to obliterate. Many of them are iconic. I didn’t know what to expect but I was not expecting the yellow pages to be the first on the list. After the initial impact, I recalled the last interaction I had with The Yellow Pages. I picked it off the front doorstep and said “why do they bother giving us one of these” to my wife. “I mean who actually looks inside one of these anymore?” I continued chuntering for the next ten minutes or so…
In many respects the world has changed dramatically in my brief lifetime. It is only ten years since I was at university and signed up for my first mobile phone. Now I have a mobile communication device that can also be used as a phone. In fact, it being a phone is largely irrelevant. However, what it does do is connect to Yell.com. There’s an app for that.
I try to live in as much of a paperless office as I can. Everything is done electronically. I try to be as environmentally conscious as possible. However, you don’t realise the endangered species that this is creating. I didn’t realise that I was pushing the yellow pages to the brink of extinction.
As we move closer to the realm of the Starship Enterprise we are moving into a different world of environmentalism. There are huge advances being made in all fields of technology. The coal-fired power stations of my youth have disappeared and we’re exploring tidal power, wind power, solar power…. The emissions of vehicles are tightly controlled. The kindle is taking over from the printed word. With this there will no doubt come a new set of environmental challenges.
I wonder what else the future holds. I wonder what other cultural icons will go the way of the dodo.
Yellow pages, may you rest in peace.
Social media isn’t a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate.
I am currently doing some MA level work on Mission in Culture and Context. I have been contemplating what area to research and had three ideas. On of them was the way in which The Church engages with social media in a missiological context. @annamdrew posted this video. Needless to say, the two other areas I had contemplated faded into insignificance. I wonder what Bevans and Schroeder would say about this clip if they were writing their book in 200 years time.
Each year all of the churches in town walk through to the town square and have a short act of remembrance on Good Friday. Last year I had no idea what they were expecting. I put on a Death Row shirt and slung a giant wooden crucifix over my shoulders and carried it at the front of the procession. This year they asked me to do some form of bible reading in the Town Square when we get there. It is a public performance really. I suppose I’ll put on the convict outfit and hold a life-size cross whilst I do it this year. I have rewritten John 19 (abridged) based upon The Message. Please bear in mind that many of the phrases are easy to say in a broadish Yorkshire accent as I use the tools I’ve got. Also, the bold parts will be practiced with a baying mob so that they don’t all shout them in unison.
The Trial (based upon John 19)
Pontius Pilate was the man responsible for governing Jerusalem. He’d had Jesus publicly whipped because he was a troublemaker. They were worried because too many people were following him. The soldiers who did it made a crown from thorns for him and rammed in down onto his head. They kept giving him grief. They had thrown a purple robe over him like he was royalty whilst shouting “Hail, King of the Jews!”. Then they kept slapped him in the face.
Pilate went to the baying mob and said to them, “I present him to you, but I want you to know that I don’t find him guilty. He hasn’t committed any crime.”
In a frenzy the crowd shouted, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”
But Pilate told them, “You take him. You crucify him. I find nothing wrong with him.”
Pilate did his best to pardon him, but the Jews shouted him down: “If you pardon this man, you’re no friend of Caesar’s. Anyone setting himself up as ‘king’ defies Caesar.”
When Pilate heard those words, he took Jesus outside into the square and sat down at the judgment seat. It was noon on the day everyone was preparing for the Passover festival.
Pilate said to the Jews, “Here is your king.”
They shouted back, “Kill him! Kill him! Crucify him!”
Pilate said, “You want me to crucify your king?”
The religious leaders answered, “We have no king except Caesar.”
At this Pilate caved in and sent him to be crucified.
They took Jesus away. Carrying his cross, they led him out of the city to the place they called Skull Hill. Here they nailed him up, they crucified him with two criminals, one on each side and Jesus in the middle.
Pilate wrote a sign and had it nailed to the cross. It read:
Jesus the Nazarene
the king of the Jews.