Archives For February 2012
A couple of weeks ago, a setting was changed on my wife’s Facebook account. Her relationship status changed from “Married” to “Single”. From what we could gather… that single action caused a few sharp intakes of breath in our friendship group….
from http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1362457
Let me back up a little bit… Back in September I was getting a little bored with the world of Facebook. I’m not sure what it was, it might something to do with being Friends with people who never spoke to me at High School, it might have been the magically changing privacy settings, it might have been those Farmville requests, but I was bored with it.
I then watched the Facebook f8 conference with my jaw dropped open. Dont get me wrong , I do like the look of Timeline, but there were two things I heard during the f8 conference:
- Facebook wanted me to be Facebook friends with everyone I knew.
- Timeline meant that they could see anything I’ve posted within a few clicks.
It was that second point that made me nervous, and I decided to quit Facebook. That lasted about 30 minutes until I decided to sign up with a different email address, and build a more stripped down account.
A few months later we decided to do something about the Facebook settings not letting myself and “Mrs Church Sofa” be “Facebook married”, she declared herself to be single – so we could be declared married. Except we got distracted somewhere in between the two stages, and she left herself as single.
We didn’t realise what we had declared until a 20 / 30 minutes later, when the text messages of concern started coming through from some concerned friends – text messages which I’m really thankful for by the way.
Our relationship status’s were “fixed” fairly soon after we received the text messages. These messages, the “congratulations” on our marriage status, and subsequent conversations reminded me of the phrase:
“It’s not real until it’s on Facebook”
How true is that? I’ve heard people say that the internet is making us all a little more lonely, but a simple setting change reminded me how quickly loved ones can show they care, and attention can be on us very quickly because of what we say and do.
During the next few weeks we’ll be focusing on Lent, and the lead up to Jesus’s death on the cross, but what do we do with the time when the focus is on us?
Originally on The Big Bible website
That LZ7 & Matt Redman single
Continue Reading...Welcome to Saturday, and the Weekly Roundup of what we’ve seen online this week:
- Jon Butler is under pressure…
- Here’s something a little different – an Advert on Oxford Street is shown only to women.
- Mike Rimmer shares his reflections on the death of Whitney Houston.
- Vicky Beeching looks at giving up social media for Lent
- Will shares a reflection on Ash Wednesday.
- ..and… finally… Vic The Vicar has tickets for Ash Wednesday…
Caught this the other night:
As both myself and Mrs Sofa muchly enjoyed the above, I couldn’t but wonder at the imagination that went into taking every day objects, and finding space for them in the above 60 second epic.
I couldn’t help but compare this to a lot of church work.
How many times do we wonder about the things we could have, and apply a “If only we had…” way of thinking, dreaming of resources we dont have?
Do we give ourselves enough time to imagine what we could do with the resources we have?
The Church Sofa lads would probably say that social media plays a fairly large part of our lives, we’re regularly on Twitter, Facebook and Youtube among other things. In fact a while ago we realised that one of the main ways we communicate is through Facebook messenger or tweeting each other (a lot of The Church Sofa gets planned that way too). We’re always looking for ways to make sure that we’re doing our very best to have integrity between our personal lives, our profesional lives and our online lives and one of the key parts of that is our faith.
Three in four digital-savvy Christians in the UK use social media to chat about God, according to poll data released by Tearfund today.
The poll revealed that 74% of online UK Christians welcome the opportunity to reveal their faith on digital platforms, while the remaining 26% do not feel comfortable talking publicly about their faith online. Continue Reading…
How Good At Lent Are You?
In case you’ve not noticed. Its Pancake day today, therefore tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent.
What are you giving up?
Use our below tick list for inspiration, and give yourself a tick for each item you’re giving up:
| Giving up item | Points |
|---|---|
| Chocolate | | | |
| Beer / Alcohol | | | |
| Crisps | | | |
| Ice Cream | | | |
| Coffee | | | |
| Biscuits | | | |
| Television (Worth 2 Points) | | | |
| Your Computer / Playstation (Two Points) | | | |
| Smart Phone (2 points) | | | |
| Your house / flat (Worth Three Points) | | | |
Got one tick: You’re doing alright.
Two – Seven Ticks: You’re doing well. Keep it up!
Seven or more: You are indeed a saint!
- Are you giving anything up for Lent? If so what?
- Why are you doing it anyway?
In churches around the world today, sermons will be preached, words will be given, and lessons will be learnt.
To aid with this, a lot of preachers use “sermon illustrations” to try and explain, what can be at times, fairly complicated ideas. These illustrations can be in the form of movies, dramas, a quick story, or even a joke. Whatever form the illustration takes, they are normally quick and well controlled.
Ever wished these illustrations were… more interactive? Here are ten physical illustrations that you could do to help your minister*:
- Make an ark out of pews…
- Revelation type sermon? Ask a friend to lay your clothes down on a spare chair. See if any one looks worried.
- Re-enact almost child sacrifice
- Make a hole in church roof
- Fill up your baptism pool, try walking on it…
- Challenge. Drag a bush into the church building, set it alight… Without it burning…
- Prove how difficult it is to get a camel through the eye of a needle.
- Try and share 5 loaves and two fish as in-service snacks between the entire congregation.
- Try to summon fire from heaven.
- Is there a sermon on the Arc of the covenant? Re-enact THAT scene at the end of Indiana jones!
*Please be aware that some of the above could be fairly dangerous, and may result in police involvement, water damage, fire damage, and / or death. So dont blame us for anything!