News this week. Firstly my work computer has been sick all week. This clearly does not mean that my home ones are sick. Indeed I have been using an old computer at work, which I feel happy playing around on as it was mine and I know what it is like. I could borrow another computer but then I feel restricted in what I can do, I cannot set it up to suit myself. The latest stage is that it is due to go back into the workshop, this time I have specified what is wrong with it. I just hope they can fix that otherwise it will have to be a new machine as the machine is not safe on the network in its current form and I cannot make it safe. It also will not do the work I want it to. They are on the third attempt to try and fix it.
Otherwise work wise I have been reading through papers on fibre and its ability to prevent colon cancer (well that is the point of interest from our perspective, however some were more interested in Type II diabetes). This are tough studies to be a participant in, if ever there was an argument for paying people to participate these are the studies. Some of the diets are pretty lousy, one was eating so much fruit and veg that even I was thinking no way! Hardly surprising that it only got a study size of ten people. Some however I could see working. For instance one sent people chocolate muffins to eat with their normal diet! I kid you not. The muffins were made with different amount of fibre in and some had very high amounts indeed. However the real problem was that fecal matter had to be collected during the study. I am reminded of Dr Johnson’s comment on a woman preaching: “Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all”.
Then on Wednesday I went to Birmingham for a supervision. The journey out went smoothly with me getting to Sheffield Station early enough to get a coffee before I caught the train. The journey on the whole went well. I am deciding Helen Cameron’s book “Resourcing Mission” is not the book I hoped it was. It is not fish, nor fowl nor good red herring as the saying goes. The themes it takes are largely sociological but the analysis of them is a mix of person contextual theology and sociology light. There is not a cohesive theme running from one to the next. She use a typeology typical of organisational studies but rather than spend time showing how the behaviour is manifest in different institutions by examples she just delineates it, using examples only as introductory pieces. I don’t want to know that churches that are gathered organise money in way XYZ, I probably could say that with more clarity than she, I would be interested in how she argues from such churches behaviour to such conclusions. Finally it claims to be contextual theology, but “Lets do Theology” does this better. If she intends the chapters to be briefing tools then she has barely scratched the surface on what is needed and there is no “go further” section at the back. Very different to my response to Hybrid Church in the City although I suspect that it would be better titled “Church in the Hybrid City” by Christopher Baker. There is a serious attempt to engage with sociology, followed by a serious attempt to reflect theologically on these implications. The irony being that normally I find stuff coming from the direction Helen Cameron useful while I steer clear of stuff that comes from where Christopher Baker comes from.
I was in time for my supervision and my supervisor is now happy that what I have written on cafe church is a paper. I am surprised given how popular cafe church is that there is little written about it in the serious books. I now need to do a reading review of what I have read in the last year. I suspect this is two years really and more than just a list of books. I then spent some time on the computer searching for things on older people. One of the interesting papers that came out was that there appeared to be a correlation between people’s involvement in extra curricular activities as a teenager and their involvement in voluntary associations later. This would suggest to me that the government’s policy on teaching citizenship is wrong headed and what we need to be doing is rather than spending class room time on teaching them to be good citizens, rather be encouraging their involvement in extra curricular activity. I suspect particularly activities that they themselves have a role in organising. Its not our teachers who will build the civil society of the future, nor the parents, but the youth leaders. You want to change society for the better become a youth leader and I don’t just mean those with those titles, I mean guiders, scouter, youth team coaches, people who organise youth orchestra and allow youth volunteering in the community. They all add up to being a massive citizenship teaching organisation and all the better at it for giving the children fun while they are doing it..
I also ended up giving another student a quick tutorial on using computers for research. The thing is for a number of books I tend to read them at least partially on line. I ended up reading a paper in a book on Torrance Theology just by searching for it. Alright so the paper was called “Calvin and Cafe Church”. Unfortunately it was not really about cafe church.but all new forms of church (I think that wording is title neutral, what with “emerging” and “liquid” becoming so quickly sort of brand names). It is amazing how someone can not realise how much stuff there is on the computers these days to help a researcher.
Anyway after that we went upstairs to meet up with my supervisor. He decided that as he could get five of his PhD students together for a day he would take us out for a meal in the evening. We were joined by another PhD Student and a research fellow who works with my supervisor. He took us to Deep , a Carribean Restaurant on the Bristol Road just around the corner from New Street Station. They had a buffet and I just ate what I felt like. I may have got some things wrong. I did not eat akee and salt fish because it looked like cold pasta salad which is not a favourite of mine. However I ate goat stew without any problem. The other thing was I think he was expecting some of us to order wine or beer, but none of us did. The reason we didn’t is I suspect largely due to circumstance. Quite a few of us had long journeys home like myself and others were in the final stages of writing their theses for submission. In other words we had reasons for staying sober. I suspect that the others were all driving. Anyway got safely home afterwards but was very tired so headed almost straight to bed.
Saturday there was a party held by I think the Broomhall Centre (formally known as the Broomspring Centre) for local people in Gell Street Park. As with all Broomhall events it was late in getting going. I was there around 1:30 and there was hardly anyone, Sarah at 2:00 pm found much the same (it started at 12:00 noon) but by closing time (4pm when I went back) the place was absolutely heaving with people and people were not dispersing. From the feel of it I suspect it is the indirect successor of the Broomhall Carnival. The big things that brought people out were activities for children. There are some photos I took on Facebook which will be accessible to those who are recorded as my friends on Facebook.
Today I went to Herringthorpe for the morning service. It was the moderator Kevin Watson who was leading the main part of the service while Pauline took the communion. Prayers for Pauline and her husband Alex on Friday please as Alex is having major operations for bowel cancer at the Hallamshire. The service was on the love of God and the need to share that love with those around us. It was well prepared and he clearly used images as well as words so please don’t think with my next comment I am criticising him. He centred his image for the love of God on embrace which is not an image I find easy to handle. Normally I suspect it would be water off a ducks back but not this morning, maybe tiredness due to time of the month, maybe Stuart saying he was coming around the previous evening for a chat and not showing (he came around today instead). Maybe just the business of the last while catching up with me but I was at least at one point seriously considering if I would be better off out of the service. I didn’t and I suspect that I was sorted enough for no-one to notice at the end of worship at least no-one commented on the fact.
No comments:
Post a Comment