I remember when I was young and blogging was new I signed up for the ‘Blogs4God’ website. It had lists of Christian blogs, and did a good job of listing them in a list-like fashion. Gosh, those were the days. I did drift away from the site a bit, partly because there is just so much on the internet to look at and partly because I did feel it represented a brand of Christianity which wasn’t quite to my particular leaning. Whatever that means.

But now Blogs4God is back in a new shiny feature-filled form, and I like the look of it.

Why, if you have a blog and would describe yourself as a Christian, you should sign up and register at Blogs4God:
1) It uses Aggregators rather than lists of sites. This means it tells you which blogs have been updated.
2) Users can have a far greater input this time around. Any user can, I think, write articles for the front page. A moderator has to check them over, but that’s just to make sure they’re not rubbish.
3) The whole thing about it not being ‘my type of Christianity’ is a poor reason to not get involved in something. What was I thinking? If you feel it doesn’t represent you then joining in and contributing is a good way to give a different point of view an airing.
4) There seems to be less emphasis on ‘top ranked’ sites than the previous Blogs4God site or certain other blog listings. Trying to get to the top of a ranking is no way to live your life let me tell you.
5) Dean, who runs it sent me a very nice e-mail.
6) There is a special box you can tick if you write a Wiblog.
7) It wouldn’t hurt.
You might get some new readers as your blog will be listed and people might click your link.
9) It’s just launched. Today I think. So it’s nice and new and the crowds haven’t found it yet.
10) Nope. Really can’t think of a 10th. The signup page is here.

Posted by Dave at 7:22 pm on September 19, 2005 and filed under Blogging.

16 Comments

I had an e-mail from the Treasurer of a church in the north of England over the weekend:

Hello, One of your flyers about “The collection” appeared in our collection today
(18/9/05). Quite funny. Any ideas how it got there? Always looking how to stimulate increased giving.

I’d like to point out that I don’t have any flyers with the ‘the collection’ cartoon on them. I can only assume that someone photocopied the cartoon (one of my Church Times ones) and put in the collection. I’m rather pleased that they did, I have to say. Perhaps I’ll have to start producing flyers to put into the collection.

Talking of which I said I’d reply to a comment by Derek in the comments thread of the ‘microcomics offer’ post: “Love the cartoons in the Church Times – why no mention on this site?”

Thanks Derek. I’m not deliberately not mentioning my Church Times cartoons here I don’t think. At the moment I have an agreement with the Church Times that they have exclusive use of the ‘Guide to the Church’ series, which is why I don’t publish them here on the website.

You can see them on the Church Times website in a limited sort of a fashion, though having said that you can more or less make out this weeks one as it’s fairly simple. But usually you need to buy the paper to see them properly.

Incidentally, my free microcomic offer is still very much open.

Posted by Dave at 10:31 am on September 19, 2005 and filed under CartoonChurch progress, Cartooning.

4 Comments

“Comedy has a long tradition of poking fun at those with power. The Church doesn’t like to think of itself as powerful, particularly when our founder, Jesus, was critical of the religious hierarchy and suffered the consequences. Yet despite protestations, the Church, for good and for ill, is a powerful body and like all powerful bodies is constantly in danger of taking itself too seriously.”

Article from St Matthew in the City, in Auckland New Zealand, ‘When Buffoons Became Bishops‘.

Posted by Dave at 3:23 pm on September 16, 2005 and filed under Church, Sundry posts.

2 Comments

I noticed one or two bloggers getting rather over-excited about Saddleback church in California where worshippers have a range of services to go to, everything from a country music service (“Country music, boots, and buckles are all part of this worship experience“) to a Spanish service (“La alabanza y el mensaje son en Español. Si su familia es bilingüe la traducción del mensaje será disponible en inglés por medio de audífonos*.“) and lots more besides.

The thinking behind the grumpiness is, I think, that such a setup splits people up rather than bringing them together.

But surely every church does this. In your typical Anglican church in the UK for instance you will usually have at least 3 or 4 of the following:

8am communion service for those who like to get up early
9.30/10/10.30/11am Eucharist/Communion/Mass
Family service
Evensong
Yoofth service
1662 Book of Common prayer service
Some sort of modern worship band led praise service
Midweek communion usually at 10 or 11 am on something like a Wednesday
…not to mention splitting people up into agegroups for different things.

So what Saddleback are doing is no different really, except that we don’t give our services little logos, mainly because we’re not that good on the computer. I don’t think the phenomenon is peculiar to large churches, evangelical churches or any other one genre. So if anyone can explain the reason for the excitement I’d be most happy to hear it.

*I’ve no idea.

Update:
There has been further discussion in the comments on The Parish blog, and now a post entitled ‘Answering Dave’s Good Question‘. That’s because I asked a good question you see.

Posted by Dave at 12:01 pm on September 15, 2005 and filed under Church.

7 Comments

Steve has written this piece on the BBC about the ‘Church: Not as Churchy as you think’ campaign for the Church of England and the Alpha advertisements. Meanwhile I noticed one priest has done a ‘Church: more churchy than you think’ poster.

I have no opinion about this. I’d go and read the experts instead. [Update: I thought they'd pick up on this, and they have.]

Sorry, this isn’t much of a post is it. The last few days haven’t been that good for me, perhaps tomorrow will be better.

Posted by Dave at 12:39 am on September 15, 2005 and filed under Church, Mundane.

2 Comments

[Click on the image for the full sized version]

Posted by Dave at 11:47 pm on September 12, 2005 and filed under Cartoons.

1 Comment

Today’s story in the cartooning world is the decision by the Guardian to drop the Doonesbury comic strip from its new look paper. Readers have been writing in all day to the Editor’s blog (which incidentally has a very interesting account of the introduction of the new paper) saying it should be saved, and it now seems that popular opinion may be about to change their minds.

From the latest post ‘Should Doonesbury be saved?‘:

G2 is very squeezed for space at the back of the book and it would be difficult to accommodate a second strip. But his mind is open about bringing the man back.

“We felt Doonesbury had a small, committed following but was not read by a large readership. If we’re wrong about the number of people who read and love it, we may have to think again,” he says.

I can’t say that it’s a strip I’ve followed very closely. I suspect in the cartoon world that might make me a bad person, I’m not quite sure.

Update (9.40pm)
The G2 editor has agreed that Doonesbury will return. See the 9.14pm comment on this post. I am impressed that such a swift decision was made on it I have to say.

Posted by Dave at 7:20 pm on September 12, 2005 and filed under Cartooning.

1 Comment

During moments of high ambition I envisage this blog giving lots of superb reviews of art exhibitions and being generally cultured and things like that. But lets face it, that probably isn’t going to happen and isn’t what people want to read anyway. So, here’s some thoughts inspired by a visit to the V&A on Saturday:

Good things about the Victoria and Albert Museum
- Lunch. Fine cafeteria. If I was an artist I’d hang out there and pretend to be arty.
- Ending up in a bit of level 4 which didn’t connect to any other part of level 4 meaning that we had to come back down to level 1 to get to the right bit of level 4.
- The Britain section up until 1900. Isn’t Britain great? (See also Last Night of the Proms, Cricket etc.)
- A video about country houses.
- The Architecture section was jolly fine. It had a nice model of Bluewater.
- The musical instrument area.

Things about the Victoria and Albert Museum which were ok but not brilliant
The shop. It didn’t have enough of the sort of odd arty books I like in a museum or gallery bookshop.
The temperature in Architecture. Really quite hot.

Things about the Victoria and Albert Museum which were quite good but not the sort of thing I’ll remember in a months time
The railings and biscuit tin section. It was adequate but not remarkable.

Posted by Dave at 11:41 pm on September 11, 2005 and filed under Art.

1 Comment

Yes, it is becoming triangular.

Ahem. I have to start the blog with some absurd statement or other as the Cartoon Blog headlines and first sentence now appear on the Wibsite front page and I have to persuade the readers to click by offering them ever new levels of extreme interest and intrigue.

The Guardian newspaper is actually changing from it’s regular broadsheet format to something known as a ‘berliner’. There are details on the Guardian website and I imagine that over the next few days they will have an extensive television advertising campaign. I suppose they weren’t to know that I was going to post about it. The advantage of a berliner over a tabloid is that (1) everyone knows that things written in the tabloids are made up, (2) there’s more room in it, for… very long pictures and things.

It should be better than a broadsheet too for those wanting to read the paper on the Eurostar or in small cubicles and sheds. Maddie_C is very pleased about the fact it won’t be a broadsheet any more, as her arms when fully outstretched don’t reach from one end of the broadsheet Guardian to the other.

Well, we’ll have to see how it actually works in practice. I’d be very pleased to hear from readers who have road-tested the new Guardian on the ground, as it were.

Posted by Dave at 7:29 pm on September 9, 2005 and filed under In-depth analysis.

1 Comment

I have been working on a very in-depth post about International Trade, Make Poverty History and the Millennium Development Goals, but as I haven’t finished it I am instead going to talk about other people’s parcels.

Lots of people in my road have parcels arrive for them during the day. I see this from my window which commands a commanding view across the neighbourhood. (Not that I’m nosey you understand.) Unfortunately no-one else in the street is in during the day as they are all out earning a lot of money while I sit there looking out of the window.

So, the parcels men, seeing me at my window, all come knocking to see whether I will take the parcels for my neighbours. Yesterday I had two such callers, one of which I managed to convince that I was not a good bet for speedy delivery of said parcel as I was to be out during the evening. The other though did insist on leaving one large flat box and one small thin box with me, which I will probably now have for the best part of half a week as no-one came to collect it this evening and I am away at the weekend. I am slightly worried that my neighbours will be a bit cross with me as I suspect the parcels contain items essential to the smooth running of their weekend activities, but it is really not my fault for being not in during the times that I am away.

If anyone else would like me to look after a parcel for them with little hope of retrieving it within anything remotely approaching a reasonable length of time then do feel free to get in touch. I will put them in the hallway alongside the others.

Talking of parcels and other postal items (as we were), I would just like to take this opportunity to add a very small and unobtrusive reminder to this post to inform any who may not be aware that that offer of having a small microcomic posted freely to you is still open. Scroll down my friends, scroll down.

Posted by Dave at 11:55 pm on September 8, 2005 and filed under Essex Life.

1 Comment

The problem with blogging (and there is only one) is that the posts you want people to focus on do not always stay at the top of the page, but rather are replaced by later posts even if those are really of very minor interest and consequence. This is the case today and so I urge you to scroll down, barely glancing at this post but rather adding your comment for your free microcomic at the post below.

But, for the sake of providing matters of importance and interest to my readers on a daily basis, here is today’s post on the subject of a device for listening to conversations on different tables at parties:

“Kiitemoiide-TUNE is a device which can listen to the conversation at a party, and feel the atmosphere of a table where people are having a conversation. The user can listen to the conversations and then decide which table s/he wants to join after having observed the atmosphere of the table.”

Find out more at We make money not art. I can’t see it taking off as the people at the tables would be able to make their conversation artificially dull if they didn’t like the look of the person listening in, or vice versa.

Anyway, enough of that nonsense. Keep scrolling down now.

Posted by Dave at 2:38 pm on September 7, 2005 and filed under Art, In-depth analysis, Mundane.

Comments Off

Si of Si Smith fame has very kindly supplied me with a huge stack of my mini-micro-comic entitled ‘The tree of life: an analysis involving the Bible and some made up things’. The comic was available at the Greenbelt festival communion service where it was one of a set of 8 and people could also buy it in the festival shop. I blogged about it last month as you may or may not remember and if you click the image to the right you can see what it looks like when looked at from a certain angle. I could sell them, but I thought it might be quite nice to give them away.

I’ve probably got more than enough copies for every reader of the blog to have one, though I’m afraid I’m limiting it to UK readers only on this occasion unless you really plead persuasively with me as I don’t have a huge budget for lots of overseas postage at the moment (See below).

Here’s what you need to do if you’d like one:

1) Post a comment here on the blog to make it look popular.

2) E-mail me your postal address, my email being dave(at) cartoonchurch.com. I will of course only use your address to send you this cartoon (and perhaps one of my leaflets in the same envelope) but you won’t be getting any junk mail, spam, tracts or evangelistic telephone calls from me in the future (well, unless you ask for them I suppose). If you could send me your address even if I should already have it will just help speed things up and things like that and would be much appreciated.

3) IF you would like to receive my soon-to-be-activated-properly e-mail newsletter which will come out occasionally, no more than about once a month, then add ‘Oh, go on then, send me your newsletter’ to the e-mail, but you’re under absolutely no obligation to do this.

The comic will be winging its way to you forthwith as quickly as second class post can carry it. This may be a limited-time offer depending on the response.

Update 1
It struck me on the way back from the library that excluding the folks from around the world really was a bit mean. So, having repented, the first ten readers from the rest of the world can have a comic too. Lets face it, there probably won’t be ten people that respond anyway. (Joke, but with quite a bit of truth in it.)

Update 2
Si has said: “…the last few sets of all eight communion comix will be up for purchase from the greenbelt office very soon. They’ll be advertised on the website in the next week or so, but if you want to buy one urgently, you can ring ‘em up and buy it over the phone…!”
I think they cost five british pounds.

Posted by Dave at 1:19 pm on September 6, 2005 and filed under CartoonChurch progress, Cartoons, Quizzes and competitions.

28 Comments