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September 10th, 2007

Resources discovered whilst loitering

These are various things that I discovered whilst loitering in the resources tent at Greenbelt and also elsewhere:

‘Happiness for Church’

happiness for church

I went along to Bruce’s ‘Happiness’ seminar at Greenbelt with one eyebrow raised, but came away rather convinced by the whole concept. Bruce runs courses in Bristol all about happiness and is now offering a day session for churches on the subject. If, like me, you think ‘But hang on, Christianity isn’t about being happy is it?’ then the words from the above flyer sum up where Bruce is coming from quite well:

The journey may start with questions about ‘me’, but it ends with community, kindness, spirituality and purpose. The Church might just be the right place to welcome people on this journey.

Bruce’s Embody website has a lot more on the general topic. If you’re interested in the above course then I’d recommend contacting him. Who knows, ‘Happiness for Church’ might just be the new Alpha, in which case you heard it first here.

Proost
Proost supply alternative worship-type music and the like. They have recently relaunched themselves with a new website, the ability to download things and a range of new publications. I like the fact that they are supporting young creative people doing interested things – Sophs with her book of liturgies is one example. You can subscribe to all their content for £60 a year.

Twelve Baskets
On a not unrelated note (and one I think I’ve mentioned before), Twelve Baskets is a site enabling you to download and share Christian-type resources. The Methodists are something to do with it.

Prayerfeeder
The people from Prayerfeeder were distributing beer mats around Greenbelt. It is a site that enables you to pray with other people. It looks quite interesting, but I’m not sure how many people will want to sign up to another networking site with such a narrow focus. Perhaps more likely to take off is Scripture Union’s PrayLive application on Facebook which allows you to do something not dissimilar.

Second Life Chance
The people from the Churches Advertising Network are on the verge of launching their 2007 advertising campaign, which will be themed ‘Second Life Chance’. It is aimed at people who would like a chance to do things better the second time around, and will be linked to an island on the ‘Second Life’ website where people can ask questions and watch a lively animation of the nativity. The website for this year’s campaign isn’t up yet, but I’ll link to it when it is. I have one eyebrow raised about the ‘Second Life’ bit, but we’ll see.

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6 Responses to “Resources discovered whilst loitering”


  1. Keith says:

    Good to see you already quoted on the poster, Dave! And what a quote – those ‘useful tools’! I think he gives the game away though when he runs out of people and has to use Julian twice.

    September 10th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
  2. Dave says:

    Keith – that is another Dave I’m afraid. If Bruce would like to use the following line though he would be welcome to it:

    “I went along to Bruce’s ‘Happiness’ seminar at Greenbelt with one eyebrow raised, but came away rather convinced by the whole concept.”

    September 10th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
  3. Gareth Squire says:

    re “might just be the new Alpha, in which case you heard it first here.” – I’m not a known pedant or glory-seeker, but: developingvision.blogspot.com

    September 10th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
  4. Buzz says:

    Dave

    I spend a fair amount of time coaching people, both in my job and elsewhere. Despite being one of life’s half full folks, like you I was always a little wary of the positive psychology ‘thing’.

    However, 18 months ago I was introduced to Appreciative Inquiry and have been actively studying and using AI techniques ever since. From my reading, I understand that AI is used widely in NGO, not-for-profit and faith/church environments to great effect. If you have found positive psychology to be of interest, then you might also be interested by AI.

    http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/

    All the best from Aotearoa

    Buzz – your atheist Pom reader with Buddhist leanings in NZ :-)

    September 10th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
  5. Dave says:

    Gareth – Thank you. I am not claiming to be remotely up to date about blogging about Bruce’s work of course. It was my sensational ‘New Alpha’ claim that people may or may not have heard before.

    September 10th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
  6. One of the Prayerfeeder people says:

    Hi Dave, thanks for the mention and the link to Prayerfeeder – the site for sore knees. We think you’ve missed part of the beauty of Prayerfeeder, which is that it isn’t confined to a particular social networking app – like Facebook, for example. You can get a feed of the prayers from the people in your network and view them from wherever you like – your newsreader, your personalised homepage… even Facebook (via the RSS app). And it’s confidential (so make sure your Prayerfeeder feed isn’t in your public Facebook profile) so people can share genuine requests. We worry that Facebook-only based prayers could be rather trite and/or superficial because they are entirely public. And… coming (very) soon – you can receive e-mail updates of your prayerfeed. Not to mention the group facility (coming this week!!) so you can share prayer requests with your church group, cell-mates, work colleagues, family etc. (We’re still in beta at the moment – the site is evolving all the time). So – give us another look! Cheers, Stephen.

    September 11th, 2007 at 11:25 am