Hello. As you can see I forgot to blog here during April.

Here is why (warning: pretty dull). I have been:

• Blogging from the G20
• Blogging from Spring Harvest (You can find both of these via Church Times blog: April)
• Finishing my 2010 calendar . This nearly killed me, as it always does.
• Posting on Twitter, even though I said I never would (See Things that I am not going to get involved with on the internet, blog post from 2006). It is easy and ideal for the lazy and self-promotionalists, although less fulfilling than blogging.
• Taking a couple of days break
• Sitting in my office for days on end (I’m not exaggerating) trying to think up ideas
• Undertaking other work projects that I will class as ‘miscellaneous’
• Writing little things down in little notebooks
• Laundry
• Tending to animals

The two cartoons represent the best of my month’s work. Anything else I’ve done will be worse than these. (Although I am secretly quite pleased with these two, and my Church Times cartoon today was OK too.)

My new month’s resolution for May is to be slightly more interesting and post more nonsense on this blog. Also I have a new world-changing project to launch, perhaps.

Posted by Dave at 2:22 pm on May 1, 2009 and filed under Sundry posts, Cartoons.

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[Click on the image for the full sized version]

I’m a bit overwhelmed by things at the moment, and realise that I am rather behind on e-mail replies, telephone calls, invoices, things I’ve promised people and whatnot. I’ll try to do some catching up in the next day or so. In the meantime, apologies.

Posted by Dave at 10:41 am on March 24, 2009 and filed under Cartoons.

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I’ve just added five new cartoons to the main CartoonChurch site. They are free to look at, or if you’d like to publish them in church literature and other such places, licences are available.

I have added some of these to the Facebook page too and will be adding the last couple in the next day or two. I don’t want to overwhelm Facebook users with too much excitement all at once.

The new cartoons are as follows:

1. Church architecture How congregation members resemble it
2. Fixtures and fittings that you may have observed during the services
3. The Laity How to recognise them
4. The organ recital We have good news to share
5. After-service coffee This is the time when newcomers can get to know the congregation

Posted by Dave at 1:25 pm on March 17, 2009 and filed under Cartoons, Church, New CartoonChurch cartoons.

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I’ve been having some good ‘Anglican goings-on’ times at General Synod in London over the last couple of days. I’ve been blogging and posting a few cartoons on my Church Times blog and Twittering every now and then. Hopefully a couple more cartoons will follow tomorrow.

Do say hello if you’re there and see me around. I can be contacted via the usual mobile number or CartoonChurch number, 07806 334077.

Posted by Dave at 11:12 pm on February 11, 2009 and filed under Cartoons, Cartooning, Anglican goings-on.

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The set of cartoons about church youthwork that I was wittering on about a month or two back are now online. Go to the schoolswork.co.uk site and in particular National Charter for Youthworkers. Here’s the blurb from the site:

“We love our youthworker!” will be officially launched next spring, but here’s a sneak preview of the aims of the charter and the set of seven sections with the cartoons to accompany them.

This is a campaign to encourage churches to think about the way they employ a full time worker and is based on a set of seven promises that churches commit to follow.

We believe that keeping full time workers positive, productive and living balanced lives makes for great youthwork. That’s an important step towards building God’s kingdom among young people.

Churches who sign up to the Charter gain a set of benefits and can expect to attract the very best youth workers in the UK. And, of course, it can also help them think about the best way to support volunteer youth workers.

The charter is a joint project between Youthwork the Partnership and Amaze.

Keep reading to see the set of seven cartoons by the ever brilliant Dave Walker from Cartoon Blog, and a description of each of the seven promises.

Posted by Dave at 10:26 pm on January 12, 2009 and filed under Cartoons.

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Just a sneak preview of part of a cartoon from a project I finished a week or two ago. I’ve done a set of youthwork-themed cartoons to go on a set of seven postcards which are part of a campaign to encourage churches to think about the way they employ youthworkers.

The ‘We love our youthworker’ campaign isn’t launched until next year, but I think the postcards were available at the recent Youthwork conference in Blackpool and Eastbourne, so some youthworkers will have seen them. This info has been posted on the Schoolswork site, which is why I’m posting about it.

Early in 2009, Youthwork the Partnership and Amaze will be launching a brand new project called ‘we love our youthworker’. simply brilliant! It’s a campaign to encourage churches to think about the way they employ a full-time worker. It’s based on a set of seven promises that churches commit to follow:

1. we will pray and support
2. we will give space for retreat and reflection
3. we will provide ongoing training and development
4. we will give a full day of rest each week
5. we will share responsibility
6. we will strive to be an excellent employer
7. we will celebrate and appreciate

Each of the promises has a little card with a purpose drawn cartoon from Dave Walker of Cartoon Church. Very funny. The reason for the project comes from the belief that keeping full time workers positive, productive and living balanced lives makes for great youthwork. And that’s an important step towards building God’s kingdom among young people. more details will follow shortly…for now, do get in touch if you’d like more info or a set of the postcards.

No doubt the full set of cartoons will appear online somewhere at some point.

Posted by Dave at 1:49 pm on November 28, 2008 and filed under Cartoons, Church, Cartooning.

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[See a larger version here]

I have uploaded this cartoon to the CartoonChurch.com cartoons section so that it can be used by people needing Christmas cartoons for things. I realise I’m probably too late for most parish magazine editors - I’m really sorry. Licence info can be found by clicking the links above.

This cartoon was my Church Times Christmas one from last year. It is taken from the book My Pew: Things I have seen from it.

Posted by Dave at 1:24 pm on November 28, 2008 and filed under Cartoons, New CartoonChurch cartoons.

1 Comment

Hello.

As you may or may not have noticed this blog has been silent for around 44 days. Giving an account of the causes would risk a drift into the realms of the tiresome, but in summary I’ve been a bit under the weather for one reason or another. I have been keeping my paid commitments going, but some other things have been allowed to drift somewhat.

Thank you for a number of kind messages expressing good sentiments of various sorts.

Anyway, I fully intend to start this blog going again. I’m not putting any pressure on myself to do it daily, but hopefully there will be new things a number of times a week. This blog may well go back to being the place where I post any old nonsense, which in the past has tended to produce the best results.

(New cartoon from my We Blog Cartoons site, where you’ll find some of my cartoons that can be freely re-used on blogs.)

Posted by Dave at 7:54 pm on November 23, 2008 and filed under Cartoons, CartoonChurch progress, New Weblogcartoons cartoons, CartoonChurch.com newsletter.

20 Comments

One more cartoon for now. You can see the large version here along with the link to the high resolution printable version. There’s no charge if you want to print it out for the door / wall of the church office, but if you’d like to publish it in your church magazine or elsewhere I’d appreciate you buying a licence (for church use) or getting in touch. If that’s OK of course. Thank you!

I’ll post a few more soon. I have a new ftp programme (the one that enables me to upload things to the internet) and it has taken me half the day to tweak the dials, find the passwords, find the passwords which will enable me to find the passwords and work out whether it can make the tea and do the washing up.

Anyway, hello to anyone who is reading from a church office. Hope your day is going well. My advice would be to keep this page* open in another window in case the vicar comes in and finds you casually browsing cartoons when the noticesheet isn’t yet finished.

*Open invitation to bloggers: See whether you can fill that page.

Posted by Dave at 3:19 pm on October 1, 2008 and filed under Cartoons, Church.

4 Comments

See a larger version of this cartoon here on CartoonChurch.com. I thought it was about time I uploaded a few more. This is another one from the first book, the Dave Walker Guide to the Church. Perhaps I’ll upload some from the new book before too long.

Posted by Dave at 3:07 pm on October 1, 2008 and filed under Cartoons, Church.

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The situation summed up using some drawings

If you’re interested in my writings about Anglican goings-on you can tune in via the Church Times blog. There should be some new cartoon material posted there in the coming weeks too.

Posted by Dave at 7:03 am on June 26, 2008 and filed under Cartoons, Anglican goings-on, Religion.

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I’ve just heard that ‘What am I doing here’, the book I’ve contributed cartoons to is now available. It is published by Church House Publishing - the page on their website is here.

Church House Bookshop contacted me this morning to say they have it in stock - see this page. They do mail order. It should be available in lots of other places as well - the ISBN number is 9780715141618 if you want to order or search for it somewhere.

There are about 8 cartoons I think - one for each of most of the chapters. I’ve posted one below. I’ll admit that at first I was hesitant to do the cartoons for this book as I was stressed with other things at the time, but when I read the manuscript I said yes. It goes through a typical Anglican communion service and explains why we do what we do. I think it could be a really useful book to (for example) give to newcomers who are not used to church services and all the strange things that happen in them. I’ve posted the publisher’s description below.

Have you ever wondered what church is all about? Ever found yourself in a service wondering what on earth is going on? And what the point of it all is?

Whether you’re completely new to church or have been coming to church for a while, this little book is here to help you!

With a down-to-earth style and subtle humour, What am I Doing Here? takes you through an Anglican Holy Communion service, demystifying what happens - and why.

Subjects covered include:

* What are you doing here?: The need to meet your maker
* Worship: The need to celebrate and count our blessings
* Confession: The need for accounting procedures and a clean slate
* Sermons: The need for wise words and challenging questions
* The Creed: The need for a basic belief system
* Prayer: The need to engage with the wider world and ask for help
* The Peace: The need to live in right relationship with others
* Holy Communion: The need for strength, comfort and delight
* Being sent out and the after-church chat: The need to share the journey

Hilary Brand is the best-selling author of Christ and the Chocolaterie and The Sceptic’s Guide to the Bible. As an ordinary pew-dweller rather than a church leader, she’s in an ideal position to empathise with newcomers.

Dave Walker is one of the best-known Christian cartoonists in the UK. He runs www.cartoonchurch.com and contributes the weekly ‘Dave Walker Guide to the Church’ cartoon in the Church Times.

Posted by Dave at 12:31 pm on June 13, 2008 and filed under Cartoons, Church, Books, Religion, My books.

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