Well, I think they are exciting developments! I have modified thte blog template today so that every post has it’s own web page. Go on try it. Click on the time reference at the bottom of this post…

The reason why this matters to me is that now I can reference an individual post, rather than just on old archive that includes all the posts from that month. For example do you remember this post on the trinity. There is another blog I found that references this post, but when you click on their link it is hard to know which one they meant. Now all that is solved.

What I would really like is: to have ‘tags’ or ‘categories’ that each post is stored under so that it is easy to pull up all posts about a particular thing.

This article on web 2.0 has really got me thinking on this. If you are at all interested in the internet then this article is a must read. Below are a few bullet points that intrigue me from them.

• tagging is a non-heirarchical way of tracking and organising data [see the word cloud on the previous post]. It is a further progress from heirarchy to network.
• the internet empowers the man on the street to publish things and have an effect on the world. It is global mass marketing for the individual.
• The power of communal platforms [eg myspace; ebay] that rely on small individual users have as much influence as the centralised systems.
• Google, tagging, wikipedia re-imagines authority. No longer is it with the CEO’s/editors etc it is with the masses. What most people think is important is important.
• There is generosity that makes the internet work. People give away ideas and information [to a point] that you used to have to pay good money for. Some sites and software are funded by voluntary contributions.
• People rarely launch finished products to the internet; unlike old-style product launches. They let the internet community test and develop the software before final release and therefore shape what it is finally like. I wonder what this says to church planting when people ‘launch’ a church.
• The most successful internet products are simple and modular. Not huge, impressive, complicated products. Rather simpel interface, simple function, built together with other simple products. Google is again a classic example of this. I am most impressed not by complicated and broad functionality, but by simple, powerful functionality.

[Click here for some highlights]

Well, I think they are exciting developments! I have modified thte blog template today so that every post has it’s own web page. Go on try it. Click on the time reference at the bottom of this post…

The reason why this matters to me is that now I can reference an individual post, rather than just on old archive that includes all the posts from that month. For example do you remember this post on the trinity. There is another blog I found that references this post, but when you click on their link it is hard to know which one they meant. Now all that is solved.

What I would really like is: to have ‘tags’ or ‘categories’ that each post is stored under so that it is easy to pull up all posts about a particular thing.

This article on web 2.0 has really got me thinking on this. If you are at all interested in the internet then this article is a must read. Below are a few bullet points that intrigue me from them.

• tagging is a non-heirarchical way of tracking and organising data [see the word cloud on the previous post]. It is a further progress from heirarchy to network.
• the internet empowers the man on the street to publish things and have an effect on the world. It is global mass marketing for the individual.
• The power of communal platforms [eg myspace; ebay] that rely on small individual users have as much influence as the centralised systems.
• Google, tagging, wikipedia re-imagines authority. No longer is it with the CEO’s/editors etc it is with the masses. What most people think is important is important.
• There is generosity that makes the internet work. People give away ideas and information [to a point] that you used to have to pay good money for. Some sites and software are funded by voluntary contributions.
• People rarely launch finished products to the internet; unlike old-style product launches. They let the internet community test and develop the software before final release and therefore shape what it is finally like. I wonder what this says to church planting when people ‘launch’ a church.
• The most successful internet products are simple and modular. Not huge, impressive, complicated products. Rather simpel interface, simple function, built together with other simple products. Google is again a classic example of this. I am most impressed not by complicated and broad functionality, but by simple, powerful functionality.

[Click here for some highlights]

This is an interesting way to picture this blog. I am fairly happy with the outcome. It kinda reflects what we value here, I think!! You can get a t-shirt with it on if you want… [but why!?]

[ht Maggi Dawn]

This is an interesting way to picture this blog. I am fairly happy with the outcome. It kinda reflects what we value here, I think!! You can get a t-shirt with it on if you want… [but why!?]

[ht Maggi Dawn]

“While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ’sinners’?”

“On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Matt 9:10-13

“The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and “sinners.” But wisdom is proved right by her actions.’”
Matt 11:19

I don’t know if you think it is a bit mad quoting these verses during Lent and a season of prayer and fasting [especially when I am fasting booze!]. But these verses struck me as I was reading them recently. It is classic in a period of fasting to think a lot about what we are giving up, what we are giving for the Lord. But you soon learn that Jesus was not impressed or interested by that kind of personal piety that makes you good about yourself but has not interest in others. I guess this is why the period of Lent has always had the sense of service towards others.

“I desire mercy not sacrifice”

Christian spirituality is never an individual affair. Never just “me and Jesus”. It always takes us beyond oursleves; outside of ourselves to others. Jesus instructs the Pharisees to “Go and learn it”. Otherwise the healthy get healthier and the sick get sicker.

“Wisdom is proved right by her actions”

Is it wise to eat with ’sinners’. Is it right to have the risk of being associated ith them, of being called “a drunkard and a glutton”. Jesus says look at the fruit, look at the result of such topsy-turvey wisdom. Luke quotes this verse too in Luke 7:35, right before he tells the story of Jesus ebing anounted by the ’sinful woman’. Here is the fruit of such wisdom, of such friendship - a woman pouring out love affection and ‘worship’ at Jesus feet.

Go and learn, think, consider what it might mean for you to act according to “I desire mercy not sacrifice”.

[You may want to read Isaiah 58 as you do...]