Tomorrow morning, early, I head off to Nuremberg. I am really looking forward to this conference: Forum for the future “Innovation & Transformation”

The two speakers are:
Alan Hirsch, australian national director of Forge and one of the authors of Shaping of Things to Come. Which is a great book on incarnational, missional, church - a set of words that I like to see together!! But still the books is mostly very readable with good examples. And I think with very little pretence.
Gerard Kelly, who co-incidently wrote the “because he is risen” peom i posted below. He is also leader of Crossroads International Church and Bless Network.

I am also looking forward to spending a little bit of time with my friends from Derby Mark Mumford, Steve Perkins and Adam Martin.

The only downer is that the family will be left here for the weekend :o(.

Jack got his boirthday present through yesterday. I loved it so much I had to post it here!! I have to admit I was a little concerned that it was one of those toys that did the interesting part for you and so robbed the imagination. You know what I mean: the soldier toy that has a button to make the shooting sounds for you; the cars that automatically smash together and fall apart … you know what I mean. They add so many electronic features that actually the potential for play is severly reduced. It robs the child of the possibility for imaginative play and guess what … they get bored with it really quickly.

Excursus [Is there something about church here? Do we construct church life with so many bells and whistles that no imagination is required?]

Anyway I had this nagging doubt that it was “the go kart that does the skidding for you”. Don’t get me wrong I think that many improvements are great, but maybe there is something about creating a go kart from wooden crates and old pram tyres…

But no, this is fantastic!!! Genius design with playability mainly focussed around skidding. And believe me there is all sorts of imagination based around skidding. Why didn’t they make toys when I was a kid? Or maybe they did and we couldn’t afford anything more than crates and old prams?

You will notice a certain young lady having a go. This goes along with the “Emily’s embarressing pictures” series started here.

This is great: The Cure for Information Overload.

This is great: The Cure for Information Overload.

Rhoda mentioned this to me last night. It seems like a good thing! A website to network the youth of Northampton. A great idea. I’d recommend that you register and use it!! That is the only way that a thing like that will work.