malcolm chamberlain

So it was on the 23rd March that I went quiet due to moving house! The house move went remarkably smoothly (though we're still unpacking the boxes), which is more than can be said for the switch of the broadband service!! Several phone calls (to national rate numbers), over three weeks, and a raft of broken promises lead me to eventually cancel my contract last Friday in disgust! And, lo and behold, today I have broadband (it's just come online!!) All in all... I feel unable to recommend Tiscali to anyone (understatement of the year - I'll withhold the profanities) but am now in the interesting position of having broadband without contract or direct debit to pay for it!! I've also written a letter of complaint! It's a bit of a mess... what should I do?!

Anyway, I'm catching up with blog posts from the last three weeks and a backlog of emails, all while trying to carry on with the new jobs (which seem to be going well - I'm enjoying the new challenge)!! All good fun. Hopefully, I'll get back to more thoughtful blogging soon!

Labels: blogs

... so go the lyrics to the iconic Bjork song! So why has this blog been so quiet recently?...

1. New job! I've been settling into a new job 'leading' a church in Liverpool and beginning to develop and encourage missional church in the deanery. I guess it's meant throwing myself into building new relationships in the 'real' rather than the 'virtual' world. It's not just the blog that's suffered as a result... there are several emails awaiting to be dealt with too (sorry if yours is one of them!)
   
2. New House! As a Church of England minister, a new job means a new house! The house attached to my new job needed a fair bit of work doing to it which we've been trying to keep up with and, now it's finished, we're about to move!

All of this I guess has meant less time to muse on the blog (and I miss it!). It's about to get worse (if that's possible) because this week we are actually moving house and so I'll be plunged into the position of no broadband until the provider can switch my service from one place to another ("It could be 10 working days" they tell me!) , not to mention buried in boxes such that blogging will unlikely be on the top of my priorities list!

So, here's the request... please don't give up on this blog! I haven't, and, to be honest, this space could prove to be really valuable to me as a sounding board and a place for reflection as the new things in my life develop! It'll be pretty non-existent for a few weeks but, in the words of another early 1990's icon, I'll be back!

Labels: blogs

If you like playing around with widgets (sounds dodgy to me) then scroll down and check out the new NeoPod in the far right column of this blog. If you click on the different icons you get lots of fun stats about where visitors to this blog originate, complete with pretty maps - there's even hidden bits of info to find if you scout around with your mouse! A bonus addition is the chat function which I haven't used yet so if you're on the blog when others are give it a go! You can get your own NeoPod from 'here'

Labels: blogs

I'm not sure why but the last couple of weeks have been a bit manic work-wise, and this week I've had to send out several emails apologising for not keeping up with commitments made! I guess I still haven't managed to master that magic phrase... "no, I'm sorry, I just haven't got the time"!

So if you're wondering why this blog has been on the quiet side recently, there's my excuse! To stop you wondering further, this blog will not just be 'on the quiet side' for the next two weeks... it'll be silent, because I'M GOING ON HOLIDAY!! Nearly two weeks camping in France with my wife and kids - can't wait (though I'm trying not to think of the pile of work that might await me on my return!) So join me in taking a well-earned break from this blog for a couple of weeks, BUT... don't forget to revisit on Tuesday 12th June when I will post again!

I'll leave you with this fantastic cartoon from Jon Birch's The Ongoing Adventures of ASBO Jesus, which resonated with me for reasons which I doubt need explaining (click on the image to go to Jon's post)...

Labels: blogs, fun

Wow... it's an honour to be receiving the Thinking Blogger Award, especially from such an inspirational thinker as Maggi Dawn. So, I'd like to begin by thanking my wife and children for continually putting up with my musings without the luxury of being able to close the page down...
I'd like to thank my agent and all who read the blog...

Ok, enough of the acceptance speech. Seriously though, thanks Maggi for your very kind words and for directing others here through this award. I started this blog as a place for me to play with the ideas and discoveries arising out of my MPhil research but, as with most other bloggers, I've caught the blogging bug and am likely to keep this going beyond that formal study. The thing I really appreciate about blogging is the ability to try out thoughts and gain insights from the wisdom of others, either through comments and responses to posts I've written or through their own blogs (which is why I tend to do a fair amount of linking!)

I'd echo Maggi's own reflection that my experience of church has often been that thinking is ok so long as the 'right' conclusions are arrived at, but blogging enables you to play with the 'wrong' conclusions too and not be judged (or not that I'm aware of) for it. Surely this is at least part of what Christian discipleship is about and why Christ, in his wisdom, called us into community as his followers - community (physical or virtual) where we can help one another think and reflect as well as act in seeking and living for the Kingdom of God.

According to the simple rules of the Thinking Blogger Award (see below), I now have to nominate five other blogs to receive this honour - blogs that I regularly read that help me to think, wrestle and grow. So here's my list...

1. Prodigal Kiwi(s) - Paul Fromont and Alan Jamieson. Lot's of links to reflections past and present, with a particular focus on telling the stories of those on the edges of church.
2. the church and postmodern culture conversation - perhaps the most intellectually stretching blog that I read (often way over my head) but well worth dipping in to.
3. Dream community blog - I know this could look like a plug for the community I'm involved in, but Richard White's posts on this site are always thought provoking (the award is his!)
4. Pete Rollins - I'm sure he's had numerous nominations as he's a deep thinker, but he regularly stretches and frequently challenges my own thinking, so I have to have him on my list!
5. Pilgrim's Progress - Richard Lyall's digital artwork inspires me and he's also a deeply honest thinker. His blog strapline "In relentless pursuit of REAL" is deserving of the award in itself (I wish I'd come up with it!!)
   

If any of these blogs are new to you, make sure you take a visit and enjoy the reflections of other thinking bloggers...
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The 'Thinking Blogger' participation rules:

• If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
• Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
• Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote.

Labels: blogs, musings

Finally I get round to posting after the excesses of Christmas! Don't hold your breath though - it's enough simply catching up with the pace of life again without having to come up with a profound blog-post (I'll try to do that early next week)! I have at least got round to upgrading my blog to the new 'blogger' system, which means that I can now add tags to my posts - click on any of these to find other posts in the same subject area.

However, the main purpose of this post is to simply resurface, and to link to Maggi's excellent 'stuff happens' post which I like very much! Enjoy...

Labels: blogs, fun, religion

only three days into the new dream lectio and the participation and discussion has already been beyond expectation! Dream lectio is an attempt to read the Bible together in community without actually having to be gathered in a traditional 'Bible study' group to do so. There are no notes to follow, just the passage for the day (from 'The Message') and an invitation to comment on it. We're starting with Matthew's gospel (as good a place as any!) and are reading through the Christmas narrative at the moment. Even the genealogy at the beginning of Matthew generated 11 comments!

Join in with this by visiting 'here' daily (or as often as you want - we set out by specifically rejecting any guilt trips for missing days!), and if you want to be emailed the passages follow this link, enter your own email address, and it'll magically arrive in your inbox each day!

Labels: blogs, Dream

Richard White is running a great series on the Dream blog entitled 'Dream to go'. The idea came as a response to members of the Dream groups requesting more Dream-type reflections to use in their own devotional spaces. The series is already up to number 6 so search the archives over the last few weeks to get the set so far. The last two (Jesus isn't perfect and you're getting on my nerves) are well worth checking out!

The hope is that this will be a series that others from the Dream communies will also contribute to over the coming weeks.

Labels: blogs, Dream

Back from a week's holiday for a few days of 'catching up' and 'getting ready' before Greenbelt. A quick post here to direct anyone who has not yet found it to a great blog from a good friend of mine! Pilgrim's Progress is an inspiring collection of digital artwork and written reflections that will definitely get you thinking and, more often than not, thanking the Creator for sharing such wonderful gifts of creativity. Richard has been blogging for much longer than I have (and gave me valuable advice when I started blogging), so it's a bit presumptuous to be thinking that I'm plugging him (!) but his last two posts outlining his dreams for the church and leadership are well reading and have prompted me to say so! Go read, enjoy and add him to your blog reader if he's not already there!!

p.s. the title for this post is Richard's own blog strapline, so I lay no claim to it!!

Labels: art, blogs, church

I got a bit bored with the old blog layout so have gone for a new design!
Hope you like it - let me know what you think!!!

Labels: blogs

'This' post by Mark Berry is well worth reading. In talking about generosity as opposed to profit-driven consumerism, Mark writes the following about the role of blogging in the emerging church conversation...

Labels: blogs, emerging church

the questions...
why have I set up a blog?
am I really that vain?
will anyone want to read it anyway?

the answers...
because... (read on)
maybe but hope not
hope so, and more than just read it!

So why a blog? I've been reading nearly 40 blogs concerned with altworship and emerging church for some time now, which have helped fuel my own journey and have contributed to my developing thinking about church, mission and contemporary culture that is so much a part of my daily work as well as my driving passion (see 'about me'). For a while I've considered joining the blogging world, and have done so now and again through the Dream blog as a member of the 'Dream in Liverpool City' community.

But the time is right now to host my own blog...

As well as being actively engaged in the emerging church, I'm also a year into a part-time MPhil researching the emerging church movement/discussion as an attempt to re-contextualise authentic Christian community in postmodern times. I'm soon to dive into 6 months of field-work (that's the technical term!) engaging as fully as time will allow in two emerging churches in the North-West of England (more to come...) As part of reflecting on this experience, and as a way of processing my ongoing reading, I thought a blog would be a good way to go - that's why I'm not just hoping for visitors who will read it, but people who will actively contribute by arguing with me (and who knowns maybe agreeing too), sharing their persectives and views on the issues I'm grappling with. As you do, you'll be adding to my data-source, giving me valuable material to sift through and utilise in the final thesis. And if all that sounds just a bit too heavy... I'm hoping there will also be a healthy dose of irony and larking about along the way!

This is not a blog that you will need to visit every day to keep up with - I'll be posting on Tuesdays mainly, and other bits and pieces as they drift through my brain may come inbetween. The first main post to get discussion going will be on Tuesday 11th April - make sure you come back then!

So, if you're up for being involved...
welcome on board...
hope you enjoy the ride...


Labels: blogs, Dream