making myself heard above the noise
// April 24th, 2009 // No Comments » // Blogging, Social Network, Twitter
I wrote this post last August before Jonathan Ross and Stephen Fry brought Twitter to the forefront of British social media… (yes by then I’d be tweeting for quite some time!)… just thought a few of you may appreciate it’s thoughts now more so than back then! Be nice to hear what you think too!
Check it out: Surely I have better things to do than blog!
// March 28th, 2009 // No Comments » // Self-Development
For all you religious types don’t worry… Jesus is still the biggest agent of change in me… But I have to say having an iPhone has made a huge difference in the way I work and communicate with others. Here’s a few thoughts how:
1 Personal study: when I study the Bible and prepare for preaching I love to search through the Bible to find similar instances of words and themes. BiP (Before iPhone) I would have to do this at home on a computer using something like Bible Gateway. But now.. AiP (After iPhone) I can access and search the Bible anywhere using the YouVersion app. Which means I can now sit out in coffee shops to prepare…. (which is where I am right now!)
2 Twitter: I love to twitter. BiP again i could only do this on the computer.. But now AiP I can keep uptodate any time of the day.
3 Social Networking: I love it that I can connect with people all day and share thoughts and photos whenever! (as long as I don’t forget my family)
4 Time Management: everything is now synced so i’m not keeping multiple calendars… Which hopefully means I’m never late! Plus our media team are now using Task2Gather.com for keeping track of all the jobs we have on the table… and of course there is a nice little Task2Gather app for the iPhone!
5 iPod: I never had an iPod BiP but now AiP I have one combined in my phone which means my commuting to Sheffield every week is never short of great podcasts to listen to…
6 Blogging: I’m actually writing this blog on my iPhone thanks to a Wordpress app…
7 Looking Cool: an iPhone certainly helps the image!!!!
So there is just a few ways in which this phone is really helping make me more productive and more connected to what God is doing in my world. I just need to stay off the games (all deleted!!) and make sure when I’m home I actually talk to my kids and don’t communicate with my wife via facebook!
Make technology your slave… And not the other way around!
// November 18th, 2008 // No Comments » // Media, Top 10
I’ve just been involved in a great conversation on Facebook with my good friend Mr Hodges who started it off by posting a list of his top 10 movies as follows:
1 ) Lost In Translation – Sofia Coppola
2 ) One Hour Photo – Mark Romanek
3 ) The Thin Red Line – Terrence Malick
4 ) Magnolia – Paul Thomas Anderson
5 ) Road To Perdition – Sam Mendes
6 ) The Truman Show – Peter Weir
7 ) Brick – Rian Johnson
8 ) Cast Away – Robert Zemeckis
9 ) Unbreakable – M. Night Shyamalan
10 ) Meet Joe Black (such an under-rated classic) – Martin Brest
I decided to get in on the action with my ‘off the top of my head – in no particular order’ list of:
1. The Dark Knight
2. The Matrix
3. Castaway
4. The Truman Show
5. Lord of the Rings – Two Towers
6. Star Wars – Episode 4 (the original one)
7. Jurassic Park
8. Toy Story
9. Saving Private Ryan
10. the new Star Trek movie yet to be unveiled – cause you know it will turn the entire world into star trek lovers… (just seen a bootleg trailer and it looks amazing! will do for star trek what batman begins did for the batman franchise)
What’s interesting is what people think makes a good movie. Here’s an extract of our conversation so far:
Ben: these are good films but in a few years time will the dark knight really hold up?
It’s a classic fo-sho but without heath ledgers performance would there be as much too it? I dont think there would
Me: Eh? Isn’t that like saying – without Bil Murray’s performance there wouldn’t have been much to Lost in Translation… isn’t that why you think it’s such an amazing film…
Ben: A fair point to consider, there are possibly a bare handful of other actors who might have near-achieved what bill murray accomplished – and id argue that the movie is as much scarlet johansson’s as it is murrays – though lost in trans is a drama not an action movie, and so its focus is these two characters and their interaction – it lives and dies by how well these two characters interact – without any fights or car chases to support it, action movies however are about different things – if the acting is strong then thats a bonus but if the movies strength is based on the performance of one character then surely the movie as a whole isnt as strong? not to say I dont think The Dark Knight is an epic film!
Me: hmmm… I wonder if its as simple as that to seperate out the assesment of movies from different genres. I think strong acting HAS to be an essential ingredient of any great movie whether action / comedy / romance etc. To use these 2 films as illustration: Lost in Translation is actually a well crafted movie.. I just didn’t find it funny… just dark and strangely interesting… what made it watchable was the engaging characters. But the same could be said of the Dark Knight. What makes it watchable is the engaging characters of the Joker, Batman, and others. The action pretty much comes second to the quality of the actor. So surely whether you like Action, Comedy, etc. the thing that makes most films stands out is the quality of the acting.
I guess the real problem is that movie likes and dislikes is completely subjective to the viewer’s personality and their particular genre likes and dislikes. Which is why you’ll never find a chick flick in my top 10! Even if the lead role is worthy of an oscar!
I was sat watching The Matrix last night and realised how odd a movie it was to watch for the very first time. After the first 20mins we were sat there thinking “where on earth is this going?’ and yet by the end we were stunned and amazed at the brilliance of its entertainment wrapped up in a quasi-religious storyline that would supply conversation for months to follow for every Christian across the lunch table and over a coffee at church on a Sunday!
So what do you think? What makes a great movie for you? What are you looking for when you go to the cinema? What’s your top 10???
// November 4th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Design
It’s launched – the brand new site of Hope City Church!
It’s been a long wait – and a long development process but this weekend my crew of faithful and hardworking websiteers put finger to keyboard and brains into full nerd action and so at 12:30am on Sunday 2nd November the new look hopecitychurch.tv was born.
If you’ve ever been involved in the creation of a website before then you’ll understand the huge amount of thinking that has to go into something that you think should be so simple. There are so many sites telling you what makes a ‘great church website’ that if I spent time going through them all I’d still be in the planning stages of this site.
At the end of the day for us it was a necessity to build a new site as the database behind our old one had somehow got corrupt and was stoping us from effectively updating it easily. But also we did the 1st version so quickly – in fact it we built it in a marathon 36 hour non-stop nerdfest – that there were so many things we wanted to change on it that we couldn’t wait any longer.
So I hope you like the new site and it inspires you to produce something great for your own church. The best thing about this site is that it’s been completely built by guys who are part of the church. They’ve not just ‘built’ a site for the church to use – but they have a vision for it, a passion for it, a desire to see it grow and become more and more useful to the congregation and the visitors who see it. We want to still create an even better Event management system and add connectivity with social network sites like Facebook so that people can interact with it and not just pop in to check what time the meeting is on tonight.
So if you have any bright ideas on how we can connect your life to the life of the website then let me know! Or if there is something not on there that you’d find useful then post a comment. Alternatively you can leave a note to say how amazing you think it is… and I’m sure to pass on the comments to the guys who did all the hardwork and deserve the praise! (as well as pat myself on the back and sit back feeling a little pleased at a job well done!)
Enjoy!
// August 6th, 2008 // 3 Comments » // Blogging, Self-Development, Social Network
One of the media guys in my congregation came up to me about a month ago to show me what he’d been working on. In his spare time (and I guess he has too much of it) he’s built an entire computer 3D model of the new Leeds Megacentre – but not in just any 3D software – he’s used the Level Constructor for the Half-Life game (a first person shooter). The result: you can view the building online, change layouts, decor, try out new floor plans in a 3D environment – and then run around like crazy shooting each other!
I shared this yesterday with one of our staff in Sheffield and she just said, “that’s sooooo Leeds!” For some reason that bewilders me (as if), the Leeds congregation of Hope City seems to have gathered a ‘nerd’ tag – probably a result of having the largest nerd in the church running it – me!
The thing is people see me using Facebook, Twitter, indulging my congregations nerdy whims and writing a Blog and just think, “well that’s Chris and he’s a nerd!”. But I thought I’d try and give some thinking to why I do spend so much time on these things.
There are some great blogs that have already written about why they love blogging so much. So as not to plagerise you can read what Pete Wilson from Cross Point Church, Nashville Tennesse has to say, or you could pop in on Church Marketing Sucks and see why they think you should be reading, “The Blogging Church
But what about me…
Well – let me try and sum it up as simply as I can:
Reason 1: Community
Everything has changed in the last few years. My Grandad used to connect with friends by writing a letter every six months summarising the family goings on. My parents still keep a list of all the friends they have met on their holiday travels and send Christmas cards out to each and everyone of them every year. But today if you make a new friend you facebook or twitter them (to name a couple of the social networking sites that now proliferate the net). The idea of community has changed. It used to be who you lived next door to… but now it’s about those who are connected to your world by so many other means than just sitting across the desk at work, or popping next door for a cup of sugar.
I like to facebook, twitter, blog (let’s call it FTB for now) – because its my way of generating community around me. Especially in a church of over 1000 people it’s a great way of keeping in touch with the Jones’… catching up on who’s going out with who, ahhing at the latest baby photos and generally swapping jibes with the lads. I like to blog to allow others to stick their nose in my world and see what I’m doing, how am I dealing with the challenges that face me, what am I reading, watching, surfing etc.
For me I have a whole host of mentors who don’t even know it – but everyday when I read their blogs they are inspiring, challenging and motivating me to be all that God has called me to be. They’ve become part of my glocal community…
Reason 2: Conversation
I don’t just want to be friends with people – I want to join in a conversation with them. The thing I like about FTB’ing is that its not some voyeristic way of spying on people – used properly its an opportunity to engage people in a conversation. So people write prokoking status lines to encourage some kind of response because they are looking for some conversation – people write challenging blog posts because they’re looking for a heap of comments back so that they can continue the conversation – people direct twitters at others so that they can engage you in a bit of light conversation…
The success rating I’m basing my blog on is not how good my posts are or how many pageviews and visitors are logged in my stats – but how many comments people are making. Because I’m interested in some comeback – some additional thinking – an argument or an encouraging reply. So if you’re reading this – leave a comment and let me know what you think! Let me know what you do to engage others in Community and Conversation.
I posted a skype conversation the other day and someone challenged me on the whole issue of tithing. I loved it because it required me to engage, think and process what I really believe God says through His word.
Reason 3: Conversion
Everything I do sits on one purpose: 1 Timothy 1: 15 says: “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners..” Jesus Christ came to save souls – so everything I do is about seeing lives transformed by the saving grace and power of Jesus Christ. If through my FTB’ing someone might see something of my life that points them to Jesus then that will be the ultimate success of all I do. I may never know the results until I’m Heavenside but I’ve set apart my life to do ALL I can to see the light of Christ turned on in people’s lives! And FTB’ing is free and simple to do – it’s not the ALL in ALL way of reaching people for Christ – but it is one more way in which I can engage this world I am living in. After all – you’re reading this aren’t you? So do you know Christ? If not then maybe you’ll start a conversation with me regarding why you would want to anyway!
So there you go – hope that makes sense now – but that’s why I’m starting on this journey….
Oh – and don’t forget to join in the conversation!
// July 30th, 2008 // No Comments » // Blogging, Social Network
OK – it seems like everyone else in the world is twittering except the UK so here’s an attempt to kick off the next fad…
What is TWITTER? well – for all you Facebook addicts – imagine having a site dedicated to your Status Line? Welcome to Twitter – so now you can follow what everyone is doing all day… the good news too is that Twitter can auto-update your Facebook status when you add the Twitter Application … so looking for a simple way to follow your friends, make anouncements, pass on useful info/websites that you’re reading/browsing/watching – then join me on Twitter!
(Word of caution though – if you’re mobile is with anyone other than O2 then it’ll cost a fortune to do SMS updates – so stick with a browser plug in like me or to keep things updated easily and time efficiently)
Let’s set the UK a Twitter…
Chris is the Congregation Pastor of Hope City Church, Leeds, a husband to his beautiful wife Gosia and a dad to two amazing kids, Joel & Ania. He is also passionate about seeing people get hold of the truth about Jesus and realise what that REALLY means for themselves - but be prepared for a few nerdy-thoughts along the way!
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