State help funding public buildings could include Church buildings

Those of you outside of Britain may not be aware of one of the difficulties that many churches have where their buildings are very old and 'heritagey'. Basically, they may not be an areas where there is sufficient population or means to meet well the expenses that the maintenance and development of ancient buildings requires. Yet this presents a difficulty: the building is normally regarded as something of a community resource and is the focus of interest by historical societies and heritage groups. So the church's room for manoeuvre is considerably restricted; they can't do with the building what they may want. It's a bad situation sometimes: they are expected to pay for things and to maintain a building which they are not allowed to control and the emotional and community relations aspects of giving the building up are very hard to contemplate. So there is some sense of natural justice when the wider community, in the form of government, offers some help ... Church Times - ‘No more squeamishness’ says funding report: "The Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Richard Chartres, who was involved in drawing up the report, said on Tuesday: “This report is an unequiv�ocal sign from Government that it’s in�appropriate to be prejudiced against applications which are clearly related to that very important dimen�sion of church buildings, which is their use as community hubs.

“There’s nothing controversial about providing kitchen and lavatory facilities for a wide cross-section of society."

The bishop points out that some churches in rural areas are becoming used to provide community facilities such as post office facilities, for example.

Preparing the Middle Class For Life in Uncertain Times

In this article Preparing the Middle Class For Life in Uncertain TimesPenny Carothers and Greenbelt speaker and all-round helpful futurist, Tom Sine reiterate a point that I've been on the edge of making in an earlier posting on oil prices: "People in Britain and Australia are beginning to feel the impact of American economic troubles too. It is essential that middle-class Christians realize that following Jesus in uncertain times requires that we both reduce our vulnerability and increase our capability for compassionate response."
There follows a brief but helpful outline of why, economically, we find ourselves in this position. The response is not, as the saying goes, rocket science: "We can reduce our vulnerability by 1) getting out of debt as rapidly as possible, 2) seriously reducing our consumer spending, and 3) perhaps moving to a less expensive dwelling and selling vehicles or items that we may not need. If we can significantly reduce both our levels of debt and how much we spend on our own lives, then we have the opportunity to free more money or time to help economically empower our most vulnerable neighbors, both in our own communities and in other parts of the world"
We are then treated to some encouraging stories of people doing just those things.
One thing that doesn't get a mention is the possibility of starting up a local currency based not on interest (which is what our national currencies are founded on, and so are part of the problem) but on local trust and resources. Bernard Lietaer's book The Future of Money is a good 'primer' for this stuff (though currently it's a bit pricey but I've been working on that, as the link will reveal). I have been wondering whether to moot the idea at college as a practical primer in community development.

under-rated, under-appreciated, or under-valued

It's enough to warm the cockles of my heart: a list of "under-rated, under-appreciated, or under-valued" emerging church bloggers. And I made that list! I was just having to admit to myself the other day that my writing is unlikely to win me a wide readership: I suspect I'm far too eclectic and use a challenging range of vocab and draw from a wide range of subject areas to ever be 'popular'. So nice to have a little recognition. Anyway here's what it's about. Htt Matt Stone, The Blind Beggar and ultimately to Brother Maynard for starting it all off.

Brother Maynard has come up with the interesting suggestion of circulating a list of  under-rated, under-appreciated, or under-valued
emerging/missional blogs to help promote them in the wider blogosphere. Below is the list I picked up from The Blind Beggar.

• Emerging Grace



• Robbymac


• Lily


• Nathan Colquhoun


• John Smulo


• Todd Hiestand


• Theopraxis


• Chuck Warnock


• John Lunt


• Webb Kline


• Mark Wilson


• Rick Meigs


• Brother Maynard


• MakDaddy
  
  


• Glenn Hager


• Paul Mayers


• Jamie Swann


• Paul Walker


• Jerry Frear


• Phil Wyman


• Rainer Halonen


• Shannon


• Matt Stone


• Erika Haub


• John Santic


• Colin Lamm


• Julie Clawson


• Phil Johnson


• Andii Bowsher


• John Moorehead


• Paul Fromont & Alan Jamieson


• Steve Hollinghurst

To participate, copy this list into a new post on your own blog, and
add the names you have to the bottom of the list, and encourage others
to do the same. They should be people with under 150 links so we can truly scew the Technorati rankings. When you’ve done that, leave a
comment at Brother Maynard’s blog so he can keep track of who ends up participating.

Incidently, if you want to repro the list, you might want to view the source of the page and scroll down to the relevant bit to do a cut and paste. Certainly Firefox has that facility. Dunno about that other browser (ptui).

Technorati Tags: blogging, emerging-church, missional