Hybrid Personalities!

With COVID-19 restrictions behind us, lessons have been learnt and ideas shared about the pros and cons of ‘in the room’ meetings versus ‘online’. Is there a third option between the polarity? Of course there is, it’s known as hybrid. Some don’t like the idea of hybrid and consider it a miserable experience; they think everyone should be ‘in the room’. Some don’t like the idea of hybrid and consider…

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Resources

I’m pulling together a list of resources for congregational leaders in my Presbytery and will share it here too… What other resources would you add to the list..? Resources Church of Scotland Church of Scotland newsletters Link: churchofscotland.org.uk/news-and-events/newsletters1 You can subscribe to the various Church of Scotland E-newsletters: News and Events on the web Link: churchofscotland.org.uk/news-and-events2 Children’s and Youth Ministry Now your talking Facebook group. Worship Resources Stirling Presbytery List…

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Toast on Beans

I recently came across weand.me which has some wonderful ideas about how to make online meetings better with good questions, and creating involvement and engagement. There are some freely downloadable resources featuring ice-breaker type questions – along with the more deep and meaningful… I had posted an example on the ITsForMinistry FaceBook page: It generated a bit of discussion – with ideas about how to do ’beans on toast’ differently…

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I have a dream…

Martin Luther King Jr Day is marked on the Third Monday January – close to his birthdate 15 Jan 1929 He famously said, “I have a dream…” Not, “I have a plan… an idea… a project… With the emotion of a dream he led others to action, changed beliefs, ideas, and plans… but it all began with a dream… What are your dreams… your hopes… for the World, the Church,…

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Outside Holiness

I was looking for the George MacLeod quote ‘Take us outside holiness’ – from the prayer prayed during the rebuilding of Iona Abbey in the 1930’s. Before finding it, I came across another George Macleod quote “I simply argue that the cross be raised again, at the centre of the marketplace as well as on the steeple of the church. I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified…

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Take time to reflect.

Socrates is attributed with saying “The unexamined life is not worth living” And more recently Charles Handy quotes: “It’s like the Irishman Frances Crick once said: ‘How do I know what I think until I hear what I say?’” Do you take time to listen to yourself..? To reflect and ponder what you really believe and think about life, the universe, faith, God, yourself and everything…

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Membership and Belonging

What are you a member of? What groups and organisations do you belong to? Within the Church we sometimes talk of membership, and we sometimes talk of how some of our most committed folk are not members, and yet many of our members aren’t active in the community of faith. The understanding of membership has certainly changed over the years. In our post-modern world… are we still ‘post-modern’ or gone…

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