“Listen,” said the Acting CEO, “this is a very sensitive and important document, and my secretary is not here. Can you make this thing work?”

“Certainly,” said the young engineer. He turned the machine on, inserted the paper, and pressed the start button.

“Excellent, excellent!” said the Acting CEO as his paper disappeared inside the machine, “I just need one copy.”

Lesson: Never, ever assume that your boss knows what they’re doing.

Nicholas Humphrey
Emeritus Professor, London School of Economics

God made me realise how hard my heart had become to the gentle touch of his Spirit.

Following Urbana, God opened my eyes to see this, and is now gently breaking my heart with a desire to see His glory in my life and in the lives of those around me; the ones I love, and the ones he is calling me to love.

Praise God for his patience and persistence with us.

The story continues…

It was Martin Luther King’s description of the black community being ‘an island of poverty in an ocean of material prosperity’ that gets the pastor thinking; both that today’s prosperity is still not shared equally, but also of the truth that ‘many are drowning in the ocean of material prosperity’.

They’ve swum in it and the tide has carried them out into the ocean and there isn’t the strength to reach a safe shore. When so many are drowning in debt, drowning in self-indulgence, drowning in depression and anxiety, drowning in our own fat, drowning in greed there are too few voices that can be heard that say, ‘I have a dream.’

This year in the UK we will have an election, we will hear from those who aspire to govern us, but what I want to hear and what I fear I will not hear, is a dream. A dream of a society that turns its back on the god of the individual and seeks the solace of community, a society that ends its fruitless pursuit of self-interest and seeks the harvests of partnership, that rejects the sour dreams of happiness through acquisition and discovers the sweetness of generosity and sharing. A society more interested in the quality of life than the quantity of wealth.

I will add my ‘amen’ to that!

You can read the full post here.

My sister, Hannah, has safely arrived in Zambia for her 6 month African Quest with the charity Soapbox.

The ministries we are likely to be involved in are “St Anthony’s Children’s Village” (orphan care centre), “Eagles Wings School” and “Lifeline Zambia” (HIV/AIDS home based care project). Our studies will include Basic Christian Doctrine, African Culture and a week long course with the African Quest founder, John Miles. On Sundays we will be involved in local churches.

I guess my biggest prayer, that I’d ask you to join me in, is that God will equip me, and the others on the team for all He has prepared for us to do over the next few months.

You can follow her blog, which I guess will be updated infrequently during the trip, at: http://hannahafricanquest.wordpress.com

I think one of the event’s greatest strengths, second possibly only to the high quality of the talks, was something I wasn’t expecting: the breadth of age, experience and engagement with social media by those present. There were those, myself included, who were ‘live tweeting’ from the event (search for #digimission on twitter to see some of that stream), to those who have taken a Godly, principled decision to not use facebook. With this breadth of engagement came some searching questions that might easily be lost with a room full of ‘techies’ and professional enthusiasts like me.

I sat on a table with three guys from a church in Canterbury: pastor Eric, youth-worker Dan, and Mark, responsible for turning their vision into a technical reality. I was impressed by their collective concern to engage with culture in a meaningful way, in the spaces people are and using language they will understand. I will look with interest to see how their church continues to implement what they learned during the day.

Afterwards I managed to get a couple of audioboo interviews, with Mark Meynell of All Souls Church, and Russ Bravo of Inspire Magazine, capturing their reflections of the day.

One question that has remained with me, following an excellent presentation by Jonny Baker of CMS, is this: in an increasingly ‘connected’ world, where traditional structures often struggle to keep up with the pace of technological – and its associated sociological – change, how can we look out for and care for the disconnected? Surely this is key to the gospel call, and something I know that I find hard, as someone who likes to engage in the places people are; who will look out for the people on the margins, to connect the disconnected to the community, and ultimately, to God?

So, as a member of my local church, and in my role with IFES, how will this event change what I do? I certainly have a lot to think about, ponder on, pray through. Digimission renewed my enthusiasm to apply the gifts God has given me in a meaningful way, and I look forward to continuing the discussion with others. As well as being excited by cool features in the web apps and the tools we develop, perhaps this event has reminded me to love the people these tools are created to support, and to pray that we might truly serve the individuals and communities behind them.

Big thanks to Krish and team for putting on such an excellent event – I look forward to the next one!

- To see another organisation do a live broadcast using ustream, including participation from a speaker in the US.
- To consider some of the issues that should and will shape digital strategy in church and mission, and how this relates directly to my role with IFES.
- Perhaps to explore the idea of ministry to online communities; where do we need to be particularly careful, how can we express kingdom values online, and is it possible to care for people’s needs as expressed (sometimes more honestly) online?
- What challenges and opportunities are presented by greater visibility of individuals and personality that might help us in mission, e.g. everyone has a ‘voice’ online, so how can we encourage people to live for Jesus and speak for Jesus in their online communities?
- What tools can we make best use of to increase collaboration amongst the Christian community?
- What about a ‘Christians in Tech’ space?

]]> http://blog.andy-moore.co.uk/2009/11/14/booka/feed/ 0 http://blog.andy-moore.co.uk/2009/11/13/iblog/ http://blog.andy-moore.co.uk/2009/11/13/iblog/#comments Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:10:33 +0000 Andy Moore http://blog.andy-moore.co.uk/2009/11/13/iblog/ This is my first blog post from my iPhone. I wonder if this means I might blog a little more often now.

If you’re reading this and waiting for the latest FF1 results, I hope to have them published later today.