We wanted to move house, and were thinking about trying for our first child.

My immediate boss would be taking maternity leave, meaning my job would change fairly significantly, just a few months before the biggest conference we run every four years.

And then at the end of the year our office was moving to a new building in the centre of town.

We entered 2011 with a certain sense of trepidation, unable to rely simply on our own strength and wisdom.

As we look back I am so grateful that we did more than survive this year. It has stretched us in new ways, and exercised muscles I didn’t know I had. We have grown in the last year, and look forward to 2012 with a great sense of satisfaction and hopefulness.

In just over four weeks our first child is due to arrive, and change our life in ways we can barely anticipate. We are filled with hope and excitement, knowing 2012 will bring new adventures that will grow us in new ways. And we are so thankful that we don’t embark on this journey alone; we are surrounded by fantastic family and friends. And we have One who is faithful.

This life therefore is not righteousness but growth in righteousness;
not health but healing;
not being but becoming;
not rest but exercise.

We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it.
The process is not finished, but it is going on.
This is not the end, but it is the road.
All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified.

Martin Luther

I was excited to read on the Bible and Mission blog an article about the Bible and orality – taken from a recent Lausanne World Pulse.

Some higlights:

The word of God is unchangeable, but the manner or method in which it is communicated does change. We celebrate that God has worked intentionally throughout history to bring his word to the peoples of the world utilizing various media formats, including oral communication, scribe and hand written text, the printed page, and digital means.

The Gutenberg Press enabled a print revolution and unprecedented spread of the word of God. Oral means were available prior to Gutenberg, but a scripture literacy revolution was empowered by means of making the full Bible available to every person who could read. We stand today at another seminal point in history in which digital technology makes it possible for every oral learner to engage with God’s word in audio and audio/visual formats.

You can read the original post on the Bible and Mission blog, the Lausanne World Pulse, and find out more about the International Orality Network.

Photo: Mustafa Khayat (CC)

World Student Day will take place on Friday 21 October 2011, starting as the day begins in Tonga, and drawing to a close 48 hours later as the day ends in Samoa.

I’m very excited about this upcoming event – and by the work many people have already put into making it happen; specifically my team back in Oxford who have pulled out all the stops whilst I am away for meetings, and Tim Pieszka for his creativity in making the promo video below.

Will you join us?

And yet, Lord, we perceive intervals of times, and compare them,
and say, some are shorter, and others longer. We measure also, how
much longer or shorter this time is than that; and we answer, “This
is double, or treble; and that, but once, or only just so much as
that.” But we measure times as they are passing, by perceiving them;
but past, which now are not, or the future, which are not yet, who
can measure? unless a man shall presume to say, that can be measured,
which is not. When then time is passing, it may be perceived and measured;
but when it is past, it cannot, because it is not.

If you’d like to read more, do get a copy of The Confessions of St Augustine.

And if you’d like to know more about the IFES World Student Day (Friday 21 October 2011), check out the web page, facebook page, twitter account, and the #ifeswsd hash tag. Oh, and there’s a promotional video coming very soon.

I’ve been enjoying reading and interacting with some of Dan Ariely‘s work. Ariely is a professor at Duke University, and author of Predictably Irrational.

Traditional economics looks to identify trends from which (rational) consumer behaviour can be predicted. Behavioural economics, which includes the science of cognitive psychology, seeks to identify trends based on our often irrational behaviour when it comes to making value judgments and decisions. Perhaps behavioural economics is more realistic in the way it deals with imperfect and illogical human beings. Hence the thought-provoking title of the book.

I suspect that behavioural economics is especially important at times like ours, where new technology disrupts and even shakes the foundations of traditional economics, as markets, business models, distribution channels, ideas of production and consumption, and consumer behaviour, all change and morph as we progress through the information revolution.

As I think about the people I meet, work and interact with on a regular basis, their experience of and engagement with new technology sits somewhere on an incredibly broad spectrum. Surely this has to make traditional models of economics difficult to work with, when society finds itself so fragmented in its experience of the technology that is shaping it beyond what would have been recognisable only 10-20 years ago.

And so I think behavioural economics has a lot to offer in helping us understand human behaviour; when all around us traditional models are challenged, what can we understand about underlying motivations to help us shape the environment is such a way as to meet the various needs of those around us, and develop technology appropriately, as a means to serve.

All the more reason to continue dipping my toe into issues of sociology and cognitive psychology, and bringing the bible to bear on what is revealed to be eternally true about human nature.

Side thought: does traditional science look for order and logic, where psychology looks to understand disorder and imperfection (realism)?

In a new book, Civilisation: the West and the Rest (Allen Lane), the historian Niall Ferguson takes a historical look at the relationship. What was it about Western civilisation, he asks, that allowed it, in the past 500 years, to trump all other political systems and cultures? His answer is that the West developed six ‘killer apps’ that the rest lacked: competition, science, democracy, medicine, consumerism and the work ethic. Many of these, he acknowledges, find their roots in Christianity, specifically in Protestantism – although, of course, they have evolved far from those roots.

Ferguson is currently presenting a series on Sunday evenings on Channel Four, which he has called Civilisation: Is the West History? Each programme examines the influence, for good and ill, of one of the killer apps – apps that are, of course, being embraced, developed and exploited by countries all over the world. Can these, however, deliver peace, justice and prosperity, unless reconnected with the faith from which they grew?

What do you think? Does Ferguson take an overly optimistic stance towards competition, science, democracy, medicine, consumerism and the work ethic? There are surely lots of problems that stem from our reliance on these things, too, and lots for us to learn from the ‘Rest’. What’s your take on this issue?

I’m certainly going to be watching the series on TV, anyway.

“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.