Prince Caspian

On Sunday, Nettes arranged a babysitter took me to see Prince Caspian for a belated birthday present. We originally planned to go in May for my birthday but that was the date it opened in the States not in Britain. At last the time came yesterday afternoon. We walked down to the cinema and dropped Callie off on the way. Lots of thanks to the Naylors for looking after her.

The movie? Well... some brilliant special effects. A lot more fighting than expected. It had the message that they should have listened to Lucy and waited for Aslan. In the Bible when Israel went to war without God or turned to false gods they didn’t win. They needed the prophets to seek the Lord. Similarly Prince Caspian and the children needed Lucy to seek out Aslan to bring them victory.

Of course they downplayed the spiritual message. Nevertheless a good film and a good present. Thank you Nettes.

Build a Bear

Saturday I took Callie to a party at the Build-a-Bear Workshop. After games and making wishes on little hearts to go in the bears our party host stuffed the bears and the children promised to look after them. No hard sell of the clothes you could purchase but perhaps that was because we went straight on to Pizza Hut. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Rumours of Revival

Recently I posted about the rumours of revival in The Florida Outpouring. Steve, elder of our church, went to one of the meetings Dudley that are an offshoot of this and I think it is fair to say was not impressed. But I know of one of my friends on facebook who has been over to Florida and is setting up his own meetings up north. Personally I think that it is a mixture: God is moving but people are getting in on the act and hyping it up. I joined a group on facebook to discuss this but found camps sadly divided between those who were saying ‘Oooh! Isn’t this great!’ and those who were saying ‘It’s all of the Devil’. When someone complained of receiving hate-mail I left the group.

I found a much more reasonable discussion on this cartoon on ASBO Jesus. And here are a few more interesting links that I have found as I have followed this discussion across the internet. There was an intelligent reply to criticism by revivalist John Crowther and a positive article by Pete Greig of 24/7 prayer on what is happening. But I found a more reserved approach from another part of 24/7 prayer network. Also Terry Virgo - head honcho of big charismatic house-church network New Frontiers - has plenty of reservations, yet he thinks there may be something in it, especially in the light of this testimony. And interestingly in this recent faithworks article Jim Wallis (author of Seven Ways to Change the World) does say that revival is coming but sees it as more related to Christians impacting social change... So the discussions carry on.

If anyone finds anymore links or thoughts feel free to post them in the comments section below.

Training Courses

As a college lecturer, it’s about this time of year that I get to go on training courses. Increasingly students need activities and support from new technology and can't cope with just lectures. But this requires skills and time. We do have staff development days at college every now and again. But it’s much better to get out and do something organised by others.

This time I’ve been to a training day at Manchester that was not just about teaching tips but also specific to my subject - psychology. I came away from Want To Be A Brilliant Psychology Teacher with a CD of presentations and resources for activities with lesson plans a bit like a cook book. Because they are all on disc I can modify them as I see fit. But if short of time there are some things that I can just use as they are. Wow!

And at the same time over the next few weeks I am doing an online course that is teaching me how to design online courses. Well, at least produce support material for my classes online using an application called Moodle. It actually produces an online environment where students can chat and discuss the material, access material and take online tests.

An increasing part of being a teacher is to update knowledge and skills. To this end all college lecturers are now part of the Institute For Learning and have been given a disc which among other things helps us to keep track of our continual professional development. So I better get working on that.

Blog Spring Clean

Yes, my blog spring cleaning is finally done. Not only have I added links to my most recent Cross Rhythms Reviews but also some extra links including some new blogs that I have found. You may notice that I have divided my blog links from my other links to make a proper blogroll at last. And I have added links to my other Web 2.0 profiles such as facebook and flickr under the heading Life Streaming. Also note that is where my crossrhythms reviews have put. Why not have a look down the side of my blog and explore some of the links?