January 2009 Archives

Pretty excited (doesn't take much!), because I've just got my tickets to a seminar run by Seth Godin - someone whose blog on marketing, leadership and business gets a regular look-in when I'm blogging (here, for example).

It's going to be, perhaps, an odd event for a vicar to hang out at, given that it's billed as being on: Marketing, Leading and Being Remarkable - Godin will "focus on how marketers must go beyond attracting eyeballs to tightening the interconnection and deepening commitment with their clients and staff alike." Marketing..? Church..? ...but it's the next line that gives the clue as to why I'm so interested.

He'll tell us how to inspire a tribe of enthusiastic followers and lead them toward a common goal.

Tribe, in this case, takes on a semi-technical meaning which lies at the heart of his latest book and the real reason I'm so intrigued to hear him in action.

It's not that I imagine that the book (or any other book for that matter) holds a set of techniques for church life, being a vicar (or anything else!), but that he's such a lively and provoking thinker about what effective leadership-in/of-community actually looks like in today's culture and marketplace.

There's so little original, stimulating, lively thinking out there on this stuff, that I'll go anywhere I'm likely to get stirred and prodded into thinking unexpected stuff about what God's called me to be and do.

Several other Christian leaders have started writing about Godin's thesis - Jonny Baker is one and I like his angle on the book and how it's set him thinking. Go read him here.

I wonder whether I'll be the only vicar there... and I wonder if I'll come away inspired, invigorated or disappointed?

I'll let you know!

I somehow lost my way a bit blogging-wise.

Somewhere about a year ago, perhaps longer, the blog became increasingly a list of links to other stuff (occasionally interesting, I grant you, but hardly what it was originally) and then basically a place to put church news (again, hardly a waste of time, but not the heart of what I wanted to do).

Taking it out of the main church website is a psychological crow bar to get me out of my rut and back on the blog.

It doesn't mean it's suddenly intended for a wider 'audience' - I've only ever intended writing for my friends and fellow-congregation members of All Souls - though anyone is welcome (of course) to listen in.

And so, back where we should have been last year...

A bit of genius marketing from Burger King lifts the lid on just where our "friends" in Facebook rank compared to a burger...

Here's mashable.com's take on it:

The concept is essentially this: delete 10 of your Facebook friends and get a free Whopper. Each time you remove someone, that action is broadcast to your news feed - apparently, not a big deal to users so far, as more than 50,000 friends have already been sacrificed.

While Burger King's effort is mostly about quick hit marketing and getting some press (result: success!), they might actually be onto something. As our networks on social networking sites grow and grow with people we barely know, the value of them deteriorates - to the point that removing 10 "friends" for a free sandwich actually seems like a reasonable proposition.

Of course, we can easily puff out our cheeks (or whatever the 'virtual' version is - there must be an emoticon that does that?) and bemoan the breakdown of society, but I suspect the truth is rather more subtle...

It's true (surely beyond argument) that we hook up with people via social networking sites that are beyond the bounds of what we'd traditionally call "friends", but that doesn't necessarily make the contacts pointless or hypocritical - just different.

A good 'stop-and-think' moment, though - what are the 'ethics' of social networks? Do we care how someone else feels about being 'dropped' on facebook, or 'blocked' on twitter?

I use a daily pattern called Celebrating Common Prayer to provide the 'scaffolding' for my days prayer-wise. It comes out of the Franciscan monastic tradition and gives morning, noon, evening and night prayer (though most often I use the first two), with a mixture of Psalms, readings, prayers and space.

One of my particular pleasures is that it means I connect with several Psalms each day - and that each Psalm has a prayer written to draw its threads together and help me apply what I've just read.

Reading Psalm 148 today, I was struck by a phrase in the prayer that followed it:

Oh Glorious God,
the whole of creation proclaims your marvelous work:
increase in us the capacity to wonder and delight in it.
That heaven's praise may echo in our hearts
and our lives be spent as good stewards of the earth;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

It's an odd concept on first reading, that we need an "increase in our capacity" to "wonder and delight" in creation, but it makes increasing sense the more I've turned it over in my mind today.

In a life where I rush way too much and take way too much for granted, my capacity for wonder and delight is perhaps the first thing to go - and makes me much less likely to "echo heaven's praise" to the Creator and much less inclined to be a "good steward of the earth".

Asking for more capacity to wonder and delight in what God has given seems a good place for me to start today.

You can read the Psalm for yourself here.