Robots in the news

Have you seen that robots have been in the news recently.

There’s the robot conductor, Asimo who has conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra - with uncertain results.

Then have a look at these Bristlebots . Bristlebots are micro robots, usually homemade, out of readily available items. They often don’t have a useful function, but they are great fun.

And then I found an article about the Gigapan, which uses a robot mounted on a tripod to command a normal camera to take several hundred separate photographs of a single scene - each at a slightly different angle, thereby creating billion pixel photos from an ordinary digital camera. The photos are then stitched together on a computer. This process isn’t without its problems. You can get bodies without legs and legs without bodies - by the time the camera tilts itself down several degrees after taking an picture which included a man’s upper body, his legs are out of shot. But you can get some pretty awesome pictures, like this Gigapan photo of London at night .

West Wing

One of my favourite TV shows is West Wing. I’ve been watching the DVDs recently. Here’s a quote that resonates

If they’re shooting at you, you know you’re doing something right.

The church

Another quote from Robert Webber

In a postmodern world the rational arguments for the existence of God are cold and lifeless. But a community of people who allow themselves to be interpreted by God’s saving event in Jesus Christ and become formed as a true and living example of a local and universal oneness will speak volumes to the world about the saving Christ who dwells within them.

Rocketman

A man jumps out of a plane with a rocket-propelled hang-glider on his back

How awesome is that!

A loving church community

I am reading Robert Webber’s book, Ancient-Future Faith. In the book he talks about visiting a church community where the congregation, only seven years old, had grown from a nucleus of thirty-five people to more than seven hundred. He asked why the church had grown so much in such a short period of time. This is the answer he received.

I think it’s all very simple. We love each other so much that we simply talk about how wonderful it is to be part of this community.

Are our churches like that - so characterised with joy and love, that they become attractive? We all know that the church is called the body of Christ, but what would it mean in reality if the church was fully the body of Christ?

Praise God for great colleagues

Yesterday morning I spent in the company of seven other senior ministers in the Brentwood area. We meet together to encourage each other, to share together and to pray together. And my colleagues were a real blessing to me yesterday.

I thank God that he’s given me folk with whom I can share my heart - my joys and my concerns. It was great to be able to talk together and to pray together. And, to cap it all, we had a good leisurely lunch out at the local Chinese restaurant.

An issue of trust

The issue of trust is important in all areas of life, especially in public life. It’s a huge area of concern, for instance, in politics - who can we trust? We’ve also seen that it’s a big concern in other areas of public life: in sport and in entertainment.

Recent news items have highlighted the importance of trust. Ant and Dec have returned an award that they received - the People’s Choice Award at the 2005 British Comedy Awards. The award should have gone to Catherine Tate because she polled most votes, but Ant and Dec were given the award instead, for some inexplicable reason.

It seems that Robbie Williams was invited to present an award, and he indicated that he was happy to do so if Ant and Dec were going to be recipients of the award. In order to ensure his attendance, he was given that assurance. But the investigation into the error could not determine how the error took place.

Yes, trust is important. And that leads me to think of my own life, and whether I am someone who can be trusted.

There is one, whose word is to be trusted - and that is God himself.

ADDENDUM

There’s now another article on the BBC news website, where the BBC admits keeping over £100k of premium-rate phone-in money which should have been given to charity. This issue doesn’t seem to be drawing to a close any time soon!

Back from the Baptist Assembly

What an excellent few days I’ve had in Blackpool, at this year’s Baptist Assembly. We’ve had some great worship, some tremendous teaching, and it was good, as well, to meet up with friends, old and new. A number of other Baptist Christians have commented on the lack of liturgy, and readings from Scripture, which I would concur with. But the positives far outweighed the negatives, and overall the assembly was a great experience.

Some of the highlights for me were the sessions where Vinoth Ramachandra was speaking. Vinoth is from Sri Lanka, and had some great thoughts for us on engaging in mission.

What you earn is no longer private (if you are Italian)

There’s a great item on the BBC News website today. One of the last acts of the outgoing Italian government was to publish the earnings and tax details of every Italian on a public website - with no warning at all! There was, understandably, outrage in Italy. But, on the other hand, the website was so popular, with people looking up the earnings of their neighbours, and of celebrities, that the site crashed.

Baptist Assembly

I’m off to the Baptist Assembly first thing tomorrow morning, so might not be posting for a few days.