What is in Kelvin's Head?

Congratulations to Isaac Poobalan and St John’s, Aberdeen

21/03/2013

Great blessings upon the Rev Isaac Poobalan and St John’s Church in Aberdeen for the story that has gone global from the Scottish Episcopal Church this week.

Noticing that the neighbouring mosque did not have enough room and that people were praying outside in the cold, Isaac invited them into the church and made space for them to pray. It is a great good news story and one that made me proud to be an Episcopalian.

A couple of years ago I was approached by some members of the committee of the local mosque here. Their building was being redone and was out of use for six weeks and they were looking for somewhere to worship for that time. We had quite a good conversation about whether or not they could worship in a church with so many images in it. However, they assured me that was not a problem with them and we discovered a shared story in that of Jibreel and Myriam (which is painted on the wall and known as Gabriel and Mary in St Mary’s). In the end, the mosque committee found somewhere else to use where they could all meet together – St Mary’s was difficult for them because the pews couldn’t be moved.

However, I willingly offered them space and would have been glad to welcome that community into church.

I was also pleased to invite a Muslim friend to read from the Qu’ran at our Carol service two years ago.

It was good to see St John’s Episcopal Church, Aberdeen offer the welcome to the Muslim community that they have done.

I see from newspaper reports that Isaac is now getting vile abuse written about this story via facebook.

Sometimes there doesn’t seem much to be proud of in the church. This story made me feel proud to be a Scottish Episcopalian. Isaac and that congregation deserve all our support and encouragement and love.

Peace and blessings be upon them.

And upon their new Muslim friends too.

Further Comment from Scottish Episcopal Bloggers:

From Kirstin Freeman – http://revk.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/generosity-in-action/

From John Penman – http://www.dougalthink.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/examples-of-grace.html

On Beauty from Chaos – http://beautyfromchaos.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/breaking-barriers/

From Rosemary Hannah – http://rosemaryhannah.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/isaac-poobalan-real-christianity-and-real-islam/

Isaac Poobalan, Islam, mosque, Scottish Episcopal Church

8 responses to “What is a wiki?”

Chris

31/07/2007

I wanted to comment on your wiki post, but there is a gremlin preventing me – no box to write in, so no writing!
[Comment now moved]

This is what I’d have said:
Great clip! A really clear description – can we get it incorporated into an educational package for the church? See http://scotedublogs.wikispaces.com/ for a good example of a wiki in use for over a year.

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Tim

31/07/2007

Yeah. Wikis have huge potential. When I was setting up my church website I sat down and thought:
a) lots of pages
b) easy editing
c) uniform appearance across pages
d) ability to allow some people to (not) edit certain pages

End result was dokuwiki.

The real trouble is still persuading people that they’re capable of contributing…

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kelvin

31/07/2007

Yes, it is odd getting people to post on a wiki is very much harder than getting them to post a comment on a blog. Something about a fear of being the authorial voice.

I think that it is fear of being contradicted and corrected, which is a shame, as whenever I post to a wiki, I’m hoping that someone can improve on what I’ve written.

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Kimberly

31/07/2007

Fabulous video. Thanks for linking it.

I wonder if this is one of the ways we should be trying to respond to the Draft Anglican Covenant.

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Stewart

31/07/2007

Wikis are great – look forward to seeing the St Mary’s Wiki developing (and adding to it!)

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jimmux

05/08/2007

Thanks for a very clear explanation! Now that I understand how they work, I’ll be raising a discussion on how we might be able to use them on the National Postgraduate Committee of the United Kingdom. They seem a very useful tool for sub-committees which do a lot of work by e-mail.

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Kennedy

08/08/2007

I had a look at Tim’s church website and looked at the bit with the contributions from the congregation and saw this statement:

‘Please note: the content in this section is contributed by members of the congregation and should not be considered official statements by the Church.’

I am a great fan of wikis for collaborative work, but I think this indicates one of the issues with ‘public’ wikis. These problems tend not occur when wikis are being used for internal usage or for a closed group. Open editing is very attractive but you need some form of management to ensure that defacement doesn’t occur or statements which might be damaging are published.

Also, how do I tell the difference between ‘the Church’ and ‘ members of the congregation’? Are they not the same thing?

Kennedy

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Repeat post – wiki video | What’s in Kelvin’s Head

20/02/2009

[…] First posted quite a while ago here. […]

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