What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Freshers: How to Choose a Church

    Every year at this time I find myself thinking about freshers coming to Glasgow to one of the higher education institutions. One way or another I was involved in freshers’ week quite a lot over the years. I did three degrees so went through it myself three times, then in subsequent university years I was one of those helping to put on events and then I worked in university chaplaincy work twice, once before I was ordained and then again whilst I was in Bridge of Allan.

    Some students are looking for a church to join when they arrive at University. Some will have checked ahead of time what they want and will have already made contact. Others may find themselves thinking about attending a church for the first time. University years are partly for working out what you think about stuff and working out what you think about the claims that religious bodies make is something that is well worthwhile doing.

    Here’s a quick checklist of things that I think Freshers might think about when thinking about how to pick a church.

    1. Is there life there? You can usually see that from the website (if it isn’t updated, don’t bother) and you can certainly tell very quickly by turning up.
    2. Do you want to be in a church with lots of people your own age or one in which there is a better balance of ages?
    3. Do you bring gifts to offer and will they be welcome. (Do you want to sing, work with children, work for the homeless etc) and can the church put you in touch quickly with those you need to speak to.
    4. Will all your friends feel welcome at this church if you invite them? Does it celebrate the ministry of both men and women? Are gay folk fully integrated into the life of the church? No-one wants to have brought their gay friends to church and then end up feeling embarrassed because of what was said or done when they turned up.  Ask careful questions here – I know a few churches which would say that they were for everyone but which gay people can attend but can’t ever do anything like lead a bible study or alpha group.
    5. Does those in leadership in the congregation appear to enjoy being there?
    6. Does the congregation appear to enjoy being there?
    7. Are there opportunities for you to learn if that’s what you go looking for?
    8. Are there opportunities for you to develop your own spirituality and go deeper with your own faith journey?
    9. If you call them up and ask for a student contact, can they give you the name of someone who will look out for you if you turn up?
    10. Do you get a sense that the preaching is worth listening to?
    11. Are they keen to have you turn up (good), disinterested in your turning up (not so good) or desperate for you to turn up (probably not very good at all).

4 responses to “Wiki?”

  1. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    Experience here is
    a) TWiki is amazingly awful to migrate between versions, requiring a fair bit of Perl knowledge
    b) Dokuwiki might be only written in PHP, but it’s an absolute joy to use, especially the plugin system (paste URL to zip-file into box, it downloads and unpacks it for you!)

    One of these I use for work, the other is rapidly becoming my general to-do-list / organization / life at home. Major plug for dokuwiki 🙂

    Reply
  2. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Docuwiki
    I’ll have a look at Docuwiki though I do have a working version of TWiki currently running at the moment. I know no Perl, and it was a bit of a challenge installing it in the first place.

    Reply
  3. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Docuwiki

    Well, I’ve looked at Docuwiki but can’t install it.

    Life is just too short for this:

    • Set up the correct permissions
      • Usually the webserver runs as a unprivileged user eg nobody, www-data or apache
      • The webserver needs to be able to write to some files and directories (so change the chown nobody to match your configuration e.g. chown apache …)
      • If you’re using access control, you need to change the group ownership permissions on the appropriate files and make them writeable by the web server user’s group (use group ownership, because as a user/web site admin, you’ll need to edit the files directly) – otherwise, users won’t be able to register, and you won’t be able to set ACL controls via the web interface, and you’ll get error messages; I always forget these steps when I do an install using ACL features, so that’s why I’m adding them here.
      • The group name the web server runs as is usually identical to the user name, except in the case of the “nobody/nogroup” combo – but check your server config just in case (just a user, TL)

     

    Reply
  4. muratore Avatar
    muratore

    molella discotek people molella discotek people serx serx midi file graqtis midi file graqtis cenangium cenangium sansui amplificatore sansui amplificatore le ragazze di viterbo le ragazze di viterbo nissan terrano autocarro nissan terrano autocarro torturatore torturatore akg terni akg terni mercedes 270 serie c mercedes 270 serie c rokepo zola predosa rokepo zola predosa totò peppino e la dolce vita totò peppino e la dolce vita la rubrica di costantino e alessandra og la rubrica di costantino e alessandra og effects processor pro 2 2 effects processor pro 2 2 ludmila radchenko ludmila radchenko officer officer ospedale umberto primo ospedale umberto primo le tre demo di lords of everquest le tre demo di lords of everquest magicolor 2450 magicolor 2450 santo domingo viaggio santo domingo viaggio back street boys non mi lasciare cosi back street boys non mi lasciare cosi haiduchii din tei dragostea haiduchii din tei dragostea comunita economica comunita economica tm net my tm net my paradise cracked trailer paradise cracked trailer lettori cd gemini lettori cd gemini consultazioni provinciali 2004 consultazioni provinciali 2004 at 160ml siracusa at 160ml siracusa certificazioni di qualita certificazioni di qualita ipod 20 accessori ipod 20 accessori forbidden colours forbidden colours depurazione delle acque depurazione delle acque limpbizkit behind blue eyes limpbizkit behind blue eyes localizzazione localization localizzazione localization snow bo snow bo diablo editor diablo editor speed (lazy dog software) v1 0 speed (lazy dog software) v1 0 shakira screensaver shakira screensaver scuole di regia scuole di regia computer cable computer cable siti lesbici siti lesbici maradino maradino milano teknival 05 milano teknival 05 prg torino prg torino trasporti piemonte trasporti piemonte honsen honsen trenet charles trenet charles chi ti dice chi ti dice testo e traduzione emon testo e traduzione emon muratore muratore muratore

    Reply

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