What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Sermon preached on 4 August 2013

    I used to work in a church with murals. Well one mural. It wasn’t this church and it wasn’t these glorious murals. It was somewhere else entirely.

    (By which I mean Edinburgh).

    Throughout the late fifties, the sixties and early seventies, a sustained period of liturgical reform had happened. The altar had been pulled away from the wall. The priest now faced the people. The peace was shared and communion started to happen every Sunday. Those of you who have been around for a bit might remember that story from all kinds of contexts. Those who are new to Episcopal worship might be surprised to learn that how we do things is not in fact as old as the hills at all.

    Anyway, these liturgical reforms in this church had left a big space to fill. Somewhere along the way, the East Window had been bricked up and whitewashed over and now there was a giant wall to fill.

    And, of course, just as we can be sure that someone was heartily trying to encourage the congregation to sing Kum By Yah. so, inevitably, someone got to paint a mural.

    Unlike Gwyneth Leech’s paintings, which surround me here in this church. this was a rather less successful piece. (more…)

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5 responses to “The Christian Year and Social Media”

  1. Jaye Richards-Hill Avatar
    Jaye Richards-Hill

    I certainly agree with passive learning… I have called it ‘knowledge Grazing’ in a book I’m working on at the moment…. There’s a bit about this here… http://www.agent4change.net/grapevine/platform/2050-hungry-for-learning-knowledge-grazing-fits-the-bill.html

    And for the church, well, maybe the passive learning paradigm is good. You already post the vid of the sermon for folks to watch again and digest – the number of questions people ask you or points they raise with you about the sermon after watching it again would perhaps be an indication as to how much passive church-type learning is taking place?

    Reply
  2. Margaret of the Sea of Galilee Avatar
    Margaret of the Sea of Galilee

    More especially the internet provides access to the 0.001% (probably less) of the population whose lives – like one’s own – revolve around these things. And exactly which stole who wore last Sunday to reduce everything to such an absurdity which of course is a Christian/liturgical idiosyncracy in itself. “It just encourages them!” as my mother would have said…

    Reply
  3. Kelvin Avatar
    Kelvin

    I’m not sure what you mean, Margaret.

    But you sound sniffy.

    Reply
    1. Margaret of the Sea of Galilee Avatar
      Margaret of the Sea of Galilee

      That you can find people interested in your own Very Specific Areas of Interest…a good thing but of course encourages you in your idiosyncracies which is less good

      Reply
      1. Kelvin Holdsworth Avatar
        Kelvin Holdsworth

        Ah. I see why I didn’t understand at first Margaret. What I was suggesting was precisely the opposite of what you are saying. I think I learn about all kinds of things (spiritual and otherwise) that I never expected to learn through following interesting people online who have quite different interests to my own.

        Reply

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