• Can you help me out here?

    I’ve been asked quite a few times this week for help. However I need you to help me out first before I can decide what to say or do.

    The thing is, people keep saying to me that they want to learn how to do the online thing better in a church context. After I posted that piece about 8 Things the Churches Can Learn from the Collapse of HMV last week that really stepped up. Indeed nothing I’ve written has been retweeted, shared on Facebook or passed around more for months.

    The thing is, I know that you can help a church congregation to grow by using the internet well. I know I’ve a lot to learn but I also know that I’m just ahead of the curve on this and able to see slightly further over the horizon than most people. It isn’t magic glasses that make me able to do this, it is because I’ve had an interest in communication techniques for a long time, a background in IT and I’ve done a wee bit of mission work with congregations. My recent sabbatical also gave me some time to think. I’m also aware that what I’m writing about has something to say to campaign groups, community organisers and other assorted politicos. I write in my context. You read in yours and I don’t forget it.

    I’m happy to write more about all that and it seems to be something that quite a lot of people want to hear about. Indeed, I’ve almost begun to think that I should start up a different blog just devoted to that topic. Would that be a good idea?

    If I’m going to write more though I need your help. What exactly do you want me to write about? Oh I know that you’d like me to offer you a free magic wand that would fill a church with nice unthreatening people who happened to glimpse on a website that there might be a church in the area. However, you know and I know that isn’t going to happen.

    Help me out here. What aspects of this do you want me to address a bit more? Is there anything you are aware of me doing online well that you’d like to hear more about. Or even better, is there anything I’m not doing I could try or anything I could try to do better?

    I’m aware of an outstanding comment from a few days ago asking for a bit more gen on posting sermons online.

    What else would you like?

4 responses to “St John of the Cross”

  1. fr dougal Avatar
    fr dougal

    I love the Dali but thought it was much better in the St Mungo than Kelvingrove. SJC was the poetry/spirituality of my High Church youth.

  2. kelvin Avatar

    Actually, I prefer it in Kelvingrove though that may be something to do with the memory of going to see it as a child.

    I think I heard that they are shifting it again from the end of the long collonade, which I think would be a shame, particularly as it was hung in contradistinction to Stephen Conroy’s magnificent self portrait (at the end of the nearest next collonade) which I suspect most people don’t realise is also a crucifixion.

    http://www.artfund.org/artwork/9674/self-portrait-1

  3. Ruth Avatar
    Ruth

    When I saw it in Kelvingrove in August, it was in a small room. Although I waited till the sardine tin crush of no more than a dozen people had left, there was still no space to stand back and appreciate it – the lighting wasn’t helpful either. It was so much better at the end of the long corridor.

  4. fr dougal Avatar
    fr dougal

    I think it had the space at St Mungo and you had plenty of room to sit on the sofa and gaze at it. But hey, it’s still a wonderful art work.

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