I took a training session on blogging for Trinity College students yesterday in Brisbane. It was a 2 hour ‘Blogging 101′ course, starting with basics and exploring ways in which blogging can be used to stimulate and guide conversation.
Here’s a list of Uniting Church bloggers we looked at as examples:
What Matters - Stu Cameron’s Podcasts at NewLife Uniting, Robina
John Bell is going to be in Brisbane later this month, taking workshops on worship, spirituality and ecology for the Uniting Church. The workshops are open to anyone to attend. They should be good.
I have a lot of time for John. The Wild Goose songs have been a staple for me ever since I encountered them in my theological education days in Dunedin, back in 1989. It was a welcome relief to find words that were both poetic and real, most with tunes that could be sung easily. Being raised on traditional Scottish folk music, the Iona Community music connected with me deeply.
John’s teaching style is highly participatory. No PowerPoint. No need for accompaniment. Just voices and conversation.
Details at the TURN blog (Theological Understandings and Reflections).
I’ve spent today at a conference in Melbourne in which Christian Research Association researchers are sharing the results of their work on Gen Y spirituality in Australia. The research reflects the strong buy in from major denominations and, understandably, the attendance this week reflects an in-house institutional response. I’m part of that, connecting with a team of Uniting Church mission, youth ministry, social justice and communications staff from around the country.
Today we had a look at the results so far, putting our hands on the freshly published book, “Putting Life Together”, Findings From Australian Youth Spirituality Research by Philip Hughes. The other three researchers on the team, Michael Mason, Andrew Singleton and Ruth Webber, are publishing “The Spirit of Generation Y” in July.
It’s clear, from the conversations with them during the day, that there is more than one way to interpret findings from the research. But a common theme coming through is that so-called generations are not necessarily different to one another. There is a strong sense of continuity between the present beliefs and values of Baby Boomer parents and their Gen Y children.
Attending this summit has been a part of the re-emergence of my doctoral studies project, “Generations in Conversation”. Now that I’m in the second year of my latest job, it’s time to get stuck in and finish off the work I started when I was living in NZ. I’m planning to spend some time in the USA this year, focusing on interviewing and writing for the theological reflection course I started developing last year.
John Bell is going to be in Brisbane later this month, taking workshops on worship, spirituality and ecology for the Uniting Church. The workshops are open to anyone to attend. They should be good. 
