I spent a couple of days in one of my favourite places in the world, St Andrews, this week with a small group of youth workers discovering a bit about myself.  That’s not the kind of thing I’m usually that keen on but I’m really glad that rather than spending the two days of ‘Integrate’ listening people telling us about youth work Dorothy Neilson helped us to listen to ourselves and to God.

Dorothy led us through the Enneagram, a tool which helps you discover your ‘personality type’.  I’m a bit of a cynic when it comes to these kind of things but I have to say I liked the Enneagram.  It made sense to me.  It has given me lots to think about and lots to work on.

I’m sure a lot of that had to do with both Dorothy’s open and relaxed style and with the other people in the group being prepared to be open and give it a go.

So, what did I discover?  Well, I’m a FIVE.

If you want to know what that means then for starters you could have a look at this free e-book by Mark McGuinness which introduces the enneagram or get in touch with Dorothy and have her come talk to you or your team.

In the meantime… have a look the enneagram and see if you can discover some stuff about you.

I was invited to lead a workshop at Holy City in Glasgow last night.  I mentioned before that I was delighted to be asked but now terrified…

Well, it wasn’t that scary!  In fact, I liked it a lot.

I’ve known about Holy City for ages and it’s been on my ‘I’d quite like to go to that’ list but I’ve never got round to going.  I’m so glad I did, even if it took an invite to get me there (perhaps a lesson in that?).

People gather from 7pm for a chat and around 7.20pm new songs are taught for the worship later in the evening and the workshops are plugged.  Then at 7.30pm people choose their workshop and go there for an hour.

There was a great variety of workshops last night, all around the idea of ‘telling’.

Mine was called ‘Telling Signs?’ and I tried to encourage people to talk about what signs of new life they were seeing outside the church and to ask what the church’s response to those should be.  I think it was a good discussion but in many ways the ‘Emerging Church’ is so nebulous that it’s difficult for people to grasp which part we are talking about… or to want to categorise these communities at all.

Worship was the most subversive act I’ve seen in a church for a long time.  We thought about telling… and those who because of a decission by the General Assembly are not allowed to tell and the issue they are not allowed to tell of… sexuality.

Deep words, beautiful music, conversation and actions in an amazing space with great people.

I’ll be back… next term.  And if you find yourself in Glasgow on the last Sunday of the month then you could do much worse than spend some time at Holy City.

Dear PROJECTiles,                                  [release 1 distrib 280509]

Details are slowly leaking out for thePROJECT – In The Flesh which will happen somewhere in Edinburgh on June 20th.

You’ve been most patient, and that’s both much appreciated and deserves rewarding. So here’s the first of several updates on P:2 for yer info and delektashin.

Confirmed to date….A veritable cornocupia of wonders, including:

Musicality… IAIN ARCHER, WE SEE LIGHTS, JAKE TATTON.

Wordsmithery… ROB McKENZIE

Workshops… DOUG GAY, BEKI BATESON, STEWART CUTLER, ROSS LOVERIDGE… on art, faith, culture, emerging church, climate change challenges.

Creativity: Gentle City Walks, Videovoxpop, Scratch Mary Poppins, mibbe even a Big Knit

Worship: with Steve Butler & friends.

This is just for starters… so watch this space for more details… (and check yer emails!). Registration and ticketing details imminently.

the PROJECT (Scotland)
… a Scottish festival of arts, culture & faith

Questionnaire: thePROJECTquestionnaire
Web: theprojectscotland
Facebook: www.facebook.com/group
Bebo: www.bebo.com/theprojectscotland
Twitter: http://twitter.com/theprojectscot

I’ve been invited to lead one of the workshops at Holy City in Glasgow this Sunday evening.  The stop this month in the journey to discover the demands, delights and dilemmas of discipleship is ‘Speaker’s Corner’.

The blurb for my bit says…

‘Telling signs?’
‘Emerging Church’ is one (of many) tags given to odd, quirky, marginal forms of being church that exist in or outside of the mainstream? What and where are they? What do they mean? And do they matter? A man who has his finger on the pulse of such things is STEWART CUTLER. He is Children and Youth Development Officer for the URC in Scotland.

Like all these kinds of invitations I’m delighted to be asked then gripped by fear about what to do!  I might talk about that.  It seems kind of apt…  After all, it is Pentecost.

Come and join us at 7pm in Renfield St Stephens, Bath Street, Glasgow.

Just in case you are wondering where I am… bay window, 1st floor… the one on the right.

I’m at the URC’s Windermere Centre in, well, Windermere for the next couple of days to help people play around with their WordPress sites.

So, got any great tips for making the most of a WordPress site?  Share with the group… please.

I’ll blog a bit about what we’re up to and any hints and tips I come across on the URConnected page so keep checking there if you’re interested.

Tomorrow afternoon I’ve been invited to be part of a panel at International Christian College to discuss what the Emerging Church is, what can be learned from it (by the evangelical church I guess) and what the downsides of emerging church are.

Along with me there will be people on the panel who know actual stuff, so any help, ideas, thoughts or general prayers or good last minute excuses would be welcome so I don’t look like a complete idiot (again).

Thanks. (off to look up what hermeneutics are/is/were/taste like!)

This is Sunday’s sermon, based on Luke 24: 13-35, looks at the encounter between two of Jesus’ followers and a stranger they meet on the way to Emmaus.

The story about the monastery comes from alt.spirit at metro.m3: Alternative Urban Spirituality which is well worth getting your hands on!

Let me know what you think!  Please!!!

My MacBook is home and all fixed.  My couple of days being laptopless have been interesting.  Here’s what I learned:

Old windows laptops suck

I have a very old (8 years) laptop with a massive 500mb RAM and 20GB hard drive which lives under the bed.  It would have been as well staying under the bed!  By the time it had installed its 47 updates and then decided Service Pack 3 was in order I’d wasted a day.  Don’t bother.  A pen and paper work better!

iPhones are great… except…

iPhone

My new iPhone appeared the day after I spilled coffee on my MacBook.  Just as well. The email works great with exchange so all my work email and calender was all there when I needed it and appeared like magic when I started up my laptop.

But there is stuff missing that I had on my Palm m130 years ago that you just expect to be there on what reports to be a ‘business tool’.  

I want to be able to access documents from my server or laptop and edit them.  How hard can that be?  I can get my email from my server, why not my word docs?  I know dataviz is working on documents to go for the iphone but seriously, is there no Word app out there?  I’m sure Micro$soft know there are big buck for the winner of the iPhone mobile office race.  What’s taking so long!!!

What about presentations?  It’s great I can use my phone as a remote… but my Nokia N95 runs powerpoint with a video cable out to a projector.

Come on Apple.  The iPhone is brilliant.  The interface is amazing, the email and web apps for twitter and facebook are all good.  The games are smart and quirky.  But I want business tools too!

My colleague and mate Leo has been blogging for a few weeks.

I didn’t want to heap pressure on him so I’ve given him some time to get his head round blogging.  That said, the time has come for a bit of a plug.  He’s been writing some great stuff so check out his blog and say hi.  You can follow him on Twitter too.