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Virtual Churches

This summer I get to do an elective subject as part of my Theology course. At present I am exploring the idea of looking at some aspect of the idea of a Virtual Church.

Clearly the key focus is going to be the theology, but at the same time I think that it would be more interesting and useful to use relevant technology for the subject. Therefore I expect to prepare the whole thing as a web site, probably using Plone. We are already looking at Plone for a number of sites and I think that it could be great for Church sites - for both "traditional" and "virtual" Churches.

If anyone has any suggestions, thoughts or comments I would be very interested to hear them.

I would also like to hear from anyone who considers themselves a member of a virtual Church, your experiences and feelings will be invaluable. On the other hand if you have a negative view of the whole idea I would also like to hear from you.

Future Careers for kids

A few years ago we went on holiday to Holland, while there we visited the European Space Agency museum. Stephen our youngest was captivated by all he saw and decided he was going to be an astronaut. We were interested to see that their plans for future projects ended at about the time he would leave university.

So now we see updates to these plans: CBC News: Europe joins race to send humans to Mars.

When I told him this morning his reaction was that he has changed his mind and now wants to be a stunt man and I am worried, with the developments in technology in films, will they still need stunt men when a 6 year old finishes school?

After the services

Yesterday we had two services for Mum, first at the crematorium with just family present, then later at Emsworth Methodist Church for a thanks-giving service. The past week and a bit does not seem very real, time is very distorted, priorities change completely and your mind wanders. Of course there are also many triggers for us all that just set us off. But I found that both of these services helped me start moving on.

As a family we have been so blessed by the prayers, care and thoughts of so many people. Dad has had so many lovely cards, letters and messages - we have had a lot ourselves. All very much appreciated and treasured.

Our friend Rev Clive Mckie lead the service at the crematorium and did the address at the thanksgiving service - both were wonderful. The address was very personal, yet not sentimental and was so accurate in every way. The local methodist minister Rev Gorden Charlesworth lead the thanksgiving service, again very sensitively. Our minister from Crawley Rev Terry Husdon did one of the readings.

The themes for the service were Love, Service and Hope - which we had all agreed were the key features of Mum's life. These themes were key in our choice of readings 1 Corinthians 13: 4-13, Matthew 25: 34-40 and John 14: 1-6, 27.

The church was full and over 70 stayed for lunch at the chuch hall, which was excellent - Mum would have been pleased so find that the quiche was warmed, she always felt that made a big difference (many thanks Cornelius Catering!).

I know that Dad as well as the rest of the family really felt supported by everyone during the day. Many people had travelled a long way and it was good to see so many old friends as well as the family.