The REAL Facebook World

On Wednesday I posted a map showing the connections of Facebook friends around the world. Whilst facebook's coverage seemed quite extensive, there where lots of areas that weren't lit up. You might assume that there is no people in there - no Facebook no people right? I'm pretty sure Africa and Asia have substantial numbers of people. So here is another map that sets Facebook's spread in context. What you get is a view of where social networks other than Facebook like Orkut and RenRen lead the market:

h/t Alison

The Facebook World

From Visualizing Friendships; h/t KrishK

How to Listen to the World

H/T Byron.

Karl Barth: An Introduction

An introduction to Karl Barth, the Smoking Church Father.



h/t Ben Myers

The Problem With Preaching IV

The Value of Oral Communication

Having laid out some of the problems facing preaching in church, it would be tempting to just do away with it. The common lament I hear is preaching is dry, boring and painful. And with the rise of the internet and the massive social changes that come with it, maybe preaching has had it's day.

However, being a good Anglican, I want to suggest that the way forward is the via media. I want to find some middle ground. I don't think we need to stop preaching. Instead, we need to preach better, we need to 'preach smarter'. It was encouraging to read Peter Adam describe John Calvin's preaching. Adam goes on to argue that it was Calvin's sermons rather than The Institutes and the Commentaries that were his most significant contribution: "[I]t was more through his preaching than through any other aspect of his work that he exercised the extraordinary influence everyone has acknowledged him to have had" (R.S. Wallace).

Calvin helped create a powerful pattern of vernacular expository preaching. His aim was to let God have his say, to project God's eloquence, to help the congregation to hear the voice of God. Calvin's sermons, heard in Geneva, written down, published, translated and published again, helped to reform Europe. We need to recover the health and vigour of engaged and lively expository preaching for the maturity and usefulness of the people of God, for the conversion of the world, for God's glory. We have much to learn from Calvin's preaching. - Peter Adam, "'Preaching of a Lively Kind' - Calvin's Engaged Expository Preaching", Engaging With Calvin, ed. M Thompson, IVP 2009.

If we want to preach better, or "preach smarter", then we need to recover the health and vigour of engaged and lively expository preaching for the maturity and usefulness of the people of God, for the conversion of the world, for God's glory. Preaching can be powerful when it is done well. Speech is powerful. Calvin's sermons transformed not just one city, but large swathes of a continent. Sure, the sixteenth century was a far more oral society than at the start of the twenty-first century.

But even today a good speech can move people. We've seen that in the past year with Barak Obama's election to the American Presidency. Never before had an election campaign harnassed the power of the internet. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter. You name it, Obama was on it. But it was the power of speech that captured a nation's imagination. Let us consider what this wordsmith has to offer us regarding preaching...

The Problem With Preaching III (a)

This video follows up quite neatly on what I said back here. Apologies for the speed.




AMENDMENT: See also 'The Problem with PowerPoint: 25 Years of PowerPoint' produced by the BBC.

The Problem With Preaching III

The Times, They Are A Changing...

It has been said that we stand at the dawn of a new era. As we seek to communicate Jesus and connect with stories, our culture is changing at a rapid pace - and this is why presentation in preaching is important.

We are witnessing the transition between two major communication eras. This is a pretty big deal, as they've only been two communication eras up to now. Firstly, there was the oral culture of communication. Secondly, the culture of writing with the invention of the alphabet and later, the printing press. And thirdly (now), the electronic era of communications, starting with Film and Television, where image became everything. If you think about it, such a major change in communications has only happened once before in human history. So it's no wonder that there is a crisis in today's preaching (and lots of other forms of content delivery).

According to Perth author and pastor Graham Johnston: "The force of the written word has diminished. Words carry no meaning. Enter the image. Images leave the viewer, not with carefully crafted ideas and precepts but with impressions."

Johnston overstates things when he says the power of the written word has diminished - I disagree with that. But he makes an important point about image. Since the rise of television, image and perception have become much more important in communication. And if we thought television had radically changed communication - along came the Internet. Effectively in the last decade the Internet has reshaped everything. Cultural critic Lee Siegel argues: "The Internet is possibly the most radical transformation of private and public life in the history of humankind."

The Internet: it's huge. And it changes everyday.It's changing the whole arena of communication and even society itself. The Internet is changing the people the church preaches to, especially young people. Because of this the Internet presents great challenges and possibilities for preaching today and tomorrow. To throw some perspective on this, it took radio 38 years to reach an audience of 50 million people. Television took 13 years, the Internet took 4 years, the i-Pod did it in 3 years and facebook did it in just 2 years. Internet use has even surpassed television viewing.

It's because of all these major developments that we go to the Internet and learn some lessons for preaching in today's world. There is more to come...

Cool Hebrew

This may be of interest to all the budding Hebrew scholars out there. The Dorot Foundation has made available an online version of the large Isaiah Scroll from Qumran (1QIsa-a).


The zoom feature doesn’t magnify the image quite enough for serious research, but it is still a very useful online resource.