Tim's ProfDoc

The Internet Galaxy

2010-05-07T04:50:00.000-07:00

By Mauel Castells

Three independent processes came together to create the network society - using the 'lever' of the Internet:
1 Globalisation
2 Values of freedom and openess
3 Technological advances
(p 2)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Advice for Writing from ProfDoc Seminar

2010-03-11T05:55:00.000-08:00

Advice for writing

- shutting the door
- sitting down
- having a pen and paper
- writing every day - "I need inspiation for my writing and I make sure at 9:00 I'm inspired."
- making connections isbeing creative...
- writing efficieny: keeping writing separate from editing
- muzzling your inner writer
- unleash your outer writer
- making a schedule
- clear goals
- keep track of work done
- reward yourself
- building habits
- try to write like a normal person
- see writing as a set of practical activities
- average acczdemic sentence is 18 words / long sentence=anything more than 40 words.
- The 'I need more time' - allot time
- read, review, analyse, describe method
- writing breads good ideas
- inspiration is rare and overated
- go ahead and write

Goals for each month
- plan and clarify goals for each month
- start a new manuscript
- revive a half written paper
-

300 words a day
Read and revise the first draft of a new paper
Re-read star text for insiration

Block
- can academic writers get writers block?
- wb means not writing...

Key lessons
- schedule and defend
- Reading and writing generate ideas
- goals
- scheduled writers don't get writers block
-

Schedule, set goals, write!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Breaking the Mould of Christendom

2010-02-04T10:24:00.000-08:00

Breaking the Mould of Christendom
Kingdom Community, Diaconal Church and the Liberation of the Laity
David Clark, 2005, Peterborough, Epworth

David Clark is a Methodist minister (laterly admited to the diaconal order). He believes that we need to choose community over chaos and that the Kingdom community is a learning community 'omnipresent throughout our world,though still to come in its fullness.' (p.xvii)
The diaconal church is the servant of the kingdom community. It is 'called to make manifest the gifts of the kingdom community within it's own life... it is called to enable humankind to discern, comprehend and receive those gifts' (p.xvii). In other words the Church is not the Kingdom but helps the World to see, welcome and embrace the life and values of the Kingdom which is already present.
Clark believes that the Christendom model holds back the diaconal church from fulfilling its call. The Christendom model therefore needs to be broken.
The laity need to be liberated so that they can serve as 'community builders' who help nurture the visible kingdom and the communities who are able to welcome it.
Clark therefore calls for a 'renewed diaconate' which will serve mainly as 'community educators' whose primary function is to equip the laity.

Interesting book. Very strong ecclesiology of Church as servant if the Kingdom. Concept of diaconate stands firmly in the Methodist rather than episcopal tradition.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Ecumenical Ecclesiologies

2010-02-03T00:15:00.000-08:00

Had supervision with Zoe last week. She, quite rightly, challenged the contextual hole in my literature review. The question of ecclesiology in an ecumenical context and how this affects LSM/FX is a serious question. She's asked that I write a 6,000 word paper on the subject which I initially loathed as an idea. On reflection I think it is the key issue which needs addressing, so I'll be tackling this today...

Seminar Day

2010-01-21T22:26:00.001-08:00

We had a day of seminars in Cambridge today. There were papers on designing RS curiculums in Tanzania and the spirituality of older people. In the afternoon we had an introduction to research ethics.
I am left with a few questions for my own work:
Do I need to simplify my literature review so that the Gibbs and Bolger stuff is incorporated in the thematic text - must ask Zoe...
What is a paper two surposed to be? Is it a mini research project or can it be idea based?
Should I focus my research on social networks? Am tempted to write paper on network analysis and how I might investigate cognition in fresh expressions using this as a conceptual framework.
These are questions I need to take to Zoe when we meet next week...

Books to investigate

2010-01-13T06:24:00.001-08:00

Pete Rollins - How not to speak of God

Warren – being human being church

Mission Shaped Youth

Robert Warren

Bayes – Mission-Shaped Church. Grove Books

Tapscott, D., 1996, The Digital Economy

Other work by Stuart Murray

A Short History of the Interpretation of the Bible

2010-01-13T06:02:00.000-08:00

by Robert M Grant with David Tracy
Second Edition: 1984, London, SCM

Grant observes: 'the proper place for the Bible is in the church' (p.6)

History:
Irenaeus: 'The teaching of the apostles is the true understanding of the Bible, and if anyone wishes to learn this true understanding he should read the scriptures with the presbyters of the church, with whom is the apostolic doctrine... All other interpretations have fallen from the truth.' (pp. 50-51)
Irenaeus argued that the Church had the unique right to interpret scriptures because it 'owned' scripture. (p. 74)
Tertullian (p.75) developed this argument in legal terms.
Vincent (434): 'What is Catholic: Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est' (p.80) 'there is only one gospel, there is only one truth, and it has been handed down in the tradition of the church' (p.80)
Reformers: 'The church was not to be the arbiter of the meaning of scripture, for scripture, the word of God, was the church's judge.' (p.92)
Luther: 'scripture alone' requires more 'litoral' or rational approaches to exegesis. (p.98)
Rationalsim: Human reason rises in status against the authority of the church.
Nineteenth Century: 'Purely historical' reading rise in popularity.
Schliermacher "The holy books have become the Bible in virtue of their own power" (p.111)
Baur: 'Strongly under the influence of Hegel's theory of history, he and his followers believed in the dialectical development of dogma. Ideas came to their complete expression only gradually, through the setting forth of thesis, the opposition of antithesis, and the formulation of synthesis.' (p.112)
'Thomas Arnold refers to the Bible as consisting of human writings and requiring a rational exegesis.' (p.114)
'F. D. Maurice approved, at least tentatively, of biblical criticism - but only by those who were familiar with the ways of the Spirit.' (p.114)
Modern Protestant Interpretation: Schweitzer, Bultmann, Barth...
Grant and Tracy argue for a 'catholic' interpretation of the Bible - 'scripture is nothing but the written expression of tradition' (p.143)

Books to read: Hermeneutics

2010-01-06T08:06:00.000-08:00

Christopher Hill - The World Turned Upside Down
Paul Gooder - Searching for Meaning: A Practical Guide to New Testament Interpretation (Londob: SPCK, 2007)
Christopher Rowland, The Cambridge Companion to Liberation Theology 1999

The Theology of Paul the Apostle

2010-01-06T07:48:00.000-08:00

James DG Dunn
1998, London, t&t clark.

Holy Spirit
'It is quite characteristic of Paul's conception of the Spirit to link it with experiences of revelation and knowledge.' (p.431-2)

Mind of Christ
Mind of the Lord = God / Mind of Christ = Jesus (p.250)
nous = mind vs. kardia = heart (p.73)
nous = 'highest part of a person. This reflects the typically Greek evaluation of reason or rationality as that which relates to the divine, as of a piece with the divine, as the divine in humanity.' (p.74)
nous important to Paul - Rom. 7.23,25 Rom 12.2 Eph 4.23, etc....
soma = 'embodied "I"' / nous = 'the rational person, the percieving, thinking, determining "I"' (p.74)
cf Jewett - Anthropological Terms - 'a complex of thoughts and assumptions which can make up the consciousness of a person.' (378)
N.B. Dunn views the reading of the 'mind of Christ' as an individual process cf. Paul "We have the mind of Christ".

Body of Christ
Community without cult (pp.543-8) - 'Paul can hardly have been unaware of the strangeness of his vision of his churches at this point. On the contrary, his use of language shows that he was deliberately breaking with the typical understanding of a religious community dependent on cult centre, office of priest, and act of ritual sacrifice. Whether a community without cult was practical and sustainable, given not least the eschatological community was itself caught in the overlap of the ages and the resulting eschatological tension, is another question.' (p.548)
'dominant theological image in Pauline ecclesiology' (p.548)
'key distinguishing factor is a sense of mutual interdependence in Christ, expressed in mutual responsibility one for another...' (p.552)
A Harnack, The Constitution and Law of the Church in the First Two Centuries (London: 1910) - churches were 'spiritual democracies'
E Schweizer - Church Order - the Church becomes the Church by the repeated action of the Spirit...

Borders Sale

2009-12-21T13:45:00.000-08:00

Two days left to go at Borders! Very Sad.
I went in today with the girls and came out with Al Gore's Assault on Reason, Cyburbia by James, Harkin and Real World Research by Colin Robson. Al Gore's book is entertaining and thought provoking, and Real World Research will be very helpful as I think about my own work - towards the end of the year.
I am enjoying Cyburbia much more than I had expected - having seen it on the shelves. I have been reading it in the bath and have been learning about Norbert Wiener and his concept of the feedback loop in human/machine communications. Norbert coined the term cybernetics (based on the Greek word kybernetes - meaning 'helmsman' or 'pilot' - thanks to Robin Greenwood for introducing the term at the LMN). There's a lot here about networks, communications and Wiener's observation that communication rather than production is key to understanding human identity... Lots to reflect on...

Literature Review

2009-12-03T13:47:00.001-08:00

I've spent some time this afternoon tidying up my literature review. This has included a contents page, a section on professional context and a first look at "history of the literature".

Mind of Chist

2009-12-03T07:12:00.000-08:00

When I was in Cambridge last week I popped into the UL and began looking up 1 Corinthians 2:16 to explore the concept of the "mind of Christ". I viewed a couple of commentaries and checked out a couple of potential starting points.
It seems to me that the "mind of Christ" could be read in two potentially interelated ways:

It could refer to the Holy Spirit as the self-revelatory presence of God in the Christian community. In other words, the Church knows what Christ thinks when it is open to the guidance and wisdom of the Spirit - the 'work of the Spirit defined in Christological terms' (Schrage).
It could refer to 'a constellation of thoughts and beliefs which provides the criteria for judgement and actions' (Jewett, 1971). In other words, a 'web' of ideas and experiences which give the community a way of assessing the Christ-likeness of their own thoughts and actions.

These two angles are not mutually exclusive and it may help to hold them together. If the greek word translated 'mind' means 'not an instrument of thought' but a 'mode of thought' this implies a way of doing things which requires reflection, awareness, community and spirituality.
From the perspective of my work as a whole this is helpful and does fit in with my feeling that networks and collaborative processes are important in the way fresh expressions need to think.

On my return to MK I also had two papers from Zoe. One was a paper that she and Chris Rowlands had written, entitled 'Action is the life of All': New Testament Theology and Practical Theology. Once again this was a very helpful paper which raises the concept, put forward by Robert Morgan, of theology as a web in which beliefs and traditions are woven together to give meaning to a text. They also mention some work by Roger Walton, looking at seven different strategies adopted by students in the use of the Bible, which include 'resonance and analogy' and 'mutual critique'.
Building on the work of Gerrard Winstanley, William Stringfellow and liberation theologians they conclude that 'action is the life of all' and that exegesis should emerge from an interaction between action and apprehension.
They quote an intriguing example from the Centre for Faith in the Work Place in San Antonio, Texas in which a community attempted to assess a real world situation with the 'mind of Christ'. It was interesting to see an example in which this concept was used in the context of prayer, communal reflection and textual interaction.

As always after such experiences I am left wondering whether I'm left with anything left to say since I suspect they have probably said what I needed to say already (and better), but the challenge of the ProfDoc is to continue this conversation in the real context of fresh expressions and our work with emerging collaborative communities....

Need to look back again at:
The New International Greek Testament Commentary, Carlisle: Paternoster. 2000.
Jewett, 1971. Paul's Anthropological Terms.

New Journal

2009-12-03T03:08:00.000-08:00

I have started this new blog today to be a learning journal for my prof doc work. I am conscious that my existing blog can't serve this purpose and is too broadly viewed. Tim's Blog has developed a public persona which I am beginning to feel is unhelpful.

I would like to create this new space for myself and for those who are interested on reflecting on this work with me.

My plan is to record my work, including seminars, supervisions, thoughts and reflections - starting from now.

I will also attempt to copy across old materials from the existing Tim's Blog so that I can view them again in this context.

Thinking Together

2009-09-21T03:42:00.000-07:00

As I continue to read on the theme of collaborative thinking, a number of key themes do begin to emerge:

NUMBERS are important: The issue of numbers is an interesting one. The more people that are involved, the more "human resources" are available. On the other hand, the scale of the collaboration, particularly if it is voluntary, can result in a great imbalance in contribution between those who do a lot and those who do a little. Collaborative endeavours enable you to harvest the creativity of a large group of people - which is good - but there can be issues of management or governance for a larger group.

NETWORKING enhances collaboration: The networking of smaller groups is not just a convenient way of managing larger numbers. "Small Worlds Networks" provide increases in speed of communication and creativity. New ideas often emerge in the connections between smaller groups. It is the most connected, rather than the most intelligent, who often seem to be the most creative.

SELF-ORGANISATION is essential: Attempts to organise or manage collaboration often end in failure. Teams need to set their own goals and work our how they are to function by themselves. This can be a challenge for larger networks and requires a particular approach to leadership.

Learning takes place in CONVERSATION often resulting in individual action: Collaborative organisations seem not to make decisions very often. Meetings are essential but they tend to take the form of conversations in which ideas, facts and other information is shared. Change takes place at and individual and collective level resulting in consequent individual action. This raises the question of how group decisions can be enforced - and on what level collaborative action is possible.

We need a DUAL ECONOMY: Collaboration works best when it takes place on a voluntary basis. On the other hand, we also need a dependable and equitable "resource" economy to provide infrastructure - and basic human needs. This suggests a dual economy of paid and unpaid individuals co-existing in a creative tension. Such a dual economy is already emerging in many spheres of life, including media, information sciences and the Church. Collaboration makes failure cheap - which is great for creativity - but failure is not an option when it comes to individual or organisational survival...

TECHNOLOGY affects collaboration: It is important not to overlook the impact of our technology on our ability to think, share and act together. This has always been the case, but the current explosion of "social tools" is transforming our ability to collaborate.

SPIRITUALITY should not be overlooked: I am using the term "spirituality" here in a fairly loose way - perhaps in a similar way to the term "world view". Our understanding of the basic realities of human existance and the way we view the world can have a marked impact on our ability to collaborate and the way we understand collaboration. Many spiritual traditions regard each human being as containing, in some way, an expression of the divine. Some world views regard human beings as "fallen" - others as instinct-driven animals. Our spiritualities are therefore significant for the way we work together.

These, I think, are the big brush themes that I need to explore further. What do you think? Have I missed anything?