So I’ve worked hard at trying to be organised and stay organised but keep it low profile and easy-going. I’m also experimental and I enjoy trying things out, so here are a few tools, apps and websites that I use to get things done, a few others that haven’t worked out and some that are in trial mode right now. (more…)
No I hadn’t thought of it terms of a strategy but that’s pretty much what it amounts to. He decided to create a page for himself that people who wanted to ‘follow’ him on could do and then he had a facebook account for friends and family. Sensible strategy.
If, of course, you’re a CEO of an international publishing company with a turnover in the tens of millions (if not more) and more than 2000 people read your blog.
Slightly presumptuous if you lead a small/medium sized church in Shrewsbury and write a blog read by a few hundred here and there.
But I like the general idea – I’m just not sure how to do it without coming across as an arrogant, full of himself twit. Of course I could do that and no one would ‘like’ me, that would bring my monstrous ego crashing down! What do you think people?
The World Is Obsessed With Facebook from Alex Trimpe on Vimeo.
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Facebook and it’s games generally get more of my time than they should. That’s just my general lack of will power and laziness. But that’s not my biggest issue – friendship and facebook is. Recently my one of my friends wrote this about facebook and community and wondered whether to cull her facebook friends.
The same thought has occurred to me. Somewhere along the line I’ve gathered more than 500 of them and a fair number of those I have never met in person or spoken to or have even the faintest clue about their life. I’m too busy playing games to look at their profile.
I enjoy keeping track of my friends thoughts and comings and goings, I enjoy the easy facility of leaving a playful comment, encouraging word or whatever. I enjoy the humour and occasional flashes of inspiration or heart warming tales. But there’s no way I can keep up with 500 of those days or even find them amongst all the triviality and banality that keeps coming up.
So I wonder what is Facebook for? It’s not business contacts – for that I could use LinkedIn, it’s not an online address book for that I use Plaxo, it’s not my key way of articulating thoughts and teaching (that’s here) and for short pithy links it’s often Twitter (Tim Chester has some interesting thoughts on Twitter). So Facebook is really just for keeping up with my friends and so I think for it to be more useful to me I need less not more friends.
Less is more, more friends on Facebook doesn’t make me any more loved just more connected, it doesn’t make me more known just more widely distributed, it doesn’t always make for more and sometimes makes for less.
So I’ve taken the facebook button off the blog, I’ve become more selective on friend requests and if I haven’t ever met you, spoken to you or know the first thing about you please don’t be offended if I say we’re not friends. But you’re more than welcome here and if we talk then, well, who knows.
I’m open to change on this, it’s not a settled once and for all policy but for Facebook to work for me and build community then something needs to change. What would you do?
Firstly, I began unsubscribing from countless sites I no longer visit and discovered that some sites are excellent in making it relatively easy, clear and simple to deactivate, delete or unsubscribe. Others, frustratingly did not. On more than a few there was no button, no page, no instruction – trapped. Sort of. As I’ve deactivated a few old email addresses I just updated my settings with an old email address that no longer works. That felt like a reasonable quid pro quo.
My action point from this is that I shall endeavour not to sign up to sites that don’t have an easy opt-out. I want to try new things and that means signing up but if it doesn’t work for me then I want to easily unsubscribe.
Secondly, the vast numbers of useless sites I’ve logged into means that I’ve not been very discerning or thoughtful about things I’ve tried. A more thoughtful and researched approach might be more time consuming but would be more fruitful and less of a consumerist approach. Off-line I pause before buying, sometimes for months. On-line I’ve bought into the idea of instant gratification and that’s not great.
As I’ve been doing this I’ve been thinking how I use social media and I’m going to make some changes to how I use Facebook and Twitter (I’ll put those in a separate post) and stream-line the programmes the online services and programmes I use. I’ll probably cull my bookmarks at some point too.
What’s the point in all of this? I’m too distracted by the internet. It’s a good servant and a terrible master and so in my life needs a kick into place. I enjoy trying new things and experimenting with new tools but that too needs some balancing and readjusting. Simplicity and clarity are beautiful things almost everywhere (second-hand bookshops aside) and I want to apply some of that to the bloated monster that I fear my on-line life is becoming.
I live
d and worked for a year in Burundi and if you want to know what that was like you can read the relevant chapters from Ed Walker’s Reflections from a scorched earth because Ed was the guy who I handed over to when I left the country.
This year my friend Simon Guillebaud, who I met in Burundi, is publishing his second book, Dangerously alive : an african adventure of faith under fire – so expect more Burundi tales there.
Not long after I returned from Burundi I went and worked in Kosovo for three months and you can read about what Kosovo was like in Emma Stratton’s Famines and Face Packs. Because Emma is the lady I handed over to in Kosovo.
Now 
my friend Mark Powley has written Consumer Detox and my life is in there too. I went to university with Mark, we studied on the same course, shared many of the same friends and we shared a house together in our third year. We started Breathe together with some other friends. So some of the stories in this book are also stories from my life.
Now that’s three or four books covering the last ten years of my life and there wasn’t much in the first twenty years or so to write about. I guess I could be jealous but really it’s just a privilege to have lived a full life and been around these people and places. Has anyone else got this experience of their life in other people’s books?
I’ve noticed that as someone with reasonably high levels of curiosity I’ve signed up to loads of different things. I’ve probably dozens and dozens of accounts, my email address(es) liberally scattered over the interweb. This leads to clogging of my inbox and an increase in spam and junk mails but also a laziness and a digital cluttering. If my computer was a room it would be a cross between a study, a workshop and the cupboard under the stairs.
At last count I had 5 email addresses still active (I’ve no idea why), accounts to all sorts of sites and services I don’t use and may never use again. Moving in 2011 gives me an opportunity to simplify my physical possessions as we get rid of things we don’t use, won’t use and have forgotten why we ever got it in the first place. I’ve decided a similar approach to my digital life probably wouldn’t hurt either.
One of my goals for 2011 is to be more disciplined and focused (and limited) in my use of the internet, for it to be more of a tool than a distraction and a more disciplined approach to signing (or not signing) up to things and a decluttering of these accounts would be a good step in the right direction.
What do you think and any advice on how you’ve maintained a good approach to using the internet?
So not exactly sitting back and chilling out then….
Here are just some of the highlights:
January: Visited Pakistan;
April: Ran the London Marathon for the 2nd time (here are the numbers)
June: Began to hand over the bookshop business (completed in August)
July: Became the father of a daughter.
September: We visited Stockholm
October: Completed the legal process of forming Hope Church; began a building programme
December: Announced our intention to move to Sweden (a process that began in the spring)
And in the middle of all that we had our kitchen refitted, a visit from our Australian relatives, been to 6 conferences, preached more than 20 times, run hundreds of miles, read more than 30 books, run baptism classes, Alpha courses, kept this blog up, had several weddings and funerals to attend and a tonne of stuff I’ve probably forgotten. What seems more amazing is that as a family we’ve had loads of fun this year (well I think so) and so life while full has been thoroughly enjoyable. So much to be thankful and grateful for.
I, unlike God, very much do grow weary. This has (and is) a testing time with developments at the shop, the recent and excellent Soul Purpose, last weekends Borderlands, working on a church merger, in addition to all the normal business involved in church leadership.
My own tendency is to get my head down and just work harder, to press through until I come out the other side. This fails on a number of levels but mostly because ministry becomes something I do and not something that God does through me. Weakness and tiredness reminds me that my ministry (such as it is) is not something to be built upon my strength or abilities (such as they are) but upon His grace, His goodness, His sovereign purposes and through the power of His Holy Spirit.
Of course it is perhaps harder to remember that when I’m not feeling tired, but that’s not how I’m feeling right now. Fortunately God does not grow weary, His power is not diminished by time or strenuous activity, His wisdom, knowledge and justice not compromised by a tired mind. Therefore He remains able to do all that He plans and wills, and as far as I’m concerned His grace is sufficient and He is enough for me.
And whether I am tired or not that is good to me.
It’s a national monument and a symbol of the respect that Pakistanis continue to have for their founder. It’s guarded and people come from all over to visit the tomb.
It’s a peaceful place, the mausoleum is set in an attractive park, even though the fountains weren’t working and not every pool was full of water. The Mausoleum is simple yet striking and the interior the same.I appreciated the simple beauty of the place especially in a city not known for its beauty.
Interestingly although it’s not a mosque people pray there, whether they pray to Jinnah or seek divine inspiration from praying in this place who knows, but it’s become more than a place of remembrance it’s become a sacred place, a holy place.
The comparison is stark, the founder of my nation (and I’m not talking the United Kingdom but the kingdom of heaven) isn’t dead. There is no tomb, no mausoleum, no place to revere the dead. He is ‘God of the living’ (Luke 20:38), he is alive, we serve the living, risen one.
I can find inspiration anywhere, pray anywhere at anytime, I can come into his presence through the Spirit of God and find relationship with my Father. Don’t neglect that privilege or forget the daily wonder of being made alive in Him who conquered death.
Two stories have hit me in the last 24 hours that remind me powerfully that our hold on life is so fragile and as a result our trust in God should increase.
First, two nights ago a friend told me how a few months ago another friend of hers lost a 3 year old child to a heart attack and then last night she lost a second child, her two year old to meningitis. I can’t even begin to understand the depths of the pain in her soul.
Secondly, the story of Don Yoon who lost his wife, his baby daughter Grace (15 months), his baby daughter Rachel (2 months) and his mother-in-law in an instant when a US F-18 jet crashed into his house while he was at work. How can you measure that kind of loss? (Todd’s post led me to these this and this from Eugene Cho and here’s the news report)
Dong Yun Yoon to use his Korean name, is a Christian and has already chosen to forgive. Remarkable. Do pray.
“A nice easy question for me. We went through the same issue not long after we were married and so we spent quiet some time looking into it. I talked with a few Christian doctors and got their opinion and I was pointed in the direction of the work by Professor John Guillebaud, who is a leading expert on the subject and helpfully also a believer.In the end, because there was no medical clarity on the issue from Christian doctors about when they thought life began, we went for what we considered the safest option. It seems that there are several methods of contraception which are fully effective pre-fertilisation (we use cerazette) so I think they can be safely used without worry. I think not only are the chances incredibly small that something post-fertilisation would happen if used responsibly and having done all we can, to trust God with the rest. I don’t think we are at risk of aborting and so we’re ethically and theologically happy with our choice of contraception. But we did have to switch it because the first one we were on didn’t offer that same confidence and the risks of it acting post fertilisation was much higher.
As to when life begins, if I could give the definitive answer on that, I’d be a very famous man. Personally I think its probably at fertilisation, it seems to make the most sense which is why we switched type of pill. Although I think currently medical science makes a better argument for life beginning at implantation, science changes and new discoveries are being formed, which is why I think the first and earliest option is the safest.”
I referred her to this article by Professor John Guillebaud writing in the Christian Medical Journal
Anyway, here’s a question I was emailed this week to get my head around.
“Sorry about this but I would value your opinion on this topic! I only just found out this week that some pro-lifers believe that some of the most common methods of contraception can cause an early abortion. I have always used pills until now, and I have recently been considering the Depo injection and Implanon, the implant, but apparently all of these use, as one of their effects, a hormone which discourages a fertilised egg from embedding in the womb.From my conversations with Christians so far, it seems there are different opinions on the stage at which a pregnancy begins. I wondered if you could contribute your pearl of wisdom? Do you believe that conception happens at the moment an egg is fertilised, in which case I risk causing an abortion if I use pills, the injection or the implant? Or do you believe that a person comes into being at the moment the fertilised egg embeds in the womb?”
So, a nice easy one then. Not one that comes up in most people’s day jobs. I’ll post my reply tomorrow but I’d be interested to hear what other people would have said. Or you can wait until tomorrow and critique my response.
All of which makes me wonder when I’m not online or in front of the other screen (TV) why space for genuine relationship building or participation in life in the great outdoors is so hard to find.
Perhaps the pendulum has swung too far and I’m an on-line and off-life instead. Lent is fast approaching (no pun intended) and so perhaps I need an internet fast or at least a radical change of diet. Suggestions on a postcard? Or a email, or comment on this blog of course…
To see the dark side go to www.illuminatebooks.co.uk and to see the good side go to the Breathe website
Hopefully the fact that I’m involved in retail on a business level and the fact that I am a consumer will stop me heading down the commune route that no one else will follow. There has to be a way of life for the rest of us, doesn’t there?
I believe Jesus when he said 'life does not consist in the abundance of our possessions'. I believe he offers something better. This blog is mostly about that search.
I'm also a husband, a father, church planter, keen runner, reader, and motorcyclist. These and a few other things make guest appearances from time to time.
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