Your work/life balance

Today I received another list of questions to assess the ever elusive work/life balance. However this one really is the most devastingly close to the bone I've ever experienced. I'll list them below so that you see what I'm about to discover about my out-of-kilter life and long suffering family.

This is how you use the questions. Give them to your partner, family member or friend, and let them answer them as though you are asking. Its recommended they write down their answers then discuss with you!

1. Do you think I have got stuck in habits which detract from my ability to integrate work from non-work aspects of my life? What are those habits?
2. On a scale of 1 to 5 rate how 'with you' I am when we're together. Do I occasionally/often/always seem distracted and 'elsewere.'
3. From the way I talk about my work, do you sense that its an area of my life in which Christ and my faith have a definite and distinctive impact?
4. Do you think I have the right attitude to work and relaxation?
5. What role could you play in helping me achieve a better standard of work/life balance?
6. Do you believe I am sufficuently accountable to you for the choices and priorities in my work and life?
7. Do you believe I am living a life with a clear purpose?
8. As far as you are able to discern, how far is my work and life consistent with God's calling for me? (for us as a family?)
9. On a scale of 1 to 5 how would you rate the ability of our family to manage pressures of work and life? Do we need to make any changes?

Quite a thorough going through! I'll post when I've been assessed (and probably no time to blog!)

God of Media

I have been given the task of doing a workshop in March broadly entitled 'God of Media.' Here are my thoughts for a preamble.

In this 21^st century the media has omniscient scale, speed and reach. It is omnipresent, 365/24/7 coverage; events can be in millions of homes as they happen.

The media can shape consciousness and values. It doesn’t merely report events or pass on information or a message; it makes the news. News that is packaged in a pluralistic, ostensibly tolerant, value neutral, or value laden way. These values are not rooted in something such as a predisposition to Christendom, rather the media pursues its own ‘news value’ and sets the agenda for mass consumption. We only hear and receive what unaccountable editors and their owners consider ‘newsworthy’. What we hear is simplified, decontextualised often emotive and usually loaded. Even entertaining.

‘Breaking news’ doesn’t just mean sudden events but could also describe the invidious effect that leads to the progressive breaking of governments, of taboos, of cultural, societal and moral norms. There is ‘media power’ and this can be wielded politically, globally and morally.

So in this context of media power what issues are there for Christians, as message bearers, to think through and how can we respond practically?

Hidden Jesus best show on Christmas Day

Good old Channel 4. What was once the desparate-to-shock adolescent of British broadcasting has now grown up into a likeable erudite dude. And a brave one too, on Christmas day no less a programme about Jesus! Two and a half hours of documentary with liberal, soul searching, dreadlocked theologian Robert Beckford.
I thought it was great. Exploring the other views and what if's behind the virgin birth and messiah accounts. Taking a look at the other hidden stories such as Jesus' alleged trip to Kashmir after crucifixion failed to kill him. Trying to make sense of the Gospel of Thomas. Listening to what messianic Jews had to say and how muslims wait for Jesus to return too.
Most interesting was the parallel messiah stories. The similarity of Jesus and Krishna; virgin birth, miracles, walking on water, with similar exhortations on loving neighbours albiet with a bit more karma. The astonishing revelation about the Roman god of Mithra, the God of light, and how this diety's birthday was transferred to Jesus! Hence 25th December.
So much that made me really think about the 'unique' message of Christianity and the 'other sheep not of this sheep pen' and the 'many mansions' in heaven.