Awkward Family Photos

I was trying to work out how to spell awkward the other day and so typed it into the search engine. It usggested this site, Awkward Family Photos. These are a few of my favourites.

Lausanne

I have been following various blogs from people at Lausuanne 2 which have been really interesting. Andrew Jones and Brett Anderson have soem good summaries of the conference.

A story from the conference thats stands out is of a an 18 year old girl from North Korea.

She was born into a wealthy family, her father an assistant to the North Korean leader, Kim Jong II. Eventually her father’s political fortunes shifted, and after being politically persecuted by the North Korean government, he, his wife, and his daughter escaped to China.

In China a relative brought her family to church where her parents came to know Jesus Christ. A few months later, however, her mother died. Her father started to study the Bible with missionaries and eventually the Lord gave him a strong desire to become a missionary to North Korea. But in 2001 he was reported as a Christian, was arrested by the Chinese police, and was returned to North Korea. Forced to leave his daughter behind in China, he spent three years in prison. During this time the girl shared that it only "made my father’s faith stronger” and that he “cried out to God more desperately rather than complain or blame Him.

After three years he was able to return to China where he was briefly reunited with his daughter. Soon after, however, he gathered Bibles having resolved to return to North Korea to share Christ which he did. He was given the opportunity to go to South Korea, but he turned them down.

In 2006 he was discovered by the North Korean government and was arrested. There has since been no word from him. In all probability he has been shot to death publicly for treason.

Now this 18 year old girl is determined to take the love of Christ to her people as well, regardless of the cost.

Like her father, she is not choosing the easy path of comfort and safety.

Those whom God has used to make some of the greatest Kingdom impact have been those who have not made decisions based on "what is best for me?" They made decisions based on an undeniable, unshakable, "illogical", "foolish" passion for Jesus Christ and for His kingdom glory among the lost.

What a challenge for us in a time where comfort and self are king.

You can read this courageous girls story here.

Christian Movies

What does the idea of 'Christian' movies invoke for you? I have to admit I have had some pretty awkward moments sitting though bad movies that I am supposed to appreciate simply because they are 'Christian'.



Here is a great article on the topic from Relevant magazine. One is one quote from the article:
You can have the huge budget, skilled and experienced technical crew and a firmly executed marketing plan, but if you film a pedantic script with summer-stock-reject actors, your better-looking product is simply lipstick on a pig. Throw in Christian film’s inherently agenda-driven plots and dialogue and you have lipstick on a preachy pig.

I love it - How often do we put lipstick on a preach pig and expect everyone to buy into it?

Here is another blog that touches on the unnecesary spiritual/ secular divide that we create, including in film.
another question posed by the group was on the sacred/secular split – the tendency we as christians have to divide life into what we call spiritual and what we call secular when, as one guy pointed out in my group, Jesus would probably be confused if i told Him about “my spiritual life” because to Him everything was spiritual – and so can’t we as Christ followers just start making good movies – when i look at a movie like ‘the blind Side’ with Sandra Bullock in, it was a really strong movie and received critical acclaim in many quarters but was not produced as a ‘christian movie’ – we have the stories, we just need to do better at getting them across

And just for a laugh, here are some of the best Christian Rapture movie posters from Tall Skiiny Kiwi

Juventus

While in Turin I went to a practice of the Juventus team. It was pretty cool to see some of the big names of football practicing their skills.

Juventus Football Club was founded in 1897 and have spent their entire history, with the exception of the 2006–07 season, in the top flight First Division (called Serie A since 1929).

Juventus are historically the most successful team in Italian football and one of the most successful and recognized in the world. According to the International Federation of Football History and Statistics, an organization recognised by FIFA, Juventus were Italy's best club of the 20th century and the second most successful European club in the same period.

Juventus have won 51 official competitions, more than any other team in the country; 40 in the national First Division, which is also a record, and 11 in UEFA and world competitions, making them the third team in Europe and sixth in the world with the most international titles won officially recognised by their respective continental football confederation and FIFA.

While most people form Turin follow Torino F.C, Juventus has a huge following nationally and internationally. Torino F.C is famed because on May 4, 1949, after having secured their record fifth back-to-back Serie A title, and on their way home after a friendly match with Benfica in Lisbon, Portugal, the airplane carrying the team crashed against the Basilica of Superga, on a hill near Turin (pictured below), killing nearly all the players and managers.

Arrivederci, Italia: Why Young Italians Are Leaving

Young Italians struggle to get ahead in Italy and this is reflected in the number of them leaving the country according to this Time article.

Even the head of an elite university. In an open letter to his son published last November in La Repubblica, Pier Luigi Celli, director general of Rome's LUISS University, wrote, "This country, your country, is no longer a place where it's possible to stay with pride ... That's why, with my heart suffering more than ever, my advice is that you, having finished your studies, take the road abroad. Choose to go where they still value loyalty, respect and the recognition of merit and results."

Celli, many agreed, had articulated a growing sense in his son's generation that the best hopes for success lie abroad. Commentators point to an accelerating flight of young Italians and worry that the country is losing its most valuable resource.

Take Luca Vigliero, a 31-year-old architect. After graduating from the University of Genoa in 2006 and failing to find satisfying work at home, he moved abroad, working first for a year at Rem Koolhaas' Office for Metropolitan Architecture in Rotterdam and then accepting a job in Dubai in 2007. In Italy, his résumé had drawn no interest. At Dubai's X Architects, he was quickly promoted. He now supervises a team of seven people. "I'm working on projects for museums, villas, cultural centers, master plans," he says. "I have a career." Escape from Italy has also allowed Vigliero to fast-track his life plans. He and his wife had a son in September; had they remained in Italy, he says they would not have been able to afford children this soon. "All my friends in Italy are not married, they have really basic work, they live with their [parents]," he says. "Here, there's a future. Every year, something happens: new plans, new projects. In Italy, there's no wind. Everything is stopped."

According to a poll by Bachelor, a Milanese recruitment agency, 33.6% of new graduates feel they need to leave the country to take advantage of their education. A year later, 61.5% feel that they should have done so.

The unemployment rate among Italian college graduates ages 25 to 29 is 14%, more than double the rate in the rest of Europe and much higher than that of their less-educated peers.

Italians have a word for the problem: gerontocracy, or rule by the elderly. Too much of the economy is geared toward looking after older Italians. While the country spends relatively little on housing, unemployment and child care — expenditures the young depend upon to launch their careers — it has maintained some of the highest pensions in Europe, in part by ramping up borrowing. This imbalance extends into the private sector, where national guilds and an entrenched culture of seniority have put the better jobs out of reach for the country's young.

Italy has always suffered under a hierarchical system, with the young deferring to authority until it's their time to take the reins. "You are not considered experienced based on your CV, on your ability or according to your skills, but just based on your age," says Federico Soldani, 37, an epidemiologist who left Pisa in 2000 and now works in Washington, D.C., for the Food and Drug Administration. "When you are under 40, you are considered young."

The system worked — to a certain extent — as long as the economy was growing. Patience paid off as jobs opened to whoever was next in line. But with the extended slump, the labor market has seized up. "The queue is not moving forward anymore," says Soldani. Entry to some professions — like the lucrative position of public notary — is so limited that the job has become all but hereditary. In a country where success is built on relationships and seniority, only the friends and children of the elite have a chance to cut the line.

It's not just better pay that attracts Italy's young emigrants: it's also the opportunity to escape dull jobs that involve mainly rote tasks and flattened career trajectories. "If you're young in Italy, you're a problem; in other countries, you're seen as a resource," says Simone Bartolini, 29, a creative copywriter in Sydney. He left Rome in 2007, following a change of management at his advertising firm, when his new boss told him, "We will put sticks in your spokes." He was good to his word. "Every idea was turned down," says Bartolini. "Everything was a no. As soon as I made a mistake, I was under the light." In comparison to Australia, where Bartolini has launched a successful career, Italy simply had no use for his drive. "They need executors," says Bartolini. "They don't need thinkers."

Meanwhile, every young person driven away is one less voice calling for reform. Silvia Sartori, 31, tried returning to Treviso after working in Asia for four years. After a fruitless year of job-hunting, she went back to China, where she now manages a $3 million European Commission grant for green construction. "It's something in Italy I would never get, unless I was 45 and somebody's daughter or cousin or mistress," she says.

Turin

I had a meeting in Turin the other day and got to see around the city a bit. It is a beautiful city and really pleasant to walk around. There are some beautiful views with the Alps just to the north and west of the city. It includes the largest Piazza in Europe. Much of the city's public squares, castles, gardens and elegant palazzi (such as Palazzo Madama), were built by Sicilian architect Filippo Juvarra, who modelled these buildings on the Baroque and classical style of Versailles.






Turin used to be a major European political centre, being Italy's first capital city in 1861 and being home to the House of Savoy, Italy's royal family. I drove past the old palace which still looks stunning in opulance.

Turin is well known as the home of the Shroud of Turin, the football teams Juventus F.C. and Torino F.C., the headquarters of automobile manufacturers Fiat, Lancia and Alfa Romeo, and as host of the 2006 Winter Olympics.

There are a number of places there I would like to visit another time,, such as the old Roman Palatine Towers, the Cathederal and the Egyptian museum which is reputedly one of the best Egyptian collections in the world.

Has God Left Europe?

A recent Time article discusses the state of Christianity in Europe.



The implication is that while organised religion is on the decrease, people (especially the young) are open to authentic faith. This begs the question: What fresh expressions of the church will best reach a generation that are intersted in God, but tired of the old approaches? Here are a few extracts:

In 1966, a TIME cover story pondered the fate of Christianity and asked, is god dead? The magazine wasn't the first to pose the question — theologians have lamented society's secularization for centuries — nor would it be the last. He's still not dead, but these days in Europe, He's not always in the same old places. So it's worth asking: Where has God — and Christian faith — gone?

It may sound strange to say, but in some ways Europe's faith has survived the church. While the Continent may be more secular than ever, God hasn't gone away for everyone. Many Europeans, able to distinguish between the message and its flawed human messengers, still find Him where they always have — in church. And many others who don't attend say they still believe in God and in the importance of religion, especially at life's key moments. Faith is more private, more personal, which means it may be harder to find and often more at odds with Christian orthodoxy. But in some places — among immigrants and youth — it is thriving and even growing.

The same Third Wave survey that shows a lack of interest in religion among half of Europe also shows enduring belief in God and some of faith's trappings. In all but a handful of countries, more than two-thirds of people believe in God. In all except the Netherlands and the Czech Republic, more than 70% of respondents said that a religious service is important at death; the numbers were slightly lower for marriage. This clear "yearning for something beyond" has led to what Exeter University sociologist Grace Davie calls "a funny mixture of what we have in modern Europe, which is still a religious sensibility, but a loss of the tradition and the knowledge base." Your faith may not look like your grandmother's. But "this is not the end of Christianity at all," says theologian Hans Küng. "I have hope."

As Europe has grown less religious, you'd expect that its youth would too, and in several countries — Britain, Spain and the Netherlands — they have. But overall, "an increase in religion among youth is very clear," says French sociologist Yves Lambert. Among Danes, the number of 18-to-29-year-olds who professed belief in God leapt from 30% of youth in 1981 to 49% in 1999. In Italy, the jump was from 75% to 87%. Even in France, which has Europe's highest proportion of atheists, the figure crept from 44% to 47%.

Timing was one issue — the Thomas Mass starts at 6:30 p.m., recognizing that people no longer feel obligated to be in a pew on Sunday morning. Other churches in Europe remember the Sabbath but also make other days holy, holding 30-minute lunchtime services or weekday breakfast Bible studies. "If they had a Thursday-night service, I would be more likely to go," says Alex Olzog, 24, a student from Munich who is an occasional churchgoer. "I want to relax on the weekends."

It's no accident that the minority of churches and movements that are growing emphasize accessibility, not only in timing but also in style.