The Match Factory | Nov-Dec, 2008

Ideas for selected
Match Factory dates
over the next two months
by Lucy AitkenRead

Welcome to another installment of ideas to help you engage with some of the international commemorative dates throughout November and December. This is just a few of the dates taken from the longer list that can be found here.

November 19 | World Toilet Day

There is a public toilet in New Zealand that is regularly voted as the country’s most beautiful loo (yes, they have beautiful loo awards.)  There is a public toilet outside of my university that has a plaque letting users know that it is officially London’s best toilet and, indeed, there are wonderful historical mosaics on the wall and relaxing panpipe tunes to enhance the experience. Fortunately World Toilet Day is a day devoted to something more worthwhile that the world’s most pleasant bathrooms. It is a day to recognise the lack of toilets around the world. It is estimated that 2.6 billion people do not have access to basic sanitation causing millions of deaths every year.  It is easy to overlook the role effective plumbing systems had in the progress of countries such as the UK. Toilets are vital to development!

Promote it: Use the week leading up to World Toilet Day to get the message out there. Print this image out and stick it on the lids of toilets, on the flush handles or the roll dispensers.

Raise it: World Toilet Day is surely a day that begs youth groups to host a variety of gross events! I won’t go there but will suggest that youth workers use it for all it’s worth and hold some fundraising activities that can help organisations build toilets and plumbing systems in the world’s poorest countries. See Worldtoilet.org for an easy way to contribute funds.
Change it: For you radical readers, how about attempting a Grey Water Waste System for your home? Adjusting the way your plumbing works can greatly reduce the amount of wasted water and serve as a reminder of the millions that don’t have such a luxury as a flushing toilet.

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FAD | the mercy seat

mer⋅cy seat [mur-see seet]
–noun
1. The gold covering on the Ark of the Covenant, regarded as the resting place of God.
2. The Mercy Seat or ‘Penitent Form’ is a bench provided as a place where people can kneel to pray, seek salvation or sanctification, or make a special consecration to God’s will and service.

The Mercy Seat is a place where souls are won, commitments are made, new life is claimed and mission is fueled. It can be manifested in many ways; as an altar in a church or a drum in a park.  Its purpose is always the same.  It is there to remind us and give us a place to respond to God’s reconciling and redeeming presence.

As a child growing up at my corps I thought it was quite natural to kneel at the Mercy Seat and talk with God.  I can remember the excitement I felt when I prayed at the altar (another name for the Mercy Seat).  My heart raced; I could hardly catch my breath as I walked back to my seat after praying at that sacred place.  I can’t remember what I prayed in those early memories but I know that afterwards I felt good.  I felt better.

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A Lover in the Salvo Ruins

Do not abandon the ruins urges Nathanael Homewood

“You should go to another denomination.”

The accusation stood out prominently on my Facebook page amongst the normal minutia of pokes, LOL’s and profile pictures.  They were serious and thought-provoking words.  Words that pierced.  I could not just dispense with them.

It was not the first time I was told I didn’t fit in.  Nor was it the first time someone implicitly, or explicitly, questioned my denominational devotedness.  I responded to the charge with some long-forgotten sterile phrase portraying heroic martyrdom and claiming loyalty to the Salvation Army.  The reality, though, was being exposed in my immaturity and loveless loyalty toward the Salvation Army.  I was struggling — grasping desperately at unfulfilling answers — as I attempted to illuminate why I love the Salvation Army.

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From Russia with Blogs | invisible exchange

Inundated with vision

Walking into a bookstore, attending a seminar of some kind, or sitting in a gathering of the soldiers of the corps, one can hear many different opinions and valuable advice. When we meet our friends, we often share our opinions on events and people who we know. And we think that this is the point of our conversation. The phrase “we conversed” often implies “we discussed something or someone.” It seems there is nothing bad about this, if it’s not gossip — until the subjects of our conversations become prayer, reading of the Bible, and ministry.

In this aura, one can encounter many views, perceptions and outlooks. There are different schools, movements of interpretation or certain forms of prayer, and everyone has his or her own opinion — or, as it is customary to call it today, VISION.

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At home in ourselves

How Doré Ann creates home by Matt Rawlins

Doré Ann makes me feel at home. There is something that I have lived, have felt, have experienced that Doré Ann offers that isn’t really about the traditional ideals of home.  I had the privilege of being present when Doré Ann’s sister, Carmen, came to see the beautiful new home we moved into together this past winter. Doré Ann decided to give her sister a tour around the house, in the living room, through the kitchen, into the dining room, past the parlour, a glance into the bathroom and ended in her room. It was the best episode of MTV Cribs I have ever seen. Doré Ann’s smile was genuine and she was able to show off her beautiful home without too much gloating. The key for me was that, unlike most hosts, she was showing her home not her house.

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Thinkaloud | random thoughts

Dispatches from the front

The dog was dead. It lay beside the busy road, its head pointing stiffly towards the incessant traffic.
It was white, or had been once. Now it was dirty-grey. The mouth yawned open and the red tongue protruded slightly. Death, in the midst of rushing, mechanical life. Enclosed in little capsules of glass and steel that we call cars, people rushed past the lifeless canine form.
Perhaps a girl or boy was waiting in vain for their dog to come home. Perhaps an old man was out looking for his one best friend - the dirty-grey mongrel.
Who knows?  Who cares?
Those who are directly involved in the loss care, that’s for sure. Real concern for another comes when you are a part of their life.
Not only for kids and old men with a dirty-grey dog. But God with us - you and me.

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JustThinking | living sacrifices

… or lukewarm dead beats? asks Danielle Strickland

I heard some teaching recently about Romans 12… the chapter on faith beginning and lived out - I mean, it is a full chapter.

Kierkegaard said that the ‘living sacrifice’ thing could be considered insanity. Faith, he suggested, made absolutely no sense… he referred to the story of Abraham and Isaac when God asked Ab to sacrifice the most important thing in his life (the promised child, his future, his life, his blood… the ultimate sacrifice). Soren (Kierkegaard) suggested this is absolutely insane. Bonhoeffer on the other hand said, “when Jesus bids a man, he bids him ‘come and die’.”

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Corporate washing

Clint Ku says: daily we do something that promotes slavery

Sometimes it’s so easy to admire the surface of something and forget the substance. To skip over the important details and to think, “Yeah it looks good, so it must be okay.” Matthew 10:16 says, “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” There are, indeed, a lot of wolves out there.

Something has come to me recently: Rainforest Alliance and Fairtrade. Just to start off, from what I know of both these labels, they started for different things and for different purposes, and this article is not attacking either of these labels. But it occurs to me that some corporations may be treating us as fools. Let me just say this - just because a store has the word Fairtrade plastered all over their stalls doesn’t mean that the coffee that you buy from them is actually Fairtrade. The stuff behind the counter is just as likely not to be Fairtrade. Similarly, just because a corporation has Rainforest Alliance on their labels does not mean that the majority of its products are indeed good for the environment.

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The Concise Oxford | Mary’s song

Let us only pledge allegiance to one King

Much of this blog is to be credited to Brian Walsh and the folks at Empire Remixed. I can’t possibly imagine a more timely issue to raise at such a time as this, so I thought I’d put it out there for we Christians to consider in this election season - in the recent Canadian contest or the upcoming American election.

There once was a woman from a rather backwoods part of the country. And she moved from having almost no role in the shaping of history to having a huge role. Literally overnight she found herself carrying the weight of history. In what was little more than an instant she found herself in a position of great honour.
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