Tim Abbott

Remembrance Project

Posted on Thursday 15 November 2012 by Tim Abbott

After the impact of last year we’re running The Remembrance Project again, this time in two schools and the Sixth Form College.

In the two schools we’re using a fabric banner representing a meadow and sky, one of which we used last year in the Sixth Form College. Onto these students pin fabric flowers on which they’ve written the name of someone special to them who has died. Today I was overseeing the Remembrance Project in one of the schools where over 60 young people have added a remembrance flower to the banner.

At lunchtime there was a gentle stream of students and in chatting with them I asked who they were remembering. Their stories were varied; several grandparents, a tragically stillborn sister, and a surprising number who were remembering relatives they had never known; a godmother who died in one of the 9/11 planes, and a dad who had died less than a year after his son was born. We chatted about the power of the memories their parents carry that now inform their lives and sense of loss. One boy spoke of his passion for sport and how it was apparently a reflection of the dad he never knew.

In all these conversations there is a quiet pride about the people remembered, a living impact of a life lost. “We should do something like this in church,” said a church minister at a leaders breakfast this morning. Yes; perhaps we should.

Posted in schools | Tagged schools, spirituality, young people

Has twitter made it ok to pray?

Posted on Saturday 20 October 2012 by Tim Abbott

In a well researched post Bryony Taylor explores the new phenomenon of prayer in the public sphere by asking, “What does the #prayformuamba phenomenon tell us about society?”

This is the text of a talk Bryony gave to the Christian New Media Conference on 20 October 2012.

Posted in uncategorised

NT Wright on the Kingdom of God

Posted on Wednesday 17 October 2012 by Tim Abbott

“What would it look like if God was in charge around here?”

Posted in uncategorised | Tagged culture, theology | 1 Comment

Prayer Spaces in Schools day conferences

Posted on Tuesday 16 October 2012 by Tim Abbott

Prayer Spaces in Schools is a movement that is growing fast. This year, to better serve the many people who are now running, or planning to run, prayer spaces in schools, we ran conferences in London, Leeds and Edinburgh.

In London about 120 people gathered once again in the crypt of St. James’ Church, Clerkenwell. Bill Cahusac from HTB opened the day bringing a Biblical perspective to his experience of prayer spaces and then Phil Togwell spoke about where we’ve got to and why this is important, inspired in part by this challenge from “The Wounded Healer” by Henri Nouwen:

“I am afraid that in a few decades the church will be accused of having failed at it’s most basic task, offering people creative ways to communicate with the source of life.”

Helen McGeoch from Cheltenham told the story of a first prayer space in a local school which offered many helpful tips and insights into the practicalities and the negotiation required to make a good start with a school. Developing this theme we were pleased to welcome David Howell, youth work consultant and adviser to schoolswork.co.uk on the new schools work qualification, who explained from the perspective of education “How do prayer spaces serve schools.” In the afternoon practical workshops covered creating resources for spiritual development, planning a first prayer space, chaplaincy and permanent prayer spaces.

A week later and we were in Leeds for something of a re-run of the programme and, in spite of early doubts, over 90 people turned up. This time we were inspired from Scripture by Sam Corley, Canon Residentiary of Bradford Cathedral who has been instrumental in promoting prayer spaces in his area. The story of a first prayer space came from Louise Hargreaves who came to the London conference last year and has since done an amazing job of helping to make prayer part of the life of her children’s school.

This time our educational input came from Lat Blaylock, editor of RE Today who helped us explore the question, “Is it possible to serve the agenda of the school and the agenda of the Christian community together?” Lat took us through an overview of a theology of creation, humanity, incarnation and world faith encouraging us to see God’s big picture helped by images of artwork from students.

Finally, on Monday Edinburgh hosted the third day conference with over 40 people from all over Scotland.

These conferences have surprised us not only with the numbers turning up but also the high proportion of those attending (over 70%) who have yet to run their first prayer space. Knowing how many of those who came last year have since run one or more prayer spaces suggests that in the coming year we’ll see at least another doubling in the number of prayer spaces in schools. When 24/7 Prayer started back in 1999 the simple vision was “to turn the tide in youth culture…” This certainly feels like part of a fulfilment of that vision.

Many of the talks were recorded. Please see the Prayer Spaces in Schools web site for more info.

Posted in prayer spaces in schools, schools | Tagged prayer, schools, young people

Big Picture Charity Films launch night

Posted on Tuesday 9 October 2012 by Tim Abbott

Big Picture Charity Films is a new charity that has been set up to produce short promotional films for small charities. I blogged about them here a few months ago.

Now that all the legal set up stuff is done and dusted it’s time for the official launch night which is on Friday 26th October from 7:30pm at St. John’s Church, Colchester CO4 0HP. The evening will showcase the work of Big Picture Charity Films, Directors Nik and Maria will be setting out the vision for future developments and there will be interviews with charity leaders who have seen the impact a film by Big Picture Charity Films can make on their profile, support and volunteer engagement. And there will be drink and nibbles with plenty of time to meet the staff and trustees and see more of Big Picture Charity Films’s work. Join us if you can for the launch of this unique charity.

Posted in uncategorised | Tagged films, organisations, video

Reboo – Assembly blogs

Posted on Thursday 4 October 2012 by Tim Abbott

Reboo is an assembly resource for secondary schools that uses an engaging and highly visual style to encourage students to think about issues of morality and spirituality. Designed originally for form time assemblies, it started life in a C of E secondary school and the material follows the Church of England liturgy. However, even for those working in non-faith based schools there are loads of good ideas and relevant content here that gets students thinking about and discussing life issues and their own moral and spiritual development. The web site has three demo assemblies which give a good flavour of the material.

Reboo is a subscription resource and currently this licenses it to an educational institution, which makes it not so useful to schools workers who might like to use it in several schools. You’d also need to have internet access to run it, which, from experience, might be tricky to arrange or set up in some schools! But how about giving it a look and maybe recommending it to a school you’re working in.

Posted in resources, schools | Tagged schools

East Anglia Schools Workers Forum

Posted on Tuesday 25 September 2012 by Tim Abbott

If you’re a schools worker in the East Anglia area we hope you’ll be able to get to the next schools workers forum which is on Monday 22nd October at West Road Church in Bury St. Edmunds. These days place a high value on learning from each other through a mixture of presentation with discussion, and curated opportunities for people to share ideas, resources or questions. There is also plenty of time for informal networking over coffee and lunch, which is included in the £15 cost.

During the day we’ll be hearing from the following people in sessions that include plenty of time for discussion.

LoveLife with Sarah and Matt Rushby (BCY Bury St Edmunds)
Engaging with Sex and Relationships Education in a schools context.

Schoolswork with Matt Ager (CYO Braintree District) and Helen Matter (Diocesan Schools’ Adviser Bury St Edmunds).
With so many new areas of work existing for schools workers, it’s easy to miss the powerful impact that can be made by the staple diet of Assemblies, Lessons & Lunch Clubs. During this session, we see how to breathe new life into these areas, approach them from a fresh angle…and not fix what isn’t broken!

Transitions Workshop facilitated by Tim and Amy and guests.
Transition affects all children and young people, from pre-school to starting school, leaving primary to secondary, secondary to tertiary and beyond, this session will look at the challenges and how we can support our young people undergoing transition.

Whether the subject is familiar to you, or something you’ve not yet considered, the aim is to inspire, inform and involve you in the conversation. Which is why there will be plenty of time for…

Going Deeper – A range of round table discussions where you can raise your own questions or share ideas and experience. Each table will focus on either one of the subjects covered during the main sessions or others that have emerged during the day.

We’ll have plentiful supplies of tea/coffee and will also provide lunch. All this for just £15.

To register please email Catherine Burlton, catherineb@scriptureunion.org.uk and send a cheque, payable to Scripture Union to EASWF, PO Box 301 Ely CB7 9EP

Posted in schools | Tagged schools

Apple maps – a reality distortion field of their own

Posted on Friday 21 September 2012 by Tim Abbott

The new Apple Maps app in iOS6 replaces the previous mapping provided via Google. If you depend on good mapping, clear satellite imaging and Google street view on an iPhone I recommend that you avoid iOS6 for quite a while. Apple clearly have much work to do on their maps app before it even matches Google’s offering.

Here’s a satellite view of where I live, which brings a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘cloud based mapping’, though for an overview of other significant failings see Apple’s Maps App: Just How Bad Is It? or head over to the hilarious The Amazing iOS6 maps which is becoming an ever growing blog of mapping blunders.

The problem is less to do with the engineering, how the maps function and respond, which is not bad for starters. The big issue is the content. Whole towns are missing, satellite images or resolution are shockingly poor and many locations of everything from petrol stations to airports are completely wrong. Apple is recruiting for another 17 mapping engineers, but the real issue is the acquisition and processing of data, something in which Google has an overwhelming advantage. This is not something that Apple can fix in a week or so – a year or so, maybe. Any attempt at the classic Apple reality-distortion-field of publicity and great PR will be overwhelmed by the reality-distortion of the maps themselves.

There’s a rumour that Google will soon release their own maps app for iOS, if Apple will let them. If the Apple support communities are anything to go by, it can’t come a moment too soon.