I love the Sun

My second attempt at making a comic strip for my daughter. The strip is based on the song she is learning right now

I love the Sun and it shines on me
God made the Sun and God made me

The Silent Revolution

We live in an an age where success is all about sound bytes. It is about being seen, being heard and being recognized. We want to be ’seen’ busy. We want to be where the ‘action’ is.We live and believe in ‘aspirational’ christianity and so all what we ’spiritually’ are is put on Face Book. We are ever in a ‘broadcast’ mode as we get lost in the craze for the world of megapixels and megabytes. And often times, we gain the whole world’s attention and lose the joy of ‘building’ and ‘rooting’ people to live out faith when it matters and where it matters.

Ministry is not about ’speaking/singing’ the gospel. It is about helping people to follow Jesus. Ministry is not just about ‘events’. It is about engagement with real people in the real world. Ministry is not merely about ‘expertise’. It is about sharing life-experiences. Ministry is not about getting ‘numbers’. It is about building the kingdom.

Ministry is all about bringing in a silent revolution – wherein we faciliatate people to follow Jesus and therein bring Kingdom values to bear on systems, structures and communities.

And therefore, younger Christians need ‘follow-up’ action and prayers.Perhaps the first step is to start praying for younger christians we know of. Apostle Paul, despite his busy and dangerous schedule, prayed for people to whom he introduced Jesus.

We have not stopped praying for you since the first day we heard about you. In fact, we always pray that God will show you everything he wants you to do and that you may have all the wisdom and understanding that his Spirit gives. Then you will live a life that honors the Lord, and you will always please him by doing good deeds. You will come to know God even better. His glorious power will make you patient and strong enough to endure anything, and you will be truly happy. I pray that you will be grateful to God for letting you have part in what he has promised his people in the kingdom of light. (Col 1:9-12 CEV)

We can and (must) make a list of young people (ten or possibly more) who follow Jesus and pray regulary for them.

Dear God,

I thank you for ——–, for their faith and for their changed lives.

I ask you to help ——-, to know what you want them to do ( at school, at college, at work, at church etc)

I ask you to give ——- deep spiritual understanding (so that they would know, live and speak them)

I ask you to help ——-live for you (at school, at home, at work) I ask you to give ——- more knowledge about you (your love, power, grace, goodness, wisdom and power etc)

I ask you to give ——-strength for endurance ( in the enticing world of images, ideas and information)

I ask you to fill ———with joy, strength and thankfulness ( so that they may enjoy abundant life).

Let’s make a list of ten young people and find five minutes everyday to pray for young people .

Come! Join the silent revolution.

But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you – Jesus

Meet me – Acid

Book: Culture Making

Culture Making: Recovering our creative calling by Andy Crouch

It is not enough to condemn culture. Nor is it sufficient merely to critique culture or to copy culture. Most of the time, we just consume culture. But the only way to change culture is to create culture.

Andy Crouch unleashes a stirring manifesto calling Christians to be culture makers. For too long, Christians have had an insufficient view of culture and have waged misguided “culture wars.” But we must reclaim the cultural mandate to be the creative cultivators that God designed us to be. Culture is what we make of the world, both in creating cultural artifacts as well as in making sense of the world around us. By making chairs and omelets, languages and laws, we participate in the good work of culture making.

Crouch unpacks the complexities of how culture works and gives us tools for cultivating and creating culture. He navigates the dynamics of cultural change and probes the role and efficacy of our various cultural gestures and postures. Keen biblical exposition demonstrates that creating culture is central to the whole scriptural narrative, the ministry of Jesus and the call to the church. He guards against naive assumptions about “changing the world,” but points us to hopeful examples from church history and contemporary society of how culture is made and shaped. Ultimately, our culture making is done in partnership with God’s own making and transforming of culture.

A model of his premise, this landmark book is sure to be a rallying cry for a new generation of culturally creative Christians.

visit Andy’s website: http://www.culture-making.com/about/book/#guide

Download free study guide on Cultural engagement: http://www.culture-making.com/resources/cmstudyguide.pdf

Meet Me – FLIP

Faith in the workplace

Excerpts from Faith in the workplace e-mag

“Messed-up people mess up their organizations,” Dr. Denise Daniels explained. “And messed-up organizations mess up their people.” It was a sobering thought for the folks at Laity Lodge that day, but it wasn’t the end of the story. The opposite is also true. Healthy people create healthier organizations. And healthy organizations create healthier people.

Our work is about more than just the products and processes and services we provide. Our work is about relationships and excellence and redemption and calling. Wherever we are, we can be leaders by keeping a healthy and positive approach to our work and our coworkers. We’re not just suggesting that people plaster inauthentic smiles on their faces. This is something more holistic.

We can each be emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, and physically healthy—when we love God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And we will contribute to healthier working environments for our neighbors and our coworkers…to the glory of God

From faith at the workplace e-mag

Free Faith in the Workplace Newsletter visit

http://www.christianitytoday.com/workplace/

Meet FLIP

RIOT:Meet the Characters

I am working on the characters for my comic strip series: Life’s a RIOT

So far, I have finalized seven characters who will play an important part in the story.

The seven characters are:

• STORM
• FLASH
• FIZZY
• FLIP
• LOGIC
• ACID
• WALL

Need to work out a profile for each of them. Need ideas…and I am wracking my brains…

Passing the faith along… to my daughter

My two and a half year old daughter loves stories.

Stories matter. They give us meaning, significance and (re)shape our behaviour. I enjoy reading stories to her. Sometimes, I sit alongside her and watch her get lost in the cBBC stories.

My daughter’s world is filled with cartoons and cartoon characters. She mouths their language, mimics their actions and she gets inspired by Barney, Timmy, Mickey Mouse, Justin and Giglebix.

Stories like Beauty and the beast, Lion King and Jungle book have already captured her imagination.

While it is important for her to grow up with these stories, it is equally important for her to grow up with faith stories – stories about men and women of God who inspire faith and instill faith in our hearts.

How do I make faith stories interesting and appealing to her?  I am beginning to see the difficulty of speaking about faith as her mind gets crowded with cultural products.

I have been telling bible stories but I do sense the need to (re)tell the stories within her cultural context of cartoons and attractive programming.

The other day, I recorded Bible cartoon stories and played them to her. She absolutely loved it. Now, Jesus stories have become part of her favourite list. She even comes to me once in a while and asks me to play Jesus stories.

I now run a youtube channel specially for her and play kid songs, clips and other things regularly. I sense the need to create more media content for children.

We need to produce comic books, computer games and creative material and make faith stories attractive and relevant to kids. We need to re-tell the gospel attractively, intelligibly and responsibly.

I am begining to recognize the need to find new ways to speak faith and more importantly in the language that she best understands. And what better way than to speak in cartoons, comics and DIY style content.

I have always wanted to do comic books. It seemed a distant dream. Thank God for the internet.  Technology now makes it possible to create comic strips/books online. Now, we can make comic strips with a few clicks.

So I decided to make comics to tell her stories, particularly faith stories. Here’s my first comic strip for my daughter.

This is my first attempt and she like it (not a suprise…for she absolutely adores whatever I do).

Hopefully, I will be able to do better ones and with better content.

It is not enough for just a few to dabble with technology to make ’stuff”. We need to make cultural products that will capture the minds and hearts of our kids.

We do need to pray that God may raise animators, illustrators, novelists, children’s story writers, gaming professionals who will help pass the faith along to our Screen-agers.

Life’s a RIOT

I have always dreamt of making comic strips. But then, I am no illustrator and I can draw AT ALL. Thanks to bitstrip, toondoo and pixton. Now, I am able to make my dreams come true.

I am working on a story that deals with 7 friends and their tryst with life. I want to explore LIFE  through the lives of these young men and women as they live it or like to live it given their beliefs, desires, expectations and aspirations. Life’s A RIOT series will be out soon.