WildOx Blog http://wildoxgib.com The Blog of John K. Baw - Gibraltar posterous.com Tue, 07 Feb 2012 05:27:10 -0800 Gibraltar Street Pastors training - Session on Drugs Awareness http://wildoxgib.com/gibraltar-street-pastors-training-session-on http://wildoxgib.com/gibraltar-street-pastors-training-session-on
This comes a little late in the week but it’s a catch-up Blog on last Saturday’s Gibraltar Street Pastors training session.  Session # 3 was the Drugs Awareness Training seminar and several things about it are Blog worthy 
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Officers from the Royal Gibraltar Police’s Drugs Squad were present to  enlighten, especially with the bit where attendees were allowed to see and handle real samples.  It was quite ironic, as noted by one of the officers, that we were in a church building, so called the “House of God”, seeing and handling samples of real drugs!
 
It was a huge privilege to have the local Drugs Strategy Coordinator make a very interesting presentation on the work of his office and the problems associated with drugs in Gibraltar.  Two recovering addicts were present to give emotional, and extremely courageous, talks to us about their personal stories, their struggles and their victories in the battle against drugs.

I came away very aware that there is pain in peoples’ lives, pain that we often medicate.  Those who medicate their feelings with drugs run the real risk of starting on a downward slippery slope into what one of the two young men adequately described as “hell”.  Into this real world we shall step, in Easter - Into the world of pain, a world were young people do medicate their feelings with alcohol and drugs.  Can’t wait to step into this, and be a part of a caring presence on our streets.

Drugs-277x300

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/614076/Baw.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aG901lH8aEV John Baw wildox John Baw Sat, 04 Feb 2012 10:48:54 -0800 Alpha Course update http://wildoxgib.com/alpha-course-update http://wildoxgib.com/alpha-course-update
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We have been having a really splending time at Alpha Gibraltar.  I find it really stimulating to meet people from differrent walks of life, having very different attitudes towards faith, and exploring some of the deep questions of life.

I am finding that most people do not like being preached to, or being sermonized by someone who is "in the know with God" but there is a genuine and prevalent openness to having conversations about spiritual matters.  Many people have questions.  Deep stuff, really.... and tthery are not ffinding their answers in the old haunts of boring church services.

DISCUSS

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/614076/Baw.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aG901lH8aEV John Baw wildox John Baw Fri, 03 Feb 2012 06:13:19 -0800 Academic jargon buster - What all those terms REALLY mean! http://wildoxgib.com/academic-jargon-buster-what-all-those-terms-r http://wildoxgib.com/academic-jargon-buster-what-all-those-terms-r
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/614076/Baw.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aG901lH8aEV John Baw wildox John Baw Wed, 01 Feb 2012 07:32:05 -0800 New practices for a new Jesus movement? http://wildoxgib.com/new-practices-for-a-new-jesus-movement http://wildoxgib.com/new-practices-for-a-new-jesus-movement
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(Photo credit: Time Magazine)

Tall Skinny Kiwi picks up on his travels with a blog post on several practices that, according to him, characterise a growing “Jesus movement” in several Asian countries that he visited as part of his 2011 travels.  Asia, together with Africa, is now considered to be Christianity’s new centre of gravity.  The West is so Old-Christianity that it risks becoming irrelevant in Christianity's global picture - So much for showing me the money.  I am summarising the whole of his blog post as I am aware that many of you in my “circle” may not have this guy on your radars (and why don’t you?) – I see great potential here - important shifts that need to be thoroughly processed and discussed.

In this new Jesus movement, according to the skinny, the following 11 practices are driving a growing “tribe” of dynamic new worshiping radicals:

1. Bible Study
a. Simple, consistent, continuous and obedience-based

2. Open houses
a. No worship services
b. Young people dropping-in at any time
c. Doing life together

3. Fringe focus
a. Subculture underbelly folks rather than mainstream
b. Society’s trash becoming Heaven’s jewels

4. Simple habits
a. Bible study involves reading a passage, and asking 3 questions:
i. What does it say?
ii. What does it say to me?
iii. What am I going to do about it?
b. No charismatic superstar preachers – simple instruction by ordinary “lay” believers

5. Good business products
a. Micro businesses providing financial sustainability
b. Sustainable business practices that allow for a blessing of the environment rather than a raping of its resources.

6. System for rehabilitation
a. A building is used for refreshment and rest, as well as for rehab for drug addicts.

7. Native flavour
a. No outside-money pumping programmes

8. Daily rhythms
a. Meeting daily, if only for short periods, is the norm – some meet around a meal, some meet around food.

9. No outreach TO others but rather outreach WITH others
a. Projects to reach out to the poor etc are organised by Christians but people from many religious backgrounds participate.

10. Something for the whole family
a. Attempting reconciliation of the subculture with their often-estranged families.

11. Prayer
a. Casual ongoing prayer forming part of everything that they do – not the hyped-up all-night things that are very prevalent nowadays.
b. Many healings as a result of prayer
c. The supernatural is accepted as normal

These are really generous people and GRACE marks all of their relationships and everything that they do.  The aim behind all of what they do is to impact people’s lives with the GOSPEL rather than building a church community.

DISCUSS.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/614076/Baw.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aG901lH8aEV John Baw wildox John Baw Mon, 30 Jan 2012 03:25:25 -0800 Away find: Escape from your Inbox! http://wildoxgib.com/away-find-escape-from-your-inbox http://wildoxgib.com/away-find-escape-from-your-inbox

I am on a quest to automate and streamline my many Inboxes, sites, feeds and "stuff" that claims my time and leaves me running around and shooting off in a million different directions every day.  I am fighting back!  Apart from deciding NOT to monitor Inboxes on social media (Sorry, you lovely FaceBook and Twitter fans and followers), I am reducing my actual email inboxed to three, Work, Church, and Personal.  I am toying around with this new plugin, called AwayFind that reviews emails for me, and then emails my primary Work email directing me to the inbox in question.  I am starting to use it for my personal email (Gmail account) and I hope this will allow me to hardly monitor my personal inbox at all!  The church email is monitored about twice a day, every weekday - but not weekends.  My work email is reviewed several times a day.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/614076/Baw.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aG901lH8aEV John Baw wildox John Baw Thu, 08 Dec 2011 16:38:26 -0800 It is not the critic who counts http://wildoxgib.com/it-is-not-the-critic-who-counts http://wildoxgib.com/it-is-not-the-critic-who-counts "It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/614076/Baw.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aG901lH8aEV John Baw wildox John Baw Thu, 08 Dec 2011 02:33:00 -0800 Seeing Jesus as the man he was http://wildoxgib.com/seeing-jesus-as-the-man-he-was http://wildoxgib.com/seeing-jesus-as-the-man-he-was

Passion-of-the-christ

 

When we see Jesus as the human being he was, we discover what the word "God" means. Classic Christology doesn't assume a meaning for the word "God" and then tries to fit Jesus into that; it looks long and lovingly at Jesus and then says we need to rethink what we mean by God around that fixed point.


~N.T. Wright

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/614076/Baw.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aG901lH8aEV John Baw wildox John Baw Thu, 08 Dec 2011 01:11:43 -0800 "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." ~ Pablo Picasso http://wildoxgib.com/every-child-is-an-artist-the-problem-is-how-t http://wildoxgib.com/every-child-is-an-artist-the-problem-is-how-t

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/614076/Baw.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aG901lH8aEV John Baw wildox John Baw Thu, 24 Nov 2011 01:06:05 -0800 "Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others." ~ Cicero http://wildoxgib.com/gratitude-is-not-only-the-greatest-of-virtues http://wildoxgib.com/gratitude-is-not-only-the-greatest-of-virtues

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/614076/Baw.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aG901lH8aEV John Baw wildox John Baw Wed, 23 Nov 2011 01:47:12 -0800 Poem: Under the whips of underrate carriers http://wildoxgib.com/poem-under-the-whips-of-underrate-carriers http://wildoxgib.com/poem-under-the-whips-of-underrate-carriers
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(Photo credit: pixelfahrenheit20)

Under the whips of underrate carriers,

Like the emphasized,
We row to harder shores.

Under the whips of underrate carriers,
Our breath is shackled,
Our strength nigh gone.

Under the whips of underrate carriers,
The clouds shall part,
The sun will shine.

With eyes of hope,
through lips of praise,
We are yet to see our golden wings.

(c) 2011 - John K. Baw

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/614076/Baw.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aG901lH8aEV John Baw wildox John Baw Tue, 22 Nov 2011 09:39:02 -0800 Dummies guide to what went wrong in Europe http://wildoxgib.com/dummies-guide-to-what-went-wrong-in-europe http://wildoxgib.com/dummies-guide-to-what-went-wrong-in-europe
Beerhouse415

Helga is the proprietor of a bar.  She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar.  To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later.  Helga keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers' loans).

Word gets around about Helga's "drink now, pay later" marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Helga's bar.  Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in town.  By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Helga gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially  increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages.  Consequently, Helga's gross sales volume increases massively.

A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Helga's borrowing limit.  He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral!!!  At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS.  These "securities" then are bundled and traded on international securities markets.  Naive investors don't really understand that the securities being sold to them as "AA" "Secured Bonds" really are debts of unemployed alcoholics.  Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb!!!, and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation's leading brokerage houses.

One day, even though the bond prices still are climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Helga's bar. He so informs Helga.  Helga then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being unemployed alcoholics they cannot pay back their drinking debts.  Since Helga cannot fulfil her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and Helga's 11 employees lose their jobs.  Overnight, DRINKBOND prices drop by 90%. The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank's liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.  The suppliers of Helga's bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms' pension funds in the BOND securities.  They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds.  Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations.   Her beer supplier goes broke and is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers. 

Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multi-billion pound no-strings attached cash infusion from the government.  The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers who have never been in Helga's bar.

Now do you understand?

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/614076/Baw.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aG901lH8aEV John Baw wildox John Baw Wed, 16 Nov 2011 09:48:45 -0800 "If I have seen further than other men it's because I have stood on the shoulders of giants". - Sir Isaac Newton http://wildoxgib.com/if-i-have-seen-further-than-other-men-its-bec http://wildoxgib.com/if-i-have-seen-further-than-other-men-its-bec

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/614076/Baw.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aG901lH8aEV John Baw wildox John Baw Fri, 11 Nov 2011 02:15:27 -0800 "The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless." ~Jean-Jacques Rousseau http://wildoxgib.com/the-world-of-reality-has-its-limits-the-world http://wildoxgib.com/the-world-of-reality-has-its-limits-the-world

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/614076/Baw.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aG901lH8aEV John Baw wildox John Baw Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:02:56 -0800 Core Values !!!!! http://wildoxgib.com/core-values http://wildoxgib.com/core-values
Photo

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/614076/Baw.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aG901lH8aEV John Baw wildox John Baw Thu, 10 Nov 2011 09:35:00 -0800 The European Bailout explained.... finally it all makes sense! http://wildoxgib.com/the-european-bailout-explained-finally-it-all http://wildoxgib.com/the-european-bailout-explained-finally-it-all

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/614076/Baw.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aG901lH8aEV John Baw wildox John Baw Tue, 01 Nov 2011 03:00:00 -0700 Song of the week! - King of Kings, Majesty!! http://wildoxgib.com/song-of-the-week-king-of-kings-majesty-tags-j http://wildoxgib.com/song-of-the-week-king-of-kings-majesty-tags-j

King of Kings, Majesty, 
God of heaven, living in me
Gentle Savior, closest friend, 
Strong Deliverer, Beginning and End
All within me falls at Your throne
Your Majesty, I can but bow
I lay my all before You now
In royal robes I don't deserve
I live to serve Your Majesty
Earth and heaven worship You, 
God Eternal, Faithful and True
Who bought the nations, 
ransomed souls
Brought this sinner 
near to Your throne
All within me cries out in praise


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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/614076/Baw.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aG901lH8aEV John Baw wildox John Baw Sat, 29 Oct 2011 23:01:37 -0700 Funny Church sign http://wildoxgib.com/funny-church-sign http://wildoxgib.com/funny-church-sign
Church-sign-meeting-jesus

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/614076/Baw.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aG901lH8aEV John Baw wildox John Baw Thu, 06 Oct 2011 07:01:03 -0700 Steve Jobs http://wildoxgib.com/steve-jobs http://wildoxgib.com/steve-jobs
20111006-steve-jobs-04

Stay Hungry.....Stay Foolish

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/614076/Baw.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aG901lH8aEV John Baw wildox John Baw Thu, 29 Sep 2011 12:46:58 -0700 It's International Coffee Day! http://wildoxgib.com/its-international-coffee-day http://wildoxgib.com/its-international-coffee-day
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Happy Coffee Day!!! Today, we all celebrate coffee! Apparently. This, most exquisite of drinks is an elexir that lubricates many of our human connectioins and social interactions. Stop what you are doing, like, right now.... Pour yourself a cup of java... And sit down with a loved one and talk. There.

Read more about this here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Coffee_Day

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/614076/Baw.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aG901lH8aEV John Baw wildox John Baw Tue, 27 Sep 2011 06:33:02 -0700 Wangari Maathai - We mourn the passing of a heroine. http://wildoxgib.com/wangari-maathai-we-mourn-the-passing-of-a-her http://wildoxgib.com/wangari-maathai-we-mourn-the-passing-of-a-her
Wangari_maathai_portrait_by_ma


The world must again mourn the passing of a heroine.  At the age of 71, Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai has passed away whilst being treated for ovarian cancer.  An environmental and political activist, she tirelessly worked for the eradication of poverty, the empowerment of women and the development of sustainable environmental reforestation - she did these things all in one fell swoop.


"At last count, the Green Belt Movement she helped to found had assisted women to plant more than 40 million trees. She understood and acted on the inextricable links between poverty, rights and environmental sustainability. One can but marvel at her foresight and the scope of her success. She was a true African heroine," - Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/614076/Baw.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aG901lH8aEV John Baw wildox John Baw