Hope you enjoy this little slideshow of Luke & Eliana. It was built in seconds using the vuvox.com photo slide application for facebook:

Do you ever get fed up of navigating your way around the web with bookmarks, forms and buttons? Wouldn't it be nice to just type quick commands into your browser which got you right to the page you wanted. How about these for example:

• gim pigs - to go straight to a google image search for pigs
• amuk bill bryson - to find books etc. by the Thunderbolt Kid on amazon.co.uk
• rightmove bs32 - search for houses for sale in Bradley Stoke
• qdef missional - get a 10 second popup with the definition of an important word
  

Yubnub is what you need. You can even write your own commands, like I did:

• nbv eph 4 26 - see a comparison of the chosen verse in 9 different English versions plus the biblical language with translation notes

Do you believe in penal substitutionary atonement? Here is an illustration of how it works in the realm of Information Technology. Hardware and software designers are glad that most users consider that their equipment is vicariously responsible and should therefore be punished:

Enjoy this interesting take on the Mac vs. PC ads. Would you prefer to call yourself a Christian or a follower of Christ?

You can watch the whole series of 6 videos on Bramsvan's YouTube channel .

Hat tip to Eddie 

Michael Frost - Hendrickson Publishers

"This book  is written for those Christians who find themselves falling into the cracks between contemporary secular Western culture and a quaint, old-fashioned church culture of respectability and conservatism."

Our situation is much like that of the Jewish exiles in Babylon.

Just as Jerusalem was finally razed  in 587BC so Frost says "Christendom is over and we need to get over it"

We are conscious of the humiliation of God's people in the eyes of the society amongst whom we now live. a society where "Christianity is believed by many to have been tried and failed."

We now find ourselves caught between the temptation to sink roots deep into the foreign soil of  the 'host empire'  and the desire to retreat into the comfort of a Christian ghetto and spend our energies lamenting or trying to restore the temporal cultural supports of Christendom.

The book is an exhortation to resist the inclinations to assimilation or fruitless lament for past glories and to embrace a robust, confident Christ-centred faith and lifestyle, lived boldly together right under the nose of our host culture. Frost divides the book into four sections... Read More

Time for an update on what has been going on in our lives. The first bit of news is BIG!

Our sovereign God caught us all by surprise when we learned in July that his good plans for us include a fifth child! We thought that four children were more than enough, but no we really are expecting yet another, probably in March. Having broken the news to the rest of the family and thought things through, we realise that we need to find a house with a bit more space. We have put our house on the market this week, so please pray with us for a buyer. We can’t afford to pay much more for a different house, especially considering that the total costs of moving now amount to around £15000 – half of which is tax. We don’t have any significant savings, so our mortgage will need to increase substantially. Apart from moving, we will also need to change our car before the baby is born since we currently only have a six seater. We really would appreciate your continued prayers particularly for Margo in the pregnancy, but also for the whole family as we go through lots of change again.

Luke's first day

• Paul’s trip to the US in June was helpful for his IT work and Margo survived without losing her sanity. AIM’s new online personnel placement system which we have been talking about for so long is finally close to being launched. AIM’s reorganization into regions is going well, but we would appreciate prayer for the upcoming International Council meetings.
  
• Christopher took his French GCSE a year early and achieved an excellent A* grade. He is now beginning year 11 and will take about a dozen more GCSEs next summer. He and Emma really enjoyed attending a Christian event called Creation Fest in Devon with their cousins. Emma begins year 10, her first year of GCSE courses.
• At the other end of his school years, four year old Luke was very excited to begin at Holy Trinity Primary School last Tuesday. He was very tired by the end of the week but is very happy to go each morning.
• Eliana, our little two year old whirlwind continues to keep us all laughing and on our toes as she rushes around the house organising and disorganising everyone and everything. Keeping things in a state ready for prospective buyers to view the house is a big challenge!
• We took our car through the channel tunnel and drove down through France for a relaxing family holiday in Spain with Margo’s parents and her sister’s family. While we were there Margo reached the big four-o milestone! ... (continued)
  

Top social networking site Facebook allows you to do many things with varying degrees of usefulness. One useful thing it does do is to let you ask questions for your friends to answer. I asked the question Are all Christians called to be missionaries? which has produced some varied and conflicting responses. My good friend Eddie Arthur wasn't too impressed by the question, but due to the 250 word response limit on Facebook he answered it with a post on his blog. Feel free to post your responses to the question as comments here.