Israel 2019
As part of my sabbatical, I've had the chance to spend 10 days in Israel and Palestine. I'd highly recommend it.
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James's Weblog
KidStart: Unique cashback for kids from websites you use anyway
Edit: November 2021
For some months now, I've not found a single retailer not on other cashback sites listed on KidStart. Where retailers are on both, cashback rates are consistently higher on the other sites. I can therefore no longer think of a good reason to use KidStart. Use TopCashback, and if you want to give your cashback to your kids then go ahead - they'll get more that way anyway than if you do it through KidStart.
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Lampstands
I often hear it said that if you join a local church, you haven't just joined a branch of the church, or a part of the church. You are a member of the church. Each local church is the church. At the same time, the church throughout the world is one.
One thought just struck me that makes this clearer.
In the book of Exodus, the people are told how to build a tabernacle, a tent in which God can live. One of the pieces of furniture in that tabernacle is a golden lampstand. It symbolises that God lives amongst his people.
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Supertuxkart
After over 10 years of development, SuperTuxKart has released version 1.0.
It's been a long road. In December 2009, the long task of porting over to an entirely new codebase, Irrlicht, was complete. In December 2014, a new version was released with a new graphics rendering engine that made the 3d graphics faster and a lot more realistic. But still the versions were numbered 0.x.
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Sabbatical Study
In my earlier post, I outlined my plans for a sabbatical next month. Part of the plan is for study. I said I'd explain what I plan to study.
In brief, I want to study two things, and they interrelate.
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New Release Bible Reading Plan Generator
Over 10 years ago, I first published a piece of software called Bible Reading Plan Generator. It is very simple: You enter a list of books of the Bible you want to read (or a pre-prepared list, such as "Gospels"), and the number of days you want to spend reading them. It will divide those books up into the most evenly lengthed sections possible.
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Luke's resurrection account
Luke's resurrection account comes in Luke 24:1-12. In common with Mark, Jesus himself does not make an appearance in the account of the empty tomb.
Instead, we encounter the experiences of various other people. Significantly, as you read Luke's account, there is an emphasis on the words spoken by a number of individuals. Language of speaking, of words, of sayings dominates the account.
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Sabbatical Plans
From the middle of May, I'm taking sabbatical for 3 months. This is something that the Church of England encourages all its ordained ministers to do, somewhere between every 7 and 10 years. It's an opportunity to recharge, to refresh, to wind down, to have new ideas, to study, to rekindle the love for the Lord that so easily fades with the pressures of ministry day-in day-out.
I have a number of things planned.
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A Few Thoughts on Bullying
Earlier this week, our Deanery Synod had an excellent 45 minute presentation from one of the clergy in our deanery, Revd Dr Lorraine Turner. Lorraine's doctoral thesis was on the subject of bullying as experienced by clergy, and her subject with us was bullying.
Clearly, 45 minutes is far too short a time for anything other than the most cursive of introductions, especially for someone who has studied this with the thoroughness required for a PhD. Nevertheless, it was extremely helpful, for reasons including the following:
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