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Reimagining Mission From Urban Places
Reimagining Mission From Urban Places
Within a changing social and political context, the role of the church in public life and the response of Christians to social issues has taken on renewed energy. Churches have entered enthusiastically into community engagement projects such as foodbanks and night shelters, with a broad understanding of this as mission. Missional Pastoral Care offers much needed reflection about the nature of mission and about expectations for missional outcomes. Using the stories of team members within the Eden Network (which emphasises an ‘incarnational’ approach to urban mission) the book demonstrates that at its best mission happens in a shared life rather than being about ‘us’ telling the listening world. A timely and provocative call to churches, missional groups and those training for ministry to reflect more deeply on their practice and theology, the book insists that mission is about difference, love, locality and long-term consistency and, at its best, is slow, complicated and messy.
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the british evangelist
the british evangelist
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Popular Music and the Myths of Madness
Popular Music and the Myths of Madness
Studies of opera, film, television, and literature have demonstrated how constructions of madness may be referenced in order to stigmatise but also liberate protagonists in ways that reinforce or challenge contemporaneous notions of normality. But to date very little research has been conducted on how madness is represented in popular music. In an effort to redress this imbalance, Nicola Spelman identifies links between the anti-psychiatry movement and representations of madness in popular music of the 1960s and 1970s, analysing the various ways in which ideas critical of institutional psychiatry are embodied both verbally and musically in specific songs by David Bowie, Lou Reed, Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper, The Beatles, and Elton John. She concentrates on meanings that may be made at the point of reception as a consequence of ideas about madness that were circulating at the time. These ideas are then linked to contemporary conventions of musical expression in order to illustrate certain interpretative possibilities. Supporting evidence comes from popular musicological analysis - incorporating discourse analysis and social semiotics - and investigation of socio-historical context. The uniqueness of the period in question is demonstrated by means of a more generalised overview of songs drawn from a variety of styles and eras that engage with the topic of madness in diverse and often conflicting ways. The conclusions drawn reveal the extent to which anti-psychiatric ideas filtered through into popular culture, offering insights into popular music's ability to question general suppositions about madness alongside its potential to bring issues of men's madness into the public arena as an often neglected topic for discussion.
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Orbits
Orbits
Orbits: A Collection of Short Stories and Minute Plays is an entertaining and futuristic book about out-of-the-ordinary fictional characters who are not similar to the people who we meet every day. The short stories and minute plays combine sci-fi futuristic view points and visions, humor, and philosophy. The book is about our world and beyond our passion, which people have for one another, and beyond the appreciation they share for the present, and their dreams they live in the future. The book is about our inner feelings, futuristic thoughts, hopes, disappointments, and imaginations to conquer the future and the complexity of the most imminent step forward to the future.
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Reset the Heart
Reset the Heart
When the #BlackLivesMatter protest movement burst into dynamic action following the shooting death of young Michael Brown in the fall of 2014 in Ferguson, MO, a good number of clergy and lay leaders in greater St. Louis sprang to action and learned anew what it took to “put some feet to their prayers.” However, as improvisational efforts continued to rally and organize churches toward the enduring work of confronting the insidious violence of systemic social injustices in their own backyard, these religious leaders ran head-on into a familiar yet perplexing wall: the incapacity and unwillingness of their faith communities to respond. In many cases, the resistance was (and still is) fierce, eerily reminiscent of the stand-offs that divided religious communities and leadership in the 1960s Civil Rights era. If the Church’s teaching, learning, and practice of faith is purportedly transformative, then where was/is that faith when it was/is needed most? If good religious formation had been happening - or had it? - then why the enduring signs of indifference, paralysis, apathy, exasperation, resistance, symptoms of anesthetized moral consciousness and debilitated hope in the face of pervasive social-cultural violence? The answer may come in a searing indictment: that in an emerging cultural-religious era in which religious identity, expression, and experience are increasingly pluralistic, yet also politicized, polarizing, and racialized, Christian faith communities—even those of progressive theological persuasions—are still held under dominant cultural captivity, and fashioned by colonizing teaching strategies of “disimagination” – such that the stories (theologies) and rituals (practices) of the faith have effectively become obstacles that anesthetize moral agency and debilitate courageous action for hope and change. This book addresses the above practical concerns with three paradigmatic questions: 1. What does it mean to educate for faith in a world marked by violence? 2. How are Christian faith communities complicit in the teaching and learning of violence? 3. What renewed practices of faith and educational leadership yield potential for the unlearning and unmaking of violence? An organizing thesis drives the inquiry: Thinking and teaching for violence-resisting action as Christians requires an on-purpose setting of our hearts in a world that violates and harms with impunity. Against violent “disimagination”and its conscience-numbing instruments, Christian religious communities are being challenged to regenerate radical forms of prophetic, protested faith, the skills and instincts of which must be honed deliberately. This occurs through intentional and strategic forms of public consciousness raising for the sake of participation and action - an action that moves toward and is fueled by critical, insurrectional, resurrectional, hope.
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The English Doctor
The English Doctor
The book describes what goes on behind the scenes in undergraduate and postgraduate medical education, scientific research and general medical practice in the United Kingdom. It covers the years 1945 to 2012 and is an account of a unique medical journey. The author was brought up by parents who were general practitioners in Yorkshire. His upbringing was thoroughly middle class and his observations of his parents work and lifestyle resulted in his wanting to be a doctor. Medical student life at University College London was hard work. Several of his teachers were eminent and world famous. Two of them were Professors J Z Young (anatomy) and Andrew Huxley (Physiology and Nobel Prize winner). Life-long friendships were made with fellow students who worked together dissecting a human body. Experiments were performed on one another. The social life in the 1960s of a group of medical student friends is described. Studying octopuses and squid in Naples, Italy. Was part of an extra degree course which was undertaken before starting hospital clinical studies? These were at The London Hospital, Whitechapel, in the east end of London. There was so much to learn before being allowed to practice as a doctor. Clinical studies were undertaken at The London Hospital, Whitechapel. This is one of the oldest hospitals in the UK. There is a huge learning curve which resulted in a doctor just about able to deal with patients. A year of pre-registration work started on the medical wards at Mile End Hospital followed by a period in the Receiving Room (Accident and Emergency Department) at The London Hospital. The pre-registration house jobs sometimes involved working 100 hours a week. Nights in the accident emergency department were manned by one pre-registration house officer and a nurse. There is a description of what is involved undertaking research to PhD level in physiology. A new clinical thermometer was designed, tested and eventually manufactured and sold by the instrument developer Muirhead Ltd. So soon after being a student, the wheels had turned and the author was teaching students himself. There is an account of starting work as a General Practitioner in Cheltenham having not seen a single patient for the previous three years. After that he worked for a short time in a London practice and then in Castleford, West Yorkshire from 1978 to 2005. He and his wife build the practice up from a zero base to a thriving training practice housed in a large modern clinic. Doing this was financially risky as well as stressful. The development of postgraduate general practice education in Yorkshire in the last two decades of the twentieth century is described. There are descriptions of becoming a trainer of prospective GPs and then organising and managing trainers. The role of a GP tutor in the education of GPs was undertaken as a specific job. Work on the assessment of the competence of trainee GPs was overseen in the Yorkshire Deanery, based in Leeds, West Yorkshire. Work on the monitoring of the GP contract with the NHS and the GP appraisal scheme was undertaken by NHS Wakefield district, a Primary Care Trust. The author worked for both these bodies and what was involved in GP appraisal and inspection of practices target achievements is examined in detail. Work with ill and underperforming general practitioners is described as well as mentoring GPs with problems and worries. Very few patient problems and cases are included in this book which rather tells of the work that went on in the background. It is that work that produces high quality doctors and also year on year improvement in patient care. The last chapter involved informal interviews in 2012 with people studying and working in the same fields experienced over the years by the author and outlined above. Readers are asked to judge whether the present day situation is an improvement on
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Britain and the War on Terror
Britain and the War on Terror
Why did Britain come to play such a prominent role in the war on terror and why did the military instrument come to be the dominant theme in the British prosecution of what was an ideological and political struggle? This book is an analysis of Britain’s war against Al Qaeda and the phenomenon of international terrorism which marked a paradigm shift in the nature and conduct of war in the twenty-first century. At the heart of the book is an attempt to understand why Britain, which possessed a wealth of experience in the conduct of counterterrorism, counterinsurgency and small wars, developed a strategic and operational design to defeat the Islamist threat which proved to be deeply flawed. In addressing this question the book explores the complex intellectual, doctrinal and geopolitical challenge posed by Al Qaeda and international terrorism and how and why the British response took the form that it did. In conducting this analysis the book raises important questions about the assumptions and perceptions of those in government who led the UK into this conflict, the nature of the civil military relationship in Britain and how well it functioned, and finally the competence of its security forces in being able to deal with this threat both domestically and overseas.
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The Handbook of Golf History
The Handbook of Golf History
The Handbook of Golf History By: Dr. Douglas Lonnstrom, Professor of Statistics, Siena College and Sara Riso, Summer Scholar, Sienna College The game of Golf evolved from various forms of stick and ball games over a long period of time. While it is difficult to determine the exact origin of golf, this HANDBOOK was written to be an informative guide tracing the history of Golf back to the 1400s. Topics covered are terms, balls, clubs, majors, women’s Golf, PGA and LPGA results by year from the beginning. There is a trivia quiz to test your knowledge. Until you read this book you will never know how little you knew about the game.
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Lock Lane to Australia - 102 Sporting Venues Featuring Castleford
Lock Lane to Australia - 102 Sporting Venues Featuring Castleford
The author is one of Castleford's most dedicated supporters. His personal experience following the club stretches back almost fifty years. In addition, he has endeavoured to educate himself about the early yearsof the team's fortunes, not least the achievements of the 1930s and the doldrums of the 1950s.
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100+ Castleford Victories 1926–2015
100+ Castleford Victories 1926–2015
The author is one of Castleford's most dedicated supporters. His personal experience following the club stretches back almost fifty years. In addition, he has endeavoured to educate himself about the early yearsof the team's fortunes, not least the achievements of the 1930s and the doldrums of the 1950s.
Preview available
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