Saturday 28 February 2009

Message to the Masses!

Its refreshing to any Church, youth group or CU to know where to find guest speakers of passion and encouragement. That is why Emerging Culture offers you a resource of speakers and preachers. We love coming and supporting anyone who is putting on an event that aims to take the message to the masses!

Emerging Culture would love to support your event, service or mission through our speaking team, Dot and Darren. They would love to come and visit you and are available to speak at your event whenever needed.



To find out more about them, or to check their diaries, visit

Friday 27 February 2009

Do you need a laugh?

This video made my day! It's so funny! I'm currently running a poll on which bit is the funniest, make sure you enter and share your funniest bit!

Wednesday 25 February 2009

Thirst for Life



Every wednesday in the office, we read the newspapers. We have a look at the main issues in society and pray about them.

Today, I was reading an article about binge drinking and it just really reminded me that alchohol can have such a massive hold on people's lives. We can get into a cycle where we aren't even noticing how much we're drinking.

The newspaper had some scary stats in it, which came as quite a shock to me. It challenged me that as Christians, we have the opportunity to be so counter-cultural in this aspect. We can be people who are holy (set apart), who strive to live life in fullness, because we know Jesus, not because we've had a few drinks.


Thirst for life is a project that encourages people to give up alchohol for lent. 40 days with no alchohol. There have been so many awesome stories of people who have done this and their lives have been changed. They have realised that they dont need a drink or two, to have a good night.

Why not try it? If you've not thought of something to give up for lent, try this, and see what happens!

For more info check out http://www.thirstforlife.org/

Tuesday 24 February 2009

Emerging Culture's Grand Day Out!


Emerging Culture went on an office trip yesterday!

We went to see /thoughts magazine printed.
We walked into their factory and the first thing we saw was a huge (genuinely enormous) printing machine, printing 10,000 sheets of /thoughts per hour!

We had a tour round their factory and saw the whole process, from when we send them /thoughts as a pdf, to stapling them and putting them in boxes.

You know when you were little and everything was exciting...it was just like that! I could have been auditioning for the kids part in a Disneyland advert.
"Oooo", "Amazing", "Wow" and so on.

Check out half of the next /thoughts magazine, they print onto massive sheets like these:





The picture below shows a quarter of the printing for /thoughts, the stack of paper was genuinely about 4 foot tall!



So all in all, a grand day out!

If you want to make sure you get a copy of the next /thoughts, go to www.emergingculture.co.uk/thoughts
and order them straight to your door.

Friday 20 February 2009

Emerging Culture Fun and Games


Most of the team turned up to work battered and bruised this week... after sunday afternoon's touch rugby game. Dot showed she is no push over against the boys, but did end up falling head over heals as she attempted to kick the ball, covering her back in mud! Definately, a sight not to have missed.

Natalie showed off her southern hempisphere skills (Nat is from New Zealand), while Josh just seemed content to get as muddy as possible. However when it came to driving home he realised that this had not been such a good idea, and in turn made everyone take off any muddy clothing before entering his car. Josh ended up wearing nothing but shorts on a very cold day!


The Emerging Culture team has been working hard on... organising street teams for the Pentecost festival, and arranging the Salsa Night, which we will be hosting at the festival in May. Even I (who has no dancing ability what-so-ever) am very tempted to go along and join in withwhat looks to be a proper good night.


Darren (Big D) has had his nose in his books this week as he tries to study for his degree, while also working hard on the man-made project. Man-made is a soon to be released youth resource encouraging young guys to take up the responsibilities that manhood brings!


Carina (Ms Throgmorton) and Dot (or Dorothy, which she hates) who are both self confessed shop-aholics returned from their weekend outing with no less than 8 bags each and have been giving us a catwalk show of their new purchses ever since. Most noteable to the new collection is Ms Throgmorton's new bright pink coat which she bought to match her umbrella?!haha. I for one always thought you would buy an umbrella to match your coat, and not the other way around, but hey what do I know?! However none of their items compared to Josh's new trainers which are black, pink, yellow and white. Despite the ridicule he still loves them!


A major project that seems to have taken up the time of most team members is the Hope for Planet Earth Tour, which is about to kick off around the country. The tour focuses on looking at climate change from a Christian perspective aiming to equip us all to take action. Are you coming? It's going to be a great tour, so make sure you catch them when they're near you. Go to http://www.hopeforplanetearth.co.uk/


With lots more work (and fun) to come we thank God for allowing us to be involved in so many projects and blessing the office so heavily in all that we do.

Thursday 19 February 2009

New Intern



Emerging
Culture
Internship
Avaliable
Now!









Internships with Emerging Culture provide you with an opportunity to develop and refine your skills, whether they are in administration, project management, mission, encouragement.

Being an intern would include...
~Helping you develop your skills
~Exploring a vocation in your selected area
~Loads of experience on a variety of projects and missions
~Training and personal development, specific to your strengths and gifts
~Work in an office based role for 22 hours per week
~Hands on experience of community projects
~Free Pent House accommodation in the heart of Wimbledon
~The opportunity to see dreams become a reality


We are currently recruiting for...

MISSION ASSISTANT
As a mission assistant, you will be helping spearhead some of the Emerging Culture missions, from urban mission in Leeds, University missions around the country,beach missions inPolzeath, to mission training. You will be co-ordinating delegates on teams, working on admin and pioneering new and exciting mission trips.
Start date: Immediate Contract period: 2-9 months


EMERGING CULTURE INTERN
As the Emerging Culture intern, you will have the opportunity to see every side of Emerging Culture. From working on FRESH, to working on new projects, potential tours, /thoughts magazine, co-ordinating missions and more. You will also be involved in dreaming the dreams and facilitating people's visions for future projects.
Start date: Immediate Contract period: 2-9 months


For more info, check out the website www.emergingculture.co.uk/intern
or call Dot on 020 8781 1734

Friday 13 February 2009

Visions becoming Reality


We love vision, we love seeing what God calls people to pioneer and pursue.

At Emerging Culture we are passionate about releasing people for the visions that God gives us.Sometimes it's really hard to see what God's vision for us is, and other times it's really hard to see why we have been given a vision, and nothing is happening. I was reminded of a section of Oswald Chambers' 'My Utmost for His Highest'. It's a brilliant daily devotional book, that is really helpful for giving a godly perspective on every day.

He says this..."God gives us a vision, and then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of that vision. It is in the valley that so many of us give up and faint. Every God-given vision will become real if we will only have patience. Just think of the enormous amount of free time God has! He is never in a hurry. Yet we are always in such a frantic hurry."

This really challenged me to have a new perspective on vision and on time. How often I forget to trust that God's timing is perfect! I am always convinced that I know better.Not only that, but the idea that God gives me a vision, and it's not just the vision that I need to refine and work out the details of, it's my life as well.

God is so committed to my character. When He gives me something, whether thats a vision for a specific project, whether thats a heart for justice, whether thats the gift of service...God is using these to change my character and then to change the world and my community as a result.

God help me to trust you, help me to surrender my plans to you.

God build and refine my character, use me to change the world.

To read more of the extract from Oswald Chambers, check out www.myutmost.org/

Thursday 12 February 2009

Emerging Culture Blog


Hey guys!

As you can see, Emerging Culture has a new blog.

Here you will find out what it's like working for Emerging Culture, what we're involved in, what we're looking forward to, what we're thinking about and what God is up to.

We will also be providing various resources via the afterthoughts page of the website. This is an interactive way to engage with the team and to share your ideas and thoughts. We are always eager to hear what you're up to and how we can support you and encourage you.

Keep checking out the blog for up-to-date info on all our projects. We are looking forward to hearing from you!

Chat soon!