Friends and Heroes - the gift of knowledge

BBC2 has agreed a new broadcast slot for the Friends and Heroes series.





Friends and Heroes is a cartoon series that seeks to "entertain, educate and inform, introducing a new generation, whatever their faith, to the stories of the Old and New Testament."

Concerned that children today do not lose the shared cultural memory that has informed our collective culture, moral codes and religion for generations, the series, also available on DVD, aims to "empower children to listen to their conscience and to make good decisions about respect, kindness, compassion, faith and tolerance, based on knowledge and not ignorance".

Visit http://uk.friendsandheroes.com/ for more.

rejesus 777

Imagine a website all about the life, teaching and followers of Jesus that attracted tens of thousands unique visitors a month… that website is rejesus.co.uk (at least 25,639 last month).

Hundreds of churches already link to rejesus.co.uk, finding it the best possible way to give visitors to their sites information about the person at the centre of their faith. Denominations also link to the site – two and a half percent of all referals come from the Church of England website (www.cofe.anglican.org/). Currently there are 777 live links to rejesus.co.uk! and that number is growing every day.

It is only with voluntary contributions that rejesus is able to maintain an attractive, compelling and up to date site. Could you do three things today to enable rejesus.co.uk to continue to serve the churches in the UK and beyond?

1) The informal report for the last financial year is at www.christianity.org.uk/downloads/rejesus07.pdf - please have a read – I’m sure you will be as inspired as I was when I read it - and circulate it as widely as possible.

2) LINK to rejesus.co.uk from your websites, in your email footers and on leaflets and stationery your church produces/uses – it’s there for you.

3) Please support rejesus.co.uk financially. Remaining contemporary and culturally relevant is not easy. rejesus's costs are very small, but such an extensive and creative site needs financial support. You can give online: http://www.rejesus.co.uk/about_us/donate.html or can send donations to: rejesus.co.uk, 27 Tavistock Square, London. WC1H 9HH.

Thank you.

Evangelism UK

Last month saw the launch of a new website dedicated to providing news items and information on evangelism for church leaders. Brainchild of the Group for Evangelisation (GfE), a coordinating group of Churches Together in England, http://evangelismuk.typepad.com/ aims to highlight useful resources and to help communication across networks. The site, managed by Capt. Jim Currin (Church Army) for GfE, is well worth bookmarking or subscribing to as it will provide a comprehensive source of information from across the churches.

Acts of Random Kindness?

A new film opens in UK cinemas on 3rd August. The follow-up to Bruce Almighty, Evan Almighty is reported to be one of the most expensive comedies ever made (~$175 million).
Reviews have generally been good and there are certainly themes that could serve to provoke interesting discussions, in and outside of the churches, such as stewardship of the earth, acts of random kindness (ARK!), the power of prayer and God’s overarching, loving, creational intent.

I saw a sneak preview of the film last night and one of the most profound moments is when God explains to Evan's bewildered wife what He thinks the story of the flood is really all about. I'll leave it to you to decide whether "God" is right or not. Go and see the film. On balance it is worth it.

There is a strong anti-corruption pro-nature/environment message in the film, which I can only applaud. I have to say though that if I was going to spend 175 million dollars on getting moral or Christian messages out there I think I would want more bang for my bucks! But then that is not ultimately why Evan Almighty was made of course...

That said, look out for new Evan Almighty content at http://www.rejesus.co.uk/ in the next few days. This is too good an opportunity to miss in terms of reflection and discussion and Christian engagement with our neighbours.