iDrum is a mix of tracks and loops and drums and buckets and saucepans and looks a bit like this:

If you can’t see this video in your RSS reader or email, then click here.

Catch them on Facebook or Twitter (Dan Abbott or #idrum)

In my workshops (one of five available to delegates) we were exploring ideas for ‘creating prayer spaces’ both within churches, to make them accessible to casual visitors, and beyond, taking the practice of prayer into public places. I’d set up a load of prayer activities from Sanctum, our prayer space for schools, but we talked about prayer spaces in all sorts of other places too.

I gave people a print out of some key ideas to work through plus a very introductory and incomplete list of links to some sources of inspiration, so here they are with a few extras thrown in.

PrayerSpacesinSchools –  Lots of prayer space stories and downloadable resources, many of which can be adapted for other settings.

24-7 Prayer – The UK home of the 24-7 prayer movement with inspiring stories.

Christine Sine - A wealth of worship and prayer ideas, with some lovely written prayers for different times and seasons.

Jonny Baker – One of this country’s top bloggers on the emerging church and pioneer mission, combining thoughtful reflection with news and links to many others in this field. Look for “Worship Tricks”, prayer and worship ideas collated by Jonny over many years.

mysoularium.com – A project of Campus Crusade for Christ in the USA using pictures as a way of inspiring spiritual conversations or reflection. The web site is, of course, based on a specific set of cards, but the idea is easily transferrable.

re:jesus – An awesome collection of creative ideas for mission, prayer and worship

www.worshipworkshop.org.uk

The Quiet Gardens movement- A simple ministry of hospitality and prayer

Fresh Expressions – Stories and resources for those pushing new ways of being church

Embody – inspiration, coaching, projects and resources. There’s so much creativity here you have to go see. Especially if you want an “Aha!” moment.

Labyrinth – one of the best contemporary re-imaginings of a traditional spiritual ritual, this is an idea that has stood the test of time and the resources are available through the web site.

Candy Chang – Not Christian (as far as I know), but full of creative ideas that might trigger a prayer space activity, especially in public places. We’re already using one of them and have plans for a couple of others.

Calm Jar – An example of a simple creative activity that we’ll be using in our next Sanctum prayer space. Read Psalm 46:9-11!

What other web sites have inspired you in your thinking, practice or creativity when it comes to prayer spaces?

“Crucially, the search for a renewed vision for RE was not carried out in isolation but flowed from the focus on developing an awareness of SMSC across the school community. If RE was to succeed, it needed to take its starting point from the wider priorities of the school.”

The_Bankfield_School.pdf

h/t RE Today

Prayer Spaces in Schools on Twitter, Facebook and Vimeo

I confess, I struggle a bit with to do lists and, well… getting things done. And I’ve read David Allen. My problem isn’t with writing a to do list. That’s fine. It’s just that then I have a big list of tasks staring me in the face. No, actually, they’re more like a small crowd of noisy people jostling for attention who keep moving around so I can’t focus on any of them. Trying to get them to organise themselves into what’s the top priority for right now sometimes seems almost impossible.

The thing is, what’s most important changes from day to day. Planning to speak at a church in two Sundays time is suddenly very important today because I’m behind with letting them know what I’ll speak on. But now that I’ve had that conversation with the service leader the priority of this task drops back because I’ve got a Trustees half-day meeting on Saturday and we’ve got some exciting and important stuff to discuss and decide on. So that’s now my main priority.

One of my favourite bloggers is Michael Hyatt, whose inspirational posts pop into my inbox each day. And today’s post, when you feel overwhelmed by your workload pulled some threads together for me that may help.

Whilst I write tasks down in a notebook, it’s not very dynamic. If I’m doing things properly I need to evaluate and then re-write my task list fairly regularly. Being a Myers Briggs N rather than an S I’m not so good at this. I’d also rather have a task list that syncs effortlessly between my MacBook Pro and my iPhone. If the threshold of effort required to maintain the list is too high (and that’s not very high at all) the whole system becomes moribund. I’ve tried some very good apps, but none has quite worked for me.

So I was pleased when Apple introduced “reminders” with iOS5 – here was a simple way to list the tasks I need to remember. But it still wasn’t helping me function effectively the way I’d hoped. What I’d missed, and Michael’s blog post caused me to see for the first time, was that I need to prioritise my tasks according to Covey’s hierarchy of:
A—urgent and important
B—important but not urgent
C—urgent but not important
D—not urgent or important

iCal reminders allows me to do this (Priority: High, Medium, Low, None) but I also realised (duuhhh!!) that I can review these priorities dynamically throughout the day. I don’t have to re-write a list, I can just change the priority and by setting iCal to sort by priority my most important tasks are always at the top. Now, when I feel either flooded (too many things to do) or becalmed (I’m sure there must be something I should be working on) iCal reminders can help get back on task.

We’re currently running a two lesson series on Money Management for Year 11 students in one of the schools we work with. It covers things like budgeting, planning savings, avoiding bad debt, the pressure to buy and generosity, all through a mixture of information, interaction and sometimes hilarious discussion.

Moneysavingexpert.com have been campaigning for a while to get finance education into schools as a compulsory part of the PSHE curriculum, including penning an open letter to David Cameron.

The response from the Prime Minister is here.

Why it matters to those of us in the UK (and the rest of the world)

Wikipedia - SOPA and PIPA – Learn more

Google – End Piracy, Not Liberty

69. A curriculum with breadth and balance in maintained schools is likely to consist of the National Curriculum subjects, religious education (RE) and a variety of other courses and programmes, including extra-curricular and enhancement activities put on by the school and its partners. Where a school does not provide the National Curriculum and RE, inspectors will need to fully explore the school’s reasons.

In the light of concerns about the sidelining of RE this may be an encouragement.

84 An important aspect of the overall effectiveness judgement is a consideration of how well the school contributes to the promotion of the pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

SMSC gets several mentions, reaffirming it’s place in the ethos of a school, and there’s a restatement of the basic evaluation criteria, “Pupils ~ development is shown by:…”

64 Check that the school takes reasonable steps to ensure that pupils are safe on the school site, for example by monitoring visitors or volunteers or those using the premises during school time.

If you’re a visitor/volunteer, expect to be monitored – you know it’s right!