little bits of everything

On a Sunday morning I teach the 5 to 8 year olds at " Hope Street " at our church, Union Baptist Church . Pascal said, "I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time" (in French). I don't think teaching children is an easy option compared to adults. I find I need to take the time to make the lessons simple. It's a challenge I enjoy. I've been planning for this Sunday and we're covering the passage from Luke 12:6: Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. 7Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. I haven't seen sparrows for sale in the shops recently, so the way I'm going to bring this picture up to date is to talk about carnations which are fairly cheap, yet attractive, scented and (so I found out this evening) edible.

Those clever people at Utata have done some clever computer stuff to take photos from flickr and present them nicely in an annual photo essay project, Utata speaks . Here's my essay " A family holiday in France ".

Barn wall Originally uploaded by paulmorriss Click this picture and then feel free to browse some more. My France set .

The Top Gear have recently asked for examples of silly road signs. One that amuses me are the "Think Bike" road signs: What are you supposed to do if you're riding a bike and you come across one? Spend a few seconds considering how fortunate you are to be riding a bike when all around you almost everyone else is in their metal cages? Check that you've turned the choke off? That you've switched the fuel switch away from reserve? If you ride a bike sometimes, but you're in a car when you see it, there's a chance that you may forget you're in a car and nod to the bike coming the other way, or try to squeeze through a gap that's too wide for a car. Still, I'm glad that the car drivers are thinking of us.

Doctor Who/Shopping List Originally uploaded by paulmorriss What happens when you mix some Doctor Who fridge magnets with shopping list fridge magnets

My Ebay feedback is now greater than my age. I don't know if that's significant. In case you're wondering what my age is, my feedback is the answer to life the universe and everything.

Walking through the leaves Originally uploaded by paulmorriss I get a chance to do some short abstract pieces.

I've just read a booklet called " Online Church ? First Steps Towards Virtual Incarnation", by Mark Howe. It is published by Grove Books, who's tagline is "Not the last word... but often the first". Mark has been involved in St Pixels, an online church , which you can find at stpixels.com . He writes, "St Pixels is one of the older and larger online churches, so it is likely that all online churches will face many of the issues that St Pixels has encountered". He describes the profile of the participants, gathered via a survey. The typical "member" of St Pixels is a British female in her forties with experience of church leadership. Although it is an online church from time to time the members organise meetings amongst themselves. Like any church , in order to stop things descending into chaos, some leadership is necessary. A management team of eight people runs St Pixels. I could tell you more, but that would mean that you might ...

For the first time in my life I've bought a domain name: unionbaptistkids.org . I set it up so that the Children's activities at our church have a presence on the internet. I got the idea when I went on a CPAS training day . Someone there said you could set up a website for your church in 5 minutes. He was talking about a blog really. Even though the blog format is fairly constrained, it's good enough for our purposes.

Since I was a child Radio 4 has kept me company on sick days. I still remember as a child under 10 listening to the news and hearing pretty much every hour about some famous person dying, I forget who. I always loved the Today programme with its fast moving mix of topical stories. One day however a couple of years ago though I got fed up with it when they had a story near the end of the programme about a singing statue of Perry Como. Maybe it was just because I was unwell, but that was just a waste of my time hearing about it (not that I've got anything against Perry Como). So instead I spent the day listening to XFm and thinking that although it wasn't much fun being ill, listening to this lovely indie rock was not a bad way to spend the day when you're not up to anything else. Last week I was ill again and Radio 4 came to the rescue. Coincidentally I've been reading Radio: A True Love Story by Libby Purves, about her career in radio. She concludes, talking about...

I've just been to a day for those who work with children in churches, run by CPAS (Church Pastoral Aid Society). It was very well run. I went to a seminar on a church that had started a "Messy Church" service for kids and families, and one on using puppets with 11-14 year olds. Plenty of food for thought...

The Extended Schools Initiative comes from the UK government: "An extended school works with the local authority and other partners to offer access to a range of services and activities which support and motivate children and young people to achieve their full potential." From Extended Schools. There is a great potential for churches to work together in a town to be one of those partners offering services. I found examples of Youth for Christ getting involved in Bath and Warwickshire The Consultative Group on Ministry Among Children has a page of resources too. The The Extended Schools Initiative page mentioned above has links to lots of resources, which I've yet to explore. Interesting stuff.... We're just beginning to think about it in our church.

Free bidet Originally uploaded by paulmorriss Found by the side of the road. I didn't take it home.

I got an enquiry from someone wanting to use one of my flickr photos on their website. It got me thinking about the licensing on my photos. I deliberately chose to reserve all my copyright rights when I put them up there, but that enquiry has prompted me to share them under a Creative Commons license, known as "Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0". That person will still have to buy the right to use it, if they want, but for non-commerical uses you can use them. I'm a big fan of Creative Commons as a consumer - I sometimes get CC photos from flickr, or download CC music from magnatune.com .

Jan and Feb are my two least favourite months of the year. Dark evenings, cold and wet days. However I'm lucky to have somewhere to live. Which brings me to the Wycombe Winter Night Shelter, a project organised by several churches in High Wycombe (UK). It provides a bed for the night for homeless people for January to March. I'm not taking part in this in any way, so I'm not blowing my own trumpet even though our church ( Union Baptist ) is involved. I'm very pleased to see how many people have volunteered. One of the volunteers is a journalist and has written an article about it. Update for 2009: It is running again and Wycombe Winter Night Shelter now have their own website. Hopefully with that link they will rank higher than my blog on Google!

On the Washington National Cathedral you can find Darth Vader.