What do you think of your neighbourhood?

Over the last month or so, we have been doing some survey work around our neighbourhood to see what people think about living here, about God, and about how we could help them.

I thought that I would plug some of the responses into Wordle to give a graphical representation of what people said. This is what came out:

Good stuff about Etruria:

Bad stuff about Etruria:

I wonder if it's significant that people and community are prominent in both sets of words? Does this mean that some people in the community are good and some bad, or that the same set of people is seen in different ways by different people?

What Puts People off going to Church?

This one really interests me. There are families in this area working long hours a long way away. They are time poor. I am convinced that every minute we can find for exploring the big issues of life and death and investing in our relationships with each other and God is a minute of pure gold. We can't create time, but we can choose how we spend it. I am so sorry that the people of God (including me) have been such faithless witnesses to the life changing power of God, that we have let down our friends and neighbours by not living this out, by not walking the talk.

Anybody want a caravan?

http://tinyurl.com/abirallymanforsale

Anybody want a caravan?

http://tinyurl.com/abirallymanforsale

vegetables

I've been growing some and it's a lot of fun. Even better is eating them :-)

Give by Gift Aid and get more Tax Credit

Not a lot of people know this, as I didn't until I was informed by my Tax Advisor on Thursday.

If you give money to charity, by Gift Aid, you can subtract it from the income that you report for Tax Credit purposes.   Because Tax Credits are very income sensitive at certain levels, depending on your income and how much you give by Gift Aid, this could have a big impact on how much Tax Credit you receive.

Here are the official websites that give me some reassurance that this is correct.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/forms/tc825.pdf

http://www.taxaid.org.uk/uploadedfiles/document/1_261_Tax_Credits_and_GiftAid_v1.pdf

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/ManagingMoney/GivingMoneyToCharity/DG_078490

World Book Day, 2009

Tabitha and Nathaniel went to school today as Pippi Longstocking and Diego the Animal Rescuer. Can you spot the real one? :)






Tabitha or Pippi?


















Nathaniel or Diego?

And here they are together all ready.

Selfishness

I've read two books today, addressing very different issues in our culture today, but identifying a common root cause of those issues.

"A Good Childhood" looks at the lives of children in the UK today, discusses the difficulties our children face and makes suggestions for how these might be overcome.  One of its key conclusions is that many of the problems faced by children stem largely from an over individualised society that encourages selfishness.

"Planetwise" explores Christian responses to the environmental challenges facing the world today.  It also sees selfishness as a fundamental root cause of the exploitation of natural resources and lack of care for creation.  

So, if we are to allow our children grow up healthily and if we are to leave a planet for them to live on we need to stop putting ourselves first.  

Will we do it?

Mummy - Animal Rescuer ( a true story recounted by Tabitha)

One morning mum was walking by the canal when she saw a cat trying to get across but when she tried to do it, the ice broke and she went down .  Mum felt terrified then she said, "come here kittey kittey" and she came.  Mum tried to put her arm in but the cat went down again but when she went up mum leaned harder in and caught her and read the label and took her home to its owner.  The End.

(Diego's got nothing on my missus)