Have you seen our new online ordering system?

It’s been several months in the making, and should make ordering materials from us easier, clearer, and more user-friendly. Have a browse, and let us know what you think!

We often get asked about Halloween resources at this time of year. We don’t have anything in our range about Halloween, because there are plenty of other organisations producing materials on those themes. If you’re looking for resources or are planning to run an alternative event in your church, here are a couple of ideas:

The Church of England has teamed up with The Children’s Society to produce Halloween Choice. Drawing on the legacy of All Saints’ Day, the initiative has launched a National Hero Hunt. Ideas, posters and flyers, and school and church resources are available from the dedicated website at Halloweenchoice.org. 

Another popular alternative to Halloween events is the ‘Light Party’. CPO produce posters and resources for these. You can also register your Light Party with the New Zealand-based Light Party trust, and download resources from their site.

Our new Christmas booklet for this year is Real Christmas, a stylish silver title for adults. Order online, or call us to order now on 020 7730 2155 (UK), and download the matching invites, posters and powerpoints from our Chrismas site.

Thanks to everyone who took part in our little feedback session on Life Changing Words. It’s great to hear your stories of how the Bible’s life words are part of your every day lives. Here is just a small sample of the responses we’ve been receiving: 

“Fantastic. Just the sort of prompt I need to focus the day on God when getting to work in the morning!”

“I love opening my mail and reading the word when I get into work…It is the perfect way to start the working day!”

“Since having to face a progressive neurological disease I have felt out of control and frightened.
God’s Word has given me the strength to go on, and I have found the Bible promises true and extremely helpful. Thank God.”

Don’t forget you can join in the conversation anytime on this blog!

Colin Greene, theologian in residence at SGM Lifewords and co-author of ‘Metavista: Bible, Church and Mission in an age of Imagination‘, was recently interviewed by Paul Fromont. The conversation takes in the place of the Bible, the role of the church, and the nature of mission. All fascinating stuff, and here to read and discuss on the Metavista blog.

If you haven’t read Metavista yet, you can order a copy from Authentic Media or from Amazon.

An unusual Bible website launched today aiming to help people memorise verses by setting them to music. The team behind Walking Bible have penned 875 mini-songs for downloading and inserting into iPod playlists, each with a distinctive lomographic image to accompany it.

“Research shows that most people know some 2000 songs off by heart but not many people know a poem or a verse” says founder Stefan Oberg. “So we have created a tool which uses music and images to help people memorise Bible verses.”

The service is available free of charge at walkingbible.com, in English and Swedish, with more languages coming soon.

We took delivery of our new catalogue the other day, with bright new graphics from the designers at Yeomans. It’s a bit of a departure from our normal style, but we’re really pleased with the way it’s turned out. 

It will be available in the next couple of weeks as we ready the next Interact mailing. If you want one ahead of time, you can call us on 020 7730 2155 (UK) and we’ll put one in the post.

Have you got a story to tell? Just leave us a comment to share it with the Life Changing Words community. 

Thanks for taking part!

Our friends at the Christian Enquiry Agency (CEA) have added a new film to their series for Hope08. This film explores hope through an interview with Brian McLaren, talking about September 11th, the environment, and poverty.

Click here to view the film, or here for more information.

CEA provides much of the follow-up to SGM Lifewords‘ Inspire booklets, either through their enquiry service or the rejesus website. Most recently, we worked with them on the historic churches postcards. Each one has a tear-off reply so that church visitors can request further prayer. These cards, and the prayers requested, are all handled by CEA’s network of staff and volunteers.

Update: CEA’s hopeinfo site has won an award for the Best Social Action Website in this year’s Christian blog and web awards.

Christian Aid have launched their Christmas resources for the year, based around the theme of ‘hope’, and featuring these colourful graphics. The package of downloads includes a film, posters, and Sunday school activities.