A Lego MOC kit created for St Werburgh’s Church as part of their 150th Anniversary Celebration.

The kit contains 721 pieces including a custom printed “1875” brick and a custom minifigure of the Parish Priest Fr Paul Shaw.

571 piece Lego kit

Microsoft Excel 2019 (and later) allow you to import .csv files into Excel and represent the data using a map.

For a tutorial video showing how to do this, here is one from Microsoft…

https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/office/create-a-map-chart-in-excel-f2cfed55-d622-42cd-8ec9-ec8a358b593b#:~:text=Now%20it%27s%20time%20to%20create,a%20value%20or%20category%20map.

2 – Google Maps.

Free, just need a google account. Almost as good as the Arcgis system.

I have used this in the past and it is very straightforward and FREE.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/

Eccleston Church Map…

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=15ApL0lvNlRFL8GXomwOzr395U5tNPRI&usp=sharing

3 – Mapbox (Studio)

Mapbox studio allows some very creative maps to be visualised.

https://www.mapbox.com/industries/media

You can create a free demo account.

Here is an example of a map I created in Mapbox Studio with custom colours.

4 – ARCGIS

Maps created using ArcGIS look very professional and high res, however it is quite expensive. Even a student account account costs £145 + vat per year. As a business owner for commercial use expect to pay £824 + vat.

Can get a free 21 day trial.

e.g. The following Church of England Parish map showing all churches ( listed and unlisted ) and Parish deprivation ranking.

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=67bce0ed36dd4ee0af7a16bc079aa09a&extent=-0.4317,51.313,0.1986,51.5945

here are some other examples…

https://doc.arcgis.com/en/arcgis-storymaps/gallery/

Here’s a nice example showing the migratory pattern of birds using ARCGIS mapping.

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/collections/207d79307cf8413ba72cec8ff14ff37e?item=6

5 – Openstreetmap.org

This is the ‘wikipedia’ of maps where everyone is quite free to add details to an ‘open map’. There are specific tags, so you are limited to what you can add. For example, there is no ‘grave’ tag so you cannot yet add tombstones/graves to a map.

Eccleston Church Map…

https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=53.15876&mlon=-2.87872#map=19/53.15876/-2.87872

Pulford Church Map…

https://www.openstreetmap.org/export#map=19/53.122422/-2.934959

6 – Mobile Apps using Map data

All of the above technologies will integrate well with mobile app technology so a dedicated map app could be created using any of the above map styles to visualise a specific type of data from 3rd party sources.

Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my father and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels.

Matthew 26:53

That night the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty five thousand in the Assyrian camp

2 Kings 19:35

Back in the day, a Roman legion was approximately 6000 soldiers. 12 legions would have been 72,000 soldiers. 2 Kings 19:35 tells us that 1 angel is approximately equivalent in strength to 185,000 men. Therefore 12 legions of angels would be equivalent to 72,000 x 185,000 men. Or 13.32 billion.

At the moment, the population of the world is 7.9 billion. I find comfort in knowing who is in control.

The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.

Psalm 103:15

How did God turn the shadow on the steps, ten steps backwards? Did God turn back time?

‘This is the Lord’s sign to you that the Lord will do what he has promised: “I will make the shadow cast by the sun go back the ten steps it has gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.” So the sunlight went back the ten steps it had gone down’.

Isaiah 38:7