Last night was a training evening for the volunteers who are involved in Mission in London – our MiL-ers! During the day I had been in Haverhill to meet with an exec member and the director there to discuss strategy an stuff and after a long day, if I am brutally honest, I was not really keen on spending the night in London.Within 10 minutes of being there, however, my attitude had changed.

Rachael delivered some training on Art of Connecting superbly for these great people. Before the session I got talking to some of our volunteers and started to focus in on their enthusiasm and risk taking. I learnt some amazing stories.

Flo was one great young man I got chatting with. He has come over for the year from The Netherlands to work with Kick London. He reckons he is not a risk taker – seems a big risk to take to me – to leave your home country to present the gospel to the young people of London.

Then there was a young girl whose name I won’t share that came from a background of eating disorders and hurts of many kinds. She became a Christian only 18 months ago and is now working with her local centre with the desire to share her new faith with anyone around her.

Another great person I chatted to was Laura, a girl that had left a nice part of Kent to be based for the year in Kingston. Another exciting story of risk taking mixed with passion to share the gospel with the young people of London.

I could mention many others … Adam, Sam, Lisa … the list is endless. The passion for Jesus in the room was not just tangible, it was energising! The young people themselves probably did not notice it as it is part of who they are, it’s natural to their identity. Observing, however, it was very clear. Here, in this hall in Christ Church Southwark, sat Jesus.

A Jesus that had multiplied by filling a number of young enthusiastic young people who had one aim, one desire, one focus – to use their gifts, in their way, to reach people with the gospel.

I am so glad to have had the privilege of being involved last night. I arrived tired and returned energized and buzzing and needed 2 hours to chill before I could even start to sleep!

Thanks – it was a pleasure meeting you all!

It’s Delwyn’s funeral today.

You will be missed:
your laughter
your teasing
your passion
for God
for life
for your loved ones
for Welsh rugby

But this will not be
the last time
we see you

but for now
we are forced to miss you
as you rest
with the other saints

we will meet again
we will laugh again
we will rejoice again

only next time
it will be bigger and better
next time
it will be
alongside
Him!

Hopefully I have just booked into this tour which looks interesting with lots of meat for discussion. The timetable for the day looks great and I’m particularly looking forward to listening to Steve Hollinghurst for his unique insights into connecting with spiritual people in a spiritual age.

On his blog, Steve talks about how he encourages churches to run stalls at Mind, Body and Spirit fairs. At first sight, many will be concerned by this – but why is that the case?

As Christians, we wish to take the gospel to people – so what better place than at a fair where people are searching? Too often I feel we play safe and rather than look to take a risk in presenting Jesus we worry instead about ‘being right’ and worrying what people will think if we do, watch or go to certain things.

A little while ago, for example, I went to an Eminem gig with a friend. It was a great event at which I was able to partake and recognise God. Not many, but a few, people raised eyebrows (one even telling their kids that they had lost respect for me!)and criticised my going as a Christian. More recently, I know people who have been unsure whether it was ok to admit publicly that they watched Little Britain and enjoyed it!

Surely we need to engage with culture. Surely there are no places where Jesus is not on this earth? Surely, we follow a Jesus who mixed with the earthy and real culture of his time?

It’s like we are worried that the Jesus we love so much will rub off of us to be lost from our daily lives. Let’s get out there, rubbing shoulders and praying that the Jesus does rub off! As he does we continually pray for a re-filling and keep going.

Anyway – anyone going to Brighton next Thursday for Equipping your Church?

This week saw me start my second term at SEITE.

I think this term, about Worship, particularly liturgy and the history of daily prayer, liturgical calendar, etc. is going to be heavy going. I can certainly say at the moment that it does not inspire me in the same way that mission of last term does. At least I have a lecturer who is passionate and very excited about it – if he can’t get me interested in this stuff, then no one can.

WEE had a little discussion in our group. Someone asked, ‘does it matter, why do we need to look st origins of worship, why not just plan stuff now.’ Initially I agreed, but then realised (I think) that we need to learn from history.

One of the things that frustrates me about evangelical charismatic worship is the lack of symbolism. Its all singing, raising hands and more singing! While there is a place for that, there is also a place for colour, for symbolism through dance, through icons, through candles, through incense, through so many things. I understand that the evangelical wing got rid of these things as it was scared of heresy and doing things wrong. A bit of a case for throwing the baby out with the bath water!

So … we need to look at how things started and why they started as this can give us a good and relevant base or the development of appropriate means to worship for the 21st century person. Looking at it that way, maybe this term is going to be ok after all!

the new liverpool football team! cruel but funny!

Yesterday I spent most of the day in Basingstoke with Roy Crowne. We were there to talk with local church leaders about what a YFC centres could look like in the area and how to progress this vision. There was a passion here to reach the lost.

After lunch, and incredibly creative youth worker from Yeovil called Adam met with us in a very low key way to start to consider what a Yeovil YFC might look like f the church leaders there decided it was a thing to do. Adam had a clear passion for young people who had not yet heard about Jesus.

This sort of enquiry is becoming a weekly occurrence. It’s amazing – at a time when the church is in decline, it seems that YFC is growing. I find that interesting; at a time when the church is declining due to lack of mission, the church is looking ‘outside’ for help as it starts to re-state it’s mission focus.

In my recent assignment I quoted Kirk ‘if the church stops mission, it ceases to be church’. Is that was has happened in some places, geographical, mentally and practically – have churches ceased to be churches?

The whole centre of church, if we agree with Missio Dei, that mission is the very nature of God, is mission. That is what we breathe, that is what we feed on, that is what we are there for. When it stops, we lose our reason for being church. When our mission stops, we are no longer a church.

So, what is left in its place. A group of people who play church in safe comfortable surroundings. A group of people who have lost the (gospel) plot. A group of people whose passion for the lost has been replaced by a passion for the new carpet in church. Passion for the lost replaced by passion for the cleanliness of the new church hall. Passion for the lost replaced by passion for church events. Passion for the lost replaced by passion for doing it correctly. Passion for the lost replaced by passion for the correct style of worship. Passion for the lost replaced but passion for easy worship and powerpoint.

We cease to be church, and start to be social club. We lose biblical priorities and replace them with our own. Jesus’ challenge to reach the poor, the needy, the lost is becomes too uncomfortable to consider because it does not sit comfortably with where we are anymore.

I hope this little indication of a new mission focus that we are seeing around the country is an indication of things to come. I hope it means that Christian social clubs are waking up and realising that they need to become churches again. I hope it means the church re-engaging, Jesus being met, and lives being transformed.