A good day.

The day started with taking the children to school. It does not happen often and when it does I ask myself why I don’t make the time or take the opportunity to do it more often. I get a nice proud ‘these are my children’ moment as we walk to the school gate together.

The schools are real mission fields for our kids. Tom came home the other night and ‘matter of factly’ said his friend had become a Christian that day. Apparently in an RE lesson he asked Tom how to become a Christian. Tom told him, they prayed, and that was it! Again I was so proud to hear what he was up to. I wonder if we complicate things sometimes.

I wonder if Jesus meant more when he refers to us needing to be like little children than we realise at first read. I’ve been pondering on this and thought about some differences between children and adults and came up with:

children trust openly and ‘without a care’ while adults have their personal agendas

children act quickly while adults like to talk about it

children take the easy and direct route across the mud while adults walk the long way around on the path trod by many

children like to have fun while adults like to do work

children walk the wrong way up escalators …. adults don’t

children like to go round and round in revolving doors – adults try to avoid them and choose the normal door

children play together while adults strive for power

children act like children while adults act like, errr, adults!

As a parent some of those things about children really wind me up. They get loud. They get messy. They wear me out! Despite all that they tend to achieve what the set out to do, probably employing more creative and direct methods than I would.

Maybe we need to be more child-like in our mission efforts. I think we certainly need more fun in our efforts.

After 2 weeks of being managerless the Mighty Gills have just announced Stan Ternent as manager.

I’m pleased as he is a bloke with a good track record with a reputation for hard work and inspiring players confidence. When you are second from bottom and staring relegation in the face a manager like Stan could be just what we need to turn things around!

Let’s hope so – then I might be up to blogging about my wonderful team again as well!

By accident, well more on the advice of a Blueyonder techy, I found and downloaded Firefox to trial as my new web browser. Reviews for it are good too.

Apparently Firefox is less susceptible to adware and spyware, most of which is written to target the more popular Internet Explorer. Certainly early signs are that Firefox is significantly faster at loading pages (posting to Blogger has never been so quick!) and it also has a nifty tab design which means it can open a number of pages at the same time. Great for me if you look at the same few web pages each day!

I’m already hooked and thinking I may have used IE for the last time.

a)part of the church but on the fringe

b)from a non-academic and non book culture

c)as knowing little about the Christian faith

d)unsure of what church is all about i.e. ‘unchurched’

I reckon in church at the moment we could possibly have around 100 people who would consider themselves in one or more of these categories.

How do we cater for, support and develop these people when most in the congregation are churched, from a book culture background and maybe ‘too sure’ about their faith to such an extent that they might not be able to cope with the questioning of it. It’s a tough call.

We think we need to develop something that is flexible and relevant. Something that uses story and film. Something that allows open discussion, challenge and questions. Something that can go as deep or stay as shallow as the ‘audience’ need it to be. Something that is able to speak profoundly into 21t century technological lives. Something driven by the audience but steered by the facilitators with a complete and sole desire to see others ‘get it’.

It’s an exciting time in church and cool to be part of.

I have been looking around my back up disc and other places and trying to get favourite links from 3 different computers all together.

This has been an incredibly exciting experience as I have found a load of links that I used to use or visit regularly but have since forgotten about.

It also gives me something to write about on an uninspired day:

Clubber’s Temple is a cool place to go and hang out with God if you wish to experience something different and you are into that clubby sort of music. Be sure to check out the chill out rooms when you have danced in the club.

The Labyrinth has got to be one of, if not the, favourite sites to use for just meditating and giving space to God. If you want to do this properly though you need a good chunk of time to devote to it.

I have just found 4 rooms on the re:Jesus site which I had all but forgotten about. Again, well worth a visit for loads of stuff – but make some time to visit the rooms. There are also Steve Turner poems here which are just excellent and thought provoking. If you have not come across any of his poetry you need to.

Tribal Generation is another excellent site for resources and stuff. The art section is well worth a look. One of my favourites is Jen Andrew from Sheffield. The piece below is called The Truth and you will need to visit her page to find out more.



From here you can also download tracks like Amber

The Ooze and Emerging Church are simply must reads!

Finally, some have asked where I get my video clips from. Most are simply by trawling through worthless pages of crap after a google search which takes a while. Some particularly good sites though include Funny Downloads, Funny Video Clips and Life 2 the Max. Be careful on the sites, though, the first 2 sometimes contain videos that you would not want to download!

I love Sunday’s when

church is fun

people chat and are friendly

you bump into people you did not expect to see

you can eat lunch in a curry house with very good friends

you can chill in the afternoon with whisky and coffee

you doze while watching ‘Elf’ with the kids

Today was fantastic

We are in a time of Advent.

A time when we are to prepare.

A time when we wonder at all God has done.

A time when we remember what the season is all about.

We are in a time of Advent.

A time when we remember He will return.

A time when we get our lives in some sort of order.

A time when we reflect and ask “Am I ready?”

We are in a time of Advent.

A time when we remember that He came with compassion

A time when we think on how we can show that concern today

A time when we wonder if those ‘out there’ feel that love when they look in

We are in a time of Advent

A time when we remember the homeless as we rush back laden with our bags

A time when we remember the lonely as we celebrate with friends and family

A time when we remember the hungry while we stuff ourseves and forget their tears

We are in a time of Advent

A time when they cry

A time when they hope

A time when they hurt

We are in a time of Advent

A time when they need

A time when they might listen

A time when they can receive the Saviour

We are in a time of Advent

A time …

In the news again we see the church wonderfully coming up trumps with a ridiculous and narrow minded reaction to The Archbishops appeal for love, respect and tolerance towards homosexuals.

Forgive my sarcasm, but yet again I find this really saddening me and winding me up. Prodigal Kiwi blogs well about this. I seem to have blogged a couple of times on this subject, and at least one person has asked why and another called my ‘true sexuality’ into question. I took that as a compliment! Why can’t some people understand why victimisation and discrimination in every single form is wrong and needs to be challenged. The role of the church, of Christians, is to love and accept – even if it hurts!

Archbishop Rowan has written an excellent letter which you can read here. I particularly resonate with this part:

So if it is true that an action by one part of the Communion genuinely causes offence, causes others to stumble, there is need to ask, ‘How has what we have done got in the way of God making himself heard and seen among us? Have we acted in such a way as to suggest that we do not believe we are under the authority of Scripture – that the Church is not the creation of the Word? Have we bound on other churches burdens too heavy for them to bear, reproaches for which they may suffer? Have we been eager to dismiss others before we have listened?’

We owe it to one another to let such questions sink in slowly and prayerfully. But these are the important questions for our spiritual health, rather than arguing only over the terms and wording of apologies. It is as we deal with these questions that we do our proper duty to each other in the Church by calling each other back to Christ.

And we should not forget those questions that may make us most uncomfortable. In the heat of this controversy, things have been said about homosexual people that have made many of them, including those who lead celibate lives, feel that there is no good news for them in the Church. Remember that in many countries such people face real persecution and cruelty; even where there are no legal penalties, they suffer from a sense of rejection. Young people are driven to suicide by the conviction that no-one will listen to them patiently; many feel that they are condemned not for their behaviour but for their nature. As I write these words, I have in mind the recent brutal and unprovoked murder of a homosexual man in London by a group of violent and ignorant youths.

Attitudes need to change. About 8 months ago I had some spare time in London and I was at Elephant and Castle so thought I would check out the Imperial War Museum as I had not been there since I was at school.

I was impressed with how things had changed and I found myself wandering and came across the Holocaust Exhibition. The visit was incredibly moving and I was particularly hit towards the end of the exhibition where there is a large model of Auschwitz and the route people took from the train to the gas chambers.

As I turned the corner I was faced by a massive glass display case that was just full of a mountain of shoes that had been removed from people before they were murdered. It was an unbelievingly moving sight as it was then that it really struck home in a tangible way that these were real people that were treated like this.

The Jews were treated horrifically because they were viewed as sub human. Lets not the church fall into this sin again by viewing its gay brothers and sisters as sub human.

I have never looked at this story from the father’s point of view and so it was intriguing to do so. On retreat Roy drew attention to three characteristics of the father that struck us in particular; his generosity, his grieving and his forgiveness.

The father was very generous and gave away his inheritance. He was so generous that he gave away everything he worked for. In that giving everything away, he had to become dependent on others. That is an incredible selfless generosity. In addition to this, he knew his son; so I wonder if he had a good idea was what going to happen next. He was probably aware of his son’s weaknesses and the probable sequence of events. Could that be why he was watching – a good mixture of hope but with a kind of certainty that it would be when and not if. This makes the generosity of even more outstanding and generous.

The father has obviously been grieving. He uses the language of death – he was lost but now is found, he was dead but now he is alive! The father has been struggling without him. Everything within him has been yearning to see his son just once again. The pain has been so intense that he has been on virtual constant look out.

When he sees his son in he distance he runs towards him. My boss and good friend, Richard Bromley, used to work in the Middle East and tells me that running is a big no no and very degrading. He actually saw someone run over and killed by a car because they would not run across the road! But ere we see the father hitching up his skirts and racing out to see his son. He does not give a toss what other people think. All that is important to him is that his son is back home where he should be.

The father does not even want an explanation. Here we see forgiveness in its purest sense. No explanation needed and instant restoration with the ring, the robe and the party to his former place in the part … as if nothing had happened!

Obviously this is an image of God and talks to me of the perfect forgiveness and restoration that I receive from God on a daily basis. But I do also think there is more here (and without creeping I need to thank Roy Crowne, national director of YFC, for presenting these thoughts and starting the thinking process).

Roy challenged us with the thought that at some stage we must all move from the older brother and son characters and display the characteristics of the father in our lives and within our ministries. He then challenged us further to go away and think what this could mean to us personally.

That was hard. When I considered the question for myself; how could I become ‘fatherly’ in my ministry there seemed to be one over-riding answer. I need to give away everything that I have worked hard to achieve. I need to give away to such an extent that I become dependent again on others.

I actually think that in ‘ministry’ we are not very good at giving away, and we should be. As leaders or workers of any kind we should be looking to ‘give away’ by handing bits of the work onto others and supporting them. This story seems to suggest that we should do that in a risky way which could result in everything going down the toilet. If I am honest – I could not go that far. I like risks, but I do not know if I could pass stuff on to people that I know will fail. There is a bit of an issue and conflict there.

I do believe though, that this country is in the spiritual mess it is, and we are not seeing the progress we would all wish, is partly due to a lack of fathers in the ministry. It seems there are a number who are precious about their ministries and about protecting them. Jesus did not leave that as an example so where on earth did it come from? There needs to be a generous and giving side to our ministry. Too often, though, we guard our work and feel others should learn the hard lessons that we had to learn. We had a hard time and so should they! It would make far more sense to help others over those hurdles – then maybe we would see people going further than we have been able to.

Recently The Tribe have announced they are stopping their performance work and will be starting up a new initiative:

Masters of re-invention The Tribe (formerly The World Wide Message Tribe) feel that another new line up is not the way forward this time. Instead The Tribe will be putting all their energies into a passing on their creative and evangelistic DNA to the next generation through a brand new training initiative called Genetik to be launched next year. They will be looking to release dozens more gifted young evangelists into music ministry plus develop cutting edge evangelistic and discipleship resources.

I have not always been a fan of the Tribe, but this is a real example to everyone that is in ministry. At the time when they are probably the most popular Christian Band in the country and could continue themselves to perform, be involved in mission and sell more CD’s and t-shirts with a certain knowledge that they will be over-booked and sold out …. at a time when they are there at the top …. they decide to stop so that they can give away everything they have learned, everything they have worked for and everything that currently gives them their identity.

What will the result be … possibly a number of Tribes rather than one. Well actually, no, it won’t. But it will be a number of appropriate incarnational creative evangelistic initiatives which are just waiting to be teased out.

As I said this is an amazing example to the rest of us. This is a purely biblical principle too, for we follow a faith which believes that through death new life occurs. We live in a world which is sustained by a process where we see seeds die to give new life.

As those involved in any form of ministry for the Kingdom – we need to be looking at how we can bring others in, how we can expand the work for Jesus by fathering others into their roles. AS we become less they will become more. If each ‘minister’ (and I use the term loosely) released or fathered one other person the number involved in mission would double.

My prayer is that we would wake up to this and stop protecting that which we have worked hard for so that we can see this nation transformed.

I know I am biased but I happen to think that within YFC that is something that we are quite good at doing. We enable and encourage young people each year to get involved in mission and increasingly see ourselves as a resource for that to happen.

I long to see all people, but particularly young people, released into mission so that we can see people lives being transformed.

I was going to write about my day today in Nottingham looking at how we can do integrated missions in YFC where we see young people kept in ‘church’ and not lost after 6 months.

I was also going to write my reflections on the character of the father in the Prodigal.

I thought I would mention World Aids Day too.

But I got angry on the way home in the car while listening to Five Live. Some, I don’t have a word, person phoned it to complain about the coverage 5Live were giving to AIDS. He actually said ‘I’m bored, it’s all you have been on about since 6 o’clock this morning’. This was said in the context of comments from others like: ‘I taught in South Africa 3 years ago. None of the people I taught are still alive, they all died due to AIDS’.

I was angry and speechless – but I was only giving lip service to the day myself so who am I to judge? There’s the older brother rearing his ugly head again!

I was strongly moved by stories coming from Umlazi in South Africa. I was in tears listening to stories from the Tree Clinic:.

The images and thoughts I have had today make me cry and feel so helpless.

This year the World AIDS Trust is challenging us with the slogan ‘Do you have time?’ with the fact that 4 people die every minute from AIDS. I feel I want to do something, but what can I do? Amazingly this year the website makes suggestions based on your answer to a few easy questions: if you are challenged too, go visit them here