Its not been a great day today and I have been struggling with ‘stuff’. Sometimes I just get those days when I genuinely feel that God is just not understanding what I’m on about. My brain tells me he does, but my experience suggests he doesn’t. If I’m honest I hate days like today and wish I was a clone rather than trying to work out a real faith with my creator.

God where are you?

God can you hear?

Yeah; I know you can hear

But are you listening?

Are you getting my drift?

Are you understanding the torment inside?

I want to be released,

I want to be set free

To soar with the eagles

and race with the wind

but you have placed me here

and here I will try

to be the person

you created me to be

But if you change your mind …

I want to soar and fly and race and …

be free.

Today is an exciting day for us at Gillingham YFC as ‘Whose Life’ can now be purchased to be used in schools and youth groups.

A while ago a group of teenage parents we support had a great idea of producing a video to show the reality of being a parent as a teenager. They had seen some videos that they felt just glamourised the issue and they wanted to show the truth through their own stories.

We got funding from the government via the Transforming Youth Work Fund and commissioned One Small Barking Dog to film the video that the girls wanted to produce. OSBD were excellent to work with; a big fear of the girls was that a production company would change their ideas etc. Pip from OSBD did not do this and a clip of the excellent result can be seen on their website.

If you want to use it please buy a copy. In Medway, the girls that are in the video are using it themselves in schools as part of an hour workshop. They have done 7 workshops already and the feedback is excellent.

As I said above – this is an exciting time for us and we are all so proud of these young women – so thanks to Claire, Rachel, Louise and Cassie.

8 years ago today, exactly as I write this post, I was holding this little miracle called Beth in my arms. It seems as if it were only yesterday – is that a mark of a busy life or of my growing age and sinility? (no need to answer that!)UIt’s weird thinking how quickly children grow and about the fact that none of that time can be reclaimed back.

Yep … Beth is 8 today and she chose to celebrate it in MacDonalds! mmmm

I remember exactly what we were doing on that day. It was a Saturday and we had taken Tom to Howletts wildlife park as his last treat as the only child. While walking around the gorillas Sarah went into labour and Beth was born about 15 mins after we got home. Quite a scarey experience at the time – especially when I thought ‘M2’ might appear on the birth certificate as ‘place of birth’.

Ah well … where does the time go?

I found this posted by Lucy on the emerging church discussion board; you really should go there if you have not yet had a chance.

Sometimes this sums up how I feel; but since hearing the archbishop and my church leaders sermon in response to it on Sunday morning I have big hopes that these days are slowly disappering. Lets hope so!

Lyrics

I Want To Be A Clone

written by Steve Taylor

Copyright © 1982 Birdwing Music; Cherry Lane Music Publishing Co.; C.A. Music (ASCAP)

I’d gone through so much other stuff

That walking down the aisle was tough

But now I know it’s not enough

I want to be a clone

I asked the Lord into my heart

They said that was the way to start

But now you’ve got to play the part

I want to be a clone

CHORUS

Be a clone and kiss conviction goodnight

Cloneliness is next to Godliness, right?

I’m grateful that they show the way

‘Cause I could never know the way

To serve him on my own

I want to be a clone

They told me that I’d fall away

Unless I followed what they say

Who needs the Bible anyway?

I want to be a clone

Their language it was new to me

But Christianese got through to me

Now I can speak it fluently

I want to be a clone

(CHORUS)

Send in the clones

Ah, I kind of wanted to tell my friends and people about it, you know

What?

You’re still a babe

You have to grow

Give it twenty years or so

‘Cause if you want to be one of his

Got to act like one of us

(CHORUS)

So now I see the whole design

My church is an assembly line

The parts are there

I’m feeling fine

I want to be a clone

I’ve learned enough to stay afloat

But not so much I rock the boat

I’m glad they shoved it down my throat

I want to be a clone

Everybody must get cloned

Tonight I had the pleasure of speaking on mission at CORDS in Walderslade which is a partnership youth worship event between the local churches and YWAM. I say the pleasure as the people were really friendly and it really was just such a nice atmosphere. I particularly spoke to Rachel, Andy, Elizabeth, Dan, Brad and Esther. These guys are so sold out on reaching the kids of this area that it was great to be in their presence.

We looked at mission and I tried to get across to the young people there that mission is far more about who you are and not what you do. I really believe if Christian young people let that sink in then we will see loads wanting to know abot God. I think that’s a big lesson for the whole church – we need to be Christians and listnen and not just talk at our friends.

Anyway … I just hope I scratched where the itch was.

I had forgotton all about the emerging church info website until the Mission shaped Church conference reminded me of it last week. The mad thing is that it’s been in my favourites folder as one of those sites that I have just been meaning to look at when I get a moment.

The articles and stories here are excellent; worship in a bus shelter, new churches in the centre of London, links to other sites and great discussion boards, this site has it all and if you are not careful you may well start to live in front of your monitor (if you don’t already)!

Carve out some time to have a read of one or two things here, people are contributing from all over the world and it’s really exciting to see what God is doing. Don’t know about you, but in the hard slog of life and work, I like to hear about other peoples struggles and excitements too!

I’m off now to join in one of the discussions – preaching or other styles of teaching? Is it one or the other or can it be both? maybe it’s neither?

Yeah, I know its Sunday! But its only today that I have managed to look at the review section of yesterdays Guardian and I thought I’d like to share the Saturday Poem by Jean Mambrino with you:

Rain refreshes the shadows,

makes the points of the leaves glitter,

as the sun threads its way

between the drops. Earth perfumes itself

afresh, takes on the colour

of the gilded sunset.

Catch this moment to offer it,

consecrate it. For the mind

effaces scents from memory,

which reflects only the meaning

of what was offered you,

the prayer of what is over.

Great film. Went to see this today as a whole family. Some of the jokes were excellent, particularly why Pinocchio’s nose grew … but I won’t spoil it for you!

If you do go – WARNING – do not leave until you see a black screen and the credits rolling or you will miss a good bit at the end. This afternoon only a quarter of the cinema saw the end as they all left too early. In any case … why do you need to join the race to be the first to the carpark?

Any England fan feels pretty sick at the moment after being knocked out of Euro 2004 in the way we were … again! How can history repeat itself so accurately again. Well, we are out and I want to ask is there any spiritual significance in all the hype we have seen of the past few months?

Yesterday, in the places I went, people seemed unusualy quiet and disappointed. Could this be all down to the football? Well, maybe, but I wonder if the feelings just go a little deeper than that.

While I was watching the game on Thursday, a group of teenagers walked past my window on their way to ‘the banks’. They were all kitted out in England shirts and the girls had ‘Rooney’ written on their backs … but they were not watching the game! They had their drinks and were off to do what teenagers do. They did not seem interested in the match, but they had bought into the hype and had all the gear. Like wise I have seen people driving cars around with England flags who I know well and previously have shown no interest in football at all.

What is that all about? Have we experienced something weird going on in England over these last few weeks?

I find myself wondering if the people of this country want to believe in something or someone so much that what we have experienced is a kind of Messiah type thing. Rooney was portrayed as the person that was going to save our reputations, our football team, give us a ‘feel good’ experience, put us all back on the world map again, but at the end of it all, people have had to admit the unthinkable; he is another fallible human like the rest of us.

Could it be that this is an expression of the great spiritual need that there is in this country at the moment? I guess people would not admit it, but I think this could be an indication of a real personal desire to believe in something or someone that is real.

The day surpassed all my expectations – I knew it was going to be good when we bumped into Bishop Graham Cray (who is an ex curate of St Marks Gillingham) on the tube who then led us, though the rain, to St Barnabas, Kensington. Could he have been sent as a guide from above!? Graham chaired the group which produced the report ‘Mission Shaped Church’ that this conference was based around. Buy the report (I did yesterday and its hard to put down). You can read the first chpter here.

I met up with friends again – Jonny Baker, Jean Kerr, Sue Barter and Leesa Barton from Epping Forrest YFC, who I was able to go for coffee with afterwards and discuss the world issues and put them right. She is a cool friend that’s into Star Wars but sadly is leaving YFC at the end of July to make that leap into church leadership as Director of Mission. She is going to be so cool in this role and I look forward to more coffee discussions in the future. (Thanks Leesa for the chat!)

The day was exciting as I had hoped, but maybe not for the reasons I had thought they might be. Essentially, what was being said from the front and in groups was not very different from what some, in emerging church, YFC and others, have been saying or suggesting for a little while. In the context of the 10th Anglican church planting conference, however, these comments take on fresh significance.

I was mesmorised by what Archbishop Rowan had to say – his style of delivery was spot on and if anyone in the CofE has any doubt whatsoever about this man’s faith then they need to go hear him speak. The centrality of the gospel to this man’s life was obvious just by his presence.

Some things that I would like to pull out from what he actually said that got a resounding YES from me included: (I could write pages here but I have been very disciplined)

We need to be asking harder what church actually is. What was distinctive in those early beginnings when the people who were developing ‘church’ did not know what ‘church’ was.

Church is what happens when the living Jesus is there. It is an event, a place or a network where Jesus is being encountered in a fresh way.

Church is not an institution or a program, it starts with relationship.

We need to look at our structures and ask, ‘do they allow this fresh encounter with Jesus to happen, and keep happening?’

There is a need for graciousness so that we listen to each other, so that we gain a larger picture of who God is and allow him to master more of us.

It is about accepting what is already happening and new expressions as equal. It is not either/or but both – one size, or expression, does not fit all.

He then ended by saying we need to be more permissive and less prescriptive about how we do things.

As I said, none of that will be new to some of you. But this is exciting … these were not words from a YFC conference, these are not words from network discussion lists, these are not words from a group of friends in the pub … these are words from the Archbishop of Canterbury. That excites me because that gives permission for churches to experiment, to look to what they can do to connect with their communities and so be incarnational rather than feel the need to stick to programs.

This is one of the Archbishops priorities and we need to be praying for him so that red tape and other stuff does not deflect him from this task that he sees as vital.

Two final things that excited me particularly this day:

Graham Cray closed by saying ‘In my 34 years of Christian ministry, I am having to run to keep up with what God is doing in the church of England.’ Let the weight of that comment settle a while and then tell me God is not at work in this country!

Cindy Daul from Ignite in Harrow told us of a powerful dance ministry that she has developed. When talking at the start of the Day, however, she said ‘I’m not in this just to convert; I’m in it to be community.’ I wanted to jump up then and say ‘AMEN! YES! SPOT ON!’ But, hey, I am an Anglican at heart after all!