Today I was the YFC representative at The Forum for Change.

This is a network of people, under the banner of EA and Joel Edwards, that is seeking to work together to bring transformation in the country through the arts, politics, business, education and media. A tall and ambitious order, but one that intrigues me which is why I have attended the annual meetings for the last 3 years.

Today our key note speaker was Lord Michael Hastings. He challenged people there and it was good to hear his words spoken in the environment it was spoken in this morning.

He challenged us to think about what is vital to our faith. What is vital to us? What is vital for people today? His answer was happiness. He quoted that happy people live 16 years longer than those who are miserable. He reminded us that we, as a nation, are prospering economically, but that we suffer from unhappiness.

He challenged an end to ambition, both personal and organisational.

He then challenged us to look at the Bible and find out how we could bring happiness, and that was by getting our hands dirty. People are attracted by rumours of angels, evidence of God working, not new projects or personal ambition of evangelicals, he said.

None of this is new, but in the setting with the people there who love projects, their organisations, and maybe even their popularity (not necessarily a bad thing) I think it was fresh new words.

He ended with an encouragement:

‘Aslan’s coming – it won’t always be winter!’

We were left with 5 questions which I leave you with:

1. Are you disappointed and frustrated?
2. If you could do it all again, personally and organisationally with the collective resources; would you do the same again?
3. If you had to step outside your comfort zone of work and church and work without the backing and recognition of others … would you be able to stand?
4. How competitive, ambitious and craving are you; and how much does this hinder you?
5. Have you been touched by the fantastic ever?

Comments?

I’ve not written very much about staff conference.

One particular talk challenged me. Actually it was more of a stand up and shout ‘that’s right’ moment, rather than challenge. Being British (well 50% of me)that all happened in my head of course!

On the first night Daryl Gardiner, the national director of New Zealand YFC spoke. As an aside do you have to be loud and bald to be a national director of YFC?

Daryl suggested that much of what we do in the name of discipleship in the western world with young people who become Christians, is actually nothing of the sort, but that it is socialisation. By this, he meant, we try to get them to act like us, to dress like us, to behave like us. Immediately I thought no, this is not the case.

Then I had various images.

I remembered a church I had sat in recently. The vicar came out of his room, walked down the church before the service started and removed a hat of a teenagers head. Obviously, the vicar felt that to be a male Christian in church meant you had to remove your hat. Discipleship or socialisation?

I remembered the church where people complained that all the young people sat together and wore hoodies and trainers. Clearly, now they were Christian they needed to dress more appropriately and talk a little more quietly. Discipleship or socialisation?

I remembered the church where there was confusion. Of course they should like Matt Redmond songs – that is what Christian young people sing and do. Clearly, now they were Christian, they would want to leave their rap music for something more suitable. Discipleship or socialisation?

I think of all the churches, with different young people, from different backgrounds, with different needs, different fears, different aspirations … all using the same centrally produced material to nurture them. Discipleship or socialisation?

Is it true?
Are we trying to clone our Christian young people?
Are we attempting to mould them into the types of people we want them to be?
Are we ignoring their cultural distinctive that can enrich our worship and learning?

I think Daryl is right.
We expect language, attitude and actions to change.
Sadly, I think we are quite successful.
I can think of many Christian young people who have cut themselves off from old ways, old friends, old customs and are now truly assimilated into middle class Christendom.

The church can be like the Borg.
we say unity but mean ‘Assimilate’.
we say ‘Raise the quality of life’ but mean be like us.
we desire ‘Collective identity’but mean we’re scared of creativity
we say we can adapt, but mean we’Synthesise’

The New Testament idea of one creative body has become an odd looking ear, eye, nose or mouth! Without knowing it, we have become assimilated.

It’s not just young people, is it!
Many churches seem to be saying, if you are to come here you need to believe the same, think the same, look the same.

The Borg are out there … we must resist, we must reclaim our creativity, we must stand up and fight. Picard escaped … and so can we.

The result if we allow people to travel the journey in their own way will be a colourful, diverse, relevant expression of church that reaches significantly into comunities, with creative thinking, authentic worship and genuine mission. A mission to see others develop their expression rather than merely a plant of what there already is.

The image excites me; but I feel it is an unattainable target. The Borg always seem to win … don’t they?

During morning office I noticed this reflection in the window – so I took the picture as I kind of liked the effect of a candle sitting on top of the bench with a tree growing out of its flame.

It speaks to me of the light of God encouraging growth while giving space for us to sit and chill with Him.

This morning I spoke on ‘Your Kingdom Come’ at St Mark’s church. They are running through the Lord’s Prayer over a few weeks, and I got this fantastic, and, I think, pivotal line of the prayer.

I have uploaded my notes, which is in the form of a mind map, here as some requested.

As I have pondered on this, I have come to think that we understand so little and that for me, as a Christian, there has to be more to life than this! In fact, at Staff Conference I stood behind someone during one of the worship sessions who had that logo on the back of his t-shirt. It got me thinking.

Jesus said ‘Your Kingdom Come’. That’s quite interesting terminology. There is nothing there about ‘take us to your kingdom’or ‘keep a space for us when the time is right’. As I thought on this it kind of led me to think to a reversal of things.

I have been fortunate recently to be able to read a lot of good stuff that fuelled my thinking, one in particular being Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell. Here, Rob talks about the kingdom being the here and now, and how the kingdom, in the end times, comes here. That is, God comes to live on earth with humankind, not that we go to heaven!

But that still causes me to say

there must be more to life than this!

If the faith is only about being with God, whether that is on earth or in heaven, after we are dead what does it offer to people like Tom who are not even contemplating death for another 60 or so years! I’ve spoken to Tom loads, and I am not an expert on young people, but it seems to me that very few 12 year olds have their mortality on their minds!

I was exploring this morning the belief as I see it, that the Kingdom of God has started. All through history we see that God has chosen to try to live with us. In Eden he walks in the garden, in the desert he travels ahead of the Israelites, he was on earth in the form of Jesus for roughly 33 years, and now he is here in the form of the Holy Spirit.

For some reason God loves to just hang out with us – that’s quite an amazing thought! And if God is hanging out with us, isn’t that a great reason to be partying and having a great life?

In John 10:10, Jesus tells us he came so that we could have a good life. The word for life here is ‘zoe’; the literal translation being ‘life as God has it’. Jesus came so that we can experience life, have life, in the same way that God experiences it!

wow!

What a reason to party.

Why then are there so many miserable faces in church!!!

It’s a mystery! But it has something, I believe, to do with the fact that we are scared. Scared to believe that we are made in the image of God, scared to believe that God fully accepts us as we are, scared to believe that it is as easy as Jesus says it is, scared to believe that it really can be true.

God paid the bill, there is nothing else for us to do but to enjoy the party!

Followers of Jesus, enjoying life, accepting they are created as they are meant to be, not trying to be anything they are not, fully trusting God, not looking for the next clever trick, sold out on love for God and allowing him to transform them and so their communities through them …

If that were a reality what sort of world would we be living in?

Thursday night we had masses of fun sno-tubing and tobogganing at the Chatham Ski Slope – you couldn’t do things like this when I was 12 which makes it even more fun to do now.

There is something quite special about zooming around the toboggan with Joseph shouting ‘break break!’ as you fly round the bends!

When’s the next birthday party …?

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I found this new site, Pandora, via Jonny’s blog.
It’s one of the best and most useful music websites I’ve found in ages. You tell iot what music you like, and it suggests other music that you might like to.
I’ listening to some new cool stuff now – After Traffic by Highend Sound.

The Fresh Expressions site has updated quite a bit since I last had a look.

As an Anglican at heart this gives encouragement for the future!

I had a great little phone call from my friend Tony today.

Tony is one of those people you can rely on, he is always there and likes to ring with a little challenge, a question or encouragement. Today he rang to encourage me.

He had been praying and thought I was very much like a Jacob. He knows I have been struggling and questioning SEITE and asking why, is this right, and so on – and the comments today have both challenged and encouraged me.

I don’t think I am in the same league as Jacob. If Jacob is in the Premier Division, then I am in the Ryman South division and doing it part time for a laugh! I can, though, gain encouragement from Tony’s words. I am probably called to wrestle. If, as we believe, we are called into pioneering work as our past ministries bear out, then wrestle is going to be the middle name:

wrestle with the establishment
wrestle with those who do not understand
wrestle with the pain of ministry
wrestle with ‘what does this God mean here’

I guess I need to get used to the idea …. glad I went to the gym this morning!

Being away for the week at Staff Conference, and then being home briefly before joining my SEITE friends on a silent retreat, leaves me with loads of thoughts and musings and I don’t know where to start – for a change!

Over the next few days, weeks, maybe months or even years I think the stuff will filter out slowly .

There are, though, some interesting highlights. I am drawn back yet again to a realisation that I am a person that values friendships and relationships. I like to think that I am not, and that I am task orientated, and take or leave friends, but as I look back at the past week I realise that I am simply trying to fool myself.

Another thought is that maybe I am trying to protect myself as friendships inevitable incorporate a vulnerability – working on tasks do not – you either reach the target or you don’t.

I look back on the past week and I remember people. My highlights this year were:
the joy of seeing old friends from my decade with YFC
the fun and laughter with so many different people after sessions at the bar
a great game where I fooled Jemima by being an evil spirit come back from the dead to give her wrong information (I guess you had to be there!)
the privilege of praying with people
the humbling of being prayed for by others
the joy of seeing Roy and Flossie celebrating their 25 years in YFC
chatting about deep issues in the sauna and the jacuzzi
visiting Rhyl with friends
meeting new people like Leon – top guy
Drinking beer with lots of friends
spending time with established friends – too many to mention but you all know who you are

we had loads of great activities and speakers too – but the people are what make YFC such a fantastic, dynamic and beautiful movement to work with!

Even when I arrived at the SEITE retreat I was surprised at how I valued relationships here – it was very frustrating not to be able to chat with people and ask how they were – it seemed very alien! Next time I’ll have to turn up on time!