Category Archives: church

13 and out …

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I have just returned from my 13th YFC staff conference which I think has been one of the best I’ve attended.

We were fortunate and blessed with some great teachers such as Ajith Fernando who has been national director of Sri Lanka YFC since 1976. Being a 42 year old who started secondary school in 1976, that level of faithfulness and commitment to a role struck me as being quite special.

Ajith was topped in my mind, however, by Paula Gooder who was only with us for 24 hours but had a refreshing way of unearthing greatt stuff from the bible. I could have listened to Paula for hours and was enthralled and challenged by what she brought out of the passage.

As always for me, though, Staff Conference is about the people. Conversations both with friends of long standing and new friends were great times and on one particular occasion while ‘sharing icons’ and chatting about ‘stuff’ that matters I lost track of time and did not get to bed until nearly 2am!

Highlights are too many to list (this entry would be very long!) but here is a feeble attempt:
chats in the sauna with various groups of people
drinking at the bar with the London possy and the South west crew
enjoying the company of the ‘Chislehurst massive’ and their sense of humour
that late night iconic conversation in the bar with Helen
coffee with Lucy
hearing dreams of others in their locations
various mealtime conversations with great people
the major highlight was simply spending time with so many wonderful YFC people who have become friends at some stage over the last 13/14 years.

For once there is a lowlight.
The 13th staff conference will be my last as I start a new ‘ordained’ role in September. As I even type those words of leaving YFC it produces tears in my eyes. It is not often that you get to live your dreams but that is what I have experienced over the last 14 years, and particularly in the last 3/4 years when I have quite seriously had the best job in the world working with ‘national’. I sit back and have an overwhelming feeling of gratitude with a strong sense of the sheer privilege it has been to be part of something so dynamic while serving very special people in their mission roles. I hope the next 6/7 months go quite slowly!

I shared on the last morning where ordination seems to be taking me in a pioneering/fresh expressions setting. It is an exciting opportunity on which I will write more later. For now, however, I need to get my head around leaving what I believe to be the best Christian youth agency in the country, probably the world. In many ways it is still a step that I don’t want to take, but I think (and hope) that I am right in believing that it’s a step that God wants me to take. My prayer is that this is a God idea and not simply a good idea.

So 14 years …. a large part of my life, and over half of my life in ‘ministry’ is all about to change. I look forward with a healthy and natural mix of fear, excitement and sadness with a hope that I will manage to stay close to at least some of those wonderful friends of the last 13 years.

Epiphany Baptism

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It’s the start of Epiphany today, a time when we remember the 3 wise men visiting Jesus and bringing their gifts.

For me, Epiphany is all about revealing Jesus for who he is. The wise men brought gifts, and in that act tell the world that this is the Christ child, God incarnate.

Epiphany (the time from now until lent this year) is a time for me to consider what I can do to to help those around me to be able to make the connection that this child was God incarnate.

Epiphany is a time for me to think about the ongoing mission of God.

This morning in church Sam was baptised. This amazing 11 year old who we have had the pleasure to see grow up shared that following his baptism he was praying that he would have more opportunities to share Jesus with his friends.

What better time than Epiphany is there to make such a commitment! Excellent Sam!

Bethlehem Village (2)

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Today saw St Mark’s church transformed into a market place for the second year running (photos here)
People wandered around the market and while being involved in various activities such as tasting sweets from different parts of the world, making lamp holders from clay, creating mangers from wood or being interviewed by Deborah from the BBC (Bethlehem Broadcasting Corporation of course!)also collected various parts to be able to make a Christingle.
The time together ended with the Christingles being lit in the darkened church which is always a powerful experience.

I love events like today wen there is so much interaction, questioning and discussion as this is what learning together as ‘church’ is all about.

a rich weekend

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The weekend was a time of great experiences.
I had fun drinking with friends before the football match.
Gillingham’s new look team won.
On Sunday I had the privilege of joining St Mary Magdalene church for worship. As part of my training I am going to lead a service here after Christmas (worryingly for me this may also be my first experience of robing!)The service was superb and I felt able to connect with God in a fresh way. I also enjoyed seeing how a Jesse tree was being used at the front of church to help remind us of our story.
Sunday afternoon we went with more friends for a Chinese buffet at lunchtime and laughed and ate a lot.
(did I mention Gillingham won?)
After that Landmark joined us at home and then went to church after trashing my house nd leaving me there to tidy up … but it did not matter, I was not bothered one iota cos, did I mention that Gillingham won?

An amazing collection of rich experiences in one weekend.

Discard

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ASBO Jesus again.
The simple truth makes me smile.
Who has not felt like this?!

Remembrance

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Today was Remembrance Sunday and it was amazing to see the church packed out with people standing at the sides and back of church.

Remembrance is always a Sunday that I feel challenged by. It’s a time to remember what sacrifice has been made by others but also a time to remember how horrible war always is – even though I believe it is sometimes necessary as a ‘lesser evil’ to help justice and bring relief to the oppressed.

I was asked to produce a video along the themes of remembering the Falklands Conflict in particular for todays service. I have uploaded it here for others to use if it’s useful – and I understand that using anything as far as copyright is concerned in a worship event where no admission charge is made is ok.

Excellent day

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The Blah day on fresh expressions within the catholic and contemplative traditions was an excellent day.

It was great to hear peoples stories and experience something of the diversity of this part of Fresh Expressions.

Some great little gems that I picked up throughout the day:

Simon Rundell:
‘our primary encounter with God is emotional and not intellectual – God needs to be experienced not proved for people to start the journey’
‘music, liturgy and ritual are like the trinity of worship and should be seamless’

Michael Volland:
‘we need to create space where God can do what he wants to do’
‘we search fir authentic community where people are honest with each other’

Ian Mobsby:
‘a rhythm of life was developed so that we can be both fluid and have depth; it helps to answer the question ‘how do we live?”

Philip Roderick
‘when tradition becomes static it ceases to be tradition’
‘travelling light, dwelling deep’

The day was superb and has given me a lot to mull over and think on. I did some of this on the train but need more time to reflect further – these are just little gems that I made not of and don’t wish to lose. These gems now need to be observed, turned around over and over again in the light so that I may grasp more of their beauty’

more later …

Saints Alive

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I’ve just got back from preaching at Rochester Cathedral at tonight’s Saints Alive Celebration. I was really nervous about this, and don’t think I have been this nervous about talking for a long time. What I said seemed to go down OK – although one illustration may have raised a few eyebrows – lets just say I don’t think anyone else has used the word willy in the cathedral before! I did use it to illustrate misunderstandings rather than to shock – honest! I spoke around the subject of Hope and how can help others experience hope in our community.

The most exciting part of the evening was seeing our friend Lucy talk about Love Gillingham to 300 people in the cathedral. She was simply fantastic and when she finished there was spontaneous applause for her words. At the end a youth group leader asked her to go and speak to their youth group about Love Gillingham. This is really excellent – and seeing Lucy grow in confidence over the last few years has been a sheer joy as well as exciting to see.

After the service I went of with two great friends – the 2 Becky’s – for a drink at Wetherspoons. We came up with a plan to transform Medway … so watch this space!

Mission and Unity

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Somehow I have become involved in the Advisory Council for Mission & Unity for Rochester Diocese. I assume I was invited to this group in my capacity as a ‘missioner’ for YFC but also as an ordinand for Ordained Puoneer Ministry.

It’s an interesting group and tonight we heard from Steve Croft from Fresh Expressions. It was an evening where we saw some key issues start to be batted around – so I am looking forward to what could be some both fruitful and lively meetings.

I’d write more about this … but it gone 11, I’ve been up since 5 and I’m off early on the train to London in the morning for the church planting conference … so chow!

God in the Simple …(again!)

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Today I led my last assessed service at St Mark’s. I’ve had to do 2 assessed preaches and 2 assessed service leadings each year for training. The worst thing about these is finding 4 people to complete the A4 form. I have always felt the need to be very apologetic as I ask people to complete a form for me as people are coming to church to worship and did not expect to come to fill in a form and assess me. I have managed, in the main, to use different people each time which people have appreciated.

Today I led the morning service and tried some different things such as use this Captives loop from Work of the People as I read an adapted poem which led us into a time of confession. This followed an excellent talk from Graham around the subject of ‘Looking after Number 1’

But I have been amazed at the feedback for one very simple thing that we did in the service. A young woman called Claire is going on mission to New Zealand for a few months. Rather than pray for her upfront as we would normally do, I had planned to walk with her to the centre of the congregation and ask people to stand and pray for Claire from where they were.

It seems that this simple activity was profound for so many people. People afterwards spoke of a sense of Spirit, a real sense of family and community blessing Claire, one person on the assessment form refereed to it as ‘awesome’ which I was obviously both pleased with and humbled by!

This resonates with my thoughts throughout the year around my tendency to make good use of technology whenever I can, whereas I am often surprised by how powerfully people connect with God in the simple parts of the service. I had expected people to be inspired by the video and poem, and some were; but the point at which God really broke through in a tangible way for many people this morning was when we
turned to the centre of our worship space,
looked at each other,
concentrated on one of our family,
and entrusted her to God.

God in the simple!
Maybe I just try to make things too complicated sometimes!