It was great to meet up with my friends form the London YFC centres today.
We chatted around how things were going, learnt more about each other and heard a little of the struggles as well.
We met in the Espresso Bar of the Tate Modern and I thought it was a special moment when we prayed together in this ‘house of creation’ looking across the Thames to the wonderful city of London.
Good today to meet up with some friends and colleagues in London. It was my first visit to the William Booth College at Denmark Hill to catch up with Gordon. Gordon and I have been chatting for a couple of years through blogging and the odd meet up and meeting new friends like Gordon is one of the great things about blogging. It was great to share stories of transformation and consider where we are seeing God work in our worlds.
After meetings I caught up with a couple of hours reading in the members room at the Tate Modern before meeting another good friend, Nichola, for a coffee and then wandering to SEITE lectures, via the Mudlark of course!.
A conversation on the train on the way home from London Bridge and again I feel that a great, if somewhat long, day has been had.
I always love my London days.
Today it was good to meet up with Richard from Oxygen – such a creative and deep guy who it is always great to chat with (and not only said because he reads the blog!). It was just excellent to be able to share what we have been reading, ideas on mission, ensuring we keep a ‘vertical and horizontal connection’ (Rich’s quote) in all we do. I love the imagery of the phrase!
I was then able to meet up with good friend Jeremy for lunch where we were able to chat about SEITE and training and all that kind of stuff.
I then zipped across London to have a coffee near London Bridge before meeting up with Lincoln for my tutorial where we looked at what I should be thinking about in the lst few months of my training which seemed to go well.
Ended the day with SEITE lectures and chat on the train home with Justine.
Busy, active but great day.
Yesterday was a great but long day and varied in London.
I met Barry and Duncan in the cafe of the British Library to talk about Duncan’s vision for using golf as a mission tool with young people. The idea sounds great and I will be watching with interest to see how things progress. I hope they do as it could reach a whole new group of young people.
I spent a large part the rest of the day in the British Library and became a reader (a surprisingly quick and easy operation)so that I can do a bit off research now and again (‘ark at me ..LOL!). I wanted to take the opportunity to look at some original Richard Hooker stuff, but I had not realised that I needed to be a bit more organised. It’s a library – I thought I could just pop in and take it off the shelf … but the books are more protected than that. So I will plan my next visit better and pre-request my books. I’ve heard a few people talk about theoir views on Hooker recently, and I thought it would be good to see what he actually wrote before considering others views on him.
I spent my time in the library, instead, tussling with my thoughts on Hope for tonight’s talk. I kind of got somewhere but was more able to bring them together this morning. I hope I’m able to inspire and challenge – actually I’m weirdly quite nervous about speaking at Rochester cathedral.
Last night was also the start of our next module. So I have 2 essays out of the way, and now have two more lists of titles to consider … life must go on!
Today has been a packed, but wonderful day.
I started in Tooting United Reformed Church to meet with some people to chat about the centre. We had a good conversation around the topics of urban and multi-cultural ministry.
After a brief stop for lunch at my favourite food stop in Westminster (favourite due to the size of portions and friendly family that run it) I managed to catch up with Ian who acts as my consultant for this last year of my training. We had a great chat around leadership in emerging church, my view of sacramental theology, how I saw myself as a priest and what this means in new forms of church. I really appreciate this time and it has given me a mass of thinking to go through.
Following this I met god friend Nichola at The British Library and we visited the
Sacred
exhibition. There are a few days of this left so if you get a chance go visit as its both amazing and free! Seeing the beauty of texts hundreds (and in some cases 1000!) years old is amazing. The sheer care and time in producing them is an act of worship itself.
From the British Library we headed to the Mudlark for the customary drink and food before lectures at Southwark cathedral. Tonight we looked at ethics around marriage and singleness and how eschatology and pneumatology have a bearing on them. (confused … want to know what that means? … get in the queue!)
An entertaining journey home with 2 lecturers put a good end to the day.
As I reflect on the day itsef, I can recognise God in the ordinary, the everyday as well as in the special and extrardinary. In a very real way today I have experienced God transcending the barrier which we have created called secular / sacred as today I clearly experienced God in both.
After leaving Haverhill I drove into London to park the car at North Greenwich tube station as I have lectures on Tuesday evening at Southwark and thought it daft to drive home and then catch the train to London.
Armed with laptop I camped in the Members Room of the Tate Modern for a while and managed to get the one seat with a power socket near it. This enabled me to write up my notes from the mission consultation I had ust done in Haverhill.
As I was thinking and searching for ideas that might support the Haverhill vision I was suddenly stunned with a sense of being spoilt and being incredibly fortunate as I looked out of the window from the room I was sitting in. I was also struck by a great creativity of the created human mind. Ancient and modern standing tall together and seemingly at ease with each other.
It was as if God was speaking through the diversity and showing that opposing styles can and do co-exist in a way that brings life and vitality. I was able to worhsip creator God as I looked across his city.
The view from there is one of the best of London. It’s possibly slightly better from the bar on Level 7 – and if you fancy standing me a drink I’ll happily meet you there!
I had a good few meetings in London today.
The youth co-ordinating group of CTE met which is, I think, the only forum that brings all Christian youth organisations together from England, Scotland and Wales. It’s great to be a part of this and share what we are doing and hear what others are doing.
Grabbing a coffee with Dave Wiles from FYT afterwards and then catching up with Lorne from Church Resources of YFC was also a great time.
Today I saw God in the ordinary everyday conversations of people I met with. It’s easy in this calling/ministry/vocation to become task orientated and compartmentalise activities into worship, or work or some other sub-section. I’ve always struggled with that. It’s easy to forget that God is part of all my life and activities – but if you remember to look and be aware, God is pretty obvious! God is in the ordinary, and that is incredibly exciting because a God that is present in the ordinary is good news because that sort of God can be found by all.
As an aside, but linked, my annual appraisal will happen soon. The YFC form always has a question that I struggle with: ‘how is your spiritual life?’ I struggle with this every time I am asked as I can’t extract my ‘spiritual life’ from the rest of my life – my life’s aim is to have a life of worship which means that all I do, whether that’s fill in a tax form, meet friend for coffee, have a business meeting I come to see as being part of my worship to God. I think this is what the first few verses of Romans 12 is all about.
The Message:
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life-your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life-and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you
I had a day in London today.
Met up with Dean from Southwark Diocese, Rich from Oxygen and Hugh from Greenwich to chat about Mission in London. We talked about what makes this different from other things happening around us. We think this is quite unique as this is about incarnational ministry, getting alongside individuals who want to be involved in mission, locally owned, sustainable and broadly inclusive as far as church-personship goes. As YFC we feel we are here to serve the local church in our local area, not to push a particular name or method of working.
This evening we had a Mission in London training event. In fact it was the second session run by Debbie at CMS looking at cross cultural mission. We had to step into each others shoes – literally! not a particularly nice experience but an experience which made you think! Thanks Debbie!
I had a longish day in London yesterday, where things kind of blur and if I am honest, it has hard to get my head around work things today due to that.
I started with a meeting at Monmouth Coffee Company then moved along the river to the Tate Modern to meet up with some SITC people along with Ian from Hope 2008. I managed a quick look in on the Fischli and Weiss exhibition beofre moving off to meet Richard from my management meeting.
I had arraned to meet Richard at the Scooter cafe but it was closed for decorating so we carried along the road to Church.co.uk for coffee where we bumped into lots of other people.
Following that I headed off to CMS to meet with the London YFC directors (good to be able to say a quick hello to Jonny)before Debbie James then ran an excellent session on cross cultural awareness in mission. The Mil-ers seemed engaged all the time as this was very relevant to them – as it is to all of us, all the time.
We decided to phone in pizza half way through the session – but finding a pizza delivery to deliver to Waterloo after 6 pm proved to be my hardest mission ever. In the end, Richard had more success than me!
The good thing about leaving London later is that you know there will be space on the train and I was able to catch up on some Euthansia reading for some assignment that I am supposed to be doing sometime!
Highlights of the day:
people
laughter
visions
dreaming
food
lowlights:
none
Tonight, though … 007 – hope it’s good.
After the NCVYS meeting I was able to catch up with Rachael at the Sacred Cafe.
I really quite like this place.
The coffee is good and strong.
Fairtrade.
The atmosphere is great.
The staff friendly and helpful.
5 mins walk from the tube.
Free wireless.
I’m wondering if i can make this my London office!
… I’m claiming my free shares soon!
The Shiny Headed Prophet 