Happy New Year

Posted on by
Reply

Personally 2008 was something of an exciting year with ordination, the Olympics and seeing friends and children take on new challenges successfully.

I blog to record and review, to contemplate and consider. After four and a half years blogging I still love seeing a comment from someone. This past year there have been a couple of interactions with people – it’s great to be able to tussle over subjects together, and to learn from each other and be supported by each other in this way.

One way I like to reflect is to look back over past blogs from previous years and on Jan 1st 2008 I wrote:

But this is now 2008!
Tomorrow I am back at work with millions of others.
I could look back on the year, but I want to look ahead.

2008 … the year of Hope.
I hope the church rise to the challenge to bring hope this year rather than complain.
For us 2008 will be a year of change in so many ways.
I have dreams for 2008.
Some big, some little.
Some totally in my control, others not.
All important.
2008 will also be a year of painful anniversaries for family and friends alike.
It’s not all going to be rosy!

I’m making no resolutions this year, just a commitment to myself to be realistic and keep my promises which probably means I will have to say ‘no’ every now and again!

Whatever happens, 2008 is going to be a year of opportunity.
We can look back and regret, or we can look forward and grasp the opportunities that arise.
Here’s to looking forward.

In many ways, stuff has not changed from that – I still have the same hopes and dreams. (and I am actually very pleased to be able to note that I have said ‘no’ to a few things this year which has allowed space for other things). The fact that those dreams have not been realised yet does not mean they were wrong, it just means I have to continue to wait while acknowledging that God works at a different speed to me. God sees the bigger picture while I get frustrated in my immediacy.

Of course, the unrealised dreams could also be due to me having heard God wrong – but in many ways the easy thing to do is to decide I have heard wrong and change what I do, rather than continue in the uncomfortableness of ministry that I currently experience. In our culture of instants, it can be difficult to stick at waiting because it is so alien to us.

As with last year, whatever happens, 2009 is going to be a year of opportunity. For one I am seriously hoping a new president of the USA will see a change in a policy of allowing atrocities against those living in Gaza – will this be an opportunity taken or lost?

I guess the challenge is to notice the opportunities that God gives and discern the places and ways that God is working before our eyes – as John the Baptist says: ‘Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.’ (John 1: 26-27)

Happy New Year to you all – and in 2009 may you be blessed in you meeting of and with the ‘one who stands among us’

a new year gift!

Posted on by
Reply

Jonny pointed me to this on his blog – a good free collection of ambient tracks which will be very useful next Christmas!

Worth going to download them before the inevitable happens and they disappear!

was that it?

Posted on by
1

Well that was Christmas.
Time with family and friends.
Cheer, laughter and fun.
We have enjoyed company, playing on the Wii, and generally being with the family having fun.
I have deliberately taken a week away from blogging to enjoy the family time more and the result of doing that means I have a lot of thoughts.

Midnight mass at the cathedral was a special time and, for me, a great and unique way to place Jesus Christ right at the centre of the festival.

Starting with Jesus causes me to ask …’that was Christmas, so what now!?’ Now that the festival is over is it time to pack Jesus off back into the other Bible stories and get on again with our lives; secretly sighing some relief that the busyness of the season has now passed.

I can’t help but think that if that is the case for us then we have failed in our celebration of Christmas, if not in the actual act of celebrating then in the meaning of Christmas itself. There must be more!

For the first time in a while over this Christmas period there were a number of younger children present in our festivities – babies and toddlers. I had forgotten how totally distracting and consuming a baby can be. Babies demanding attention so much that they require a lifestyle change; being the centre of attention not just for the parents but more or less for all of the people present.

As an aside it reminded me of a while ago when a couple I know well said that the addition of a baby to their life, due in a few months, was not going to be disruptive or change anything. I did not disagree with them, but instead I kinda smiled smugly to myself with the words ‘you just wait’ in my mind, remembering that I felt just the same, along with many prospective parents some 15 years ago, before the birth of our first child. No matter how hard you try, the arrival of a child into a family IS disruptive and EVERYTHING does change. In short, life is transformed. There is no going back. I am sure I am not alone as a parent in struggling to think was life was like before children – the way they not only take up space in the home, but the way they take up mind space with worry, concern and delight as well!

The arrival of Jesus as a baby was a disruptive experience. The arrival of Jesus caused life transformations to occur 2000 years ago, and that same arrival has been demanding and causing the same transformation every day since.

If we move away from the Christmas with the thought that the Christ child will have no effect on our lives, then I think we have missed out on something of the meaning of this event. The arrival of Jesus, the incarnation, means things are now different. I have come away from this Christmas realising that to try and pretend nothing has changed is possibly the greatest missed opportunity of all time.

Merry Christmas

Posted on by
Reply


This year I have designed and sent this virtual card to friends on my email list (if you did not get one and think you should be on that list – apologies but I don’t have your email address so email it me!)
Rather than spend money on cards this year I will be donating what I would have spent to Stop the Traffik.
You can make a donation too by clicking here.

It’s official: Christian mission IS beneficial to the community.

Posted on by
Reply

You may or may not know that in the UK the Charity Commissioners have been tightening laws on what can be a charity and decided that all charities must be ‘of public benefit’.

This has resulted in some panic as some Christians felt that church and Christian charities may no longer be able to be charities.

The Dranes blog in more detail here but I think this quote is a challenge to us all:

‘…it looks as if the Charity Commission has more confidence in the transformational power of the Gospel than some Christians, as they clearly state that ‘Charities whose aims include advancing religion do not have to undertake secular activities in addition to their religious activities in order to meet the public-benefit requirement.’

Was this panic due to a lack of faith in our own gospel – I think this throws up a lot of questions about how we view mission and the confidence we, as Christians, place in the power of the gospel.

Digging wells

Posted on by
Reply

I am loving starting and ending my days during Advent by reading Maggi Dawn’s ‘Beginning and Endings’. As I thought it would, the whole concept of waiting has taken on a new meaning for me over this Advent and Maggi’s daily gems are a great and challenging addition to my day.

I have been made to think a lot, but was particularly challenged to think deeper on the 10th Dec reading which is still in the front of my head. The title for the day is ‘Redigging the wells’ and tells the story from Genesis 26 of Issac looking for land and water to sustain his flocks. I was challenged because as I have read those stories over and over I have got the image of these nomads moving around the desert in no fixed way, but ‘as the mood takes’.

Issac, however, re-visted and re-dug the wells that his father, Abraham had dug before him. from here I quote Maggi (p.49):

…One of the temptations of living in post Christian culture is to attempt to recreate church from scratch. In Issac’s story we have a picture of someone who goes back to the traditional sources and begins to dig for himself. He doesn’t rest on his father’s laurels, neither does he set out for new land. He finds the traditional sites and he digs. The result was he heard God’s promise for himself.

A I look ahead to what may be with a new community, I am fully aware that we have over 2000 years of tradition and practice to draw upon. My role as I understand it today is not to find and create new practices or just create newer and more unique ways of being church in order to create something new and accessible. My role, with these people, is to go back to the traditional sites and dig. As we dig we should look again at what we dig up and what we reveal. We should look afresh at what we uncover. We should take these ancient truths and chat about them. We should travel together with them and see what applying them in 21st century life is like and how it works. This is traveling together in a real sense.

It is so easy to get sucked in to new things, the endless need for creativity for creativity’s sake. The need to create new church to be seen as creating new church. All this stuff is good stuff with a BUT! But … if the creativity is not grounded in the ancient tradition we have then it will have little substance. Stuff with little substance, even church (!), will just not survive. It may look good, it may attract attention, but I am not interested in that; I want to be part of something with God integrity and sustainability.

Some of those wells have been covered for a while, and there is a lot of digging that probably needs to be done. When Issac dug he discovered something amazing – he discovered God’s promise first hand. He stopped standing on Abraham’s interpretation of the promise and moved on with God himself. He was able to see the truth in a new light, and in a way that meant something to him in his situation and his time. When we dig the ancient wells and look afresh like Issac then I think we are able to truly call scripture the living word of God.

As a community, when it forms, (and I believe one will) we will need to dig and be ready to discover that promise for ourselves. In a sense it would be a lot easier to just create and develop something we all like and are happy with. This will probably end up being something that satisfies our own frustrations with church rather than being rooted and bedded in God and Christian tradition. It is more likely to be something that meets our own needs rather than allows God to show us things beyond our wildest dreams.

I pray God will give us the ability to re dig the wells we need to re dig.

Jen’s ordination

Posted on by
Reply

It was brilliant yesterday to be present at Jen’s ordination.
We have all traveled so far together over these last 3 and a bit years and to see this day come was very special and quite emotional for everyone.
God was clearly present and his working through Jen is and will continue to be obvious.
This was a great day – we are all proud of you Jen!

I am a person not a potato!

Posted on by
1

I raised the Barnardo’s Stop the Cycle Campaign the other day. This year I had already chosen not to send paper cards and instead design a card using one of my photos and playing with Photo Shop and give the money I would have spent to Stop The Traffik.

If you do not know of this campaign then check it out. Slavery is not dead … and its far from dead in our own country of the UK!

Children are sold and shipped internationally for as little as $20!

Can you believe that? can you imagine the pain you would experience if your child was kidnapped and sold into slavery! Young women and children are particularly targeted by traffikers. There are at least 12.3 million people that are victims of forced labour worldwide. Stop the Traffik is working to combat traffiking of people.

At a time when we sing of peace and worship God visiting to usher in the Kingdom where justice will reign – what better time to join Stop The Traffik so these people may have a chance of reclaiming their freedom.

I was pointed this poem by Gerard Kerry which is powerful and challenging.

Stop the Traffic

I am a person,

not a potato

to be picked and packaged

and sent to market

to be sliced and diced,

chopped up and ketchupped

on the other side of the world.

I am human

and I am not for sale.

I am a living conscience,

not a cargo.

I travel passenger,

not freight.

I am not cattle,

not contraband,

not a catalogued commodity.

I’m not the bottom line

for those who trade in tragedy

and profit from perversity.

I am not a can

to be recycled.

I am human

and I am not for sale.

I am a thinking individual,

not a rare exotic bird.

I am your sister,

not an inmate for your zoo.

I am not merchandise,

not meat,

not a meal ticket.

I was mothered,

not manufactured,

begotten,

not created.

I am human

and I am not for sale.

Its time to end this trade

in human tragedy,

to terminate this travesty

of a global economy.

Let the red lights

of your cities

be put to better use

to stop the traffic.

Write it in lights

across your seared conscience:

I am human

and I am not for sale

Nana Brown April 3rd 1920 – 29th Nov 2008

Posted on by
Reply

Today was a sad but special day,
a day when we remembered a special member of the family,
a day when we cried together,
a day when we laughed together while sharing stories,
stories like ….
Nana’s trifle made with Gin
her constant cheeky smile
her well known cry of ‘ooo – oooooooo’
particularly early in the morning
scaring her grandson-in-law with ‘I like my men lean and hungry looking!’
a day when we remembered ….
her love of family
her delight in her children
and her grandchildren and great grandchildren
and even those ‘in-laws’ lucky enough to be married to her grandchildren

Yes … today was a special day
special memories
the end of an era
but there is hope ….
…. because we know Nana Brown is now happy
released
and with her Lord

view through my glass

Posted on by
Reply

A number of interesting things have been happening in the pub which I have been hanging out in in my dog collar. It’s amazing me more and more what God is seeming to start to do through a willingness to be in the same place wearing a dog collar.

One day this week I was plunged into a depth that took me outside my comfort zone. I was getting ready to leave. I saw a bloke I had not seen before heading for the exit when he saw me, turned around, knelt next to the sofa I was sitting in and started to weep as he shared stuff that he was guilty about. It was an uncomfortable, but sacred, moment.

I felt uncomfortable. I was conscious lots of people were watching this man but it was a privilege to sit there and listen. I did not offer stuff to fix the situation (I wanted to but was lost for words!) and this seemed to be the right thing for this guy. I simply listened and then went for a walk with him outside. I hope I meet him again sometime.

Other things are also happening – I have been asked to pray for people, a guy in his late 70’s has cancer in the pancreas and is having an operation at the weekend – his brother asked me to pray as there is a chance he will die on the operating table. Please join me in praying for this man and his brother.

I used to go in and wonder what I was achieving by being here – but now it seems that someone talks about something nearly every day – it is truly amazing! I have even been asked (jokingly!!!) by a woman if I would marry her and her boyfriend after she gets him drunk enough to say yes!!!

There is a mix of humour and seriousness which I think helps people to kind of break the ice. I think people want to talk, want to worship, are looking for answers but are not sure how to approach churches and people in churches because the church has a history of retreating from culture, particularly the places I hand out in.

The other week I reflected on people not wanting to enter the sanctuary becasue they felt they were not good enough, or that the place was too special to step into. Soem would have us believe that people cannot sense, and neither are they interested in, the spiritual anymore.

These experiences lead me to think this is not the case.

This may be all small stuff but it is encouraging stuff and stuff that seems to show that God is indeed working in his world – and that people are sensing that but not sure what to do about it. As ‘church’ I think we need to think more about how we can help people in that discovery.