You will notice that I have added the Moot podcast player in the sidebar of this blog.
There is some great stuff well worth listening to – which is why I’ve added it!
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Advent Conspiracy
I don’t usually place You Tube videos on my blog – just because I don’t like how they look – I think they look ugly, but that’s probably my snobbery coming out!
This video is worth watching and has challenged me – should we join The Advent Conspiracy?
I had a little discussion about this after Matins this morning in the cathedral and the main opinion was that we should but then the other view was put across – if we did buy less, would we then be contributing to the down-turn in our manufacturing based economy which would then result in people losing their jobs in the run up to or quite soon after Christmas?
What a dilemma! What should be the correct Christian response here? To buy less and take people out of poverty, or continue as we are and keep people out of poverty? I think I lean strongly to the former – but it is not as clear cut a decision as I immediately thought when I first watched this video last night. Is it even possible to have a definitive Christian response here?
How have we got to the situation where we need to buy crap we don’t need, and know we are buying crap we don’t need or won’t be wanted, to ensure people still have a living? Pretty bizarre!
Burma action
Dear friend
Today the regime sentenced 14 leading democracy activists in Burma to 65 years in prison. If they are forced to serve their full terms, they will die in jail. The sentences were handed down at around 1pm, behind closed doors in Insein prison special court in Rangoon. Family members were not allowed to attend the hearing. The sentences today relate to only five charges. They are all charged with a total of 21 charges and face further sentences as their trials continue.
Those sentenced are all prominent members of the 88 Generation Students group, which led the peaceful demonstrations last September.
In a separate hearing held in Insein prison special court, labour activist Su Su Nwe was sentenced to 12 years and 6 months.
Take action. Please send an email to the UN Security Council urging Ban Ki-moon to visit Burma and make the release of political prisoners his top priority.
Only yesterday EU foreign ministers met and called for the release of all political prisoners. The EU promised to increase pressure on the regime if there was no progress to reform, but despite the situation getting worse they have taken no action.
The UN must act. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is due to visit Burma in December, but there are fears he may back out of the visit because of the difficulties in negotiating with the regime. These sentences make it all the more important that Ban Ki-moon goes ahead with his visit. We have had 37 visits to Burma by UN envoys, but things have only got worse. We need his personal engagement on Burma.
Take action.
Send an email to the UN Security Council urging Ban Ki-moon to visit Burma and make the release of political prisoners his top priority. Take action and click here.
Thank you for your support.
Best wishes
Anna Roberts
The Burma Campaign UK
warped intimacy
Two things that I have been thinking on for a while connected for me last week in my ‘enforced’ time out and I wonder how others see this?
I have for a long time been concerned by the type of worship songs that we have been singing in our churches for the last decade or so and if you have been visiting SHP for a while this will be no secret to you. I have been particularly concerned with the ‘girlfriend’ songs as I have rather badly described them, where we not only seem to be singing words written by young men that could have written to their girlfriends, but also where the lyrics are all about ‘what we are going to do’ rather than being about God. The lyrics themselves often feel quite intimate and are all about our emotions towards God rather than any of the many attributes of God. This, in my opinion, causes us to think we are worshiping God when we are merely thinking about ourselves.
Another concern of mine has been the lack of community in many of our local churches today. This lack of community expresses itself from my observations in people referring to each other as ‘Mr and Mrs Whoever’ at worst and just a veneer of friendship at best where nothing is really known about each other. Here, first names are known and possibly an occupation, but that is as far as it goes over a 10 minute conversation over coffee. There is no real knowledge of what makes people tick, or what peoples interests or concerns are – I would suggest that if these bits of information are lacking then community is lacking also.
I am convinced, however, people want community and people crave intimacy with each other. People want to be in meaningful friendly relationships with other human beings. There is an inbuilt need for us to be together which is one of the many reasons that people, over centuries, have moved together in urban spaces to live ‘in community’.
My observations and memories of these thoughts last week resulted in me seeing what I wonder is a possible link and in turn has produced this question:
‘is our desire for intimacy which can correctly and rightly be found in community with God being falsely met in our new genre of worship songs?’
As we sing songs that make us feel good with lyrics of intimacy and goodness, are we being fooled by ourselves and that singing experience into thinking we have intimacy in our relationship with others in our churches? Does the feeling produced cloud our thoughts of reality, majorly distorting our perception of reality?
The other side of this, as well, produces another important question. Does our lack of community intimacy result in us producing songs that distract us from the truth of God, choosing instead to draw us into focusing on how God makes us feel rather than who God is?
I had not noticed this link before but am starting to wonder if there is something of value in this observations? Anybody have any comments?
revisiting my brain paths
My blogging has been seriously hampered by staying at home for the last week with a painful back and leg that did not allow me to walk or sit in front of a computer screen for longer than 2 minutes. A year ago I injured my back and it seems that swelling has re-occured and is aggravating a nerve. Last weekend it was very aggravated!
While it was difficult staying at home when I wanted to be out, lying on my back and not even being able to read for very long (amazing how drugs make words move around pages!) I was ‘forced’ to contemplate and pray. I say forced but this is not quite the case. There was nothing else to do and so this is what my brain found itself doing; it was a bit like it going back to its default position – it could not grab any new information and so chose to revisit stuff it had already stored away in various places.
What surprised me most during that time was how fast time went. I quite enjoy silence and so time dragging was never going to be a problem but I was surprised how quickly I could be lost in thoughts, or reflection, and enjoy traveling down the roads my mind sent me. I found myself traveling alone lanes and tracks that I had forgotten about and on more than one occasion even racing down a motorway that I had forgotten all about! It was quite easy to become lost in myself.
This space brought to mind new things. These ‘new’ things were ideas I had had in the past, conversations with people of another time, quotes and ideas that I had read months and years ago. It was not that I had forgotten these things – they were simply stored in parts of my brain to be accessed at a later date. My problem with that is, that as a person that loves to read and accumulate information and ideas, that later date to re-visit stuff never seems to come.
Essentially I have had a 10 day trip down memory lane and remembered a lot of stuff that I think has a bearing on, and will influence, what I am currently involved in. Due to my mind trip I will be returning to familiar places tomorrow with fresh eyes that have remembered old stuff.
So … what have I learned from this experience. An important lesson, I believe, is that study is not just about accumulating new information, or reading a new article or getting hold of the latest book. Study is about reviewing what I already know about a subject and considering how this relates to my current experience and thinking. I have become aware that I have neglected this side of study.
Hopegully I can remember that as I return to what I hope will be a full week of work (those of you that pray … please offer the odd prayer here and there fro my back and leg – cheers!)
Mission links
Found this link today from the Missional Church Network which has a mass of articles etc on missional church. This is described as a missonal primer and I thinks it’s really useful because it’s an online primer so you don’t have to order books from Amazon and wait.
Go check this out – although you may need a spare week to read through all the good stuff.
I particularly like JR Woodwards premise and warning against reductionism to bear in mind before delving into the various articles:
“Instead of trying to formulate one uniform view of mission we should rather attempt to chart the contours of a pluriverse of missiology in a universe of mission.”
a great day
not blogged a lot recently due to not being able to sit at the computer due to pain … but this day is exciting and, with many in the world, I hope the election of Obama as the president of the USA will mean, in time, a better world.
A recovery from the Bush era(s) is very much needed.
The victory speech here is great and worth listening to.
mission and vulnerability
I have been thinking a lot more about Alice in the Cities the last day or so.
The thing that strikes me is that both the main characters, Alice and Philip, have very little purpose in life until their chance encounter. The meeting brings a purpose to each of their lives. In its simplest form, Philip has a little girl to look after and Alice has an adult ‘dad figure’ to wind up. Both move from purpose-free to having a purpose.
I was also struck by the fact that neither seems to realise they are giving the other purpose. This can easily be looked upon as the adult helping out the child in need but on a more authentic level, it is clearly two human beings helping each other and giving each other a purpose and, from that a will, to go on.
From this I draw three main things. The first is that we can never underestimate what value we are causing others to experience in our chance encounters with them. We may think nothing is happening, or that we are not helping in any way – but we can never be sure.
Secondly, this relationship is a co-dependant partnership. Both Alice and Philip actually need each other. I need others and others need me in their lives. I do not have all answers, but can find some answers in relationship with fellow human beings.
Thirdly – and I think this is possibly the scariest. None of this happens without making ourselves vulnerable. Alice brings purpose to Philips life by being vulnerable and by allowing herself to be helped. The film is a film of vulnerability and weakness. To help people develop purpose I am finding that I need to make myself vulnerable – and one of those ways of allowing that is by accepting help of others.
I say this is the scariest because, as a Christian minister, i feel it is my role to help others – but I am starting to think that it is just about as much as being ministered to as doing the ministering. In the Bible Jesus at the well comes to mind, as do the disciples going to find the upper room, get the donkey etc.
Jesus put his welfare into the hands of others, and I wonder if mission has something to do with that level of vulnerability.
crappy ads
I love this from Asbo Jesus this week!
Made me smile in big agreement.
Personally, I look forward to the day when we invest in people and get to grips with the meaty situations of life and get ourselves ‘out there’ rather than blowing money on trendy (or sometimes cringy!) add campaigns … but then designing a poster is a lot easier than actually trying to talk to someone! It’s no secret that I am no fan of these big ad campaigns and so it’s probably wrong of me to ask WWJD?
chance and purpose
Last night I enjoyed my first visit to the Rochester Film Salon.
We watched and then chatted about Alice in the Cities. This was quite a moving film following the journey and purpose of one character that finds himself looking after a girl and trying to get her to her grandmother. It’s a beautiful film that shows how chance meetings can give real purpose and spoke to me poignantly about being open in my pioneering role to what purpose there may be in the chance encounters I am involved in.
I met a few cool people here and we shared how the film left us feeling good and yet the whole basis of the film seems to come from the horrendous life of a mother, who we know and see very little of. What we do know is that she is in a bad relationship, which turns out to be so bad that she leaves her 8 year old daughter in a hotel room with a stranger leaving them to fly together from New York to Amsterdam and wait fort her. She does not show which results in the search for the grandmother to take Alice to. The desperation of the mother in leaving Alice in this way is quite a disturbing theme which the film does not seem to explore at all.
This was a great event with a little bonus at the end in that I won 2 tickets to the directors chair next Wednesday at the Odeon – can’t be bad!
The Shiny Headed Prophet 