STOP THE TRAFFIK needs our signatures.
STOP THE TRAFFIK is campaining to:
prevent the trade
protect the traffiked
prosecute the traffikers
We are looking for a million signatures to take to the UN by November 2007.
If you have not signed the declaration yet – do it here.
I had a great and amusing time with Lyndsay, the new director of Chislehurst YFC, today. We batted around her dreams and vision for the area and considered what we could do to reach young people.
My job is now to take her ideas and weave them int a mission plan with her so that it makes sense to the people she works with and for.
While in Lyndsay’s office I took this picture. She has this weird but nifty little button which does just what it says – opens the tea and coffee cupboard in the kitchen about 20 metres down the hall. Upstairs the equally creative person has installed electric window openers to the windows in the youth room. It’s quite bizarre really, but this creative guy has time on his hands and wants to make life easier for those working there.
Wouldn’t it be great to have a button to push when you just want something done. I want a button which fires people up for mission. Or a button which shocks people (Simpsons style) into seeing what God sees around them. I want a button that enables the rich to give and the poor to receive. Or a button which allows people to understand the ‘lifestyle is worship’ thing.
C’mon God … push the button!
but the technology nightmare continues …
for some odd reason my pda stopped working this morning
again I feel naked and lost
thankfully it is all backed up on my laptop and phone so it is nowhere near as bad as losing a paper diary – but it does contain my GPS, Bible and gives me a quick and easy access to files rather than having to carry paper copies.
The biggest lost is the GPS which really is a life saver when driving around, particularly in London.
HP tell me that it may be the battery and so I have spent £11 on ordering one from Ebay which should be here tomorrow or Wednesday – but I am not convinced … but willing to risk £11!
Anyone with any PDA knowledge out there, or do you know a great place I can take it to be fixed?
It’s officially started.
Love Gillingham 3 (LG3) was launched last night.
Sarah, Malcolm, Mark, Susanne and myself shared things last night in the launch service at the Gillingham parish church. The technology was a nightmare and after a mad panic we got things reay and working just before the service started. There were a good number there and people were signing up for this years projects which will be:
rubbish clearing from peoples gardens and alleyways
visiting OAP homes for maintenance tasks and chatting with people
a chill out/face paint/cafe/activity area outside St. Mark’s church.
The week is going to end with a celebration, BBQ and stuff at the local sports centre which we have for the whole day.
Love Gillingham is all about us as Christians showing that Jesus loves both the area and the people in it – we aim to show the love of Jesus with no strings attached.
If you want to be involved – the dates are 26-29 July with a time of worship and teaching in the morning before we have lunch together and then get involved in the various projects – please get in touch.
This SEITE weekend was one of the best – a close second to Death, Dying and Bereavment. There was certainly a lot more laughter as our opening task was to write down on large sheets of paper all the words we could think of for sexual organs and practices. I’m not sure how it has formed me for the future – but it was a great laugh!
As ever though the real highlights of these weekends for me are spending times with friends laughing, moaning, crying, apologising, eating, drinking …. all those kinds of things that friends do. Particular highlights again involve a wheelchair but I won’t go there! A boat trip along the river to Maidstone with ‘Jezza’, ‘Mouldy’ and ‘NicNic’was a spur of the moment thing which was a cool way to spend some of the afternoon. Grabbing a pint in the Little Gem before the next lecture was also great.
Looking back on the weekend it seems we are fairly open and honest with each other and again I find myself hoping that this will continue beyond ordination. It always strikes me as sad that in clergy circles people seem to be in competiton with each other, or at least suspicious of each other. We have a year group at SEITE that enjoy and trust each other and like being together – maybe we can start to change the church! I wonder …. how many other ordinands have had that thought over the years!
There are a number of other thoughts and questions that this weekend has broght to the surface which I think I amy write about over the next few days when I have had the space to reflect more.
The retreat at Nympsfield was excellent and one of the best we have been on. This was largely due to the fantastic mix of people we had at the centre. YFC is incredibly fortunate to have people of great character and integrity directing our local centres.
We based the retreat around some of the stuff from Jamison’s Finding Sanctuary. I paricularly liked the prayer walk we developed for this time away. I think the experience alowed us a different interaction with God which was complemented by the rain (!). For the walk we wrote some of the liturgy and used some liturgy from other sources such as the Northumbria Community.
Our first station was the local church. Inside the church in a time of quiet we prayed for our loved ones left bhind at home.
The second station was the gutter along the side of the road. In the rain water was slowly flowing down the hill and as we watched we offered those gutter parts of our lives to God and askd him to wash us.
As we left the gutter we reflected upon the story of the Emmaus journey and noted that Jesus met these two men on the journey, not back at home nor on the destination. We stopped in the middle of nowhere and asked ourselves ‘what do we miss in our striving from A to B rather than noticing our journey?’
Midway on the walk there is a great viewpoint across the Gloucester countrysideand we considered creation and Genesis 1, thanking God that the same creator created and called us.
On our return we stopped at the crossroads which was busy and prayed for guidance. Finally, back in the village we paused outside the school, a place of young visions, new dreams and potential; here we asked God to refresh our vision for where we were.
The whole experience lasted about 75 minutes.
The walk was a highlight for me, but so was the Pigs Ear – sucha wonderful real ale in the pub across the road from the nuns.
On the retreat I felt God telling me I needed to realign my life (just thought this could be the recentring of months ago!)and reconsider what is important. I also felt God calling me to be happier and content with a simple pass mark on my theology essays so that the family have more of my time – not just the dreggs which is what I think they are getting at the moment. I’m looking forward to sharing this in my tutorial at the end of the week!
It’s been a hectic week and a whole week where I have not blogged. This has simply been due to pressure of time and lack of an Internet signal. I am currently in a busy spell and have realised again why I originally started to blog – which was to help my reflection and force me to consider what is happening and reflect on the implications of my observations.
The last week, and in particular, the last few days I have felt oddly naked (I don’t think that has anything to do with the Gender and Sexuality topic of the SEITE weekend!) This nakedness has left me thinking I am missing something. In particular missing the space to reflect, the time to analyse why I did what I did, the quiet to process in my head and heart the motivations hiding behind my actions and above all to consider where God is in all I have been doing and maybe even where I have missed God. I like to ask this as I think it increases my chance of noticing God in ‘the stuff’ in the future.
I think as we ask these questions it gives us the opportunity to again stand naked and unashamed in front of God and receive again the blessing that he intends for us to have. It’s in the nakedness of my thoughts, the rawness of my emotions, the playing with words on SHP that I think I grow a little more in Christ likeness – frustratingly so little that neither myself, nor those around me, notice it.
So – I am back, I have lots of thoughts, but I have forgotten lots of thoughts too but trust God that I will retain and reflect upon that which he has enabled me to remember.
It’s going to be an interesting rest of the week.
I’m going to Nympsfield early in the morning to take part in leading some of the retreat for our senior directors and local staff. Nympsfield is a great place and the nuns are great at looking after us. If you are ever looking for a good quiet contemplative and catholic retreat centre then the Marist Nuns at Nympsfield come recommended.
We will be encouraging our workers to slow down and take a more contemplative and quiet approach to rediscover God in places. It’s going to be an interesting time and I’m particularly looking forward to facilitating a discussion around what we do when things go wrong. This will be interesting as its an area which few tend to want to talk about. I’ve also put together a prayer walk with stations, a kind of linear ‘walk out and back’ labyrinth for one afternoon and am interested to see how that will work.
I return on Friday but will immediately leave again after changing bags and join with SEITE colleagues at Aylesford which is run by Carmelite Friars. This is our sex and sexuality weekend – so again an interesting topic!
There will, as a result, be an enforced fast of blogging from now on!
This is cool from Re:Jesus.
Thanks to Ian for pointing it out.
CHASTE has some new film resources to alert churches in particular to the issue of traffiking. You can find them here.
Rather than protesting against stuff where we perceive we lose some of our rights as Christians, I would love to see Christians and churches protesting for an end to this and for a justice here.
The Shiny Headed Prophet 