Pilsdon Community

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While at West Malling Abbey yesterday, I wandered over to the Pilsdon community to meet with Peter Barnett in the afternoon. They inhabit the part of the Abbey that was built for the monks. The barn has been converted to a chapel and I took a photo as I found it to be a very special and stunning place.

I had an hour chatting with Peter about community and in particular how you build and maintain community. I was interested here as this is a mixed community where people join for as long or as little as they like. There is no requirement to leave in a set time, and there is no lifetime commitment as with the Benedictines and Franciscans who I have also spoken to about community.

For Pilsdon eating together (which is a rule, everyone having a responsibility, respect and sensitive ledership seem to be the keys to bulding and maintaining healthy community. The eating thing has been something that has been on my mind for quite a while. It’s amazing how many times Jesus eats with people.

There is something special and uniting, maybe even sacramental, about eating together. Interestingly other religions seems to have focused in on this as does Alpha – although they seem to have missed out on ending the meal with the meal of meals as Bishop Lindsay pointed out the other day.

The journey

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Ysterday I had the pleasure of leading the morning of the retreat for our London staff and volunteers at West Malling Abbey.

The picture shows ‘the journey’ a prayer activity that I orignally experienced when Jonny introduced us to this when he had this YFC role in London. It always strikes me how honest people are in this simple activity and the result is always exciting – in that it becomes clear that we are all at different stages of our Christian journey – some in the desert, some on the mountin tops, some lazing in the lake for refreshment … and so on.

Too often we think about arriving, and having to achieve, and the need to be sorted. I think this results in us denying the reality of our situation, and consequently missing out on any blessing that God may have for us, or any lesson he may want us to learn.

Today I hope that we were able to show these young leaders that it is ok to struggle, it’s ok to not be enjoying your calling at this particular time, it’s ok to doubt God, its ok to be wherever you are – these are normal parts of our Christian lives where God wlks alongside us which we need to acknowledge so that we can continue on the road rather then get stuck somewhere.

Hard Questions

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I visited Lambeth Palace today to attend one of the Fresh Expressions Hard Questions days. In the morning Bishop Lindsay Urwin spoke about Sacramental ministry in fresh expressions of church followed by Tim Dakin from CMS on Developing ecclesiology in global perspective.

It was good to meet up with a few friends and make some new ones – some of whom are in the sorts of situations that I may find myself in the future – 50% parish and 50% fresh expression – although I stil dream of 100% pioneering!

The morning was particularly good as I was challenged by Bishop lindsay’s comments on the place of the Eucharist in fresh expressions. He was saying we have institutionalised the Eucharist and that we need to rediscover its power and importance. We need to re-engage with the truth that each encounter with the eucharist should be a fresh encounter with Jesus. He also holds the view that any fresh expression needs to have the Eucharist central to its life if it is going to continue to grow.

To someone from low church background that all seems a bit heavy and on SEITE residential I regularly talk about the Eucharist with my more catholic friends but end up trying to wind them up – usually very unsuccessfully – but the whole sacramental ‘thing’ does interest me massively. The heaviness was lifted however with some words from the bishop that I was not expecting.

As well as needing to de-institutionalise the Eucharist we also need to start a discussion asking what is central to the Eucharist, what is essential and what ave we added, what makes a ‘live’ Eucharist. He also advocated a climate of permission to experiment with deregulation to do so.

I agree entirely but it worries me that there is no consistency here across dioceses. In some experimentation is allowed, in others it is done ‘un-officially’ and in still others bishops block any innovation. It frustrates me personally because instead of spending time on ‘who is in and who is out’ arguments based on sexuality, I think we should be considering stuff like this that because this is stuff that really matters on an everyday basis to everyday people who are spiritually searching.

I hope and pray Bishop Lindsay is able to share his thoughts with the other bishops.

free family railcard

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I just bumped into an offer of a free trial family railcard which is valid until the end of July. If interested you need to be quick – as the online offer ends at midnight on April 24th.

YFC film team

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YFC have had a gap year film team this year which has been really impressive.
You can see their stuff here.

changed to 42!

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Thank you to the few people that took trouble to email me to remind me that I was masquerading as a young 41 year old when in fact I had in fact progressed into my 42nd year a full week week ago.

I need to admit I was in denial and trying to appear that important year younger – although many of you will no doubt agree that it is difficult to believe that I am as old as 42!

an eventful weekend .leading to thoughts on worship

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an eventful weekend:
Beth has her arm in plaster
Gills won the football
joined Sheena in the club for drinks before the game
I sorted new tyres on the ‘new’ caravan
We ate kebabs and hid behind the sofa during Dr Who
Tom did church parade with scouts
kicked a ball in the back garden with Joe
Sarah made 24 hours stretch to 30 in a day
church was quite good – (although I am currently struggling with songs written by young men whose lyrics make me think they have written them to their girlfriend rather than God!)

The highlight of the weekend was catching up, even if too briefly, with people I have not seen for a while. Most of these people were in church on Sunday morning. Seems to me that there is a good case on Sunday for our worship to also consist of catching up and laughing and maybe praying with each other rather than exclusively the standard worship of sing songs, pray and listen to sermon.

I left church this morning, unusually one of the last, but still finding myself wishing I had caught up more with more friends. I’m starting to feel strongly about this. If we say church should be about quality of relationship with God and each other then surely part of our worship needs to allow personal relationships with each other to develop. If we agree that people join ‘church’ due to the quality of authentic faith and genuine relationship that they see lived out, then we need to give space for this authentic, person to person, relationship to develop alongside our relationship with God.

I wonder if we have started to concentrate too much on God on a Sunday, and neglected each other?

revealed

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While I was away I had space to chill with God and I wrote a poem as part of my worship in that time. My inspiration was this picture, Chrysalis by Sieger KÖder, of the inside of the Jesus tomb, with light breaking in through the cracks. It struck me in a powerful way throughout the morning.


Revealed

Light breaking in,
piercing the darkness of the tomb.
A beautiful, yet sharp, reminder
of the cruel nails
piercing his flesh ’til death.

Only … then it seemed like
the darkness was pouring in
as the hammer chimed.
The end of hope.
The final breath quietly taken
of the creator who breathed first.

This piercing reveals the truth.
The promise pouring out
from the sides of the stone.
The secret hidden from time
within the mountainous
mind of God.

Rays, impatient with desire,
impregnate the darkness
of the pregnant tomb.
Hoping the secret of nature
had been written into
the God story itself.

First light again bursting upon
the new creation,
the new time,
the new relationship
the new risen Lord of time.

Wycombe YFC

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Another great day, this time in Wycombe meeting up with Paul and then Erica, before meeting with Alan a trustee of Wycombe YFC. I managed to occupy the same table in Costa Coffee for nearly 5 hours. (What more do you need for an office – good coffee, a table, and a power socket!)

It was great to hear their stories. Paul is heavily involved in the secondary schools and seeing some exciting things happen there. Erica is doing similarly great things in primary schools.

It was exciting to hear the visions and dreams of these people. It’s always exciting to hear what is happening and I look forward to my next visit. This day has given me a lot of thinking to do, however, in how we support our workers involved in primary schools.

Tomorrow is a long day in head office and I think I am going to leave very soon after 5am to miss the roadworks – uggh!

generous community

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Last week while at SEITE residential I was able to get out and spend time with people talking about community and fresh expressions. Community was something that majorly struck me while at Moot and I wanted a chance to consider this more.

I had a chat with Brother Reg from the Franciscans in Canterbury and then spent some time with Kerry Thorpe from Harvest.

Reg spoke about the essence of community being sensitivity and understanding. The Franciscan novice scheme is viewed as a time for interested people to explore what God is calling them to do. They join the community for this time – but many leave, but the community is simply happy that these men have found more of God’s plan for their life. This strikes me as something we need to get to grips with as church – being excited by peoples calling when it takes them away from church.

Meeting with Kerry brought out similar ideas. He observed that over 10 years people have re-connected with faith and/or church, but have ended up worshipping elsewhere – Harvest has blessed this as they are pleased to see people back in relationship with God and have an understanding that our calling is about being God’s people in the real world and not just what we do on a Sunday.

It strikes me that church can be precious about membership, belonging and doing stuff ‘for the mission of the church’ and I wonder whether we need to thin more on ‘doing stuff for the kingdom’ which coud well mean we spend less time on church stuff. This takes a generous spirit and an attitude that says we will invest in you heavily, we will give you lots of oportunities, we will listen and cy with you … and at the end of all that we will still love, respect and pray with and for you when you leave us and go elsewhere.

I think I learnt a lot on the day – and have a lot more stuff to think about.