… like today when all things go well.

A load of admin and phonecalls covered in the morning before shooting off to Bluewater to meet Sarah for lunch and but her Christmas present – surprises are out this year!

I then traveled off to North Greenwich Tube car park, had a fight with a ticket machine that decided to debit my card but give me no parking ticket before traveling across London to Putney to meet up with Pauline of Solid YFC.

We chatted through her plans for a couple of hours and got really excited about what she is starting to see happen around her. She is such an enabler and non-precious about what she does that it’s a pleasure to listen and see how God is working.

I then shot back across London to Waterloo to visit Blah and was able to chat with Ben over glass of wine before hearing of the exciting and challenging stuff that he is up to and how he is engaging with people on a totally different plane to many orthodox Christians. I am both incredibly challenged and incredibly excited!

I then shot home from North Greenwich and have just spoken about all this excitement to my poor wife who I kinda preached at for a while. I like these days but not sure Sarah does!

Anyway … I’m totally washed out now and need to leave early in the morning for a round of visits in Norfolk and so will put off writing my reflections on tonight until tomorrow.

Hey ..I feel I may of ended with a “chaptery” type nail biting finish … you just can’t wait to hear the next installment can you!!!

It is now 40 days until Christmas, the start of Celtic Advent – the 40 days of preperation for Christmas mirroring the 40 days of Lent.

Preperation for Christmas should mean focussing on repentance, humbling and interior housecleaning. It is a time to remove the boulders that stand in the way which symbolise those things I have done which I shouldn’t have, and fill in the potholes which are the things I should have done but have not.

It is a time for focus which I hope will protect me a little from the commercialisation and stress of Christmas so that I can focus on this cosmic changing event of the incarnation in a way that will have a fresh and vibrant impact upon me. Being a naturally slower person, the 40 rather than 24 days may give me a better chance.

I found this illusion via Johnny’s blog and it is great. I suspect loads will link to it.

Met with Phil Greig, the DYO for Rochester Diocese, in the local noodle bar.

It was good to catch up and make plans for a half hour slot we have next week at Bishops staff meeting to look at youth work and YFC working with churches in the diocese. I’m quite excited about this meeting and the possibility of working with Phil to encourage churches across the diocese in different forms of youth outreach and mission.

I have felt for a long time that the YFC centre set up is a good model for a Deanery project to bring churches together in a strategic and incarnational outreach to the young people of a particular community.

I really hope this meeting on Monday will be what my old boss in Nailsea, John Simons, would call a ‘red letter day’; a day that we can look back to and say ‘yeah … that was the starting point for something really exciting’.

I am looking forward to going to Blah on Wednesday night and hearing more about Ben Edsons mission journey within contemporary spirituality. Its interesting how I have heard nothing about this for years and in the space of a week I will have heard from two people called to mission in the world of mind body and spirit fairs.

Is anyone else I know going to be there?

The title is basically part of what I am studying with SEITE at the moment. If I’m honest I do not yet see how this links with where I am feel God is leading me next, but I understand that an understanding of how things have developed is important as it helps us to see where we have attached traition and baggage, and so what we can discard and change, and what is core, and so unchangeable! I thionk that makes sense!

Tonight we were looking at how the liturgical year developed. One thing I found amazing and will share with you so you can see how boring I really am becoming – maybe the cloning process is starting. I am relying on those of you that see me regularly to start the rapid process of de-cloning!

What I was amazed by was the whole thing around the dating of Christmas. I had always believed that we had just nicked a pagan festival and christianised it as Jesus was born sometime around that date. That is one theory.

There is another, weirdly interesting one, called the computation theory. The idea is that the incarnation must have been perfect and lasted anexact numberof years. Some believe Christs actual death was on March 25th. If this were the case, the computation/perfect incarnation/full number of years theory would mean that Jesus was conceived on March 25th. If he was conceived on March 25th, 9 months gets us to … Dec. 25th! Others felt Christ died on April 6th … the same patern followed brings us to Jan 6th for a birth – Epiphinay.

Ok … tell me, I am being sucked in!

Today, as part of my SEITE training I visited The Chatham Memorial Synagogue with other SEITE students.

We were met by Gabriel Lancaster who informed us of some of the important beliefs and practices of Judaism before showing us the inside of the synagogue.

The picture does not really do the building justice, it looks beautiful inside, but you can pick up from the photo how very similar in many ways it is to a church. I found myself To be quite surprised by this. I am not sure what I was expecting, but a church like structure was not it.

There were prayers on the wall as you would see in a church, including a long prayer for the Royal Family.The stained glass windows would have looked amazing although it was dark!

There were some interesting differences and interesting stuff I learnt. Although the synagogue is used, in essence the centre of Jewish worship is the Jewish home itself. It is here that through meals and story telling that the faith is passed on and the young are educated. Even on their central festival, Passover, the synagogue only runs a brief service – and this is with a hospitality aim. The thought behind it is to be available for ‘strangers’ as no one should be alone on Passover. If people were they would come to the short service and then be invited to join with a family in their home.

One major difference struck me. The leaders ran their service from the reading desk which you can see at the bottom of the picture in the middle of the synagogue surrounded by the lights. It s from here that the Torah is read and service led.

I learned tonight that Synagogue means ‘house of discussion’ and that rather than preach, the scripture is read and then the people like to discuss and argue what it means, the implications for living today and do on. It seemed to me to be a very healthy, affirming and inclusive way to learn about God.

In some ways it is not too far removed with what we are attempting with new expressions and alternative services – it seems we are trying, maybe without realising, to get back to our early Judaism roots of discussing and learning from each other rather than listening to the ‘expert’.

Tonight I started to think that maybe there is something in looking at the history of my religion which will equip me to work today.

It’s fascinating to think that we in church are looking to be more inclusive, more discussive, less directive and more enabling in how we look to God, how we receive from God and how we interpret and apply God’s standards to our everyday lives.

I have always struggled with the idea of the up-front expert, and never been sure of the value of the sermon as the only way to educate and impart knowledge. I know that for me personally I learn a lot more in discussion with others and trying out theories and ideas on each other than I do in a listen to the sermon setting.

It’s incredibly interesting to think that this has been happening in many a synagogue around the world for thousands of years; the simple reading of scripture and discussing it meaning and implicaion – ensuring that we have God earthed in our (personal)history (a comment made by a friend, Iori, at SEITE tonight which I like)

So … church history, history of faith – all of a sudden I love it!

It was the annual Remembrance service at St Marks church today.

This is always a mixed service with some of the ‘regular’ staying away as they do not like to rigid style of the event. This is counter-balanced, however, by the loads of visitors, many in uniform, who do come to this annual event.

I’m always struck by this at of remembrance and today I find myself asking ‘why’.

Why … does God allow such atrocities to happen. Where is God in the ripped apart families, in the pain and horror, in the tears and heartache, in the blood and gore. I know he is there suffering alongside, but how is he obvious, how do people connect with him?

Why do people come back each year to remember the dead? In some ways this seems macabre and self -torture in remembering lost loved ones and friends. Why submit oneself to an incredibly painful experience on an annual basis? What is it that people want when they come to such an event? Are people coming to say thank you, are they coming to say sorry, are they coming due to guilt with a ‘it should have been me’ feeling? I guess it could be a mixture of all of these? I also wonder if people are coming to search; after all of these years to still ask why and what next?

Why does the church change its whole normal program for host such an event? The church is there for the community. This is a time when the community choose to remember, when they choose to stop their normal Sunday morning events, whatever they may be, to mark this special occasion. As part of this community, we choose to do the same. The church is the people, an for the people. When the people need somewhere to remember, the church should be the natural place for that to happen.

Why should wee choose to remember? We choose to remember so that we do not forget, summed up in the words of the service said all over the UK today:

(said by an older person)
They shall grow not old,
as we that are left grow old;
age shall not weary them,
nor the years condemn.

(said by a younger person)
At the going down of the sun
and in the morning,
we will remember them.

(said by all)
We will remember them.

Great game I saw today – this has really boosted my confidence over the world cup (please not my lack of mention of Gillingham who sadly need a new manager before they will make any progress).

Rooney and Owen wer a fantastic partnership with Roons himself being everywhere and easily man of the match!

Could it be true …. it’s coming home, it’s coming home…

The equipping your church course was excellent. Well thought out, well planned and loads of excellent networking and discussions. I’ve got great mind maps from each of the sessions and have returned (via the sea) inspired and exciting about the possibilities of engaging with people on a spiritual level.

We looked at the 6 big questions that people seem to ask:
about their destiny
about their purpose
about the universe
about God
about the supernatural
about suffering

We then looked at how to engage with people in light of this.

A number of people spoke about, and many were involved in, visiting psychic fairs and, amongst other stuff, offering free prayer. People want prayer and at psychic fairs they are willing to pay for it. A Christian stall can offer prayer for free! Where this was happening, churches were encouraged to offer more prayer at other places throughout the week.

Today there was a fair bit of emphasis on praying for people. This reminded me of when Sarah was at SITC last year. They offered to pray for people on the streets of Peckham and not once were they turned down! People want prayer! People are into the spiritual and, surprise surprise, they do not think the church has anything to offer in this department!!!

Young people are interested in God and yet see the church as irrelevant.
The nation generally is interested in spirituality, and yet sees the church as having nothing to offer!

As Christians we have done such an excellent marketing of our message over the centuries!

At the end of the day I bought the workbook ‘Equipping your church in a spiritual age’ and a few sets of the angel and nature cards I mentioned a little while ago. They look good and I am keen to see what people say about them.

I’m excited by what I heard today – but some stuff does concern me. If people move ahead and take this stuff on board seriously and try missional incarnational stuff with different spiritualities of people then church is going to look very very messy. We are going to have to work hard at encouragement, at acocuntability, at recognition, at releasing gifts and at acknowledging as real and valuable stuff that we do not understand or even like! Now … which is going to be the biggest challenge?