This week saw me start my second term at SEITE.

I think this term, about Worship, particularly liturgy and the history of daily prayer, liturgical calendar, etc. is going to be heavy going. I can certainly say at the moment that it does not inspire me in the same way that mission of last term does. At least I have a lecturer who is passionate and very excited about it – if he can’t get me interested in this stuff, then no one can.

WEE had a little discussion in our group. Someone asked, ‘does it matter, why do we need to look st origins of worship, why not just plan stuff now.’ Initially I agreed, but then realised (I think) that we need to learn from history.

One of the things that frustrates me about evangelical charismatic worship is the lack of symbolism. Its all singing, raising hands and more singing! While there is a place for that, there is also a place for colour, for symbolism through dance, through icons, through candles, through incense, through so many things. I understand that the evangelical wing got rid of these things as it was scared of heresy and doing things wrong. A bit of a case for throwing the baby out with the bath water!

So … we need to look at how things started and why they started as this can give us a good and relevant base or the development of appropriate means to worship for the 21st century person. Looking at it that way, maybe this term is going to be ok after all!

the new liverpool football team! cruel but funny!

Yesterday I spent most of the day in Basingstoke with Roy Crowne. We were there to talk with local church leaders about what a YFC centres could look like in the area and how to progress this vision. There was a passion here to reach the lost.

After lunch, and incredibly creative youth worker from Yeovil called Adam met with us in a very low key way to start to consider what a Yeovil YFC might look like f the church leaders there decided it was a thing to do. Adam had a clear passion for young people who had not yet heard about Jesus.

This sort of enquiry is becoming a weekly occurrence. It’s amazing – at a time when the church is in decline, it seems that YFC is growing. I find that interesting; at a time when the church is declining due to lack of mission, the church is looking ‘outside’ for help as it starts to re-state it’s mission focus.

In my recent assignment I quoted Kirk ‘if the church stops mission, it ceases to be church’. Is that was has happened in some places, geographical, mentally and practically – have churches ceased to be churches?

The whole centre of church, if we agree with Missio Dei, that mission is the very nature of God, is mission. That is what we breathe, that is what we feed on, that is what we are there for. When it stops, we lose our reason for being church. When our mission stops, we are no longer a church.

So, what is left in its place. A group of people who play church in safe comfortable surroundings. A group of people who have lost the (gospel) plot. A group of people whose passion for the lost has been replaced by a passion for the new carpet in church. Passion for the lost replaced by passion for the cleanliness of the new church hall. Passion for the lost replaced by passion for church events. Passion for the lost replaced by passion for doing it correctly. Passion for the lost replaced by passion for the correct style of worship. Passion for the lost replaced but passion for easy worship and powerpoint.

We cease to be church, and start to be social club. We lose biblical priorities and replace them with our own. Jesus’ challenge to reach the poor, the needy, the lost is becomes too uncomfortable to consider because it does not sit comfortably with where we are anymore.

I hope this little indication of a new mission focus that we are seeing around the country is an indication of things to come. I hope it means that Christian social clubs are waking up and realising that they need to become churches again. I hope it means the church re-engaging, Jesus being met, and lives being transformed.

Friday afternoon I caught up with Becky and Becky, two wonderful individuals that I have missed working with. It was great to catch up on what God was doing in our lives, what peoples futre plans were … and before we knew it nearly 3 hours had zipped by. Chatting over coffee/hot chocolate/tea was such a great experience, and I hope we don’t wait over a year before we manage to do that again. Sounds twee but it really was a real blessing to spend time with Bex and Becky! Blessing 1! (I was going to say something here about their engagement but that would be unfair!)

Friday night I collected the children from the SPLAT party. This was amazing and the children and parents were obviously very excited by what was going on. To see real joy on faces of people coming into contact with God throuhg the church was fantastic. Blessing 2!

Saturday was my big day! This was the day when the missiion assignment needed to be finished as the deadline was Monday evening and I knew Sunday was out for doing anything serious and Monday I am in Basingstoke all day. Just before leaving for football I finished my conclusion – the ense of relief was amazing. Blessing 3!

Saturday afternoon: Gillingham 2 Blackpool 1! Blessing 4!

During football and seeing Abby happily growing with child and excitement of Dad to be Malcolm. Blessing 5!

Sunday morning in church hearing from Chris how great Tom is, how talented he is andhow helpful and caring he can be. He has a real knack for being able to start conversations with anyone. Blessing 6!

Marvelling at sarah and Joe leading the SPLAT service in church today. Blessing 7!

Having lunch in the local curry house after church with 30 people on one long table. Catching up with people over curry that we have not really properly chatted with in weeks. Having an adults ‘end’ childrens ‘end’ and listening to them singing ‘Amarillo’ and ‘When the Gills go up!’ Church & Curry! – Blessing 8!

Sitting with a loving family and chilling watching Gremlins 2. Blessing 9!

Sarah. Blessing 10!

Wow – what a weekend. It’s amazing, when you look for blessings you see them all over the place. I’ve just sat for 10 mins and written these while reflecting on the weekend. All are easily missed as ‘general life events’ yet in reality these are God’s blessings to us.We need to look more and to reflect more so that we notice more. Not doing so can result in a life of missed things to give thanks for!

I traveled to Glasgow yesterday, via EasyJet, to spend the day, with Roy and Richard, with our Scottish teams. What a great bunch of people, that I have not really had the chance to chat with before.

The day starting with Ed, who oversees developments in Scotland, embarrassing me by marking my first visit to Scotland by presenting me some gifts: a Scottish flag mouse mat to remember them by, a Scottish key ring, a Rod Stewart cap (which has certain beretta similarities!) and a fantastic haggis which will be eaten very soon. I felt well and suitably welcomed.

The teams in Scotland are working in varied ways and it was excellent to catch up with them. I met Hazel, who is the new director of NE Scotland YFC. Her story, told by one of her team is amazing. She worked with Soul Survivor in Watford and felt called to go and live in Aberdeen to reach young people. To cut a long story short, she made the massive faith step and moved not knowing what she might do, found out NEYFC were looking for a part time director and the rest is history.

Stories like this really excite me – it’s hard to argue with the direction from God in circumstances like this.

We were in Scotland really to talk about mission, particularly evangelism and how we as the national body can help them in their local contexts. I think some pretty exciting stuff might come from the day.

The flights were superb – it’s been such a long time since I have flown. The views in the morning as we flew over the Lake District were stunning. I had a window seat and was able to marvel at God’s creation and use it to worship him on my way to Glasgow. The view seemed to me to just make it so obvious that this wonderful planet of ours just had to have a creator, a blue print behind it all.

My first trip to Scotland was far too short – I can honestly say I loved the place, the atmosphere was great amongst the teams and I hope it won’t be another 40 years before my second visit!

It’s really weird how things happen.

Yesterday I was talking about mentors and all that, being challenged to remain real, keeping sight of our original calling.

Today I heard of the sad death of Delwyn in Nailsea. Delwyn was a kind of long distance mentor of mine. While in Nailsea, rarely did we see eye to eye, but we had a great respect for each other which has lasted well over a decade. As I write I feel a certain emptiness knowing that no more will I hear his subtle encouragements, his spot on challenges; nor will I hear his abuse of the English rugby team. Strangely I smile to think that at least he was able to see a Welsh Grand Slam once again – some people would even say that was what he was waiting for.

I am pleased to have known Delwyn. I was pleased that at the age of 70 he took on my challenge to become a cell leader for a group of 14-18’s. I was pleased to see the young people in his group falling in love with him, but also to see the joy on his face at realising that at over 70 he still had something to offer young people.

I have popped in to see Delwyn on my visits to the west country and we have always had a great time. I will miss his beautiful letters of encouragement. There really is an emptiness that cannot be replaced.

My love and best wishes go to Marion, his wife, and the rest of his family – may God be your support. A prayer for them from the Northumbria Community prayer book:

This night and every night
seems infinite with questions
and sleep as elusive
as answers

Pain and longing are always present
dulled only a little
by the distractions of day
I am weary; I am angry
I m confused

Circle me Lord
Keep despair and disillusion without
bring a glimmer of hope within

Circle me Lord
keep nightmare without
Bring moments of rest within

Circle me Lord
keep bitterness without
Bring an occasional sense
of Your presence within

Rest in peace Delwyn

I had one of the most privileged parts of my role with Sarah in youth work today. I am a mentor/supporter fir 2 of the cell leaders. Today I met Amber for lunch in the local noodle bar.

In the hour we spent together I listened and was simply amazed at the maturity of this young woman and how she juggles study with friends with life with leadership. She is really excellent example to her peers.

Today, her attitude reminded me of why I got into youth work and Christian work generally – a complete love for God coupled with great desire to tell people why.

It seems to me today that there are a good number of people in churches, in all kinds of leadership roles, who have quite simply lost the plot. They have forgotten their calling and been sucked into a lifestyle of good works.

Katies quote that I mentioned the other day: ‘OUR GREATEST FEAR SHOULD NOT BE OF FAILURE, BUT OF SUCCEEDING AT SOMETHING THAT DIDN’T REALLY MATTER‘has really made me think.

How much of what I do does not really matter? How much ‘important’ stuff would really be noticed if I did not do it?

Meeting with people like Amber really challenges you to ‘re-think’ and ‘re-member’the why and what it is all about questions. If we do that, then surely we are less likely to lose the plot, lose sight, became embroiled in stuff and forget God.

Mentoring is always a 2 way process. I share my knowledge and I listen and we both go away changed. I believe Christian mission to be like that too. We don’t just have a message to ‘give’ to people, we have stuff to learn from our communities too.

We always need mentors, we need experienced people to mentor, our experienced leaders also need to continue learning and to be challenged. Maybe every leader should have a mentor and be a mentor….

Today was the first day of the St Mark’s holiday club for 7-11’s called SPLAT.

Each year Sarah and her team transform the inside of the church according to the theme and than have 4 great mornings of fun and teaching.

This year the title is Incredibles with the theme of superheroes. Normally each year, the leaders have work a cap or a t-shirt etc. with the splat logo on. This year Sarah has pushed out the boundaries, or lowered the standards, whichever way you look at! This year … all the leaders are wearing pants on the outside with the SPLAT logo printed on them! You can imagine how the inside of the church looks – well maybe you can’t, but the sight of 20 or so leaders wearing SPLAT pants is a sight you don’t normally see in church.

In addition … The children that want to can wear a pair of officially issued super hero pants on the outside. Sarah had to go to buy more today as she only bought 80 pairs and 100 children turned up.

This is amazing, 100 children each morning to play games and learn about God seeing them as superheroes.

Its amazing what the teams achieves throughout this week – I always think this is how church should be all the time – not children’s holiday clubs – but meeting the needs of the community, and adapting to be able to do so.

I’ve often said I have one of the bet jobs there is – traveling around, chatting with great people about their ideas, drinking coffee – can it get any better!

Today I caught up with Derek, the chair of our centre in Braintree and then with Ruth at Waltham Forest before meeting with the chair and treasurer of Waltham Forest YFC and the chief exec of Forest YMCA.

Today has just been a great day; a day where I have listened to peoples dreams for their areas, of exciting developments in reaching young people with the love message of the gospel.

An amazing thing – in all I met 9 people today, only 3 of which were being paid for the youth work they were involved in. Others were giving their time voluntarily because they had a strong calling and desire to see things change.

Christian youth work has rapidly gone down the employment route. There is always lots of excitement around a new appointment, and churches are starting to compare themselves, and in some areas you are not yet ‘in’ I you don’t have a paid youth worker. I really hope, though, that people don’t forget the truth – that the majority of the work, and those that will be around for years really engaging with local young people will be those volunteers who selflessly give of themselves day after day after day.

I like surprises.
Some people don’t.
This weekend I had a number of surprises, some little, some bigger!

The surprise of Michael’s mum taking Tom and Michael to football training enabled me to do a bit more needed study for my mission fieldwork assignment.
The the little surprise of an unexpected comment from one of my Children.
The surprise of racing down the motorway in a BMW was exhilarating.
The surprise of a meal with good friends on Saturday night.
The surprise of seeing Cassie and Chris in church was an unexpected nicety (had to say that as Chris paid me!)

Surprises are great at reminding us what is important to us. When we get stuck, lose heart, wonder if its worth carrying on; that is the time to recall the surprises of life.