Duncan pointed me to Gillingham YFC’s blog today – ahhh the memories! It looks good and no doubt there will be loads of exciting stuff appearing on here.

What a great game – I can’t talk, my throat feels like I’ve swallowed a pound of sandpaper and I am trying to relieve it now with a cool pint of Tetley!

The Gills played their hearts out tonight and took a premiership team out of the Carling Cup. This is just the result we needed – now lets hope we can transfer this play to the league!

The Gills are coming back! And I can’t wait to phone my friends, especially Martin, in Portsmouth tomorrow!

Caught up today with Phil Greig, who is the new youth officer for Rochester Diocese. He seems a cool guy with loads of fresh ideas and the energy to carry them off. We chatted about what we may be able to do in the diocese together – the Rochester Diocese is massive – stretching from the edge of Medway to Penge in London and extends to an area of 542 square miles with a population of almost 1.25 million. What an amazing size!

It’s good to meet up with people in the good surroundings of a local noodle bar and find you get on so well – amazing how the Christian world is so small with both of us having similar friends and knowing similar places very well.

I really hope we meet up again and are able to support each other.

Wow! Today I reached 50! I just got an email from ebay congratulating me and asking me to share the secrets of my ’50’ rating with others on the community boards!!

It gets better – if I want to I can print off my certificate by clicking the web and displaying it proudly … wooooohooooo!

Can you sense my excitement … I’m off out to find a nice frame.

Oh … my secret??? Buy or sell 50 items; it was, indeed, that simple!!

Today Joe is 7! Amazing! Where did all that time go? Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the adult (my translation!)

If that is true, and from my experience of Seven Up at Uni and since, it can be partly,so the world needs to prepare itself for the entrance of Joseph Ryan of Gillingham!

Seven – its amazing to think time has passed massively. It’s even more amazing to think of the type of world that Joe has grown up in. Thankfully, he has never experienced a Tory government! Joe has never experienced the stress of moving house. He has grown up in a country which is fairly comfortable. Only recently has he started to worry about the safety of his family and friends who travel to London.

Joe has never experienced the joy of placing unscratched vinyl on to a turntable. He has never been without access to a computer, CD or a DVD player.
He has missed out on programs like Magic Roundabout, Clangers, Andy Pandy and Captain Pugwash and Joe Ninety. Maybe that is not such a bad idea!

Joe has grown in a world where there are no problems, just opportunities. This results in an honest ‘why’ when things can’t be done or do not seem to work. It will work and he will find another method to achieve his aim.

Seven years ago we held a little quiet ball in our hands at around 1030 am. Now we have a real person with clear ambitions and desires along with a fairly mature developed set of ideas and opinions : ‘Why can’t they just agree to change the rules to help people in Africa Dad’ was the comment after MPH and the recent summit. Sometimes it takes a child to see the simplicity!

I received this today from Andrea of the LCF:

Dear friends and supporters,

In less than 1 month’s time the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill comes before the House of Lords. If the Lords approve the Bill, it will become law and freedom to preach the full Gospel of Jesus Christ may be significantly curbed for years to come. Despite Government reassurances the wording on the face of the Bill may mean that preaching directly from the Bible could become a criminal offence punishable with a jail sentence of up to 7 years.

Exhaustive information and expert analysis of the Bill has already been completed. The legal, political and Christian scrutiny of, and conclusions about, the Bill can be found through http://www.ReligiousHatredLaw.info, at http://www.lawcf.org/lawreform.php (under Incitement to Religious hatred), at www.christian.org.uk and shortly at www.christianconcernforournation.co.uk. The LCF has prepared a 19 minute programme which can be viewed on any of the aforementioned sites.

The discussions have been held and the information has been shared. IT IS NOW TIME FOR ACTION.

It is crucial that every Christian in our nation is aware that IN ALL LIKELIHOOD THIS PARLIAMENTARY SESSION, AND THE COMING WEEKS, WILL BE THE LAST OPPORTUNITY WE HAVE TO POLITICALLY OPPOSE THIS LAW.

There will not be a second chance. Once this Bill goes through the Lords and is placed on the statute book, objections will be irrelevant – it will simply be up to the judges to apply the law in the courts.

If we want to stand up for freedom to preach the gospel, now is the time to do it. There are 4 primary things which can be done to make a real difference to this situation.

1) PRAY. Please pray for God’s guidance and hand to be over this entire situation.
2) RALLY. On Tuesday the 11th October 2005, the day the Lords will consider the Bill, there will be a political rally outside the Houses of Parliament The assembly point will be at the Old Palace Yard opposite the peers’ entrance to Parliament. We hope thousands and thousands of Christians will stand up on this day in unity to oppose the attack on our faith. It will take place between 1pm and 4pm and will be a fully marshalled event for which we already have police permission. The details of the Rally will be posted at http://www.lawcf.org.

There will also be a prayer rally in Hyde Park (most likely at Speaker’s Corner) on Saturday 8th October 2005 in preparation for the political rally. It has been pencilled in for 12:00 – 3pm though the finalized details will be posted on the aforementioned website.

3) LOBBY. Contact your local MP and/or your local peer. Do it in person if possible. If not, do it by letter, e-mail or fax. Full details on how to find your local MP or peer and how to discuss this issue are found in the Action Pack attached to this e-mail. If you have contacts in local or national media please use these as well.

4) PETITION. An e-mail petition will be circulated to which you can add your name. Please encourage others to add their names to it as well. Again details will be put up shortly on the LCF website.

PLEASE PASS THIS EMAIL TO EVERY CHRISTIAN YOU KNOW

Andrea Minichiello Williams

I’m back from my weekend away. Terry and Joe kindly cooked us lunch and so it was good to be able to unwind and de-stress and relax after what, in many ways, was an incredibly mixed emotional weekend.

I am wondering whether I wish to go ahead with this, and whether all this hard work is going to be worth it.

The people on the weekend, my course, with me are great. We chatted loads at the bar and shared experiences and learned from each other. Our lecture-ers are great too, with founts of knowledge and a desire to radically challenge and push us. I expect I may end up hating them for that quality that they possess so well.

The workload is massive, which I knew and expected, but I am seriously wondering now whether I can cope with it. Currently I have 3 personal assignments to do and 2 group assignments, plus reading and what seems like weekly homework. And what do I choose to do – blog!!!! Why aren’t I writing an essay or reading!?

I’m here writing and trying to sort out my thoughts in my head, I guess. I enrolled on this course as I know that God is clearly leading me along this route. I guess it is not just me – the church is backing me, as is my family, the diocese and I have had interviews with the Bishop selectors. So I guess I have to ask – ‘can all these people be wrong?’ Well, yes, I guess they can – but it would be a bit strange so I suppose I should carry on, or at least have a try and if I really can’t do it with work and family commitments; then that will be the time to think about giving u, rather than now.

In addition, the possibility of ordination 3 years down the road does not seem that attractive at this particular point in time. Again, I guess that is going to be a fluctuating feeling depending on my emotions of the time. If I’m honest the possibility scares me, not the actual thing, but where it means I might end up. I don’t feel called anywhere else other than Medway, and yet it is, although not unknown, at least a rare thing if I was to stay in the area should I be ordained. Now that I have written that line, the prospect excites me again – how fickle is the human heart!!!

This is confusing and today I have chilled and thought about my options in some detail. I guess I’ve been chilling with God. I’ve received no new bursts of light; I guess because I already know the answer and there is nothing else for him to say, other than to remind me what he did, that he is with me and that he is in control of the plans for the future.

So … I guess I am to look forward to 3 years of hard graft, mission placements, mission projects, theology books and essays …. accompanied with a bit less of my home church, football, family events and time with friends.

On reflection I do not know why I am moaning. Jesus paid the ultimate sacrifice, why should those of us in any type of Christian ministry think we should get away without any hardship. I’m falling into the trap that I see some fall into: the trap of wanting the reward without putting in the graft, or the desire for the reward without willing to make the odd sacrifice here and there.

I have said to younger people over and over again that it goes with the territory – time to take on board my advice methinks!

As part of my SEITE course I have to gon on 7 residential weekends. This weekend is the first and if I am honest I am not looking forward to going. I used to enjoy being away from home , but now I really quite miss the family and always feel that I am missing out by being away from them, especially at the weekend.

So off I go to chat around topics with others like ‘what kind of ministry does the church need today?’

See you on Monday!

Yesterday I did a mammoth day – leaving the house at 9 in the morning and not returning home till gone 11 so I could fit a load of stuff into my day in London.

After meeting up with Richard and some other YFC people to look at how things are going, targets for the next period and so on I ha a little bit of time between meetings to kill so found myself a table in the Tate Modern cafe and wrote a few bits down for some YFC stuff I am working on at the moment.

After this I then shot across London to All Souls Clubhouse for a Soul in the City Meeting – a meeting in fact to explain what the plans are for the future and how to become an SITC networker. The values for SITC are clear and can be seen here.

Before giving my thoughts on what I heard this was a great opportunity for London workers to meet up and network. I met a few great people and their was a great atmosphere of love, hospitality and respect. That may sound strange but I have been to Christian events where it has been very hard to break into cliques and chat with anyone and end up standing alone wishing the session would start! This was not such an event!

I left the meeting enthused and in realisation, again, how naturally cynical I can be sometimes. In some ways I have become a ‘big organisation/festival reverse snob’. By that I mean that I have subconsciously written off big events, big youth festivals and so on as a mixture of ‘fluff and hype’ with no substance, no sustainability and make no real difference to our country.

I guess to some point I still hold this view partly, though not as strongly. I do have a question though – after years of Spring Harvests, Soul Survivors, Easter Peoples, Living Waters and so on and so on where people leave enthused to spread their story of Jesus … why after all this does the country not change? Why are our communities still not recognising God? Why are churches still n decline? Why do people still shy away from, ‘mission’?

I had blamed the events themselves as using hype, but maybe, actually, that is very unfair. I think of the term ‘you can lead a horse to water …’. The people running the festivals are sold out for God, their faith has made a difference to their lifestyle. It’s not fair to blame the event if mass transformation does not take place. I realised that was what I had been doing.

Last night helped me, in part, to see the error of my ways. I think it is all summed up in the word ‘sustainability’.

I learned last night that SITC is going to continue, but rather than continue s a big organisation it will be a network sharing information of what is happening around the city and offering support to groups of churches wishing to involve their community. SITC was a great success last year and the people on the ground have decided that things need to continue, that this cannot be a one off and that they should ‘naturally continue’ what has been started.

If this happens then SITC has transformed the thoughts and outlook of Christians in London. Christians who previously did not want or know how to engage with their communities are now trying to do so. Importantly they are doing it in different, appropriate, small, real ways with two way relationships and flow of information and ideas. From what I heard Christians are not saying ‘e must go and do this’, rather they are asking ‘what can we do together in our community’.

People gave stories of changed lived from this joint working together in the community, exciting stories of forgiveness, of lives transformed, of people for the first time considering a God who is interested in them.

I left incredibly excited by hearing that. Could that be real mission?

I have just completed my first assignment for my SEITE course. I looked at how the church had treated people throughout history, and it does not make nice reading.

I have heard people talk of the ‘good old days’ when things were better, when churches were fuller, when Sunday schools were bursting at the seams and when society had greater morals. I don’t know of this was true, but it is certainly true that during that era women were not allowed to exercise their God given ministries, churches had congregations of all one class and colour, people with different opinions were feared and steered clear of.

Looking back in history, the crusades, the treatment of the Jews, the treatment of ‘the heathen’ shows untold torture and mistreatment of, sometimes, whole people groups. During the medieval period Augustine of Hippo sanctioned incredibly violent means and methods as a ‘tool’ for mission. I find it incredible that people were given a choice of death or baptism; and in fact they were quite fortunate, many others underwent torture until they agreed to ‘believe and be baptised’.

In addition the Christians ‘in the majority ‘persecuted’ other Christians who might have different interpretations and practices to them. People were excommunicated and tortured for stating what we would see as clear truths today.

How could all this happen when our message is one of love, of acceptance, of individuality, of grace and of freewill. Jesus never compelled, he never forced, he never threatened; he simply said ‘Come follow me’ – some did and some didn’t. He wept over those that walked away.

In light of an example like that how could such atrocities happen in the name of Jesus? Sadly I think there is one clear answer. This was the result of individuals, and groups of individuals, believing so much that they and their interpretations were right, coupled with a great fear of allowing heresy and wrong to occur under their noses that they simply lost the plot. They wished to protect their standpoint so much, that they were prepared to go to extreme lengths to do so.

A horrible thought struck me as I got onto the modern era of church for my assignment. The methods have changed; we no longer excommunicate, or imprison, or torture – or do we?

It seems to me that there are still people in our churches that do. Methods are now methods of words and letters of hate. Jeffrey John is just one recent example which still quite angers me. We have seen similar actions in the past to women’s ordination, racial equality, style of music; we are seeing it now over women bishops, homosexual clergy, towards liberals, towards evangelicals, towards traditionalists, towards modernists, towards post modernists, towards para church, towards emergent church …. towards anything that does not quite fit with how I see things.

No wonder we are experiencing the decline of Christendom – which branch do you pick which would result in the least line of resistance and attack?

Why do we criticise that to which we do not subscribe – is it as simple as fear of the unknown, or is there a lot more to it?