The weekend has ended well.

Saturday night sawe my 3rd visit to the New East India and hence my third curry of the week! I saw Abby there (amongst others) who pretended that she was glad she was not sharing an office with me any more! I know the truth though, I could detect the clear signs of denial in her eyes!

This morning saw an excellent SPLAT service in church which was hilarious and different. There were loads of people there with a packed church and Sarah and Jo made us all proud again. I’m not one for lively worship but it was a real special time this morning seeing young people and children alive and vibrant with God.

I am going to be away for the next 2 days so this page will go quiet. Tomorrow I travel to Nailsea, near Bristol, to call in on some of my supporters. I don’t really like to be away from the family overnight, but I am also excited to be spending the night with Annie and Phil Williams, some old friends from my Holy Trinity Nailsea days. Phil is now National Director of Christian Surfers UK and we have been meaning to chat together for little while.

After spending the night in Nailsea I will be travelling to Taunton to meet with Trefor Jones of Taunton YFC. Another new person to meet and find out what great stuff is happening in the area. Staying with Annie and Phil will certainly make this trip easier than it would have been if I was travelling from Kent.

After my meeting with Trefor I will be travelling back to Gillingham to watch the wonderful Gills defeat Watford at Priestfield. That is, of course, if the traffic lets me get back – a matter for prayer.

I have no voice. I am all excited and exhilarated after watching afantastic performance from a great Gillingham team who showed that despite 12 men being against them and being down to 10 men for 80 mins that they can win a game.

Today was a great match to see. The team worked so hard and fully deserved the 1-0 victory. This is our first win at home since August and ends a string on 7 losses in a row. I am convinced that this is the turning point in our season as having 10 men fro 80 mins, keeping a clean sheet, scoring and winning must have done the confidence levels good.



A fantastic game was spoilt, as ever, by an appalling display from the referee. His decisions, or lack of them were abysmal. I’m not going to be biased, he made poor decisions all over the place, on one occasion at least giving us a throw in when it was clearly a Wolves ball. Ref’s like this, who have no rappor with the players really should not be allowed. He really was not fit to referee. Rant over!

A great weekend so far ….Come on you Gills!

My boyhood dream has become a reality this week. I always hoped I’d meet and marry a mermaid as I grew up in the seaside town of Weymouth. This week, I realised that I had been married to a mermaid all along … and had just been blinded to the fact!

Well, Sarah has ‘come out’ and my boyhood dream has been realised. The picture is added as support of my statement and is in no way intended to cause offence or embarrassment to any particular individual known or unknown to me.

This week has been SPLAT. This is the St Mark’s holiday club run by Sarah(right) and Jo(left) and their team. This years theme is ‘Under the Sea’ and Terry and I popped in on Thursday before we went for our curry. It was so cool we stayed for one and a half hours.



These great people put together a slick package. As you can see from photos on the church website, the church building is totally transformed into an underwater scene to allow over 90 children to have a great time learning that God loves them.

For Sunday the chairs will be put back but essentially the church will look the same for the morning service.

This year the team allow the parents in to hear the last half hour if they want to and members of the church serve hot drinks ansd biscuits while others welcome them and get to know them. Today, these people were inviting them to a fun night that the church is running in a few Saturdays at the local Sports Centre.

The children who come to SPLAT have the option of joining the Kidz Klub which meets every Friday night for more mad fun.

This is a great example of joined up thinking and complete mission. There is a clear need being met by the club for the children. By the number of parents coming in there is a clear need for these members of our community to generally chat with others over a cup of coffee.

The whole atmosphere was amazing … I’m so lucky to be married to a mermaid and I’m massively proud of her!

What makes a good church?

I have cracked that question in the last 48 hours … quality of church is directly related to the quality of curry, beer, theology and conversation.

This week I have been to the New East India in Gillingham twice … That’s got to be a guarantee for an excellent week!

On Tuesday night I went out with Jim and Darren for a curry and, apart from having a good time and eating well we did a lot of talking. Today, I had the pleasure of having a curry lunch with my good friend Terry. Again, along with the food and beer we chatted for ages about each other and God.

It strikes me that this is church, or if it isn’t, it certainly has a lot of elements of it, such as sharing of a meal (fellowship), discussing issues (learning and teaching), being amazed at what God has done for us (worship) and encouraging each other.

In these relaxed atmospheres men have been able to discuss openly, make suggestions, reflect, bounce ideas and go away with more ideas and thoughts.

Two themes came out of the meals which I think are quite pertinent. One was that as ‘church’ we are called to mirror the love of Christ and accept others. For some this seems to be a joke as I think we could all think of some Christians that are incredibly judgmental and unaccepting.

We thought about some of the more ‘difficult’ members of our congregation that we all have when working in deprived urban areas. Can we say we are accepting and loving by just saying ‘hello’ on a Sunday or do we need to do more. In effect, that is quite a silly question … innit!

Currently there is a guy in church that I find very difficult. His social skills are challenging and if you do talk to him then you simply can’t get away. For a while I avoided him because I found the times awkward and uncomfortable. That’s not nice or right, but it is the bare truth. I need to accept this person as I would anyone else as I don’t see Jesus saying we should just accept those we like.

The other ‘theme’ was more of a question; ‘are we going backwards?’

It is true that Christians in the western world are reading their Bibles less and less. It is also true that these same people are reading Christian books less and less. This leaves the question of where do they get their teaching, and how do they develop their own faith. We guessed that the answer is that it is developed by what they hear on a Sunday.

If this is true we are becoming a generation of Christians who, when asked ‘why do you believe that’ will only be able to answer in 2 ways … ‘the Bible says that’s how it is’ or ‘my pastor says That’s how it is’. Neither of those answers would cut it with people in the real world.

If this is true, the lack of reading and learning for self, then we could say that we are, indeed, going back to times before the reformation. Those times when only the priests had access to the word, unchallenged because no one else knew what the word said.

This worries me. It worries me because we will have nothing to pass on to our next generation. It worries me because it breeds a dependence on Sunday and the few ‘trained’ people. It worries me because it leaves people open to spiritual abuse. It worries me because …. it just should not be so!

I want to follow on from my satsuma church idea.

I have just started to read The Complex Christ by Kester Brewin. It’s really good and I have to make myself put it down to do some work; so I have not read anywhere near as much as I would like. He talks in clear language with a passion that I can relate to.

In the book, Kester makes an important point about revival that I think fits with my satsuma church idea and comments made by Mitch and Marc at You missed the point He states that revival is bound to be a gutsy and messy experience.

Let me elaborate. No doubt many of us would agree that the church is in need of revival. I hear about ‘the promise of revival’ every now and again and, in the words of Bono I’m sick of hearing again and again that there’s gonna be peace on earth. I hear these people talk and preach with big smiles about revival and think that they are missing the point. I can’t believe revival is going to be the nice fluffy experience these people would have us believe.

Kester quite rightly points out that revival is needed as a last ditch effort. We have all seen scenes in films, casualty, ER and if real life to know that you only ‘revive’ someone or something when they or it are dead. We don’t go around reviving the living as they do not need it. In fact, in first aid training I was not aloud to attempt CPR properly on my living patient as it would have caused her harm.

We revive when there is death. The process of revival is hard, emotional, bloody and messy. Its not a nice thing where everyone looks on with fixed grins talking about the blessings of God. If revival has worked, the doctors, nurses and family members look at each other with an attitude of mass relief and thankfulness.

I think the church need reviving in this country. I think to do that we need to get out of our structures and get ourselves immersed in our culture and community. I think this means we need to break out and get our hands bloody!

There will be pain. Pain of rejection, from others in churches who refuse to understand what we are trying to achieve as well as the pain of rejection from those we long to reach. There will be the pain of isolation as we inevitably start to lose real touch with the establishment that seeks to support us. There will be pain of attacks from those we honestly thought would support and encourage us, but actually go out of their way to try to control and deflect us, albeit with good intentions.

There are no rules for getting out there and doing it. Our mission field is where we are. We already know the names of the people. We see them every day or every week.

Too long we have blamed the establishment and leaders for not giving a vision for us to follow. Too long we have waited for top down strategies to excite and guide us. Could it now be the turn of the bottom up strategy from the grassroots of the church to lead the way?

If we want to continue as we have in the past we need to continue to do what we have always done … if we want to see things that we have never seen before we need to do things we have never done before.

YFC have been running year out schemes for 25 years next year. How amazing is that! During that time, hundreds of young people have taken time out to get involved in mission for God – to join the YFC team to tell others about Jesus!

Are you one of those wonderful people?

Next year, YFC want to re-meet you and invite you to a celebration.

If you are one of those people over the past 25 years who has given a year on a scheme with YFC please get in touch with the office.

I don’t know if you saw the piece about ‘Chavs‘ in this weeks press? It was all based around the fact that Chav is the new word in the English Dictionary, with Medway, specifically Chatham, being the capital town for Chavs.

Chavs in the town can be recognised by their massive hoop earrings, reebok trainers, white trousers, scrunchies and gold clowns and chains around their necks (more accurately pronounced ‘gold claaaaahns and bling innit’).

In Medway we smile about the Chavs and their bling and clowns. Most of the time, I think, it is said with some charm and a little affection.

The news item reported that the definition in the dictionary refers to these people as ‘delinquent members of the underclass’.

I don’t like that. I hate to think I am a citizen of a country where it seems to be acceptable to label people as both delinquent and underclass; to me that seems very Victorian in attitude.

All people are created in the image of God, so how can we stand by and allow others to be referred to as underclass or scum? This, I believe, is the sort of thing we, as churches should be challenging in society. How come when people, create in the image of God, are belittled (and so God, personally, belittled) the church stays quiet … Whereas it can stage a great protest against the reading of a children’s book!

I don’t get it … am I missing something here?

I peeled this satsuma for Beth the other night. We always make a bit of a challenge out of it, and I feel totally secure and full of self belief when I am able to peel the whole skin off in one go. As a bonus my daughter thinks I am a cool dad when I do so!

The other night I looked at the peel as I lazily placed it on the floor. It struck me that this did not look like a satsuma anymore. It was recognisable as one, but it was also very totally different in shape. If someone had never seen a satsuma or orange before I think they would find it difficult to believe that this used to be a small spherical object.

As I looked I felt an idea. The church could kind of be like this.

There is the ever big conversation going around on what church is, how it should change, what it should keep and so on and so on and so on. I feel the church needs to change, to open out as the peel in the picture, but still be recognisable to those ‘in the know’ that it is church. For those ‘not in the know’ maybe it should be a surprise that this is church.

I felt the idea that the church should be unpeeled and reach out into the community in the same way my peel does. Some bits stretch out far and are long and narrow, some just push out a bit and are short and stumpy. None of the peel bits are uniform and regular, but then people are not uniform and regular either!

The church should try to reach out in all levels of the community and in some areas it will stretch masses and be received well while in others it will only scratch the surface and so be quite stumped.

The satsumas ‘guts’ have been eaten by my daughter. They provided nourishment for her. The guts of our church, the people, should be providing nourishment for those in the community. As the guts are revealed the skin stretches out in loads of different directions. As we ‘come out’ as church, we find ourselves touching various parts of the community that we live in.

Ho do we achieve this? I don’t think we can with organised set things. This kind of pattern is achieved only when people are released to do things that interest them, when we are encouraged to get out and mix with people in our own individual way, when we are enabled and allowed to get out an infiltrate our community.

If that happens, our ‘satsuma peel like’ churches will stretch into different parts of the community and have a positive effect for change.

I think this is already happening, but it is not recognised either by the ‘church’ or individuals. Think of one person and the networks that individual is involved in. The networks could be vast in number: for example I am in a number of networks ranging from my family, friendship circles, work circles, people I sit near at football, people I play volleyball with, this blog …. there are many.

If we recognise our networks as given by God and usable for God for the progression of his church we will then have a church that stretches in to the community as far as we allow it to. As individuals if we see our networks as mission opportunities we are allowing God to make use of us through our gifts and talents.

I know of two possible examples here.

I have a friend, Gary, whose son plays football on a Sunday morning. He has started to support that group of people on a Sunday morning by being ref and offering some coaching … and he is building relationships with a group of parents. Surely, though, this guy should be in church on a Sunday morning!!?? It is. surely, terrible, that he is out there sharing his life with real people when he should be worshipping the Lord on a Sunday morning!

I have recently joined a volleyball club that meets on a Tuesday night. I am getting to know people very slowly. I enjoy being with those people. But … Tuesday night is the night when the homegroup I am assigned to meets! I feel incredibly guilty that I am out having fun with my new volleyball friends when I should be studying the bible and praying with those from my church in someone’s lounge! Surely, I should be at the church meeting!

It seems to me that too often we try to compartmentalise or control. We train for ‘evangelism’ and try t do ‘evangelism’, whereas God gives us gifts and links in which he just wants us to live genuiney and with integrity; to live provocatively I guess.

As church we need to support where this is happening rather than worry about oversight, accountability, or whether people are being ‘fed’ and so on. All those things are important, but I just think sometimes we use those statements, at best to try and keep control, or at worst to stifle new ideas which are creative and innovative. Sometimes we think they are the more important things and so creativity and mission opportunities are lost.

Surely, our roles should be to encourage the opportunities that come our way, whether they come on a Sunday morning, a Tuesday evening or whenever they may be. We need to be looking at how we support people whose God given opportunities, like Gary’s, take them out of our mainstream ‘normal’ worship services so that they still have an opportunity to grow with others and with God. This may take some more creative thinking.

I like the idea of my satsuma peel church. I like the idea of all of us being out there in the way God wants us to be, changing individual lives as individuals. I like knowing that, if we allow him, God will use all of us in a unique way.

Have I said I love my job?

Well… err I love my job … today!

It’s been great getting out and about and meeting with people, and hearing more about their stories. A lot of the people I have met over the last couple of years are all linked in their stories, even though they may never actually meet each other face to face. They are all linked because they are part of what God is doing in this country amongst young people.

Tuesday morning I met with Patrick from XLP. I found a great guy with a real commitment to serve young people in the south east of London. Some of the stuff XLP are involved in is amazing, and God is certainly blessing what they are doing. Patrick has a real desire to see young people resourced and supported in their mission.

I must have had the biggest cup of black coffee I have ever seen in Starbucks in Peckham with Patrick – I think it looked like a pint of the stuff! – and I was buzzing around for the rest of the day.

From Patrick I moved on to have lunch with Hugh from Greenwich YFC and we had a really interesting chat about stuff that really matters to him. Hugh has an exciting vision to mobilise Christian young people and particularly to resource young leaders.

This was refreshing to hear as sometimes we can be so excited by the work we are doing that we forget to think about the bigger picture and how we can achieve more. Hugh has kind of taken a step back and asked that long term question – and his part of the vision from God is mobilising and supporting young people. As this starts to happen I can only imagine with lots of excitement what those indigenous young people, properly resourced and encouraged will be able to achieve in their communities.

After meeting with Hugh I then walked up the road to meet with Nick, a good and long standing friend of previous YFC lives. Nick is currently working on some research of how young people develop their own faith. I love Nick because I always feel I come away either learning something new or thinking about something differently. Yesterday it was the latter and I came away thinking lots of stuff … which I was about to write down, but I think it’s best left for Nick to put in his paper, as all the questions and thoughts are his!!! While I won’t write here his ideas (that would be plagiarism!)there is a common theme – the reason Nick is doing this is that he wants to ultimately resource young people and so help them in their journey of faith development.

Nick is a really good friend … and it was a great bonus to be able to say ‘Hi’ to Bridget and finally meet Evie, their gorgeous baby daughter.

Today I traveled to Swindon YFC to meet with Simon who is Director there. This was another exciting time, just to hear about what God is doing in someone’s life. Simon has been Director in Swindon for 3 years and is developing some exciting stuff in schools and with events outside.

Again … there was a repeating pattern, even on the other side of the country. As Simon and I were talking he mentioned that he was being asked by young people to run some more clubs in a school. His response was they (Swindon YFC) could, but would far rather support and resource the young people so that they could do it themselves. That is what is happening now.

As I was driving home both yesterday and today, it became clear to me that each of these people was in this mission at great personal cost, with no personal agenda to push – just a great and genuine desire of seeing young people released, resourced and supported to be able to pursue their God given destiny.

In their individual locations theses people are having an impact. That impact is due to a high level of commitment that has no personal agenda. That commitment is also one of partial blindness, as each of these people only kind of know where they are going, but in reality they are not totally sure of where God is taking them or how. They do not let that worry the – they just get on with what they re called to do.

On my travels I have heard it mentioned a number of times that Soul in the City worked so well as people involved in projects cut across church politics and ‘just got on with it!’

If that is the reality of the situation, how come we don’t do that more often?

I went to visit some of the team of Newmarket YFC today. I left at 730 am, leaving myself an extra hour to compensate for the traffic.

2 miles away from the Dartford Crossing the traffic started to queue. I did not click that this was a queue for the junction so I kept on driving, and some nice person let me in to the long line of traffic 500 yard away from the junction. That 500 yards and crossing the roundabout took me 70 minutes.

A lot of that time we were not traveling at all. What could be the problem? After a while I decided that there must have been a pretty bad accident, so, as you do, I offered up a little arrow prayer asking God to help the emergency services and the people involved.

As I approached the roundabout at the top of the slip road it became very obvious what the problem was. Was it an accident? … no, a breakdown? … no, an escaped horse or cow? … no, a bird, a plane, Superman … errr no to all of those.

The reason was simply because so many people were ignoring the traffic signals, all selfishly thinking of themselves and refusing to allow people to move into gaps when they appeared. The whole roundabout was gridlocked with no where for cars to go.

As soon as I got off the roundabout, the M25 was clear and I traveled all the way to Newmarket, never going below 70mph.

Its amazing the effect human selfishness an have on the lives, or situations, of others. The shutdown was that people wanted to get to work so were pushing their cars into any little gap which appeared to progress their journey. They saw the gap and went to fill it! The reality was that if they sat back and allowed others to make use of the gap, the whole load of traffic would have been able to move forward. In fact, what was happening was that no one, not even those filling the gap, were going anywhere.

The repercussions were massive – on the other side of the Dartford Crossing, the traffic was queuing from 2 junctions back – just because of the gridlocked roundabout.

If only a few people let others go first, rather than pushing themselves, the whole landscape could have looked completely different to the one shown in the picture.

No doubt you can see the two parallels with church and life generally that I came up with while driving up the M11:

If we only think of ourselves, we all suffer.

If people are quick to fill gaps, gridlock can occur.

The second thought surprised me. In church we are always keen for people to fill the gaps as there are always plenty of jobs to do. I wonder, though, whether we should allow the gaps to exist longer to allow people to complete their journeys?

Does our keenness to get the jobs done, to fill the vacancies, to make sure all the groups have enough leaders actually stifle our growth as individual followers of Christ and, ultimately, stifle the growth and life of our church?

I wonder if maybe it does. I wonder whether we should leave gaps and just see what happens. I also wonder what happens to those prayers prayed, like mine at the start of the day, that could not be answered because my mind have filled the (cognitive) gap?!