Back in the big beautiful city today to meet with the London YFC Directors to continue to look at the idea of young people and mission in London.

We used the Chandos again (which is becoming a great lunch and pint location) and had a great time chatting over the idea of encouraging young people to get involved in mission. As we said before, we wish to move away from the ‘gap year’ idea that is so prolific at the moment and look for a way that will really embed mission into the discipleship of young people.

I feel quite passionate about this and have a little concern with the gap year concept. Itself, the gap year concept is a good one and we have had fantastic young people over the years on gap schemes. Thankfuly, some of these have stayed in a mision type setting either in location or elsewhere when they ave moved on.

My fear is, however, that we may be breeding a group of young people that could feel that they have ‘done it’ as far as mission is involved. Wouldn’t it be terrible if off the back of something as good as a gap year, that people felt they had paid their commitment to God before going off and getting on with their lives, never to do anything again!

I’m probably being cynical and stuff – but I do not think the terminology helps. We take a gap to do some project for God, we then carry on with our lives. Do those people then ‘mind the gap’ for the rest of their lives after that? I don’t know … and anyway I am starting to ramble!

Today’s meeting was all about how we can encourage young people from diverse backgrounds to seriosuly get involved in mission within London. This will be a unique experience where young people will come to see mission as an integral part of their life as a Christian. Living as a Christian and mission go together – its obvious really when you think about it!

Today has been a London day.

First it was great to catch up with Yvonne Criddle again who is now based in Church House and is one of the National Youth Officer’s for the Church of England. I have known Yvonne since my time in Nailsea when she was the Diocesan Youth Officer for the Bath and Wells Diocese.

We were able to chat about current youth culture, the church, youth leaders in the church, the youth strategy and many other things. We also had a great lunch in the Church Commissioners at Millbank.

I think with the youth strategy endorsed by Synod and a new forward thinking Archbishop means the Church of England has an exciting time ahead of it. I await with great anticipation.

After lunch I traveled across London to meet Allan Moxham at EA Media Consultancy. He is a very enthusiastic guy who passionately believes Christians have great newsworthy stories that others would be interested in but we are just to wary to give to the press. I must say I do agree. We should, as Christians, make a bigger impact with our stories so people can see that Christianity is alive and kicking in this land.

Currently, YFC have a contract with EAMC for our PR which was why we met today. We do, I think, have a good partnership which can be strengthened.

By the way – if you want to write press releases, or articles or even letters to the editor of your local newspaper then the EAMC can help you. At its resources pages here there are good helpful guidelines to get you going. Look them up.

And the fox I hear you say ….

Well, no doubt you have heard the stuff on the news tonight with the hunt supporters gaining access to the House of Commons and the trouble outside with the police. Church house, where I met with Yvonne, is of course at Westminster so on my way to EA Media I got stuck with lots of hunt supporters which caused the police to stop people trying to work to get to their tube stations

I must admit this annoyed a bit, well quite a lot actually. I thought to myself I do not mind people protesting but if it prevents others and harms others then it does not seem right. When I got home and saw the violence I just stood in disbelief that what was a demonstration about fox hunting became a bloody battle scene. To know that I missed the aggro by 30 mins. left me feeling weirdly cold.

Seeing innocent people, in the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to go about their normal business being hit ‘by mistake’ by the police left a chilling reminder of circumstances and time being very closely interlinked. In short, I was thankful that I was out of there and away from the trouble. If my meeting with Allan had been 30 mins. later I might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It reminds me that split seconds and timings can have different impacts on our lives; whereas most of the time we like to think we are in control. We may be deluding ourselves there.

I realised something at the weekend while my father in law was preaching in church. It was that God does move! Now that may seem a strange thing to say and I will try to explain what I mean.

WE look at the world and sometimes get quite downhearted. We see Iraq, Sudan, Beslan, poverty, violence and so on and just think ‘God please do something’. I do not know about you, but I pray that God will intervene but sometimes I think I just pray and do not really expect him too. I think too, that this is because I don’t think he does because life is just hard sometimes and these situations seem so hopeless.

On Sunday, Ernie reminded me that even in my ifetime of 40 years I have seen God intervene in some very powerful ways.

I remembered the falling of the Berlin Wall, something that at the time we would have never thought could have happened, in the midst of the Cold War.

I personally remember watching Nelson Mandela being released and later taking up office as president of South Africa and the break up of apartheid. Again, something that looked so hopeless that we never thought could possibly happen.

I look to Northern Ireland and remember as a child growing up in the 70’s and 80’s with bombs, terror and death beng reported and occuring on a daily basis. There is still a lot to do but, again, God has clearly intervened in this country.

Such amazing things, which I remember thanking God for at the time, and yet easily forgotton.

The hopeless situations of today are not hopeless at all – God is on the move, where will we see him intervene next?

Friends are so important aren’t they.

I met up with Dennis and Sharron yesterday in Rolvenden, which is in the Weald of Kent, who have come to be good friends within YFC. I’m sure when we all leave we will be friends outside of YFC too. It was great to spend some quality time with them again.

I always love chatting with friends and just listening to what is going on in their lives at the moment. It’s great to see how God is working. All too often time in our western world is focussed and targetted. We are told we have to speak to so many people, sell so many products, give out so many flyers, reach whatever target. We are even starting to see this in Christian organisations which I admit does worry me a little.

I am a personal target driven person. If I have nothing to aim to do, invariably that is what I do – nothing. At the centre, underlying and surrounding that, however, is a confident conviction that targets are very very secondary to relationships.

Relationships, for me, is where it is at. Relationships is how we get things done, it is how we find value in both ourselves and in others and it is how we will instigate change in a world that needs change.

Targets are great, but lets not forget that they are very empty and pointless without relationships.

Everybody has a story. Everybody is looking for someone to listen to their story.

Let me tell you a secret …. interested is interesting. The secret to making friends is to be interested in their stories. If you show interest in others stories they will want to hear yours as well.

(words from Dan Ackroyd playing a father in the film ‘Loser’)

We all love to be listened to. We all like to be asked what is happening in our lives. We all get a little peeved with those people that just want to talk about themselves and do not seem to be interested in other people.

Too often, though, many of us think our stories are not worth bothering about. We feel no-one will be interested. I think because of that we tend to think the same about other peoples stories; that they are not worth listening to either.

Everybody has a story that is worth listening to. In fact, everybody has a story that we must listen to. If we do not listen, if we do not show interest what hope is there for us as church to reach out and show love to those around us.

Stories are key. Jesus used them (although we use the posh term of ‘parable’ to describe them). Good teachers and speakers use them. We love them because in some way we find we are able to connect with stories that we hear.

Today I am travelling about a bit and I am going to try and listen to the stories of others. Maybe I will tell my story in a little while. If any of you want to sare yours, I would love to hear them.

Today … I wish you an interested day.

This weekend has given me one of those proud times as a father.

Recently Tom has joined the 19th Gillingham Scouts. This weekend was his first weekend away camping. After the football (if thats what you can call it this week) we all went over to the camp to see Tom invested (become a member) as a scout.

I went along thinking this was the normal thing that happened. It was not until the scout leader started to talk that I became aware that the whole idea of being invested at camp was Tom’s.

It always amazes me how Tom can come up with his own creative ways. No, thats not quite right. I am amazed that Tom has these ideas and then is creative and persuasive enough to be able to see them happen. Thats quite amazing for a 10 year old boy I think.

Children seem to see through the rubbish and just get things done. I wonder what happens as we get older because ‘things’ seem to hold us back.

As I said, today I am feeling pretty much the proud father

What a day today has been! Do you ever get those days when nothing seems to go right, or that no matter what you do things just seem to get worse?!

The day got off to a great start, though. First, I met up with Ben Hyde who sed to work at GYFC and now is the youth worker of Sittingbourne Baptist Churh. It was great t catch up with him and hear his vision and discuss his plans. I will be continuing in a kind of coach/mentor role with Ben which really excites me.

From leaving Ben, though, things have got worse. I dropped my ipaq on the floor while in the toilet. The screen broke and now it does not work. The GPS system for it has stopped working and so it needs to be sent back. To make things worse my ipaq is an old model so it will be virtually impossible to get a replacement that is compatible with everything I have. The laptop keeps crashing. I can’t get my databases to work properly and people I want to talk to are just not there.

If I did not know better …. I would be asking should I even have dreamt of considering a challenge on the concept of an all powerful God??!!

Before reading today I want to remind people that I do not speak the truth. All my writings are opinions, mostly personal. Some, like todays, are accounts of as yet incomplete thinking which I am writing to help me in my thinking processes.

I have been chatting with a number of people recently on the theme of suffering adwy bad things happen to innocent people. Much of this conversation has come from shock over Beslan. I was also chatting to Sarah and we could not agree.

I am wondering – can God be all powerful if bad stuff happens o good people?

I know some of the evangelical responses to this that I have been brought up with:

1. None of us are really good – we have all done something wrong and so are bad really!

2. Suffering is a method God uses to develop our faith in him.

3. If we did not experience hardship and sadness we would not be able to experience joy and happiness.

4. The many others which I am sure you have heard or grown up with.

I am currently challenging and investigating a lot of hat I have been taught over the years and I am not sure these responses give an adequate answer. For example, a God who uses pain to develop character does not equate with the God of love that I worship. In fact it seems quite sick and if I used ‘pain and suffering’ to develop the character of my children I am sure social services and oters would soon intervene!

The suggestion we are all bad – yes I would agree we all ‘sin’. But had the children of Beslan, or the Jews of Aushwitz, the Tutsis of Rwanda been ‘bad’ or ‘evil’ enough to deserve what happened to them. I guess most of us would agree not.

So the question holds – why does God not stop things like this happening? Why doesn’t God intervene?

I don’t know my answer yet, but could it be that God is not all powerful? Could it be that some things are even too much for God to do? Could it be that sometimes the best he can do is be there in it with us? Maybe he really wats o stop stuff, but knows that he cannot (or is it should not?). If so then the notion of an all powerful God confuses me.

As I said, I don’t know the answers and I am processing this in my mind. It certainly grates and hits at my evangeical upringing and as I write ‘not all powerful’ my imediate response is ‘of course he is’. But I am asking myself how conditoned a response that is.

Today I met with Pauline in Wandsworth. She is a great woman who has been used by God fantastically in the borough. Over coffee she talked about what she had been involved in and her vision for the future in the area and you could just see the excitement and dedication in her eyes. It was pretty contagious. This woman has been there for years, she is not paid and yet her love for the place is clear for all to see. She has not become cynical or jaded which is what you can find with people that have been in one ocation for a while. Here is a person that has a real tranformational relationship with God which I must admit to being slightly envious over.

I have known Pauline for a little while but the purpose of my visit was to suport her as she develops So_lid YFC in Wandsworth. This really is going to be a an exciting YFC centre as So_lid seeks to support, enable and resource the local churches to reach out in ther communities. Pauline is very clear that this YFC centre is not to do all the work – the vision is one of enablement and resourcing and support. It is the churches work and So_lid hopes to support them.

I find that so exciting and think that maybe this is what all Christian outreach should be about. Rather than wondering about competing and empire building, looking to suport and encourage others is I think what it should all be about.

There has been a bit of talk on leadership on other blogs recently. Abuse of leadership, leaders not understanding and so on. If all leaders took on this enablment and servant atitude then incidents like this would be far less, don’t you think?