It’s arrived! My long awaited didgeridoo arrived very well wrapped. It was very cheap and as an added bonus it works! It did not take long to generate the well known drone sound; its faily easy – even the children can do it!

 



People that visit for BBQ’s now beware – you may be expected to play a tune before we let you leave.

 

An exciting day for me and the kids … a puzzling day for the neighbours as they wonder whether they have woken in the Australian outback!

Tonight I attended my last Executive meeting of Gillingham YFC. I feel really strange and kind of sad. GYFC has been a big part of my life for nearly a decade and for so long it has been ‘my baby’. Sometimes that has been good, because I have cared for it and encouraged it to grow; but other times God has had to wrestle his baby free and develop it in ways which I would never have dreamed of or thought possible.

 

One such way has been our move into performing arts this year with D2. I find it bizarre to think that I, a man who runs away if anyone suggests dancing, acting or singing, can be managing  a performing arts team. The idea is actually quite laughable! From this year I have learnt that God does not just use our experience and capabilities only. There are times when he puts us in places where our skills seem irrelevant at first sight. In God’s eyes, it matters not that I can’t dance or sing, all that matters is that I’m willing to go where he leads. This year that meant taking on and supporting D2.

 

Back to the Exec … Tonight the people were very brave and I think that is really cool. They have stepped out in faith in agreeing to host D2 again next year. At the moment we do not know where we are going to house them, or how we are going to pay for them. It makes no sense but we feel God is saying we should trust him and continue to move ahead.

 

If you would like to pray for us as we seek a house for them that would be cool.

 

When Peter had to step out of the boat I always think he must have been terrified. The waves rolling around him. He was called to be brave in a new world. All his natural senses and common sense must have screamed ‘NO‘ when he thought about stepping out on the water. But he did it because he recognised the new world Jesus was bringing in. He was brave in the new world.

 

I think some of my exec feel a bit like Peter now. They know they have got to get out there, but it’s pretty scarey all the same. I admire them for it- as I have over the last 10 years or so. They are seeing the new world with Jesus steering things. They are exhibiting great bravery in that new world, and I am quite sad to be leaving this part of God’s adventure.

 

It will be strange waking up on September 1st knowing that I am no longer the Director of GYFC. For a long time it was all I ever wanted, and only a little while ago the thought of leaving would have crippled me. It’s strange how God changes your thoughts and presents new challenges.  A new world is just around the corner and I’m pretty scared – so a bit of bravery needed there too!

 

All of us, I guess, are being called to be brave in a new world, wherever we may be, at the start of every new day.

Today we travelled to St Marks College, Saffron Walden, to have a look around as we are running a Falcon Camp here in the summer for CPAS. When I say we, I mean myself, Malcolm and Abby who I have the pleasure of working with each day.

It strikes me that even though you work together every day, and see quite a bit of each other, that it takes a journey to somewhere like Saffron Walden to actually have time to talk about anything. On our two hour or so long journeys we were able to chat, laugh and generally just listen and enjoy each others company in a different way than we are usually able to do. This meant we were able to hear each other differently, and there was no pressure on time as we were in the car and dependent on the flow of the M25 and M11. I enjoyed just spending time with my friends in the car; if you ask them, they of course may have a different opinion!

There is a cheesy link coming or not!… On our journey with God should we not make space for the same type of thing to happen. I have just had a great picture of God smiling and calling me just to sit and rest and chill with him for a bit. Quite often my time with God I want to tell him what’s on my mind, my struggles, give him the list of things that he needs to sort and so on.

If you think about it, that is really quite bizarre. If God is GOD, then he knows all that anyway! Sometimes I wonder whether he just thinks … Rob, I know, you don’t have to prove yourself, just come and sit with me awhile!

The only illustration I can offer to try and get my thought across is my children. Quite often one of them will just come and sit next to me or sit on my lap. They don’t necessarily want to talk, nor do they want anything of me, they just want to be with me. I tell you, when it happens it feels great! I can’t begin to describe the myriad of positive emotions that that experience generates inside me.

I am not a particularly great dad. Sarah is far more patient and loving than I am. But, if that experience of a ‘poor’ dad can generate that much emotion, and if someone like me feels like that after spending time ‘chilling’ with one of his children I wonder how much more God feels when we just chill out with him.

Too often I think we believe that God loves us, because theologically he has to, but that he does not really like us, because maybe we do not like ourselves, and so would not choose to spend time with us. I am learning that is a lie and total rubbish! I am starting to realise that God actually loves those times when we just sit with him, in his presence, in exactly the same way I love it when one of my children jumps on my lap or sits next to me.

I want to end this post with some words from Mike Yaconelli after he visited the L’Arche community on retreat:

it only took a short period of time to realise I wasn’t alone. God had been trying to shout over the noisiness of my life, and I couldn’t hear him. But in the stillness, his whispers shouted from my soul. “Michael I am here, I have been calling you, but you haven’t been listening. Can you hear me, Michael? I love you. I have always loved you. And I have been waiting for you to hear me stay that to you. But you have been so busy trying to prove to yourself that you are loved that you have not heard me.2

…. What does all this mean? … I don’t know and maybe that is the wrong question … I can only tell you for the first time in my life I can hear Jesus whisper every day ‘Michael I love you. You are beloved. And for some strange reason, that seems to be enough.’

I’m off now to chill with God cos I think I’ve left it far too long!

This event looks like an exciting day. Jonny blogs about it and you can get details from the CMS website.There is also a pdf flyer here.

I am going to let people in my networks know as I think a number of them would love to go. I really hope that I can get to the London day on October 4th.

Jonny says this about it on his blog:

This day will explore how the church can recalibrate itself for mission, rebuilding from the roots up – expect a mix of inspiration, stories, reflection, encouragement, conversation, leadership training, theology, and practical advice. We hope it will fuel your ongoing mission.

Maybe I will meet some of you there!

This thought follows on from yesterday really, but comes due to some help from Darren of Alternative Hymnal fame in the formatting of yesterdays post.

I have been trying for a little while to format my posts so that the text would align around a picture – and you will see that darren gave me the little code that I needed to do that. No big deal you may think, as that is quite simple. Well, yes it is, but I had been researching and looking in books for a while and not been able to find anything to help me.

The problem was I was viewing the ‘problem’, ‘challenge’, ‘opportunity’ from completely the wrong angle. Here I am looking for some html code that will format my text. I wanted the text to go around the picture so it looked tidier. No matter where I looked I could find nothing.

It is now clear that I was looking in the wrong place as what I actually needed was code to format the picture. It never even occurred to me that I needed to look at the pic rather than my text. If it has, no doubt I would have sorted it very quickly – once I had the code from Darren it took all of mmmm 5 seconds. I shan’t tell you through sheer embarrassment how long I have pondered over HTML for Dummies or web pages out of sheer embarrassment.

As pilgrims on our journeys with God it strikes me that we can do all the research and think processes available to us, but is is important that we are looking for the right thing! To keep that open mind, to be creative and be able to view a situation from a totally different approach is a gift from God that we should give thought to.

Sadly, it seems to be true as well that there are lots of people out there looing for fulfilment, acceptance, love and security. How many hours are they spending looking in the wrong place?

You will see from my ‘reading’ list that I have just started to read ‘The Provocative Church‘. I picked it up at the emerging church conference the other week. (by the way … does anyone know how I get the text to wrap around a pic like the one above so I don’t waste so much space by starting to write below it?)

I’ve only read the first 2 chapters but thought I’d mention a bit about it so far. I was thinking of writing and then Gordon asked about it so I took that as a sign!

Graham Tomlin has started by making the point that as church we seem to be trying to answer questions that people are not answering – nothing that will shock us there then! By this, he means that we are assuming that people want to be ‘saved’ and have a desire for God. Actually, people are generally ‘happy’ and do not see a need for God and neither do they feel that they need rescuing. This kind of sums up the churches approach over many years which has been how can we persuade them that it is true?’

Our real aim, Tomlin says, is that we should be looking to provoke a reaction or a desire within people. Then our question would be something like ‘how can we make them want to know more?‘

I think I would generally agree with that outlook ad I certainly do feel that we take too much for granted and just assume peop,e want to know – all we need to do is find the right answer. I have a fear that this book is going to try and suggest the ‘answer’ to all the difficulties but I amy, and hope, I am wrong. (Not because I think I already know but because I do not believe there is or can be one answer … but saying that there could be one principle I guess … maybe … on certain days!)

Tomlin then moves on to say that one way of generating that desire or interest in God is by our lifestyles. Are our lifestyles different or are we the same as our neighbours. This is quite a challenge.

Are my interests distinctly different to my neighbours. Do I stress about the same, often material, things or am I different. Is my church a little club for like minded people or is their stuff in our life and worship that peoople look in on and say ‘I want some of that’?

The end of Acts 2 says (Message version):

Everyone around was in awe ……. they followed a daily discipline of worship followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, joyful and exuberant, as they praised God. People in general liked what they saw. Every their number grew as God added to those who were saved.

I find that quite amazing, and a great challenge. In our communities, when people look at us what do they see? Do they want what we have or cross the street to get away from us? Do they want the quality of life that we have? Should we be looking to provoke this kind of desire?

The second chapter talks more about evangelism and introduces Jacques Ellul and Walter Brueggemann. Ellul states that the major weakness of the Western church has been a failure to live a distictive Christian lifestyle. To rediscover how to live a distinctive Christian lifestyle is the key to rediscovering Chritainity in our country.

Too often, says Ellul, we have acceoted the world as it is despite the fact we know that Jesus can change things. We need to acknowledge how bad the world is, understand that it does not have to be like that, and realise we need a revolution headed by Jesus for it to change. And, I think this is the good bit, Jesus is here and so the revolution has started!

Bruggeman states in Biblical Perspectives on Evangelism that evangelism is an invitation to reimagine our lives, an invite to switch lives, to exchange the gods of despair, boredom and disadvantage for the God of Jesus Christ. This calls for imagination and a belief that things can be different.

In a way they are both saying dissatisfaction with life cause the beginnings of interest in God. Disatisfaction with the way things are and a deep instinct that things could be different are starting points for anyone who wants to engage with Jesus.

Its an interesting view that I am digesting. I must admit I warm to it quite a bit. I guess they are saying that if people really are happy with life then they will not give Jesus a look. It is only when you sense things can and should be better that they do.

I don’t know anyone that is not disatisfied, so I find myself asking ‘why aren’t they all flocking to Jesus?’

Tonight, church was exciting and I connected with God in a real way due mainly to a lack of structure and freedom to explore God in ways I felt comfortable to do so.

The young people planned and led tonight’s ‘informal worship’ as they do every month. We started the evening with drinks and do-nuts in a cafe type setting at 6.30. At about 7.00ish suddenly we heard a Gregorian chant over the CD player and Rob, one of the young people, welcomed us and explained that around the church were different places which may help us to connect with God and invited us to visit them at our own pace.

These areas were:

a table with bread, wine, an icon and ‘last supper’ painting by Judith Wolfe (see yesterdays post)

an area devoted to candles and Christmas tree lights

a space to create in using natural materials (twigs, leaves) or pencils etc.

a video presentation of The Lords Prayer

pictures of Jesus to look at

a notice board to write thoughts, prayers and comments on

After about 30/40 mins (time went very quickly!)Chris led us in sung worship and there were drums, instruments and flags around for people to use if they wish.

By this time I was sat with Isaiah 55 and ‘chillin’ with God’ only to look up and see a couple of the girls just dancing in worship to God – it was beautiful to see there fresh expression in what many would see as a restrictive and old building.

This experience was awesome – and again I wish I had bought that digital camera so I could share a bit more of the experience with you.

I want to thank the young people, and Sarah who is their youth worker, for giving us all the opportunity to meet with God in a powerful but individual way.

Today we welcomed Chris home from Mustagh Ata with a great lunch time thing for all the family at Ernie and Janet’s (Sarah’s parents)

Unfortuantelly due to what sounds like an extreme snow blizzard they did not make the summit. Chris in not downhearted though. They had a fantastic time, achieved loads and know there is time to try again in the future if they want to.

I am still not jealous .. really I’m not!

Sarah found this picture, The Last Supper, which she is using in a worship service tonight. I find it uncomfortably challenging, but I don’t know why.

There’s loads of symbolism here and the more I look at it, the more I notice and the more uncomfortable I feel. The broken bread in 2 pieces, the spilt blood, the warped glass, the anguised face of Jesus, the darkness behind him.

I’m finding it really powerful and Judith Wolfe, the artist, has interpreted the last supper in quite a provocative way.

Today I pretended to have my new role for YFC for the day and attended a pre-launch of Chislehurst Youth for Christ. If all such meetings have salmon and champagne in massive back gardens the size of a Gillingham park, I could quite get used to this.

If you don’t know Chislehurst is in Kent and quite near to Bromley. It’s quite a well off area but as far as reaching young people is concerned I think that just means the issues are hidden and possibly harder to discover. In Gillingham we can see the needs immediately. In Chislehurst, the needs are there, but the masks are thicker.

Anyway … the centre has a fantastic swell of church support and I could sense a real passion to reach out to the young people of the area. It was so exciting to meet people of all ages and all churches with a passion to reach young people for Christ. I know it will amaze me over the years – how God is raising people to reach outside their cultures to young people.

They have a target of raising £30 000 before they fully launch and employ a worker. Please pray for them as they go for this.