Those of you that know me are aware that in May last year I spent a week on retreat at the Northumberland Community. There for the first time in a while I felt I truly connected with God again and got lots of stuff sorted. In particular it was the mix of space, contemplation, liturgy all mixed with everyday living that I found some resonance with.

The interesting thing for me is that 14 months on I am still following the daily office prayer book which I bought while with the community. For me to stick at any set method for so long is a mini-miracle in itself. I still find it the way for me to connect with God at the start and end of each day and so I will continue to use it until I need to find something else.

This week the reflections have been around the concept of heaven. The start of the week looked at Revelation 21 and was drawing out the thought that John here is pulling out the idea that the picture of a city without a church is his image of heaven. That thought kind of grabbed me and others I know with a little smile. The city of heaven will have no church.

If heaven is a city, the life of those going there must be a real life. Christ’s gift to us was an abundant life, not rules, or dreams or conditions. He gave us an abundant life that was meant for living! Lets get out there and live now!

The site has been updated and there are some new excellent articles to read.

Its not been a great day today and I have been struggling with ‘stuff’. Sometimes I just get those days when I genuinely feel that God is just not understanding what I’m on about. My brain tells me he does, but my experience suggests he doesn’t. If I’m honest I hate days like today and wish I was a clone rather than trying to work out a real faith with my creator.

God where are you?

God can you hear?

Yeah; I know you can hear

But are you listening?

Are you getting my drift?

Are you understanding the torment inside?

I want to be released,

I want to be set free

To soar with the eagles

and race with the wind

but you have placed me here

and here I will try

to be the person

you created me to be

But if you change your mind …

I want to soar and fly and race and …

be free.

Today is an exciting day for us at Gillingham YFC as ‘Whose Life’ can now be purchased to be used in schools and youth groups.

A while ago a group of teenage parents we support had a great idea of producing a video to show the reality of being a parent as a teenager. They had seen some videos that they felt just glamourised the issue and they wanted to show the truth through their own stories.

We got funding from the government via the Transforming Youth Work Fund and commissioned One Small Barking Dog to film the video that the girls wanted to produce. OSBD were excellent to work with; a big fear of the girls was that a production company would change their ideas etc. Pip from OSBD did not do this and a clip of the excellent result can be seen on their website.

If you want to use it please buy a copy. In Medway, the girls that are in the video are using it themselves in schools as part of an hour workshop. They have done 7 workshops already and the feedback is excellent.

As I said above – this is an exciting time for us and we are all so proud of these young women – so thanks to Claire, Rachel, Louise and Cassie.

8 years ago today, exactly as I write this post, I was holding this little miracle called Beth in my arms. It seems as if it were only yesterday – is that a mark of a busy life or of my growing age and sinility? (no need to answer that!)UIt’s weird thinking how quickly children grow and about the fact that none of that time can be reclaimed back.

Yep … Beth is 8 today and she chose to celebrate it in MacDonalds! mmmm

I remember exactly what we were doing on that day. It was a Saturday and we had taken Tom to Howletts wildlife park as his last treat as the only child. While walking around the gorillas Sarah went into labour and Beth was born about 15 mins after we got home. Quite a scarey experience at the time – especially when I thought ‘M2’ might appear on the birth certificate as ‘place of birth’.

Ah well … where does the time go?

I found this posted by Lucy on the emerging church discussion board; you really should go there if you have not yet had a chance.

Sometimes this sums up how I feel; but since hearing the archbishop and my church leaders sermon in response to it on Sunday morning I have big hopes that these days are slowly disappering. Lets hope so!

Lyrics

I Want To Be A Clone

written by Steve Taylor

Copyright © 1982 Birdwing Music; Cherry Lane Music Publishing Co.; C.A. Music (ASCAP)

I’d gone through so much other stuff

That walking down the aisle was tough

But now I know it’s not enough

I want to be a clone

I asked the Lord into my heart

They said that was the way to start

But now you’ve got to play the part

I want to be a clone

CHORUS

Be a clone and kiss conviction goodnight

Cloneliness is next to Godliness, right?

I’m grateful that they show the way

‘Cause I could never know the way

To serve him on my own

I want to be a clone

They told me that I’d fall away

Unless I followed what they say

Who needs the Bible anyway?

I want to be a clone

Their language it was new to me

But Christianese got through to me

Now I can speak it fluently

I want to be a clone

(CHORUS)

Send in the clones

Ah, I kind of wanted to tell my friends and people about it, you know

What?

You’re still a babe

You have to grow

Give it twenty years or so

‘Cause if you want to be one of his

Got to act like one of us

(CHORUS)

So now I see the whole design

My church is an assembly line

The parts are there

I’m feeling fine

I want to be a clone

I’ve learned enough to stay afloat

But not so much I rock the boat

I’m glad they shoved it down my throat

I want to be a clone

Everybody must get cloned

Tonight I had the pleasure of speaking on mission at CORDS in Walderslade which is a partnership youth worship event between the local churches and YWAM. I say the pleasure as the people were really friendly and it really was just such a nice atmosphere. I particularly spoke to Rachel, Andy, Elizabeth, Dan, Brad and Esther. These guys are so sold out on reaching the kids of this area that it was great to be in their presence.

We looked at mission and I tried to get across to the young people there that mission is far more about who you are and not what you do. I really believe if Christian young people let that sink in then we will see loads wanting to know abot God. I think that’s a big lesson for the whole church – we need to be Christians and listnen and not just talk at our friends.

Anyway … I just hope I scratched where the itch was.

I had forgotton all about the emerging church info website until the Mission shaped Church conference reminded me of it last week. The mad thing is that it’s been in my favourites folder as one of those sites that I have just been meaning to look at when I get a moment.

The articles and stories here are excellent; worship in a bus shelter, new churches in the centre of London, links to other sites and great discussion boards, this site has it all and if you are not careful you may well start to live in front of your monitor (if you don’t already)!

Carve out some time to have a read of one or two things here, people are contributing from all over the world and it’s really exciting to see what God is doing. Don’t know about you, but in the hard slog of life and work, I like to hear about other peoples struggles and excitements too!

I’m off now to join in one of the discussions – preaching or other styles of teaching? Is it one or the other or can it be both? maybe it’s neither?

Yeah, I know its Sunday! But its only today that I have managed to look at the review section of yesterdays Guardian and I thought I’d like to share the Saturday Poem by Jean Mambrino with you:

Rain refreshes the shadows,

makes the points of the leaves glitter,

as the sun threads its way

between the drops. Earth perfumes itself

afresh, takes on the colour

of the gilded sunset.

Catch this moment to offer it,

consecrate it. For the mind

effaces scents from memory,

which reflects only the meaning

of what was offered you,

the prayer of what is over.

Great film. Went to see this today as a whole family. Some of the jokes were excellent, particularly why Pinocchio’s nose grew … but I won’t spoil it for you!

If you do go – WARNING – do not leave until you see a black screen and the credits rolling or you will miss a good bit at the end. This afternoon only a quarter of the cinema saw the end as they all left too early. In any case … why do you need to join the race to be the first to the carpark?