I’ve just got back from FERAPY which is GYFC’s outreach roadshow event for 11-15’s. You know the kind of thing – mad games, excellent Dance trax (D2 paid me commission for that comment).

At this event I am always amazed what these young people will do to win a game or earn some recognition – such as make a pizza using dog food as a topping just so they can win an England football.

I wonder what this says about young people, but I don’t want to delve too far for fear of what I might find. We do have to ask, however, who has the sicker mind … those young people doing the games, or the youth workers who dream up the games to do.

On the subject of England and football … its just gone into Friday now (00:05 as I write this) but Sunday is coming. I am soooo excited!

A shallow blog today I am afraid. I am a big Tomb Raider fan – I even have a noddin lara Croft on the dashboard in my car – how cool is that! I am now looking for a nodding Jesus and Moses to stand next to her!

Anyway – Planet Lara is by far the best site ever iof you are a Lara fan, and I know there a few out there that are!

I went back to The Church of Fools last night and actually managed to get in as a real person rather than a ghost which allowed me to interact and chat with people all over the place. It really was quite exciting, although I could not get into the pulpit to preach a sermon.

My excitement about this great achievement is, I guess, rather sad and is probably a good indication that I need to get out more!

I’ve been thinking more on this and I have been quite amazed at how so many people feel a little uncomfortable with it or maybe even threatened.

The idea came up again in a discussion about young people and after thinking a little about what they would want from church someone stated that actually unless they came on a Sunday and met with everyone else then that was not real church in that person’s opinion. Made me smile and think of Jonny’s blog yesterday called ‘the communists are coming'(in particular his last paragraph).

I have been feeling frustrated in this area for quite some time. I do not mean in just the youth church or worship scene. I am being far more selfish than that and thinking of my own pilgrimage. People just do not seem to want to think outside the box. I am not moaning about that, if people are comfortable and happy and journeying their way then that is cool. It is frustrating, though, when others try to get you to admit they are right and that their way is right.

I am starting to think that maybe most ‘established/mature/stable/whatever Christians do not want to push the boundaries and investigate in case they find God to be a fairytale and come crashing down around their ears. What a scary position to be in!

I feel like I am repeating myself, but I do want to ask, where are the thinkers? I’m feeling quite alone here in Kent and wonder if there are many others around that would like to explore together in some way. Don’t ask me to elaborate on that – cos I have no idea!

omaha beach


graves

Can’t finish the day without mentioning D Day and the celebrations over the weekend. Those guys were massively brave and their stories brought tears to me eyes. I found the devotion to the cause, commitment and complete humbleness of these men to be such a great example to me. They were dedicated to a cause, makes me wonder what we could achieve with a mass loads of Christians as dedicated as that to Jesus’ mission.

As Director of Gillingham YFC I get to go to the Fraternal each month. Strikes me as a weird old term as it refers to brothers in some description. Three of the church leaders on the fraternal are women so I’m not sure how the term works! It surely should be changed.

Sometimes fraternal can be dreary as we take 2 hours to decide who will read from the Bible in the Good Friday open air witness. Today, however, we started to hit another plane and I was sorry that time forced us to stop.

We had all noticed a massive influx in church of people from different churches. A lot due to the NHS and schools and such recruiting abroad in African nations and South Africa. The question came from one church leader ‘How do we make church relevant for these people?’. I immediately bit my tongue and did not say anything like ‘It would be good to start by getting relevancy for any people.’ I did not think that would be helpful.

After some discussion I tentavilely asked whether we get a little too stressed in church as we feel that we all need to do the same thing at the same time to be church.

We think of church as family. If I think of my family we rarely do everything together and at the same time. Tom will be on the playstation, Beth on the computer, Joe cycling his bike, Sarah preparing school work and I could be reading the Guardian. Yesterday we only spent about 40 minutes all together despite the fact it was a Sunday. But … none of that stopped us being a family. We were not just a family when we ended the day with a BBQ, we are a family whatever we do.

Surely, the same is true of church. We need to be more inclusive and open in our thoughts of what church is about. If we all do different things does it stop us being church? Should we start to feel threatened or should we start to celebrate the wonder of our diversity in Christ?

It really is good to be back. I use mailwasher for my spam (mainly because it is free) and after just a week away I needed to use it to delete 350 trash emails for me. Most of them were asking me if I would like to buy viagra or increase the size of bits of my anatomy. I want whoever signed me up to so many lists to now own up ‘cos it just ain’t funny. As a sign of true repentance can you buy me a decent spam killer though!

That 350 mails really set my day off. I guess it meant I started on the back foot a bit. I find it incredible that people wish to send out so much junk. It’s not been until this evening that I have started to reflect on my day and think ‘where has God been in all this’?

I could be twee and say I remembered that if you look hard enough in the rubbish you will see the gem hidden beneath all the crap! I am not so sure though if that is always the case.

I guess it could be an ok description of how much junk we have to plough through to find the stuff that really matters. Or maybe more an illustration of how others so desperately want our attention that they are willing to send out millions of mail in the hope that just a few will invoke a response – strikes me to be a bit like church leafleting for the Christmas services, or maybe us that blog our rambling thoughts.

Well we have returned from a very relaxed week in the Loire valley. Wine was good and cheap, as were the cheeses which helped somewhat with the process of de-stressing and resting rather than think about work.

I managed to finish Rabbi Kushner’s new book, The Lord is My Shepherd which is a meditation on Psalm 23. Thoughts coming from a committed Jew gave this book an interesting perspective on a vry common psalm and I am sure that I will blog about that later.

I also managed to start and finish Leonard Sweet’s Soul Salsa – Surprising steps for Godly Living in the 21st Century. I could not agree with all Sweet talks about but some bits resonated and challeneged. One particular quote stayed with me: ‘the essence of the spiritual journey is to discover the sacred in everday things, people and life’. The book is well worth a read if you get a chance.

We are off to the Loire valley tomorrow morning for a well deserved holiday. We are all really excited – especially the children as this will be their first holiday abroad. I’m really excited as I love France … all that red wine and cheese!!!

No doubt I will have some stories and thoughts to share on my return. See ya!

I finally managed to get to a Blah which are run by CMS last night. It was excellent and I am so glad that I went. Andrew Jones (aka Tall Skinny Kiwi)did what he said he would which was: ‘create a media-rich immersive learning environment in which we can appreciate part of the life and teaching of Jesus in Luke 8-10, and draw from it some insight into contextual missional practice among the emerging culture and new media minds.’ We were also able to have a good glass of wine and a laugh.

There was so much to take in that I do not know which bit to share which might enthuse you to come to the next Blah.

I guess I was hit particularly by Andrew drawing out the dual authorship of our emerging culture. In most areas we are able to have an impact, we can discuss, we can add comment (a blog being a particular example). Most churches, however, seem to not so much as discourage this but not really encourage it either.

On a typical Sunday we will all undoubetdly follow a program, someone will preach, we either disagree or agree and then all go home. Maybe we should start thinking about dual authorship a little more so that people really can engage with God.

Andy later took us on a little dream of how we view church. What if church was a party which people were really longing to come to? How would that change

1 – how we thought of and ‘did’ church

2 – what we expected when we came to church.

My first reaction to this was well if we were having a party we would not be inviting everyone and Andy actually said something similar after I thought it (was that God … spooky!!). Jesus speaks of heaven as being like a party … interesting.

Another profound point that hit me again was that we think of church as family but we do not have the same expectations of church family as we do our own families. To be church there seems to be the view that we all need to do the same thing at the same time. Thats not the same in my family. Beth goes off to dancing on a Saturday morning but we do not all want to go with her. We are still, however, a family. On a typical weekday my 3 children will be involved in their classes, I will be in the GYFC office, Sarah will be in her office or classroom. We are all fragmented doing different things but we are still a family. Even when we are all at home, Tom will be playing the playstation, Beth dancing (a recurring theme here!?)in the dining room, Joe in his bedroom connecting with his gerbils, Sarah working on the pc and me watching TV. All different but still one family.

To be church family should we all be doing the same thing at the same time? Maybe not.

As I said, great food for thought. The evening was made even better as I came home on the train with a friemd from church called Mike and over Victoria Station cappucinos we were able to have a good discussion about these issues, church and the value of new, and old media, in our worship. Thanks Mike – hope we can do it again sometime.