The Postbox

Am I getting old?

So the new PS3 came out last Friday - has anyone bought one? At around £425, they're certainly not cheap... I shan't be bothering for a while... So I'm obviously not a hardcore gamer... and maybe I'm getting old! But in talking with some of my young people this week, they're not too interested either... Waiting for the price to drop mostly!

Spirituality

In our charity's objects, we're committed to providing for the spiritual development of young people, as well as physical, intellectual & emotional/behavioural development. I've been thinking on this lately, about what we can do... 3 great conversations in the last week or so - one with a guy who will be volunteering who went through a tough time in life, during which he found some respite in Buddhist meditation... one with the new dynamic local vicar, and one with a youth leader at a church not too far away from us... All really positive, and if the creative talking with all 3 continues, it will lead to something in action & something which will respond to the fact that the young people with whom we work have a spiritual side...
And it's so free-ing being able to think outside the box about spiritual stuff - without having to adhere to certain 'rules'... being able to think & dream how we can work with this amazing Creator God to walk with these young people on a spiritual journey - even being fellow pilgrims for a while... I'm really excited!!

Apologising for slavery

I think we should be careful when talking of apologising for past events, especially ones in which we've not been directly involved (though I take the point of collective responsibility over individualism). Today marks the 200th anniversary of the Act outlawing the slave trade in Britain. And it's something we should look back on regretfully, mark appropriately, and learn from. Personally, I would rather look at what forms of slavery we still contribute towards today (e.g. fairtrade issues, enslaving those in poorer countries, the slavery of materialism, etc), but that's for another day...

I was once involved with a church that had had real issues with power and control, largely manifested through Freemasons in leadership positions within that church. And quite rightly, that was confronted; it was 'repented of', and a new start was envisioned. But it didn't take long for those same underlying spiritual issues of the abuse of power and control to surface in other ways, and in other people, keeping that church in an unhealthy shadow.

When we apologise, when we get to root cause of problems, we should consider the history (Russ Parker writes powerfully on this subject, especially about the history of places)... Also being careful to ensure that the real underlying issues are being dealt with - otherwise they just re-surface in another guise, and in the case of slavery, enslave others, and even ourselves, in subtler, but equally dangerous ways.

This never happens to us...

Last night we went to a pub quiz in Nantwich - planning to make it a weekly commitment as part of seeing where God might be at work and where we might tie in. We didn't do so well in the pub quiz - about 2/3 of the way down... but we came away with a tidy sum of money which I can only describe as one of those 'God things' - we've had one of those oh-my-goodness-how-can-we-afford-this-months, with both cars needing work/MOT's...

They had a raffle: buy a ticket, winning ticket got to pick a key (from 8 possible keys) to open the box to win the jackpot... We'd gone to the quiz despite it having been a long day, then I (in rather a Mr Grumpy mood...!) wasn't too keen about buying a ticket, but decided we should buy one - at least to keep the Mrs. happy!!... Then, our ticket was drawn (they must have sold well over a hundred)... Then Liz picked the right key!... Winning us the cost of our car repairs plus a little bit on top...

I get really impatient - I'd gone to the pub quiz hoping we might start to see some signs of God at work/start getting to know people, and was frustrated we hadn't really spoken, despite our best efforts to look intelligebt/lonely/in need of people to join our team! - By the end I was in a real grump wondering why God hadn't brought people to us - I mean, after all, we'd gone with eyes open to seeing where He might be at work, and surely he must be somewhere in a packed pub, right?! Well, one of those 'You really should trust me a little more' moments as our winning sparked a conversation with a member of staff, who used to live in the pub that's now our nearest 'local', and with the landlord... So much for my grumping! Not only did God provide some much needed financial relief for us, he showed us that whatever our plans/feeble attempts/etc, He is always so much bigger, and is always able to work in the most surprising and humbling ways...
PS - My wife was much more succinct - see here

Lookalike

So the new series of Shipwrecked is well under way (fab by the way)... And even though I knew Jonny Baker works for a missionary organisation that has its origins in sending missionaries to far-flung parts of the world, I didn't realise this included our distinguished jb making an undercover appearance on national tv ;) 
            

Bloke from shipwrecked        CMS Missionary

?

No particular reason why I've not blogged in weeks - I was ill for about 3 weeks - horrid flu thing that is going round here & difficult to shake off, then didn't really have a lot to say... Anyway, in that time, a few key events have happened:

• I have found out that a collation is apparently an early morning light meal (which at the collation the bishop tried as a joke, but it didn't help that you obviously needed a dictionary to understand it)
• We had a lovely week off - for the first time in ages didn't need to get away from home in order to relax (sorry clergy readers) - mooching around, sorting house out & seeing some friends in Norfolk for the weekend
• Man Utd have wrapped up the premiership (sorry jonny...)

Good to be back!

OUCH

We're off today to see a friend who is being 'Collated' - ouch! It actually means he's being installed as a vicar (in King's Lynn - how nice!), but who thought of that phrase?... Other random/painful church-jargon celebrations please...

Vegetable patches & plans

I've been reflecting on our move to Nantwich... I'm distrustful at this stage of programmes or plans... And there's a great temptation to come up with a plan... 'What are we going to DO to reach people/plant a community/church etc?'... I know many churches have programmatic approaches (We will do THIS to connect with people/plant a church/reach people), and that can work effectively, but it can also limit and pre-determine what can grow... So that begs the question 'What will we do?'... Where is God at work? Where will we make connections... etc etc...
The analogy I've come up with is a vegetable patch - like all analogies it breaks down somewhere, but bear with me!
I see our situation as looking out over a vegetable patch, where the seeds have been planted (by the Master Gardener)... And the vegetables are growing underground i.e. at the moment we can't tell what vegetables they are - they could be onions, carrots, or even celeriac (OK, let's hope not!). God is at work. But there will come a time where they start to appear above the surface... when they are able to be identified... THEN is the time to say 'OK it's an onion (or whatever)... now I know how best to help it to continue to grow'. At that stage, planning is useful (i.e. we can then care for it as an onion specifically)
The problem with trying to find out too soon what is growing is that the only way of doing that is to dig up the soil - OK you'll see what's growing under the surface, but in the digging, you might cut roots, damage the vegetables, and even kill off some of the life that is growing...
It's a delicate balancing act... And I know I need wisdom so I can see when shoots appear, where there are signs of God at work, and then be guided as to how to help them grow to their full potential...

Happy Birthday

To ME! Yes, for those of you who forgot my birthday at the start of this week, cheques/cash in the post will be fine!

Church 'attendance'

Interesting chats with people recently about 'going to church' (something I've no doubt posted about before)... Dan Kimball deals with this phrase in his book on Emerging Church, and makes some very insightful comments about how some churches have become trapped into client-provider relationships... Where churches face the temptation to provide a service/entertainment/a need for the 'client', and where 'punters' face the temptation to see churches as providing them with something (e.g. 'I don't go to that church because I don't get anything out of it')... This obviously leads to huge problems, not least in being missional in outlook...
I wondered if any wise people out there, who know more about church history than I do, knew how/when this happened... When did 'Don't give up meeting together as some people are doing (Hebrews 10:25) - with good motives - become something where people 'go to church' to get, or out of a sense of duty but little else... Or is duty in this case OK... (But then where is the passion and dynamism)?