Happy Methodist

2010-07-11T21:21:00.000+01:00

Introduction
I would guess that both of todays readings are familiar to you all this morning. In fact, the reading from Luke, the parable of the good Samaritan is listed as the most well known and well used of all the biblical stories. As such we tend to hold these stories in some special affection. But along with the comforting familiarity of these readings there also comes some danger. We can very easily be in danger of being over familiar with some of our best loved stoies. This over familiarity can lead to us having a blinkered view of the passages, our understanding is fixed with our memories at the time of hearing – beit Sunday school, a wedding or whatever. We can also be in the position where we hear the same thing about the same reading again and again over the years and we can eventually end up not listening or particularly thinking about things – that’s a fairly natural human response to things we are over familiar with – we start to switch off. I hope that looking at these familiar readings this morning can teach us a little something new, or at least remind us of things we may have forgotten.
Traditional reading of Good Samaritan
I intend to concentrate this morning on the story of the good Samaritan, with a dash of our imprisoned friends to help us navigate through the message.
I would like to start by looking at the probably very familiar traditional interpretation of Lukes passage. The story is cantered around a conversation between Jesus and a learned man. The learned man seems to be, as happened frequently, testing Jesus’s knowledge. But he was having none of it and turned the question back on the learned man, who successfully quotes Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 back as the way to eternal life.
“Love the Lord your God, with all your Heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.” And “Love your neighbour as yourself”
But pushing further the learned man asks Jesus to clarify who exactly is his neighbour. This question leads to Jesus telling the parable of the good Samaritan. The off the page interoperation of this story leads to a pretty ethical or moral message being gleamed. We have a man of pure heritage, a Jew who has been attacked and left for dead in the street. We then get a stream of people coming past, only one of which stops to help. Firstly the Priest, a man of high position, and greatly honoured, with many temple responsibilities, in fact Jewish priests are said to be direct descendants of the Old testaments Ahron, Moses brother. Yet he simply crosses over and walks on by. Secondly the Levite, again someone with much responsibility, the keepers of the tabernacle, the dwelling palce of God. Their temple duties were many and regarded as important. Yet he too walks on by. So here we have two men of God who have taken their rules and regulations further than God intended. Helping a man who could well be dead would have hindered their duties and certainly for a time, rendered them unclean.
But all was not lost, next along the road was a Samaritan. Now Jews and Samaritans didn’t exactly see eye to eye. The Jews were a pure race, who only married other Jews. But the Samaritans were considered impure as they were the results, over the generations; of Jews inter marrying with Gentiles. Some of this happened in the outer regions of the Jewish lands, and in fact the Assyrians used to send out raiding parties to steal Jewish women purely to interbreed and ruin their heritage and family lines, an early form of ethnic cleansing. So to have a Jew and a Samaritan mix would be highly unusual, but to have one help another was unheard of! Yet that is what happened, the Samaritan tended the man and then made provision for his recovery. So the moral message we are to gleam from this reading is that everyone is our neighbour, even those we don’t particularly get on with. And we are duty bound, if we are to honour Gods law, to treat all our neighbours well.
An interesting quote I read whilst researching this reading goes like this:
To the law expert the wounded man was an object to discuss, to the robbers he was an object to exploit; the priest a problem to avoid and the Levite an object of curiosity. Only the Samaritan saw him as a person to be loved.
Allegorical reading
So a clear moral message. But there is another way to read this story, one favoured by one of the Church fathers, St Augustine, and this is by looking at it Allegorically, that is to replace the characters in the story with others to get a different message.
In the case of this particular story we are to replace the Jew with ourselves, the passers by as those in our communities and sometimes churches, and the Samaritan is Jesus. When we look at the story in this guise we learn a much more personal lesson of Grace and the loving hand of God. We get the picture that no matter how far we fall, Jesus alone can help us back up on our feet and make us right again.
When I started to look at the story in this fashion, it opened up in a way that it never had before. I started to think about what it meant in the context of the story to take that hand, to examine what was important. To the passers by what was important to them was their service to God. Yet they had somewhat missed the point. Whilst their service was undoubtedly good intentioned, they had allowed it to get in the way of what was important. To the extent they left a fellow Jew for dead. So if service wasn’t the most important thing, what was. I puzzled with this a bit until it finally struck me. The most important thing is simply being with God. We tend to put much emphasis on service these days, often to the extent of making it compulsory in our Churches. Maybe not announced in the notices, but there is certainly an undercurrent of guilt that if we are not serving the Church of the community etc in some way we are somehow not being proper Christians. Now, don’t get me wrong I am in no way down playing the importance of service, I am merely saying that firstly we are called simply to be with God, service is a result of us being with God and listening to what he may or may not be calling us to.
I recall the story of Brother Lawrence, a 17th century French monk who shunned the typical Monks lifestyle of service, silence or prayer to work in the kitchens. His reasoning was that all he did was in honour to God, so what did it matter that we wasn’t out offering healings and prayer, if he went about his Kitchen duties with love and to the best of his abilities he was honouring Gods call on him as much as those that vowed silence to enable a prayerful and contemplative life. What mattered to him was being with God and allowing his normal everyday life to express his Worship. He felt no need to enter into any other service. His story is still available today in a book called, “The practice of the presence of God”, and that is not because it is a particularly a gripping read, but because it shows God in the ordinary.
This need to serve is natural yet it needs to come from being with God first, and being happy with who we are and what we do already. The Church is great at talking about gifts and blessings and how we go about finding them, but it is not so good at saying its ok to just be, God is in the ordinary as much as he is in the extreme.
Being leads to different view of circumstances
The reading from Acts today talks of Paul and Silas’s imprisonment, and when I couple this with the parable from Luke I get another very simple, yet life changing message. Being with God, changes how we see our circumstances. Being with God, changes how we see our circumstances.
In the story of the Good Samaritan, looking at it as we have this morning, and thinking of ourselves as the one in need of help, it is easy to see how we can all be at times victims of our circumstance. One of my biggest faults is a lack of self belief, and for a long time that has held me back. It wasn’t a case of me just not recognising that trait, I was fully aware of it and allowed it to rule me. I would often come against a situation and say to myself
“If only I had a little more confidence, I could do this and do it well - maybe one day”
For all of us there are things or times in our lives when we have wished our circumstances to be different. If only I had a little more money I could do such and such. If only we had a bigger house things would be so much better. If I wasn’t so busy at the moment I could help out more. It is very easy to fall into the circumstance trap where our lives don’t move on as we contemplate what could be.
Looking at the Acts reading, it would have been easy for Paul and Silas to be feeling a little sorry for themselves – how could they be of service to God when they were stuck in prison and being treated so badly. But they don’t. As I have learnt to accept who I am and allow myself to just be with God, I have also allowed the way I view my circumstances to change. And I am sure the same was true for Paul and Silas. Rather than contemplate what could be, they were content to just be with God. So much so that when they could have escaped they didn’t, and when they got out they wanted to return. Their circumstance went from a possible frustration at being confined and unable to do Gods work, to one of contentment and peace. And in fact God worked through that to reach the guard. We go from lack of opportunity to many opportunities, and a simple differing of view is all it took.
I went through a particularly difficult time a couple of years ago which saw me having to stop youth work for a while. For a while this felt like a great injustice and I was consumed with self pity at my circumstances, but as I submitted more and more of it to God I began to see the benefits. I got a bit of a rest, and one that was well needed. I was able to make plans and spend more time with my family. As a result of that incident, my family life is now better, and the youth work I have returned to has gone from strength to strength.
Kids are the best at this aren’t they? I have five at home, and I am always amazed at how they often make the best out of their situation. If for some reason my innocent little angles do something wrong and have to be sent to their room, you can guarantee that when I go to check, expecting them to be feeling sorry for them selves, they are happily drawing or playing.
The same can be true of our Churches cant it? I certainly know at Chesterton many meetings are consumed by quotes like “If only we had another room” or “If the roof didn’t leak we could do…”. It is easy to be consumed by our circumstances and allow it to stop us effectively ministering. Plans are put in hold until such and such, money is saved because it looks like the roof may need such and such soon.”. Planning is a necessary function. But who we are in God and the way we show that to others shouldn’t be dependent upon a set of circumstances, we may need to look at a stumbling block and see the opportunity that undoubtedly lives there.

All I have talked about this morning can be summed up in three phrases.
1) We are called to be a neighbour to all, and treat them well.
2) We are broken and needy and need to constantly let God help us up again, being with God is more important that what we do for God
3) When we are with God we view our circumstances differently
All of these things though can be summed up in on single word. Grace. We need to show Grace to others, we need to accepts Gods Grace and bask in it, and we need to have the Grace to let go of those things which hold us back.
Our God is a great Big God. As we sung earlier, His love is very wonderful. So high we cant get over it, so low we cant get under it, so wide we cant get around it. Lets take the example of the Samaritan, or Jesus or Paul and Silas and learn how just being with God can lead to great things. But more importantly, being with God leads to Grace things.

Amen

Mess

2009-07-01T11:02:00.002+01:00

Do you ever have those periods in your life where everything feels like one great big mess? That is currently how I am feeling! I am trying my hardest to discern where God want me in my future ministry, and as such am pushing on as many doors as possible in the hope that the wrong ones will close for me pretty quickly. The problem is each door is providing oportunities and avenues that suck me in deeper. THis is resulting in me trying to juggle: Mision shaped and Pioneer ministry, Local preaching, Local Church leadership, Local Church Musician and worhsip leading, toe dipping into presbitual ministry / Diaconal Ministry and EDEV. Managing all of these things plus my primary and most important roles of husband and father along with a full time, demanding job are leaving everyhting feeling like a bit of a mess. A quagmire of different things that merge in and out of focus with sometimes blurring boundries - and at the moment I feel like it is pulling me down.

That and the real sense that I am failing my wife and kids with my neglect of their needs are causing me to seriously consider throwing the towel in on everything!

I hope that some of this starts to make some sense soon else it will either drag me under or I will end up pushing it all away!

Hate - ertainment

2009-06-12T08:31:00.002+01:00

The capacity to hate, never ceases to amaze me. In fact, it has gone behond capacity and is more like desire. As a nation, we just seem to love having someone or something to sneer at and despise. The story recently of the (alleged) peodophile nursery worker is just the latest in a stream of stories where people have gone out of their way to publicly display their hate. Whilst I too am worried and disturbed by the accused behaviour, I have to wonder what makes someone go out and allow their personal feelings be aired in public. Some of the behaviour in this case, spiting, swearing, threats and even an arrest for disorderly behaviour, resulted in the news being more about them than the original perpetrator!

I have to wonder where society is heading when this sort of behaviour is becoming more and more common place, even acceptible! Passion is one thing, but allowing passion to develop into mob mentality is quite another. Couple that with the increase in this type of crime, or indeed many others, and we get a rather depressing view of our world!

Thinking these things through I was immediately challenged with the Gospel reading in which Jesus got passionate and allowed that to spill into agressive action. I am of course talkign about the turning of the table in the temple. Reflecting on it a little further thouth I have come to the conclussion that the two examples are in no way related, and that by having this display of anger Jesus was not advocating the scenes we witness frequently on our televisionh screens.

In Jesus' case there was somehting that needed addressing that wasn't being addressed by anyone else. We have a criminal system in our country that at least tries to be fair, therefore action is taken for us.

I believe that in the turning of the tables Jesus was completely in control, he knew exactly what he was doing and why it needed doing, at no point did his anger escalate to the degree he went further than necessary. No sword fights, spitting at officials or threats of physical abuse. This is in stark contrast to us today, in which we allow (we refering to society, but not everyone in it) our emotions to get the better of us, and when we start we find it difficult to stop - especially if in a group of people.

The biggest difference between to two is that in the case of our daily displays of protest, the route cause is usually hate, it is a chance for peopleto gather and vent at the object of their hatred. Justice is already being carried out, the only purpose is therefore to publicly display rage and hate. In Jesus's case the underlying emotion was Love. Love for God people. This Love led to a practice and tradition being challenged. He didn't march up to the pharisees and spit in their faces, or threaten violence if they didn't stop their profiteering, he directly addressed the system.

As difficult as it is sometimes, we would do well to follow the examples of Jesus. Focus our energies on Love, and allow that to provoke action where action is needed, rather than be fuelled by hate, which serves no purpose other than to pull us down with it!

God Bless

SUnday 15th Feb Sermon

2009-02-14T22:59:00.000Z

What about Me?
Today’s readings feature the theme of healing quite strongly, but whilst I will be talking somewhat about healing today, it perhaps wont be quite the obvious physical healing that tends to dominate our thoughts as we read from both kings and Mark.
Both stories centre around healing of leprosy so it is probably best to explore that a little. Now leprosy isn’t a disease we see much of nowadays, firstly it isn’t easily contagious, you usually need to spend long periods of time in physical contact with a contagious sufferer and secondly it is easily treatable. But in the time of today’s readings it was incurable and because of the physical symptoms such as swelling, hardening of the facial skin along with a scale like rash and loss of fingers and toes, the disease was feared and sufferers shunned. It was a particularly horrible disease not only because of the physical symptoms, but also because of the social exclusion that followed. Sufferers would be excluded from their families, ejected from their villages and isolated from other people. No one was permitted to talk to and certainly not touch them, in fact they weren’t allowed within a specified distance without making themselves ‘unclean’. A leper had t o carry a bell and announce themselves with loud ringing and shouts of unclean. So the life of a leper was a pretty lonely one. But a little more about that later.
If we look at both of today’s readings we will see they have something other than the healing of leprosy on common. Lets start with the easy one, our reading from Kings. It is quite obvious from this reading that Naaman was not a happy man. Firstly he has this terrible affliction, him a great man of status why would this happen to him? Secondly he thinks he is being treated poorly, being asked to do things below his status, listen again to the passage in 2 Kings
“ But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy!£ 12Are not Abana£ and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?” He turned and went away in a rage.”
Naaman thought he was worthy of a bit or ceremony, surely God couldn’t want me to do something so simple. Whilst not the subject of my sermon I think it is worth pointing out the parallels with modern Christianity here. How often do we ignore the simple in favour of the complex – we forget sometimes that God doesn’t need trumpets and ceremony to accomplish his task, some of the most profound works happen in the quiet places or the simple activities. Are we as guilty as Naaman of expecting a bit of pomp and ceremony?
But I digress, if we now look at the reading from Mark we will be able to draw out some parallels. This story again references the healing of a leper who, as we have explored, led a pretty miserable life! It must have taken a great deal for him to risk stoning and ridicule to venture into the crowds to approach Jesus. What really strikes me is the confrontational tone of his address to Jesus
40A leper£ came to him begging him, and kneeling£ he said to him, “If you choose, you can make me clean.”
He doesn’t doubt his power, or question his authority he simply approaches Jesus and says if you choose to you can heal me.
Let’s put together what we know about leprosy and how it was regarded in that time, and try to imagine how this gentleman would be feeling. Leprosy was a disease that was caught from contact with others, and judging by his faith in God and knowledge of who Jesus was this man had had at least some religious teaching. WE can therefore assume that he contracted leprosy later in his life, he may have had a family, he could have had a position of power or respect, much like Naaman in our Old testament reading, Whatever his background, it is without doubt that he had lost much. So I can picture this man before Jesus trying to show proper respect but at the same time seething with anger at the position he is in and Gods seeming distance during his suffering. When I try to visualise this scene I can see the man forcing himself to kneel and show proper respect whilst looking up at Jesus, his jaw firmly set issuing a challenge. I know you, I know your power, but what are you going to do about me, what are you going to do for my suffering? I could do and be so much more if you just choose to do something in my life!
How dare he? What right does he have to question what Jesus will or wont do, after all Jesus is the Son of God, he deserves our love and our lives not our anger and challenge! But how does Jesus respond to this? Does he rebuke the man and send him on his way, or does he call down lightning to teach him and all around a lesson in his power and authority? No, he reaches out in compassion and heals the man. That alone speaks volumes to me about how personal our relationship with God really is, that this man could petition Jesus for a better life is one thing but to be allowed to show anger and challenge shows a real depth of love and Grace on his part.
This whole area of being angry with God and confronting him at times is something we just don’t seem to talk about in Church these days, along with sex and money it seems to be one of the forbidden topics. But I beg to differ, it is an area of our lives that is so everyday, so much a part of our nature that to ignore it would be like trying to hide part of ourselves from God, and He loves us so much that he wants a relationship with all of us, which means all the good stuff along with all the bad.
How often in our lives do we have things happen which make us ask why me? Or what are you going to do about it God? I would suggest it is more often than we would care to admit, and I would also challenge us all to let go of the stigma and guilt that surrounds those feelings of rage. After all is it wrong for the cancer patient to wonder why me? Or the Mother in Africa who has been abused by armed men to ask God why he didn’t intervene? I would suggest no, because doing so it taking away a part of that person and shutting it away from God, he is big enough and caring enough to cope with our doubts our questions and even our accusations.
I recall a couple of events close to my life which illustrate this human need to ask why with great anger and to challenge God to do something about it. The first is with some friends of mine. Early last year they found out that their 21 year old son had a serious heart condition a big blow but a challenge as a family they rose to magnificently. Treatment went well, and around mid year he proposed to his girlfriend and they planned a wedding for later in the year. Then suddenly two weeks before his wedding his heart failed and he died. Understandably my friends were distraught, and whilst they aren’t committed Christians they spent a long time asking God why, being angry at him even blaming him. They are still a long way from recovery, but just having someone to shake a fist at, blame and ask questions of is helping them along the healing process.
The second incident is one that I went through around two years ago now. I was in a place in my faith and service where I felt God calling me to a more involved ministry. I was , and still am, a voluntary youth worker at my Church, and I had a defiant sense that God had plans for me. The two routes I was considering at that time were that of full time Church youth work, and local preaching – neither of which are mutually exclusive so the plan was to test the waters and see where God was calling me to be. But almost at the same time I made that decision I fell foul of a fairly common problem for youth workers, I had an accusation of assault levied against me. It was of course untrue, as the police investigation eventually proved, but for a while it turned my life, my families lives and my plans completely upside down. This was a difficult time for me faith wise also, I found myself really tested. I would ask God why me? What did I do to deserve such treatment. Then I got angry with God. Hadn’t I been a faithful servant, was I not willing to give up everything to pursue my calling, why was God allowing this to happen to me of all people? And then I petitioned God. If he had plans for me he was going to have to do something about it. But my overall feeling here was that of guilt. I shouldn’t be talking to god like this, issuing ultimatums and raging. The turning point for me emotionally and In my faith was when I realised that these reactions were normal and God wants a full relationship with me, to share in my good times and be there in the bad.
So much like theses stories, the leper in Mark went through a healing, but which was the greater? The life changing physical? Or the realisation that God is still compassionate, still willing to meet with and touch us even when we question His choices, shake our fist or issues challenges. Its ok to be angry with God, even natural, and often going through that process strengthens our relationship as we learn to give all we are not just what we think God wants. What about me isn’t a selfish question, it’s a natural one and one God wants to help us answer.
Amen

Sun 18th Jan Sermon

2009-01-18T22:03:00.001Z

Sermon
I don’t know about you, but elements of today’s Gospel reading had always prompted feelings of surprise and perhaps even disbelief. I talk specifically about the line right at the beginning of the reading John 1:43, “come follow me” We can often overlook this simple phrase, or not give it much thought, but for me it raised more questions than it answered. If you read with this the passage in Mark 1: 16
“One day as Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon£ and his brother Andrew throwing a net into the water, for they fished for a living. 17Jesus called out to them, “Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people!” 18And they left their nets at once and followed him.”
The call to follow is even starker. But what exactly am I getting at? Well my point of confusion is that those called to “come follow me” just did. No questions, no hesitation, no explanation and no handover period, they just did what Jesus asked. I don’t know about you, but that is a difficult concept for me to comprehend, you just don’t give up everything you have because some stranger asks you to. Ok, it is probably true that they recognised Jesus via his reputation, word would have been spreading. He had just been baptised by John the Baptist and declared the Christ by him, and John was a pretty well known character at that time. But even so, why would you give up everything for someone you know of only by reputation and word of mouth?
To explore this a little more fully and to perhaps shed some light on what to us may seem a little bizarre, we need to think about how the education system worked at the time of Jesus.
At about the ages of 5 or 6, most Jewish children were sent to the synagogue’s to start their education. They would spend their time learning the Tora, the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures. Not only would they study them, but they would memorize them. From the age of ten, most students were no longer at school, but were at home learning the family trade. Only the best of the original students would continue in their education. They would spend a further 4 years memorizing the remainder of the Hebrew scriptures, by the end they would know off by heart Genesis through Malachi. Again, by this stage some would already have been deemed not good enough to continue and would be learning the family trade, but those that got to the end would be able to continue to the final and most exclusive stage. They would approach a Rabbi with whose ideals and interpretations they agree and apply to be his disciple. The Rabbi would spend time quizzing and examining the student, with the aim of determining whether the student could preach his ideals – in other words, can this kid be like me and do what I do. If the answer was no, they would return to the family trade, but if the answer is yes, he Rabbi would invite him to come follow me,. At this point the new disciple would leave family friends home and village and devote their time to being like their Rabbi.
So when Jesus approaches his early disciples and offers the words ‘Come, follow me’ he is saying I think you can be like me and do what I do, I chose you! Those were powerful words for the disciples to hear. They would have been through that early tuition cycle and faced the disappointment of not being good enough and being rejected. We know this because in all cases they are plying the family trade. So here was a Rabi of growing reputation approaching them and offering them the dream job, and paying them the highest honour by saying ‘I think you can be like me and do what I do’. It’s no wonder they dropped what they were doing and jumped at the chance!
This brings about the powerful, and life changing concept that God chooses us, no matter how worthless we think we are, God sees worth.
How do we apply this thinking to our lives today? In good Methodist tradition, I have three points to raise.
My first is how this relates to us personally. It is often difficult to accept what God is calling us to do. This could be for a couple of reasons – we may feel that we have more important thing to do at this time and can’t possibly do the job justice whilst we are getting on with this or that. We may also feel that God has made a mistake, he can’t possibly be calling me, there is no way I can do what is being asked of me. I am sure there are other arguments we could make, but most will have roots in either not wanting to give up our current lifestyle, or not feeling we are up for the job, whether that be because we don’t think we have the skills, or we don’t think we are worthy to serve. I personally have found myself in both camps at some point or another, and am sure I will again! For those that know Chesterton, my home Church, you will know we have a band in which I sing and play guitar. For a long time I fought against both jobs not thinking I was good enough at either to successfully serve God with them. I was of course wrong, now I am far from a great singer or guitarist, but I have skill enough to make a difference and use just what I can do to make a difference in my Church and community. I also tried all I could to avoid starting local preaching, I thought my life was already busy enough and I didn’t need something else. Todays reading and the subsequent unpacking, both challenges and comforts. We are challenged to respond as those first disciples did, with joy and eager to be like our Rabbi. Few will have to sacrifice quite so much as those first disciples in order to follow, learn from and be like Christ, we almost certainly wont have to give up families and friends, homes and belongings, but we might have to sacrifice something we enjoy in order to free up time to serve. But with the starkness of the challenge there is the comfort that God values us and our contribution, he chooses us when we may have been rejected elsewhere. He sees worth when perhaps we see none.
My second point related to the challenges we face as Church communities. We can often fall into the trap of running our Chruches in a nice comfortable manner. We know what we can do and we know those people that can do the things we can’t. This often leads to us settling into what we feel is a nicely run and happy Church. But how often do we see those on the fringes of our communities struggling to find a way to better serve. Or if approached with a request for service how often do we reject that so as not to rock the boat, or because we don’t think that person is right for the job? Today’s reading challenges us to see other people and what they have to offer as Christ did. He saw their worth and chose them for service no matter how they had been rejected in the past and not matter what position they held in their societies. This is not an easy thing to do, and not one that our current society is used to doing, but as Disciples of Christ – a people trying to be like our Rabbi – we must try and see people as he does. Our Old Testament reading today in which Eli helps Samuel recognise that God is attempting to speak to him helps highlight the role of our Churches in nurturing those less experienced and helping them grow in maturity – what would have happened to Samuel and the plans God had for him if Eli, in his maturity, hadn’t recognised what was going on. Or worse, had thought Samuel not ready and persuaded him he was hearing things? The same challenge exists today in our Churches today.
My third point is with regards to how the Church is perceived in the ‘outside world’. You often hear from people when asked why they don’t go to Church the words ‘Oh, I am not good enough to go to Church, some of the things I have done…’ Like it or not, there is amongst some a perception that you have to be perfect to be accepted by God. This is far from the message in the gospels, but one the Church has to find a way to deal with. How we go about doing this is not an easy question to answer, the Church can often amplify these feelings of inadequacy by sitting behind certain rules and regulations, often forgetting to love and accept people for what they are – that is perhaps the most difficult and the most important challenge our Church’s need to undertake.
So to conclude, I ask the following question – where is Christ calling you today and how will you respond. Do you have some personal sense of calling that you need to respond to but have been putting off for some of the reasons stated? Or do you have a heart to see all in our Church’s feel they have something worthwhile to contribute and grow in their Christian maturity. Or do you have a passion for those outside our Church walls, do you want to see them coming to faith and having lives transformed as they realise they are worth something to God? Whatever the questions we have to answer we do so with both the challenge and the comfort of today’s readings behind us. The challenge to respond when called to follow, and the assurance that we are worthy, Christ thinks we can be like him!

Amen

Frustration

2008-12-08T11:46:00.002Z

I know I am called by God to work for the Church.... I just didn't realise it would be so difficult to get through the door :-)

I remember some of the questions raised by our now General Secretary, Martin Atkins, during his presidential year. One in particular strikes me now, he was musing over some of the people he had met and conversations he had had with ex Methodists who are now in Ministry in other denominations- in essence he was wondering why, and feels we absolutely must address, why they decided against Methodist Ministry and jumped denominations.

I must admit to feeling frustrated and dissilusioned of late over my attempts place in Methodism and could easily see how tempting it would be to move elsewhere. It is only my love of Methodism and its core values that stops me doing so. Let me list some of my frustrations:

1. Limited routes into ministry: There only seems to be two routes into 'secure' Methodist ministry, Presbitual or Diaconal - both well grounded, but also both with defined academic routes 'in'. There is no clear path for a missional ministry. Dont get me wrong, both Presbitual and Diaconal can, and do, fill this role, but that is a consequence of the person rather than the role? I think, perhaps confussingly, what I am trying to say is that these routes require you to be trained into ministry, and there is no route for being in Ministry and trained.

2. The time it will (can) take to become an ordained minister. I was a litle shocked when I realised that it would take up to seven years to complete all the training and probationary periods necessary to become a Methodist minister! Whilst I have no issue with education, training and testing - it seems like an awfully long time. I am currently 31 and would like to be making a impact on an age group whilst I am still young enough to identify! I would rather the Church took the risk and didn't insist on candidates being fully acredited local preachers, (I would rather a more vocational stream - but failing that...). As it stands I will need to spend the next two to three years struggling to manage existing Church commitments, work, a family and local preacher training before I can even consider full time Methodist ministry.

I know that these are some of the reasons I am finding the Methodist Church frustrating, so I can well see why others have found the same and entered into ministry elsewhere. I also know that changes are afoot in the Church, lets pray for a re-energised and relevant Church that can affirm the gifts and callings of many more before they trickle away to share their gifts elsewhere.

God Bless

Baby P

2008-11-19T08:46:00.003Z

I have struggled whether or not to Blog about this or not. We have all seen the stories in the news about the tragic events that led to the death of that seventeen month old boy, and the torture and pain he endured before it all finaly got too much.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7706598.stm

I have been supprised by the level of feeling this has provoked within me, whilst not an uncompassionate person, I usually can feel detached from a news story. But in this case I find myself feeling absolute revultion at what that baby endured, mixed with a great pity and sadness, much stronger than I would have expected!

This has made me think o na number of issues. Not least importantly, why has this story provoked such strong feeling, and why do other, similar stories not have the same effect. After all we hear on an almost daily basis story of child abuse and exploitation around the world. I believe the media has a lot to do with that. I think we get, rightly or wrongly, used to the sound bite news reports we see every day, giving just enough detail to get the message accross but not much more. When seeing these news stories our own sense of justice kicks in and provokes what may be called a mind reaction. In the case of baby P we were privy to every detail, for extended periods with edtailed pictures, this led to a personalisation of the story and thus provoked a much stronger gut reaction. As Christians we are obliged to help the downtrodden and abused, and we need to remember to look beond the news casts sometimes to personalise the stories and make them connect.

As a Christian I also believe this is when we need to practice grace. As a human I have the urge to string the abusers up by the balls and beat them with a bat much like a bloody pinata! Yet we are called to Love them as God does - that is bloody hard sometimes. I will continue to try and pray for them.

The last thing that bothers me is how easy it is to get caught up in the witch hunt that has follwed. Whilst I definately think investigations should be made and people who failed in their, especially in this case, life or death decisions should not be allowed to make the same mistakes again, I find the mob mentality that ensues a little disturbing, yet all too easy to get caught up in.

There is plenty to pray about here, and plenty that need our prayers. The only comfort I get here is that a little boy that should still be with us is suffering no longer and is the house of our Father, one that loves rather than inflicting pain.

God Bless

The same yesterday, today and forever

2008-11-17T15:56:00.002Z

I was posed the question about God who is supposed to be the same today as yesterday (can't remember the correct verse but will try and find it :-) ). The general thrux of the question was how can the seemingly two different Gods of the Bible be one and the same if God is unchanging. By the two 'gods' the questioner was refering to the somewhat wrathful and murdering (Their words not mine) God of the old testament, and the loving, forgiving Go of the new.

I realised that I couldn't give much of a response, and then realised that it was a question that many choose to ignore as they can't quantify the two sides. I would be interested to hear any responses, or even reference material that addresses this.

God Bless

Mission Shaped Ministry

2008-11-06T13:52:00.003Z

Hmmmm, I have recently, well for the last month or two, been attending the Mission Shapes Ministry course. Whilst I will save some of my more in depth thoughts for a later occassion I will share some observations now.

My course is well attended, approximately 60 attendees, but all but three are Methodists! Why on earth is that? Talking to some of the Anglicans, I get the impression that the course is pushed pretty hard all around their diocees, in fact some gave the impression they didn't really want to be there and had little idea what it was all about. Yet as a Mehtodist, I had to find out about the course myself, virtually beg to go it and then part finance it myself! If we as a Church are serious about Fresh Expressions and moving our Church forward, we really need to do better than that!

My second observations is that some of the ideas and ways of thinking are fantastic! Yet more needs to be said on how we can implement these ideas and more imporatntly finance them! The course seems more aimed at ministers ar vicars who have access to resources, (possibly), or certainly a more open ear than an individual church or lay person.

Sounds like a lot of negatives and 'buts', not really the case, some fantastic ideas and discussions are taking place and I am extremely pleased to be attendin.

More to come...

My first sermon

2008-10-05T14:28:00.001+01:00

Accept or reject
Our Gospel reading today reads a bit like a Hollywood movie, we have betrayal, greed, mass murder, and everything in-between. But what was the point behind the parable Jesus tells? What message was he conveying? It wasn’t just a gory story to please the crowds. The practice of absent land owners and hired farmers was commonplace at that time, and the story would have been familiar with many of the listeners. In fact absentee landowners were held in little regard by the everyday people, as they were thought to be profiting from the hard work of others. So in this parable we see Jesus very cleverly telling a story in which the support of the gathered masses switches from tenant farmers to the landowner as the story moves from the wealth of the owner to the brutality of the farmers. They would also have been able to recognise the link to the reading from Isaiah and draw their conclusions as to who and what the various aspects of the parable were representing. This would have been especially true for the religious leaders who would have been able to recognise the symbolism in the parable.
We have the vineyard representing the Jewish nation, established and protected by
God as the Landowner, who has entrusted His property to the religious leaders as tenants to care for, tend to and distribute the wealth of God’s good fruit.
The servants represent the prophets sent by God to monitor the fruitfulness of the vineyard, but were met with opposition and rejection,
and Jesus was the son, sent by God when all other means had failed, but who also met with violent opposition.
It is fairly obvious that Jesus was predicting what the religious leaders were going to do, and reminding them what they and their predecessors had done to those sent by God, an accusation the religious leaders recognised. He is reminding them that God is in control and unless they start heeding that fact, what they think they have will be taken away from them. So you can see why they get so angry at the accusations levelled at them, everything they believe they stand for is being challenged, He even gets them to make the statement in vs. 41 “he will bring the wretches to a wretched end and rent to other tenants”.- virtually condemning themselves.
The parable of the greedy tenants is a perfect illustration of how Jesus predicts his rejection and later his death, but how is the same message relevant today? After all, Jesus is no longer here in physical body, if he comes to collect his Fathers fruit we can’t beat him, kick him out then kill him. Or can we? I don’t mean physically kill him, but we have ample opportunities to choose whether to accept or reject him.
A general misconception is that there is only one time to accept Jesus, at the point of conversion when we make the conscious decision to follow Jesus, but as Christians we have sometimes daily decisions to make to either accept or Reject Jesus. Its not just a one off, it is an ongoing process – accept? reject? accept? reject? Staying a Christian is a decision we make, listening to and acting upon God’s call to us is also a decision we either choose to accept or reject.
As Christians we are tasked with making more disciples, but how often do we make that task a priority. We all have something to offer, have gifts that can be used to God’s purposes, but we often reject the nagging voice, or strong compulsion that is urging us to use those gifts. Perhaps you have a strong urge to talk to someone about something that seems to be troubling them, or a little voice is urging you to invite that work colleague to a Church event, yet over and over we ignore that compulsion, push that voice from our minds or just plain ignore what we know to be the right thing to do.
Whilst this seems a little negative, lets not forget that we can, and do, accept as easily as we can reject. We can all recount times when something small we have done or said has made a difference in someone’s life. Perhaps you aren’t called to be a charismatic evangelist, converting hundreds at a time in a large stadium like Billy Graham or the many that followed. You may not have astounding musical talents that enable you to participate in corporate worship. The thought of talking to a table full of people may fill you with dread, let alone preaching to a room full. But, whilst these are good and valuable gifts and callings, they aren’t the only ones God uses. Perhaps you have a heart for people burdened with problems, you may be a great encourager or enabler. You may set up the hall, make the coffee, organise the prayer diary. the list goes on and on. But the decision is the same every time, do we turn the son away, or embrace him? Do I accept and action the calling God is making of me or do I push it aside and get on with my nice comfortable life.
I stand with you this morning, not someone who can say he has never rejected Jesus, but a man who has spent a large amount of time running away from the calling of God. For probably the best part of the last two years I have turned Jesus away time and time again, ignoring the compulsion, that little voice, that was telling me I was to start the local preachers training. I was more than happy with my life the way it was thank you very much, I didn’t need to add extra activities and complications, so I chose to not listen. It took a long time for me to be in the position where I was able to embrace that voice and act upon the calling God has put on me. But that is a big thing, there have been many many more. I still regret the time I had the strongest feeling that I should say something to one of the members of the congregation of my home Church, or shake my head in disbelief at the time wasted whilst I refused to use my musical gifting in Church. Many times I behaved like the greedy tenants, my rejections were all for selfish reasons, I wanted it all my way, I was happy the way things were, or was uncomfortable with what I felt I needed to do, and thus, like the tenants, I rejected Jesus.
I love the way at the end of the Parable Jesus gets the religious leaders to put themselves down before he reveals the true nature of the story, he lets them put their foot in it before bringing them to the realisation that they were the wicked tenants and there is just that hint that things weren’t to finish with the death of the Son, that their empire wasn’t theirs, but Gods and he would have it.
It would be easy to look at this parable, and then examine our lives and feel bad about the times we have turned away God’s messengers, run from the son and failed to use the father’s fruit for his purposes, and in a way that is a process I went through. But surely this examination will bring to light gifts and skills that we perhaps didn’t notice before that we can put to good use – or make us realise that in fact the giftings people have been telling you about do exist, that is certainly the case with me. It would be very easy to let this be the message that was meant for someone else, but as mentioned earlier, we all have much to offer – so don’t reject this message as one for those that perhaps don’t do as much as you, or whose faith is much firmer, we could all do more or something different, perhaps in little ways, perhaps large ones, what is God calling you to do today?
I finish today with a challenge, when next Jesus comes to the vineyard of your life to collect the Father’s fruit, will you accept the challenge, welcome Jesus with open arms, ready to exercise your gifts, or will you run, hide behind, or become like the wicked tenants who thought they had the right to everything for themselves. But at the same time, don’t be discouraged when we fail, it would do us well to remember that although we may reject the will and calling of the Father, never will He reject us, whatever we have to offer can and will be acceptable! Some words of huge comfort I recently heard, God the father speaking to us his children “Nothing you ever do can make me love you less”.

Amen

Christening

2008-08-04T22:15:00.002+01:00

A few weeks ago now we had baby Grace Christened. It was an awesome day! We have had all our children Christened, but this time was different, and probably the most special to us. Firstly, for the first time we found ourselves undecided whether to do it or not - we have come so far in our faith journeys that we were seriously considering not getting Grace Christened in the hope that one day she will make the decision herself and can then have a full baptism! But buggerit we thought, we understood the meaning behind the Methodist Christening service and the impact this would have on her future Chritian life and went ahead with the service.

Unlike previous Chritenings, we sent no invitations, expected no gifts, didn't dress up (other than the Christening gown) and made as little fuss about it as possible. In fact the only people we told prior to the event were those to be God-parents or those to be involved in the service. This was to be a service for us, Grace and the Church, low key and personal - and it was amazing! The hall contained only those who attend regularly on a Sunday, our Church family. The God-parents and participants were chosen, and well chosen I might add, from Church members we share fellowship with day in day out.

The service was special in many ways, it was intimate and for the first time done for the right reasons, a very moving a special day we wont forget! God made his presense known to all in attendance! Thanks to those who helped make it a great day, you know who you are and you are special to us and to Grace, (Matt, Mick, Dave, Kerry, Emma , Hilary - and of course Josh, Kalem and Bethany whom we love very much)

I will make sure I try to post some pictures so you can see how beautiful Grace and my family looked.

God Bless

Doing something wrong?

2008-08-03T13:11:00.002+01:00

We had our annual outing to Hunstanton yesterday, a heavily subsidised trip open to users of the church. We had a full coach, 50 people. Yet at this morningservice we had only 9 adults and 12 or so children.

We must be doing somethng wrong to not be able to convert the coachful of people into church attenders!

Or on the flip side we must be doing something right.......................

Goodbyes

2008-07-22T21:19:00.003+01:00

I hate goodbyes. I think because I find it dificult to form friendships in the first place, so recently has been quite difficult. We have had to say goodbye to Matt, (I know he isn't leaving for good - but six weeks AND a placement at a far flung chapel mean contact will be minimal), I am suprised by how quickly and generically our friendship has grown, and I find myself missing his company!

Secondly we have had to say goodbye to Dave Holligsworth, our circuit youth development officer. David has become a firm friend and helped us as a family through some extremely difficult times in the last eighteen months! His frienship and support will be grately missed.

But I know both our out there doing Gods work at His calling, and for that I am extremely happy and proud.

Anyway, they aren't goodbyes, just see you soon's....................

Last day and crafty daughter

2008-07-22T21:11:00.004+01:00

I just had to post about Kalems last day at primary school. Other than the tears shed by his teaching assistants, (and Kalem himself - he is a very emotional child and one that seems to reach into adults hearts somehow), the pupils have a tradition of signing each others t-shirts as a keepsake! Well Kalems nemesis plain refused to let Kalem sign his shirt, but he did let Bethany (our eight year old daughter) Well, Bethany the fantasticly loyal and loving girl that she is signed Kalems name on the t-shirt instead! Her words at the dinner table had us all in (proud) hysterics.

"Well he wouldn't let Kalem sign it. I wasn't having that so when he let me sign it I signed Kalems name instead"

So Kalem's arch-enemy now has his name on his t-shirt for the rest of time Mwahahahahaha

I love my kids.............

Expectations

2008-07-22T20:54:00.002+01:00

I dont blog details about my kids very often, purely because I like to keep some things quiet. But today I felt the need to share!

Firstly Kalem sat his Key Stage 2 SAT's this year and (finaly after some delay) we got the results. His marks far outshone any expectations, one above national average, two at national average and two below national average. This may not sound like much, buch Kalem has many disadvantages. He has a condition called ADHD which affects his concentration, behaviour and social skills and as such has really struggled. So much so that at his previous school they wouldn't let him sit his Key Stage 1 SAT's as they didn't expect him to achieve any marks!

We are very proud parents and very grateful for the outstanding work put in by Arbury Primary School. Just the move to Secondary school to worry about :-) Oh well......

Ismael

2008-04-10T13:17:00.002+01:00

I have just read that Ismael, one of the greats when it comes to Childrens ministry, has been diagnosed with Leukaemia. Join me in praying for this situation and for his family.

Progress will be posted on his website :- www.ishmael.org.uk

Money

2008-04-08T08:44:00.002+01:00

We had our AGM last night and as usual the report on money was depressing. We are spending more than we get in is the bottom line, and has been for a while. We don't have many reserves left and the situation is not too far away from being a big issue. Our minister gave us the pep talk about increasing our giving etc etc, but that is just not going to make a difference.

Our elderly congregation is nearly depleted, due to ill health or death and thus their financial contribution is no longer. We are becoming a Fresh Expressions Church, but that means that in general we are attracting a large number of Children and some unchurched adults. It is going to take time to :
a) settle our Fresh Expression into something that works for our community and see significant growth and
b) teach about money stewardship / ownership and turn new ish converts into generous givers.

Couple that with now only a very small core of Committed Church members trying desperately to reach out who give what they can and the fact that the area we serve is one of the most socially and economically deprived in the region and the outlook doesn't look good!

Whilst I understand that nothing happens without money, I am concerned that the good works we do at this Church (80+ individual children through the various youth ministries a week - the 7 or 8 new previously unchurched attendees gained in the last year etc) will be for nothing as the financial position dictates our future. As it is we cut back hugely, the Church is rarely as warm as it should be, it is in need of some refurbishment and redecorating - all things that in order to help us move forward need to be addressed, but in reality we can't do!

What is the answer? I certainly am at a bit of a loss, but would welcome any suggestions.

God Bless

Spring Harvest

2008-04-08T08:39:00.002+01:00

Returned from a week at Spring Harvest on Saturday, what a great week! Feeling refreshed, re-encouraged and loved. But my doesn't real life kick back in quickly! It was quite a dissapointment to have been singing and learning with thousands only to return for our Sunday service with a pretty low turn out. Oh well, back to the buisiness of spreading Gods love, growing his Church and getting on with the day to day issues of evolving our Fresh Expression.
God Bless

Church Planting

2008-03-14T09:10:00.002Z

I think I have mentioned before that I believe Fresh Expressions as variations of Church will only be so succesful and that, certainly with the CofE some of the best projects are Fresh Expressions of Church as Church plants.
Well it seems that this is a view held more widely, or certainly being explored, by the Methodist Church. A supliment from Cliff College in the Methodist Recorder yesterday spoke of new roles being developed to identify areas and people to run Fresh Expression Church Plants - very exciting stuff indeed! It seems we are starting to take the bull by the horns and catch up on the initially speedy progress the CofE were making! Although I still look forward to the day soon when we can train Ministers via a Fresh Expressions, Missional route, much like the Pioneer Ministry role in CofE.

Exciting times, and we are moving forward through them at a greater speed than many perceive.

God Bless

White Girl

2008-03-13T09:04:00.002Z

I just watched the BBC 2 Docudrama White Girl. The BBC's White season has certainly had its share of controversy, and to be honest I share some of the misgivings that have been voiced. If you didn't see it, or are not aware of it White Girl tells the story of how a white family escape an abusive father/husband but get re-housed as the only white people in a Muslim area.
I loved the drama, it was a great story, admittedly more about the struggles of a mother having her eyes opened to her life and its effect on her children, and her subsequent struggle to escape it, than anything else. The intercultural aspect of the story came from the Muslim community around this family and how Islam became a source of support and comfort to the eldest child in the family.
This raised many points to my mind. Firstly it gave a, if somewhat shallow, rather better impression of Muslims than that touted by our newspapers. I learnt something of another faith, an important step in breaking down barriers and opening up dialog.
It also displayed how religion can have a positive effect, and just how hungry people are for a belief in something bigger, even if they didn't realise it. What an opportunity we have as Christians to make a positive impact on our communities if we just get out there and do it!
Some of the most profound images it brought to my mind was how much of an everyday community thing their faith is to the Muslim people and how prominent it is in their lives. There was no glossing around it, no build up, no dumbing down to reduce the impact, no fear mongering and no excuses, just a bunch of people that love their god and show this in their everyday lives. Why can't we as Christians be like that? Why do we sit behind this veil of pompousness and rules, why do we try to excuse our faith and hide it away whilst in 'weekday' mode, why does our sense of community seem disjointed and unattractive and why oh why can't we share our faith openly with others on a daily basis!

I have no answers to those questions, and to be fair not all apply to all groups, but Christianity is suffering from poor perception currently, and we are the only ones who can change that. I have certainly been awoken to an extent to just how hidden my faith can be at times, be that from fear of ridicule, bad media coverage or because I just can't be arsed. Lets make a difference in our communities, show the world that we aren't the bunch of nuts modern media would have them believe we are!

God Loves Us

2008-03-11T10:06:00.002Z

We studied Genesis 3 at our Bible study last night and once we got past the literal and ideological arguments one message shone through.

No matter what we do, how we turn from God, he still loves us!

After the couple disobeyed God and passed the buck from pillar to post, God still provided clothing, he still cared!

WooHoo - What a loving, wonderful and forgiving God we strive to serve

Prosperity Preacher Bashing

2008-03-11T09:43:00.002Z

I have noticed during my net trawling and blog readings that us 'normal' Christians like to pick holes in the lifestyles and ministries of those preachers who promote the prosperity message. I definitely put myself firmly in that category, but have recently been asking myself why. Firstly I absolutely agree that God can and does provide, but I tend to disagree with the statement that this 'blessing' is the direct result of good works or donations, "Send in your donation now and God will bless you with a healing/double your money/new sofa" or "I travel the world preaching and God provided me with a new jet to get there in comfort because of all my good works!".

What I have found myself doing is labelling a person or ministry bad because of this large personal wealth. Now whilst I may have questions when a preacher preaches at large rallies about our commitment to the poor then gets in his or her private jet to fly back to one of their large homes, this doesn't give me the right to dismiss the ministry as not good or Godly. I find myself judging the preacher purely on how I think they should steward their finances. What I find when I think about it is that I actually know nothing or little about how they use their wealth, and when I look at their ministry, I may not agree with everything they say, but they do have a large impact. I often seem to factor God out of the equation, he is big enough and powerful enough to be at work in even the most dubious of ministries. When you cut through some of the crap that is being spouted, God is there at work in some way with someone.

I will never be a big fan of most TV evangelists or Globe trotting stadium filling prosperity preachers, but I will try to leave the judgement to God in the future and look for the good that is or can be done.

Long time no Blog

2008-03-04T10:47:00.003Z

Wow, has it reaslly been that long since I last blogged? Time has flown passed, and Iam finding it increasingly difficult to find time to think about anything to blog let alone actually write it down! Four children, including our latest addition who is growing up far to quickly, one wife, a full time job and an ever increasing amount of Church work leave me very little time!

To add to that it was last night agreed by the local preachers meeting that I could be given a note to preach, I am officially starting the journey I believe God is calling me to take!

p.s. I will have to post another picture or two of Grace, she is growing up fast

p.p.s. I like my other three children just as much and will have to put some pictures of them up too, just so they dont feel left out :-) (although I doubt they will get the oohs and aw blesses that a small baby does in this pre-hoodie stage of her life)

Introducing Grace Eve

2007-12-10T13:37:00.000Z

As promised a couple of pictures of my daughter. She is absolutely perfect, and doing really well. I am back to work this week after some paternity leave, and find that I am really reluctant to go!

New member of the family

2007-11-28T20:57:00.000Z

Woohoo!

Just a quick post to announce the arrival of my newest daughter! Grace Eve was born three weeks early on 27/11 at 19:15 weighing in at 7lbs 7oz 3.365kg, (not a bad weight for three weeks early, my wife is pleased she didn't have to push her out full term!) Mum and baby are doing well and are now home from the hospital.

I will post more and hopefully some pictures when I have had some sleep (I hope)

God bless

Commanded to Love

2007-11-16T09:18:00.000Z

I am not sure where I stand on the whole homosexuality issue. My background is very inner city estate working class, and as I was growing up, (especially in that period of time) there was a great deal of hostility and predudice against homosexuals. The Christian scene, predominantly, peddles the hardline against other sexual orientation, throwing around scripture and verse, and up until recently I have let this be enough to form my 'Christian' opinion on this matter. But I couldn't help but feel uncomfortable, it felt a little unloving.

I have come to at least a part conclusion that the hardline isn't the right line to take. Looking at myself I felt that I was hiding behind the 'big kid' so I didn't have to form opinions myself. I was using this intollerance to justify my predudices, and that made me feel terribly uncomfortable.

It is still an alien lifestyle to me, and the fear of the unkown and different make it difficult for me to engage with. But I now recognise my own predudices and with Gods help, I can work through those. There are many years of 'training' to undo, but I am certain I will get there.

With the personal issue out of the way where does this leave the Church? I think this is the easiest question to answer, and dont think it is a Church splitting issue at all, in fact in the great scheme of things it doesn't really matter a great deal. As a community we are called to Love all. And that is what we should do. I am appaled by Churches that turn homosexuals away or give them a hard time. Even if a Church or denomination takes that hardline, and is absolutely against homosexuality, it should still love that people group and treat them exactly the same os they do other people groups. What does the extreme reaction achieve other than to reflect badly who Jesus is and what he thought was important! Perhaps it's time for others to take a look at their own predudices, perhaps not to take a complete u-turn, but to recognise it for what it is and adjust behaviour accordingly.

God BLess

Worship conference - Moving forward

2007-11-05T14:45:00.000Z

I wrote recently about the worship conference we hosted a few weeks ago. One of the most prominant messages we got from that was that we needed to become fully contemporary, (rather than part contemporary part traditional), as this was the style of service that connected with the majority of our current congregation and out direct community. In other-words become a full fresh expression rather than playing around the outsides of it.

We have our first monthly meeting since the Worship conference tomorrow and we will be discussing where and how we move forwards from this point. Our biggest stumbling block as I see it is how on earth the lay Preachers fit, not only for us but for them as well. We would still require a preaching aspect of the service, (The sermon is still pivitol, however it is delivered), but becoming a fully fledged Fresh Expression would perhaps mean that our services would be less structured, or follow a more complicated structure. How can we expect Preachers that already struggle with a 30/70 split to adjust to what in most cases is completely alien to them in both style and to be honest people group.

We would apreciate any advice, but most of all your prayers during this time of growth and change.

God Bless

Censorship?

2007-11-05T13:59:00.000Z

Where is the line drawn when it comes to derogatory terms and how their use is policed or censored? What gating factors should and/or are used to determin whether it was appropriate or warrants further action?

I was reading on the bbc news today of channel 4's clearance over the use of the word 'nigger' during this years big brother program. Not a term I would ever find use for in conversation, and one, amongst many others that could cause offence. The 'offender' in this case was expelled from the show and publicly berated in all the newspapers at the time. Now whilst showing a lack of maturity in using this term in that situation, I dont beleive it was thrown around in a hurtful or abusive way. Was the reaction apropriate to the action? Dont get me wrong, I in no way say that these terms, extremely hurtful to many, should be made acceptible, but did the girl deserve to be vilified for a maturity issue? And is it any worse than the images we receive, without viewer complaint, of drug abuse, adultery, theft, murder and bullying. As a person may be hurt by that particular term being tossed around without thought, so may, even more so, be a person who went through years of bullying who witnesses similar antics on the television, (much in the Big Brother program).

My question isn't whether it is right or wrong, but who decides. At what point do certain words, terms or activities become 'acceptible' and what does that say about us as a society. What makes some things worse than others, and what do we show by our public outcries of outrage and hate?

God Bless

Disclaimer: Being a public forum I ought to appologise if in using the term (once only) to illustrate the point I inadvertanly upset or offend. That is not my intention

Methodist Theology

2007-10-31T09:25:00.000Z

I have been trying to find a definitive statement on Methodist Theology other than the four 'All's'. I often hear terms thrown about like 'that doesn't fit with Methodist theology' thrown around, but actually where does the basis of that comment come from? Does anyone know of any web references of books that explain the Methodist stance in areas of Theology?

How do you see Methodist theology, and further to that, why are you a Methodist, what makes a Methodist.

Sorry, deep questions, but I would be interested to read your responses.

God Bless

Denominations

2007-10-31T09:20:00.000Z

Do you think it was part of God's masterplan to have his Church split into denominations? I don't mean all the in-fighting and mud slinging, that most assuredly isn't what God wants, but does the fact that each denomination seems to reach a different people with different outlooks and interpretations mean that denominations do more good for the Church than harm? Does the fact that we have denominations mean that more people find something accessible to them than would be the case if there was only one stream?

Just some musings :-)

God Bless

Worship conference

2007-10-23T09:48:00.000+01:00

We held our loosly titled 'Worship Conference' just over a week ago. The idea of the meeting was to present what it is we are doing and why, then to engage in some discussion. The goals of the event were to:
a) engage with the circuit,
b) clear up any doubt about what we are doing, why and how it affects others
c) to tap into the vast field of knowledge and experience that exists in our circuit and get some new ideas on how to take our ministry forwards.

The general outline was to have a short period of Worship using the Church band and in a style typical of our Sunday mornings. This would be followed by some presentations title: 'What we are doing', 'How this effects you', 'Why we are doing it' and 'our Biblical calling'. This was then to be followed by a tea break and then a period of discussion.

Unfortunaltely we had an extremely poor attendance, only three turned up (four if you include the Super who turned up late :-) ) Although this didn't stop us continuing as planned it was exremely dissapointing that so few were willing to take advantage of this opertunity to engage with us and shape our direction.

I must say a huge thank you to those that did attend, the event, while significantly smaller that expected, went well, and was well received. The discussion part was particularly good. We got to engage with some members of the circuit that we dont really get to speak with and we got some interesting feedback, so not a failure by a long shot!

Church

2007-10-02T09:19:00.000+01:00

Things have been busy at Church recently. We have just had one special event and are hosting another in a couple of weeks.

The first was to be an open air testimony service on a saturday afternoon (unfortunately the weather meant that it had to be indoors instead). One of our members went through an horific past and felt the need to share that. Other than a poor turnout (we advertised circuit wide and in local papers) the event went well, lots of tears were shed and this particular member is now a step further along the path of recovery.

Our next event is to be what we are calling a Worship Conference. We are operating within the normal circuit structure, that is we are being both fresh expression and semi traditional at the same time. This means we get local preachers each week to preach a sermon etc, albeit within a slightly different serfvice structure than they are used to. The point of this conference is two fold. We want to broadcast our successes and present what we are doing and why we are doing it. But mainly we are looking for advice and feedback. Whilst others may have no interest in attending one of our services, there is a circuit full of information and knowledge. How can we do things better, what else could we do to improve such and such . We are hoping that we can get some possitve stuff from this and move the Church forwards.

If anyone has suggestions or stories of things that have helped in their Churches I would be extremely interested in hearing them.

God Bless

To Serve

2007-10-02T08:50:00.001+01:00

I have been giving a great deal of thought to my future in the Methodist Church recently. I am definately being called into full time Church service, the pull is just too strong to ignore any more. What that capacity will be I am not sure.

I have been thinking of starting the local preachers training course, as preaching feels like something that I need to be doing. There are a number of things holding me back.

Personal doubt - being someone with a fairly low self esteem I find it difficult to believe that I will be any good.

My family - Following this path will require a great deal of effort and time, can and should I take my family on this journey?

The training - I dont relish the thought of going through a very traditional and structured training course teaching me how to give a balanced five hymn sadwich. I don't think that kind of service is relevent to the people and Churches I feel called to serve. I dread having to spend a great deal of time learning a particular preaching style and structure and having to practice this style at Churches I have no desire to attend. Does that sound self indulgent? perhaps it does, but I dont think as a local preacher I will be able to offer anything to the Churches that expect a five hymn sadwich with three point sermon. I would be dissapointed if the nature of what I am sure is my calling, was misplaced and stuck in a system inapropriate for my gifts and passions. Fresh Expressions is definately where I feel most empassioned.

My Church - We are currently still fairly small in numbers, certainly not enough people to have spares for all the jobs that need doing in order to maintain what has been started. I believe wholeheartedly in what we are doing and see a real need but can see things slowly falling apart if we lose members of the team.

I am hoping a suitable Church worker position will come up locally, this is definately an area I have been looking into (I am even getting the Methodist recorder for the jobs section).

Many question, many routes, one God. How can I best serve Him?

Baby scare

2007-10-02T08:37:00.000+01:00

It has been a while since I blogged, I find that there are times when I just can't find anything to say, and times where I just can't stop!

We had a bit of a baby scare last week, my wife has a low lying placenta, which is apparently not great, and on Wednesday last week at 29 weeks she had a bit of a bleed. We duly phoned the hospital as we were told and they advised us to come in. Just as we were getting ready to leave the phone rang, it was the delivery unit letting us know that they had sent an abulance. The next six hours were spent undergoing tests and all the normal business while they decided what was wrong. Anyway, the result is that my wife spent a couple of nights on one of the maternity wards and had numerous monitoring tests. Thankfully the bleeding had stopped and baby (its a girl by the way - we will now have two of each) was perfectly happy!

The upshot is that my wife, who doesn't drive, can't use her bike anymore and has to take things a little easier. A bit of a headache when it comes organising the other three children of a morning!

You will behave this way.....

2007-09-11T09:41:00.000+01:00

..... or you will be ejected from this club called Christianity.

The above statement, although a little exagerated, is probably one of the most damaging attitudes in and to Christianity today. We hear stories or encounter people that have been significantly damaged by a bad expereince of Church. Whether we like it or not, the Church can be it's own worst enemy. We spend a great deal of time trying to empose our particular Biblical interpretation or theological stance onto our congregations and the world around us that we often miss the oportunity to encourage, love and support. I absolutely agree that we (personally and as a body) are entitled to adhere to a particular set of beliefs, but should the comliance with those conclusions be a gating factor to how we treat a person? I personally dont think so. Love regardless and allow Jesus to shine through our actions.

We can also apply the same attitude 'in house'. "The Church down the road performs infant baptism" or "They let homosexuals take communion at Great St Bernards". We have all been guilty of looking down at or dismissing the work some other Christian group is doing because it doesnt fit with our particular way of thinking. I personally am not a big fan of a preacher called Benny Hinn, I find some of his teachings and his past escapades a little disturbing. Does that mean I spend my time putting the guy down or dissing his ministry? No, I firmly believe that God is big enough to be at work in all situations, and whilst I often worry about his impact on some people I also see some good coming out of his ministry. If asked for advice I will give an honest opinion, but try to stop short of a Heretic rant :-)

We can get very wrapped up in expecting Christians to do things certain ways and say certain things. The CHristian music industry is a perfect example. Take the band delirious? for example. They have spent 25 years in the music industry, creating some of the worlds best loved worship songs, yet they have been plagued their entire career by people trying to impose their opinion on them. When they produce a very spiritual album they are critisised for alienating the secular society and when they produce something that is accepted by secular society (they had a period in the mid nineties when they had some chart success), the Christian community accuses them of selling out ..... no wonder people get the wrong impression of Jesus so often, its the way we sell Him!

One of my favourite bands at the moment is a band called The Fray, if you have seen the casualty adverts on the BBC it is their song (How to Save A Life) played. The Fray have very Church based and worship roots and get some criticism for abandoning that for chart success. There is an interview with the band here it is a good read. One of my favourite quotes is this one:
"If you're a painter, paint, but you don't have to have Jesus in every picture. Paint well, and if you paint well enough, they might ask you why you do that."
We caould change a few words and it would create an excellent model for our lives:
"If you're alive, live, but you don't have to have Jesus tattooed on your forehead. Live well, and if you Live well enough, they might just ask you why you do that."

Lets strive to let our faith shine through our actions and the way we live our lives rather than the damaging words we can speak.

God Bless

Me

2007-09-07T14:06:00.000+01:00

You may have noticed that I have changed things around a little and added a picture of myself to the blog. It felt like the right thing to do to make things a little less impersonal.

Now if you were eating, or are of a nervous disposition, I appologise now :-) As you can see I am afraid I find the temptation of food difficult to overcome.

Oh, and dont let the bald head distort my young age, I had a full head of hair (shoulder length), before I got married and had kids!

p.s. My head isn't normally so shiny! It was the flash on the camera......honest :-)

Disney, the Church and Magic

2007-08-29T12:38:00.000+01:00

I have been on holiday for the last couple of weeks in Orlando, Florida. The place is absolutely fantastic, it is host to and in the vicinity of a large number of theme parks, including Disney world (4 parks and two water parks), Universal (2 parks), Sea World, Busch Gardens, Gatorland (yes, it is exactly what it sounds like, a sort of zoo come side show dedicated to Alligators), Wet ‘n Wild (that’s a water park for those still guessing), and Kennedy Space Centre. Plus a whole host of add on stuff that you would expect in such a tourist hot spot. We spent two weeks trying to fit in as much as possible, and factor in some down time, (particularly useful for my pregnant wife). I could go on for hours about everything we did, the fun we had and the fantastic weather, but I really wanted to write on how it felt this time compared with the last time I went as a child (some 18 years ago)

It really struck me how ordinary everything seemed, in fact it was kind of disappointing. I have memories of feeling awed and excited, and everything seeming special and magical. I was looking forward to having a similar experience this time, but it just didn’t happen that way. Thinking about it a little, I can identify three reasons why it didn’t live up to my expectations. 1) I was looking to get the same things from the trip as I did last time. 2) I had experienced it all before, it wasn’t new 3) I am not a child any more  (well not in many ways)

That kind of got me thinking about Church and how the exact same three reasons my expectations weren’t met with the holiday apply. We can often expect to get the same feeling or experience from Church as previous times or of a particularly special time. There are a couple of implications here. People can expect the Church to provide consistent and familiar programmes. When this changes, (due to necessity or desire), people can feel dejected with their experience of Church. The second implication is that people can have a particularly special service, whether they experienced the Holy Spirit moving in a particularly string way or the songs and sermon connected in a very personal way. The trouble is, they (probably) wont experience something exactly the same again. And when that expectation isn’t met, Church loses some of its magic. As a Church body we need to recognise this both within ourselves and within others. Expectation is a big thing and can need to be managed, something community is great at.

The next two points also apply to Church. It can often get to the point when it feels dull, I have done it all before. Some of the magic ebs away as things become more familiar. With me this is handled by a) trying to keep things a little different and b) working at the relationship between me and the Church. Every good relationship needs working at. The point about not being a child is also significant, especially for adults. We are our own worst enemies at times. We create these massive expectations and needs (almost in a consumerist way) and then become disappointed with what we end up with. We need to re-look at things with the innocence and simplicity of a child from time to time to re-discover the magic that is always there, but we chose to ignore waiting for something else.

Potty Police

2007-07-27T08:17:00.000+01:00

I was reading this news article today and couldn't hied my suprise at its contents here .Yes I know it is the Sun, and yes I know it doesn't contain the most newsworthy news and often distorts the truth a little, but this story just seemed to have a ring of truth to it.

I am not going to defend what the lady did, nor the youths outside her home, but I feel I must comment on the Police reaction in this case. Ten armed officers to take down a 70 year old lady with an air gun....

We have experienced a number of times where we live groups of youth roaming around with air pistols shooting at other kids (sometimes ours) or peoples houses, at the time of comlpaint(s) (not always from me - it is a problem many are having) to the police we were told that they would try and send the local community police officer to the area!
What a completely crazy world we live in when youths can carry air guns with malicious intent almost unhindered and 70 year old ladies at the end of their tether and with (almost)non malicious intent are aressted by 10 armed police officers

Potter Potty 2

2007-07-24T08:18:00.000+01:00

Well, after the long wait and all the hype, the Harry Potter circus is finally over. I finished reading the final book last night! I must say that, without giving anything away, it was most enjoyable and whilst the ending was a little dissapointing, (only in how abrubptly it seemed to finish), it was as I was expecting and didn't dissapoint in the least..

Only two months until the twelth and final book in the Sword of Truth series from Terry Goodkind is relased and three years until the final wheel of time book is out from Robert Jordan (He isn't too well aparently)

Potter Potty

2007-07-19T14:03:00.000+01:00

I have a confession to make! I, like millions of others, am a Harry Potter fan. I have been waiting in almost unbearable anticipation for the concluding part of this novel series, and I will be at my local Tesco store at midnight on Friday to buy a copy! Sad? Absolutely!

I have joined many a Christian debate on whether the readers of this particular book series should be smiled upon sympathetically or burned at the stake. My opinion has never changed, and whilst I can see the reasoning behind the opinions, I have yet to be convinced that these books are the work of Satan! I am thoroughly of the opinion that it does more harm than good to enforce your will onto others; it usually has the reverse effect! I also believe that children, (and adults) need to be able to discern what is fact and fiction and what is and isn’t a good story, it is all well and good sheltering away from the things which don’t quite match up to our standards and beliefs, but that would mean cutting out most things in our lives. And at some point we are going to come into contact with adverse ideas or temptations, if we are taught the difference between fact and fiction, right and wrong, and allowed to discern this for ourselves, dealing with these situations when they arise will be far less tricky. It would, in my opinion, be far better for a parent to talk to a child about the 'greyer' aspects of the Potter novels, than to ostracise them from their peers by banning it! I know I will be.

That wasn't meant to be a Harry Potter rant, fiction is something I am passionate about. I love to read, always have done, and take any opportunity to read a new fiction novel. Fantasy and science fiction being my preference has in the past led me to wonder whether I should be reading novels about magic and gods and death, but I realised that I know it isn’t real, and there are far worse things in this world to worry about than whether I get entertained by stories about magic. We should be far more ashamed of the neglect and contempt we show to the majority of this world that is desperate for our help, or the lack of respect we show to this miracle of planet we live on.

To respect the wishes of my hero and recipient of my worship (joking :-) ) namely J.K Rowling, I wont be publishing a review of the book any time soon, but I might let you know how I am getting on.

God Bless

Free at Last

2007-07-04T08:22:00.000+01:00

I just wanted to post and say thank the Lord, Alan Johnston has been freed! What a great piece of news in these terrible times!

There have undoubtably been millions of prayers offered for his safe return, and it seems like they have been answered, what part God played in this turn of events we will never know, but I am sure his hand was in there somewhere.

Lets just keep praying that the same happens for little Madeleine McCann!

Deal with it

2007-06-27T22:08:00.000+01:00

I have hinted in previous posts that this year has been tough for me and my family. Well things continue to be so, I have said that I am being accused of something I haven't done, well things aren't getting any better there.

I thought I would take this opportunity to share not only a song that gives encouragement, but a few things that I have come to realise.

1) It is normal to blame God or try to punish God, don’t let the guilt of doing this drag you down further.
2) You don’t have to attend Church every week to be a Christian! Now whilst I would be the first to promote the community of church to help, there are times when perhaps it just seems too much, don’t feel guilt about this, just because you miss a week at Church, doesn’t make you any less of a Christian.
3) The Church wont fall apart without you! If you back off from certain responsibilities you have the Church wont stop functioning (in most cases) As long as you let people know, (your minister should be aware of any difficulties you are having anyway) your church wont stop functioning without a newsletter for a couple of months.
4) Use all forms of pastoral care you can. This is something I have struggled with immensely. I find it very difficult to open up to people, usually glossing over any 'how are things?' with a painted on smile and a 'not too bad thank you'. Added to the fact that out minister went on sabbatical as things kicked off for me, this was hard. It is only because of a truly marvelous man in our Circuit, another Dave, who has shown true love and caring that my family and I have coped. I true gift from God. Talking helps, make sure you do it!
5) Take care of your faith and be honest. Be honest if things happen like in point 1 - things can spiral if you let it fester.
6) God is quite capable of doing things without you, the Church wont cease to function without you, God is in Charge not you.
7) Pray and have others pray for you - He listens and it really helps.

Above all remember that God loves you and is not the creator of your bad times. He wants you to be happy and be in relationship with him. If you suffer he suffers with you, but is there to keep you propped up. Remember this and use his strength as and when you need it.

God Bless

Money

2007-06-22T11:45:00.000+01:00

I wonder how much money the Methodist has that is tied up in funds that are no longer suitable and therefore cannot be accesed. I get the distinct impression that the Church, individualy and collectively, has large sums of money sitting around that can't be used. Either because it was generated in a certain way and can thus only be used for certain things, or because it was given to a specific fund or for a specific purpose that is nor longer relivant.

A good example I heard of recently is of a circuit that had £9000 donnated a few years ago for the purpose of buying kneeling cushions! None of the Churches in that circuit use kneeling cushions any more, and thus the money is just sitting there not being able to be used.

I can understand the need for structured money management, but I am sure these types of situations are common and widespread, I wouldn't be surprised if as a Church body the 'untouchable' money ran into millions. I can't believe ther are no get out clauses.

Communion

2007-06-13T13:54:00.000+01:00

Sorry, this is new post number five today, I hope that doesn't put people reading all of them.

Anyway, back to the point in hand. I am sure I could find the answer somewhere, but am not sure that I can be convinced. My question is, why can only ordained ministers perform Holy Communion and why do we have to perform the long fairly alien liturgy that goes with it?

These are genuine questions, not critiscisms. Personally I get frustrated that Communion can only be 'presided' over by an ordained Minsiter rather than perhaps more frequently in more intimate settings (house groups??) I also struggle to understand the necesity of the Liturgy that goes with a communion service and the strictness in which it is adheared to. For me this tends to distract from the joy and intimacy of the event, and quite frankly becomes something we say rather than something we feel.

Those are just my opinions, and my frustrations might simply come from lack of understanding about Mwthodist communion, or Communion in general. I would definately be interested to hear if anyone has any views, opinions or information.

God Bless

Hands up

2007-06-13T11:42:00.000+01:00

Something which I have recently found aids me in times of worship (when I am not playing the guitar) is the act of raising hands. This is done a great deal in Pentecostal and Charasmatic Churches, but us something that is spreading amongst other denominations as we seek ways to engage with different music styles and content.

I wont get into trying to quote biblical references to back this act up, there are many that are widely used. But I will try to explain why I do it.

I see it as an act of surrender. Its not something we do often, and it may feel a little awkward, what am am saying is Lord you are worth more than a little feeling of awkwardness or selfcontiousness, I give it all over to you.

As children the two extremes of emotion provoked this behaviour. Absolute Joy or elation: when you come home and your young children are so pleased to see you the run towards you, arms raised to be lifted up. Sorrow and comfort: When your children hurt themselves or are scared they come to you, again arms raised. How innocent and natural are these reactions and how great it would be to be able to submit to our Father in Heaven in such a way. When I worship in song I lift my hands to my Father in absolute Joy and for Fatherly comfort.

18-40's

2007-06-13T11:02:00.000+01:00

I read somewhere on the Methodist website, cant remember where, that each circuit is being asked to think about ways of increasing the numbers of 18-40 year olds. This is something close to my heart and also something I see as a huge challenge. Is it possible to mix these three generations (children, young adults and mature adults), together in a harmonious way? I currently am of the opinion that is isn't! In my experience, (and it is limited), the long time and elderly members ofthe Church absolutely wont deviate from their preference, and the younger adults, (whilst being a little more tolerent), wouldn't stay with a Cuhrch that was inaccessible to them.

How do we as Methodists address this nationwide challenge given to us? One initiative that excites me is the Sanctuary Westminister. A young adults group planted as part of the Methodist Central Halls ministry. It is a thriving and growing group of young adults, I would encourage you to look at their website (google Sanctuary Westminster or go to the Central Hall website) and find out what they ar edoing. Now very few single Methodist Churches could afford a venture such as that , but collectively as a circuit could the investment be made? I dont know, just throwing out some thoughts.

God Bless

Collection

2007-06-13T10:54:00.000+01:00

I noticed this post on the fat Prophets blog with regards to standing or sitting during collection. If anyone can help him with this question please leave him a comment.

But it did make me think about the whole buisiness of colelction and our attitude towards money in the Methodist Church. It seems like such a taboo subject and the weekly collection a chore or part of the service that we just do. One of my favourite terms, used by an American Church, for the colelction is 'Joy boxes'. They have taken to time to talk about money and change peoples perception of 'dutifully' giving to that of a joyful task. The mention of the Joy boxes is usually met with much cheering and song, a real celebration. Oh to have some of that attitude with our finances in our Churches.

Baby

2007-06-13T10:49:00.000+01:00

We had our first baby scan last week. Any concerns or doubts about this pregnancy just melted away when we got to see a picture of a perfectly formed 12 week old baby about 2 1/2 centimeters long! There were tiny arms, legs, head and heart beat! What a privelege it is to have this kind of care and technology! And what a blessing from God this baby is and will continue to be.

Where is God?

2007-05-23T09:17:00.000+01:00

This is a question that we all ask at some time in our lives, especially when times are not so good, or something un-imaginable happens. This year has probably been if not the worst (so far) certainly up there amongst the top contenders for the worst.
The year started with my in-laws splitting up which after 40 years of marriage was difficult to go through, especially the fighting and arguing over small things and subsequent moves.
I then had a breast cancer scare which was pretty scary (and thankfully not the case), but sitting in a hospital waiting room, the only man amongst a room full of women, waiting to have a mammogram was pretty nerve-racking!
We then find out that we are to have another baby, now whilst we now are excited about this and extremely happy, at the time it wasn't news we were expecting, nor particularly wanted.
Most recently I am currently going through an extremely difficult time that I wont go into details about, but could be quite serious for me and my family!

I don’t say this for sympathy, we have dealt and are dealing with things fairly well as a family and wider Church family. I just wanted to point out that there are times in our lives when things go a bit pear shaped and we struggle to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It is at these times that we question our faith, after all, I work hard for the Church, love God and try my best to let others know of that love..... how could God let these things happen to me? and where is he now, when I need him the most, why doesn't he do anything?
All perfectly natural reactions, and to some extent, questions I myself have asked over the past few months. There is a song by David Crowder called All that I can say which really gives me comfort during these times and I want to share the lyrics of this song with you:

Lord I'm tired So tired from walking
And Lord I'm so alone
And Lord the dark Is creeping in Creeping up
To swallow me
I think I'll stop Rest here a while

Chorus: And this is all that I can say right now
And this is all that I can give
And this is all that I can say right now
And this is all that I can give, thats my everything

And didn't You see me cry'n?
And didn't You hear me call Your name?
Wasn't it You I gave my heart to?
I wish You'd remember Where you sat it down

Chorus: And this is all that I can say right now, i know its not much.
But this is all that I can give, yeah thats my everything.
This is all that I can say right now [right now], i know its not much.
But this is all that I can give, yeah thats my everything.

Bridge: I didn't notice You were standing here
I didn't know that That was You holding me
I didn't notice You were cry'n too
I didn't know that That was You washing my feet

And this is all that I can say right now, oh i know its not much.
But this is all that I can give, yeah thats my everything.
This is all that I can say right now [right now], i know its not much.
But this is all that I can give, yeah thats my everything.
And this is all that I can say right now, oh i know its not much.
But this is all that I can give, yeah thats my everything. yeah thats my everything [2x] everything........

I really love this song, its about people crying out for God and asking where are you have you forgotten me! Then it finishes with that fantastic response verse which says that God is right there with us going through the pain with us, holding us when we need propping up and crying tears with us! What a great picture of a loving supporting and caring God. I would thoroughly recommend anyone get hold of a copy, the link below takes you to a page where you can click to listen to part of the song:
http://www.independentbands.com/cd/davidcrowderband/allicansay.html

God Bless

Eternal security

2007-05-15T11:18:00.000+01:00

As I grow in my faith and explore the Bible further and in more depth, I find I come accross more and more controversial passages and theologies. I started looking into the difference between calvins and Arminians and was amazed at the quite stark differences in theological ideas.

Now I have only just embarked on this journey and expect I will have more to say on it after more study, but I have a couple if initial thoughts.

Firstly I have read and listened to quite a few articles relating to this subject, and whilst there are some ideas that just don't seem to fit into my view of Christianity, pre-desitination and double pre-destination for example, (although they use logic well to try and prove the point), there are others that cause me to think on further, eternal security is probably the one that shouts at me the loudest.

Pre-destination basically states that as God is all knowing, he knows who will and who wont be 'saved'. This is taken further by saying that if he knows then it is already decided who will and wont come to Christ, therefore we have no say i nthe matter and are pre-destined to either heaven or hell. This argument is backed up with other references around people being chosen and such like. I all feels completely wrong to me, but I have yet to study further to come up with a counter argument.

Eternal security basically says that once you have been saved you are always saved. On the surface this seems wrong to me also, but after hearing some of the biblical references and arguments for it, I must say it is more difficult to argue with. It basically revolves around the fact that if you are able to lose your salvation then you must have done something to do so, which implies that you need to do or not do something in order to keep it, which then becomes salvation by works. There are other biblical references to back it up, mostly revolving around the word eternal.

As I say, I have just started looking into this, and most of the stuff I have looked at, and in fact most of the stuff out there, has been and tends to be biased towards the Calvanistic point of view. I look forward to posting later on when I have had the time to research myself.

PamBG's Blog: Bums on Pews

2007-05-15T10:06:00.000+01:00

PamBG's Blog: Bums on Pews

I read this post on PamBG's site and at first thought it too simplistic a view, and of course it is, but as with any simple idea there are a myriad of thoughts and ideas to explore.

'people don't want to join groups', is a pretty good overview of our society today. Society is all about the individual. Individual achievement is the ultimate aim that is instilled in us now from a very young age. Individual pleasure is blasted at us from all directions - TV ads, billboards, radio, peers even parents. This quest for individual pleasure and our sometime farcical law system has lead to groups of people being seen as something to fear and a life looking out for number one a top priority. Is it any wonder community has gone down the pan and individualism, self pleasure and fear are rife. Re-training this mind set is a mammoth task.

The one chink in the chain is that people still enjoy friendships, albeit sometimes on a much more superficial level than it used to be, but as humans we still need contact with other humans, perhaps this is where we as Christians should be tapping away in these chinks until we shatter the chains around modern society’s neck. Personal witness and life example has become extremely important, and something that British Christians have often been pretty bad at especially in the denominational Churches, we are, (or have been), a far to reserved bunch!

Pam mentions that people are not adverse to Christianity in her post. Whilst this is not my experience, (although probably has more to do with the way I witness in my work place than anything else), I see her point and agree in most part. Whilst I do think that people are looking for something 'spiritual' even if they don’t realise it, and would be more than happy to explore the teachings of the Christian faith, I do think they are far more wary of Church and organised religion. The face of the Church is often portrayed as opinionated, un-inclusive, discriminatory and old fashioned. The number of people that when talking about Christians and religion bring up the cause for war theory, and the current evil that is terrorism in the name of religion, all tend to give a false impression of who God is and what Christ did for them. No wonder people are wary of the Church.

Pam mentions individual congregations in two contexts in her post, with regards to in days gone by when the Church was about individual congregations and embraced for it, and secondly when she acknowledges that some individual congregations do grow. The questions I ask myself about both these points are firstly, why was the Church in previous years successful and what can we learn from this, and secondly what are the Churches with growing congregations doing well that we could take on board, if they can do it, why cant we? In answer, well in a small way, I think that when a Church is thriving, be it in times now past or present day, it is when that Church is meeting the needs of the community around it. Church, especially the large denominational Churches, have become Church machines, producing Churches that, other than the buildings they are housed in, all look exactly the same, (sweeping generalisation, but in large parts true). Whilst I fully embrace the Church structure, I genuinely feel that the Church body needs to support local Churches rather than the local Churches holding up the institutional body. Church should and needs to be again about local Church in local communities and meeting the needs and experiences of those it serves!

I also don’t have the answers, but the journey of discovery and sheer determination evident in the Church to see people reached excites me greatly.

Wow, that was full on, sorry if it was a bit long, I just couldn't stop typing once I had started. God Bless.

Fresh Expressions

2007-05-08T15:42:00.000+01:00

I have been following the Fresh Expressions movement with interest to see how this is going to help reach those that wouldn't have been reached by 'conventional' church. I must say that whilst I am a big fan of anything that helps to promote Christ's love amongst those that wouldn't be reached normally, as a movement realted to the CofE and Methodist Churches I do have a few Issues / reservations.

Firstly these projects tend to run as a side project of the Church, and don't really integrate with the 'everyday life' of the Church. Whilst this perhaps has many benefits the big issue here is that eventually one 'type' of Church will have to assimilate the other. It is all well and good having a Thursday meeting of 30 young adults, but if there are only 3 worshipers on a Sunday morning at some point those 30 are going to become the Church, how do we go about managing that transition.

As a second observation, or thought, I would say that to me Fresh Expressions looks like a kind of place holder for the Church ,and perhaps necessarily, it is where all the new stuff is developed and younger people, (or those who don't engage with a traditional sergice), go until the Church is ready to accept them as being Church. The danger here is that Fresh Expressions is viewed as a lesser congregation or is referred to as a seperate institution rather than a part of us.

There is some excellent stuff going on and I am not throwing out the benefits of Fresh Expressions, just voicing some mussing I have had on the topic. For example, the Sactuary Westminster is a project that excites me hugely and something that we could do with more of. The CofE tends to have a better reputation of forming and following through with different kinds of Church, The Holy Trinity Brompton and The Point amongst a few of their large and growing Churches that manage to sustain elements of tradition along with more contemporary stuff. Perhaps new Church Planting should be an area of consideration for the Methodist Church as a way of interacting with a communtiy without having to fight the battles and delays that a changing Church has, it certainly seems to be the way The Sanctuary Westminster works, and it is doing well.

I love the Methodist Church and want to see it become again the evangelical big boy on the block that it once was! Fresh expressions is a great start, but investment needs to be made now in growing these initiatives. Perhaps circuits should employ lay workers that work with Churches to build Fresh Expressions, it would help I am sure, although how likely that is when youth work, an area that the Methodist Church excels in, budgets are being cut, I dont know. If every circuit had a church plant of a fresh expressions Church accesible to its community things could look good! How likely or would it work even? I don't know, but perhaps these are the kinds of discussions that the Methodist Church that is starting to turn the tide and enter into exciting and unkown times should be having.

Zodiac sign

2007-04-25T12:28:00.000+01:00

There has been some discussion in the Methodist Blog space about blogs displaying their authors zodiac sign. With most blogs this is done automatically, and other than removing your date of birth, there doesn't seem to be any way of getting rid of this information.

I must say that personaly, I hadn't even noticed that this feature was enabled on my or other peoples blogs. In our current society such things are so common place that I simply ignore them, and I certainly dont asssume that if a profile contains one that the author buys into this mumbo jumbo.

Dont get me wrong, I have removed mine now that I know it is there and encourage others to do so. But mainly to make a point by its removal. I would have thought that Blog visitors would probably pay no atention anyway. I can't imagine anyone viewing a profile and gasping in horror at the presence of a star sign on a Christians Blog, any more than I can imagine someone noting its lack of presence and uttering an Amen brother in support.

Church management

2007-04-19T13:52:00.000+01:00

I would be interested to know how other Methodist churches manage themselves, especially those that pursue new initiatives or arrange themselves outside of the traditional Methodist five hymn sandwich style services.

Our Church had gone for many years with just having two council meeting a year, perhaps a reason for the decline in numbers?, the majority of the time in these dedicated to financial situations. When we changed our service structure we decided that we needed to meet more regualry to discuss how we can fine tune things, and how else we can reach our community. So we now have a monthly meeting, open to all, so that issues and ideas can be shared and pursued.

Whilst it is an imporvement, I am not sure how effective it is, hence the reason for my original question. It would be a real help to understand the structures used to run other churches.

God Bless

Our Value

2007-04-17T14:43:00.000+01:00

I heard this preached by a Christian evangelist called J John and had to share it. It is a simple idea and is much better experienced than read, but you should get the picture...

'I have in my hands a twenty pound note, can any one tell me how much it is worth? Thats right twenty pounds. What would happen if I crumpled this note up into a rough ball? Lets try it. Ok now I have a scruffy crumpled note, how much is it worth now....... twenty pounds still, of course. Ok, lets try something else, lets take some dirt and smear it onto the crumpled rough note, a little here, a little there, and maybe some more here. Surely it has decreased in value now. No, absolutely not, it is still worth twenty pounds, that hasn't changed. You know, this is like our relationship with God, it doesn't matter how crumpeld and rough we are, how much we are tainted with dirt and sin, it doesn't effect our worth to God, nothing we can do can make us worth anyless in His eyes, He still wants to be in relationship with us and still has a purpose for our lives'

I was quoting from memory so please dont start emailing J John with gramatical mistakes. I hope it helps encourage you or helps you encourage someone else.

Post conference blues

2007-04-17T14:34:00.000+01:00

I seem to be on a bit of a downer this week, I suppose it is coming back to the reality of everyday work and life after such a great week amongst fellow believers alst week.

It has made me think about how I can re-enthuse myself during real life periods. The conclussion I have come to is that I need to develop better daily routines of prayer and bible study, something I have always struggled with in my busy work and home life. Better community with other Christians on a day other than Sunday would also be good. We are starting to explore setting up small house groups to meet weekly, these could be used to have some worship and study time together and build better relationships. I am hoping that these will help keep us all fresh, alright it isn't on the same level as a Christian conference, but it should certainly help.

Exciting challenges, and an even more exciting journey.

New colour scheme

2007-04-17T14:31:00.000+01:00

Due to a request I have changed the scheme of my blog, I now have lots of colourful spots with black text against a white background. This should prove less painful to the eye than the original white text on black background.

Be yourself

2007-04-16T11:03:00.000+01:00

Some thing that I am coming to coming to recognise and implementing more in my life is the need to just be yourself. I have always been a shy person who hates any kind of confrontation, and worries dreadfully about what other people think. This meant that whilst not completely compromising myself I would bend just enough so as to please others. I am still struggling to bring my self confidence to the levels to allow me to be me in all situations, but the journey has started and is gather pace.

This came as a bit of a light bulb moment to me whilst at Spring Harvest last week. Having sat through the majority of the evening celebration with thousands of others, one of the leadership team took the stage and started to pray and call those that had been hurt by Church in one way or another, (or those that realise they had done the hurting), to come to the front. Now whilst I understood the sentiment and sympathised with those that made the journey to the stage, it just wasn't connecting with me at all. After having rather a lot of long periods of quite contemplation, (background atmospheric music excluded), the leader muttered a short prayer and then called for a few more minutes for people to respond and come forward. At this point my wife, whom I hadn't realised was feeling the same and who doesn't have the same problem with speaking her mind as me, whispered to me that we ought to leave, which we did, we were neither alone nor obvious in exit. But, to my horror on exiting the tent, my wife uttered rather loudly, 'Blimey, wasn't he going on! I lost him 15 minutes ago!'. I must say my heart skipped a beat we were surrounded by other Christians and they must have heard her, I was afraid we would be ejected from the conference for blasphemy! To my horror a gentleman was looking at us with a puzzled look on his face. I started to rebuke my wife for her insensitive remark, loudly enough for this gentleman to hear, but he came a little closer and said, 'Boy am I glad to hear that, I was starting to feel guilty about having the same thoughts!". Me being the ultimate wimp started to try and justify our actions and my wifes remark with some clever response like, 'I guess the spirit interacts with us all differently and what is relevant to one is not necessarily relevant to all', but before I could finish the wife broke in again, to further express her disconnection with the particular event. To my surprise the gentleman was agreeing, I didn't think Christians were aloud to be negative and critical, especially not at such a spirit charged event as a conference.

We ended up having quite a conversation with this gentleman, a Pentecostal who seemed to think that Methodists could be counted on one hand, and learned quite a lot, it was a bit of a shame when we had to go different ways, (I still tried to sound all good and Christian with a two handed handshake and a God Bless you and your Church). But it sort of opened up my eyes to the fact that we are all different and are allowed to be so. We won’t agree with everyone and likewise some wont agree with us, but that is ok and even necessary. We are one people under God and valued and loved for who we are, not how we think we should be.

God Bless

Spring Harvest

2007-04-16T10:48:00.000+01:00

Sorry for the silence but a group of us from our Church went to Spring Harvest last week. What a fantastic week it was and how relevent the message was to us and our Church situation. I think we were all going feeling pretty worn out and even a little downhearted. The theme for the week was One People and focused on how we were all one people under God. The daily bible studies were cenetered around Pauls letter to the philippians and the speaker, Ian Coffey, broke it down into daily sections. He had a part which centered on how the Church is a struggle sometimes and hard work most of the time, but we should be encouraged that we are all one people under God and that we are not alone but all fighting the same battle together. It was a messge we really needed to hear.

The problem with going to Spring Harvest was that the Church was pretty much cleared out for the week, not good for any visitors, (And we had one), but absolutely necessary for the core team.

Religion and warfare

2007-04-03T15:23:00.000+01:00

There seems to be discussion going on at the moment in mainstream press with regards to how many of us attend Church, and of those that dont, how many class themselves as Christian. Now there is a whole discusson to be had on whether or not Christians ar eCHristians of they dont attend a Church, but I dont want to comment on that for now. What I don want to comment on are some of the arguments that are raised by people who claim to have no 'religion' whatsoever.

I have read many news articles, and subsequent reader comments in the last few days. The thing that all those of no religious persuasion have in common is that they blame religion for war. Now whilst it is true that many a war has been started in the name of Jesus, I dont think anything could ever be further from the teachings and life example of Jesus. I really struggle with the 'there would be less wars without religion' brigade. I just have to look around at the society we live in at present, religion is not the cause of anti-social behaviour, gun crime, binge drinking, knife atacks, breakdowns in the family unit, sex crimes, paedophilia, road rage...... the list could go on for ever. Yes, I know wars have been raged by people who choose to distort the teaching of their religions, Christianity included, but what I see happening around me today is a far bigger argument FOR the loving nature and teachings of Christianity than any man made war has even been as an argument against.

There are a couple of articles, with related user comments on the BBC news website:

http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=5955&&&edition=2&ttl=20070403154855

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6520463.stm

You will also notice that when 'athiests' are talking about those that dont agree it is with hatred and criticism, but when Christians are doing likewise it is with love and compassion (mostly)

PamBG's Blog: Palm Sunday and Peace

2007-04-03T10:38:00.000+01:00

Pam's Palm Sunday blog is an interesting read. It certainly made me think.

PamBG's Blog: Palm Sunday and Peace

Premier Radio

2007-04-02T14:20:00.000+01:00

I just won a copy of the Natvity Story on DVD from premier radio! I just had to email the answer to a simple question and get the email in first.

Aparently on this day in 1873 tiolets were added to sleeper carriages!

I cant wait to watch the film!

Singing

2007-04-02T10:56:00.000+01:00

I forgot to mention in my enthusiasm over yesterdays service that I sang for the first time. I don't mean that I just sang, I always do that in worship of God, but I actually sang in the microphones helping to lead the worship!
Generally I am a fairly shy person with low self confidence, I find social situation can be difficult, especially with new people, and always worry that what I am doing is wrong or bad, a bit of a people pleaser really. So actually putting myself on the line in such a pubic way was a huge step forward for me and I feel absolutely great! Great that I have jumped another hurdle in my life and great that I have now relased something else to enable me to serve God. Wooooohoooooooo

Calling or personal desire?

2007-04-02T10:40:00.000+01:00

I have been feeling uneasy lately. I am trying to work out whether God is calling me into some form of full time ministry, (a big step as I don't even do any formal part time ministry), or if it just my own desire to make a difference that is fuelling this 'feeling'. I must say it is a bit of a puzzler, perhaps it shouldn't be and I am simply overanalyzing something which should be obvious! Perhaps the thought of giving up the life and luxuries that come with my comfortably paid job and the added stress that this move would put upon my family are clouding what is a true calling from God. Or likewise, perhaps my strong desire to see our Church become a centre in our community and my passion to be able to make a difference is being mistaken for some kind of divine signpost? I really don’t know. What I do know is that I am struggling to stay motivated at my normal work, and find myself thinking about God, the Church and related activities more and more, to the point where it is interfering in my out of Church life.

I need to think this through for a while, perhaps seek some guidance. How do you tell what is the heart of God or the heart of man?

What a difference a week makes

2007-04-02T09:40:00.000+01:00

Wow, what a difference a week makes! This time last week I was feeling disheartened and pretty depressed with the whole Church thing. This Sunday though was a completely different story, it was an absolutely awesome service. We had a preacher who was excited by our situation and direction, and tailored his service accordingly. On top of the normal difficulties with preaching at our Church it was a family service, so all of the kids were in for the entire service, always difficult especially for someone who doesn't know our congregation. Despite any fears he pulled off an excellent service, just the right level and content to be relevant to those present. The kids were well catered for as well, his stones and googly eyes were a true revelation from the Lord.
It was an added bonus that he could sing, play the guitar and chose an excellent mix of songs that went down extremely well!
The turnout was extremely good, nearly all the sets we put out were full, (and they are normally at most only half full). We had a small army of children, all of the regular adults, (plus some of the not so regular), three new people, (all said they would be returning) and someone returning after an earlier visit! God really moved amongst us yesterday morning and it was an honour to be involved.
The challenge now is to make those visitors that return feel just as positive about the next service. Whilst the rotating local preacher has its benefits, (and we are extremely grateful for the work they do), consistency and adaptability to our situation can be a real draw back to this system. But all we can do is our best to make them feel as welcome as possible, and let the Holy Spirit do the rest.

2007-03-29T10:26:00.000+01:00

I loved this little story on Ricahrd Hall's blog, funny and thought provoking - what an excellent combination!

http://theconnexion.net/wp/?p=2783

Printer Problems

2007-03-29T10:13:00.000+01:00

AAArrrggh, I have run out of ink in my printer and the Church newsletter is due out this weekend. These things are sent to try us, as the saying goes! Well, it certainly does that, but as the another well know saying states, I am still looking for the silver lining :-)

Prayer

2007-03-29T09:27:00.000+01:00

I was delighted to hear that the supercasino bill has failed to be passed. Gambling ruins lives and in a society that believes money can solve all its problems and provide a happy and fullfilling life, the lure of unlimited jackpots will prove too much.

About the only negative thing to come out of this is that the supercasino's would have been an excellent place for evangelism and Church action, how many people, people that are looking for that something to complete there lives, could have been reached with the news of Christ and his life transforming love? People that probably wouldn't have been reached in other ways.
We should pray that the oposition to supercasino's stays successfull and that those lost and in trouble can be reaced with the life saving news of Jesus. If you would like yo ucan join me in the following prayer:

Heavenly Father, we pray that those in power continue to resists the pressure to inflict misery on many peoples lifes in the shape of supercasino's. Lord we ask that those with serious problems already can be enfolded in your loving arms and find their inner yearnings and emptyness fullfilled in you. Amen

The other piece of news is the growing situation in Iran with the 15 British service men and women that are being held. Now whilst I feel the same outrage at the Iranian government at the situation, I am also becoming increasingly aware that perhaps we dont have the full story. Now that doesn't mean I believe that actions were justifiable, it just means that I dont know exactly what happened, only what either governments are choosing to tell me. What I do know is that the whole situation needs us to pray, all things are possible through God, let's pray that this situation can be resolved before things get out of control. If yo ulike you can join me in the prayer below:

Lord, we pray for the wellbeing of the British servicemen and woman being help in Iran, we pray that they are being treat well and that they maintain healthy in body and mind. Lord we also pray that those in positions of power can work to resolve this situation without bloodshed. I pray that you harden the resolve of our government for a peaceful, diplomatic resoultion. And that you soften the Iranian governments stuburness to engage in dialogue. Lord we offer this situation up to you in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen

Now I dont know if this blog is being read yet, but if you are reading this I urge you to offer your own prayer for these situations, or simply u se those printed. Prayer really does make a difference, lets unite as Christians not only in action and demonstration, but in prayer also. Thanks for sharing what is laying heavy on my heart today.

God Bless

Where do we fit?

2007-03-28T09:33:00.000+01:00

I take an avid interest in what is going on in Methodism and am keeping an eye on the coming Conference. The question that seems to leap out at me all the time is where do I fit in the Methodist institution? Let me expand a little: It seems to me that there are good, (not excellent), provision for the youth of our denomination to have a real impact on things, MYE have their own gathering and can put their reports to full council. Council itself seems to be made up of experienced, and thus usually 50 yrs plus, members. In fact listening to some of the debates at previous councils, the format seems tailored for that age group, lots of old boys club style debates with lots of 'I resepectfully put to the chair.." and "My honoured brother...". Both the langauge and style is pretty much alien to anyone who wasn't a member of the Oxford University dabate club. (Sounds like the arguments between hymns and modern worship music )

Any way, I was getting to a point through my distracted rambling above. The examples above sugest that the 16-20's have a voice and the 50+, but what about those in between? I am sure there is some provision for escalating views from church to circuit to district etc, but when you are a minority it is difficult to break in. One thing that carrying out the changes we have has shown is that the Methodist Church as a body finds anything out of the ordinary very difficult to deal with. As a thirty year old Methodist member, I can feel like something out of the ordinary, and find that being a lone voice often detracts from the volume.

I make some sweeping generalisations, and probably adhere to a few stereotypes, of which I mean no offence and hope none is taken, (I wasn;t calling everyone old :-) ) But generally that is a true reflection on how the Methodist Church projects itself to me.
God Bless

I have just re-read this and think I was perhaps being a little unfair to council, whilst I stand by the underlying theme of my post, I think I put the point accross in quite a critical way. It is not my intention to make anyone feel criticised, and nothing I post, genreally, is aimed at a single or body of people in a personal way. You see, I detest the thought at having upset anyone to such a degree that I even edit my own blog posts!

About Us

2007-03-26T10:46:00.001+01:00

It might be useful to explain a little about how my Church works. I will be commenting on it in most of my posts so a little background would probably be useful.

Before the change:

Our Church has great youth work going on with active Boys and Girl's Brigade's. We have two services on a Sunday, (morning and evening) both traditional with the occassional pianist, but most of the time using some organist cd's that we have. Attendance was headnig sharply downwards, on an average Sunday morning we had around 10 adults attending with 3 children (mine).

Our minister at the time (Mike Bossingham, who now runs the Family Friendly Churches trust) decided that we needed to change the way we do Church in order to attract some of the kids we have at our Brigades and hopefully some of their family members as well. He came up with a plan, put it to council, it was accepted and initiated.

Post Change:

We have two services on a Sunday, (AM and PM). The evening service is still completely traditional as before. In the mornings we now start at 10 with free breakfast. At 10:30 we split, the children have some Sunday school teaching and the adults do a bible study. At 11 we all come back together and our worship band lead some contemporary worship with modern songs, and prayer for around 15 or 20 minutes. At this point the children leave for their after Church club and the preacher for the day takes over for the reaminder of the service. This is generally held again in a completely traditional way, with hymns and music provided from the organist cd,s.

The idea was to hopefully try to provide something for everyone. Whilst it doesn't happen a great deal, the idea is that people can pick and choose parts to attend. We do have a lovely older lady who only attends for the second part of the service. We now have between 15 and 25 kids a week, and have gained a few adults as well, (lost a few also, but mainly due to age and illness)

I hope that is enough information to get a picture of what we are up to.

Training

2007-03-26T10:46:00.000+01:00

On saturday we had some training on sharing the gospel with oru youth. It was an excellent few hours. It was led by Dave Hollingsworth, our circuit youth devlopment officer, and a guy called Jack Lawson, the East Anglia District training and development officer.

I really did get some encouragement out of this training, whilst Dave concentrated on our thinking patterns and tried to demonstrate the way youth work and think, Jack concentrated on how we can unpack the gospels and present them to our kids, (Although not soley, he provided many other useful insights).

It was a fantastic day and really made us as youth workers think about the kids we serve. It especially made me re visit some of my initial opinions on some of our more unrully teenagers, whilst we can never understand them fully (even though we have all been there) I can certainly now sympathise with their situation and go behond the exterior and attempt to figure out what is going on below the surface.

Frustration, Frustration, Frustration

2007-03-26T10:07:00.000+01:00

Yesterday was a really frustrating Day! We are a small congregation, 20 kids and 15 adults (mostly under 40) and only just have enough people to do everything that needs doing in our revamped Sunday morning services. A member of our worship band phoned 5 minuted before I left to say that they couldn't make it, as we dont have any replacements musicians (we have a drummer, keyboardist, guitrist and a few singers) we were stuck trying to re-arrange the songs to suit the remaining instruments, which never sounds as good as the full band. To top that, the turn out was quite low.

Although this was quite dissapointing, what really frustrated me was my reaction to this. I was really annoyed, even angry. Angry at our musician and his family for not showing up, and angry at those of the congregastion who didn't show. I was annoyed that they didn't seem to have the same passion I do to see our Church evolve succesfully and grow in our needy community, or the same level of commitment that I think I show, giving selflessly of large chunks of my time to enable others to grow in their Christian faith.

When I eventually shook off the grumps later on I realised that whilst my opinions may be true, but not necessarily, my reaction was unjustified. I was impossing my priorities and expectation of myself onto others, when in fact I should have realised that each of us are different and do what we can in our own way. And thank God that is so, else it would be a very boring world!

I will try to do better next time, although I am sure I will probably spend another day in a grump. It just goes to demonstrate some of the many perils of any kind of leadership role, or any spiritual investment, not everyone can (should that read anyone?) reach the standard you impose, as a Christian I should recognise this and adjust my expectations of others. I should celebrate the positive rather than dwell on the negative. But as a human this is something I find hard to do, lets hope God can help me out with this.