12/7/10

Church: Boring & Irrelevant

I’ve been going to church ever since I can remember…I’ve survived Sunday school, enjoyed youth groups and sat through countless church services full of standing up, sitting down and singing songs written long before anyone in church can remember….to add to this I’ve heard plenty of drivel from the newer song writers and if I’m being completely honest I often find church boring and irrelevant.

As a youth worker for a Christian charity one of my concerns is not that the young people we have going to youth groups now don’t go to church but that they will never go to church (when I say church I don’t mean a Sunday service but a gathering of Christians).

This means that the youth groups I meet with whether it’s our 11-14′s group, Rock Solid group or Christian Union in school are all as much church as a Sunday morning service however what’s next? Maybe they’ll find trendy university churches but sooner or later they probably have to come back to the reality that generally church isn’t exciting.

I had a conversation with someone recently about someone who became a Christian and went to church for a while but always remarked ‘Why does it have to be so boring?’. This wasn’t a young person either and that person eventually gave up.

And along came the emerging Church…

Emerging church is a title is basically thrown at any ‘church’ gathering that isn’t a hymn sandwich.It might refer to cafe church, some kind of family fun day or a whole variety of ‘very slightly off the wall’ church events and whilst I love the idea of proper coffee and a informal church these things often miss the point.

These emerging churches can often become nothing more than a social gathering with the addition of something so watered down it’s barely a Christian message.

The Problem is this…

If church becomes something so boring that people switch off then we lose the ‘life in all its fullness’ that Christ promises. The freedom we’re meant to receive in Christ becomes nothing more than a chore of sitting through an hour of dullness a week.

If church becomes something so irrelevant that the event is nothing more than a social event with a watered-down, half-arsed attempt at proclaiming the greatness of Jesus then it is equally as pointless as the church that is boring.

The Gospel

The message that Jesus brought to people was neither boring or irrelevant. It was a life changing encounter. It caused people to do crazy things like selling their possessions and looking after the poor. It caused people to have a conviction so strong about having Jesus in their lives that they were willing to die for the cause.

A Passionless Church

On Sunday Jo and myself visited Emmanuel Church in Durham for no other reason than googling a church to visit whilst there and the format of the church was pretty similar to most (other than the coffee before the service which gave us a chance to feel welcomed in) however the difference was the passion oozing from the people.

The people at Emmanuel Church genuinely cared about Christ and you could see it in their actions and hear it in their voices.

The problem is that the majority of our churches lack passion.

The word passion comes from the Greek word Pathos and translated means something worth dying for.

Does church present us with a Jesus worth dying for? Does church present us with a Christian life that causes us to be passionate people…people who are so convicted by the gospel message and so filled with the Holy Spiirt that they simply cannot even talk about Jesus without it being obvious that this is something they really care about?

The fact is our churches need passion.

Yes some people express themselves differently but sooner or later with people you can find the buttons to push…for some people I know that button is the word ‘Fairtrade’, for others it’s the mention of homophobia and for some it might even be how dangerous the roads are with the ice at the moment.

Everyone has a button that when you push it they burst into life…passionately telling you about something they’re angered about, or excited about or something that they care so much about they simply can’t stay monotone.

How many people in our churches are like that with Jesus?

How many of our churches repeat liturgy as if their life depends on it?

How many people are so passionate about the gospel that they will do anything to spread it?

I’m not talking about people waving their arms in worship (although it does say passion), I’m not talking about speaking in tongues (although it’s God bubbling up from our very souls), I’m not even talking about people shouting or saying ‘yes Lord’ during prayers (although both say passion)…I’m talking about people being excited!

People being passionate.

And so yes…church is boring and irrelevant (a lot of the time) but it doesn’t have to be turned completely upside down to be appealing to people I think often it’s as simple as people wanting what we’ve got. People looking for something to be passionate about. People finding that passion in Jesus.

Emerging church is fantastic if it’s passionate as is an average Sunday morning service. If church is boring then we’ve really missed the point.

Our word passion comes from the Greek ‘Pathos’ which means ‘Something worth dying for’

11/6/10

Relevant Christianity

This morning just before breakfast there was a knock on the door. I opened it and standing on our doorstep/the street was a nicely dressed couple. The lady, who was clutching a red leather clad bible greeted me by saying ‘We’ve just come to share the good news of the gospel’.

She then asked me what I thought would happen at the end of the world to which I responded ‘I think Jesus will return and there will be a new heaven and a new earth’…I also informed her that I was a youth worker for the local church.

She then told me that it’s nice that there will be somewhere with no evil eventually, bid me good day and went on to knock at my next door neighbours…who I knew were out!

I’ve blogged before on where I stand with street preachers and lovely as this lady was (although I don’t really know if she was a Christian of JW!) I’m not convinced it’s relevant and here lies the problem…for many people Christianity is irrelevant. (I sometimes include myself in that category).

I’ve been to a few things on emerging church…I’ve chatted with people about cafe church and pub church…I’ve seen young people take part in social action projects and all these things are great but the church as a whole is stuck!

If you’re not a Christian entering into a church can be a scary prospect…you have to know when to stand and sit, you have to try and work out what phrases such as ‘blood of the lamb’ actually mean and in all of this you have to follow the leader.

Don’t get me wrong…there is a place for sermons but we’re still preaching sermons on lost sheep…Jesus talked about lost sheep because he was surrounded by shepherds who related to it…I have never lost a sheep (although I fully accept that I’m only 24 and still have lots of time to find myself in a sheep-losing situation).

In Acts Paul walks into Athens (from memory) and wanders around and spots a statue labeled ‘to an unknown god’ and so when he gets up to preach later he doesn’t share a story about sheep or a lost coin he tells them who this unknown god actually is….and tells them about Jesus in a way which is relevant!

So what does this look like in the 21st century?

The key thing for our gospel message today is that people are relational. We are in constant contact with people. We check in, we post status’ and we comment on people’s activities on Facebook, we send instant tweets and photos on Twitter, we sign in on 4square, we may even be old school enough to update our myspace!

Our communication is instant and works both ways…there’s even lectures that have twitter feeds running in the background.

This is where cafe church and pub church are such good ideas…because they’re relational…it’s the same with social action…it’s about meeting people’s physical & emotional needs as well as spiritual.

I’ll finish this post with a story that one of my uni lecturers told us;

In the story a young, enthusiastic Christian approaches a tower block with his bible in hand ready to convert some people. The first door he goes to is opened by a woman, cigarette in mouth, grubby baby in the other…he starts his rehearsed talk ‘I’ve come to tell you about the good news of Jes….’ and the door is slammed in his face.

Feeling disgruntled and upset he sits down outside and begins to cry…then suddenly an idea comes to him. So he gets up, goes to the local shop and buys a packet of cigarettes and a pack of nappies. He goes back to the lady’s house, knocks on the door again and simply says ‘I’ve come to help you’.

That afternoon he changes the baby, helps tidy and smokes (having never smoked in his life) and it’s when he turns to leave that the lady says ‘Why have you done this?’ and he tells her about Jesus.

We need a church that’s relevant to people…I’m not convinced that church as we know it really works anymore for those outside the Christian bubble and I certainly don’t believe it’s right to mold them into our church mold.

It’s amazing what thoughts a Saturday morning door knocker can have!

10/28/10

Owl City Evangelism

Most people will be familiar with the catchy pop hit ‘Fireflies’ by Owl City aka Adam Young. Fireflies stuck at number one for several weeks earlier this year. Shortly after this period of time a campaign to get Delirious?’s ‘History Maker’ to number one for Easter was launched and finished at number 4 (I think).

Regular readers of this blog will know of my dislike at the whole Delirious campaign…the ethos behind the campaign was silly and the song itself is basically meaningless unless you’re a Christian or willing to go through lots of Christian jargon to grasp an understanding and more to the point we’d already had a Christian at number 1 with a song that millions of people purchased because they wanted too and not because of social networking.

Now on Monday over on the Owl City Blog (link) Adam Young posted a cover of ‘In Christ Alone’ and included the lyrics and said this about the song;

I’m twenty four years old, yet something about this song makes me bawl like a baby. The way the melodies and lyrics swirl together is so poignant and beautiful.

The thing that I love about this cover is that it’s not trying to be something it isn’t…it’s not a quirky ‘experimental’ cover (although sounds about as experimental as the Rend Collective Experiment) it is simply a cover. The reason I love the cover so much is not so much the song he chose (although lyrically it is mind blowing) but that here we have a young musician who is popular in the secular and Christian world posting a cover of a Christian song on his blog and linking it to millions of fans via Twitter and Facebook.

Let’s face it a song on the radio can pass you by but bands have some crazy fans…if Adam Young says ‘this whole Christian thing is actually worth it’ then there’s gotta be a fair few people who think about it a bit more…maybe look into it…maybe even become Christians as a result.

So hats off to Adam Young and well done for being a Christian artist willing to post something different from his usual stuff to a mixed, worldwide fan-base…let’s hope it has an impact

You can listen/download to Adam’s Cover and read the post here

09/16/10

Highlights from the PCC (Funnies!)

You may remember reading a slightly sarcastic (in places) comparison between JCC (Effectively PCC but joint with Methodist peeps) and the Baptist Church meeting (link here) back in November as I attended my first meeting…well whilst tonight’s meeting wasn’t the short meeting I’d hoped for after 3 days away it did include some classic quotes, comments and funnies so here are my highlights from the PCC

Funny Job Titles!

We had various discussions about church building and grounds stuff and some classic characters involved in helping with these (subcontractors…professionals of the trade I believe) involved one man with the job title Tree Officer and another titled Door Opener Person!

Funny Quotes!

Secondly there were a couple of classic quotes…the last is slightly out of context but was said as a lone sentence across the meeting, the others are pretty much self explanitory

The Door Opener Person says ‘Church door now works’ (Note: Good to get a professional opinion on our church door)

Next up…

‘The door needs to be re-adjusted so it closes’

(I should add at this point that at every meeting I’ve been to the church door has been a matter of discussion

Finally…

‘Do you think we could get together at the cupboard?’

Church Hymnbook Alternatives

Finally as the tattyness of the church own printed service books was discussed I pondered to myself whether it was time to start issuing people with a Kindle or iPad upon arrival…these devices could also connect to the church WiFi (which doesn’t yet exist) allowing parishioners to post their live thoughts on the sermon to Twitter

Anyway I hope you’ve enjoyed my thoughts from the meeting

09/1/10

Greenbelt 2010 – Thoughts & Highlights

As I previously mentioned this year Jo and myself headed to Greenbelt after the encouragement of a good friend and the temptation from Greenbelt of a free youth worker ticket paid off so on Friday we packed up the car and headed down to Cheltenham Racecourse.

We arrived at around 12 and joined the queue of people waiting to get in…after driving between holding bays, waiting an hour then moving again we finally pitched up around 3…sorted ourselves out and headed to the festival village.

I have to say I went to Greenbelt not knowing what to expect…my more liberal friends love it and my more conservative friends would offer advise to steer clear and so I headed to Greenbelt with curiosity, an open-mind and with the idea that I’d be able to make a more informed judgment on the festival.

Ethos

For starters Greenbelt has this massive social justice ethos going on…pretty much every trailer had Fairtrade hot drinks and you couldn’t turn a corner or enter a marquee without someone trying to sell you some Divine chocolate or a ethically traded/fairtrade t-shirt…there was even a t-shirt with the Tesco logo but with ‘Tesco’ replaced by ‘Fiasco’…awesome (I didn’t buy one!).

Add into the mix numerous stalls and seminars on human rights and justice plus a sign around every corner reminding you that if Greenbelt was Gaza there would be x amount of you…insert starving or something to that effect here.

I have to say that I really related to this ethos and loved the Fairtrade, ethical aspect…especially when the Fairtrade chocolate was cheaper than in the shops!

Music

The main thing that attracted me to Greenbelt was ‘The King Blues’ and ‘Luke Leighfield’ who would play gigs during the weekend…however throughout the weekend I caught some other bands too including an acoustic and mainstage set from Jars of Clay.

For me it was this mix of contemporary Christian music and more secular music that really made Greenbelt great…as a musician and huge fan of music I don’t want to watch 70 bands play ‘Shine Jesus Shine’ slightly differently, I want decent music and the balance of Jars of Clay’s ‘worship’ music and ‘The King Blues’ acoustic meets ska meets punk filled with the cry for social justice which lies at the heard of Christianity gave Greenbelt the right mix of music.

Other Seminars

Truth be told I didn’t make it to many seminars and spent a fair amount of time catching up with old friends who happened to be there (another aspect of Greenbelt that I loved!). I did, however manage to catch Mark Yaconelli’s 1st talk which was engaging, interesting and challenging, I attended a seminar for musicians called ‘DIY or DIE’ which gave some interesting pointers on how to promote your own music and some insights into the professional industry and I also found myself in a talk about how homosexuals were being persecuted in Africa and how (from what I was told) it was mostly Rowan Williams fault!

This mix of seminars perhaps sums up the range of Greenbelt…there was also lots of seminars on other subjects such as loving your enemies, confidence for women, Fairtrade and seminars aimed at lesbian, gay or bisexual Christians.

Whilst the broad range of topics being discussed would make some Christians say ‘noooo can’t have that at a Christian festival‘ I found that (regardless of the rights and wrongs…which I’m not going in to) Greenbelt was taking you beyond being spoon-fed. If you go to Spring Harvest you know what you’re going to get….you need not question what’s being talked about because it’s all very ‘nice middle-class church’ whereas Greenbelt challenges you….I wouldn’t say I’ve come back with different views but it’s certainly made me think.

So…is Greenbelt Christian?

The best way to finish this blog post seemed to be by asking an ambiguous questions (with a hint of the rhetorical) and not actually answering it! However…

The actions of Jesus show Him meeting those society didn’t like…the dishonest…the prostitutes…the mentally unstable…or as Scum of the Earth church put it ‘the left out and right brained’ and for me Greenbelt did just that. The Sunday service by the main stage was a pretty conservative church service…nothing controversial at all however it was attended by thousands of people who the general church would exclude…those who (for whatever reason) just don’t fit into mainstream church.

Regardless of your opinion of Greenbelt the organisers have managed to create a Christian festival that people are actually comfortable inviting their non-Christian friends too….I could see anyone I know who isn’t Christian having an awesome time at Greenbelt and discovering a bit of what God is about…maybe it’s just the addition of a beer tent or maybe it’s the diversity of Greenbelt but anyone is genuinely welcome at the festival.

Contrast this to Spring Harvest and I think I know what comes out on top…yes perhaps there are some things at Greenbelt which aren’t “Christian” but the festival is honest with people, open and accessible.

So would I go back next year? Yes….I think Greenbelt is what you make it…if you want to rant about the liberalness of Greenbelt then you can choose to attend the seminars that will make you explode…if you want a nice, safe Greenbelt then you can attend the seminars that match that…if you want to watch some good music and drink some beer then you can even do that…it’s what you make it!

Who wants to come with us next year?

08/19/10

Greenbelt 2010

Next Friday Jo and myself (plus a various others we know) head to Cheltenham Racecourse for Greenbelt. For those who’ve haven’t heard of Greenbelt it’s probably the most unique Christian festival that happens in the UK. I’ve heard it described by some as ‘fantastic’ and others as ‘liberal’ so it should be an interesting experience.

Perhaps one of the most unique things about Greenbelt is that it doesn’t have an exclusively Christian line-up…for example one of the headlining bands are The King Blues…this wider variety of music is something I’m really looking forward to…there’s only so many Matt Redman clones you can bare to watch!

Also in the musical line-up who I’m anticipating seeing is Luke Leighfield…a Ben Folds style musician from Southampton (Luke’s album ‘Have you got heart’ is free here and well worth downloading) and some worship being led by Andy Flannagan which should be a refreshing change.

The speakers include Mark Yaconelli and there’s also some interesting panels on the line-up including ‘Musician: how to do it yourself’ and ‘Is Meat murdering the planet’.

Alongside all this there seems to be plenty of other stuff going on…including a beer tent (the place I believe Jesus himself would be hanging out!). I’m really looking forward to the experience and being challenged but also having some time out to enjoy good music.

I’ll do a full blog round-up on Greenbelt after I’ve showered and reflected on the festival!

08/14/10

The Wedding Blog

So Jo and myself have got married, been on honeymoon, received all the wedding gifts, received some amazing photos which we’ve put in frames, written thank you cards and received our wedding video (on a complete tangent if you’re getting married avoid Clearview wedding videos in Caister at all costs…worst, most unprofessional video I’ve ever seen…but it’s okay we’re making our own so not remotely bothered!) and for all intensive purposes everything wedding related is done.

However throughout the process of planning a wedding and all the learning we’ve done throughout I’ve wanted to finish it all off by writing a blog about my perspective of planning a wedding and maybe even throw in some helpful advice for those who may end up planning one in time to come.

The Beginning…

So we got engaged last July in Italy and knew that we wanted to get married this year…in fact we’d pretty much picked a date before we were even engaged! During our second week in Italy (the week after our engagement) our friends Tim and Wendy came out to stay in a nearby villa with their daughters and naturally having seen the engagement on Twitter they offered congratulations and advice.

There have been two pieces of advice that helped us immensely throughout the wedding planning and the first came from Tim in Italy. Being a minister Tim has helped many couples as they’ve prepared for their wedding and his advice to us was simply ‘be selfish’, informing us that there’s so many people who have preconceptions about how a wedding ‘should’ be that it’s easy to get bogged down trying to please everyone and that you need to remember that it’s your wedding not anyone elses.

This advice was enforced by a few other married friends of ours too and certainly proved absolutely invaluable…it meant we had to do some difficult things and make some difficult choices but looking back whilst we’d change the attitude of some towards us during our wedding planning I wouldn’t change any of the decisions we made in planning our wedding.

Generation Gap

It’s amazing how weddings differ and I guess what was fairly unusual (historically) about our wedding was that Jo and myself did all of the planning ourselves, between us we designed table decorations, picked colours, designed invites and did pretty much everything in between. For me this joint effort really reminded us of our similarities…there weren’t arguments about ideas it all just came together organically. There was so much unity between us in our planning Jo said it seemed odd buying a dress without me!

As we flicked through the photos last week and reminisced on the day Jo glanced at the image of the room and remarked ‘that’s what success looks like’.

Involving Friends!

One of the nicest things about our wedding was the amount of our friends that were involved. As part of the service we invited a selection of friends from all the parts of our lives to pray for us which was a really special moment, we had friends leading worship in a band, Stuart being our master of ceremonies and leading some games (the best reception idea ever, I might add!), and Steve driving is very nice Audi as a wedding car.

On the other side we also seemed to have a collection of people involved who were also Christian, our flowers were done by the churches’ flower guild, the cake baked by a lady at my parents church and our photographer went to a friend of Jo’s church but was also a professional photographer (http://www.bexphotography.co.uk…highly recommended…fantastic photos and top bloke).

On top of this Tony who led the service has known me since I was 11 and known Jo a few years too as we’ve gone to midnight mass and led their youth work on the church weekend away on one occasion.

All of this really made the day mean so much more…if you can get mates involved it’s fantastic…don’t get caught up with professionals get caught up with what means something to you!

Wedding Preparation

The most difficult thing to find time for when planning a wedding over distance was time for wedding preparation…we found a couple of opportunities. One in the form of a fantastic afternoon with St Andrews’ Church and the second on a lovely evening with Phil and Christine (the minister and his wife of Jo’s Sheffield church).

We’d also set out to read ‘The Marriage Book’…which we failed miserably!

My Final Advice…

Whilst I could ramble on forever about our wedding and preparation, our struggles and celebrations there’s just a couple of things I’d like to finish with…firstly my top 4 pieces of advice for planning a wedding:

1. Be Selfish - You’d be amazed at who has what ideas about weddings but you need to be able to tell people to butt-out, ask yourself what the two of you want as a couple and stick to that. For us this involved making some difficult decisions and discovering sides of people that neither of us liked but we know in doing that we were able to have the wedding we wanted and not be looking back now with regrets (thank you to all our friends who listened to us and prayed for us in our difficult situations)

2. Personalise! - Forget tradition…as an addition to advice 1 it’s your day so plan what you want…I hope that people walked away from our wedding saying ‘that was very Jo and Mark’ so make that you’re aim…and plan together (as a couple), you probably won’t regret it.

3. Don’t Be Afraid To Ask - Money is a massive issue with weddings and we saved some by having people we knew get involved whether it was cars or cakes and actually in having people we knew do things it made the day mean a lot more. There’s nothing like having a good friend drive you from the church in his car…if nothing else you don’t have to start the awkward conversation with ‘Been busy?’.

4. Make Time For Yourselves - Jo and myself spent a year pretty much just talking weddings and probably neglected us too much…try and make time for things other than weddings. I once heard someone say that for every 1 hour of planning you should have an hour for yourself…it’s far more difficult than it sounds!

Finally to finish this massive blog post I want to publicly thank my parents who were fantastic throughout the whole wedding process…they visited the venue, painted twigs, created a ‘wedding room’ in their house and were genuinely fantastic.

08/1/10

Sermon Swearing

Yesterday as we boarded the ferry to journey back to France after a week’s honeymoon I purchased ‘The Sun’ in order to catch up with the news in a format that my 5 hours-worth-of-driving brain could handle and it wasn’t the ‘coming out’ of X-Factor flop Joe McElderry the caught my eye (although his coming out was a blatant case of his manager saying ‘no one knows who you are…confess to something quick!) but it was this article titled ‘Vicar Preaches Lord’s Swear’.

In the article (which I suspect puts the chap slightly out of context…however I couldn’t find his e-mail address online to ask him myself) Rev Michael Land who’s 67 suggests that ministers need to swear in their sermons in order to connect more with people..here’s an extract;

The vicar, who preached for 28 years in London’s East End said: “I’d have no problem using the F-word in a sermon if it meant I was connecting with people. The number attending services is falling and the church needs to modernise so it doesn’t fall behind completely.

“If that means swearing I say, ‘Why bloody not?’ People place Jesus on a pedestal. They’d probably be shocked by his language. He was poor and lacked any real education.”

Married dad-of-three Mr Land also told how he used the F-word on a motorist who cut him up. He said: “I wound my window down and said, ‘Why don’t you learn to f***ing drive’. He just walked away.”

Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3075925/Vicar-preaches-Lords-swear.html#ixzz0vNzQkany

I’m not going to get onto the rights or wrongs of the minister (or any Christian) opening a window and swearing at a motorist however his comparison of swearing in sermons to ‘connect with people’ to Jesus swearing is, in my opinion, completely off.

I’m not going to say anything about whether I think Jesus swore or not (although some theologians would say that ‘brood of vipers’ was about the nastiest swear word that you could say at the time) for two reasons. Firstly I think it would spoke unnecessary debate and secondly a ‘swear’ word is a relative term…words we use may not be offensive or swearing to others…for example there is a place in Australia named the f word…is this a town with a swear-word for a name or merely a different use of the word?

However even if we take the approach that Jesus occasionally used ‘extreme’ language then we need to look at the context in which He used these words. Jesus didn’t infact aim to be popular in any way, shape or form and so his use of language wasn’t to become a popular figure but to challenge society. The ‘brood of vipers’ incident is an example of Jesus pointing out what was wrong at the time…something that could only be expressed using such words however using swearing to become popular seems completely wrong to me.

Perhaps the most fundamental floor in what the minister has to say is that adding swearing into services is by no means going to bring anyone into church…what are we going to promote? Come to church…we swear just like you do? It’s stupid!

What the church needs to do rather than focusing on becoming more like the world around is to focus on becoming more like the Saviour they claim to follow…in the world…not of the world.

(If anyone knows the minister and has his e-mail I’d love to be able to drop a line to him to see if he was misrepresented)

07/12/10

4 Days to go…

It feels like ages since I clicked onto this blog to actually post anything (although my blog tells me that in reality it’s only 8 days)…however it’s been a very busy 8 days!

In 4 days time (Saturday) Jo and me get married! It barely seems like yesterday that we got engaged in Italy and after much planning the ‘Jo/Mark’ wedding plans are nearly done…I made a last phone call today to the reception venue, sent a few final e-mails, checked out cake progress and spoke to our DJ and other than writing a grooms speech (in which I’m told I can’t make incest jokes…although I thought pointing out having 2 sets of parents at a Norfolk wedding being novel would be amusing) we’re ready!

Jo’s been doing a few last minute bits and pieces of prep too and the last major things now are just to meet with Steve (who’s kindly driving us) and have a rehearsal on Thursday night, then doing a few bits Friday and eventually having a few beers with Joel and some others Friday evening.

Whilst I’m sure wedding photos will surface on this blog Jo and myself are also planning to write a ‘wedding blog of 2 accounts’ in the next few weeks where we shall try to be as open and honest about our experience of planning a wedding…hopefully adding some tips, frustrations and an insight into how we planned our wedding.

I’ve also been thinking about doing a blog on spiritual warfare and how it linked into our wedding prep which may surface sometime next week if I have time to write it before the wedding…it may sound like an odd combination but it feels like it makes sense!

Anyway there’s a brief wedding/life update…if you’re coming on Saturday please don’t bring confetti…we have bubble…and pray for us (and good weather).

06/24/10

Ministry of Journeys

This topic of this post has becoming very prominent in my thoughts in the last week and a half and whilst I think my thoughts in this blog would be served better with some specific examples it just isn’t appropriate to post them (if you’ve spoke to me recently or live in South Cave you probably have a pretty good idea of what I mean though).

Often we find that church is about a ‘Sunday (Spiritual?) Fix’…thousands of people turn up to church on Sundays because it’s what they’ve always done, because they believe it sorts things out for the week and secures their place in heaven or maybe even because it’s what their family have done for generations however this easily creates a separation between real life and church.

The difference between ‘church’ and ‘real life’ can be just as big for even the most committed Christians because often (sadly) church is very separated. The world provides a fix for our physical or emotional needs and the church deals with the spiritual.

The problem with this is it’s completely different from what Jesus did…the Message paraphrase of John 1:14 puts it like this;

The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.

The word incarnation was thrown around a lot during my time at Oasis and the approach Jesus took was very incarnational. He didn’t set up camp and sort out people’s spiritual needs but dealt with their emotional and physical needs too. Jesus wasn’t a one-trick pony nor a one hit wonder but a bloke who journeyed with people.

Journeying as a ministry is something I’ve always been aware of in my youth work…I’ve always been aware that it’s not just the spiritual aspect of the young people that matter but the physical and emotional aspects too and to do this effectively in youth ministry we need to journey with young people.

The same applies to anyone who’s a Christian and their relationship with others (both Christian and non-Christian), we need to journey with people…we need to cry with them, laugh with them, celebrate with them, mourn with them and truly focus on the whole person not just the spiritual. We were created to be relational beings, Jesus was relational…we need to be relational.

In the last week I’ve found myself on a journey within the community and school that I never expected to be on and it’s really got me thinking about the purpose of our journey’s with others and I encourage you to do the same. Let’s not have a quick fix church but a journeying church.

06/7/10

My Casino Experience

On Friday night I had my first Casino experience.

For Lucy’s 21st a group of us headed up to the Hull branch of ‘Napoleons’ to celebrate! The only experiences I’ve ever had of gambling come from 2 very different perspectives.

The first perspective is that of the tacky gamble…I grew up being taken to holiday camps (which I might add I enjoyed) and spent my teenage years near Great Yarmouth and all these places are filled with amusement arcades tempting you in to throw 2p’s down a chute or to pay 20p to attempt to win a child-manufactured teddy bear from a rigged machine (yes the cranes are fixed!).

The second perspective is right at the other end of the scale and come from watching television shows like Hustle when they attempt to con a huge casino where people have more money than sense…dressed in their suits and using their casino jargon the Hustle team would attempt to con casino owners without being caught by the security.

Thankfully Napoleons is far more like the Hustle casino than the Great Yarmouth arcades but it’s a very different world to that I’m used to. My parents have never really had money to throw around and being a Christian I’ve grown up with fairly sensible teaching of money yet a fair amount of those in the casino had evidently not had this upbringing.

There’s something very surreal about watching someone throw £50 (of tokens) on a 1 in 50 chance number on a roulette table and not be remotely phased that they’ve just lost £50….there’s equally something surreal about watching someone win £150 and throw it straight back on.

The nice thing about the whole experience was that we didn’t spend the whole evening losing money but we had a very nice 3 course meal first and a few drinks (good old diet Pepsi!) before exploring the Casino area with the £5 of chips we got with our meal.

I guess the important thing before doing any form of gambling is to limit yourself and think sensibly about things beforehand…whilst many Christians would argue that gambling is wrong I believe the bible merely teaches that the love of money is wrong…so gambling is fine as long as you’re sensible and it doesn’t come before God (or your family…bets vs meals is silly!).

Armed with my £5 of chips I headed to roulette and fairly quickly got the hang of it and equally as quickly lost my ‘free’ chips so I took some time out before spending another £5 and that was it. The roulette was fun but it was far more luck than judgment (as are many of the games in a casino).

So all in all I really enjoyed my Casino trip…I won’t be becoming a regular but it was a great night…certainly more sociable than a night club.

and how did I do with my 2nd £5?

Somehow I managed to win several times and cashed in £25 and walked away with a profit! Good times!

04/24/10

What if punk never happened? (Elections)

I’ve had the King Blues album ‘Save the world, get the girl’ playing in my car over the last few days and it’s a fantastic album. The last track is about 7 minutes long and is titled ‘What if punk never happened?’…it’s not a musically great song but lyrically it is one of my favourite songs. As I’ve listened to it the last few days and let the lyrics sink in the last section seems completely appropriate to the elections we have coming up so I thought I’d blog them. (You can read the whole song lyrics here...contains naughty words!)

There’s a lesson to be learned, one that I will take home,
When I return to my normal reality zone,
Punk rock has the power to change the world,
It lies in every single punk rock boy and girl,
So don’t let anyone tell you you’re not worth the earth,
These streets are your streets, this turf is your turf,
Don’t let anyone tell you that you’ve got to give in,
Cos you can make a difference, you can change everything,
Just let your dreams be your pilot, your imagination your fuel,
Tear up the book and write your own damn rules,
Use all that heart, hope and soul that you’ve got,
And the love and the rage that you feel in your gut,
And realise that the other world that you’re always looking for,
Lies right here in front of us, just outside this door,
And it’s up to you to go out there and paint the canvas,
After all, you were put on the earth to do this,
So shine your light so bright that all can see,
Take pride in being whoever the hell you want to be,
Throw your fist in the air in solidarity,
And shout “Viva la punk, just one life, anarchy”

Even as a Christian I find that these lyrics absolutely burst with passion and in many senses they could be lyrics that remind us that we have the power to change the world!