03/1/10

Day 13: HCYT Speaking

Every so often as part of my role as schools worker for the Hunsley Christian Youth Trust I’m asked to speak at a church or event about the youth trust and tonight I was speaking at Welton Churches PCC (I escaped before all the usual PCC stuff began).

Over the last few months I’ve managed to put together quite a nice keynote presentation for the trust which works as a way of reminding me what to say and although I didn’t use it tonight I did print off the presentation as notes for myself.

The thing I like about having to do plugs for HCYT is every time I use the presentation I find that I need to move things off my ‘in the future’ slide onto the ‘what we do slide’ which is really nice….reflecting on tonight’s presentation it’s also nice to be in a position where I actually haven’t filled my hours yet because it means there’s space for new things!

All in all it’s nice visiting places and talking about HCYT

02/22/10

Day 6: Retreat Day

Today I spent the day at Wydale hall on a youth and children’s workers retreat organised by the York Diocese which was really good.

The last retreat I went on was when I was in Peterborough and CROPS organised a day out in the sticks with Paul Wilcox as a retreat and reflection day and I remember finding it a really useful time.

Today was also useful!

It was nice to have a day aside to reflect and think about what’s been going on, reflect upon God both personally and within my context as a youth/schools worker and to spend some time with others who do a similar role to myself. There was also a time of silence which I very rarely have as whenever I’m working itunes is usually on in the background.

Finally on the way out I bumped into Archbishop Sentamu, however sadly I could not have a conversation with him as him and his colleagues were having a silent retreat…maybe next time!

(I have some more retreat thoughts which I’ll blog tomorrow)

02/19/10

Day 3: Amish Grace

Today’s post in my lent blogs is a blog I promised a while ago.

Back in November I finally got around to buying a book called Amish Grace which was recommended by one of my lecturers at uni and although I started the book with excitement I slacked a little with it and eventually finished it last week.

The book focuses on the Amish who were effected by the Nickel Mines Shooting which happened in 2006 and the way in which the Amish reacted to a gunman entering a school, killing 5 pupils and then himself.

Their reaction was not one of revenge or anger but one of forgiveness and they shocked America with this forgiveness and caused all sorts of questions to be asked about their reaction…was it right to forgive such violence?

I’m not going to focus on an overview of the book or write a review but share the biggest challenge the book faced me with…that of forgiveness.

Whilst we encourage people to forgive in Christianity and many psychologists would agree that forgiveness has a benefit for the individual who forgives because it’s about moving on, forgiveness is seen very differently by the amish.

The Amish think of forgiveness as to give up your right for revenge and so whilst they acknowledge that there are consequences of sin (seems a light term to use in the context of shooting people) they believe that it is not their place to carry out those consequences and that that responsibility lies with the state (in some situations a benefit of the separation of church and state!). The core belief they focus on with regards to forgiveness is the Lord’s prayer where Jesus says ‘forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us’. The interpretation of this glanced over verse is that unless we forgive others we cannot be forgiven.

As a result of this strong conviction the Amish have to forgive others they take forgiveness very seriously and as a very active thing. In the situation of the shooting some of the Amish went to the home of the gunman to offer his wife and kids support as they dealt with the loss of a husband and father, as I read that I felt that there was something humbling about these people.

I like the Amish, I think their pacifism and forgiveness emphasis is absolutely spot on and very challenging to modern day Christians who spend a lot of time getting hung up on things that happen and a lack of ‘justice’ rather than moving on. I can’t quite picture how active-forgiveness works in a day-to-day context but even now (about a month after reading that section) I’m still chewing it over and feeling challenged by it.

01/31/10

Denominations?

As many church-goers reading this blog will be aware it’s not just the high street hit by the ‘recession’ but churches have felt it too. During our last PCC meeting the intent of the diocese to have less clergy in each area was mentioned.

Alongside this 40% of the clergy in the diocese of York are due to retire in the next 10 years and fewer people are coming forth for ordination.

Into the struggle and the potential lack of church leaders you can add into the mix that generally speaking church attendance is dropping, many smaller villages churches barely have a handful of regular attenders…but suggest closing the church and the locals cry ‘What about our Christenings?‘ ‘What about our weddings?‘ but buildings are an expensive business!

Interestingly in the midst of this crises some churches have deemed their building ‘too expensive’ and moved into a local school and others have joined with other churches.

As I sat in the PCC hearing this I couldn’t help but wonder if now is the time to break down the denominational barriers? All Saints’ here in South Cave is part of a partnership between the Anglicans and Methodists who worship together each week and work as one….and it seems to work!

For many older folk in a church denominations are a big thing, I can think of some very ‘baptist’ baptists in Peterborough who would say that like a stick of rock has text running through it they have baptist and there’s many people of other denominations who feel the same but I don’t think this applies as much for younger Christians.

When I was a teenager my parents went to an Anglican church, I did sometimes but I also went to a youth group at a ‘pentecostal-bordering-on-cult church’ and also went to an evening church at a lively church in Norwich…when I was 17 I made the move to attend a Baptist church on Sunday mornings and not once in all of that did I think ‘argh what denomination am I?’ but I called myself a Christian and still do. I work for an Anglican church partnership (with a hint of Methodist) but that doesn’t mean I’m Anglican…nor has my time in Peterborough left me a Baptist.

So as individual churches shrivel and die is it time to hang up the denomination banner, put aside the differences (which if we’re honest are pretty small differences) and come together for worship the trinitarian God that we all worship? I hope so…bring on Church unity!

01/6/10

No heat but lots of warmth…

As those of you who are my friend on Facebook or follow me on Twitter will have noticed the last 2 days tweets/status updates have revolved around heat and my lack of.

I awoke yesterday morning colder than I had hoped to wake up and putting it down to my inability to tweak my heating timers properly I forced myself out of bed only to find cold radiators throughout the house and no hot water.

I checked my boiler and it was on and humming away nicely…so I went to my meeting and when I got back still no hot water or heat so I phoned the heating type people who informed me that they would be able to turn up next on Thursday because the cold weather meant they were in demand and the snow meant they were moving around slower than usual.

So before the real meaning of my post here’s the catch 22 I find myself in…

1 – I figure there must be a frozen pipe between the water tank and the boiler

2 – In order to unfreeze my house must be warm

3 – In order for my house to be warm I must have a working central heating system

4 – In order to have a working central heating system all pipes but be unfrozen

Tricky huh?

Anyway the real meaning of this post is my lack of heat, increase in fan heaters and addition of hot water bottle has meant that although I’ve been moaning a bit about it I’m actually not especially annoyed about it (there are a couple of things annoying me at the moment and heating is not one of them!), infact as a whole I’d say I’m pretty happy and have been the last few days…I’ve had a couple coffees with friends and really enjoyed their company (I’ve done work too!).

This got me thinking…when we have problems we can either moan and be miserable or we can not let it get us down…we can choose to make the best or moan that it isn’t the best and the former has really worked for me!

Secondly in my everyday life to meaning type blog post I’ve experienced a lot of warmth in my coolness. Some good friends have offered me a warm bed, shower, food and even a gas heater (which is due to be dropped off as I type this) and so actually knowing that there’s people around me who will happily do that makes the cold worthwhile…but I’d like my heating fixed tomorrow please!

01/4/10

Worship?

In the last few weeks I’ve been thinking about the church and how trapped the majority of it has become. The format of church hasn’t changed majorly in the last 25 years at least…it certainly hasn’t changed in the 15 years of church I actually remember.

Alongside this I’ve been pondering the topic of worship…I love music but more and more I find myself feeling unsatisfied by ‘worship songs’ that the likes of Tim Hughes, Matt Redman and Stuart Townsend have to offer. In the case of Tim and Matt there’s some nice upbeat stuff but nothing ground breaking when it comes to lyrics and where Townsend makes up for this with lyrics they tend to be pretty traditional and jargon sounding and the tunes sound exactly the same as pretty much every hymn ever written.

The church has adopted a fairly standard pop-rock sound about it’s worship and I’m sure we’re missing something!

Someone said at a day I was on a while ago that ‘when you turn your mind back to God it’s an act of worship‘ yet the church is trapped in this attitude of worship meaning ‘to sing a few jargon filled pop-rock songs’.

Why is it that God has made us all very different yet we all have to fit the same worship mould? When was the last time you were in a church service with ‘different’ sounding sung worship or perhaps even a service with no songs at all?

In my thoughts on worship I’ve been thinking about songs which I find really help me connect with God so I thought I’d post a couple of youtube videos of them for your viewing pleasure.

In the meantime comment this post with your experience of church worship and ways which you connect with God and I shall continue these thoughts soon!

Five Iron Frenzy – Suckerpunch – Lyrics

Paramore – We Are Broken - lyrics

12/15/09

Christmas Songs

So as Christmas approaches I felt a festive blog was in order…and with Rage against the machine currently winning the number 1 race (I wonder if the x factor release on Wednesday will change that?) I thought I’d do something on music!

On Thursday Jo and myself went to the Sheffield CU Carol concert and I was once again reminded of how ridiculous most carols are…they seem to be mostly made up of nonsense….and it’s riduclous…it’s about the only time of the year when church will allow stuff that almost contradicts the bible.

So here are some of the most ridiculous things from carols and a very very short rant!

One In Royal David’s City

And through all His wondrous childhood, He would honour and obey, Love and watch the lowly mother, in whose gentle arms He lay. Christian children all should be, mild, obedient, good as He’

Now I don’t think this is entirely accurate…firstly did Jesus not annoy his parents (Mary/Joseph) by staying in the temple? Secondly the last bit is complete and utter nonsense…it’s like a statement from Victorian England (and probably is!).

The First Nowell

And by te light of that same star, three wise men came from country far…

Then entered in those wise men three

Three? Where did three come from? I’m sure even one carol names them…the bible doesn’t give numbers or names when it came to wise men!

O Little Town Of Bethlehem

How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given

Now I have never given birth or been with anyone as they’ve done so but I’m pretty sure that ‘wondrous gift’ was not given silently…in fact I’m pretty sure Mary let out a scream or two.

There’s plenty more nonsense in Christmas especially within the church including female angels, snow (in the bleak midwinter) and something about the little Lord Jesus not crying which I’m pretty sure he must have done at least once!

Part of the Sheffield CU Christmas Carol Concert included a traditional looking looking Christmas scene (done by students) followed by a herd of ‘modern Christmas people’ invading the scene with tinsel, turkey and santa…I’m not sure what they were trying to communicate because the only thing I got from it was ‘secular Christmas is more fun…don’t you think?’

Finally in my Christmas rant the speaker opened to 250 students by talking about Readers Digest…c’mon…know your audience!

11/19/09

Member’s Meeting vs. JCC

So tonight I attended my first JCC meeting (same as a PCC but called a Joint Church Council as the church is merged with a methodist church too…I call it the Jesus church council!) and I thought I’d draw some similarities, differences and observations from it comparing it to the Baptist Member’s Meetings that I so joyfully attended at Park Road.

Firstly and most importantly there were less sarcastic comments from me at the JCC because Joel wasn’t sat next to me to make them to!

Secondly a JCC here has more humor, there were a few light hearted comments and some witty banter at various stages.

Thirdly both have a Yorkshire man who refers to the chair as ‘Mr Chairman’ at any given opportunity (the hilarity of this is enhanced by the Yorkshireness)

Fourthly money was talked about in detail - the difference between the lengthy money discussions was that although both discussed lack of the JCC here took a positive look at it, being proud of all things God is doing!

Fifthly tonight 5 decisions were made…in comparison that’s twice as many as a Peterborough member’s meeting would have made.

Finally the JCC lasted under 2 hours…an impressive time to cover around 20 bullets on the agenda!

All in all first impressions show that the JCC is a much more Godly and less painful meeting…let’s see if that stands the test of time.

Last but not least does this extract refer to a lady made of glass?

10/11/09

John Sentamu and Prostitution

I’ve been following John Sentamu (the Archbishop of York) on Twitter for quite some time now and today he alerted followers to his article in ‘The Sunday Times’ on prostitution which you can read here

In the article Sentamu discusses the problem of prostitution mentioning that 75% of those in prostitution become involved before they are 18 (this is in Europe) and that 90% of prostitutes have been forced to take part in sex or a sexual act. From these statistics Sentamu suggests that the government should take action against those who use prostitutes.

Sentamu also challenges the glamorisation of prostitution through shows such as ‘Secret Diary of a Call Girl’ and suggests that prostitution is actually the opposite stating:

We are meant to believe that these sex workers are independent women, empowered by the hold they have over men, who sell their bodies for money but who treat it like any other job. They can walk away at any time, remain emotionally detached and, in short, nobody is hurt by this simple business transaction.

Another Time article (here) mentions that in Sweden criminalisation of coercion caused prostitution to plummet.

So what should be done? Britain does have a prostitution problem and often it involves illegally trafficked girls who are subjected to terror and violence. I think the idea of taking those who use prostitutes to court could work to help lower the number of prostitutes, however it does also have the potential to force prostitution underground to a place where it becomes even more difficult to track down and potentially putting the girls in more danger.

Sentamu starts an interesting discussion in his article which is continued by Ruth Gledhill in the second article I linked and it’s great that he is coming out and standing up for morals and I hope he’ll be listened to. It’ll be interesting to see what else develops in this discussion

10/1/09

Hunsley Christian Youth Trust

I keep saying I’m going to do a blog-update on my new northern life but never get around to it, but finally (as promised) here it is!

I’ve been in South Cave for over 6 weeks I think and working exactly 1 month tomorrow and it’s been a laid back yet intensive month!

I started off with an induction which became a ‘get my heard around the trust’ day and it’s took up until now to really understand it…it seems that only in explaining to people you’re role do you realise what it is properly!

The three focuses in my first month have been branding, understanding and school.

The Hunsley Christian Youth Trust is new and I am their first and only employee (we’ll have more in a couple of years!!!) and because it’s funded by 4 churches it’s important to brand it and to keep those supporters updated so in the last month a newsletter and website has been produced (you can view the website here and also download the newsletter on it!).

Secondly I’ve been working on understanding what I’m meant to be doing, who’s in charge of what, who’s who and what’s where. This has involved meeting other youth workers in the area, chatting to various people in South Cave church and chatting to those involved from the other churches (my job is half time youth worker at South Cave and half time schools worker).

Finally making contact and meeting with the secondary school has been a massively important part of my first month and other than waiting on a CRB (bringing me up to 9!!!) all is more than good on that front, they’ve been really positive and seem really excited about having me in the school which is a real testimony to God being at work.

Anyway I think that’s a very brief update on the trust, I’m excited about what’s coming up and tonight we had a prayer meeting and about 25 people came along to pray for the trust so it’s always good to be supported!

I’m also at Brough church sunday morning plugging the trust…exciting times!

(Forgot to mention that I’m beginning to learn names and get to know young people!!!)

08/12/09

Moving Away From Middle Class?

Last week (2 sundays ago) at church Jo and myself met Fred*. Fred wandered in at the end of church, looked at the large bible at the front, sat down then moved outside the church where we also were so naturally we started talking to him.

Fred told us that he had just read something in the bible, sat down and prayed for his family and then gone to read it again only to find it had gone…as if it was never even there, he reassured us that he wasn’t on drugs and told us his experience again. (We believed him the first time…God works in funny ways!).

So we stayed talking to Fred for a while after everyone else had left and he shared with us his story…a year and a half ago Fred’s parents were killed in a car crash, suffering a nervous breakdown he then ended up leaving his fiance and becoming homeless until a week before he met us (he was homeless for a year) when he’d moved to Great Yarmouth and found himself a flat and was now trying to get himself some nice clothes, a job interview and his life back on track.

Needing to leave Fred reassured us that he would come to church the following week and we said we’d go for a drink and chat after…sadly Fred didn’t show up however I don’t think that matters too much.

The reason I share this is because when talking to someone else about it he seemed surprised that we listened to him and even offered to go for a proper chat the following week yet to me it doesn’t seem unnatural, in fact it seemed to me exactly what Jesus would have done.

The first person Jesus revealed himself to was the women at the well…she wasn’t an angel…quite the opposite. She had 5 husbands and was living with a man she wasn’t married to, she had to go to a well in the middle of the day because her village hated her…yet Jesus met with her, Jesus talked with her, Jesus loved her and accepted her.

Park Baptist in Yarmouth seems to be moving away from being a middle class church and that’s fantastic because I’m convinced that if Jesus was here in the flesh he’d be seeking out people like Fred. So I finish this post by saying go and do like-wise…if someone like Fred comes in your church talk to Him…offer him a meal and even if he never returns pray that God would do the rest…it’s all about the seeds!

*name changed

07/29/09

BBC Radio Norfolk

This morning I appeared on BBC Radio Norfolk alongside a lady from relationship counselling charity relate. I was invited onto the show yesterday after Dave passed my name on as both a youth worker and young person who is engaged so we spent 45 minutes with the host discussing ‘young people and marriage’.

Other than my radio slot for Slum Survivor which lasted about 5 minutes it’s the only radio I’ve done and it was good fun (although I felt a little like Alan Partridge!). It was an interesting discussion which they’d picked after reading a Daily Mail (eugh!) piece on a Christian charity doing relationship lessons in school and also several articles suggesting that marriage is back ‘in fashion’.

It was a good opportunity to think back to my marriage blog from a while ago and also think on the things which influence young people’s views of marriage such as broken homes and constant bad press with various celebrity marriages ending, often in a very messy way.

It was also good to re-explore the subject now I am in the position to be getting married rather than thinking about it in a hypothetical sense and I’m sure this blog will have lots more marriage things in the next year (hopefully later this week markandjoanna.co.uk will launch too!), the interview made me reflect on the positive view of marriage the church promotes to young people too and I hope God uses that message which I tried to get across this morning

If you would like to listen to the discussion listen to the last hour of this programme – link

Finally Italy posts will appear over the next week, I’m going to schedule them so I don’t post too much at once!