Good to experience General Synod yesterday.
I bumped into Steve Croft at Paddington, which meant that we could share a tube journey to Westminster and have a bit of space for a good conversation about Fresh Expressions nationally.

Both Archbishops were present for the FE presentation, which I found encouraging.
Rowan stood up to introduce Steve Croft and his team, and told the room that it was good, in the midst of proceedings, to be reminded about why we were here in the first place. He said that FE were not 'a scattered set of experiments' but instead, about a gradual shift in the whole culture of the church. They are not 'religious entertainment' or 'dumbing down' to get people interested. They are not marginal or eccentric, but they are the 'lifeblood' of the church.
He also reminded people that: 'church is something that 'happens' before it is institutionally organised'.
(he got a standing ovation at the end. too right. the guy's a dude.)

Steve Croft 'premiered' the new Fresh Expressions DVD, which focuses more on FE in rural settings. He showed 3 clips.
I have to say that, apart from 'Tubestation' (church by and for surfers in Cornwall) there was nothing 'Fresh' about the other two. It was just being a bit creative with normal parish church.
The thing I've been getting my head around with all my reading around the Emerging Church, is that there is a shift in emphasis from 'you come to us' TO 'we'll come amongst you and grow together'.
This is fundamental and I'm not sure how many 'Fresh Expressions' are therefore also 'Emerging Churches'.

Lynda Barley followed the DVD with some stats. She reckoned 51% of parishes are either involved in or intend to be involved in Fresh Expressions of church.
I guess my response is that a) This means that 49% have not taken new thinking on board yet. b) There is no way half the CofE churches in this country are doing 'new' stuff. The definition of FE must be so broad that anything counts.
This means there is a risk of the term meaning nothing at all.

Paul Bayes followed Lynda and quoted Rowan Williams. a lot.
He reminded us of the 'mixed economy' church where you have traditional and fresh expressions of church side by side.
He also spoke of the importance of 'recognising church where it appears and showing a willingness to work with it.'

Steve Croft finished by saying that there is lots of energy, creativity and hope around the FE agenda and that people are coming to faith in Jesus Christ.
He finished by saying: 'We are not playing games with the gospel. We are being intentional about those outside the church finding saving faith in Jesus Christ.'

Excellent. I couldn't agree more.

I'm off to London today. I'm going to General Synod to sit in on the debate about Fresh Expressions of Church.
Should be interesting.

According to James Cameron (director of Titanic) who has lent his name to the project which claims to have discovered the bones of Jesus and his family, "It doesn't get much bigger than this".

I bet it doesn't James.
Good exposure hey? Book on the way? Perhaps a film too?

Very convenient that the whole thing is so tidy. There's even a box with Jesus' name on! wow.

The documentary maker who sniffed out the boxes with his team reckon they have 'conclusively' found the tomb of Jesus and his family.
That is quite a big claim.
He must be right then.
I wonder if he'll take Dan Brown out for dinner with the money he makes from selling the story to the world's press?

Just found out that Bear Grylls is on TV with a new 'survival' series from this saturday.
should be worth a watch.
Apparently, at the moment, he is trying to fly some kind of powered glider over the summit of Everest...

Great to meet Ruth at waterstones this morning to discuss her dissertation.
(it's a good idea Ruth. you'll do well.)
I'm liking the 'tutor' thing. I reckon I wouldn't mind sitting around reading, thinking and giving tutorials...
I might consider a job change.

I was preaching at the 8am service this morning (which means I also had to lead matins at 7.30). nice.
The preach was on Luke's account of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness.

One of the things that jumped out at me during my preparations was that the 'tempter' never denied that Jesus was God's Son, but he did pose a question about what kind of Son Jesus would be.
Would he be a faithful Son? Or an unfaithful one, using his power to achieve his own ends?

The other thing was that the temptations (like our own) often seem very worthy at the time.
Turn stones into bread? the hungry hope so.
Take political control? the oppressed hope so.
Leap from the temple? those longing for a sign of God's power among us hope so.
The temptation (on the surface) isn't to 'fall' but to rise.
The tempter never asks: 'do you want to be as the Devil?' but: 'do you wish to be as God?'

Temptation is so deceptive because it is so attractive.
anyway, all very tricky and lots more to think about...

This afternoon I was washing my car - I'm selling it - and my kids were wandering around with my wife and a friend of ours, who happened to be passing. Anyway, an argument erupted in some near by flats. We've seen quite a few addicts coming and going so it's a pretty safe bet there's a dealer there. The dealer-guy was outside and was exchanging heated 'remarks' with the bloke who lives above him.
It was all pretty tense but once it was over he shifted position to some bollards beside our house.
As my daughter walked back towards the house she fell over and his first reaction was to leap forward to help. He looked genuinely concerned, and explained to my wife that it was a damaged bit of paving that had caused the fall.
I said something about the kids and he told me he had one of his own.
It was good to exchange a few positive words and a smile with someone who, on the surface is a drug-dealer but who also has a whole life, a child, a partner, fears, hopes, dreams etc etc.
A human being like me.

we had a day in cardiff yesterday. found a great coffee place near the castle run by a young mexican couple. they were playing the Gotan Project and the coffee was excellent.
Later in the day we found a cool little shopping-arcade with an eco-flavour cafe for cups of tea. we sat outside at old school desks. check the pic.

wednesday's funeral went as well as a funeral can go. I had to read something and pray. it's all so odd doing something so intimate for a group of people with whom you have no relationship. I guess it makes sense somewhere, somehow.
everyone was very warm coming out of the chapel and shaking my hand so I assume it was helpful and that makes it a good thing I guess.

Wednesday was also 'Ash Wednesday', the beginning of the church observing the period of lent.
The traditional seasons and rhythms of the ancient church's year have been all but chucked out by various denominations of which I've been a part at one time or another. This is such a shame. And such a loss. It strips the church of amazing resources for spiritual growth. I've begun to re-discover a richness since going to theological college and arriving at the cathedral - it's like discovering a treasure chest hidden away in a dusty attic!

The Ash wednesday service at the cathedral was awesome. The combination of the choir, the ancient building, the liturgy and the darkness outside provided a deep place to meet with God.
at one point in the service we knelt to have our foreheads signed with an ash cross.
The person signing you says:
'Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.'

Sounds pretty heavy, and I guess it is, but it is also, strangely helpful.

I had to preach - which is always a tall order in that context. It seemed to go OK. I didn't fall out of the pulpit or trip over my robes, or try and make any jokes...

After the service we had church at our place which made the day pretty long. It was a good time together though.
I guess we're working on what we're really about and who does what and all the usual stuff that takes time and effort to work out. Keeping the sense of adventure or growth or immediacy is a tension we need to keep but I guess any group of people striving to be anything together would find that?

I woke up at 5.30 dreaming I'd been shot.
There was way too much going on in my head to go back to sleep, so at 6.30 I got up and walked to the gym.
On the way home, in the rain, I found myself praying that God would help me to be at peace and to be in the moment;
to focus on what was going on at that moment instead of processing 'to-do' lists and worrying about details.

I reckon time speeds up as we get older because we rarely let ourselves just enjoy the moment we are in.
We knew how to do it as kids, which is why summer days went on and on and on.

forgot to say that pubspace was good on Monday.
good to continue the conversations with 'the artists'
I've promised to visit two of them in their gallery later in the week.
Looking forward to it.

Thomas a Kempis. what a dude.
Preparing for this evening's sermon, I'm reading 'the inner life'.
'Thom' says this:

'If your heart is right, then every created thing will
become for you a mirror of life
and a book of holy teaching.
For there is nothing created so small and mean
that it does not reflect the goodness of God.'

ah! God reveals himself all over the place...

CAN SOMEONE TELL ME HOW TO WEAVE HYPERLINKS INTO THE TEXT OF A POST PLEASE.
thanks.
I am slow of mind...

Grace are running a lent blog with a reflection for each day of lent, in preparation for Easter.
check it out:

http://www.freshworship.org/lentblog07

I'm preaching at the Ash wednesday service at the cathedral this evening. I'm going to use part of a prayer written by Lynne Chitty and thought I'd post it because it's worth meditating on.

Lord, I ran to the wilderness to escape
from me,
from you.
But found there greater noise, greater presence, greater sin
and all within myself
with you looking on.
For you are there, in every silent sound, in every agony and heartbeat.
But it is cold and barren, only while we fear the truth of you,
and the fabric of ourselves.
There is no place to hide.
Not in the desert.
There's just you
and that's the terror.
That's the beast we run from
not despair
but love.
Exposed, let loose to change, transform, redeem us.
In the desert,
in the flight
there's you
and all we are, becomes that, sees that, knows that.
There is you.
Amen.

I have a funeral to do tomorrow.
my boss and I will be working on the place of things like this in my job.
If the Church of England are going to support emerging expressions of church, and put leaders in place whom they expect to do the job with integrity, there needs to be some work done on what other expectations are placed on them.
(as we're in new territory I guess that is up to us)
Obviously for any 'Anglican' minister, there needs to be a certain level of familiarity and confidence with occassional offices, but for 'Anglican' Pioneer Ministers, this will need to be a sensitive balance if the implicit message isn't to be: 'you can mess around with this emerging church stuff for the time being, but keep your hand in because you'll be in traditional parish duties sooner or later.'
To me this is nonsense.
I see the need for familiarity with chunks of establishment practice, and for a good working relationship with deanery clergy and the wider church etc etc, but the emerging church we are growing in Gloucester is the real thing. It's not a funny practice-run that'll be put on one side when the time for 'real' duites comes along.
Once I've got a trad funeral, wedding and baptism under my belt and ticked the training boxes so to speak, I don't expect to be regularly putting our emerging church to one side to 'keep my hand in'.

I wrote to Bear Grills when I finished his book about climbing Everest.
I wanted to tell him that he'd done a good job. (with the book, not the mountain)
(although that was a good job too...)
What'd you know? today he wrote back saying thanks.
what a dude.

He's even got a website if you want to check him out:
(sorry, still can't do the link-in-the-text thing)

www.beargrylls.com

(the pic is me n Bear at the summit)

obviously that is a lie.

I was deacon at the cathedral Eucharist today. I haven't done it for ages so the robes felt unfamiliar (which is good).
Being deacon involves a fair bit of spoken stuff and being in the right places at the right times. It's all good really, but always such a contrast to the rest of what I'm involved with.

After this we had Dan n Ruth, Gareth n Eloise and George n Nic to ours for lunch and general hanging out together for the afternoon. Really good to get to know Nic a bit and to spend time together on something that isn't 'church' but that is church at the same time. Church as it should be that is - church as life and state-of-mind, rather than somewhere you go when you're not doing the 'real' stuff in your life.

As far as names for what we're doing goes, George for his part likes 'church'.
church is good as a name.
Does what it says on the tin.

On Friday evening I had to make a presentation to a group of tutors from Redcliffe college here in Gloucester.
It was useful to spend some time on the run up to the evening reflecting on what I've been reading and talking about as regards the emerging church.
It's difficult talking about the 'emerging church' in general terms, which is what I'd been asked to do, without constantly refering back to what we're doing in Gloucester specifically.
What we're doing here is so small, and fragile and early that it's hard to know what to say apart from 'we're all making it up as we go along.' I guess that's enough.
It was a good time though. The tutors were encouraging and some of the points raised sparked some interesting little debates.

I had another funeral visit to make today.
It's good to get the pastoral experience, and someone has to do it, but I'm still wondering about clergy doing funerals for people who have nothing to do with the church and no intention of being part of it. (I seem to remember reading something about the Anglican church considering itself just 'there for people'. but that makes less and less sense in the current culture)
I guess for lots of people its a meaningful contact with the church that might make them do some serious thinking about where they're at with God, and that's a good thing.
But, given the position the church finds itself in, is it time that perhaps clergy could spend better on building up the body of the church itself?

I'm listening to Fu Manchu.
they rock hard.

I'm thinking I might have to turn it down a bit now though, because Gareth, Eloise and I are bible-izing this evening and I need to read 12 chapters of Luke's gospel. we're hard-core. 12 chapter chunks at a time. no time for hanging around. we want to get through this thing...

The council of reference met yesterday to give wisdom to this project.
we spoke about a family / children's access point. there's the possibility of doing something for guys with kids who can't get along to week-day stuff. it'd probably be Sunday. I sense a full-circle on the horizon and we're only seven months into this thing... (we just need a full time administrator and a PCC and we'll be there...)
We also continued to speak about names. the general wisdom is hang off names until necessary.
we haven't got any decent ideas anyway.
church is one.
how original...

Church met in our home last night in defiance of valentines day. ha.
we felt the love though...
Eloise and Gareth cooked, and boy, was it darn tastey.
we looked at prayer and had some good discussion.
Eloise led our worship for the first time, which is no small deal, and did a brilliant job.

Reuben's second birthday today.
far, far too many toys but lots of fun.
thanks for the cake(s) Ruth!

Last night I found myself at the Warehouse again.
I finally came clean to Carley, the barmaid, that I'm a vicar.
She didn't believe me.
I insisted that it was true but she just kept shaking her head. I suppose that's a good thing in some ways.
next week I might go in my cassock.

joke.

I asked Carley about the climbing walls, which I've not seen yet and which, my head being full of Everest adventures from reading Bear's book, I want to have a go on soon.

Carley told me to nip up the stairs and have a look, which I did. Great place. Lots of overhangs and the smell of chalky sweat everywhere.
Having looked at the walls, I wandered out onto the balcony bar which looks down into the main bar where we normally drink.
unbeknown to me, I obviously wasn't supposed to be up there because the guys gathered around the pool table, some of whom work at the centre, stared and began to ask amongst themselves what I thought I was doing.
As I came down the stairs, one was on his way up to ask if I 'needed any help?'
No. Thanks.

It annoyed me because I feel like the centre is my place. I feel like a belong there. I know that I wasn't up to no good.
But they didn't know that.
To them it is their place and I looked like a threat.

It made me think about church and the way those who go most regularly, or have been for years, often consider it their place.
The thing is, there must be loads of people (who use the cathedral for eg) who also consider it their place, even though they aren't part of the main group of users.
It made me realise that lots of people must feel ownership of the same things without telling each other.
If people feel ownership of something, they are invested in it and are prepared to put something in. Knowing who feels like that about what could release massive potential.

I began the day by standing up in front of the cathedral community to give an account of the work I'm doing.
This is the second time this week. On Wednesday evening I made a presentation to the Cathedral Council on the emerging project. Things like this are good in one way because they make you stop and reflect on what you're doing. Too many presentations though, and you're worrying about that rather than what you've been asked to do.

Anyhow, after speaking a bit, I headed off for a curate's training day with canon David Hoyle who is quite frankly excellent.

The teaching was on the doctrines of sin and evil. Two things that don't get discussed all that often especially in the emerging church for fear, I guess, of seeming too... I'm not sure actually. Is it that it makes people uncomfortable? Or is it that we're far too busy talking about creativity instead? or what?

Anyway, the day was ace. Lots of art to look at by Boticceli, Breugel and others. we looked at different theologies of sin, how it affects us, how much choice we have in the matter, what might be done to remedy it etc etc.

I came away with a busy head. One thing I remember was that 'badness' is only possible in relation to some sort of 'goodness', in fact it is parasitic on goodness. When we talk about 'bad' people, what we mean is that they do not measure up to our expectation of what people should be. They might have too much of something (i.e. anger), or not enough of something (i.e. pity). (obviously this makes all of us 'bad' somewhere or other, and strangely most of us want to be 'good')

I also remember that 'sin' is failing to match up to what I should be - when I 'sin' I become less than myself.
'Sin' is settling for a 'lesser good'

We spent the afternoon discussing the 7 deadly sins and the fact that all of them are sneaky because they can so eaily look like something good - lust can look a lot like love, for example.

Just so you know, the 7, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, are:
1) Pride (the temptation to take salvation into our own hands)
2) Avarice (greed)
3) Gluttony (failure to understand the nature of humanity in relation to God. i.e. we are meant to be in need sometimes)
4) Lust (failure to be involved in an 'exchange' of love)
5) Sloth (inability to stick at anything and see it through to completion)
6) Envy (resenting the variety in creation: 'i would be better if I was not me')
7) Anger (failure to believe oneself part of a community - blame always elsewhere)

Anyhow, it was a really thought provoking way to spend a day. lots to think about. especially how the whole concept of 'sin' should be talked about in our own context and especially with those who don't have any faith.
I guess you just start with God's amazing, free, grace because most people know that there are plenty of things wonky in their lives.

acoustica last night was absolutely brilliant.
Thomas Truax was crazy and inspiring. if you get a chance to see him, go.
Al, who promotes the night, comes to pubspace on Mondays so it was good to support him in one of the best things Gloucester has to offer.
Whilst we were there, we discovered that there's a gallery space in the guildhall. What with the artists we've been meeting at pubspace, there might be potential to put something together.

we're all off to see Thomas Truax at the Guildhall this evening.
should be good.
and weird. (he makes his own instruments...)

Dan was supposed to be coming but is snowed into the forest of Dean.

some good things coming up to look forward to.
I've booked a place at the London leg of the 'Blah' tour with Bill Bolton on 'the entrepreneur and the church'. Bill has written a Grove booklet which is well worth a read. He basically says that because we live in a constantly shifting world (an entreprenure's natural environment), in order to respond, the church needs to enable its entrepreneurs to work with spiritual capital.
He spots a few entrepreneurs in the bible including Noah, Abram, Jacob, Joshua, Caleb and David to name a few.
All of them were prepared to take risks, be innovative and challenge the status quo.

Bolton says pioneers should be called entrepreneurs and defines the term thus:
'An entrepreneur is a person who habitually creates and innovates to build something of recognized value around perceived opportunities.'

I've also booked into the Bristol leg of the Fresh Expressions 'Hard Questions' conference (19 April). During the day we'll be thinking about the essence of church and how we might engage in mission-shaped training.

Dan and I are also booked into the 24hr emerging church leaders gathering in March. We've been asked to lead the worship during the morning. this is exciting and daunting. a bit like cooking for chefs...
It's a good opportunity to be creative though so I'm looking forward to it.

Still loving this great book:
reading a chapter called 'creating as created beings'.
Andrew Jones (see sidebar link to 'tall skinny kiwi') writes (in relation to the worship of emerging churches):

It is '...much better to retrive old and ancient practices than to invent new ones... the past is a precious resource that should be rediscovered. This should be the focus of our creativity: making the old live again in the forms we already have.'

Joe Knight and I were out early in the frost to prayer walk. it is an amazing time of day to be out and about. things always surprise us.
our walk took us past a hostel for young people, the prison, the youth justice courts, the docks (and chapel there), the Warehouse where we meet for pubspace, and then into the city's central square. good to pray at all these places for the people around us.
we ended up, as always, having breakfast in Poppins (see pic).

I think it's probably illegal to take photos of prisons so I've snapped a picture of a car park in the centre of Gloucester instead.
I reckon the emerging church should certainly be involved with prisoners where possible.
It's not nice work and it certainly isn't very 'cool', but if we're going to be following Christ, it's part of the deal somewhere along the line, somehow...
Someone reminded me recently that most of the central characters in the bible were in prison at some point or other...

pubspace last night.
I thought I'd add an image of the venue. there are masses of climbing walls, a shop and a gym, all of which goes towards making the place feel pretty alive.

last week I walked up a hill and prayed about what we're involved in here in Gloucester.
(I pray about it most of the time but this was special. I was up a hill...)
This verse came to mind and I thought I'd share it:

'Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not percieve it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.' (Isaiah 43: 18-19)

God is always doing something new, the trick is spotting it. I'm trying. I'm encouraged.

pubspace tonight. looking forward to seeing Lucy!

I've just been into Gloucester prison again to meet with the chaplain.
we talked about the possibility of guys who make a faith commitment inside being involved with our church when they get out. we also prayed a bit. lots of wisdom needed.
I'm going in to preach at a Sunday service in a few weeks. I feel completely out of my depth.

Keith had given a copy of my book to a few of the guys to read. One guy, Samuel, read it in the few days before he got out.
He was released last Monday.
On Wednesday he was found dead. he'd overdosed.

his story made me realise how immediate this work is.

I've been asked to talk to some lecturers at Redcliffe college here in Gloucester on the subject:
'what is new about the emerging church?'

I get the feeling it's a case of them perhaps thinking 'we've all been here before haven't we? what makes you think you're doing anything radical?' I might be wrong. and cynical.
On one level nothing is new - we are sharing the same story about Jesus Christ that the early church shared 2000 years ago. On the other hand, we are in a unique cultural situation because no one in history has tried to communicate this message in a post-christian, post-modern context.
Anyway, it's a good opportunity to think things through.

I put the question, and my early thoughts, to an online forum of emerging church leaders and got some good responses.
I liked this from Jonny Baker (Grace, London):

'the continuation is hopefully that it's contextual mission - i.e. growing church in and out of our cultural context(s) - so yes hopefully that's not new. the new bit is the postmodern / emerging culture. no one has yet had the adventure of planting / growing / nurturing christian communities in this new environment. that's our challenge.'

good eh?

Guy just leant me this by John Ortberg. it's been around for ten years and I've seen it on shelves but never been tempted because the title sounds like one of those lame self help books that sad loosers might read.
In fact it's pretty good.
Ortberg's a great story teller, so it's interesting, but it's also a bit of a gem.
Inside the front cover it says:
'The Christian life is about more than being forgiven, more even than making it to heaven. The heart of Christianity is about transformation... Salvation without change was unheard of to Christians of other days... (this book) offers modern perspectives on the ancient path of the spiritual disciplines... a road map toward true transformation.'

I try to make it a policy to never blog about my day off or about any family stuff. basically because a) it's got nothing to do with most other people and b) church leaders whose family have to live in public through sermon illustrations etc etc risk their wife and kids resenting them and church and God. I don't want that to happen, but I'm breaking the rule slightly with this post (although you'll notice no pics of my family and no names...)
Anyway, yesterday we went for a family day away from it all to Sugarloaf mountain in Wales.

Great weather and a good sized-walk (1800ft up). Good size that is, unless you have legs that are short (like a toddler), or reluctant (like a 4-year-old). I must have been reading Bear Grylls book about Everest too seriously, because I was determined to get to the top.
My family weren't as keen as me.
It was when I told my 4 year old that we were going to leave the others behind and 'push on to make a summit-bid' that it all went wrong.

In the end I made the summit alone.
proof is here.

sad dad.

more speaking with endemol yesterday. looks like a series on 'church' in the UK will roll out at some point - not sure whether it will be strictly emerging church but we'll see. lots of thinking still to be done...
nice to be a 'consultant' - never been one of those before.

I took an assembly at my local primary school yesterday morning.
so much for kids not singing any more... these guys nearly lifted the roof off. amazing.

I took my surf board in as a visual aid and told a story about some guy saving me from drowning in the north sea.

it was all about 'acting' like a friend.

Great session yesterday evening at our place. my 'council of reference' joined the eight of us for food and worship and prayer. By way of worship we cleared our living / dining room (a large joined up space) and Dan and I recreated in minature what we put into the lady chapel last Friday evening: a kind of reflective alt. worship experience. It seemed to be well received. I felt I could bring myself to God anyway...
it was encouraging. a really special evening. (thanks for the food Ruth!)