Rescource

I was just having a gander at Jonny Baker's blog and came across a post on Resource:
(link here)

This is a short course that Jonny teaches on. It seeks to enable those interested in planting churches in the emerging culture to do it as effectively as possible.

It was odd reading the post and checking out Jonny's Flickr photos because the most recent one was at St. Laurence in Reading.
I met up with Chris Russel and the guys at St.Ls several times to consider becoming the curate there.
In the end Rach and I didn't feel it was right and got the call about coming to Gloucester a month or so later.

It all worked out well. Gloucester's where we're supposed to be and a mate of mine in the year below me at theological college ended up taking the job at St. Ls.

essential time with God

just thought a quick pic of some daffs would help with the effects of howling wind and rain today...

On another note entirely, I blogged a while back about a small book called Beloved.

The book is basically an interview with Henri Nouwen and comes with a handy CD so that you can listen on the move...

Anyway, lots of what Nouwen has written has had a deep impact on me, but particularly this:

'When I visited Mother Teresa of Calcutta a few years ago and asked her how to live out my vocation as a priest, she simply said:

"Spend one hour a day in adoration of your Lord and never do anything that you know is wrong, and you will be all right."

She might have said something different to a married person with children and something else again to someone living in a larger community. But like all great disciples of Jesus, Mother Teresa affirmed again the truth that ministry (and life) can be fruitful only if it grows out of direct and intimate encounter with our Lord.'

What a challenge. And I can see the truth in it. I try and strive for this but life is full of distractions to be overcome and so it becomes a constant battle.

I've been thinking more and more about how often people say that God is hard to find. As the conversation goes on, it often becomes obvious that for all the apparent frustration, they don't spend much time actually looking or listening.
Perhaps what they mean is that the God they'd like to find seems to be hiding somewhere.
But what about the God who is beyond our own making? How are we listening for him? and are we prepared (honestly) to consider accepting what we find?

How can God be known when so often we make the choice to fill our time with other noises? (whether this is actual noise - music, TV, X-box, chatter - or simply the noise of our own restlessness).

Nouwen talks a lot about the choices we all make every day.
We chose to fill our time with certain things. Ultimately we do what we want to do. We make time for what we want to get on with.
We chose what to watch and listen to. But Nouwen prompts us to be honest and to ask ourselves how much of what we chose to do / listen to / talk about etc, leads us closer to God.

He talks about making space for time alone with God.
This is a discipline. And it won't attend to itself so we have to see to it, and it's not easy.

Anyway - you get what I'm saying. maybe it hits a note and maybe it doesn't.

Oh, we were back at our place last night for feig. It was good to gather around the table to share in Big G's sausage festival (cheers G), and also to worship and pray and laugh and think about what the year ahead might hold for our little community.

prayer first thing...

some of the men-of-feig met early this morning to pray and be out and about in the city and to eat breakfast together - a set of actions with a rich heritage, stretching way back to Jesus and the disciples (who, I'm sure, got the idea from others). We all know that Jesus was fond of getting up early 'whilst it was still dark' and going off alone to 'be with his Father'...

Anyway, I wasn't with them today.
having three nippers makes mornings a busy time full of warm milk and cornflakes all over the floor, and dressing little, wriggling people who have no sense of urgency etc etc. It's as much as I can do to get out of the door in time for matins at the cathedral with my own clothes on.

however, I still find that mornings are a good time to pray - if I'm up early enough and creep downstairs softly enough.

Today (see the pic) it was well before 7 and being outdoors proved, as it always does, to be an amazing place to thank God for life and health and strength and wife and kids and home and food and job and friends and peace and.. the list goes on and on.

I'm finding it pretty helpful to say the Lord's prayer out loud a few times too.
Not too loud obviously - there's a pavement on the other side of the wall with people walking to work - but loud enough.

Off to meet George and Dan now...

the last day of paternity leave has arrived...

It's been good - enjoying the new arrival, walking the other two to school, not feeling too stressed about loosing sleep because I don't have to juggle getting kids ready for school and be at morning prayer first thing, not having to shave etc etc.

all good.
mighty blessed.

back to work tomorrow. which is good as I love my job.

laughing at...

very funny. series about two Kiwis in NYC who roll into song every now and then.

if you liked Napoleon Dynamite, you'll dig this...

just finished...

odd choice but very, very good indeedy.

I know it looks boring but this (very short) book is, in fact, excellent.

It's about a mobile library turning up at Buckingham palace. The Queen finds it and gets into books and it changes her life.

honestly, it's ace.

and it's just 125 small pages long...

recognise either of these two??

birthday...

Sophie is living with us at the moment - a recent (and excellent) development.

it is her birthday today.

you like the cakes?

they were darn tasty, I can tell you...

all good on the baby front. Tom is ace. we are even getting to have some sleep.
I am trying really, really hard to observe paternity leave properly and to remember that this time with Tom being a few days old will pass quickly, but it is difficult.

oh so difficult.

even when you're 'off', if you enjoy your work there are always things to do, to think about, to attend to, to plan, to organise, to dream of, to get on with, to help happen, to read about, to write about, to e-mail someone about, to discover, to ponder, to imagine etc etc.

As one of my tutors (way, way back) at art college used to say:

'There are endless, endless things to do...'

Indeed.
choosing which ones to ignore on which days is the hard part.

paternity leave??

in spite of being on paternity leave, I just can't help dallying with work.

I went for a meeting with the cathedral coffee shop manager this morning to finalise a few details to do with our (feig) using the place on Sunday evenings.

It was all good. Strange how many people have to be involved in getting a 'yes' to something like this and how much negotiating is involved.

Anyway, we've sorted a fee, keys, entry, times, use of equipment, ordering of supplies, state its left in, publicity, likely users, start date and a few other bits and bobs.
all very exciting.
We were hoping to get in there for 3rd Feb, but because the cathedral is currently being used to film Harry Potter (5 weeks of set building / dismantling for 2 days of filming!!) we can't get in until the end of Feb.

I guess this gives us more time to plan...

anyhow - back to paternity leave.
got to stop blogging...

Oh, got my official invite through today for the 'small mission communities' gathering that CMS are hosting in Northampton in March.
looking forward to that - and to hooking up there with anyone else who might happen to drop in on this blog from time to time.

24 and a bit hours old...

so, child no. 3 is well and truly here and life is busy but great.

my wife has gone into another realm in terms of my respect for her.
'wow'.
'what a woman', is all I'm going to say.

we're enjoying getting to know our new son and are thanking God for a new life.

all good.

I'm feeling the love, but having been up since 2am, I'm also feeling pretty blasted.

don't know how much blogging I'll be doing during my paternity leave...

contractions

oh, as my wife has just gone into labour, I probably shouldn't be blogging...

better stop then.

I'll be back with photos and stats in due course...

May hill pray hill

once again I was up May hill early today - good to walk in the wind, to be aware of God and to pray about a heap of stuff.

lunch with G was a fine thing - good to pass some time with him in this season of waiting for his PS3 to be delivered.

this arrived this morning. ('Organic Community: Creating a place where people naturally connect', by Joseph Myers)


I got stuck straight in and I have to say this book, if you don't buy another one this year, is the one you might want to get (not if you're after a novel obviously - but if you're into thinking about God and community and how things might be then yes, yes, do it, do it)

(notice the non-directive recommendation??)

the guy has an arts background and I love his approach to life with God and others - it sounds exciting, unpredictable, beautiful and practical all at the same time.
ace.

what to do...?

there are so many homeless people in Gloucester.
and there's the night shelter and various other agencies set up to deal with the various issues that homeless people have to deal with but there are still so many people sleeping rough.

and I know it's complicated and everyone has a different story etc etc, blah, blah,
but why, for example, is a young guy currently sleeping rough on the steps of the cathedral?

and we've all got to know him a bit and got involved and given him meals etc etc, blah, blah, but is it possible to get him a home and a job and a life and friends and hope and all the other stuff that makes life worth living?
maybe.
whatever your view about the complexity of each homeless person's issues and whether its patronisingly middle class to assume he wants a home and friends and hope etc, it's still pretty crap to be sleeping outside on a night like tonight...

Jesus' baptism

this afternoon I'm part of a carol service in the cathedral.
yes.
a carol service.
it's to celebrate epiphany and particularly to remember Jesus' baptism by John in the river Jordan.

I guess today makes me think about my own baptism, at 18, in front of several non-believing friends, at a large church on a busy junction in Reading.
I was nervous but it was a profound day.
I had a kind of on-off faith in God. or rather, it was always 'on' but I didn't often live in line with what I claimed to believe. And there I was happily muddling along, not thinking about being baptised at all, when, with no one talking to me about it, I suddenly decided that it was something I needed to do.
I went to see the pastor of the church and explained where I was at.
He asked if I was happy to meet a few times to talk the thing over. I was, we did, time passed and eventually I was baptised.
Like I said, I was nervous but it was a big deal. I often think of it in fact.

I trawled this up on some website, as a little explanation of what's going on at baptism. skip it if you're all clued up.

'Christian baptism, according to the Bible, is an outward testimony of what has occurred inwardly in a believer’s life.
Christian baptism illustrates a believer’s identification with Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection.

The Bible puts it: “...don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (Romans 6:3-4).

In Christian baptism, the action of being immersed in the water pictures being buried with Christ. The action of coming out of the water pictures Christ’s resurrection.

In Christian baptism, there are two requirements before a person is baptized:
(1) the person being baptized has trusted in Jesus Christ as Savior,
(2) the person understands what baptism signifies.

If a person knows the Lord Jesus as Savior, understands that Christian baptism is a step of obedience in publicly proclaiming his faith in Christ, and desires to be baptized – then there is no reason to prevent the believer from being baptized.
According to the Bible, Christian baptism is simply a step of obedience, a public proclamation of one’s faith in Christ alone for salvation.
Christian baptism is important because it is a step of obedience – publicly declaring faith in Christ and commitment to Him, and identification with Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection.'

So there you go...

tribe wanted...

I spent this morning in a clergy training session.
the training session was about how and what clergy are supposed to be trained in.
no further comment.
I spent the rest of the day having adventures with my family but as I make it a policy to never blog about my family and what we do outside of work and on days off, I couldn't possibly begin to tell you what we did.
not that you'd be remotely interested anyway...

I read the Guardian on Saturday and was really interested to find out about 'Tribewanted.com'

I've nicked the following quote from some travel-blog website to save myself summing up what the whole thing is about. The thing that really interested me was this desire for community that people have that makes things like this really attractive.
anyhow, here's the quote:

'Mark James and Ben Keene, both 26, have set up www.tribewanted.com to invite people to join a tribe by registering for one of the 5000 places available. When the 5000th member joins the tribe will be formed and will start to make important decisions by voting through the tribewanted.com community on key issues including: What will the tribe be called? Who will be the 12 Chiefs that lead the tribe? What kind of infrastructure will be required on the Island?
The plan is to create the world’s first online and real life tribal community, providing an experience of a lifetime to its members whilst simultaneously helping local development projects in Fiji and without negatively impacting the environment!'

The Guardian reporter wasn't too positive about this particular attempt at creating a tribe out of nothing. The guys behind it thought the 5000 places would be gone in weeks but they're only up to 1320 so far, with the same old people commenting on the website and a bit of a lack of energy / general direction on the island itself.

The reporter commented on the relative youth of everyone involved, saying it seemed to be kids in their late teens and a few gap year people who were more interested in hanging out and drinking beer than being part of a genuine 'tribe'.

I can't help going from this to thinking about Fresh Expressions and wondering about the creation of genuine community - with a range of ages, interests, backgrounds all 'sharing the same pot' as it were. It's a big ask. Is it even possible? or necessary?

perhaps...

I did love this - a quote from the reporter, upon doing a bit of self-reflection:
'It strikes me that all my irritations with Tribe-wanted might owe more to panic at finding my autonomy challenged by community life than to flaws in the project.'

Coming from a culture that puts the self above all else, I guess we could all relate to that. It was interesting to find out that in Fijian culture, there is no concept of privacy. The idea of autonomy is almost meaningless. To belong to the community is as central to their identity as self-determination is to our own.

which reminds me of something I found out whilst doing an essay on tattoos for my MA.
In western culture, tattoos are meant to signify our individuality.
In the tribal cultures in which tattooing originated, tattooing was / is viewed as a mark of belonging to the community. To be un-marked would be deviant behaviour, leaving the individual isolated and unlikely to survive.

from Moot...

Ian Mobsby - priest missioner to the Moot community in London just mailed with this.

so, if you're in London during lent - you might want to check it out.

they say:

'Moot Community Arts in association with the SW1 Gallery, Victoria bring BEYOND THE WILDERNESS.
Join us for BEYOND THE WILDERNESS - LENTEN JOURNEYS - an edgy collection of visual and performance arts taking you on a Lenten voyage of discovery.
AND IF YOU WANT TO BE THE ARTIST - it's your chance to unleash the poet within, the artist inside and explore your spiritual hunger with others on a similar path.
BEYOND THE WILDERNESS comes from Moot Community Arts and contains:

* A two-week Lent spirituality course, Tues 12th Weds 20th Feb 08
* An Art Show, 14th to 21st Feb 08
* A performance Cabaret, thurs 21st Feb 08
* A Poetry Workshop day, Sat 16th Feb 08'

praying out doors

today is very windy.
a great day for praying outside.
May Hill is an especially good place to pray. Because there's no one around it's possible to go for the 'speaking out loud' version. The amazing views, sense of space and being close to creation all help.

excellent. highly recommended - particularly if you're struggling with that familiar old: 'I don't really sense God' chestnut.

enjoying whilst working...

not bad.
didn't bother with the free download but probably should have done.

Alton Abbey

Daniel Robinson, a member of the feig community, is also a Benedictine oblate - which basically means that he has a relationship with a community of Benedictine monks (in this case the community at Alton Abbey) and has undertaken to live under a 'rule of life' - which means actively attending to certain spiritual disciplines etc etc.

I was interested to read the section on 'why a man becomes a monk' on the Alton Abbey website (link here).

I've often heard it said that being a monk is an essentially selfish thing to do - hiding yourself away from the 'real' world in order to think only of yourself and God.
This however, is very far from the truth.

Of course monks are able to dedicate large portions of their lives to attending to their relationship with God, but essentially this is a life of prayer on behalf of others. The website says this:

'A man becomes a monk because it is for him the way of acknowledging that God, who gives us life and sustains us in it, is at the centre of everything, and that it is to him alone that we may become attached. This does not mean a lack of concern for other people: a true attachment to God enables a true concern for others in which service of their needs may better be undertaken.'

Drawing closer to God must always necessarily mean drawing closer to other people.
As we get a better sense of God, he gives us a better sense of the humanity we share with those around us.
This is why it is not possible to be a Christian and be alone. Even monks live in community! Following Christ faithfully will force us to look around and see that we are in company with many, many others.

Rory goes to church...

last night was our first official 'feig' in 2008.

a great, relaxed, and also (in my opinion) a deeply profound evening.

baby Rory came along and gurgled quietly whilst his dad led us in a bit of worship (that included two excellent tracks by Alison Krauss and Jonny Cash respectively).

We shared bread and wine and wound up with a look at Jesus' approach to hospitality and how this might inform us as we set about launching the cafe.

all good.

on a related note (related to Rory coming along to church for the first time) I wonder if our baby will decide to arrive today?

or not.

a new day

listening to this whilst working...




Skybound by Tom Baxter. It's good. you'd like it...

the meeting went well last night. we all agreed that I am officially a member of the cathedral staff, which sounds obvious, and it sort of was, but because this whole thing hasn't been done anywhere else and is a bit experimental, I don't think any of us had said anything official about it.
but now we have.
so there we are.

and the cafe thing was given the big thumbs up, which is very, very, very exciting.

some small boxes to tick and then we're in business.

the dry run will start some time in February (every Sunday night, cathedral coffee shop).

excellent!

I'm off to do the lunch time Eucharist at the cathedral in a little while - the third one in the last week and a bit, which is actually a good thing because I need to be able to do this stuff without getting in a flap.

Church tonight - unless our baby (which is due any day) decides to drop in before then.

today...

later this morning I'll be sidling over to canon Hoyle's 'preaching group'.

this elite band of clergy sit and listen to one of their number preach a sermon and then proceed to critique it.

We used to do this at art college. Someone would talk about their work and the rest of us would rip it to pieces.

usually just for the sake of it.

don't know if this will be quite the same, but you never know...

seriously though, I don't get to do all that much preaching at the moment and I've always enjoyed and been encouraged / informed by decent sermons (note the 'decent' in that sentence - there's a lot of guff out there too). Preaching is also good (for the preacher) because it's an opportunity to do some serious reading / thinking / reflecting on whatever it is you're going to talk about.

(a little snippet of Paul writing his second letter to young-man-Timothy:
'...I urge you to preach the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching.')

This evening I'm back at canon Hoyles for my first attendance at a chapter meeting.

This is my chance to put my work with feig over the past year to the dean and chapter, to firm up my relationship with the cathedral, to formalise feig's relationship to the cathedral, to talk about how we'd like to use the building this year and discuss to logistics.

and then to have supper.

should be good.

I'm hoping to advance the coffee shop idea and am looking forward to getting a dry run up and on its way sometime in February.

recently watched...

what a blinder of a film!

why did no one tell me how good this is?

I was left to discover the best film of 2007 by stumbling across a bunch of critics on the radio unanimously agreeing that 'The Lives of Others' was without any doubt the best thing they watched all year.

5 chubby stars.

oh yes.

good books...

I recently took delivery of these two little beauties...

'Signs of Emergence' by Kester Brewin arrived this morning and looks good as it's:

'A vision for church that is organic, networked, decentralized, bottom-up, communal, flexible and always evolving' (cover bumpf)

Sounds a bit like a church I know...

The other is 'The Forgotten Ways' by Alan Hirsch.

The first couple of chapters are excellent. I haven't read the rest yet but basically he's saying that the church needs to remember it's apostolic gift - ie to remember the dynamic faith and life of the apostles in the early church and to reactivate this in our own time.

He examines the church in China by way of a case study.
During the period in which being a Christian can result in a long stretch in prison (this is still the case) the numbers of committed Christians with an expectant, living faith has grown to 80 million.

Yes. 80 million. lots.

He attributes this to mission DNA, or mDNA (sounds a lot like a class A...)

Anyway, I'm going on a bit now, so I'll just leave you with these two quotes that Hirsch sticks at the start of chapter 1.

'If you want to build a ship, don't summon people to buy wood, prepare tools, distribute jobs, and organize the work, rather teach people the yearning for the wide, boundless ocean.'

'A great deal more failure is the result of an excess of caution than of bold experimentation with new ideas. The frontiers of the kingdom of God were never advanced by men and women of caution.'

Indeed!

hand outs

I just did a strange thing.

this happens to me from time to time.

I dropped something off at the prison and was on my way home with two books under my arm.
One of them was Brother Laurence: 'The Practice of the Presence of God'.

As I strode past the coach park beside Minx nightclub, I noticed a driver sitting alone in his cab and immediately thought that perhaps I should give him the book.

Obviously I ignored the urge and carried on past.

The further away I got however, the stronger the urge to go back and give him the book.

I reasoned with myself from both angles and all the time I was heading further away.

As I was crossing Westgate, I did a U-turn and retraced my steps.
'What's the worst that can happen?' I thought. He insults me and flings the book in my face...

As I arrived back at the coach park i found that the driver had pulled his vehicle right up to the road and was in the process of dusting his dashboard.

I leaned into the cab with a smile. Explained who I was and how stupid I felt about not being able to shake the idea that I should give him this book.

He took it with interest and I left.

That was it.
Odd.

I like unexpected encounters like that though.
It makes life more interesting...

It happened once when I was out with some friends at a place called the Dragon bar in Shoreditch in London. All of a sudden I felt that I just had to speak to this guy who'd just come in.

Eventually I managed to pluck up enough courage to overcome the reasonable side of my brain, and took him outside to say that I felt that God wanted me to speak to him but I didn't have a clue what it was suppose to be about.
It was a bit of a risk because as we left the bar, the door staff followed us and asked him if everything was ok with me. He clearly knew them all.
He turned out to be a dealer with a massive bag of weed in one pocket and a fat roll of notes in another.
When I told him about the God stuff, he just stared at me in silence for a moment and then shook his head.

"This is crazy..." He replied.
"My parents are Christians like you. And every Friday they have a prayer meeting to pray about me and my brothers - we're all a bit out of control...'

And so it went on.
We had a mad conversation. He'd just been arrested for doing something with a CS gas cannister, and was due in court on drugs charges. Bit of a mess really.

Anyway, he was expecting to be sent away when his case came up.

The last I heard from him was a jubilant phone call a couple of weeks later saying that he'd got off and was going to try and change things in his life.

I sometimes wonder where he's at now.

Hopefully it all worked out.

rough guide to Epiphany...

I was in a studio early this morning doing the Sunday show's rough guide to Epiphany.
this is becoming a bit of a habit: rough guide to advent, rough guide to Christmas, blah, blah.

good fun to do though.

if you don't know, Epiphany was being celebrated pretty early on by the first Christians and is a really big deal in the eastern church.

the Greek word means 'manifestation' or 'appearing' - so 'epiphany' is a time for celebrating the mystery of the incarnation (or, God coming to live among us as a man).

the visit of the wise men is also traditionally remembered and celebrated at this time too, and over in the east they also celebrate Jesus' baptism in the Jordan.

so there you go. rough on-line guide to epiphany...

nice.