I can only imagine......

Blog anniversary...

2012-01-15T14:54:00.000Z

.... so it's almost a year since I last blogged. No excuses I just haven't bothered on this site although I blog occasionaly at the Dock which is really exciting.

I've been thinking recently about my time off. I have never really settled on a regular day, yet! I had convinced myself that Monday wasn't a good day because I would then be under pressure the rest of the week to get everything done that needed done. However I am now pondering the question...
'do I work from rest or to rest?'
In other words is it better to work out of a rest day or to get all the work done and then rest?

I think I know the answer, will I put it into practice? Watch this space!

Come away with me ...

2011-01-19T22:20:00.000Z

Recently I have had a real compulsion to retreat!
Retreat .... time out.... I have heard God say "come away with me".
I decided to block this Friday out of my diary and do just that ... retreat!
I have great expectations for the day; walking, listening, praying, listening, eating, listening. Just a day to do little and yet to achieve much ..... I will be different at the end of that time. I hope to draw closer to God be more aware of Him.
I am reminded of how Jesus went about his ministry.... long periods of solitude and communion with God, time out from his disciples, not just a quick before ministry, not a quick quiet time.... but extended time set apart with his father.

I'm looking forward to the space this will provide for me.
The day will finish by meeting a good friend over a cup of coffee.

Substitutes

2011-01-18T18:49:00.000Z

I've been challenged by something I read today .....

"Some are shocked to consider that they have let a life of church activities be their substitute for having a life with God"

(Renovation of the heart in daily practice - Willard & Johnson)

Those substitutes can be distractions. I've been thinking about things that distract me from God. I've made a list and I need to work through them. Even a minister can have substitutes.....

Ordination Vows

2010-10-16T20:36:00.009+01:00

So it has been quite a while since my last post. Lots has happened since then. I have moved house and started ministry in another church, which is a brilliant place to be!
I have the blog bug again ... I don't know how long it will last!

I've spent some time reflecting on the vows I took for Ordination. I was reading the journal I had written at the time. I remember the "they are worthy" response and thinking ... wow ..... do they know me? They believed and trusted that I was worthy, I hope that is still the case!
I am thankful for the trust placed in me
I am thankful that I can preach by word and deed the Gospel of God's grace and desire to do it better!
I am thankful for all the other things I am called to.
I am challenged to give counsel and encouragement to those entrusted to my care.
As I read the vows again I am deeply challenged to pray without ceasing...

I have a week off coming up. Well, a week when I need to get some words on paper for my dissertation, a week when I need to relax, a week when I need to reflect on all that's going on, a week when I need to be still, to listen, to discern ....might be a "full" week off,,,, and I will spend some more time reflecting on those ordination vows ....
Shalom

The last blog .....

2010-04-06T10:17:00.003+01:00

I said I would blog about the event that took place on Saturday morning and so here it is ....
For me this was a culmination of all the work I had been doing since September. By and large it was the same parents and children who came on Saturday with a few more from the church. There was about 22 children and 20 adults (including the organisers)

What a morning we had! Easter egg decorating, card making, crafts including making Easter chicks and eggs, colouring in, Easter egg hunt, refreshments etc and everyone took part - the adults enjoyed it as much as the children. It was a bit like Messy church and it worked!

During Holy Week a 24/7 prayer room had been set up and it was open on Saturday morning adults and children alike were moved having been in it! While standing outside I overheard a child say - come and see how Jesus died - I was moved as she dragged a grown up into the prayer room!

I'm glad this "experiment" "project" call it what you will has finished on such a high note! I should also add that at our Good Friday service which was a Tenebrae service I was amazed that some of the folk from Saturday morning (who don't come to Sunday worship) came to it! So there have been positives all round. On the down side I won't be around to follow this work up and build on it. I've enjoyed the experience, learnt from it and can use all of this in my new place of work ....... maybe the blog will continue after all??.....

The end ..... or is it?

2010-03-31T11:16:00.003+01:00

During the past few weeks I have reflected on what the hopes were of the women who began to come on Saturday mornings way back in September.
They hoped to learn new things!

Well, we've learnt few new things .... how to bake scones, how to make muffins, how to make chocolates .... and eat them all!! That's what we've done over the past few weeks. I've been able to use the gifts and talents of other members of the congregation to do this which has been really good.

Last Saturday was the last! The children's club finished then so that's when we finished too. We met and chatted over coffee and hot cross buns, discussing aspects of Easter among other things.

Does it end here? Frankly I've no idea. All I know is my part in this experiment ends. I move on in a few months. So what remains? Thursday mornings continue with nearly the same people but with a couple more from the church who like cross stitching - this has been good to encourage fellowship, share life's joys and struggles as we talk and stitch around the table.

What's new? This Saturday, between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, something akin to Messy Church will happen (I'll Blog later about that). I've had nothing to do with this other than plant seeds, encouraged people to use their imaginations and given them the freedom to experiment.

Saturday is a family day with Easter egg hunts, decorating Easter Eggs, crafts, food & drink, all based around the Easter message. A prayer room has been set up for Holy Week and it is hoped to use that during Saturday morning as people move about! This has been good because I have had a back seat in the planning! I'm just encouraged that people have seen what I have been trying to do on Saturday mornings and hopefully are prepared to experiment even more!

The end. (for now) ...

Attractional v Incarnational ...

2010-02-09T16:00:00.002Z

"A truly missional church will be both incarnational and attractional," so says Stuart Murray in his book Planting Churches page 13 ..... and I say Amen!

I understand that few if any will be attracted to church events unless they are regular church goers but a missional church will "want to attract people to Jesus" (Murray) so its priority is "to equip its members to incarnate the gospel in all areas of society." (still Murray)

On the one hand I'm encouraging those that I work among (ie my congregation) to be Jesus in all aspects of their lives wherever they go.... incarnational. Their eyes have been opened to a fresh understanding of an aspect of evangelism through Bill Hybel's "Just walk across the room".
On the other hand I hope I'm attracting people to Jesus through the attempts of what Saturday and now Thursday mornings offer!

The Saturday mornings will cease before Easter but the Thursday mornings will continue for as long as those coming want!!

Requests for prayer have been made to me from those who come on Saturday mornings so the door is opening for those spiritual conversations or else they wouldn't ask for prayer! Going back to the Bill Hybels dvd that I've been doing at the Bible study .... he said to a colleague ... I'm not going to heaven without you ...... that is my heart for those I've got to know over the past few months!

I can only imagine .......

Reproduction ..

2010-01-24T16:27:00.005Z

The group I meet with has reproduced itself!

Let me explain....

Last week we began to do some cross stitch on Saturday mornings, replacing the card making we had been doing. Now, I can just about sew a button on and as for hems .... the sticky stuff does a good job, so to find myself having fun while doing cross stitch just didn't seem possible but I did! I really took to it and have so got a new hobby for the spare time I don't have.

Yesterday we began by having a conversation about the funeral practices of different communities which was weird but was a way into faith conversation which was interesting.

Anyhow, the good news, in fact the amazing news is ....... the group is going to meet twice a week!
The cross stitching has proved so popular that the person who came to show us how to do it suggested yesterday that we should form a small group doing cross stitching and ask a few others to come. For me this was great news and an answer to prayer! This lady has opened up her home on Thursday mornings to host a cross stitching group and I hear already that two more people want to join in ...... so the group has reproduced! I think this is just amazing and not something I saw coming ..... but it came about because the person felt a prompting from God to offer to host this as she wanted a way in which to serve God.

It's exciting ..... and I can only imagine the possibilities .....

Holistic Perspective

2010-01-12T11:32:00.006Z

"It is no use going simply to teach or to speak. It is necessary to sit and listen and serve .... there is opportunity, often to witness to the gospel and to see people come to faith. "(Croft)
It's easy to sit and listen and serve. But I've been wondering does it make church, can it become church? If I have the opportunity to pray with people that come does that make it church?

A lot has happened since I last blogged (some of which I cannot publish here). As a group we continued to meet on Saturday mornings, share breakfast, make Christmas cards and have good conversations around the table. What I also discovered was some of the parents seeking me out to talk on a one to one basis. During these times I was quite taken aback by what they were prepared to share with me ... yet I was also humbled by the fact that the relationships had deepened to the extent that they could openly and honestly trust me with real, personal issues and to some extent heart breaking things that were going on in their lives. So I had to really listen. This happened many times over the past few weeks and not just in the context of Saturday mornings ... it happened in the local shop in the estate, outside the school gates, in the school at a nativity play, at the community centre. I have prayed with and for some of these mums .... I have seen a change in attitudes towards God .... but they have a poor perspective of the church I minister in. To be honest there is a sense in which this very small group have a greater sense of what church should be - they have an openness that I don't always find elsewhere - yet - Saturday mornings may not meet certain criteria that say it is church but it has become something more than just somewhere to kill time while the children are at the kids club. I think there will be opportunities for faith to be explored.

Some of them came to the carol service and also to a family movie night (Muppets Christmas Carol) where more conversations emerged after the movie over coffeee and mince pies while the children enjoyed crafts!

This weekend we will begin to learn how to do cross stitch which should bring some hilarity to the proceedings ... and I will continue to sit and listen and serve those who come.

I seek to have that holistic perspective on what has happened over the past few months and on what will happen in the months that lie ahead. I'm continuing to hold on to that hopeful imagination...

Interpathy .....

2009-11-17T15:37:00.002Z

......not sympathy or empathy.

Just read this again in Frost & Hirsch's "Shaping of things to come"... "Interpathy describes that depth of a relationship when an outsider to a particular host community develops a burden for that community .... it refers to the capacity for an outsider to pick up a community's sense of values, what has hurt them and where they're headed."

I think it's all about listening to that host community asking the question 'what is good news to these people?' and what should church look like for them?

Frost & Hirsch suggest " we would think like missionaries and spend more time listening to, eating with, and playing with" those we are trying to minister to. We shouldn't try to impose church upon people like some sort of alien model but we should listen to what seems natural.

Listening, eating, playing .... sounds like fun!

Potential.......

2009-11-13T18:37:00.007Z

Bulbs ..................................... to daffodils.

I planted some bulbs last weekend .... or should I say I planted some daffodils. Sure, they don't look like daffodils yet but I look forward to what will emerge from the depths of the soil in a few months time. I don't expect to see a bulb appear but a daffodil in all its intricacy. It will emerge from immaturity to maturity and then .....

These bulbs I've planted have potential .... these times on Saturday mornings have the potential to be something beautiful in the Kingdom of God. The conversations are laced with questioning ...they are beginning to be something beautiful .... and God is in it all.

Yet I still feel that what I am doing is planting, nurturing, encouraging .... will I see what emerges? It has the potential to be church for those that come, in that it will be their spiritual home and God lives in the midst of the community!

On a different note .. the community association is hopeful of getting a vacant shop in the estate .... now that is good news .... with potential .... exciting times!

Croissants coffee and card making in the morning then?!

It's different ...

2009-10-27T18:11:00.004Z

....numbers are the same but it's different!

We've met three times since I last blogged. I was concerned that meeting weekly would just be another programme until Andrea commented on the last blog. Meeting weekly is actually what is wanted. Two weeks ago there was no Childrens' club in the Saturday morning because some of the leaders were away and the parents were disappointed they couldn't meet. The same scenario will happen this coming Saturday! So i'm now more content to meet weekly.

So what has changed? The relationships have changed. I think they've deepened. There's an honesty and real depth in our conversations. One parent has taken the initiative and planned the cards we're going to make and sourced all the stuff we need to do that. So my role has changed too. I don't see myself as a leader more of an enabler or facilitator or is that just too postmodern?

A community has been created, we're having fun, we're enjoying breakfast, we're doing something creative. The discussions have focussed around the pressures of family life and already talk is of Christmas (no surprise since we're making Christmas cards). So there'll will be plenty to explore over the coming weeks.

Being incarnational is what this is about. God is a sending God. God sent Jesus and in the same way we are sent into our communities to be relevant, to listen, to join people on their faith journey .....

Breakfast Church?

2009-10-02T19:00:00.000+01:00

An array of cereal, smoothies, fruit juice, yogurt, fruit, croissants, pancakes, muffins and not a rasher of bacon or fried egg in sight.

Numerically (do numbers really matter) we were more than last week even though two from last week couldn't make it, so we're up to eight in total.

We enjoyed the food and conversation. Interestingly the Bible study I'm leading this session is focusing on Luke's gospel and the accounts of Jesus sharing a meal with a variety of people in their homes, often at their request. So, there we were sharing breakfast, enjoying conversation, making plans for the card making "fun" next week, I wondered what Jesus would have said to those gathered?

In the back of mind I have the question is this church, can this be church and at the moment my answer is - all depends on how you define church. Church should be rooted in mission, and this is very definitely mission. Fresh expressions are defined as listening first, then loving and serving, creating a place for the unchurched. So there's a lot of listening going on. Maybe I'm just impatient, maybe the listening will take longer and need to be ongoing? Yet we can't make church happen. Roxborough and Romanuk comment

"we do not plan its emerging future; we do not define it in a vision statement that can be realised through a controlled and managed strategic plan .... God eludes our systemising; God's ecclesia cannot be mastered or managed or made"

I'm also wondering does the fact that we meet weekly help or hinder? Will it just become another weekly programme? will the enthusiasm diminish?

Breakfast and card making in the morning .....

"What have I become?"

2009-09-29T09:10:00.003+01:00

Johnny Cash mournfully sings "what have I become?" I wonder if "church" could sing would it join in that lament?

What has church become for people? Not a question I propose to answer here but as my first Saturday morning of this new venture has been and gone it is a question I struggle with. People jumping ship, wanting nothing to do with denominations, those who used to "come" but for a variety of reasons can't or won't.

What I'm trying to do on Saturday mornings is provide a "safe space" (their words not mine) for those who I've discovered feel condemned by church (how did that happen) those who feel not good enough to be there on Sunday morning.

So our first get together became a time when five parents and a couple of toddlers shared coffee/tea and eats (using fairtrade products). I provided the morning newspapers hoping they would spark a deep theological conversation on the state of the world (maybe another day)but the conversation that emerged was one of pain, hurt, needs that actually can be met in that safe space.

These get togethers will be driven by the people who come, I have no set plans, so to meet the needs raised we will look at health issues, family issues, the strain of being a parent, not all had had time for breakfast (agreed that next time I would provide breakfast). Leaving those issues aside, they also wanted to have fun (what? fun in church?) so over the coming weeks we're going to learn how to make cards, cross-stitch, crochet, read books, watch dvd's. This will be fun because I'm not too good with the "crafty" things in this world. They shared how it would be good to meet with the children, see what they are doing, join in (sounds like messy church to me) and so the possibilities go on.

I'm excited, those who came liked the informality (unlike everything else they have experienced of church), they appreciated the "time-out". I struggle with the fact that we meet on church premises, yes I know they are dropping their children off at the Saturday morning club, and I know there is no where else in the estate like a coffee shop to meet, so for now the church hall will have to do.

What have we become? I live with the God given hope and imagination of what church can become for those who meet on Saturday mornings ....

New emphasis

2009-09-18T15:15:00.004+01:00

Now the emphasis of this blog changes!

I'm doing some study on Mission, particularly the emerging church (whatever that is)
Anyhow, when I signed up to do it I noticed for one module there were 3 choices: a literature review on emerging church,... attend training course/s on emerging church/fresh exp ... or pioneer a church. Okay, so the attend training course appealed, the others did not. Guess what - the rules changed: only option was to pioneer a church.
Yikes!
Here are the criteria we've to follow: it's to be fun; it's to be done in spare time; it does not require a lot of leaders; it does not need a big budget! Oh and you have to blog about it :)
Can it be done?
Well, I'm about to find out.
First and foremost I've listened .... I've listened to people within the community I work, people who don't come to church. They leave their children at various activities.
So, way back last November, some of them asked me if they could do something on Saturday mornings when they left the children to the Saturday morning children's club. I tried to dissuade them by suggesting it was great to be able to leave the children and go and have some time on their own - but they disagreed!

As i listened, I heard needs, so I said I'd think about it - they persisted, I resisted!

But now, tomorrow, we meet! Will this be church? It's new.
It will certainly be my project for my Masters. Is it pioneering?
I've listened ..... I'm on my knees ..... there'll be plenty of coffee .... conversations ..... let's see what emerges .....

This blog will now be the place where I will track the progress of this experiment/project/church/pioneering initiative ..... and as the title of this blog says ... I can only imagine .....

The Provocative Church

2009-01-16T20:43:00.003Z

Graham Tomlin writes about how a friend walked into his local church to go to the Bible study one evening.
people were sitting in a circle, he didn't recognise them, and then quickly realised, as he checked his watch, that it was the wrong day! He had actually walked into the local meeting of AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) but the meeting had started. He listened as people opened themselves up, explaining the sort of week they had just had, how they had managed to avoid "it". He mumbled apologies and left. Yet the meeting had a profound affect on him.
he had encountered honesty, admission of failure, celebration of success and mutual encouragement in a common struggle that he had rarely encountered at the Bible Study. The people he encountered were desperate and wanted to change. He found himself wishing the church was a bit more like that,
Hmmm food for thought

Covenant prayer

2009-01-03T15:15:00.002Z

As we enter a new year the Covenant prayer below will be said by many Methodists this Sunday. With such doom and gloom being predicted for 2009, perhaps the words will be more challenging for us to speak? My prayer is that we mean these words as we say them, that they are more than simply words ..... because it is such a powerful prayer. Where I lead worship tomorrow these words will appear on the screen one line at a time - we will not rush through them - we will reflect on each line as we speak it ....

I am no longer my own but yours.

Your will, not mine, be done in all things,

wherever you may place me, in all that I do and in all that I may endure;

when there is work for me and when there is none;

when I am troubled and when I am at peace.

Your will be done when I am valued and when I am disregarded;

When I find fulfilment and when it is lacking;

When I have all things and when I have nothing.

I willingly offer all I have and am to serve you, as and where you choose.

Glorious and blessed God,

Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

you are mine and I am yours.

May it be so for ever.

Let this covenant now made on earth be fulfilled in heaven. Amen.

if you could do it all again...

2008-10-24T17:13:00.002+01:00

......."if you could start your local congregation again from scratch, would you do it in the same way?"
Alan Hirsch asks this question in his book "the shaping of things to come"
most people answer "no"
and he responds "then, why are you not changing it now?"

What would we do differently then ....?

more to follow