yes, but is it worship?
Did anyone see the Manchester Passion?
I knew all those songs but never thought of them in that way before (nor did the writers I should think). What a great way to raise awareness and make people think differently about the whole christian thing. Hats off.
I forgot to tell you all how the clowning thing went on Good Friday. Well we had a really good turn out from the children. I know a lot of them were fairly nervous about doing this and consequently so was I. I have never tried to thrust religion down their throats and have allowed them to get it themselves.
So we arrived at church and got made up, those of usthat were to be clowns that is, then we paraded up the road to the shopping precinct with 'Jesus' being guarded all the way up and a couple of people carrying a step ladder and some leaflets.
The shops were quiet but we had a steady stream of people to give balloons and leaflets to. Then at the allotted time we stuck 'Jesus' on the (step ladder) cross and all went home. The symbolism was a bit lost but the day was a success. We got to be clowns in public and put over some kind of 'message'.
I think we might try that again sometime.
Apparently the Methodists don't drink. Well that's not strictly true. Apparently the Methodists don't drink in their church buildings. They're not allowed to by 'Methodist Law'. I expect the 'Methodist Police' raid them every now and then to check that no one is pulling pints in the pews, or courting crapulence in the church-hall.
My only question is why?
Of course this has serious implications for us moving in with them as you can well imagine – hic
That was the family priest, we all decamped to Center Parcs for a very relaxing few days. Unfortunately we weren't able to get the most out of the experience, largely due to two things:1, my knee still won't let me ride a bike and 2, we are so disorganised that poor Tom didn't manage to do any of the things he wanted to as they were all full up by the time we got our collective finger out and tried to book him in. However, the weather was glorious and the swimming fun so a good time was generally had by all.
Unfortunately we were sadly missed at church. That's right, no one did the breakfast and because we weren't there all the other people who might have taken a leadership role in bclc decided that this was a good Sunday for them to miss as well. We did suspect that this would happen (in fact we knew, to be brutally honest) and we were going to warn people that it wasn't going to be on this week but guess what? We forgot. We just let it slip out of our heads. We didn't want to upset anyone, we didn't set out to make everyone's morning that much more miserable, heck we didn't even know that we'd be missed that much. But it turns out that we were wrong. We were missed, people "didn't know what was happening". They had turned up and there was no bclc for them (as oppose to the normal turn of events, i.e. they don't turn up but there is bclc for them). All those weeks and months of providing something a little different on a Sunday morning that no one ever asks us about, all those weeks and months of sending toasted teacakes into the big church from our breakfast; all count for nought because we let something slip from our minds, we forgot something.
It's a funny thing how you can be invisible when you are around and then when you disappear suddenly everyone sees the hole. Well that's bclc it would seem. I am genuinely sorry that we forgot something but, I'm afraid, it will happen again. Not because that's the 'type of guy I am' but because that's the type of people we all are and the sooner we get over it and start genuinely supporting one another instead of waiting until we fail and 'telling them so', the better.
Incidentally, Tom took his disappointment very well, we all had things that didn't go the way we wanted them to and were all a bit mardy-arsed about it. Tom knows his mum and dad will sometimes mess things up, Katy knows we will over react and shout at her when she is asserting her growing independence and Dylan knows we will occassionally let him down with our promises. But deep down they know that this is not our what we intend to do. They know that we are trying the best we can to make more of their lives together.
Ultimately, they will trust us in the hope we succeed and they will support us when we inevitably fail.
If only everyone else would do the same once in a while.
Normal posting this week after the 'essay' of last.
Interesting weekend, Anne went away with her mate Cath for a girlie weekend in London whilst me and the kids got Domino's pizza and had a pyjama party watching Harry Potter and Corpse Bride (that's 2 films not a new HP that you haven't heard of yet). On Saturday I had another Local Leaders training day and then on Sunday we looked at 'Death and beyond' in BCLC. So a lot to talk about.
LL day on Saturday was all about developing a vision for the church. Well actually it was more about developing a 'Vision Statement' or a mission statement, the 2 seemed to be interchangable. It took me until last night to realise why we have to make a statement of our vision. To me it seemed that by the experience people had in a church should be more than enough for them to get the vision. Last night though I was reading 'Reform' the URC magazine and came across references to 'catch the vision'. So the URC as a whole trying to come up with their vision and we as churches should do as well. Every thing I have heard about churches attempting to state their vision in this way has been bad. It usually takes far too long and ends up pleasing no one. I am sure there are exceptions but not sure enough to want to try it. It was a good day though and it did make me think and it is nice to see everyone again.
And so to Sunday, Death and Beyond. First week at it so it was through the eyes of the world. We looked at stories of death in the papers and what they said about societies attitude to death. In a lot of cases it said more about societies attitude to news, death is reported only if it's newsworthy. i.e. tragic, wierd, gruesome etc. I'm not sure what we concluded. I trhink we probably all left with our views on death the same as they were when we started. I think that this will get more interesting in the coming weeks when we look more at the spiritual aspects. We know we are going to die and we know that that is the end for our bodies but what of our spirits.
Tough subject but a good time to be looking at it with Easter approaching. I hope to have more to say on the subject next week.
Using your Bibles and other reference books, discover what the Bible says about Email.
In this article I aim to demonstrate that there are ample references to the use of email contained within the Bible. Obviously, given that email is an invention of the last 20 years, I am unlikely to find a verse in which it is directly referenced, however it takes only a small mental step sideways to see that both testaments are littered with references to its use.
I would like to focus specifically on the letters that Paul wrote to the fledgling churches of Rome, Corinth, Thessalonica and other such places.
I will start with a quick definition of email. If you look here for a definition of email you will find that email is a method of composing, sending, and receiving messages over electronic communication systems. We know that email is a fast, generally efficient way of communicating with people regardless of where they are in the world. This can be 'one-to-one' personal use or 'one-to-many' group interaction.
Looking back at Paul's situation we see that he wants to communicate with the churches just starting up at various points around the world. More specifically various points throughout the Roman empire. This, I believe, is one of the keys to the success of Paul's letters. He needed to get his message across effectively and efficiently so he used the best medium available to him at the time. The Romans were renowned for the efficiency of the the systems they put in place in the countries they occupied. Communication was essential to the smooth runing of their empire and so they had in place a very good postal system. Paul used the efficiency of this mail system to get his messages delivered.
A central tenet of Christianity is the notion of spreading good news, of telling people about their faith and their belief in Christ. If Christians are to follow in Paul's footsteps then in order to do that most effectively then they must use the best tools for the job.
There are currently many electronic modes of communication available to us in the world today. Virtually all these tools offer a near instant means of interacting with other people regardless of where they are in the world. Some, however, such as SMS text messaging are limited in the amount of information one can get across in a meaningful way. Whilst others, such as this web log, might be a little intimidating for the first time user who feels they they aren't technically adept enough to use it. I would suggest that email strikes the best balance between these 2 positions. It is easy to use and you can develop quite complex ideas and arguments within it.
Email allows us to reach almost anyone almost anywhere on the planet and there is no way that Paul, or any of the other notable Biblical correspondents, would not have used it had it been available to them at the time.
The next post is a little deviation from my usual. As part of my local leaders training in the URC I am to write an essay on the Biblical references to the use of email. I thought that it would be more appropriate to do this in an electronic form as that is in essence what I am writing about.
Feel free to comment on it as you see fit.
If I may be allowed to paraphrase someone I used to adore, I refer of course to miss Cilla Black. When I say paraphrase I mean change the words and being as the connection to what I am about to write is somewhat tenuous to say the least you might be wondering why I bothered at all. But you have got to start somewhere so here (or there) I begin.
On Saturday (April 1st, significant later) we had a special day at church. As I may have already mentioned we are without a minister at present, a state we have been in on many occasions before and not such a bad one to be in if you ask me. Anyway when you are sans-minister, the URC have a look and decide if you really are a worthy of having another one. This is largely based on your size and your proximity to another church in a similar state so that you can be grouped together in what we call a pastorate. With me so far? In order to entice a new minister to come and join (lead?) you a church has to put together a profile, a document that describes them and and what they are about. So on Saturday (1st) we had, what I like to call, 'A profile day' (geddit?? did you see what I did there?….)
We all gathered and split into groups to look at the life of the church and decide our priorities for the 5 't's of mission, oh come on surely you've all heard of them…. tend, teach, transform, tell and treasure. Not even a little bit contrived I am sure you will agree. I won't go into a full on description of all my teams discussions just let you know what really struck me about the exercise and its results.
I will do this by drawing on 2 specific things we discussed; first of all we are a good pastoral care church. If you 'come to church' (Sunday morning 10.30 that is) then you are likely to be well looked after in the PC dept. If on the other hand you attend the other church led groups, weekenders, brownies, rainbows, well then it is a different story. So in short if you fit in the box marked 'comes to church' then we are there for you.
The second apect is in 'helping those less fortunate than ourselves'. As a charitable church we are pretty good at responding to need. If there is a disaster anywhere then we can dig deep and respond generously and in a timely fashion. If however your need is somewhere to go with your mates of a wet November evening then sorry but you're right out of luck. "I know there's no-one using the building and you wouldn't wreck it but….."
Are these 2 things linked and if so how and what do they have in common? I think it's about getting comfy and not wanting to get uncomfy. We can easily help when we don't have to actually do anything like talk to someone or give anything more of ourselves than our money. We can keep abreast of how everyone is when we see them reguarly and don't have to make too much effort to find out. Basically we have become a bit fat and a bit lazy and a bit complacent.
If a new minister can take us out of our comfort zone then perhaps, just perhaps it will be worth the effort in finding one.
