the red pill

I don't know what the world is coming to. Yesterday evening I took our dog, Sally, to a local park for a run. It was in that in-between time of day, 20.15, so not late, but not early. As I walked into the park I saw a group of three teenage lads, wearing hoodies, kicking a football between themselves and laughing loudly as they listened to music on their mobile phones. Only, the laughter was because they were good mates really enjoying a kickabout, and the music was opera (!), and as I passed by with my cheery, "Hi" one reached into his pocket and pulled out - no, not a knife - a tennis ball, and said "I just found this mate and we're not using it, do you want it for your dog?" Kids these days huh?

Hi, If you're looking for the blog with the Assembly YouTube clips we used you'll find it at http:www.assemblytubes.blogspot.com I'll write more later, but we've just had a great time, with a run of three really good late night chatshows that have got me thinking of a very different way of doing church, we've had cafe church, how about Cabaret Church? More on this later....

I recently got sent a link to this, and thought it was so beautiful I’d share it with you. Some of the text (I think, as there’s a few versions out there and this one is from wikipedia): “We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam. The earth is a very small stage in a vast...

Last night was one of those times. My wife and I (and others in the church leadership here) had had a tough week, facing some criticism, and trying to address some long-running and unresolved issues in the church. I was tired, but I was excited; one of the most dynamic and honest preachers I've heard in a long time was coming to visit us. Prior to our move last year she had spoken at the church in Northampton, and had delivered a message that was just so perfectly inspiring, challenging and empowering for where we as a church were. I hoped that God would use her as powerfully again. Well, Kate Coleman, unbriefed about the issues, and indeed unbriefed about the nature of our forthcoming church conference, spoke directly into the heart of our situation, both generally as a church and specifically into the issues of the week. It wasn't just me feeling under fire, the whole team here were. She gave a challenge for the church to address the issues that would prevent us from moving o...

Just loving the power of this short film, a glimpse of the potential for networked communities to produce something beautiful, inspiring, profound and moving. It could almost be a contemporary set of beatitudes. The film was made when the creator - MadV - invited responses to the final part of the film, the masked guy, on youtube. I wonder if we can express this kind of creativity in churchworld? Maybe some weeks we'd be better off if, instead of crafting a 20 minute sermon, someone made something like this and we talked about it instead. Anyway, I'm buzzing with ideas on this now, and if anyone has a spare digital camcorder they don't need, they should get in touch!

March 12th and my son was playing in a neighbour's garden in a paddling pool, and I had to mow the lawn as it's growing so quick. And we finally get around to fixing the problem with heating in the building where much of the youth ministry is based. Bizarre.

In our Sunday morning services at the moment we are considering how the Holy Spirit guided the early Church. Last week, I spoke from the second half of the 11th chapter in Acts, a passage about the beginnings of the Church in Syrian Antioch. I’m recording some of my thoughts here as I think they relate to the situation we find ourselves in today, not that a Jewish church is figuring out how to relate to a gentile one, but that the established church is having to work out how to respond to an emerging one. This is going to be the first of many posts on this passage. There is a danger of making a grave mistake when we read the Bible. We can fall into the trap of thinking that just as we can see what God was up to, how things worked out so that His kingdom is established, strengthened and extended, so too the participants at the time knew. We can create in our minds an image that those whose journeys of faith are recorded in the Bible somehow had got hold of a map, and knew exactly where ...

Tonight was the latest in our series using movies in Cafe Church to explore spiritual themes. An Inconvenient Truth, the enthralling documentary of Al Gore's powerpoint presentation on climate change (and what a miracle to take such potentially dull material and presenter and to t urn it into something rivetting) gave us the first of what will likely be a number of opportunities to explore climate change and environmental issues from the persective of our lives being led as Jesus followers. We used five short clips from the film, interspersed with a quiz, some thoughts and reflections and also three focussed zones. One zone invited people to get in touch with the idea of God as creator by using clay we provided to model something or to use the paper and paints. We invited people to reflect on the creative process, and frustration that might arise as their creations didn't turn out as they'd imagined. Our second zone invited people to pray, and to make a note of the issues t...

My week's having a bit of a revolutionary theme. This week I got round to watching "Moulin Rouge" with its own powerful rendition of The Children of the Revolution used to bracket and background the movie and key scenes. I was blown away by several scenes, especially the excellent medley of love songs sung in the elephant room and Roxanne . The irony of these children of the revolution being as much under the power of the wealthy ruling class as they were before (business instead of royalty) and the use of love songs that are the backdrop to our contemporary lives being used to highlight the rampant hedonism of the period portrayed were insightful and profound. What we might look back and criticise in that generation we have fully embraced in our own perhaps? The other Revolution in my thinking is the title of George Barna's book that I've nearly finished. Its a wonderful little book, very readable and very direct. Barna has thrown his lot in with, and is seeking...

So. here's a pic with the freedom key just put in. It's not subtle is it? It'll take a while to get used to being in, and i may use a different attachment as although this one makes it very easy and gentle to put on and remove, it is very dangly. Anyway, if you see me and I'm not wearing it, do ask why not. And if you haven't hit the Stop the Traffik link that the top and begun to get involved, then please do.

So, here are some pics of the first part of my awareness raising for the Stop the Traffik campaign (follow the link from the top of my blog for more details). Along with one of my colleagues, Simon, I had my ear pierced, on Friday, so that today, Sunday, in a special service to focus on the campaign I could have a freedom key hung from it. I'll be able to post the pics with the key in tomorrow, I'm awaiting for them from the photographer. In the first pic, I am just having the needle pushed through, in the second the ring is being threaded through the hole and in the third that's how I look with the ring in. Some people have asked why I've had it done. And there are a number of answers. In part it is because I'd heard of another minister who'd done the same thing, and was inspired by that. But the piercing for me had a deeper meaning. In the Old Testament, a slave who had reached the end of their service could opt to remain with the household they had been a sla...

Coupland Movie Trailer I have no idea when or if this is going to get a UK release. If anyone has more information, please do let me know. Vancouver, aliens, slackers and pot - has Coupland got stuck in a rut?

On a facebook group i'm a member of someone asked what it would be like if people who teach in church could help their listeners realise that this was the first word, not the last, on a subject. How different would things be if people used sermons as a starting point for discussions, rather than just assimilating a new understanding of truth into their understanding of Jesus and his message? The message was written from an american perspective. The text in italics was my reply. I'm not sure I'd fully identify with the idea that when I taught something it was the final word. I find myself more and more inviting people onto a journey of discovery, offering suggestions, sharpening questions, discovering more options that the two I'd been presented with. Although contemporary spiritual seekers here in the UK will often be willing to follow a new age guru, when it comes to the message of Jesus it seems that everyone has an opinion, and they all are held as valid. I'm not...

I've just finished reading Billy Bragg's The Progressive Patriot . I've enjoyed it on a number of levels. The way he writes is much as he speaks, and it's been a joy to hear his voice as I've read his words. The question the book is addressing is one of identity and meaning for progressive british society. In the wake of a rise in support for racist political parties and with much discomfort, misunderstanding and confusion of what it might mean to be a multicultural society, is there anything that people in progressive politics might want to cling on to or even celebrate in a distinctively british identity? Bragg argues that a renewed discussion of britishness might be a uniting rather than dividing exercise, that it might rob the racists of a platform by revealing that to be british has always meant to be tolerant and open to other cultures. He writes a persuasive book, I commend it to you. It seemed to me, in reading it, to have something to say to those of us who...

In the first three Cafe services of the new year we're continuing to use movies to explore spiritual themes. Last weekend we pondered on Groundhog Day, the excellent Bill Murray plays Phil Connors, an obnoxious weatherman, caught in a day that keeps repeating itself. After his initial fear, frustration and depression at the never changing cycle of events, Phil first exploits the situation for his own ends, but then he is touched by the plight of an old gentleman who dies. Phil tries all he can to save the fellow, but to no avail, in doing so he learns about the needs of people in the town he's visiting, he then spends one of his days helping as many people as he can. It is this day that is the last one that he is trapped in, once again re-entering normal time and life. Given the time constraints, and the fact that the majority of the audience hadn't seen it, we had to be selective in what we did. So we chose three scenes to help us think about making a new start. We began b...

I have just got back from the Mainstream Leader's conference, and I'll write about that later, I have some comments from the weekend I wanted to share first. On Sunday evening I met with a group of people in their twenties to pitch to them some ideas about new ways of doing church. I was asking for their help. We spoke about the need for our church to find a group that could become very experimental and creative, and about the opportunity and freedom there was to think in novel ways about who we should be, what kind of things we ought to be doing, and the "how to" that we would engage in one we'd figured out values and vision. Well, they said yes, and inwardly I breathed a deep hallelujah. The group is a creative one, fun to spend time with and ripe for a challenge. I was greatly relieved, as I hadn't identified a plan b if they'd have said no. So where to from here? Well we agreed that we'd spend the next few months thinking and reflecting on the valu...

In God's first century letter to the Church in Philadelphia (Revelation 3:7-13) an image of an open door is used. God says that he has seen the way that the people there had lived as those who genuinely believed the gospel message and had undergone persecution and hardship because of it. Because of this, he says, he is placing an open door in front of them. It's a passage we'd studied in church in autumn, and the image had been used a few times since. Thinking about which image I could use to help us reflect on the coming year, I couldn't get the thought of the open door out of my head. I wonder how many doors had been closed because we'd stuck fast to Jesus and his teaching. I wonder what doors of opportunity God will open for us in the coming year. I see this image as a doorway of opportunity that flows both ways, I like that light is coming in from outside the door, it speak to me of us being open to the ways that God will speak to us, challenge and encourage us ...

On Sunday morning, I used this montage to help us reflect on the year that had past. I wanted to use well known faces (or people whose images might be less well known, but people would associate with the name) to help us think about the events and changes of the past year. I thought of people who has passed away this last year - pictures of Coretta Scott King and Steve Irwin were included - to help us think about those who died in the natural course of life, and those who died suddenly. I used images of UK politicians to reflect on changes in leadership in our nation's political parties, and to help us (although I didn't spell this out) to reflect on changes in our own church leadership team. An image of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld was used to help us think about relationships that had broken down, professionally or personally. Pictures of Saddam Hussein and President Ahmadinejad were included to help us think about situations that concern us. Andrew Flintoff losing the Ash...

So, it’s a new year, God bless us all. As I look into this coming year, I’m challenged, as always, to consider that my goals are for the year. In terms of ministry, I want to see progress made on what I call “the three M’s of youth ministry”, Mentoring, Milestones and Mission. With mentoring in mind, I’m heading off to the Mainstream Leaders’ Conference next week. I’m really looking forward to engaging with what Philadelphia, Sheffield have been doing with LifeShapes, a programme for peer to peer mentoring. In the light of this and drawing on other materials, I’ll be creating a mentoring programme for every member of our youth ministry , followed, in time I hope, by every member of the church who wants it. I’m also keen to place some intentional milestones into the coming year. I want to plan for the things that our youth and young adults will look back on as significant moments of learning, encounter and community. We need to know not just that God loves the world, but also how it fee...