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If only it was as simple as that, 

I don't know if you remember there was a real crazy several years ago for those 8balls you asked it a question it gave you a answer. That sorta fitted your question.  

Yesterday during the youth time before we rejoined the service for a baptism and the Communion. We and a interesting time of question and discussion. We're using the UCB word4u2day as a ay of introducing daily time with God and getting them to read the bible in small steps. It's a challenge to for me to make sure I am reading the notes they have. The notes from yesterday we did together.  During the week the questions or things that they want to talk about or share from there reading they make a note off and bring with them on a sunday or Thursday and we loo at them together. The questions are getting back to basics things we would take for granted. The simplest question this week was, Why are capitals used for He Him and  His when theres no full stop.  The answer the group came up with well is a written way of kneeling or  standing to show  respect and honour .   I like that don't know about you :). What I truly love about this group is they come as they are, they ask questions, they think about  they share and expect that back from each other...  and from whoever is leading... Asking questions is learning. Not every question thats asked will get a press here response, but working out the answer together weighing cup different ways of thinking and making it their own as they grapple with the questions they own. 

There's a song we sing from time to time. It goes something like this in part....

Brother let me be your servant let me be as Christ to you

It is easier for us to serve another. To be there to give a lift take a meal offer a place to stay. To care, but. E able to not do anything. It is far harder to be the person on the receiving end of that care. So much harder to be the one who is allowing the other to be as Christ and serve. Why is that, that we would never see it as putting ourselves out to be there for another, yet we feel a burden in the way so often

What brings this thought, in part the maunday Thursday service as the Priest kneels to wash the feet of parishioners. The same way in which Jesus knelt to was the disciples feet.

Partly as this week I've not felt well, now this isn't fun I don't like not being able to do things. I'm deffinatly the worst patient ESP when doctors and tests are involved. The dummy doesnt just get thrown out its sent into orbit. That happened a few times this week (hangs head)

Let me serve you from offers of a room so as not to be alone, and SMS and calls those word of the song from others has been so real.

The real challenge is the words LET ME BE AS we I have to allow others to come alongside to be Jesus with skin on..... and definitely need a dose of grace to do that.

Tough lessons for each of us to learn.

And thankful that even in the impression of a teenager throwing out the dummy some. Ery special people carried on being just that Jesus with skin on.

too rich to die to poor to live

In the near future. You don't age past 25. Life is paid out a minute at a time. The rich can live forever. The poor die young.

As many people know My patch and reading don't go all that well. So movies tend to be my patch's time out. I do read but it takes time. Thursday night the young adults choose to watch in time as the movie. It has a very challenging story line as wel as many of the conversations. 

see the official trailer  

"Please take me home. I can't do that. Why? To keep me alive. How can you live with yourself watching people die right next to you. You don't watch. You close your eyes."

How oftern do we do just this close our eyes to whats going on in the world turn the page of the news paper, flick over the tv when a appeal advert comes on or the news shows shomtehing disterbing. thats if we actually even notice it..

what do we close our eyes too in the communities we live in. 

we are called to be Jesus with skin on to be HIS hand and HIS feet how can we do that if our eyes are closed.....

Just Another Bear!!

Earlier this week I posted the photo below on my photo blog. The day I saw it walking the dog it really stopped me. It really isn't something you expect to see. One of the things this blog was about was seeing God in the little patch that I live and work in. To see God in the everyday in the ordinary of life. This image has stayed in my thoughts all week. one comment left saw 'peace offering'. I don't no the story behind why this was done a joke or a remembrance of a accident. So what was the photo 

Bear behind barbed wire on the top of a wall. So many of those who live next door or down the road to. Those who are our neighbours and even yes even each of us can be just like this bear at times that wanting to be loved, cared for love me lots. Yet there are hugh sharp barriers around keeping us in and others,  and hurting ourselves and others out.

The amnesty international symbol also came to mind with this picture 

 

Hope and light in a dark place in the candle and wire, love and peace comfort behind wire in the image of the bear in both these images is what our communities need.

Today another image spoke to me that of Holy Saturday that saturday between Good Friday and Easter day. Esther  De Waal writes about a image of what took place on this day something that artist struggle to show. yet on a font in a English church 

 is a dramatic and dynamic scene, portrayed with extra- ordinary vigour and richness. Christ is dragging Adam out of a limbo of twisted knots, rather like clinging tentacles. (An antiquarian brochure, written by someone who had no idea of the context, described it as a man being pulled out of a thorny hedge, and somehow I always felt that this homely interpretation was no bad way of catching something of the difficulty and discomfort of how entangled we become and how we need the help of a strong hand to drag us upward.)  Seeking Life.p.14-15

The bear at the end of the road here a daily reminder of the mystery and grace of Easter that there is nothing not even a barb wire fence that will stop the Love and grace of God reaching out to His creation. Not matter what the darkness in life may be His light will shine through and the comforter will be there alongside by His Spirit and by His People being Jesus with skin on.

mystic moggy

A friend posted this on FB

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yeah it's very funny and I do love cats and the very silly things that they do. 
But it got me thinking.....What image of God do we give to those in our patches. There are many stories in the world about the con artist. About those who fake the things of God who add things to thier storie of what God has done in them the "amazing" change that took place since they met with God.. But why embellish the work of God..  or the other side and the dumbing down of the gospel message. 
Its a sad place to be but I have heard people do both, and people I have know a long time. 
More than anything we need to be less like the cat in the video, not giving a performance of "god". We each you and I need to be showing the truth of God day to day in our lives in the little things. Honesty at the till if too much change is given. we are quick enough to complain if the casher gets it wrong and gives us less. Integrity in our speaking in public and in private.
I recently had to get medicenies from the hospital I wasn't expecting to have a perscription made and had no money on me I went to the dispencery and they let me have my meds but took my name and address. three days later i went back to pay. they lady was shcoked and said no one comes back to pay... 
It was a chance to share the gospel with her that opened up.
paul tells us in his letter that we are ambassidors for christ in our patches 
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
how we live matters... the God we show to people matters ... 

Comment response

Recently (see Here) I posted about going on retreat I wrote this "I do struggle with them and more often found them a waste of time" a comment left under the post asked this 

I would be interested in
 a) why and b) what kind of retreats you've actually been on.

So let me try to answer these I probably wont answer in full so I guess that is what the comment tab is for

I've been on a few retreats mostly either day retreats/ quiet days  or over a weekend that were part of work/college and were compulsory attendance. The have all been organised ones and led by people who have led many and have a particular way of leading. Quiet days, some with teaching most of them though find me sat at a table or in a group listening to a speaker talk for most of the day and then we have a few moments of reflection. I find myself daydreaming and finding more and more elaborate ways of escaping the day or weekend. 

I've also been on a couple that I have found good, but these where more of team away day and we walked the seven sisters and had a picnic and then stopped off for a pub supper that day we just hung out together work talk was banned another was getting together for a morning and each taking a song that meant something then having lunch together. both of these I really enjoyed they were loosely organised we knew where we had to be and what to bring but apart from that it was just time away from work. 

The worst one was going away for 3 days this was the one that truly put me off and confirmed for me what a waste of time they were for me. we arrived on the friday evening and had our rooms allocated we had a few moments to settle in then it was supper after supper all our gadgets were " confiscated" until the sunday evening before we left. everything watches, travel clocks, MP3 players mobile phones, Games, everything had to be given in and then it was prayers and silence. I'd kept back my game so I had something and to use in the night, but I had to hand it in too when the person I was with got cross I hadn't. To make matters worse I was in a room with a much much older women who wanted the lights out so there I was alone in the dark awake for all most all the night I was just about asleep when she woke and the lights went on. The next day we sat inside and listened to talk after talk on different things and discussed them in our groups all I wanted to do was be out in the wonderful gardens and by the river that as near by. By the end of that second day I had truly had enough and turned off and tuned out for the rest of my time. I did manage to escape that evening and on the sunday morning. I felt like a caged animal just giving up. we also had a time when we had to go and spend with the chaplain for the weekend which you were told when to go. It was like being told you have a tutorial and thats that. 

That has been how many retreat days or weekends have been extremely tight on time and trying to pack as much as possible in in a short time. Organised with no room to be really me, to wander off/ find space and time out to think on or bin things. No time for me to actually engage with being there. 

The cadged feeling trapped inside all day and being talked at isn't away for me to engage with being away or with God and others. 

Being in a lecture style environment I go into that style of thinking and being, taking notes and trying to concentrate takes a lot of energy and focus. Another side of many of the retreats has been being told when I was to go and see the chaplain. I do not find it easy to just go and talk to someone because I've been expected to. There are very few people who have that place of being where instantly there is a connection more often relationship and trust has to be built and earned before real sharing can begin. 

One style I did find was Good was being on Iona though it was work and I was in work mode for much of the time it parish pilgrimage where I was Co leader.It would be somewhere I would return to it was a style of retreat I could take to and did take to.... the format for the day was simple space and thought came together. We slept in dorms with people from around the world we ate together 3 times a day. We had chores todo together and morning and evening prayer. During the day there were activities or focused times you could join if you wanted to. There were no demands apart from you be at meals, but most of all there was space...there was space time to wander the island or go sit in one of the churches go for coffee to the beach. Time to meet with God just be 

I'm not sure I fully answer the questions but its a start I'm sure...

School assembly

I'm doing the assembly at Archbishop Sumners school today... and following on from easter and other assemblies I've done this year on building your life on the right things as I was looking at ideas I came across this wonderfully simple video (I've got it ready to use at the school hope it works I think they would enjoy it I know I did when I saw it.)

Either way

I'm gonna use flash paper and strong paper to show that when we build our lives on God even when we're shaken (strong paper is hard to tear but it does happen) the base of our lives are in God and though knocked we can deeped on God..

flash paper is cool it burns in an instant and leave no ash or any sign it was ever there... when we base our lives on things not based in the truth of God just like the house on the sand there is nothing to hold on too.....

I'm not saying about using God as a crutch but as a climber I know that if you don't have a strong anchor for your rope there is only one result if you find a loose rock or slip and fall.....

What this day are you building your life on what I am I building my life on...

How is that lead out into what we building into the patch's that God has given each of us to tend...

Easter day

In March over on 365-my patch I took a photo of one of the allotments just down from my flat. The ground was stating to be prepared for planting it was towards the beginning of lent then. Today I went past the same allotment and it looks very different. Laid out each plant and vegetable in its patch in a place where it can grow and  develop. I'd spoken to the tender of the allotment and he said to watch out for something he had just built a frame a frame that looked like a gallows. 

Thursday at the globe I heard Esther recited. A gallows was built in there for much darker reason as someone who wanted power plotted to do evil in order to get it and ended up hanging from the gallows he built for another. Friday, Good Friday saw another image used for destruction the Cross. 

Yet both were used so very differently both the gallows and the Cross saw in them the beautiful. 

The tender of the allotment used for growing tomato's.

The cross a sign of suffering and pain and shame. bring forth the beauty of new life new hope through the resurrection of the one who died who shed his blood upon it.

¹ Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them, came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. ² But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. ³ Then they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. ⁴ And it happened, as they were greatly^[b] perplexed about this, that behold, two men stood by them in shining garments. ⁵ Then, as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? ⁶ He is not here, but is risen! Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee, ⁷ saying, ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.’”⁸ And they remembered His words. ⁹ Then they returned from the tomb and told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. ¹⁰ It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them, who told these things to the apostles.

What this easter day is there in your life in my life that can be changed from something that is a seemingly harmless past time or a object that as you read this you recongnise as being like the gallows or the cross and needs that change that turning over to God so that He can reshape it into somthing beautiful.

How does that allotment that was being prepared look now well....

Reepicheep

Unhand the tail. Aslan the Great gave me this tail and no one, repeat, no one, touches the tail. Period, exclamation mark! 

narniaweb.com

You gotta love Reepicheep..... little mouse big heart


an he has a real point, That tail was a gift a from Aslan and he guarded it no-one would be allowed to take that gift from him..


How do we treat the gift and call that Aslan has given to each of us. Do we allow the gift of God to be touched or taken by another. 


Reepicheep uses his gift- not hiding it away but uses it day to day 


Reepicheep a little mouse in a film on a Saturday afternoon just a bit of entertainment!!!!


nothing to do with our my daily lives our walk with God our discipleship.....

on the tube...

saw this on the tube today... And got me thinking... it's a advert for a uk cable channel. The words at the bottom were what struck me.. its not going to change your life but thats not what we're about you got God channel for that... as part of my studies and coming from a background outside of the church one of the questions that I've asked and many more people are asking is what is church how do we define that word. When church is the people who are disciples of Jesus. encouraging seeking journeying together into a closer relationship with God becoming more like Him. What the advert here says is what they are and are not. they are there for entertainment - not to change life.. they are one of many channels bidding for our time.. putting on different programmes aiming at different groups of people... sounds very like the way the "church" does things. The tv channel are very aware of who they are and what they are about. I think that has a major challenge for the "church" are we just another group/organisation that is vying for peoples time or is there more is the church the place where lives are transformed. Not just putting on programmes but leading each other deeper in life changing encounters with the living God.. 

Have you got a minute

Actually have you got 1:50 to sit and watch a video.. I was looking during the week for the  Matt Redman song  Nothing but the blood of Jesus for a link to my photo blog while doing that I came across this video.  A few years ago I was in India and came across the book the In His Image in the book one of the authors talk about how when in India one of their children had caught measles and they needed to protect the younger child with the "blood of a overcomer" they needed to get the blood of someone who had had measles and over come it to mike a vaccine. As I watched this video today though I read this book 4 years ago now the image came flooding back. Through the gospels we read the trials and temptations that Jesus faced, the joys and the sorrows, and share abandonment and that He overcame death and sin on the cross and in His resurrection. One passage that stands out while I was thinking about this was the words of revelation 

They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony

That we can use the things in our lives that were broken yet have over come to encourage others in their situations. For those in my patch, to come along side those who have found they are alone in a strange place. Having moved to london from the midlands knowing no-one here but bringing the light of jesus into that situation using my experience of how that feels to help another "overcome." Recently I was preaching and shared part of my testimony in the service at the end a older lady came up to me and said thank you for giving permission not to read but to listen to the Bible on the ipod my granddaughter struggles to read and is dyslexic but what you said encouraged us today. How was I able to to share through allowing Jesus to come into my situation and allowing Him to heal bringing that overcame into that place.

Five Star Doorway

Mayfair Isn't my normal haunt especially on a saturday but today I was off to one of the most sought after postcodes in London. If you are familiar with the traditional version of the game monopoly you will know that Park Lane and Mayfair are the most expensive places on the board not much changes in real life. I've never been around Mayfair, and so walking past the houses and through a lovely park was really nice. I'm sure that on a sunny day this would be even more beautiful. But today it was icy cold and no-one was wanting to sit about in the park and maybe the place to have gone to eat my pack lunch (even if this time last year the picnic was at minus 28) but was far to cold and I made tea and stayed warm.

stayed warm not all could do that today!!! 

The reason for this little trip was to go to a workshop on Homelessness, Day after day in Vauxhall countless homeless sleep under the railway arches and in the underpass between the two blocks of flats where I live. The stark contrast between those who have and those who don't was in sharp contrast as I walked past a guy maybe my age asleep in a doorway. One of the things we were reminded of today at the workshop was that as one person said we are all 3 steps away from being homeless that’s a scary thought. 

What would you give

Today I went to two VERY different fellowships for worship...

The second was a little bit different as it's aimed at the gay community and meets once a month in the methodist church building in vauxhall. I don't want to get into the different arguments and politics about the right or wrong of this so please respect that.. The sermon and service theme was based on epiphany and used the readings for today used in the rest of the parish and circuit and I must admit I enjoy the occasions when I get to go the welcome is always warm and the fellowship after over food is always fun even if I'm the odd one out :). At the moment there is a very interesting question being asked amongst the fellowship is how to open up to others so that all are welcome.. thats a vey real question for us all how do we make ALL welcome not matter what their background might be..

  As part of the sermon we were told " The wise men brought three gifts with them as they followed the star towards bethlehem" .. and then asked 

 "what gift would you give Jesus" 

What I loved was the response that came back from the congregation.. a hug, a meal, a place to stay, a drink, and my favourite from one guy a fellow traveller from nottingham :) was this

'' I'd give Him a foot massage as He would need it after all the traveling''

Those were not what I was expecting but really made me begin to think what would I give him.. those weren't what you would call text book answers the ones that I expect to here at a Bible college or study group... these were answer that came from the person they were real and from the heart..

we sing in the carol in bleak mid winter the words to the final verse are 

What can I give Him, poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;

If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;

Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

What can I give Him? what ever your answer let it come from the heart 

Sunday.......

Working in the Joint parish and Circuit of North Lambeth each week the Revised Common Lectionary is used in the 4 churches. Until moving here it wasn't something that I had followed while preaching all that often ( even though I get them emailed at the beginning of each week:(  ). Even now it's only when I'm preaching do I know what the following weeks readings are or on the occasions that we look through them at the team meeting. 

Todays gospel reading  was the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). I've heard many studies on this passage and retellings of the story using different types of people to look at who is my neighbour.. 


One retelling was when I was still in Nottingham... Our church was close to both Notts County and Nottingham Forests grounds.. And as you can guess it meant that our church was divided almost 50/50 between the two teams  and often led to much friendly banter. One thing we did agree on was that Derby county was as with a certain character in a popular children's book it was "them who weren't named" . 


The preacher this day decided to recount the story using football supporters  (done many times around the country) and yeah you guessed it the good Samaritan in his story was a derby fan ... ouch... makes you think.....


Today was very different the preacher didn't major on the question of who is my neighbour nor on the different characters in the story... His question for us today was

What can I do for my neighbour

In many communities the answer to that could be as simple as just getting to know them their names... Giving just a few minutes in your day as your in the lift to talk. the simplest thing can often be the most profound....

There is a song that isn't sang to often now but one we sung a lot at school..it asks  when I needed a neighbour were you there.

maybe one day we will start to get the question right and begging to ask what can I do for my neighbour. and the creed and the colour and the name wont matter..