Greenbelt - part two

Greenbelt Communion
Originally uploaded byJude Adam.

Last Sunday at Greenbelt we watched the Communion service, with cups of chai, on the big screen in the arena overflow. The Israelites fleeing from Egypt was interpreted in terms of liberation with political implications for today. In the afternoon I went to a meeting that looked at the lamenting and imprecatory psalms where we were encouraged to bring to God our anger from hurts and injustice. I then explored the installations in the New Forms Café, listened in on an impressive short all age service there and visited the labyrinth. After all that I met Nettes and Callie for a meal at the Performance Café. This time we heard the haunting vocals of Levi Weaver who IMHO musically was the best I heard all weekend.

Monday was a Callie day. We looked round the exhibition stalls and bookshop in the mud but thankfully undercover from most of the rain. In the afternoon we went to a Godly Play session to see some of the wonderful resources that this children’s ministry offers. Finally it was off to some children’s theatre with Callie. Exhausted by the evening all three of us went back to our tent realising that we had never bothered to go to the mainstage.

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Greenbelt - part one

Teepee village
Originally uploaded by Roger Saner.

Last weekend we went to Greenbelt. We got up early and arrived at Cheltenham racecourse just after the opening time and there were already thousands of people there - even a few in teepees. In the evening I went to a PowerPoint workshop at the Tank – Greenbelt’s cyber-café – for some tips on technique. And then I dropped into the New Forms Café for a snack, with worship happening in the background. My destination was a gig by Fuse Factory – whose fast paced video-jockeyed images had me transfixed. Projecting on gossamer meant that their singer could walk into and behind images.

I started Saturday early with Celtic style worship from Wild Goose interspersed with contemporary stories of slavery from Christian Aid. Later I went to short session by Revelation – a DJ/dance outfit from Bristol – that used songs that we sing at our church... club style. After lunch in the New Forms Café I had a chance to get a coffee and network with a very wide variety of people involved in creative worship. I had to pick up Callie from her children’s meeting just as we were going to have communion. In the evening I joined in a beautiful Taize worship session that included a very moving few minutes of silence.

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Off to Greenbelt

We’re off to Greenbelt again this year. There are some very impressive mainstage acts such as Kevin Max (from DC talk), Martin Joseph, and All Star United not to mention Randy Stonehill relegated to a lesser stage! It’s a pity T-Bone Burnett has pulled out. Mike Rimmer recommended him to me as a must see act. Last year we found that the performance café was a good place to eat. I like the sound of the artists that are playing there this year such as Levi Weaver, Note for a Child and Shawn McDonald. But I am very interested that the new forms worship venue this year is referred to as New Forms Café. It looks like a really good place to hang out in order to experience some creative worship experiences. I’m not sure if I’ll make it to start the day with Noel Moules with the Burn Band – a vineyard worship group – but it does look good. Nettes has got a few acts she wants to take Callie too but I think Callie will also get a couple of sessions in the children’s area leaving us both free to explore. Perhaps we’ll see the stilt walker or the acrobats. I’ll let you know how we get on.

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The Miracles of Jesus

On Sunday evening I recorded the first part of this new three part BBC One docudrama: The Miracles of Jesus. I was very impressed. Rather than trying to give other explanations for the miracles it actually looked at what the miracles would have meant to the people of the first centaury. I felt that it was very cleverly scripted so that it would appeal to those of us who believe that the miracles were historical fact but at the same time not to alienate those that didn’t. But it was not the denouncing of the fact of the miracles that I feared it would be. Interestingly, the presenter said that the scholarly emphasis is moving away from this towards what he was presenting that was really a biblical exposition of the miracles that was very evangelical in its approach. Jesus miracles were references to or re-enactments of many of the miracles that had already occurred in the Bible. The feeding of the 5000 echoed the manna in the desert. The walking on water echoed Joshua crossing the Jordon. But other miracles like the calming of storm said even more pointing to Jesus actually being divine. I’m setting my video again to record part two this week.

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Holy Spirit

Last Sunday I actually got our churches main meeting. In the last few weeks I’ve been I’ve either been on Sunday school, crèche or visiting friends. All of which I’ve enjoyed very much and I’ve not felt like I’m missing out. But it is good to get back home, as it were.

Anyway, during our worship a number of us were bringing our prepared and spontaneous contributions in prophecy and prayer. These are precious times for us as a community of those baptised in the Holy Spirit to use these gifts. During this time the Holy Spirit clearly encouraged us to reawaken the visions he has given us in the past and that with his power we can accomplish them

It was also good to then hear Mike Rimmer speak from John 14 on how the Holy Spirit is to us now as Jesus was to the first disciples. He is there to answer our difficult questions and to lead us into peace. Mike encouraged us to allow the Holy Spirit into all our lives – not just church life overcoming the sacred and secular divide.

It’s good to be reminded in so many ways of the importance of our relationship with the Holy Spirit.

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Blah!

On Tuesday I went to the ‘Blah!’ tour at Birmingham Cathedral hosted by the Church Missionary Society that was looking into a new grassroots movement that is emerging that calls itself the Emerging Church. Not that I am thinking of defecting at all, I hasten to add! I feel that we as charismatics with apostolic links are in an extremely good place with God. Yet I do think it is good to look at what is happening around the body of Christ to see what we can learn from it to bring back to our own churches.

Ryan Bolger co-author of the book Emerging Churches outlined the findings from his research about how many churches are revising their practices in attempts to be more relevant to their culture. The churches that he looked at the US & UK are investigating their own culture and getting everyone involved in designing new ways of outworking the New Testament in today’s world. I felt that there is much that they are doing resonated with our own values as a church: the emphasis on following Jesus not just as saviour but as a role model, hospitality, community, kingdom, etc.

I feel that an emphasis that is relatively new to us that we can learn from this movement is the importance of creativity reflecting God as a creator. For instance, this was illustrated in the worship sessions by the use of spoken mediations over ambient background music with some enthralling video images. Anxieties about dodgy theology were alleviated by the assurance from those presenting stories from their churches that they are expressing the historic faith just in different ways. One leader Karen Ward explained how her church is using both ancient traditions and contemporary styles in their worship but only as far as they felt that these were consistent with Christ.

I think, used sensitively and with discernment, creative elements such as these could be a way forward.

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The Eastern Bride

I just heard that Open Doors have won an award for this film that brings attention to the restrictions on Christians expressing their faith in both China and the Middle East. It is a drama about two westerners who travel to these parts of the world and experience these effects first hand. By all accounts it is a stunning film.

I am impressed generally by the work of Open Doors in promoting awareness of how the Christian church is persecuted throughout the world. There is plenty of information on their sites. Hopefully these are stimulated us in the relatively persecution free parts of the world to pray for Christians who are suffering. As well as moving into action those who might otherwise have stood by and allowed these things to happen.

I am thrilled that in our church we now has an Open Doors rep. A few weeks ago in our small group we had an excellent time learning about the situation in China and praying for Christians there.

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Extreme Prophetic

When we were in Winchester our friends told us about this website. Extreme Prophetic contains teachings and stories about what is happening in the churches that relate to Patricia King’s ministry based in America. The most intriguing part of this are a few videos that relate to a phenomena of gemstones being found apparently miraculously. There is an account of one man finding a number of gemstones in his garden while having a vision of an angel placing them there for him. There is a shot of him finding it. These videos are part of a sort of video blog of Patricia’s. These are all very recent phenomena. Patricia relates it to a prophecy about God doing miracles this summer. Apparently they’ve just had a big conference where people began to find smaller gemstones on the floor where they were meeting. The hard evidence appears to rule out mass hallucination – of course it could all be a fake – but these appear to be godly Christian people who want to give all the glory to God.

Please have a look and let me know what you think of it.

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A Healing Trend?

Nettes and Callie were on holiday this week in the Isle of Wight with a very good friend of Callie’s (with her mummy too) but I was still at work. I've been reading about Jesus sending out the disciples to heal and preach and getting excited about stories such as this one. A Christian stall for talking to people about faith and to pray for them by laying-on-of-hands... at a new age festival!

I went to meet Nettes and Callie at the weekend in Winchester where we stayed with some old friends of Nettes. We went with everyone to Winchester Family Church with which we were very impressed. Callie enjoyed the Sunday school for pre-schoolers.

The church is part of New Frontiers and is cast in traditional charismatic style but nowadays of course the preacher uses PowerPoint. There was plenty of praying for the sick in response to specific words from God and a couple of testimonies to healings that occurred during that time. The general feeling was that this was something that was an increasing trend.

How did I feel about all this? Well I’d love to do a stint on a stall like the one I’d been reading about during the week.

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Calligraphy

During one of the special times Nettes and I get together to pray in more creative ways that we have dubbed our Sacred Space we were writing out phrases in different calligraphy styles with lots of different papers and pens. This week in our prayer times we had been meditating on the fact that God gives us life. And at the start of our Sacred Space I got some dry bark from the garden and we were contemplating how God gives us life and without God we are like this dried up bark.

I then found this phrase that I liked and wanted to calligraphy in a book called the Wisdom of Solomon. This is a book in the apocrypha and although I don’t believe that it is inspired like the Bible, I think there are plenty of good thoughts there. As I drew these words I was struck by the fact that God made us to receive eternal life because we were made to be like him. Not that I have an immortal soul just because I am human but that God has given me this everlasting life by his grace.

Wow!

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The Lord’s Table

On the thirteen year old tape of David Mansell’s that I recently found, he is talking about the breaking of bread.

His basic message was that breaking of bread is not just as symbol but that it is a spiritual reality. God is really in it – although not chemically as though the bread and wine were Jesus literal flesh and blood – but by faith. As we eat bread and drink wine we receive realities not just symbols. It is the body of Christ. Jesus provides the food at his table and he is the food – his flesh is meat indeed and his blood is drink indeed.

His exhortation was to refocus church life so that the Lord’s Table is central rather than the pulpit. We are invited to be with him it is not for us to invite him to our meetings. He was encouraging us to see the breaking of bread as the primary reason for the church to get together rather than to see it as something that is tagged onto our meetings once in a while.

I don’t usually find it easy to listen and take notes of someone talking for a whole hour. But it was gripping stuff.

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Bread of Life

Bread @ Morton's The Steakhouse
Originally uploaded by Miss Peach.

At last I'm back on line! I'm uploading the last few blog entries that were made offline in my spiritual journal. This includes thoughts about last Sundays meeting. For a bit of fun I've included a relevant photo from flickr.

Last Sunday Barry Fitzpatrick - who has a pastoral role towards our church - was speaking on the bread of life from John 6. He was saying that Christ himself is the true and living bread and that nothing can be a substitute for him, not even bible-study, prayer or church! Though these are good things that we should take part in, they can get in the way of us experiencing the living bread from heaven. Just as bread was a staple food in the middle-east - no potatoes or even rice for them then - so Christ is the staple food for Christians today. Only this divine bread can be truly satisfying. And only this bread endures for all eternity. It was truly inspiring talk.

In the evening I was searching through some old tapes in the bottom of a drawer and found an old tape of David Mansell talking about the breaking of bread that I remember was excellent too. I'm really looking forward to listening to that.

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Multi-Sensory Pentecost

Nettes and I set aside time regularly to be together with God. This often takes the form of what we call a “Sacred Space”. We create an atmosphere of calm (not known at any other time in our house!) using throws, cushions, relaxing music, incense, candles etc. They are very special times to us and we have had some great encounters with God through them.

Last night we used this time to celebrate the coming of the Spirit. We started, as we often do, by praying - in British Sign Language - for the Holy Spirit to come. Another aid to prayer which we often use is a labyrinth, printed on paper. Tracing the path into the middle, pausing to listen to God, and then bringing the line back out, helps focus our minds on who God is and what he wants from us. Last night, as we did this we began to contemplate the work of the Holy Spirit, and were reminded on the outward path of our task to take God’s message out into the world, as the disciples did after that first outpouring. I found it strangely exhilarating. We also made fans and used them together with poetic liturgy to reflect on the wind of the Holy Spirit.

But the climax of the night was melting ice cubes – in which we had embedded chains – over a candle. We were praying for God to melt our hearts preparing us to receive his power. Melting the ice was slower and trickier than we thought it was going to be. It was a powerful image of God’s patience and gentleness. It reflected the persistence with which he works to enable us to see his power in our lives. We talked about what his empowering means to us and how we limit it. Finally, we broke bread, anointed each other and asked God for this empowering.

Over an hour had passed. It was very late but, as always when we have these times, the hour had flown by. Why do we so often think spending time with God is hard?

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23rd Psalm

We've just been discussing Psalm 23 in our small group bible study. We discovered a pattern that most of the psalms follow. We talked about how God can renew our souls as we sit silently in his presence. But what was really striking was walking through the dark valley. We saw that difficult situations are often the pivotal in the psalms. It isn’t until we go through it that a lot of the things in the psalm make much sense. Until then they can sound a bit like pat answers of happy-clappy people. After going through the time when we might rail at God, God leads us back to a second naivety. God is not just with us when we are happy; God is with us now in the middle of the problems. It is not that we can fulfil God’s purposes when we overcome the circumstances. Overcoming the circumstances is what the Christian life is all about. It is in the middle of this that we can know eternal life – a quality of life that we experience now as we deal with the dark valley of difficulties.

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3:16

I really enjoyed taking notes from Anna’s talk this morning at church on what it means to be born again. I find that some talks produce more questions than answers – which, I hasten to add - I don’t think is a bad thing at all. The term born again was used by Jesus when speaking to one Pharisee privately who unlike the others was obviously a spiritual seeker. The Pharisees were hypocrites, judgemental, arrogant and narrow-minded. Perhaps today that is this how people sees ‘born again’ Christians? May be the term ‘born again’ has comes to represent all that some people loathe and fear in the same way the word Pharisee has?

But how would Nicodemus have understood the term? Anna discussed this well. She explained that born of the Spirit means our spirit is reborn… when we are most in sync with the Spirit we are most fulfilled… Jesus is the mediator for us in this experience… God is not monotheistic alone... Brilliant!

Yet I am left wondering to what extent we should understand ‘born again’ to refer to a process rather than a crisis. A journey rather than a destination? Perhaps conversations are more important than conversions after all?

Just a thought.

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Communication

Communication problems can be frustrating! In all organisations communication is an important key to getting things done whether its college or some other workplace, church or any organisation. I was recently teaching my access class about two major communication patterns in group dynamics. Some organisations to some extent restrict there communication to hierarchies. So messages are passed down in the form of instructions and up in the form of reporting back. But it is easy to miss people leaving them disgruntled. But more recent wisdom is seeing the value of another pattern – one in which everyone is encouraged to communicate with everyone else. This is increasingly becoming practical with email. I think this must be the way forward.

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School Prayers

Callie has been accepted in the Nursery of a school just round the corner from us. We’ve been searching through Ofsted reports, prospectuses and websites but eventually thought the school nearest her was the best choice. One interesting fact about living in Birmingham is that it is so multi-cultural. So it’s not surprising that the valuing of each other's culture is given a high priority in the school. Great! But in England all school children take part in a daily act of collective worship. Will our multi-cultural locality mean that the worship is not as Christian as in some areas? In the school where Callie will be going there is collective worship in the classrooms three times a week. And during their time there the children also have the opportunity to visit places of worship not just a church building but also a mosque, a synagogue and the gurdwara. Now at home we have taught Callie about our Christian faith and read her Bible stories everyday. Of course we do have the choice to withdraw her from collective worship and not go on the trips. But could these experiences actually be good in helping her to develop her own robust faith? We’ll have to see.

Staying Alive

I found this article interesting. Its about Twelve Australian celebrities sharing their tips on how they have kept their energy and vitality into old age.

• They eat low fat healthy diets.
• They are pro-active in having health checks and prompt in taking any necessary action.
• They watch their weight.
• They are non-smokers.
• They take regular exercise.
• They keep their brain active.
• They take care of their skin by staying out of hot sun and used sun-block.
• They cope with stress both by taking exercise and using relaxation techniques.
• They are early risers - grasping life with both hands.
• They are active in the community in charity and voluntary work.
• They refuse to look back on their lives with regrets that will only make them miserable.
• They are always working on some project that is a challenge to them.
• They all have some belief in something greater than themselves whether they call that God or not.
• They are very positive in their attitude although they are honest in admitting negative thoughts and tough times they have dealt with them well.
• They value their health.
• They are committed to doing what they want to do.

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Come Alive This Easter

Jesus came alive physcially so that we can come alive spiritually

This year Nettes and I organised our church's Easter service. We wanted to tell the story of Jesus going to the cross and rising again in some fresh and interesting ways. So as well as some standard readings and songs & hymns – like Hosanna (with the kids processing with streamers) – we also had two or three multi-sensory activities. For the ‘kids slot’ Nettes did a cookery demonstration of resurrection cookies. The ingredients tell the Easter story and the cookies are hollow representing the empty tomb. We also had a table at the front to which people brought items that depicted Jesus agonies on the cross such as a crown of thorns, an alarm clock to represent sleeplessness and a black box to represent horror. Nettes had made a cross for the table – not something we usually have in our church. But first we told the story through a PowerPoint display using paintings of scenes leading up to the cross with sound effects. We watched and listened to these with the lights out. The effect was stunning.

Later that day, as a family, Nettes & I had our Easter dinner of roast lamb and broke bread.

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Weekend Away

Last weekend our church had a weekend away at Cloverley Hall with Ian Rossol from Together as our guest speaker. One Friday evening Nettes tells me he spoke about transparency. I was putting Callie to bed reading her the raising of Lazarus from her Bible story book.

On Saturday morning there was a choice of workshops. I went to the one on evangelism. Among other things we did a good role play that highlighted for me the importance of listening sensitively to other people’s views on God.

Ian Rossol then spoke about intimacy with God and how God wants to spend time with us. This was encouraging because our church recently did our second 24-hours-of-prayer. Ian also said, ‘There is a hurting world out there that is waiting for the church to emerge’.

In the evening we had a variety performance in which Nettes read the children’s book A Squash and a Squeeze with me acting out the old lady some kids being the animals. Callie was the hen.

On Sunday morning Ian spoke about on ‘Christ Jesus is riding forth in victory’ and how he is inviting us as a church together to join him. After lunch we had a time of breaking bread.

A good time was had by all.