Lent »

(HT: http://jonnybaker.blogs.com/jonnybaker/2010/02/watch-me.html)

I was with a chapel last week; small in membership who seem to often have this attitude. Sometimes it does not work and their are personality clashes etc etc.

But how refreshing to be among people who who say ‘Why not?’ or ‘we could have a go’ rather than ‘it won’t work’, ‘ah yes, but’ or ‘please- we just like it as it is’.

 

Lent »

 (HT: http://miketodd.typepad.com/ 15/2/10).

As I face this week, perhaps this would be a better mantra than ‘hold on to what you’ve got’, ’stay safe’, ‘of course we need to look after ourselves’ or ‘be realistic’.

But mate, you’ve got to live in the real world.

Hang on, it’s Lent, What Would Jesus Do……..

Lent, quotations »

So I’m trying to write/brainstorm stuff about what I wrote yesterday. It is far too scary. Time to procrastinate some, surf the web a bit. I hit http://thisfragiletent.wordpress.com/ which I find to be always a good port in a storm.

He puts this on his blog:-

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool;
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental;
To reach out for another is to risk involvement
To expose feeling is to risk exposing your true self.

To place your ideas and your dreams
before the crowd is to risk their loss
To love is to risk not being loved in return
To live is to risk dying
To hope is to risk despair
To try is to risk failure.

But risk must be taken,
because the greatest hazard in life
is to risk nothing
The person who risks nothing, does nothing,
has nothing and is nothing;
They may avoid suffering and sorrow,
but they simply cannot learn,
feel change, grow, love, Live
Chained by their certitude, they are a slave,
they have forfeited freedom;
Only the person who risks is free.

Author unknown

Ever felt that God is ‘having a larf’?!

Oh well, back to three sentences a day…

Lent, church, godstuff, quotations »

I don’t normally blog about local church stuff here. That is mostly because I find it dull reading on other blogs. Also, if it is by a minister/pastor/priest I tend to think ‘This is your blog, your personal private blog, that you do in your own time and you are blogging about local church stuff? Get. A. Life. Develop an interest, a hinterland- anything’. There are notable exceptions that manage to do this really well- most of which link here (eg http://goodinparts.blogspot.com/ to name but one).

However…

A church I am minister of (sounds much better than ‘my church’- it is God’s- wake up stupid) recently said as part of other stuff that it wanted to look at changing it’s service time and was open to doing something different with that slot to take account of people who don’t yet come to worship and also to do something about discipleship instead of Sundays being about a passive audience. I find this pretty major…

I’ve been brooding on this quote for a few weeks:-

‘… There are two types of DNA in churches. One type of church says ‘we exist to have our personal spiritual needs met’, the other ‘we exist to impact our locality and the world with the gospel of the grace of God in Christ’. The first type is a stalled church’.

(http://timchester.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/ten-reasons-why-churches-stall/)

I don’t like the typology of ‘two types’- there are more, but the guy has a point. I am getting more hardline on the point that we don’t exist to bless ourselves, but others. Worship/church can never be our own private ghetto….but we so want it to be – faced with the possibility of moving to this, I find many responses like Winston in ‘1984′ ‘Don’t do it to me- do it to Julia’.

I find it major, but also very scary. It is like I have been advocating for getting onto the diving board and someone suddenly saying ‘We are here- show us how to jump’. I’m more used to arguing that we should be there. And now we are there….

Of course, there is many a slip ‘twixt cup and lip- this openness could disappear at the next church meeting. But still…..exciting and very scary times…

Eric Cantona, Lent, football »

This may be fanciful, but sometimes I see the missionary God as a class football winger, throwing endless patient crosses into the box.

And I sometimes see me as a particularly duff striker: often looking the wrong way, or seeing hefty defenders and backing off or just plain missing the ball.

To be a good striker I think you have to have a degree of inner stillness to sense the ball coming and then a readiness to act and go for it: I often wish I had more courage….