I confess; I now tweet (@revgpp if you are interested. The number of my followers is well below the number added on the day of Pentecost. In fact they would comfortably fit in a small room). I started as I had a training day this week on the Church and social media. Interesting process; small group, someone you respect leads, shows you the possibilities, does not preach at you, but enthuses without gushing and you end up taking a new direction….. there must be something in that for evangelism….somewhere.

I also facebook and as you are reading this, you must know that I blog. Why? I like it, but also, as our trainer suggested, I am unconsciously building a hinterland. Preaching to your constituency and being chaplain to them has some value, but doing that 100% of your time means almost no cutting edge (although paradoxically it may lead to a higher role/respect within the institution). It also means that when you assail the world; well it can feel like an assault. At its best, social media allows you to show yourself quirks and all: be wary of the Christian whose every tweet or facebook post shows only glory.

A minister I used to know in the 80s had a florid and sometimes archaic  use of English, but one word I do remember him using a lot was ‘winsome’. He meant that if anyone was going to be interested in following Jesus, they were far more likely to be attracted if you respected them and their territory; if you took off your shoes and regarded them as holy ground. I guess Facebook and Twitter is part of being ‘winsome’; the message I got was don’t just tweet ‘Repent or die’ but share your life; show that you are ordinary, real and open. And then tell them to ‘Repent or die’. Erm…..

And then someone asked the trainer a question like ‘But I don’t want to bother and no one in my church uses social media.’ I think he answered back something like ‘It would be like refusing to use the wheel for transport ’

Go on…follow me…you know you want to….

I have had this quote stored in my ‘drafts’ file for ages. I am not quite sure where I got it from (Exiles by M.Frost?), but it is a true quote and not a preacher’s one. Neither is it from the ‘evangelical exaggeration’ end of the spectrum (I could do many posts on that...)

It is a direct quote from an East German communist leader  after the fall of the wall. The final impetutus for this fall came from the growth and morphing of a prayer meeting which began in Leipzig in E.Germany with 6 people at a prayer meeting. He said:-

 ‘We had planned everything, we were prepared for everything, but not for singing and prayers.’

Even though I have moved a long way from ‘victory’ language and ‘heavenly shields of mighty and glorious intercession’, it does remind me that when all else is pressing, it can’t be allowed to squeeze out the essential core.  Yet I  rarely assess how ‘good’ I am by how still and prayerful I am…..

(Yes: worship in a cricket ground. Surely a foretaste of the heavenly banquet…)

On Sunday, I was part of a group that threw a party. The once a month worship thingy that I am part of in the village hall was 6 years old. I am never sure with these things how long they will last, so I am pleasantly suprised to be at this stage….and have no illusions of permanence; I feel that a post christian society needs lots of hesitant experiments- some may ‘work’ for a while, others may morph, others may die. This makes ministry an exhilarating ride with lots of peaks and troughs: sometimes following each other within minutes. It also exercises creativity to exhaustion sometimes…. but that is another story….

Together with other stuff I am part of (eg a ‘Messy Church’) we ran worship in another venue (our original was booked…..but it was kind of cool, having as an ‘altar’ a bar) and then had a fun day for people who came, had come in the past, may come in the future or who have no intention in coming ever. The weather was ‘North Yorkshire summer’: boggy ground and a biting westerly wind, so on a brighter day more may have come. A handful of people gave lots of time and money for it to happen.

What I loved was the idea of a free party: ‘How much is it?’ ‘It is free: come in.’ ‘Free?  A party that was open to whoever came; friends, enemies (there were a few in the same room), committed, not yet committed and freeloaders.

I live in a lovely community…. but in this community I often think of the scripture passage that goes something like ‘If you invite only those that invite you; what good is that? Even the pagans do that.’ It is friendly but outsiders see it as cliquey; it probably is…. ‘I invite them as they have invited me…I mix with those like me.’ So I love being part of things that try to demonstrate outrageous grace and go beyond social obligation. It was rather appropriate then, that the passage for the day was one of my all time favourites: Acts 10- where Peter is urged to go beyond the norms.

On Sunday, I read this phrase from another blog that really resonated with me and the day:-

‘Hope is hearing the music of the future; faith is dancing to it today’.

(http://bigcircumstance.com/2012/05/12/sermon-future-glory-and-present-living/)

I spent a lot of time last week trying to get through routine admin. Looking at my in tray I have a lot more to do. It seems to grow and grow and grow. It is part of what I do, but it can eclipse major areas of what I am supposed to do and be. It can lead to long periods of ‘trying to get things done’ to the exclusion of ‘being what you are supposed to be’. At least I have found that to be the case.

I have been turning these 4 propositions over in my head. They are not new or original; wiser heads have written on them and I have touched on them. In fact they are more polemic than proposition.

(1) If I don’t have unhurried periods of time alone and still before God, I begin to think that I’m in charge and the Kingdom begins with me and my efforts.

(2) No minister I know of boasts of sleeping around, embezzling funds or abusing their bodies with illicit substances (although over eating and not exercising is a non sin apparently), so why is it considered acceptable to talk publicly about how hard you are working and that you rarely have a day off? On the 7th day God rested; if it was good enough for Him……

(3) If you always looked stressed and hassled and seem so busy that you never really have time for people, then what does that say about the Kingdom you are trying to recommend? Would anyone really want to join it if that was life in all its fullness?

(4) One man died for the Church. We don’t need another one to do so.

2 minutes, 50 words, simple music, space and very well done. Whoever did this has got it right; I think it is wonderful and thought provoking.

However, just as a magnet attracts any junk with a bit of metal in, the youtube comments have attracted the usual trolls, PEOPL WHO MISSSPELL AND USE !!!!!! and Christians with a serious humour bypass….sometimes I despair…

nb: hoping for sun today- planning to throw a massive party/funday in the open air for anyone who will come….

It is so true….The first 3 lines could be a life of Jesus….without the crucifixion. The whole could be a parable of a life following Jesus- you want to hold out and follow, but reality kicks in and you settle for a quiet life, hence the last two lines.

I would dearly like to stay in the first 3 and find a group to provoke me and support me in staying….. I guess that is why there is such a thing as ‘church’…… although most often we feel most comfortable in line 6….

It is impossible to listen to stroking a metaphorical beard and nodding sagely…

I don’t often talk about what I do on here. Mostly what goes on here is just stuff whirring around my head that I need a place to ‘park’ ; as Pulp once sagely said ‘Why live in the world when you can live in your head?’ Also, I want to protect people I work with: it is not right that individuals are blogged about.

However, this week, something small and wonderful happened. One of the churches I work with used to have a youth fellowship. It effectively wound up around 2008; I am not sure latterly how it helped people who came into deeper discipleship (it is depressing removing people from church membership years later who were made members too early and ceased to have any real contact with the worshipping community shortly after: I regret continuing this practice) but I found it heartbreaking when it happened.

We took a handful of people aged 12-15 that we have contact with to a cafe service in a coffee shop last week. The service was shambolic and noisy, but full of integrity (I have been to too many official church services that were ordered and flowed but seemed more like a performance). I didn’t sing many of the songs; not so much that they were Hillsong-y types but because I had never heard of them. The worship was good: people had space to listen and others who weren’t up for it had a safe space to hang out in. I wish ‘adult’ worship spaces could be more like that: space for those who feel close to worship and space for those who who don’t feel close but want ‘something’ just to hang out.

Another leader spoke to the group we had bought: would they be interested to know more/meet up next Tuesday? They answered ‘yes’….a few quick emails to let those who lead the church know that a young person’s activity was taking place, a brief safeguarding check and a small handful met this week. Leading it took me by suprise (I made the plastercine hand above during something that we did together)- not the enjoyment we had, but the feeling of total happiness I experienced afterwards. I had forgotten that feeling of complete happiness: the sense of being used by God, having connnected with people and doing something that felt effortless and fulfilling.

It is early days yet- this may just be a short lived experiment. For now, however, that is enough. 4 years of praying, lamenting, racking our brains and a sudden spark with minimal planning…

I am moving more and more away from big stories/big vision to little things.

I found this quote recently:

‘Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together’.
 Vincent Van Gogh.

I have also been thinking this (it is not a particularly original thought. I have a feeling I picked it up from another blog):-

When I was first a Christian, I was imbued with the spirit around the quote:

‘Attempt great things for God; expect great things from God’

At the time it matched the mood of my late teens and early 20s, although even then I recall suppressed feelings of disquiet. These feelings went something like ‘But I am only little…..and I move in a little world: how?’ Later they morphed into ‘But Jesus was incarnated in a particular place in a particular time. At least part of who he was was about respect for the immediate (little) world that he found himself in. My world is not something to escape from, but something to see as God given….I can affect that world by little actions’.

Then I lived in Wales from 1999-2004 and was once asked to do an assembly on Saint David. I don’t really ‘do’ saints, but I love schools work and I had to research something of his life. Amidst the hagiography and exaggeration I found this phrase which most believe goes back to him:-

‘Gwnewch y pethau bychain mewn bywyd’

Which my poor translation skills make as:-

‘Do the little things in life’

This now makes more sense to me. I cannot ‘overcome’ , ‘acheive my destiny’ , ‘attain full victory’ or any of the unfortunate phrases which distressingly still lurk around mainstream evangelicalism. I can do the little things with God’s help. This in fact is much more challenging; it is far harder to do the little things as the pressures of compromise, avoidance and sheer apathy are far harder to resist in a little world. Much easier are the repitition of big slogans; you learn to avoid little lives, worlds and relationships.

So I was stood there waiting for an important guest to arrive. I got speaking to a local vicar. We spoke about someone who seemed to want to climb up the pole of higher church leadership very fast. ‘He is suffering from initiative-itis’ said this vicar; referring to the desire to come into a place and immediately set off lots of initiatives. Maybe, he mused, it was all about being ‘known’ and ‘seen’.

We mused on the tendency of clerics to want to appear ‘busy’ and active all  the time and he told me this story:-

There was once an incredibly wealthy man. He loved jade and he wanted his son to know all about jade. He approached the world’s leading expert on jade and asked him to teach his son all about jade. After initially demurring, the expert said yes, no doubt swayed by the fee of £10 million pounds for 10 hour long lessons.

Each lesson took the same form; the expert would bring the man’s son into a room. All there was in the room was a chair and a table. On the table was a large piece of jade, covered with a cloth. The lesson would begin with the expert uncovering the piece of jade and saying to the man’s son: ‘Look’. The boy would have to look at the jade for the whole hour: nothing more was said.

After the last lesson, the rich man asked his son what he thought about the lessons. The son said ‘They were a waste of money: all I did was sit and stare at a piece of jade for an hour, and you know what: in the last lesson it wasn’t even a real piece of jade- it was fake.’