In a moment of sheer madness I decided that adding a Personal Trainer qualification to my Sports Massage would be a good idea and might open a door to some potential income while I continue my trying as a therapist. So I signed up for a 4-week intensive course which began this week.
At the time of signing up I didn't realise how much online reading there was going to be. I knew there was some, but it turns out to be more than I imagined. So now I'm trying to learn Pt and Sports Massage and my brain hurts. It hurts a lot.
What this leaves me with is the thought that if only I'd behaved myself and been a a good little minister, then none of this would have happened. I could have continued to think that one day I might do something in the area of sports and bodywork and/or fitness, but never actually needing to apply myself to it. Dreams are easy things with which to live as long as you don't try to realise them.
I, of course, am mad. Completely and utterly mad. No one in their right mind would toss everything in the air at 54 and start over. At 54 you should be planning how you're going to spend your retirement.
So here I sit, after a long and draining week of learning to be a gym instructor (you have to do that first) and then a full day doing MET (that's a massage thing) and I feel like giving it all up as my brain slowly melts as I try and remember my ischial tuberosity from my anterior, inferior iliac spine.
Madness. Sheer madness.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Friday, May 18, 2012
Change-city, an uncomfortable place to visit
I was at a conference a long time ago in the US and the speaker kept referring to Scare-city during his talk. I thought this was some sort of colloquialism that all the Americans understood and I would eventually discover a context as I listened that would make it all clear. Well it did become clear when I realised that he was talking about scarcity not some mythical place called Scare City. The joy of a common language!
On the other hand, Change City is no error in wither pronunciation or hearing, but the place in which I seem to have tank up residence these last few months, and it's far from a comfortable residency I can tell you. Change is always hard, even good change. On Monday I start the intensive four-week part of a personal trainer's qualification. In my crazy, idea overloaded mind, it made good sense a month or so ago. Personal training seemed to fit nicely alongside the massage course and the nutritional stuff. Now I wonder if I've made an error of judgment and taken on too much. Why didn't I just get a job stacking shelves at Tesco or working nights at a hotel. Well because there weren't any for one thing. Add to that the sense of being unemployable, and you get the picture. It's a painful place to be.
Of course, in a year's time when I'm looking for premises for my new clinic and wondering how I'm going to fit all these new clients into my already busy schedule it will all be different. But that's a dream, not even a vision, at the moment and there is no promise of reality.
Somehow I have to find a way of living with the sense of failure and the fear of future failure that surround me in this oddly named city in which I've taken up residence. I need to get to know the neighbours. The one thing all the inhabitants of change have in common is the insecurity of what bough them here. Some are fearless in their pursuit of a new outcome, others are more tentative, hurt by their past and paralysed by their present, they can't see very far into the future. But you can't settle down in a place of change, you can only adjust to the pace of change. Change will go on around you, whether you want it to or not.
I want the change. I want to explore this confused and incomplete idea that church can be more than just a gathering of equally disappointed people who think the world is a dangerous place and needs to adapt to us before we adapt to it. But I'm not a good adapter.
Well it's time to stop rambling and at the very least help this bee that can't adapt to glass and is stuck in our new dining room tiring itself out in a win attempt to fly through the invisible barrier that confronts it.
Makes me wonder what my invisible barrier is. The existence of which would at least explain the headache!
On the other hand, Change City is no error in wither pronunciation or hearing, but the place in which I seem to have tank up residence these last few months, and it's far from a comfortable residency I can tell you. Change is always hard, even good change. On Monday I start the intensive four-week part of a personal trainer's qualification. In my crazy, idea overloaded mind, it made good sense a month or so ago. Personal training seemed to fit nicely alongside the massage course and the nutritional stuff. Now I wonder if I've made an error of judgment and taken on too much. Why didn't I just get a job stacking shelves at Tesco or working nights at a hotel. Well because there weren't any for one thing. Add to that the sense of being unemployable, and you get the picture. It's a painful place to be.
Of course, in a year's time when I'm looking for premises for my new clinic and wondering how I'm going to fit all these new clients into my already busy schedule it will all be different. But that's a dream, not even a vision, at the moment and there is no promise of reality.
Somehow I have to find a way of living with the sense of failure and the fear of future failure that surround me in this oddly named city in which I've taken up residence. I need to get to know the neighbours. The one thing all the inhabitants of change have in common is the insecurity of what bough them here. Some are fearless in their pursuit of a new outcome, others are more tentative, hurt by their past and paralysed by their present, they can't see very far into the future. But you can't settle down in a place of change, you can only adjust to the pace of change. Change will go on around you, whether you want it to or not.
I want the change. I want to explore this confused and incomplete idea that church can be more than just a gathering of equally disappointed people who think the world is a dangerous place and needs to adapt to us before we adapt to it. But I'm not a good adapter.
Well it's time to stop rambling and at the very least help this bee that can't adapt to glass and is stuck in our new dining room tiring itself out in a win attempt to fly through the invisible barrier that confronts it.
Makes me wonder what my invisible barrier is. The existence of which would at least explain the headache!
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
It's not as bad you think it is!
On the way home last night I caught a little bit of a Radio Four programme about society. In a nutshell the discussion centred around the theme that society is getting worse and we're destined to destruction. There were arguments for, and there were arguments against.
What was interesting was that there was also some discussion about how we are programmed to pay attention to negative stimuli. For example, if you're wandering around the African pain and someone shouts, "Lion!" you take notice. If they said, "It's been four days and I haven't seen a lion," you'll probably ignore that and go about your foraging.
Setting aside arguments about evolution, I think this has profound implications for being good news people. If we too are predisposed to hear the negative above the positive, then we will look at the world around us and conclude that it's getting worse, but we'll take another step. We will add a layer of Biblical interpretation to that perspective and conclude that this is the way it will be and there' little to be done about it expect wait for the inevitable day of judgement.
But even that is not all we do. We assume that everyone else sees the same inevitable decline all them and has a similar sense of despair. We offer hope against this interpretive background, but what if it's not true? What if things are actually better than they once were? What shape our hope then?
Now I'm fully aware of what the Bible says about the future and how we can understand that. I know that judgement is coming, but our anecdotal evidence for a worsening society and a theology predicated upon that may not hold up to inspection.
Here's another thought. John Kramp in his book Out of their faces and into their shoes makes an interesting point when he suggests that the so-called lost (I prefer Jim Henderson's "missing" to lost) are in fact quite happy. In other words, people who do not share our faith position are not as miserable as we think they should be!
Because we are predisposed to react to the negative more than the positive, we more easily reinterpret things within that negative context. We may not mean to do it, but do it we do.
So here's my question: How would our mission look if we took a more positive view of the people around us? If we all, and I mean all, carry the image of God, then how do we celebrate that in the people we meet?
Maybe, after the celebration, we'll find a way of pointing them to a fuller expression of that image in Christ, rather than offer him as a get out jail free card.
Monday, May 14, 2012
First prayer adventure
Yesterday, Sunday, Anne and I ventured out into our new community to walk around and to pray a little. We're going to take as much time as it takes to figure out what to do next before we begin anything church-like. We have no fixed model to apply and no fixed agenda to follow. We do have a vision, but aren't making plans beyond taking a few simple steps.
The first thing we are doing is to settle down into life in the new house and new community. We'll try to get to know the neighbours and seek out people of peace with whom we can build relationships. How do we do this? We have no idea! All we know is that we are not looking for a place to hold a Sunday morning worship event.
There's already a sense of home about the place. Even the cats seem remarkably settled to the new house. Once the carpets are down and the boxes unpacked, it will feel so much different.
Without all the trapping of legacy church life, it's quite a challenge to think about how you go about being the presence of Christ in a community. To be honest, the traditional pattern of church probably gives us a false sense of security about our profile in a place. Asking yourself what church might look like for this community is probably a good place to start, but so easily confused with what we think from an insiders perspective.
Our dream, our vision, is to see a group of people, gathered in community, doing life and faith together, engaged in the mission of God. It really is that simple. How hard can it be?!
The first thing we are doing is to settle down into life in the new house and new community. We'll try to get to know the neighbours and seek out people of peace with whom we can build relationships. How do we do this? We have no idea! All we know is that we are not looking for a place to hold a Sunday morning worship event.
There's already a sense of home about the place. Even the cats seem remarkably settled to the new house. Once the carpets are down and the boxes unpacked, it will feel so much different.
Without all the trapping of legacy church life, it's quite a challenge to think about how you go about being the presence of Christ in a community. To be honest, the traditional pattern of church probably gives us a false sense of security about our profile in a place. Asking yourself what church might look like for this community is probably a good place to start, but so easily confused with what we think from an insiders perspective.
Our dream, our vision, is to see a group of people, gathered in community, doing life and faith together, engaged in the mission of God. It really is that simple. How hard can it be?!
Fixed heating
I'm tempted to claim that I fixed the heating, but I didn't do anything other than poke around in the wiring centre to see what was going on. Having had no pump running and no apparent reason for said lack of action, I left the programmer running and yesterday morning I suddenly realised I could hear the pump running! We've had a few noises in the system this boring, but it seems to be firing up and working after a fashion.
Curtains are up in the bedroom, so we can sleep in the dark now! My next job is to get on with some studying for my courses, but practically speaking, I need to sort out a damaged stair riser and start planning how to level the floor in the kitchen diner. Plywood and self-levelling compound are the order of the day. Getting the cooker out of its rather tight gap will be a challenge. If I had the time and inclination, I'd adjust the gap, but it's only a matter of 2 millimetres and I don''t think it's quite worth the effort.
After that, it's tiling and retouching the paintwork that got damaged during the moving process. Sad to say we have yet to encounter a removal company that actually take as much care of our possessions as they say they will. Maybe we just get assigned to the fact that things will get damaged, but it's frustrating to not be told and to discover it for your self. Does an apology really cost that much?
Curtains are up in the bedroom, so we can sleep in the dark now! My next job is to get on with some studying for my courses, but practically speaking, I need to sort out a damaged stair riser and start planning how to level the floor in the kitchen diner. Plywood and self-levelling compound are the order of the day. Getting the cooker out of its rather tight gap will be a challenge. If I had the time and inclination, I'd adjust the gap, but it's only a matter of 2 millimetres and I don''t think it's quite worth the effort.
After that, it's tiling and retouching the paintwork that got damaged during the moving process. Sad to say we have yet to encounter a removal company that actually take as much care of our possessions as they say they will. Maybe we just get assigned to the fact that things will get damaged, but it's frustrating to not be told and to discover it for your self. Does an apology really cost that much?
Friday, May 11, 2012
As if there were't enough jobs to do!
The chaos of moving is slowly giving way to the chaos of settling in. We're waiting to hear form the capet company about when they are coming to door the floor coverings, so we're not unpacking too many boxes at the moment. We have also begun to think abut a plan for moving stuff around while they fit the carpets and vinyls too! Yes, it would have been easier to have the carpets fitted before we moved in, but that wasn't possible.
We spent yesterday boring hauling boxes into the loft. literally hauling them. I rigged up a hoist with some rope a over a beam and lifted the boxes while Anne was in the loft on the receiving end. She did a grand job with some heavy boxes.
Today the builders finished, so we can now set about the jobs that are down to me to do. I ned to level the kitchen floor before the vinyl arrives and fix a damaged stair riser when I find my wood glue (or buy some more!)
I think the next photo's will be of completed jobs and the carpets down.
And the unwanted job? Well that's the heating system. I got it working at the weekend, but when I put it on the other day it didn't work. I think I've traced the fault to the 3-way value, which looks unpromising for a quick fix. Some valves have replacement heads, but this one looks like a whole value job, which in turn might means raining the whole system down. Might be a job for a plumber, I'll see how I feel.
We spent yesterday boring hauling boxes into the loft. literally hauling them. I rigged up a hoist with some rope a over a beam and lifted the boxes while Anne was in the loft on the receiving end. She did a grand job with some heavy boxes.
Today the builders finished, so we can now set about the jobs that are down to me to do. I ned to level the kitchen floor before the vinyl arrives and fix a damaged stair riser when I find my wood glue (or buy some more!)
I think the next photo's will be of completed jobs and the carpets down.
And the unwanted job? Well that's the heating system. I got it working at the weekend, but when I put it on the other day it didn't work. I think I've traced the fault to the 3-way value, which looks unpromising for a quick fix. Some valves have replacement heads, but this one looks like a whole value job, which in turn might means raining the whole system down. Might be a job for a plumber, I'll see how I feel.
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
Moving Day
Everything is in a box somewhere, and if it's not in a box yet, it will be in the next few hours! It's just before 6:00am and moving day has finally arrived. In 32 years of being married, this will be our 9th move, and for me it will be number 13 overall if you don't count university, 15 if you do! That's an average of just less than 4 years between moves.
I don't like moving!
This time I hope we will be settled for a reasonable length of time, but how long is that? 4, 5 10 years? Who knows! The problem with moving is all the hassle of finding a new home and organising everything. It's quite exciting to go and explore a new place, but the pain of packing up and unpacking can far outweigh the excitement of what's new.
So, in a few hours we will be in our new, not quite finished home a few miles away. Not quite the cross-country move that has been the feature of our lives as we've criss-crossed the Eastern half of Southern and Middle England over these past 32 years. There's still much to do at the house, but it's certainly liveable and the builders should be finished by the end of the week, maybe next week.
Time now for a shower and breakfast, then it's dismantle the book case and wardrobes, take down the network and internet and get over to the new house to clean and prepare for the arrival of the furniture later this afternoon.
I don't like moving!
This time I hope we will be settled for a reasonable length of time, but how long is that? 4, 5 10 years? Who knows! The problem with moving is all the hassle of finding a new home and organising everything. It's quite exciting to go and explore a new place, but the pain of packing up and unpacking can far outweigh the excitement of what's new.
So, in a few hours we will be in our new, not quite finished home a few miles away. Not quite the cross-country move that has been the feature of our lives as we've criss-crossed the Eastern half of Southern and Middle England over these past 32 years. There's still much to do at the house, but it's certainly liveable and the builders should be finished by the end of the week, maybe next week.
Time now for a shower and breakfast, then it's dismantle the book case and wardrobes, take down the network and internet and get over to the new house to clean and prepare for the arrival of the furniture later this afternoon.
Friday, May 04, 2012
How long does a promise take?
For example, there was God’s promise to Abraham. Since there was no one greater to swear by, God took an oath in his own name, saying: “I will certainly bless you, and I will multiply your descendants beyond number.” Then Abraham waited patiently, and he received what God had promised.
Now when people take an oath, they call on someone greater than themselves to hold them to it. And without any question that oath is binding. God also bound himself with an oath, so that those who received the promise could be perfectly sure that he would never change his mind. So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain into God’s inner sanctuary. Jesus has already gone in there for us. He has become our eternal High Priest in the order of Melchizedek.
Heb. 6:13-20
Read this passage yesterday. In the previous section, there was the great promise from God that he does not forget what I have done. It seems that this promise is reaffirmed as God speaks about blessing Abraham. Now I know that these are the words of the writer of the letter, and not God speaking directly and personally. On the other hand, God uses his word, the Bible, to speak directly, so I have no issue with reflecting upon the personal application of these words.
But the key is not the promise of God so much as the patience of Abraham. I know the story, I know how impatient Abraham actually was at the time. It must have been quite an internal struggle.
"Lord, how long do I have to be patient?" I ask this question a lot. Abraham waited a lifetime to see the ultimate expression of God's promise fulfilled. Am I willing to wait that long?
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Thursday, May 03, 2012
Just in time
There are moments when a simple act or word of encouragement comes at just the right time. None more so than when God speaks through the Bible as one reads through it. Here was my "just in time" moment from yesterday:
Now you may not think it means too much, but to me it was a very important moment, and one I would have missed had I not slowed down long enough to read or been rushed into the busyness of the day to have though I could always read it later.
It's not so much the daily discipline of reading that's key, at least not for me, but the systematic reading that's important. I may spend several days pondering this verse, I may read something new. If there's one thing I've learned over the last 30+ years, it's that we don't really dwell in God's word as much as we ought. We move on to today's note, driven by some sort of evangelical legalism designed to prove we are spiritual. In truth, all it actually does is demonstrate how shallow our spirituality has become as we strive to add another star to our loyalty badge.
And I'm no different. My spiritual life is shallow too. I take my encouragement where I can find it.
I'm glad that today I can remind myself that God does not forget what I've spent my life doing for the last 20 years and more, even if it's been less than effective for some.
God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them. (Heb. 6:10)
Now you may not think it means too much, but to me it was a very important moment, and one I would have missed had I not slowed down long enough to read or been rushed into the busyness of the day to have though I could always read it later.
It's not so much the daily discipline of reading that's key, at least not for me, but the systematic reading that's important. I may spend several days pondering this verse, I may read something new. If there's one thing I've learned over the last 30+ years, it's that we don't really dwell in God's word as much as we ought. We move on to today's note, driven by some sort of evangelical legalism designed to prove we are spiritual. In truth, all it actually does is demonstrate how shallow our spirituality has become as we strive to add another star to our loyalty badge.
And I'm no different. My spiritual life is shallow too. I take my encouragement where I can find it.
I'm glad that today I can remind myself that God does not forget what I've spent my life doing for the last 20 years and more, even if it's been less than effective for some.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Lazy or busy?
Do you sometimes find it hard to distinguish busyness from laziness? No. Well that's good. But I'm not sure I can be so certain. Let me explain.
Most of us experience the situation where the job we have to do expands to fit the time we have available. I'm a deadline sort of person and it takes enormous effort to discipline myself to do things before the deadline looms. The thing that helps me is knowing how inefficient working to a deadline can be. The pressure focuses the mind, but you make a lot of mistakes that you would normally catch if you had the time to review and rewrite what you've produced. My solution is usually to set an earlier dealing and even a series of mini-deadlines. To complete a course I was once doing, I set up deadlines for assignments in my diary that went from blue to green to red as they went from coming up to imminent to missed. The objective was to complete the assignment before it went red and if I managed it before it went green then I got a day off!
How does this help distinguish between being lazy and being busy? Well, when you work from home with only yourself to check your output, it's easy to assume either extreme is the case. Because there is always something to do, you think you are busy, but in fact you might just be avoiding things and lacking the discipline and motivation to organise yourself properly. Believe I know how that feels.
On the other hand, it's so easy to presume that you are being lazy because you aren't getting everything done, when the truth is that you simply have too many things to do and you're not focussing on anything for any length of time.
In my experience both of these things looks remarkably the same.
In the end I can't seem to get away from the need to practice good habits of self-disciple and honest reflection without self-recriminations. Learning to apologise to yourself and then getting on with what needs to be done is just part of the process.
Over the years I've had to learn how to work with my internal wiring without allowing it to become an excuse for failing to make changes that will help me achieve more. Asking good personal questions is important too. For example, ask yourself how you can do it more efficiently rather than why you are no good at being organised enough in the first place.
Now, talking of self-disciple and getting things done, I'm off to play tennis for a while and then it's back to sort out some paperwork that I've been avoiding, and do some coursework reading and preparation for the weekend. That and decorate the new house, refit the radiators, commission the heating system, choose floor coverings, go to the tip, get Anne's birthday present.....
Most of us experience the situation where the job we have to do expands to fit the time we have available. I'm a deadline sort of person and it takes enormous effort to discipline myself to do things before the deadline looms. The thing that helps me is knowing how inefficient working to a deadline can be. The pressure focuses the mind, but you make a lot of mistakes that you would normally catch if you had the time to review and rewrite what you've produced. My solution is usually to set an earlier dealing and even a series of mini-deadlines. To complete a course I was once doing, I set up deadlines for assignments in my diary that went from blue to green to red as they went from coming up to imminent to missed. The objective was to complete the assignment before it went red and if I managed it before it went green then I got a day off!
How does this help distinguish between being lazy and being busy? Well, when you work from home with only yourself to check your output, it's easy to assume either extreme is the case. Because there is always something to do, you think you are busy, but in fact you might just be avoiding things and lacking the discipline and motivation to organise yourself properly. Believe I know how that feels.
On the other hand, it's so easy to presume that you are being lazy because you aren't getting everything done, when the truth is that you simply have too many things to do and you're not focussing on anything for any length of time.
In my experience both of these things looks remarkably the same.
In the end I can't seem to get away from the need to practice good habits of self-disciple and honest reflection without self-recriminations. Learning to apologise to yourself and then getting on with what needs to be done is just part of the process.
Over the years I've had to learn how to work with my internal wiring without allowing it to become an excuse for failing to make changes that will help me achieve more. Asking good personal questions is important too. For example, ask yourself how you can do it more efficiently rather than why you are no good at being organised enough in the first place.
Now, talking of self-disciple and getting things done, I'm off to play tennis for a while and then it's back to sort out some paperwork that I've been avoiding, and do some coursework reading and preparation for the weekend. That and decorate the new house, refit the radiators, commission the heating system, choose floor coverings, go to the tip, get Anne's birthday present.....
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
A Kitchen Begins to Take Shape
The plastering is complete and is drying out slowly. It's really frustrating not being able to paint, but the slower the better when it comes to drying out plaster. But the good news is that the units have arrived and some have been set in place.
It actually is beginning to look like a kitchen now, and the lights are nice too.I busied myself giving the bathroom another coat of paint on the walls and ceiling. The shower is in, but not wired up.
We went for an electric shower because having a mixer tap shower over the bath would have required raising the height of the tank in the loft. A job too far when an electric shower will do the job nicely and without the need to fire up the immersion heater or the boiler.
Jobs left to do in the bathroom include the floor, the skirting-board, the light, the woodwork, the bath panel, and sealing around the bath, washbasin and anywhere else that needs a squirt of silicone!So it can't be declared the one room finished yet.
I also put a coat of paint on the ceiling in the study. Mixed some PVA into the paint to get it to stick to the new plaster. Quicker than mixing it with water, applying it with a brush and getting it all down my sleeve while doing it.
I also wasted some time painting a wall that I forgot I was going to paper. Maybe one day someone will buy the house, strip the paper and wonder why only half of it is painted.
I'll probably do some more painting, or maybe even get some wallpaper up tomorrow, but I have to go off in the afternoon for something, so it will probably be a morning and some part of the evening. Friday is a busy day with two funerals to do and then the weekend is a college weekend, so it looks like next week will be when more gets done.
Questions we should ask, and question we maybe shouldn't ask
My friend Rich Shorter, a church planter (everyone needs a label :)) has got a seat in the audience for an upcoming mayoral edition of Question Time. He has had to prepare a question or two, and he asked for help via Facebook.
As a Christian leader, involved in a local community, this is the question Rich has chosen to ask:
While we continue to ask self-centred questions, we will remain rooted in a selfish, dare one say middle-class, expression of the gospel. An expression that I'm not sure Jesus would recognise as authentic. It's not that some of the questions we have aren't valid, it's more that they might just not be the most important questions to ask.
Read Rich's blog post to hear his reasons for wanting to ask his question, and then think about the questions you might ask and why you might ask them.
And, if you want to get yourself thinking about the relationship of the gospel to the big questions, try reading Everything Must Change or Irresistible Revolution.
As a Christian leader, involved in a local community, this is the question Rich has chosen to ask:
"Several of the candidates accept responsibility for the Olympics, who wants to accept responsibility for changing the fact 1 of 4 children live in poverty in London?"This is a great question, and it's the kind of question christians ought to be asking their elected, and for matter any unelected, representatives. Too often our "Christian" concerns focus on the hard time we are having. We ask, "Why can't a Christian wear a cross or a fish badge?" rather than, "What's happening about justice for the poor and the marginalised?"
While we continue to ask self-centred questions, we will remain rooted in a selfish, dare one say middle-class, expression of the gospel. An expression that I'm not sure Jesus would recognise as authentic. It's not that some of the questions we have aren't valid, it's more that they might just not be the most important questions to ask.
Read Rich's blog post to hear his reasons for wanting to ask his question, and then think about the questions you might ask and why you might ask them.
And, if you want to get yourself thinking about the relationship of the gospel to the big questions, try reading Everything Must Change or Irresistible Revolution.
Style in the bathroom!
The tiling is done and grouted, just one repair needed around the shower. Sadly a tile has been damaged as a result of the shower going in, but that's repairable and will hardly be noticeable when it's done.
We've started painting and the toilet and washbasin have been fitted, so once I rehang the door and the electrics have been done, the bathroom will just need the floor covering done.
One room almost finished, eight more to go!!
The good news is that the kitchen has arrived, the new radiators are on the walls and the plumber is coming back today to work on those things.
The new plaster is drying out nice and slowly, although that's a bit frustrating because we want to get painting, but it simply won't stick to wet plaster. Some areas are dry, so we can set to work on some of the ceilings. The main bedroom is ready to be lined and painted, as is the spare room when I think about it. The landing, stairs and hall need sanding down, lining and then painting.
Plenty for me to get on with over the next couple of weeks before we move.
Friday, April 20, 2012
House Update
The kitchen is being delivered next Wednesday, so by the end of the week it should look quite a lot different. It might not get tiled before we move in, but it should be painted at the very least.The plumber is coming on Monday to fit the rest of the bathroom, so I need to get the tiles done. I've made a start, and more is done than in the picture. The goal is to finish it tomorrow.
As you can see it looks a bit like spaghetti at the moment but again I think we should be well on the way by the end of next week.
The study is ready for painting just as soon as the plaster dries out. we've got the paint and brushes at the ready!
I also need to chase some boxes into the walls in various rooms for the data network and TV distribution system.
What does your community want from you?
Here is another offering from the Verge Network. This time it's Michael Frost on the need to listen to our communities. I was struck personally by the overall challenge of what Michael was saying, but one thing stood out when he said something along the lives of, "what we don't need are more churches where the people in them don;t belong in the community."
It is through a process of actively listening to and engaging with the people of the community we are seeking to reach that we are at least on the road to avoiding the trap of transplanting church models. We're back to the issue of dwelling among, working with, and listen to, rather than telling people what they need.
The original video was posted here.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Wilderness and the Church Experience
Belonging to a Christian community is not about just stamping your time card each week and relieving your Christian guilt. In fact, the obligation of attending church is an empty mirage of Christianity. Attending church weekly is not a way of avoiding sin in and of itself.This caught my attention in a very helpful and readable reflection on being in and out of church. The post is far from negative, just in case that was what you were reading into the quote.
I know that Anne and I are about to wander into the wilderness. Some might say deeper into the wilderness. With the busyness of my training and to be honest a lack of desire to be in church anyway, I've found myself outside the typical Christian community. Maintaining a faithful walk with God in such a situation is not easy. And yet sometimes church is the very thing that gets in the way of it too! The wilderness can be a great place to learn new things and remember old truths.
Perhaps we won't be in the wilderness long, or even at all. Being prepared for it, and at the same remembering what is at stake and why the church matters and what community could be will be important factors in sustaining ourselves.
Knowing you're on mission
There's always going to be an ongoing conversation about the mission/missional strategy of the local church. In some ways, if we're not having that conversation, then we're not engaging in critical thinking about what it means to be the people of God engaged with God in the fulfilment of his mission. And yet, at the same time, too much talk can mean too little action.
So how do we know when we are on or in mission? What might some of the signs be? Well, Jeff Vanderstelt gives an interesting definition in this short video clip of a longer talk. His basic point can probably be summed up in terms of living life among and with the people we are trying to reach.
I still maintain that too much of our mission activity is predicated upon the idea that people need to come to where we are in order to come to faith. In simple terms, they need to discover the church before they discover Jesus because the church is the only valid route to do this. Now we might not articulate in that way, but I think if we stop and think about, that is precisely what we've tended towards for many years. We hold evangelistic events and invite people we hardly know.
Now I guess that if the church really was the people living out the gospel and not the programmes and buildings and events, then it might just work more effectively than it has done. It certainly has worked in some circumstances, but I fear that there are many for whom it hasn't worked or for whom it may never work that way. Our imagination has to shift away from populating our programmes and towards something altogether more kingdom focussed.
I wish I could see the end from the beginning, but I can't. All I know is that it is time for the church to leave the building and find ways of taking the gospel into the heart of the communities where missing people dwell, and to invest the time and energy to dwell there with them as gospel people. In the world but not of the world as Jesus once said.
So how do we know when we are on or in mission? What might some of the signs be? Well, Jeff Vanderstelt gives an interesting definition in this short video clip of a longer talk. His basic point can probably be summed up in terms of living life among and with the people we are trying to reach.
I still maintain that too much of our mission activity is predicated upon the idea that people need to come to where we are in order to come to faith. In simple terms, they need to discover the church before they discover Jesus because the church is the only valid route to do this. Now we might not articulate in that way, but I think if we stop and think about, that is precisely what we've tended towards for many years. We hold evangelistic events and invite people we hardly know.
Now I guess that if the church really was the people living out the gospel and not the programmes and buildings and events, then it might just work more effectively than it has done. It certainly has worked in some circumstances, but I fear that there are many for whom it hasn't worked or for whom it may never work that way. Our imagination has to shift away from populating our programmes and towards something altogether more kingdom focussed.
I wish I could see the end from the beginning, but I can't. All I know is that it is time for the church to leave the building and find ways of taking the gospel into the heart of the communities where missing people dwell, and to invest the time and energy to dwell there with them as gospel people. In the world but not of the world as Jesus once said.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Welcome Bogdan!
Royal Mail peoples made final delivery safely.
Thanks go to Captain Borislav who had to navigate mongoose-pirate infested waters to get to England on his fine ship the Meer-maid.
The Fear of not Being Heard!
Just a quick meandering thought keep passing through my brain. We seem to be the best connected society in history, what with mobile devices, high speed internet and social media at every turn, and yet we are apparently the most lonely, superficial and fragile generation too. Or so it appears.
You see, the thing I've noticed is the increasing number of people who post queries on their social networks asking if anyone is reading what they write. Retweet this or repost this or do something just to let me know that I still exist in your world. We crave attention and yet at the same abhor contact! Are we so insecure that need constant affirmation that we matter to other people in order to know that we matter at all?
I'm just as bad, before you start thinking this is about you. (I do hope that doesn't damage your self-esteem by the way!) I check the stats for visits to my blog and wonder if anyone reads it because there are so few comments. But then again, I don't write to be read, I write to write. I write to process stuff that lurks in the recesses of my mind. Sometimes that resonates enough with someone else that they decide to interact with me. Great.
I like social media because it gives me a snap shot of what is going on in the world of others and the world at large beyond my door. Sometimes it sparks a thought-trail or an investigation. Sometimes it provoked a comment, but most of the time it's just nice to see the life is being lived in a wonderfully diverse way by lots of people I know, once knew, still know and maybe one day will get to know.
So please, don't retweet, repost, comment or interact unless you want to. I'm quite happy dropping my thoughts and ideas and information into the social ocean for anyone to pick up and explore. Or, in fact none of that matter!
And by the way, that means that just because I don't comment, post or otherwise communicate with you, that doesn't mean I don't read your news, blog, Facebook status, Twitter updates, Christmas newsletter or emails!
You see, the thing I've noticed is the increasing number of people who post queries on their social networks asking if anyone is reading what they write. Retweet this or repost this or do something just to let me know that I still exist in your world. We crave attention and yet at the same abhor contact! Are we so insecure that need constant affirmation that we matter to other people in order to know that we matter at all?
I'm just as bad, before you start thinking this is about you. (I do hope that doesn't damage your self-esteem by the way!) I check the stats for visits to my blog and wonder if anyone reads it because there are so few comments. But then again, I don't write to be read, I write to write. I write to process stuff that lurks in the recesses of my mind. Sometimes that resonates enough with someone else that they decide to interact with me. Great.
I like social media because it gives me a snap shot of what is going on in the world of others and the world at large beyond my door. Sometimes it sparks a thought-trail or an investigation. Sometimes it provoked a comment, but most of the time it's just nice to see the life is being lived in a wonderfully diverse way by lots of people I know, once knew, still know and maybe one day will get to know.
So please, don't retweet, repost, comment or interact unless you want to. I'm quite happy dropping my thoughts and ideas and information into the social ocean for anyone to pick up and explore. Or, in fact none of that matter!
And by the way, that means that just because I don't comment, post or otherwise communicate with you, that doesn't mean I don't read your news, blog, Facebook status, Twitter updates, Christmas newsletter or emails!
Freedom of Speech?
It's been an interesting week for many reasons, but i=one thing that I've been musing over is the rejected bus ad campaign. I was in London on Saturday for my course and saw the Stonewall ad on the side of one London Bus. If you don't what this is all about, the ad simply says something like: Some people are gay, Get over it!
There was an almost to be expected "Christian" response that wanted to run a counter campaign that was deemed unacceptable by the Mayor's office. The rejection of these ads precipitated another volley of comments about the rough deal Christians get in the UK, how we are marginalised and persecuted for our faith. Of course the other way to look at is to understand it as a rejection of narrow-minded and insensitive drive to promote our perspective over and against any competing philosophy!
Here's the struggle I feel. The proposed ads were, in my opinion, ill thought out and unhelpful. Maybe well intentioned, an attempt to bring a message of hope to those who find themselves struggling with issues of sexual identity and faith. But they didn't look like they would do, so I'm quite relieved that they have been rejected.
We need to read our advertising through the eyes of those who do not agree with us if we are going to find effective ways of communicating the grace of God rather than appearing only to have a message of condemnation and judgement. I'm not for one minute suggesting that either of these things were the goal of the ad campaign, but that's how they have been interpreted and we should learn from that.
In the end this is not an issue of freedom of speech. It is an issue of pastoral care and sensitivity, of finding ways to express grace and hope as our core message. Let me be very clear about one thing a least: I believe that it is sin (to use a theological word!) that separates us from God and not our sexual orientation or anything else. What we do with that orientation is another matter. King David expressed his heterosexuality inappropriately with Bathsheba and it was costly. He was not the only one.
Maybe, as Christian, we do need to get over the "gay debate and get on with helping people find God and learning to work out how to live in a way that honours him. Perhaps if we talked more about the power of grace to enable us to live within the limitations of a fallen world rather than as a prescription for normality we might just make some headway in Go'd grand mission to reconnect the missing.
There was an almost to be expected "Christian" response that wanted to run a counter campaign that was deemed unacceptable by the Mayor's office. The rejection of these ads precipitated another volley of comments about the rough deal Christians get in the UK, how we are marginalised and persecuted for our faith. Of course the other way to look at is to understand it as a rejection of narrow-minded and insensitive drive to promote our perspective over and against any competing philosophy!
Here's the struggle I feel. The proposed ads were, in my opinion, ill thought out and unhelpful. Maybe well intentioned, an attempt to bring a message of hope to those who find themselves struggling with issues of sexual identity and faith. But they didn't look like they would do, so I'm quite relieved that they have been rejected.
We need to read our advertising through the eyes of those who do not agree with us if we are going to find effective ways of communicating the grace of God rather than appearing only to have a message of condemnation and judgement. I'm not for one minute suggesting that either of these things were the goal of the ad campaign, but that's how they have been interpreted and we should learn from that.
In the end this is not an issue of freedom of speech. It is an issue of pastoral care and sensitivity, of finding ways to express grace and hope as our core message. Let me be very clear about one thing a least: I believe that it is sin (to use a theological word!) that separates us from God and not our sexual orientation or anything else. What we do with that orientation is another matter. King David expressed his heterosexuality inappropriately with Bathsheba and it was costly. He was not the only one.
Maybe, as Christian, we do need to get over the "gay debate and get on with helping people find God and learning to work out how to live in a way that honours him. Perhaps if we talked more about the power of grace to enable us to live within the limitations of a fallen world rather than as a prescription for normality we might just make some headway in Go'd grand mission to reconnect the missing.
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