"My one wish...."

It was like a scene from some tear jerking film.

I was dropping of a reference for a friend of our church whose family had fragmented. Archie lives under the shadow of violence from his former partner and her boyfriend. Court injunctions and exclusion orders however hadn't prevented the four broken ribs that made Archie wince as he talked to me. But the real fight is only just about to begin. Archie has custody of his 5 year old daughter but the maternal grandmother is about to wade in to contest Archie's suitability to bring his daughter up.

"If you had three wishes what would they be?" a clever social worker asked trying to create a case. Archie drew hard on his cigarette, his hands and voice shaking as he continued to tell me the tale. "I only want one wish - I want to stay with my Daddy".

We live in a fragmented world; within a fragmented society surrounded by fragmented families and lives. There is a lot for the church to be doing. Now isn't the time to be sat around on our self-satisfied, pre-occupied couches with our feet up. The longer we sit there the more out of condition, flabby and obese we become. Now is the time to bring community and cohesion to our community's.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A bit of sally bashing....

Came across a good bit of Sally bashing over at salvationsoldiers I have to say we try and make sure that everything we raise goes into projects that build local community in Poplar but hopefully if you read this blog you get that sense anyway.
Read more

Lost Voices of Mission...Fred Brown

Image
Along the world famous Oxford street in London's Westend; nestled in among the classy frontage of designer shops there is almost an unnoticeable, unimpressive wooden door. It is more or less alongside The Regent Hall's main entrance onto the busyness of Oxford Street. People pass the wooden door oblivious to the equally unimpressive wooden steps that go up three storey's to what was Regent Hall's youth club. When I was 10 I played on these bare wooden steps totally unaware of the significance behind and upon which I played. Many years later I discovered a university youth work course - as an induction to Youth Work - stopped outside this insignificant wooden door to point out that Youth Work as we know it in the UK started behind this door. ...whether that be the surbanite flower people that flooded the Westend to express their free love; or the hard core drug community this unimpressive wooden door became the 'portal' that blurred encounter between church an...
Read more

Types of Christian Spirituality...

Image
It is easy to think and to limit ourselves to a single approach to Christian spirituality. A 'if it works for me it should work for you approach' tends to narrow our appreciation of other ways which actually impoverishes our experience of spirituality. Urban T. Holmes has developed a means of exploring spirituality and helps develop an appreciation through discovering links between spirituality, temperament and predisposition. The diagram illustrates his ideas together with potential inherent dangers. The vertical continuum speaks and helps us understand our relational orientation to God. This ranges from engaging with God through understanding and theological process to a more emotive response. Horizontally speaks of a persons preferred means of pursuing the spiritual life. Kataphtic speaks of affirmation and the need of something tangible in an individuals spirituality- this may take the form of worship, art, even imagination with the use of metaphors, symbols and images play...
Read more