You know you are getting old when...
You know you are getting old when the fringe you had starts disappearing up your forehead and feels decidedly thin and fragile. You know you are getting old when suddenly your midriff has a relaxed wobbly feel about it. You know you are getting old when you find yourself spending more time in the gardening section of a second hand bookshop. You know you are getting old when you intentionally tune to radio 4. You know you are getting old when you realise that the guy that you are talking to was born after you left university and that when he is your age you will be retired!I went along to Laos the youth congregation of Nunhead Salvation Army on Sunday and it is true to say I felt pretty old. It was a good crowd and really encouraging to see and to be part of, but what I loved was the 'Laos Extreme' congregation that hung around outside 'smoking' while worship happened inside. These guys didn't come to sing songs but they obviously came for something. Popping in and out just to let everyone know they were there. It reminded me of some of my favourite times at the youth club in Poplar 'on the door'. There's a thought church on the doorstep.
I'm kind of hoping I might get along more often - the guys outside will be well worth knowing, they make me smile and I loved the tidy bit of graffiti they did to our old national leaders retirement poster. They captured the inner beauty and fun of Alex and Inge beautifully!
Comments
Can I just ask if you are Anthony Cotterill's brother or anyway related to him?
Also I have been to Nunnhead's Laos once before. I'm not a memeber I'm not even in the same division. It was great and it really encouraged me. They have a great vision and I hope that it continues to grow!!
I thought the picture was hilarious even before I read the post. "These old timers are hip to it."
thanks
Andrew
I wanted to respond to your post about "Church On The Edge" an wasn't sure if you'd go back to look. Whilst there's part of me that agrees with you, I think we have to be very careful not to be too London-centric about these things. We had friends there who are doing something radically different in an area of the country -let alone the Army world- where they are really on their own. The weekend was a breath of fresh air to them. The nearest expression of Salvation Army resembling anything vaguely like theirs is over two hundred miles away. To receive the ministry through worship and teaching that they got last weekend was important in revitalising their own ministry. They are a couple in their fifties who care passionately about "the ends of the world" in a culture where they are often misunderstood and misinterpreted.
The kinds of story telling and conversations that you wanted did happen, but informally and we may have missed out on a lot of these because we weren't staying at the conference.
When you have a conference for over a hundred people, the likelihood is you are going to have to hit the middle level. I think we have to be careful not to judge the event from our own contexts. Believe me, however "tame" some expressions might seem, in their contexts and cultures they really are "on the edge". Within a twenty mile radius of Poplar or WBC, we could find a range of SA expressions to dialogue with and bounce off. For lots of people out there, it is a very isolated and lonely path to tread.
In the conext of the table that we were given it seemed that it was largely geared to those whose starting point was further forward than those who feel really isolated and are less than 10 miles from college because their efforts at being church are not valued because their starting point is further back.
I really don't think 'on the edge' is geographic or even ideolocical it is where your starting point is - that's what i came away with.