URBANarmy

The first week of our summer youth project is over. We’ve been climbing; canoeing; sailing; to a restaurant. There’s been motor mechanics; creative arts; cooking. Lot’s of table tennis, pool, PS2. It’s been good to be more involved this year. It’s been good to get to know some of these young people. To hear their stories. To hear them laugh. To see them over come fears together. Face challenges together. It has been good to see a group of young people get to know each other and create community together. To see them share and encourage one another. It has been good to be trusted by these guys and to journey with them. To hear their disappointments, their injustices, what they feel. It’s been good to respect them for who they are and to feel likewise respected. Above all it’s been good to be let in on their slang … to be honest it is nang! Our junior project - "Finding Meno..." - has been going along well too. Full just about every day. It is not only good to offer s...

Did Jesus go to church? seems to have been quite a provocative question over at liquidthinking . Interesting question. Got me wondering and thinking over the last couple of days would Jesus go to church...today? What would he make of the religion we have created? The religion of music; The religion of homiletics; The religion of sacraments; The religion of space; The religion of theology; The religion of holiness. What would he make of it all? I wonder what he would write on his blog!!? What would his rants consist of? I wonder what he would call his blog? www.youmissedthepoint.blogspot.com perhaps...

Two weddings and a child’s dedication on consecutive days will take some beating. Friday It was staggering to see Stuart and Simone say their vows. Staggering that Stuart has found the joy of companionship he thought he would never find. The privilege of being part of his journey will never leave me. Three years ago I was visiting him in HMP Wandsworth. Three years ago he was on suicide watch in not the nicest of London prisons. It was moving to hear him, see him and be with him. Saturday Then there was Merv and Sheila. An older couple. Childhood sweethearts that moved away. Merv a few years back found himself on the streets. A failed marriage. Nervous breakdown contributed to nowhere to go. He found himself in a local SA hostel. He found his way to worship with us. A constant support was his re-found friend Sheila. Four years later they are both very much a part of our family. His journey has involved us. We've been there in the pain, frustration, anguish and now...

The church in modernity was off-balance, reeling from a culture that once revered it and now rejected it. As a result, it simply tried to keep standing, to stand firm, to not collapse to not change, because change felt like defeat or decay. While this resolute firmness is admirable, it can't be the final word for the church in the emerging postmodern world, because standing firm can too easily be an excuse for going stale. Ultimately, the church is called to do far more than either standing firm or being willing to change itself. Like a candle in darkness, salt in meat, yeast in bread, or seeds in a field, the church is called to be a change agent, bringing positive change to Gods world. A is for Abductive Sweet, McClaren Pp I75 Makes me wonder to what extent the church has been guilty of being pre-occupied with proving itself. Proving itself   to each other in that ‘well we are standing firmer than you’ kind of arrogance. I was reading how in 1977 Dr Martyn Lloyd-J...

Chrissy is stood with a coffee in her hand talking to me after our morning service. Her eye’s are alive. "This place has done something for me…". I look into her eyes and I really believe it has. Chrissy is on a two-week detoxification at Grieg House our local alcohol detox centre. It means we often have a group of men and women who come to church for the first time to us. There is a buzz when preconceived ideas of church are not met and the group come for the second week expectant, It’s encouraging when you really feel that something has connected. Chrissy carries on "… you know I’m coming back after re-hab" "I hope so, you are always welcome…" I saw Carole’s eyes yesterday. It wasn’t too long ago when she too was stood talking to me after our morning service. Now her eyes were bleary, unfocused, tear filled. I walk into my mum and dad’s lounge and there she was – on day time TV. On ITV's Trisha show. The sub-title shows that Alcohol has broken h...

“Salvation, as normally understood outside the context of the whole story (say-a-prayer-so-that-when-you-die-you-can-go-to-heaven), lacks the power to be compelling. The reductionist version was never right or true. Lacking the context of the story of God and his Kingdom, salvation became, in late modernity, just another consumer item that supposedly secured one's eternity.” (Todd Hunter in Yaconelli, M (2003) Stories of Emergence: Moving from Absolute to Authentic ) "Our understanding of mission can only be as wide as our understanding of salvation. A narrow understanding of salvation will be reflected in mission" has been an ongoing mull for me. Stephen Zedler  in three posts recently ( Coming Around to Salvation ; More on Salvation ; Salvation and the Witness ) points out...   ...that we have made salvation an easy process dependent upon the acceptance of propositional knowledge. This surgery-style salvation is ineffectual, because it's law. "You must fir...

30 years of taking drugs for his schizophrenia has left Victor’s mind a cocktail of pickled mush. Rarely making sense. Rarely achieving cohesion it takes something to maintain a conversation of any length with Victor. But he is loved and respected by our church and as such he feels a sense of family that sees has him back week after week now for over a year. Today he opened a window for me and I got a glimpse of the broken heart that saw him nearly take his life. I got a glimpse of the broken heart that hurled him in a deep dark depression. I got a glimpse of the broken heart that saw him admitted to a secure mental health hospital for years of treatment. Today he shared with me. For a moment we connected in sanity. The moment went as soon as it came – and we were back in his clouds of confusion and insanity. Those moments are special.

... Barky’s honest account of his ‘exodus’, his feelings of being marginal and outside because he isn’t playing ball... ...A good friend tells be how the first thing he wants to do when church has finished is pack up his keyboard and escape... ...A habbo friend tells me the best thing about belonging to her church is that she is a stranger every week... Is it any wonder that the fastest growing church in the west is the "Church of the Churchless Christian"? Dissatisfaction, discontent, frustration, lack of fulfilment seems to be spelling out that the 'latest worship song fix', interspersed with funny video clips, with a little bit of sincere creativity thrown in, doesn’t seem to always connect. It got me thinking what for me Church is, and what it isn't. What would push me towards 'Churchless Faith?' To me if church was just a Sunday thing. If it was just part of a process of jumping through 'soteriological' hoops. If church was j...

[Every now and then I have an internal bleat – this might be one of them, then again it might not be!] 59% of people in an independent survey when asked to give one word to describe The Salvation Army gave the word...music. Great...! A lovely talented salvation army officer gets the highest recognition in the salvation army – what for...music. Brilliant...! The Salvation Army has even bought the prestigious weekly magazine "The British Bandsman"... Fantastic...! Is this our heartbeat? Our unequivocal, unmistakable identity? Old time Salvationist and holiness guru for many SL Brengle gives us a warning about when 'love leaks out'. "...not enough to wear the uniform, to profess loyalty to Army leaders and principles, to give goods to feed the poor...we must love one another, making it the badge of our discipleship. 'If love one another, God dwells in us, and His love is perfected in us'. If love leaks out, we shall lose our identity, lose ou...

I look at the other coaches in the service station as we pull in – all looking much the same really. Coaches of elderly people. Coaches of brownies; Coaches of girl guides. Coaches of young people and then us. We’re on a church outing to Brighton and it strikes me amusing that we are a complete mish-mash of chaotic humanity, a community of non-uniformity. Black...white; young...old; resettled homeless guys...professionals. As the other coaches pull out I see them looking and I wonder. I wonder what they think? What they see? I wonder whether in their wildest guess they can see in our diversity the Kingdom of God? I then wonder if my attitude today is demonstrating the kingdom. Too be honest you can stick your obedience, indignation and compassion stuff of the other day. I really need a break from seeing people. I then wonder if my begrudging attitude of giving up my one day in what seems weeks to spend the day on the beach with the likelihood of rain – does anything to promote th...

Funny how throwaway comments in throwaway conversations get you thinking. "I don’t believe in altruism...it simply doesn’t exist". In other words there is no such thing as unselfish concern. Now there’s a discussion. Whatever we do, we do it to get something out of it. Take it further in terms of mission - our concern for anyone is always out of selfishness. Take it further and there are strings attached to our working out of grace centred mission. Tom Sine talks about a friend who outlines three motives for mission with the marginal in Mexico. "...compassion, obedience and indignation. Compassion for the suffering people, for their needs; obedience to Jesus Christ who has sent us to work among the poor; and indignation, because we get indignant when people created in God's image suffer in this way" Sine, T (1999) Mustard Seed Versus Mcworld: Reinventing Christian Life And Mission For A New Millennium How selfish...?!

There was a kind of an ecclesiastical paradox, almost an absurdity going on. I’m at BLAH and we are hearing great stuff about the churches journey as it emerges. Great stuff about a new way of being. Kester Brewin author of the complex Christ is giving it some about evolution not revolution; about bottom up not top down; about the church being purified to the point of sterility; about the church needing to re-define the dirt boundaries of church; an interesting dialogue about Judas and much much more. Creative video loops that even had tallskinnykiwi sat next to me in awe. Check out Barky's Highlights ... But... In the midst of us a guy who not only had had too much wine, but had showed signs of mental illness started to take advantage of the 'open source' nature of BLAH. Now how much more creative do you want than this guy 'Effing' and 'Blinding' while we are talking about the sterility of the church? How much more inventiveness do you wan...

I wonder if we try too hard at the incarnational thing...? So hard that what we have to say isn’t heard....? So hard that what we have to say isn’t trusted? So hard that what we have to say isn’t of value....? "uh-huh… uh-huh… uh-huh…" the judgement, disparagement of what I am saying from the other end of the phone is almost tangible. I’ve been invited to speak at a conference about how to make your church grow through your community programme. The organiser is on the phone. Stood in our foyer our phone call continues.... "So you don’t try and get people that come into your week day centre to come on Sunday..."; "no – some come because they are intrigued and want to, but we don’t try"; "so you don’t have special services during the week for people" "no"; "so how do you try evangelise these people?" "we don’t try – we have healthy relationships that naturally encourages discussion". ...