URBANarmy

.... Ok everyone who lives on the Costa del Sol are pleased with the recent rainful that seems to have coincided with our arrival. Seems the Cotterill Drought Breakers have gone international! More a case of Costa del Lluvia at the moment (excuse my Spanish!) Funny that the family moan at me for disappearing to check out the receptions internet connection while they watch Coronation St!

Ok Southend might, or St. Mirren or even Gillingham...

We should be asking "what is to the greater glory of God" rather than "what is the right thing to do" (Hughes 2004) "It has always been commonly supposed that faith requires some element of humility on the part of the worshipper. Some sense of awe in the smallness of oneself and the vastness of creation! But not anymore! Yours is a generation that sees God as some kind of vague counselor! There to tell you what you want to hear when you want to hear it and to be entirely forgotten about in between times! You have invented a junk faith and you ask it to justify your junk culture" (Elton 2005:338) Elton, B.(2005) Dead Famous Yes that is right .......... Ben Elton! Gerald Hughes points out that a good antidote to our self-absorbed approach to God in prayer is to wean ourselves away from the urge to pray for the right thing to do. We should be asking "what is to the greater glory of God" rather than "what is the right thing to do" (Hughes 2...

"The process of spiritual formation in Christ is one of progressively replacing destructive ideas and images with the images and ideas of Jesus himself." Transforming the thought life Willard, D(2002)Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ Dallas Willard suggests that Spiritual formation must transform ideas, there needs to be rigour to spiritual discipline in order to identify that there needs to be a replacement of ideas that are outside God’s agenda with the ideas that Jesus embodied and taught. This is Christian spiritual formation. Willard quotes Henri Nouwen who note s: "Success, popularity and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of a much larger temptation of self-rejection. We have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions ... Self-rejection is the greatest enemy ...

The girls and I walked down into Camberwell to go to the Post Office.. She was on us in a flash. One minute shouting non-sensical obscenities at passing traffic, then she was in our face. "You King George Pussy Dog...!" She was quite scarey. The girls hands tightened on mine. I smiled and nervously said "hello" . She immediately mellowed, smiled and went on her way. "Do you think she knows Patrick...?" one of the girls asked. I don't think so but I am sure they would have a lot to talk about!!

The last time I saw her was 22 years ago in Nairobi. Now as I collected at Waterloo she walked by. It's funny who you see while collecting for TSA Annual Appeal, funnier still when you see a one time youthful crush and girlfriend. "Sam...!?" Sam Watson one time captain of the girls hockey team turned and I looked into the face of a 40 year old woman, unmistakably Sam, but definitely 40! She recognised me and we spent the few minutes she had catching up the 22 years. As we talked I found myself working out that she was definitely 40! Yep definitely 40. She'd seen us on Songs of Praise when they featured Poplar ... then she needed to catch her train. As she slipped her ruck sack on her final shot made me smile. "Well we made the milestone then...?" "huh?" "We're all 40 now!!!" Isn't it easy to forget, the reality of who you really are? 40 not a chance! I sometimes wonder if we do the same as church - I can't imagine that a fa...

"Evangelism is only part, but an essential part, of the wider task of God's mission in which the church is called to share." I was reminded of this quote that kind of connects with the Moltmann's point and the source of a many a mission essay!! "Evangelism is mission but mission is not merely evangelism" (Moltmann 1977) Whenever the church reduces its way of relating to the world simply to the task of making disciples, something hugely important is lost. We are left with the picture of the church as the Ark of Salvation: all we are called to do is draw people into it to safety from the destruction around them, In this picture, 'the world' is no longer a manifestation of the wisdom and love of the good creator but a hostile environment from which we ourselves must escape, within which we must keep ourselves safe and from which we will eventually be taken into heaven. However, when the church focuses upon proclaiming the kingdom of God in all its aspec...