This is a post comes out of some thoughts that have been going through my head for a while. The question is do we at the more evangelical end of the Anglican spectrum miss out on some of the spirituality of those at the higher end? I guess it really got me thinking about it a few weeks ago at Depth (see last post) we had an interesting brief discussion about saying the Grace together, some keep their eyes closed while others look around, but also those from the higher church make the sign of the cross as they say it, but what is the significance in the making the sign of the cross, why do those from a higher church background do it and why do we from a more evangelical background not? Is it outdated symbolism or is it a spiritual discipline that helps focus? I suppose this has also come up as I have been talking with my mentor, the other day he was talking about saying the ‘Daily Office’ a regular prayer pattern that exists in many branches of the church, there are several versions and each often has a Morning, Noon & Evening form. Many of these come from the more traditional denominations, and they are often used in monastic type communities. I have been trying to use the daily office and looking at few different forms online, I have been using a version from the Northumbria community (along with one from common worship online) which starts with a time of silence followed by the words “In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen” and it suggests making the sign of the cross as you do it. I have only used it a few times so far and have made the sign as I say it (although despite being in an office all by myself I have found myself doing it quite shyly and discretely) and there is something about it, it fits, it feels like it belongs. So why do some do it and others not? Are there other symbolisms like this that we don’t do? Is there room to explore some of these traditions within the evangelical church? I would be interested in hearing your thoughts and feedback.
Had a couple of days away on retreat this week, depth was organised by our Diocesan youth & Children’s advisers. We were just 4 miles down the road from home which made it convenient, just 13 of us there (plus the two leaders) but this was really good as we had a chance to chat to everyone and felt you got to know everyone a bit, as well as having the opportunity to catch up with good friends. The two days were a good mix of input (which was optional) and space to think, reflect, chat, read & pray. It was fantastic and very thought provoking and challenging but in a really good helpful way. The time was spent reflecting upon how things around us, our culture, is changing and looking at how we as youth and children’s work practitioners respond to that in our lives and ministry. Of course there were some really deep questions that were raised like were there fish on the ark? And as for the prayer shack, we established that it is 15 miles down the road from a faded sign!
Thank you to Ian and Yvonne and doing all the work in putting the event on, the team at windmill Farm for their hospitality and fantastic food, the belt is now one hole looser! And to everyone else who was there and part of it for being just that!
I am preparing a sermon for this coming Sunday and I need your help with the answer to a simple question, if you could leave a comment or email me with your answers it would be very useful, the question is ‘Why do you do what you do?’ I’m thinking about the main activity you do, it might be your job, it might be being a parent it might be something else but if you could just give me one or two sentences that state why you do what you do it would be great. Thank you in advance.
PS. If you want to hear the results the sermon will be available as an MP3 download sometime next Monday from www.allsaintsfaringdon.org just click on the link for sermons.
So far I have only seen two of the Nooma DVDs, the first one Rain, about a year ago and the second one Rich last night, both with my youth group. I have been very impressed with both and last nights was very challenging. If you havent seen or used any of them yet then I highly recommend them, I am going to try and use them a little more regularly than once a year I think now. They are superbly done and really do make you think, even though Rich was very American in some respects it still translated and although we dont have the God Bless America bumper stickers (although one girl in the group is now trying to convince her parents to get one!) it still translated really easily.
The only down side is the cost, they have come down since I brought the first one when most of them were around 12 now you can get the for about 9.50 but for a small group that is quite a lot of money especially when you consider in the US they are $10 which is about 5. The discs are multi region so its not like they have to be repressed for over here or anything its just part of the whole rip off Britain that we live in, I was reading about a piece of software the other day that was $180 in America or 185 over here for exactly the same box, its bad enough when secular society wants to rip us off like that but why the difference within the Christian community?
I actually recorded the video below yesterday, so the yesterday I refer to in the video was in fact Tuesday not Wednesday but hey. You will find two relevant links below the video.
Had a meeting this morning working on my annual report for the APCM, at the end of the meeting I was asked that dreaded question
What do you think are your strengths and weaknesses?
I thought for a minute and came up with these:-
Strengths: relationship building, evangelism/teaching
Weaknesses: Time management, administration
Of course there are others for both but these I would say I the main ones. I was very pleased that I was agreed with although another was added to the strengths list which was role model which was cool. There was a point to this exercise though in that I am going to be given some support and help in improving these areas of weakness which I think will be really helpfully in enabling me to do my job better so fantastic meeting.
I dont sleep well, as a general rule I have a bad nights sleep much more often than a good one, and its not too rare that I have a very bad nights sleep. Last night the bad sleep was due to a dream that Im going to share with you cos it was very odd and slightly worrying. I was in a building with a friend (although no-one specific) who was concerned about this one room. We went into the room and it felt a little weird and then the friend said a persons name suddenly the lights flickered and these voices could be heard coming from nowhere. The dream went on, we tested a little and tried a few different things and decided the room was possessed and decided to pray. In my dream I was praying and trying to cast out demons and it was half way through this prayer I work up, very suddenly wide awake, strangely I didnt get back to sleep all that easily and the dream is still playing on my mind, where did that come from?
A couple of days ago Ian over at youthblog posted about the question box his daughter had said they now had in their group at church, he went on to talk about questions you can read his post here. The reason for mentioning it was that it reminded me of a great question I was asked a few months ago by my (then) not quite 5 year old son. We were in the car driving back from somewhere when he suddenly asked me Daddy did God make the whole world? yes I replied, does he make the world spin? again I replied yes, well how does he keep it spinning at night when hes asleep? Im not sure how well he grasped the idea of God not sleeping I think it all seemed a bit much to his mind, haw can you not sleep, but its really encouraging as a parent to be asked these questions or hear your children asking them, its little insights into their minds but also the simplicity of their questions can sometimes get us thinking through things ourselves.
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