Concerto for a rainy day

Finally getting round to reflecting on the teaching and worship at New Wine LSE. I've been whining about the weather for long enough and something has got to distract me from keeping looking at the cricket score today!

I spent the mornings in Venue 2 which is smaller and louder but more relaxed and informal than Venue 1. I liked the fact that normal people, not just New Wine leadership team members, are deemed suitable to pray at the beginning of each session. Mike Breen was the speaker all week. He was reflecting a lot on discipleship, comparing it usefully to Horse whispering (you'll have to download the talks, or read my steal) and giving some really good insights into the significance and typology of the Abrahamic covenant, relating the story of Isaac's "sacrifice" to the sacrifice of Christ and saying some helpful things about the whole PSA debate.

Mike speaks with humour and with speed, but is entertaining enough that when you disagree with him (as I did about bishops) you don't get too cross and keep listening.

In the evenings I joined the herd at Venue 1, which had a variety of speakers. Amy Orr-Ewing was very good, though not exclusively because she was a woman under 50 on the stage at Venue 1 in New Wine (next step an ordained woman - come on you people!)

Michael Duncan blew me away with his testimony and his challenge to men to "step out". I haven't gone forward for prayer at New Wine for about 5 years - that day it was twice - once in the morning at venue 2 for over-burdened ministers , once in the evening at venue 1 for men. Mark Melluish said something very significance during the build up to the prayer ministry following Michael Duncan's talk.

He said (quoting as I remember it) "It's not very politically correct, but I think a lot of women have been waiting for this for a long time, I'd like only women to pray for these men as they come forward". The significance of this, in the light of various debates about New Wine's attitude to gender roles and ministry, is that women were freed to pray over, prophesy over, and speak with authority into the lives of men. OK its not quite the same as the ordination thing but for me it was a significant shift, and it was liberating.

Mark Melluish also spoke very movingly on the last night about the events in his family following his son's serious head injury earlier in the year. This was also a significant evening, touching as it did on issue such as the tension between what happens when God heals and when he doesn't, as well as giving a challenge to our middle class comfort zone when it comes to sharing faith in multicultural environments like ITU family rooms.

The worship this year was also good I enjoy Eoghan Heaslip (aka Shaka Hislop because I can never say his name right) and Kathryn Scott made a nice change. Matt Redman's looking a bit chubby these days but can still cut it, and also in venue 2, Bill Donoghue and Nick Herbert woke me up well in the mornings.

I didn't go to many seminars this year as I spent more time networking and drinking free coffee in the Leaders' Lounge, but I wasn't going to miss "Building an Outward focused church" led by Alan Scott from Causeway coast vineyard. It was ace, and once you've translated "vineyard" to "Anglican" in the cultural references, it was most useful. The most challenging thing he said in the light of the fact that we've just put together our vision statement, was that "If no one is leaving your church, your vision statement is too broad". I guess I'm ambivalent about the Vineyard tendency to say "if you don't like it you know where the door is", but sometimes I wish I could say it!

Other highlights included the good old Groundbreakers family celebrations, and my daughter on stage with the New Wine kids choir. And of course staying up late in the gazebo talking with the gang.

Next year we might try Newark, to see if we can tempt a few more of this lot to come.

You're the only one that I could live for

Awesome week this week, Under the Sea Holiday Club at Stebbing. Around 45 kids for four mornings. Your basic crafts games gunge jokes type set up, but, led by the team from Pulse Ministries, with the added extra of some serious prayer, worship, preaching, evangelism and fun!
I counted all the holiday clubs I'd ever done the other day, and reflected back on some of the ones I'd led. We'd be rushing around at the last minute sorting things out, whereas Pulse have us all praying and sharing and reading the Bible together for an hour every morning before we start. It's amazing; people are actually getting there early!

I know its sometimes a touchy subject but I cannot think of a better way to get children interested in Jesus than to actually give them the opportunity to spend time with him. Today we had a church full of kids lying on the floor, with quiet music playing, listening to God. It wasn't just for a few seconds, but for like 5 or 10 minutes there was a peaceful and holy atmosphere. Never seen that before, but want to see it again!

If you're thinking of running a holiday club, I highly recommend Pulse. They are consummate professionals (even though technically they are amateurs as they are not salaried but live by faith) with immense insight and wisdom, yet a gracious way of including what is already on the ground. Their aim is to grow the faith of the whole church, not just the kids, and that is happening here this week. I'm most impressed though that they do not see their role as a hit and run thing, but are committed to relationship with us for the future, and to seeing good follow up from the contacts made this week in the future.

I'm sure I'll be posting about them again!

Father and Son (or, why the subculture is pants)

Before we listened to the Obama stuff on the radio yesterday in the car, I was talking to my son about guitar music. He is learning the guitar and is not very motivated to practise, but he likes the electric guitar that is played in church. I thought therefore that I would play him some electric guitar music on the car CD, and talk about it. So I put on "Back in Black", by AC/DC which is hardly the most edifying spiritual material (e.g. "If God's on the left then I'm sticking to the right" from "Hells Bells", mind you at least they get God's politics right and acknowledge his existence!).



It does however contain some excellent riffs, and good examples of the interaction between lead and rhythm guitars, which we in due time talked about, using largely non-expert terms as I am not musical but like to listen to loud guitars and have done for some several decades now.



Then last night as I watched their gymnastics I was reflecting that a lot of the kind of music that I enjoyed as a young man wouldn't be very appropriate for the vicarage stereo today, as much of the sexism, phallocentricism and anti-God stance of (say) 1970's and 80's heavy metal goes against what I believe in when it comes both to human relationships and to God, yet here I was playing it to my son., because I wanted him to have the chance to hear it, and the thought came to me that the same thing happened to me when I was a kid.



My dad was a successful business lawyer, very involved in the Thatcherite boom, very into capitalism etc, yet when I was a kid I was raised on records by Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Leadbelly etc which was what he listened to as a young man, even though much of the message of that music went against where he stood then (and stands now.)



I didn't go to church at all until I was 20; my musical tastes were informed by secular music entirely. I had no idea at 20 that there was a whole subculture of music and art that agreed that the devil shouldn't have all the good music, and proceeded to make Christian versions that were morally and spiritually uplifting but still had the same riffs etc. Without wishing to disparage the musical integrity of these people, it has always struck me that this is an unnecessarily cheesy and isolationist approach to the relationship between music and spirituality.



The riffs of secular rock music in themselves are not satanic, but are the result of gifts and talents that I would say are God-given (even if to the producer rather than the musicians). When it comes to the lyrics I can only say that I'm glad I grew up on vinyl and cassettes, which made the words harder to work out, especially at high volume! So yes there is some stuff that I would switch off (or skip on the CD - had a mini epiphany yesterday in the car - "O blimey, that's about oral sex!" (a pint for the first person to guess correctly which song I was listening to!)) But why is it we have a tendency in the church to say that musical ability is only a God given gift if it is used to glorify God?

And why should I buy a CD just because it is by a Christian group when I prefer the music of the secular originators ? (being careful not to mention any names so as not to offend!)

The subculture is a con. Some people I have known use Christian versions of lots of things from holidays to plumbers to window cleaners (my window cleaner happens to be a jehovah's witness but I didn't employ him on that basis!) Its a con because it tricks us into ivory tower mentality - living in a safe world where only nice things and friendly godly people are around us. This effectively disables our mission by preventing us from ever actually meeting anyone who isn't a believer.

My kids live in a vicarage (some of their less enlightened school friends think they live in the church) but I want to make sure that they are free to experience as much as they can of modern culture and music. And if I have created the next Lemmy Kilminster then so be it.

Don't let it get away

As I am rather weary of bad news, I have begun reflecting upon blessings instead of woes. Found two photos this weekend that brought home to me again the beauty of the universe and its infinite variety.

Since I have a 9 year old son who thinks Dawkins is the best thing since sliced bread (and he likes sliced bread a lot), God as Creator has a low profile in our house.

This kind of thing helps though. That's a piglet squid on the left and a moon of Saturn on the right.

And rather nicely, It IS a beautiful day today

Mother do you think they'll drop the bomb?

Apologies if you thought this was going to be a post about Gaza; as someone who spends a lot of time looking after his kids, I have said a lot of these things in the last week (back to school etc)