Message in a bottle

We popped these bottles up in our chapel yesterday for people to put private prayers in.



If you're going to have things like these hanging in your prayer room you need to put an explanation up this is our one:

MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE
Prayers for God alone to hear
“Just a castaway, an island lost at sea 
Another lonely day, with no one here but me 
More loneliness than any man could bear 
Rescue me before I fall into despair”
Sting 



Write a prayer or a letter to God.
Tell Him your secrets, your longings, your hopes, your dreams, your fears – anything you like really.
Roll it up and put it in a bottle for no one else to read

“You keep track of all my sorrows.
You have collected all my tears in your bottle
You have recorded each one in your book’
Psalm 56 : 8




Original idea, Becky Edmonds stole from Kansas City Boiler Room, blue bottles sourced by Bruce from Davids Pizzeria he drank all the water and was running to the toilet for days.

The chapel

THE CHAPEL

The chapel is for everyone.

It’s a place of sanctuary, a sacred space, a peaceful place to sit quietly, reflect, pray.

This place is for you.

Take as much time as you like.

Maybe you’re not used to praying and you’re not sure how to start; feel free to use some of the different features to help you.

If you would like someone to pray or talk with you, ask one of the staff to come in with you.

Perhaps you would prefer someone to pray later when you’re not there – write your prayer on one of the cards and stick it on the ‘Prayer Wall’.

We promise to pray about what you’ve written.

The Chapel

This feels like the breath before the plunge!

The westend has a lot of energy, people painting, fixing stuff, cleaning and generally getting ready. I love this time of year. We have a prayer team out on Monday and our first summer long worker, Neil from Bristol, arrives this Sunday. Bruce is trapped in Ireland with his Lady friend, he has been there for nearly an extra week because of volcanic ash. It's cool because it's a result for him to spend more time with Christine and get extra refreshed and loved up before the summer.

We have redecorated the prayer room, it still needs one or two finishing touches, but this year we are going to call it "The Chapel" not the prayer room, it's much easier to explain. A word that keeps coming to mind is sanctuary, we really want the chapel to be a place of sanctuary.

In the 1600's hundreds Ibiza was subject to attacks by bands of marauding pirates, the churches adjusted to this by building fortifications so that when the pirates attacked the village could run into the church and hide there as a place of refuge and sanctuary. The church in San Antonio is one of the best examples of this type of architecture. They even had cannons on the roof to fight the pirates off. We want to recapture some of that ancient spirit, the church building as sanctuary, a place of safety, a shelter. Thats our heart for the chapel (the prayer room!) Maybe we should call it the sanctuary, after all a lot of churches call their main auditorium the sanctuary. I think we'll stick with chapel.

Last year we really were a place of sanctuary, we had people who were very down on their luck use the prayer room, many others used it for some quiet reflection, we prayed with people in it, others just sat in there for a while.

In many ways we want it to reflect the heart of God, I love the phrase "a shelter from the storm" this is what we are aiming for with the chapel this summer.

Facebook Church

What a random and nonsensical idea Facebook church. Right up there with Hisbook in totally pointless stuff for christians to be part of!!!

Honestly it's moments like these were I want to get of facebook and leave the internet behind when I look at the christians on the net a lot of them fill me with despair. I'm probably not that great myself but I just find it all disturbing. It's not so much the idea of Christians connecting online it's more what they write and how the world wide web provides such a mixed bag of christian expressions.

I don't want to be a dinosaur and I love being connected and I know nobody forces you to read. But as an advert to church and christians most of what is on there doesn't look good.

Stranded

Been trying some different shutter speeds, I like these snaps. Although I need to get a tripod as I nearly dropped my camera in the sea! It's a bit weird here at the moment with the whole suspended flights thing, it's amazing isn't it.

Heard one or two people saying that God would sort their flights out and that He was bigger than an ash cloud! but He didn't sort the flights out? Kind of reminds me of Pete Greigs book "God on Mute" where he talks about praying for a petrol station because you are low on fuel. What do you expect God to do drop a BP garage out of the sky just for you? Actually Pete is stranded in Chicago!!!



Then there those of us who pray for sunny days, when more often than not there is a farmer somewhere praying for rain! I do this.

I have even prayed for a parking space, sometimes it works! but I think that is more related to coincidence than God, isn't it?

Why I don't like lap dancing bars

I was talking to a lap dancer last year and she said "everytime I do a dance I feel like I give a little bit of myself away" she wasn't happy with this. I do know some lap dancers who can totally disassociate from the process and just treat it as a job which they get paid very well for. I'm not really here to pass judgement on the girls who do it.

I have only ever met one dodgy lap dancer and she was quite an old russian lady who was trying to upload her homemade porn movies at our centre last year and got quite angry with me when I said it wouldn't be possible!



What bugs me is the men! and also the whole degradation of females as objects of lust. When some is treated as something other than a human being, a creation of God, it is very sad. I don't like the fact that the whole lap dancing thing is becoming more and more legitimate. It's lust and the self.

Lust and Sin are two of the bars in the westend, the really weird thing is that everybody who works there is so lovely, so it's not the people I don't like, just the concept.

Blog contributors....

It's my beautiful wife's birthday today.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TRACY

I really like the idea of few other people contributing to this blog, if you'd like to put an article up here then please get in touch, leave a comment with your email I won't publish it.....

Does God really care what our churches look like?

Had thought yesterday about emerging church. Do you think people who do not go to church really care what it looks like? Do you think God does? I'm not talking in terms of holiness and bridal cleanliness more along the lines of style and form?

I wonder if it's not that people don't like traditional church services and old styles of doing things, could it be they don't like Christians?

We don't need emerging churches we need emerging christians. In fact you bring the average punter into an emerging service with candles, a dj, a clip from the matrix and someone walking us through an elaborate non threatening dialogue around perceptions of Christ, they would walk.

Christians are more worried about what church looks like than people who aren't! Many emerging models of church still work on an attractional basis and in all honesty if you want to go down that road you'd be better of being hillsongs.

There is an old school saying that goes something like this "Christ did not command sinners to go to church, but he did command the church to go to sinners"

As long as we are continually hung up on form and style of church the devil is a happy bunny. I really don't think God cares what our churches look like as long as they reach the lost. Obviously he might get a little stressed if we started running naked church!! but you know what I mean.

All along the watchtower

More watchtowers this weekend, some good relaxing time with the family. School starts again today and we have about 2 - 3 weeks to get properly ready for the season ahead I feel this will be a real busy week!

"There must be some way out of here" said the joker to the thief
"There's too much confusion", I can't get no relief
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth.

"No reason to get excited", the thief he kindly spoke
"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late".

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too.

Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl

I like Jimi Hendrix.

Christian media does not help Christian artists?

I have been in Ireland for a few days at a wedding so sorry for the silence. This was posted as a comment on my last post, I like it so much it deserves it's own special post:::

I agree with what you are saying but don't be mistaken into thinking that Foy Vance gets played on Greys Anatomy not because he's a christian but because it is good music. People get their music played on tv / film / computer games because they have a good publisher with good connections. Daniel Bedingfield spent years playing at the crossrhythms festival and had something like 90 tracks out before one of them was picked up and made commercial. U2 get played because they get on the radio 1 playlist because they shift units.

A lot of 'Christian' music doesn't get a lot of airplay because the bands sign sub standard publishing deals or with labels that have no real connections with the right people that can get the band playlisted. The problem isn't so much the bands as it is labels / publishers, who force Christian artists to take a certain route ie. playing Soul Survivor, Spring Harvest, Big Church Day Out, Alton Towers etc.

This has become the Christian 'circuit' because they are easy gigs to get and easy money to make. Not just from the gig but from the CD / merch sales. The only way for bands to break from that seems to be signing to a 'secular' label, who often don't want Christians to make a big thing of being Christian.

It would be good if some of the Christian labels went out and pushed for more difficult gigs, got their artists going the route of 'secular' artists and still continued to play the Christian gigs too.

In my opinion it's the Christian media that have forced this scared / secular divide and not the artists themselves.

Anyway... that was a little rant.

Well said

"Christian" sub cultures and how we are so good at marginalizing ourselves!

A.W.Ramsey a former Archbishop of Canterbury stated in his lecture "The paradox of Christianity" that "every present vocation or profession in the world is commended as the place where a man ought to be, knowing that the performance of it is a service of God and that God is there present" he also said "Christianity came into history passionately otherworldly in spirit, and this characteristic did not hinder but rather enhanced it's impact upon the world"

I love these thoughts on the sacred and the secular and thats what disturbs me about phrases such as "christian music" it speaks of music for christians, it calls christians to the great ghetto of comfortable christianity. It is the tip of the ice berg in a deep rooted problem that the church has had for years and that is we love to be comfortable.

If I am honest thats what freaks me out about "Christian TV" it's the same. I know all these people live with the vain hope that the world beyond christendom will tune in or listen, but the reality is that the main purchases of christian music and viewers of christian Tv are christians and surely that is not what we are meant to be about?

I saw something else that was extremely scary, it was called HisBook it was a social network site for christians, please please tell me this can't be happening. We are creating but pale imitations of wonderful tools that are already in existence! Facebook is great why recreate and build a ghetto?

N.T.Wright says this "Jesus’ kingdom is not from this world but it is for this world. We Christians have often read John 18 to be saying, my kingdom is not of this world meaning my kingdom simply belongs to somewhere else called heaven. It’s not what the Greek says, actually. It’s, my kingdom is not from, or out of, this world. It is not characterized by the mechanisms and the power plays of this world. But my kingdom is for this world. Jesus taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come . . . on earth as it is in heaven.” And we Christians have all too often said, “on heaven as it is in heaven, and if we can sort out a little bit of earth, that’s OK, but it’s not terribly important.” Jesus’ kingship is all about a different way of power, a different way of life, within this present world."

The Christian ghetto scares me does it scare you?

I haven't landed all these thoughts yet, need to think it through a bit more.......

Delirious Number 4! Is christian music right?

A number of weeks ago a friend of mine started a facebook group called "Anyone up for getting Delirious to number 1?" the concept behind his original idea was: we like them a lot, they have inspired us over the years, this would be a nice present for us fans to give the band and it would also be comedy!

Personally I thought it was genius, I really like delirious, we had them at our church back in 96 when they were just starting out, I have preached at one of their gigs and been to many others. I have had the chance to hang out with one or two of the delirious lads over the years and I can tell you they are genuine, humble, enthusiastic guys with a passion for a music and a passion to express their faith through music. I thought that a gift a of high chart place from their fans would be a lovely way of showing appreciation.

I agreed with Fraser McAlpine from the BBC when he heard about the idea and wrote this article

He said: "Delirious? have massively devoted fans, and they are very passionate about their band and about how they have been handled by the media in the past. What I would hope is that this gesture, this seasonal gift, is left unspoiled by any sense of righteous vengeance, or desperate Facebook spamming. It's not what this kind of thing should be about.

The chart success of 'History Makers' is just a really nice gift to give some people who made some music together, and made a lot of people very happy. "

The problem was that there was a lot of desperate facebook spamming! a few uptight christians got a little wound up and a few other "too cool for school" type christians rubbished the campaign.

About a week into the original campaign along came another guy with the same idea, excuse my cynicism but I initially struggled with this retrospective brainwave! however it soon became clear that this guy was a zealot for the cause of promoting christian music and with out his fantastic work the band would probably have never got to number 4. He initiated a website called Invade The Airwaves and the rest is history!

A guy called Ben Edson decided to have a minor pop about it all, but then he was too cool a christian to even have listened to delirious. Obviously Ben is highly intelligent and deep and finds christian music to unsubtle and shallow, he's probably a fan of Rihanna!

Another blog by Tractor Girl had this fantastic comment: "I find nothing more depressing than seeing a church full of people singing “I’m gonna be a history maker in this land” and knowing that its unlikely that even one of them will be." there has been lots more said out there. Facebook comments have been vicious and some christians have been more harsh than the general public who, I would imagine, have a sense of humour!

My own thoughts are this:

1. It was a fun idea
2. It was a gift to the band (no one was forced to buy it)
3. It raised over £20,000 for charity

Thats where it should have ended.

For me I dislike the concept of Christian music, I find the idea of invade the airwaves strange. I believe in worship music; music written to enhance sung worship, I enjoy a good sing song and so do a lot of other people. A song should get into the charts because it is good not because it is Christian.

Foy Vance gets played on Greys Anatomy not because he's a christian but because it is good music, people love U2 not because a few of the band are christians but because it's good music. Daniel Bedingfiled does well in the charts because people like his music. None of these guys and many others set their stall out as christian music, they are just Christians who make good music. We have to move away from the concept that having a "Christian" band in the chart will somehow advance the kingdom of God. I really don't think it will, when was the last time a song changed the world?

I believe Delirious are a good band and great musicians, History maker doesn't fully highlight the band, but that doesn't matter.

I love what Rob Bell has to say on this subject: "It is possible for music to be labelled christian and be terrible music. I could lack creativity and inspiration. The lyrics could be recycled cliches. That "christian" band could actually be giving Jesus a bad name because they aren't a great band"

I'm not worried about dodgy music making the church look bad, we have been playing dodgy music for years and I quite like it. I am more worried that energy is expended on a cause that moves us into some form sacred and secular divide. Where we end up with Christian Music and Worldly music that would a nonsense.

I could go on and will do tomorrow!