Christian world scares me

I have just spent a month covering for Bob the Anglican Vicar of Ibiza. It has been challenging and hectic but I have really enjoyed it.

It's a hard job because it's massively pastoral you spend a lot of time meeting with elderly people and just generally looking out for people. As we all know this can be demanding, I would imaging long term you could find this frustrating as you spend most of your time with elderly christians, although I do know that Bob is fantastic at reaching out to others.

In fact thats a challenge for most people, a friend of mine has recently moved to Northern Ireland and I was speaking to him a few weeks ago and I asked him if he had met anyone who wasn't a christian yet!!! His answer was No....

Christian world can absorb us, we are guilty of creating a christian sub culture, that has it's own music, it's own authors, it's own celebrities, it's own holidays and it's own secret language.

Materialism and media in the hands of christians appear to have been succumbed too rather than resisted. We are always in danger of becoming ineffective God TV watching christians.

Honestly, God TV does anyone not just think the name in itself seems wrong?

Why are there no fat ugly worship leaders touring the world right now? Tell me if pretty boys and pretty girls don't sell records and really thats what it is all about.....

Thats why I like Godfrey Birtill, not his music just what he stands for... "No more pretty boy worship leaders"

Honestly went hill songs in London once, the light show alone could have kept a small african village in food for a year.

The church I go to in Diss, had a guy ask them "what do you do if your not Hillsong?" what they do is great but really do you honestly think there are churches out there who are stressing because they are not hill song, they should be thankful.

Christian world scares me.

I enjoyed being a vicar, I love hill songs music, I have been blessed by God TV, I read books by christian authors, I speak the secret language....

I'm conflicted, I'm scared, I want to be positive about the body of Christ I enjoy all the trappings of Chrsitian world, but I am still scared.

I have a niggle in the back of my mind that it all may just be a little bit wrong.

Romans 12. The Message

Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Stop Making Sense

One of my favourite bands were/are Talking Heads, i loved there music when I was young, quirky rhythms, great lyrics, and David Byrne.

One of my all time favourite music films, alongside Pink Floyds The Wall, was "Stop Making Sense"

I also saw a tweet from Pete Greig this morning which led me to David Byrnes Journal. It's a great eclectic online journal, he writes brilliantly and observes life really well

Check it out Dave Byrne's Journal

Fortieth Year Highlights

Today I have completed my first year in my forties! It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be although it is still scary thinking you are in your forties and that your next significant birthday will be your fiftieth.

Top ten discoveries, highlights and memories of my fortieth year:

1. I have discovered that I like cashmere jumpers, they are comfortable and feel nice against the skin. Comfortable clothing rocks.

2. Going to the gym, after initially thinking it was going to kill me, I now enjoy going to the gym 4 -5 times a week, I haven't lost much weight but my wobbly bits are firmer.

3. First complete year without smoking a cigar or anything else. (not that I used to smoke anything else, well I smoked weed when I was young... anyway)

4. Emotional balance: after a tricky year up the farm I have enjoyed being in a normal house with just my family about and a lot less stress.

5. Sons. Two boys are the best, my sons amuse me, challenge me, push my patience, play their music to loud, are untidy, and completely random at times but I love them and enjoy being their dad.

6. 24-7 Prayer: this movement inspires and challenges me, people giving it their all trying new things, reaching out to the broken and praying that God would heal this world. I have many friends within the movement and they are such a support and inspiration.

7. Places and people: Belfast, Stanford-le-Hope, Diss, Guildford, Newtonards, Lurgan, Burgos, Tulsa, Southampton, Castlewellan, San Antonio these places and more importantly people from these places have given me much joy this year.

8. My Viewing: Glee, House, Modern Family, The Event, Lie to me, Community and No Ordinary Family have been great television. The book of Eli, The A Team, Robin Hood, The Expendables, Inception, The Green Zone and Iron Man2 have filled my film watching world with action.

9. God: He never ceases to amaze me. The Alpha and Omega, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. The work here, my life the life of my family have all been deeply impacted and touched by a God who cares and leads. Words cannot describe my gratitude I just want to burst into tongues; shakadobadnam medahhulokanesh shee trame..... (It doesn't look so great written down, and seriously why do I always start with shaka?)

10. Last but not least, my wife. Tracy is my inspiration she has faith in me she is sexy and gorgeous, she is the glue in our family and without her 24-7ibiza would just not function, the last year has been fantastic for us both.

Anyway there you go, 41 today and very happy....

p.s. If I could have a number 11, which I can because it's my list, it would be my camera.

A Stumbling Journey (Newtonards 25th -26th Feb )

It's been raining so no photos of the van yet, but it will happen this week.

Tracy and I are at North Down CFC in Newtonards, N. Ireland at the end of February were we will be doing a little mini conference around the theme of a

"Stumbling Journey"

“An exploration of what it means to live a prayerful life within the context of a missionally active response to the world.”

We will do sessions around, "It's not a formula it's a willingness to go on a journey", "Are we running out of breath". "There's urine on my pew!" ,"Gay man dancing" and "A grace filled approach to spiritual poverty"

Hopefully it will be a fun and interesting time the aim is really to explore prayer and mission so if you are in Ireland we would love to see you there

7.30 - 10.00pm on Friday and 9.00am - 4pm on the Saturday, 25th & 26th February, cost £20 for further info call Jackie 028 9182 1721 or email: jackie@communityworksonline.com or visit the website: www.northdowncfc.com

The New Van

After my previous blog posts, someone has kindly donated all the money we need to purchase a new vomit van for 24-7 prayer in Ibiza. So on Friday we picked up our new Van...

7 seater dark blue Chrysler Voyager, manual diesel, with ability to remove seats! We can lift a seat out then drunks can just lie on the floor!!!

Anyway we are extremely happy that this didn't become a long drawn out process, but that everything was quickly provided for.

What a fantastic encouragement.

I will take some photos later today and post them here...

Resigned to slavery

We have Maria here this weekend who works with prostitutes in Barcelona, we are trying to find a more joined up approach to how we work with prostitutes.

The girls that we work with are for want of a better word "seasonal workers" they are based for the majority of their time on the mainland. Maria works with these girls on the mainland so we are hoping for more insight and maybe a little strategy to develop.

How does slavery happen?

I can tell you this story because we have heard it first hand.

Girl in village or town in Africa gets offered job overseas, she has probably fallen on hard times and the person who offers the work is probably not a close friend but someone she loosely knows. There is a promise of work looking after children or other domestic work and it generally involves being located in mainland europe. The girl may have children of her own and desperately wants to provide for them.

She is then transported illegally to europe, upon arrival she is told that there is not the work she expected, but that she owes a large sum of money for the costs of getting her here. The average figure is somewhere between 45,000 - 65,000 euros. She is told that she cannot go until the debt is paid. A number of issues then come into play and they are all based on fear.

1. She is in the country illegally.

2. Her family is used as leverage, threat of harm if she runs away without payment.

3. Some have sworn a witch doctor oath (juju); if they don't pay the debt they or their family will be cursed and die.

4. She is placed with girls whose debt is nearly paid off; if she flees they will be responsible for her debt.

At a ground level, the girls are usually controlled by a madam, not a pimp.

On the back of all this deception and fear she is forced into prostitution, she has little option but to accept her lot and so she gets on with it. When you walk the streets and look into this girls' eyes, if you stop long enough, if you look closely you will see that there is a deep sadness a desperate longing for a different life, this is not what she expected and not what she wants, she is trapped, enslaved.

She is resigned to slavery.

What happens to these girls is sad, despicable and wrong it needs to change.

The church must not remain silent on this issue. But neither must the church become a place where lots of people talk and pray about this issue without ever actually getting involved in working towards its abolition.

"And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God". Micah 6

Pray for us this weekend as we chat and pray about the best way forward with this whole area.

24-7 Ireland

24-7 prayer ireland have a newly revamped web page we are currently under going a year of prayer for Ireland.

"24-7prayerireland in partnership with Alpha are trying to facilitate a year of prayer for 2011. The plan is to get people right across the nation of Ireland (north and south) praying for a whole year as much as possible night and day!! We have sensed God leading us strategically to focus prayer on a particular town/city/county each month and to couple this with a gathering in that particular area each month. These gatherings will allow people to share and celebrate stories, pray and worship God together. Our aim through this way of facilitating the year of prayer is two-fold. First, that this will lead to intentional prayer in each area, uniting the local church provincially and seeing significant changes in the communities represented. Secondly and more nationally that this will catch the imagination of people all over the land as we call all of Ireland to prayer and that through this a increasing movement of kingdom people will be connected and mobilised.

So please join in with us…."

I will be in N.Ireland at the end of February, we are doing a weekend in Newtonards, so if you'd like to get along and hear about what we do and how we do it along with some challenge and teaching around the whole subject of prayer and mission, let me know. In fact I'll put the details up soon.

Visit the 24-7prayer Ireland website to check out all that is going on in this wonderful nation.

Distraction

I love reading, I don't think you can have too many books. I love the smell and feel of books which is why I will probably never have a kindle

Don't know how I managed to accidentally put 52 books up yesterday as a non existent blog post! I was thinking about reading 52 books in a year like Carla and Alana but in all honesty I find that reading books at times can be a distraction!

I have already read 3 books this year and I read all the time. On a personal level I can't read novels without getting engrossed in them which in turn affects how much I read my bible etc... books affect my spiritual discipline.

Ok I read a lot but they tend to be christian books or historical factual books, I enjoy them because I find them much easier to dip in and out of and also to put down.

I don't like a lot of the snobbery that goes around book reading, I doubt people leaving lists on their blogs would put up trashy novels.

I have also come across christians who read so many books on church theory and christian practice that they have ceased to think for themselves with regards their own spirituality and outworking of christian community. There are many wise men we can learn from out there but we must also think for ourselves.

My personal belief is that Christians should read the bible all the way through at least once a year, and all the gospels at least 4 times each a year.

So I won't be posting a list of my 52 books this year, although I have a feeling that I probably will read that many books.

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read. ~Groucho Marx

52 Books

Choral Communion

We had Choral Communion this morning at church, I really enjoyed this service. Possibly because I am starting to feel more comfortable with all the liturgy and think I have settled well with the preaching.

We finished with the old Hymn crown him with many crowns, I love the last verse.

Crown Him the Lord of years, the Potentate of time,
Creator of the rolling spheres, ineffably sublime.
All hail, Redeemer, hail! For Thou has died for me;
Thy praise and glory shall not fail throughout eternity.

Ineffably sublime, potentate of time!!! what great English.

Vicaring!

For all of January I am standing in for the Reverend Bob Short, looking after the English speaking church in Ibiza.

So far it has been fun, I enjoy the liturgy, I enjoy visiting at the hospital, I enjoy going the old peoples home.

I have to do a bible group on Mondays which is intense in a mixed nationality kind of way but actually quite interesting. One of the attendees calls it battle group.

We also have a prayer meeting which I really enjoy, although it's all women. I think the Ibiza church is very top heavy with women. Not many couples attend regularly.

The Sunday service are also good, not remotely charismatic or anything like that, although rich in meaning and deep in unity. I find the words very moving. I could be an anglican.

It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty, that we should

at all times, and in all places, give thanks unto thee, O Lord,
holy Father, almighty, everlasting God.

The thing I have struggled with the most is picking the hymns!!!! I'm just not very musical..

New Vomit Van

Thankfully we saw a new vehicle yesterday, well second hand, the last thing we need is to be destroying new van with vomit etc... It's going to cost in total about £4000 which actually for Ibiza is very good.

It's a Chrysler Voyager, on Spanish plates and already here on the island. After my previous experience of trying to get a british car that was originally a japanese import registered here, I am glad we have found one that will not create so much hassle.

The one pictured isn't it, our one will have different wheels and tinted rear windows, but at least it gives you an idea. The best thing about the voyager is that the seats lift out, so we can lift out one of the rear seats and have plenty of manoeuvre room when we are helping incapacitated people into the back!!!

If you know of anyone who has a spare £4000 in these financially difficult times, please could you let me know. Alternatively if you would like to make a donation towards the cost of this vehicle please get in touch with me.

R.I.P Vomit Van

It has died, after years of wonderful service the van has come to an end and it's time to get a new one (well a second hand one!)

Here's a little report I wrote about the vans use this summer, at the time I didn't realise it would be an obituary!

Vomit Van

An important part of our work is what we do out on the streets of San Antonio with our van. We rescue people by helping them out and getting them back to their hotel or apartment. It’s important to stress three things:

1. We are not a taxi service, we do not charge people we even refuse donations. We do not steal taxi drivers business we only take people home that have too much vomit on them, have no money or are in too much of an emotional or mental muddle to catch a cab. We often walk people directly to the taxi rank, if the taxis won’t take them we do.

2. We are not an ambulance service, if people are unconscious or in anyway displaying signs that they need medical assistance we phone an ambulance. If it’s just minor cuts or bruises we will drive them to the local medical centre.

3. When we leave people at their hotel or apartment we try to ensure that we do not leave them on their own.

We take home people who occupy the middle ground, too much of a mess for the taxi not in enough mess for an ambulance!

The people we deal with are drunk, drugged, lost, disorientated, vulnerable, injured or distressed. We either find them on their own or struggling to get home with friends. We come upon these people in a number of ways, by just walking around and finding them or by a worker or bar owner phoning us to come and get them, we also respond to the local health centre phoning us to come and help them.

This season with the van we had 235 of these incidents, which involved 444 people, most of these incidents, lasted between 30 minutes to 2 hours! But they all resulted in vulnerable people being helped and taken to a place of safety.

This year we had one guy who was so drunk he defecated in the van! An Italian couple where the lady had twisted her ankle to the health centre, drunk guy who was asleep on a bench with his rolex lying by his side!! Young girls who had gotten separated from the rest of their friends, guys in a muddle who had been robbed by prostitutes, people who had taken too much ketamine etc.... the list is endless.

We operate with two people in the van but sometimes there are 4 of us helping people. We have water, buckets, gloves and all the other stuff you need when dealing with high levels of vomit.

Additionally we use the van for the transport of our summer volounteers to get them to various areas of the island and ensure that we collect them from airport etc.. once again without the van the management of our summer teams would be a logistical nightmare!

R.I.P Vomit van I kind of loved you.........

(Ps if anyone wants to make a donation towards a new one please let me know)

What's next?

With regards our own move back to the Uk we will be moving back to our home town of Diss in Norfolk. This is primarily to do with our children's education, but also because we have a house there, family there, friends there and a christian community there that has supported us throughout our journey here. It is near to Stanstead airport which allows for ongoing involvement in Ibiza and elsewhere and it is also close to Essex where we have more friends and family. Diss is also only 90 minutes from London by train. So as a friend said to me "it's a no brainer".

Besides all these practical reasons we do have a very firm feeling and assurance that this is where God wants us to be for the next season of our lives.

Well thats the geography sorted and we feel for the moment that is all we have, we have no idea as to any other roles or jobs we may be doing upon our return. Actually we are relatively happy with that at the moment we can live with the sense of not knowing about roles.

We have to live in the present not the future, so what comes next will be revealed for us, but at this present time we must focus on Ibiza and remain in a place of trust and peace for the future.

My friend Sally sent me this a few weeks ago, I don't know if it's true in all things, but for our present situation we found it helpful with regards to what we do next:

The clearer the sense of vision a person/community has for the future, the less likely that vision is from God. That is not the way God generally appears. God leads us to the place where "we don't know" and "cant see". It is not Gods way to give us specs or blueprints. God takes us to places where trust grows(or more likely to grow)and often where we dont want to go. God leads us to faith , not certainty.

Changes

Well I have had a little bit of a self imposed blog break, but am feeling refreshed and up for another year of blogging. In a changing online world I wondered if there was still a point but thankfully you do seem to be sticking with me, which is reassuring!

There are changes afoot here with regards to Tracy and my role in the work of 24-7 prayer in Ibiza, we have decided that in the summer of 2012 we will move back to the UK.

The work here will continue, although we will be in the UK we will both stay very much involved. This will be in more of an oversight, pastoral support, administrative assistance and fundraising role.

We are good at starting new initiatives and building on embryonic ideas, at pioneering, we feel that we have established 24-7prayer in Ibiza to a credible level, we have a centre, we have a fantastic team programme, we have a really great reputation and we feel that we make a difference to the world we live in. I have often found this question helpful when it comes to christian communities and organisations involvement in the world "If we disappeared tomorrow would the local community miss us?" I am sure that the answer with regards to 24-7ibiza would be "Yes".

We now have an 18 month journey ahead of us which will involve strengthening what we have and adding to it. The major challenge is that we will need to find a couple or individual who feel called to come and take over the leadership of the work here on the ground in Ibiza.

At this present time we have no one in mind for this role although there are one or two people out there who we feel could do the job. We are looking for a couple who would be willing to give at least three years of their lives to living in Ibiza full time with the sole purpose of leading the work here and developing community on this island.

If you are the praying kind please pray that over the next 18 months we will see a smooth transition to new leadership here.

If you're reading this and something in you stirs, please get in touch.

New Vomit Van

Well here we are 2011, another year. It excites me to think ahead and blesses me to look back and see that God has been with us on the journey so far.

Challenges for the year ahead are a New Vomit Van the head gasket has gone on our 14 year old toyota and it will cost more to fix it than it's worth!

We'll see how that one pans out.

We will go for a Spanish model this time rather than bring one over from the UK and go through all the hassle of trying to get it changed to spanish plates etc...

If anyone has any ideas on the best type of vehicle for us I would be happy to hear from you.

Peace and love for 2011