Keepers of a gentle flame

I have just been to a wonderful event at HTB in London. For those of you who don't know HTB is the birthplace of Alpha a course for those wishing to explore christianity. So far nearly 20 million people worldwide have been on this course. At the birthplace of alpha they have just launched a permanent 24-7-365 prayer room. The Bishop of London opened it, and I was blessed to be a part of the morning.

I have been thinking about some stuff recently and felt it was time to start putting my thoughts back out there. My blogging has become a little tame and a bit sporadic. Probably due to recovering from what was the most challenging year we have ever lived through.

Anyway I keep thinking about the church on it's knees...

Why does the church need to spend more time on it's knees?

Because we can't do it on our own, we can't organise, plan and administer the growth of Gods kingdom, we can only call out with faith and fall to our knees in acknowledgement of our absolute and utter dependancy on him. 

Yes we have plans, initiatives and resources but if these are not fuelled by prayer they will be shallow expressions of a deeper reality. 

All the fires we seek to light must start with a spark of prayer, must be sustained by the fuel of prayer and when they spread they must ignite more prayer. 

The spirit of God is unpredictable wildfire yet I wonder if have we become keepers of a gentle flame?

As the church in the UK I believe we have got good at we do, we know how to connect, we know how to run an alpha course, to run good youth work, to engage with our communities, to be agents for social change and regeneration, we are in faith for more money, we apply for grants and create budgets, we ask the church for more. 

We make our stuff sexier, more attractive, slicker and if I'm honest it all kind of works, which is good and definitely an answer to our prayers. 

I can't help but feel there is another dimension that we need to access, another place. 

For me that place would be the edge! 

The edge of what? 

The edge between what we can physically do and what we can't, the edge for me is faith. The point where we have to take ourselves and our communities, the place where if it all goes wrong we'll look stupid and our elders will tell us they saw it coming. The place where we will be embarrassed if it doesn't work. We have to start scaring ourselves again. 

This is the place of prayer, it takes us to the edge, it leads us out in faith. This is Noah building a boat, Abraham on the mountain, Moses crossing the sea, Peter walking on water, or Stephen before the Sanhedrin. For me this is the edge.

I want to get on my knees because, although what we are doing is great and blessed, it is not enough.

What do we have faith for? What do we need faith for?

Just thoughts......

I want to get out on the scary edge again.

A dream from 2006

I wrote this in a journal in early 2006 and found it again yesterday!

I have a dream.  It’s a big dream - in reality it could almost be an impossible dream -but I am not prepared to live with the word impossible.  I’m going to live for my dream.

The dream is this: it’s of a vibrant, year round, praying and worshipping community here on the island of Ibiza. A community that is passionate about being kind and doing good for others, a community that does not live for itself alone.  A community of Jesus followers who love this island and want to bring His flavours to it.

This community will have a home, a building; it will be a large multi-purpose building, a tool that will define what we do here on this island.

This building will provide a place of refuge and spiritual reflection.

This building will allow us to run a multiplicity of courses.

This building will be actively used all year round.

This building will be a facility for the people of Ibiza.

It will be a place for the young to use after school or at the weekend. It will be attractive to all age groups.

We will host xbox clubs, pool tournaments, relaxation sessions, Spanish classes, coffee mornings and poker nights.

It will be a facility for information and advice about life on this island, an access point for workers.  Not just a place to use the internet, but a place of support when people are in need.

Sexual health and drugs awareness will be issues we will tackle from this building.

It will be a training centre – we could train people in DJing, drumming, guitar, dance, art and cookery… to name but a few.

We will gather people in the building on a regular basis for creative, chilled out teaching and worship services. We will run spiritual discovery courses such as alpha.

In my mind’s eye I see counselling taking place, massages being given, conversations being had, coffee being drunk, all in this building.

It will be the venue out of which summer teams work, the base for our community’s West End summer work.

At its heart it will have a prayer room - it’s vibrant beating spiritual heart will be prayer.  Prayer will sustain it.

The next step is a building.

It hasn't all happened yet but I am so privileged to see some of the dream fulfilled in our time here, Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see!

Totes Emosh

I must admit I had never heard this phrase before, until Kez who is out here serving the work for a few months said it in the car the other night. It has it's origins in Essex two x-factor contestants used it, although Kez is not from Essex! Anyway I looked it up, it's a phrase when someone or something is very emotional.

Now from time to time I can be a little emotional but I am starting to feel a little stronger with regards going back to the UK. But last night we had our first summer service and we had 4 prostitutes in attendance it was so lovely to see them, I find myself more emotional about these girls and their plight than I do about my temporary discomfort around change.

We also had a guy turn up last night who used to be an usher at his church in Nigeria, he asked if he could be our usher. I think they come early, tidy up and set up we said obviously said "Yes".

It's weird I always thought emerging missional communities would somehow look different perhaps be a little trendier, I am not sure what I expected but I didn't expect that we would be having an usher!

But then isn't that the essence of missional?

I don't really care what we look like or what people want to do as long as we are reaching out.

Anyway last night was a great first night, Kez led worship for the first time, I gave a little talk, we got to pray with some people and the summer has started to take shape.

Now I might get totes emosh when I have to leave all of that!

We need men, further info!

We normally only take guys who have been on a two week team to serve for longer but because we are down on men we will be a little more flexible with how this works.

There is quite a rigorous application process and we can send you the application forms, we will also need 2 references, good references, not just from some friend in church who ticks all the 5’s and doesn’t really know you!

With regards to cost there is a monthly rental cost plus whatever it takes for you to live, we normally take the rental costs in advance, because if someone rocks up and they don’t have the cash we end up living by faith instead of them!!!!! 350 euros a month is the rough rental cost! 


You’ll probably share a room and you will be in an apartment without a mother!

People need to come for a minimum of 8 weeks, any shorter and you don’t really build good relationships. 3 months would be great, 6 months if you can do it, but definitely minimum 8 weeks.

You will be expected to spend 3 nights on the streets, 2 days in the centre, help out with some short term team activities, be at all our community prayer and teaching times, and generally live as part of a tight knit little missional unit. You won’t be able to be invisible and you’ll need to have a good attitude to leadership.

What type of person are we looking for? Over 21, Spiritual, mature, emotionally stable, non-flirtatious, able to cope with tiredness and messy situations!

We don’t need men who have lust issues or drink issues coming to Ibiza to test if they have beaten it! This is not a place to test yourself, you will fail here.

Do you love God? Do you love people? Are you passionate about prayer? Can you pray out loud? Will you be able to pray with someone on the streets? Are you non-judgmental! Then you could be the one.

Why not get in touch email me a mail@24-7ibiza.com I will send you an application and we’ll see if it works out.

Standing between the living and the dead

Intimacy and involvement is a much used phrase within 24-7 prayer, it's the phrase that gives real life to our movement. I believe this is a really exciting time. God is still looking for a people who are both intimate with him and involved with the world. 

There is a call upon each one of our lives to be an intimate prayerful people, who touch the Father’s heart and experience the transforming power of his presence. There is also a call upon each of our lives to be an involved people, who prayerfully take the Fathers heart to the world and introduce others to Jesus and allow them to experience the transforming power of His presence in their lives. Thats what I love. 


24-7prayer then by default is not a tabernacle model of prayer, it's an incarnational model.
We must be careful that we don’t try to spread the gospel without the back up of prayer, the power of the Holy Spirit and the transforming power of having been in His presence. Likewise we must be very careful that we don’t pray, experience the Holy Spirit and become transformed by His presence without ever being compelled to fulfil the biblical mandate of spreading the gospel.

We need to be a people who do both, it would be completely wrong to say “I pray, others reach out” or “I reach out, others pray” a Christians life needs both intimacy and involvement. I think even the phrase prayer missionary leaves a little bit to be desired.

My faith is two pronged and I don’t think we can choose to go for just one prong! Read Matthew 22: 37 -40 we are called to do both,"love the Lord your God with all your heart and Love your neighbours as yourself." 

We can’t just be presence seekers; we also need to be presence bringers. We need to be striving to do both together at all times.

I heard a guy called Bill Wilson speak once he talked from Exodus 16: 42 – 50. in which a deadly plague is spreading throughout the children of Israel, they are literally dropping like flies in front of Moses and Aaron, Aaron runs to the Altar, the place that represents the presence of God, he gets some incense and fire from the Altar and runs into the middle of the people and stands with the incense and the plague stops. It says that he took the fire and “stood between the living and the dead”.


We must be a people who get fire from the presence of God and then stand in the middle of a dying world and bring life. We are called to stand between the living and the dead but we can only do this if we have got the fire from His presence.Aaron carried something that he had got from the presence of God into the middle of a very dark and desperate situation and the plague stopped. One man ran into the presence and then ran into the dying world around him and made a difference. The fact that he ran suggests urgency, lives depended on his speed, on his commitment and his awareness of how dreadful the situation was.

My prayer is that I become like Aaron, that I am filled with a desire to run to the presence of God and that I am also filled with enough compassion for the lost and dying to run with His presence into the world.

Intimacy and involvement. Prayer and action. Faith and deeds. They kind of all go together.

Baptism

We met Danny at the beginning of the summer, he would come into the centre and just hang out. The team became really great friends with Danny, who worked at a little shop just up the way from where we are based. They invited him for meals, took him on little photography trips around the island, listened to him, laughed with him and generally did what normal people do and became friends.

In September time Danny left Ibiza for the UK and then towards the end of September, he messaged me to ask if he could come out and help us for a month. We said yes, Danny stayed with some of our team and got involved in the street work and centre work.

He wanted to be somewhere were he belonged! Then somewhere over the last month whilst living with our community and working as part of our team, he believed!

Danny heads back to the UK today, but yesterday upon the confession of his faith we baptised Danny.

This is Danny coming up out of the water, there was joy in the house.

What a great thing to happen on the final week of our season here?

As you can see by the expression on my face moments like these make life here so worthwhile.

Praying with people on the street

It's so hot and humid here I had to get up at 6am and go and lie outside! Tracy had been out on the street tonight and has just got in.

We have 19 adults here including Tracy and myself serving the work of 24-7 prayer here in ibiza, 8 of those are our first two week team and they are doing a great job.

People in our world still really want prayer, even if they wouldn't call themselves christians. Even though this is our 7th season I still find myself amazed and humbled by the amount of opportunities we get to chat, listen to and pray with people on the street.

Here's a little bit about how it goes when we pray for others on the streets.

Number one prayer request we get is always "others" people generally always want you to pray for someone else. At first I think they feel it's selfish to ask for individual prayer, often saying things like "I don't deserve your prayers but could you pray for my Granny" or a sick loved one, or friend who is having a hard time.

People often ask us to pray for dead people, we do pray for them but generally turn the prayer to pray for the bereaved family and friends. Often it's like they want us to get a message to their friend or family member, or they just miss them dearly and want us to pray that they will be ok in heaven.

Once we have prayed for others we tend to ask "Is there anything we can pray for you about?" mostly we get prayers about future, meeting the right partner, getting enough money, good employment that kind of thing.

Often as we talk and listen to people it goes to a deeper level, 5 areas that people talk to us a lot about are: guilt, regret, fear, pain, failure. I think this tends to happen because we just take the time, we pray before we go out, we ask to be led, allow the Holy Spirit to prompt and guide us and we don't rush. People are also on holiday so they tend to be more relaxed and also in less of a hurry. This is where you really have to believe God will show up, he does. We get a lot of emotional response as we pray for people and it's always beautiful to watch God show up and start to interact with people who maybe hadn't given Him a lot of thought.

We will also pray for people to be healed, you'll be surprised by how many people won't want you to do that, but we are never frightened to ask! We have prayed for a number of people who have got better.

We work hard at not using religious language. I use certain phrases that I really mean for our generation. I pray for God to smile on people, to bless their families, to help them in work, to provide all they need. I often also pray for peace, people need peace. We do of course ask the Holy Spirit to lead our praying but it does help to have given some fore thought to what you are going to say.

If people don't want us to pray for them there and then on the street we ask if they would like to fill out a prayer request form that we will take back to our prayer room and pray about for them. A couple of tips: get them to write it if they don't want to write it you write it but get them to sign it. You then end up praying their prayer more accurately.

Of course over the years we have had comedy prayer requests like guys asking for longer willy's or some asking if Leicester could win the FA cup. We still pin them on our wall and pray for the person but not the request!!!

These last 4 days alone we have prayed with over 30 people on the streets here in Ibiza.

I've so got my faith back now!

A friend in the West end poured his heart out to two of our summer long team last week, telling them all about his friend being arrested and put in prison. 

He had spent 3 days doing everything he could to get him released, using every contact he had back home to help. He was quite emotional as with our guys the responsibility, helplessness and frustration he felt. 

So they all stood in the middle of the street outside a strip club and prayed that his friend would find favour with the law and be released rather than sent to Barcelona prison which was the potential outcome. 

The next day one of our team went to see how he was. She was given a huge hug of relief and news that his friend had been released and was now flying back to UK!  

They celebrated the news together and as she was leaving the guy whispered ‘I’ve so got my faith back now.’ 

Jesus said: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free..."

   

Worship Leader v Chef

A friend of mine said this to me and I wondered what others thought:

So you're a worship leader and I'm a chef.

What we are going to do is look at the life of Jesus.

You tell me all the stories that involve Him and sung worship and I'll tell all the stories that involve Him and food.

You start......

Cultural relevance is a red herring

Does culture change the church or does church change the culture?

Or should we be adapting to culture and working out the best ways to be affective christians within the culture?

I am not always convinced it is the churches job to change the culture, we need to adapt, change and modify to really have an impact on it but do we need to change it. But then again "kingdom come" is a form of imperialism, maybe we do? What we definitley mustn't do is withdraw from the culture around us and create our own little culture.

I once heard Pete Greig say this of the church "We are not called to be culturally relevant but we are called to be culturally present"

Cultural relevance is a red herring. We do however need to be present in culture, light in darkness, salt in a saltless world!

Thats why the Christian worship band culture really gets under my skin, because it further highlights how far removed the church can be from the culture that surrounds us! Instead of being present in culture we absent ourselves from it and create our own one. I think part of this happens because it is easier. For a new artist the path of least resistance is to work in a ready made market who are crying out for the next song to give them goosebumps and make them feel good about their lifestyle choices. It's lazy, not very biblical and breeds a reclusive church culture.

A real artist would break into the culture not remove himself from it.

Light in light, salt in an already salty environment, it doesn't work for me.

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.

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)

Ancient Places

Old Church buildings great for photo's, picturesque weddings and sombre funerals but not much else!

Third Places, part 5.

I am with Chris, who commented this morning, he said

"The way 3rd places were presented to me just turned me off. My community is full of coffee shops and pubs. Why can't we just go there?

We end up creating something that is well meaning but unfortunately just a bit rubbish. (like some Christian music).

It sounds like a good idea, but why not just go for a coffee with your pals? Why do we have to make a christian "3rd place"? "

1. I was going to do a little summary this morning and the first thing I was going to say was "if at all possible go to existing third places"

2. If we are going to create a third place we need to it well, I have seen some great third places created by churches, but they have top quality venues that are run by professionals, designed by creative people and have a distinct lack of donated second hand furniture and cheesy music.

3. Church will have to change the way it is structured if we are actually going to find the time to regularly hang out with pals at an existing third place.

4. I think that the church is full of gifted people who if they really had the freedom to let their creative juices flow could create wonderful third places.

5. Third places are not the only way, I have enjoyed looking at this particular aspect of missional living but do realise that God paints on a very broad canvas. There is more than one way.

6. We need to hang out in places with people frequently, frequency is the key.

7. We need to enjoy it, don't treat it as a project, just enjoy hanging out with people.

Third Places, part 4.

"Third places are the most significant places for christian mission to occur because in a third place people are more relaxed , less guarded, more open to meaningful conversation and interaction" Michael Frost

For me this is the crunch we need places for christian mission to occur, in and of itself a building isn't everything but it will help if used right.

The one danger I see in an over emphasis on third places is that a communities energy and time could be absorbed by the building and it's maintenance to such and extent that it takes them away from their primary focus which is to reach out to the lost. This is a balance to be found.

If at any point the third place is not an incarnational representation of the body of Christ it is starting to lose it's way. If all our energies are absorbed in the attraction of people to a third place we become invitational and not incarnational. The primary focus of the bride of Christ and it's members is the representation and carrying of Christ into the world, being Christ and moving into the neighbourhood!. Third places should only enhance this, in fact a well developed third place could greatly help incarnational christians as they seek to outwork their faith in the neighbourhood.

I read this once "The structure serves us, we do not serve the structure" in all we do we must watch for this, if what we create starts to dictate our pace and take us away from our true calling of reaching the lost we are serving the structure and it is no longer serving us.

A lot of mainstream churches have become trapped in this kind of thinking, programmed based church (with all it's positives) has become a structure that is served!

Was I right in hearing that once someone has become a christians, within 6 months of joining a church they have no serious non christian friends?

The structure takes over, before we know it all our energies are giving to maintenance instead of growth. You find yourself at a worship practice on a monday, a children's club on a tuesday, a small group on a Wednesday, you see your family on the weekends, and maybe hang out with your wife and kids, you have a stressed out charging around Sunday and before you know it 5 years have slipped by and you have no space in the diary for the lost!!!!

Third places should facilitate incarnational living, not hinder it.

Hope you like the snap I took last night?

Third Places, part 3.

If you watch have watched Friends the third place is the coffee shop, if you watch Eastenders its the pub, if you watch Coronation Street it is the pub.

I'm not sure there are many churches that are truly third places. They don't meet part twos criteria.

The line that make sense to me is about proximity to the host culture. If you're going to have a third place it needs to be be near the people you are trying to reach.

The other thing I see a lot of is people with a dream for specific kind of place. So you have always dreamt of running a coffee shop, you start a coffee shop, it doesn't work! Why? because it was not what the host culture needed.

Work out who the people you are trying to reach are, then develop your third place, don't do it the other way around.....

Our third place must be in response to the culture we are trying to reach, not some form of Jamie Oliverish fantasy.

Is the kitchen table the third place? No I don't think so, it's part of the first place, the home, the family. You would expect at some point the people you meet in the third place to end up at your table.

There is always a temptation by the church to use third places as a means by which they can gather souls to invite to their Sunday services. This is not how it is meant to be.

Third places are places where we should invite people into our lives.

Third Places, part 2.

Essential ingredients for well-functioning third places:

1. They must be free or quite inexpensive.
2. Food and drink, though not absolutely essential, are important factors.
3. They must be highly accessible to neighbourhoods so that people find it easy to make the place part of their regular routine.
4. A lot of people should be able to comfortably walk to the place from their home.
5. They should be places where a number of people regularly go on a daily basis.
6. They should be places where people feel welcome and comfortable and where it is easy to enter into conversation.
7. A person should expect to find old and new friends on each trip to the place.

Frost says: "You can understand why businesses such as Starbucks have latched on to this concept. They have invested greatly in seeking to be a third place for American culture, knowing that it can be very lucrative for a business to be seen this way."

Atrophic communities

I was listening to a talk by a great friend of mine called Graham, who when he was young had a really bad motorbike accident, this led to his arm being in plaster for many months. The doctors became very concerned that his arm would suffer from atrophy, actually I think it did.

Graham likened communities that didn't connect with the worlds they where placed in to a limb suffering from atrophy!

Atrophy is the partial or complete wasting away of a part of the body. In the case of his arm it was what is known as disuse atrophy!

Interestingly if something isn't used it partially or completely wastes away. I wonder if communities can become atrophic if they don't flex their community engagement muscles? Or in old school terms communities that aren't evangelistic will waste away partially or completely.

Resting inside the plaster caste of the churches we may have created are the rotting disused limbs of a once vibrant, fit and healthy body.

Interestingly atrophy can be turned around by exercise.

Just more thoughts, on a roll here......

You can check out Grahams talk HERE

More on community living

Community is such a broad word, it comes in so many different forms and we all experience community in a variety of ways throughout our lives. The communities of large and small families, the communities we experience in school, or at work, the communities we meet in pubs the communities that are villages or towns. All sorts of community.

Anyway, what am I looking for in community? Which in itself is a strange way of phrasing it. Instantly the question becomes about what I want not about what I can contribute.

If I approach community as a consumer and not a contributor it will never really leave me with any sense of fulfillment.

1.
A place where I can be myself but not a place where myself won't be challenged to change. Although I need to be accepted for who I am, I need to feel secure enough to be vulnerable and allow people in, to challenge and help me grow.

2.
True community will not allow you to be invisible. Which is scary. In the condensed forms of christian community I have experienced here in Ibiza invisibility is the one thing I have found different from being part of a larger church community, when it's small you can't hide.

3.
Community with a purpose. One of the things that gives our community life is its sense of outward focus. We live for something beyond ourselves. A community that just exists to worship and pray and feed the christian sheep, will ossify and lose ground. The momentum of mission will sustain christian communities.

4.
Community need an emphasis on growth, which is almost the same as purpose. Although you can get a community that is involved in social justice and has great purpose without a sense of looking to be added to. A community that is seeking to make disciples is a true christian community.

5.
A prayerful community, this goes almost without saying. Although we can get so caught up in the work that we forget to pray. I heard one christian leader say he thought we could do 85% of what we do with the holy spirit!! A prayerful community should lead us to become a Holy Spirit dependent community. I love liturgy but this is also the thing that scares me about liturgy, the words without the spirit can become dead and just vane repetition. Even daily rhythms of prayer can be become dead lifeless acts and if we are not careful we get a form of pride that comes from us being repetitive and persistent.

6.
A generous community, a willingness to share and give. A willingness to sacrifice. If a community is generous this will affect its outlook in so many ways. When you come together instead of it being about your needs a generous community will be looking out for others needs. Generosity has so little to do with money and so much to do with heart.

7.
A community has to learn to rest. A restful community will give space for people to rejuvenate and truly live. I have been in churches where everyone is so busy they just don't appear rested, the programme grinds them into the ground. Sabbath for most churches can be a very busy time. The art of rest is something we must perfect if we are going to be truly counter cultural. We live in a cash rich time poor society, community must give people time, value time and allow people to take time out.

8.
A learning community, we must always have a willingness to learn. A community that can't be told from outside that it needs to change or thinks it has got it all right is in danger of being arrogant. Yes we must be confident in the path we have chosen but we must marry that confidence with the humility to learn. Knowledge speaks and wisdom listens, we must be wise enough to listen. We don't have all the answers.

9.
Communities need mothers and fathers. Without the input and help of older wiser more mature people we will never grow up!

10.
Communities must love and keep loving, show grace and keep showing grace. We will never arrive we will always keep growing, evolving but we must do all this in the spirit of love. We can't sacrifice people along the way. Love has to be the centre if we keep loving we'll keep growing.

You may have noticed I haven't mentioned Jesus, well not by name, but He's there He's in all of these points without His example community wouldn't work.

Church as refuge

Tracy and I took a friend to the airport last night, he had been working in various bars out here over the summer and slowly got sucked in to drinking. In fact it was pretty scary to see him deteriorate over the summer just from alcohol abuse.

Our team has really helped him, he has been able to come in and shower in our centre use the phone sort out his emails and eventually get someone to pay for his flight home. He was in such a muddle we took him to the airport helped him get his bags checked in and insured he got through security. We have prayed for him and with him a lot and last night before he left we prayed with him once again.

He doesn't want to come back, unfortunately for him San Antonio has chewed him up and spat him out. So many workers cope admirably here, occasionally you get people who have a drinking background or have under researched how hard it is to get a great job here and they struggle.

When our friend got in the car last night to go to airport, he said "at last, I feel safe" he obviously had never seen my driving, but I knew what he meant.

Isn't this what church, the community of Christ, is meant to do? Provide saftey, refuge and help for the broken, scared and vulnerable.

The old 16th century church in San Antonio, pictured above, is just around the corner from our centre. Hundreds of years ago the island of Ibiza was quite susceptible to marauding pirates. The church was built with fortifications so that when the town was attacked the towns folk would run into the church building for safety, protection and refuge from attackers. The church was built in such away that it could defend itself and keep all within it's walls safe. This protection was not just in a passive way as a place to hide but also in an aggressive way with places to fire on the attackers and hurt them back.

I like that picture of church.

I hope that we are recapturing a little of that same spirit in all we do here. I want people to come into contact with christian communities and say "at last, I feel safe"