Book Munch

I see a few people out there have been trying to read a book a week or something like that so thought I would pop up what I have read this year so far.

Mad Bad and Dangerous to Know Ranulph Fiennes

Enjoyable read, although determined explorers can be a little self absorbed, enjoyed reading about persistence and dogged determination.

Tribes Seth Godin

Interesting book, very well written, found it helpful when thinking about 24-7prayer and other movements.

The Making of Pink Floyd the Wall Gerald Scarfe

One of my favourite albums of all time, great book fantastic art work and great behind the scenes insights.

The Arabs a History Eugene Rogan

Bought this on the way back from Dubai, very comprehensive although I felt it didn't deal so well with earlier history.

Mark The Daily Study Bible  William Barclay


I am trying to read mark every few weeks this year and found Barclays knowledge and thoughts on this wonderful book extremely helpful.

The Knowledge of The Holy AW Tozer

Excellent for giving you a sense of Gods greatness and His majesty, timeless truths excellently explained.

Voices of Dunkirk Joshua Levine

First hand accounts of the retreat and evacuation from Dunkirk, I love history especially first person details. Engrossing and thorough.

Soul Salsa Leornard Sweet

Didn't like this book, Sweet trying to hard to be post modern.

Six Wives The Queens of Henry VIII David Starkey

At over 750 pages my most challenging read to date, it's good to understand where we came from and the various influences on our nation. I love history.

Prayer the Real Battle Brother Andrew

Wonderful short book, I think this should be pushed out to prayer networks around the world, I am getting copies for our entire team. You could read it in two hours.

Pray in the Spirit A.Wallis

Just a personal read as I want to be more sensitive to the spirits leading in prayer, thought I would give this a whirl as Mr Wallis book on fasting "A chosen fast" is the best I have read on the subject.

Celtic Saints, Passionate Wanderers Elizabeth Rees

You've got to love the celts.

Life and Laughing Michael McIntyre

Funny book, hardly a biography but a nice little chuckle of a read.

Community 101 Gilbert Bilezikian

Love this book was prompted to re-read it because of his excellent chapters on oneness and the role of women in leadership.


Current books

I'll let you know how I get on with these next two.

Approaching God Lisa Repko Borden
Love Wins  Rob Bell

Addicted to comfort

Steve left this as a comment yesterday, it deserves to be a real post. It's a quote from Graham Cray:

"Once upon a time there were people who lived in Scarcity
After many adventures, they met the Affluent Society
The two married and had lots of needs

When we live beyond scarcity, the wanting never ends
Affluenza is fatal – personally, spiritually and socially

We care how we feel, our happiness, our success, not what is true

The West identifies itself as Free – our core value

But in God’s image, Humans shrink when freedom prioritises our needs over others – Consumers rather than Citizens

As we consume, others drop deeper into Scarcity

Scripture after Scripture says Christian Growth comes through sacrifice and suffering in the cause of the Kingdom of God

Is our giving to Children in Need and Sport Relief really what Jesus meant when he said leave your stuff behind and follow me?

Can we learn to trust God for what our families genuinely need, while giving preference to those whose poverty breaks God’s heart?

My name is Steve and I am addicted to comfort and I need to be released in Jesus’s name for the sake of God’s Kingdom come....

Thank you for sharing Steve

Third Places, part 1.

Our centre has been really busy this week, although the streets have been really quiet so as of yesterday we have finished our night time street work.

Our centre will remain open for about 2 more weeks, yesterday Tracy and Neil prayed with so many people in the centre it was wonderful, as well as people playing wii, ping pong, checking facebook and getting their boarding passes printed there was prayer going on. We are helping people with lost passports and disputes over non returned deposits from landlords. In the midst of all that prayer takes place.

I was reading Michael Frosts book on Living Missionally in a post christian culture called "Exiles". I have had the book for a while and skimmed it from time to time. This week I came back to the section on third places, it gave Tracy and I great encouragement when we read it in light of our 24-7 prayer drop in centre in the West End.

Frost says "amateur missionaries are discovering that the best place for building proximity with members of a host culture is in a third place"

A sociologist called Ray Oldenburg originally coined the phrase. He said that third places are those environments in which people meet to develop freidnships, discuss issues, and interact with others. These places have always been an important way in which a community develops and retains cohesion and a sense of identity. He says "third places" are crucial to community for a number of reasons.

1. They are distinctive informal gathering places.
2. They make the citzen feel at home.
3. They nourish relationships and a diversity of human contact.
4. They invoke a sense of civic pride.
5. They promote companionship.
6. They allow people to relax and unwind after a long day.
7. They are socially binding.
8. They encourage sociability instead of isolation.
9. They make life more colourful.
10. They enrich public life and democracy.

The first place is home and the people with whom we live. Our second place is the workplace, the place where we spend most of our waking life. Third places in our society are the bedrock of community life. Church should be in the business of creating third places and that is what we feel that we have almost accidentally achieved with our centre in the west end. I will write some more tomorrow. Thank you Mister Frost for your great book hope you don't mind me quoting it?.

Religion

This is a beautiful sufi poem from a classical lebanese poet - khalil gibran

Religion

And an old priest said, 'Speak to us of Religion.'

And he said:

Have I spoken this day of aught else?

Is not religion all deeds and all reflection,

And that which is neither deed nor reflection, but a wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul, even while the hands hew the stone or tend the loom?

Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations?

Who can spread his hours before him, saying, 'This for God and this for myself; This for my soul, and this other for my body?'

All your hours are wings that beat through space from self to self.

He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked.

The wind and the sun will tear no holes in his skin.

And he who defines his conduct by ethics imprisons his song-bird in a cage.

The freest song comes not through bars and wires.

And he to whom worshipping is a window, to open but also to shut, has not yet visited the house of his soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn.

Your daily life is your temple and your religion.

Whenever you enter into it take with you your all.

Take the plough and the forge and the mallet and the lute,

The things you have fashioned in necessity or for delight.

For in revery you cannot rise above your achievements nor fall lower than your failures.

And take with you all men:

For in adoration you cannot fly higher than their hopes nor humble yourself lower than their despair.

And if you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles.

Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children.

And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain.

You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees.

Ibiza Bible Preview

The bibles are with the printers and should be ready within 6ish weeks!!! We are basically trying to sell half so that we can give the other half away for free. They cost £5.00 each, that doesn't include postage and package. At the moment I would only like to take orders for 20 plus so if you are in the position to buy 20 of these bibles or more I would love to hear from you.

Here's the blurb that we wrote for the back of the bible and I hope you like the front cover design?

Does Jesus Really love Ibiza?


Totally. We don’t know what you think about Jesus, but we do know that He loves this beautiful island and all who inhabit it. Jesus loves everyone, regardless of race, gender or social standing.

Following Jesus is a bit like dancing. The wrong things that we have done have put us out of step with God and left us in a mess that we can’t get out of by ourselves, but Jesus made a way to rescue us if we follow Him.

Following Him is about catching His rhythm and allowing your life to move to the rhythm of His beat! His dance is a dance of love, mercy, justice, forgiveness, selflessness and sacrifice. It’s a dance that leads us to repentance and relationship with God.

So what you have here is part of the bible that tells the story of Jesus; it communicates His rhythm. The author Eugene Peterson wanted to get the bible back to its roots, to the way we talk when we are not trying to sound religious. Whether you have been reading the bible for years or you’re exploring it for the first time, the Message will surprise you. In it you will read about the love revolution that inspired the women and men who first experienced it to dance to a different rhythm and change the world forever.

“Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly.” - Jesus

Are you tired? Worn out?

I read this last night and found it very life giving:

The words of Jesus from Matthew 11

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

and the same passage in The Message version of the bible

"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."

What's left

My friend Clare emailed me a link to a great article written by Margaret Wheatly


"Yitzhak Perlman, the great violinist, was playing in New York. Yitzhak Perlman was crippled by polio as a young child, so the bottom part of his body doesn't work well and he wears these very prominent leg braces and comes on in crutches, in a very painful, slow way, hauling himself across the stage. Then he sits down and, very carefully, unbuckles the leg braces and lays them down, puts down his crutches, and then picks up his violin. So, this night the audience had watched him slowly, painfully, walk across the stage; and he began to play. And, suddenly, there was a loud noise in the hall that signaled that one of his four strings on his violin had just snapped.

Everyone expected that they would be watching Yitzhak Perlman put back the leg braces, walk slowly across the stage, and find a new violin. But this is what happened. Yitzhak Perlman closed his eyes for a moment. Yitzhak Perlman paused. And then he signaled for the conductor to begin again. And he began from where they had left off. And here's the description of his playing, from Jack Riemer in the Houston Chronicle:

"He played with such passion, and such power, and such purity, as people had never heard before. Of course, everyone knew that it was impossible to play this symphonic work with three strings. I know that. You know that. But that night, Yitzhak Perlman did not know that. You could see him modulating, changing, recomposing the piece in his head. At one point, it sounded like he was de-tuning the strings to get new sounds from them that they had never made before. When he finished, there was an awe-filled silence in the room. And then people rose and cheered. Everyone was screaming and cheering and doing everything we could to show how much we appreciated what he had just done. He smiled. He wiped the sweat from his brow. He raised his bow to us. And then he said, not boastfully, but in a quiet and pensive and reverent tone,"

"'You know, sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.'"

Check out the full article HERE

What Really Matters

Been reading a book by a guy called John Ortberg actually qas a community we are reading a chapter every week then getting together to discuss it, a sort of book group if you like! The book is called "Everybody's normal until you get to know them" I have been reading chapter two and here's a great piece from it.

"I have never known anyone who failed at relationships - who was isolated, lonely, unconnected, had no deep friendships - yet had a meaningful joy filled life. Not a single person. The twentieth century was littered with people who achieved great things but never connected. People who accumulated vast amounts of wealth, fame, or power but never acquired an open heart. People who had a rolodex of contacts but not a single friend. Every one of them died with bitter regrets. Every one.

Conversely, I have never know anyone who succeeded at relationships - who cultivated great friendships, who was devoted to their family, who mastered the art of giving and receiving love - yet had a bad life.

No matter how little money we have, no matter what rung we occupy on anybody's corporate ladder of success, in the end what everybody discovers is that what matters is other people. Human beings who give themselves to relational greatness - who have friends they laugh with, cry with, learn with, fight with, dance with, live and love and grow old and die with - these are the human beings who lead magnificent lives.

When they die, not one of them regrets having devoted themselves to people: their friends, their neighbours, their children, their family. Not one."

And the wonder of it all

Brennan Manning is one of my favourite authors, he tells the story of a Jewish Rabbi called Abraham Joshua Heschel, when very ill on his death bed he said to his closest friend "Sam, never once in my life did I ask God for success or wisdom or power or fame. I asked for wonder and he gave it to me"

Manning continues:

"I asked for wonder, and he gave it to me. A Philistine will stand before a Claude Monet painting and pick his nose; a person filled with wonder will stand there fighting back the tears.

By and large, our world has lost its sense of wonder. We have grown up. We no longer catch our breath at the sight of a rainbow or the scent of a rose, as we once did. We have grown bigger and everything else smaller, less impressive. We get blasé and worldly wise and sophisticated. We no longer run our fingers through water, no longer shout at the stars or make faces at the moon. Water is H2O, the stars have been classified, and the moon is not made of green cheese. Thanks to satellite Tv and jet planes, we can visit places available in the past only to a Colombus, Balboa, and other daring explorers.

There was a time in the not too distant past when a thunderstorm caused grown men to shudder and feel small. But God is being edged out of His world by science. The more we know about meteorology, the less inclined we are to pray during a thunderstorm. Airplanes now fly above, below and around them. satellites reduce them to photographs. What ignominy - if a thunderstorm could experience ignominy! reduced from theophany to nuisance.

Heschel says that today we believe all enigmas can be solved, and all wonder is nothing but "the effect of novelty upon ignorance." Certainly, the new can amaze us: a space shuttle, the latest computer game, the softest diaper. Till tomorrow, till the new becomes old, till yesterdays wonder is discarded or taken for granted. Small wonder Rabbi Heschel concluded, "As civilization advances, the sense of wonder declines.""

I was standing over an unconscious drunk tonight and looked up at the palm trees we can't ignore the pain we see but I was reminded of this passage as I gazed at these fantastic tree. I must not always look down but also take time to appreciate the wonder of it all.

Reading

I'm sitting here in our centre, I've just bought everybody doughnuts, they went down well. Finally the sun is out it's been really rainy here for the last few weeks but now it feels like summer.

Has anyone read The Shack? Am I the only one who found it a bit depressing, meandering and in all honesty slightly boring?
I would rather read Robert Ludlum!

Andrew Jones has written a nice piece on it a few months ago, read it Here

Anyway I am reading Michael Frosts Exiles or should I say rereading it, I have found this a profoundly challenging book. I like the whole concept of the third place, I am sitting in a third place right now.