Pete Rollins... insurrectionist theology

Greenbelt Festival darling Pete Rollins in excellent form... love the pub tour idea! h/t Mike Todd

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From Candleford with Love...

From the ASBOJesus Blog, inspired by the very wonderful latest BBC series of Lark Rise to Candleford. Last night's edition was quite emotionally draining yet remaining uplifting. The demonstration of the folk from socially and economically upmarket Candleford showing compassion to their neighbours and family in the adjacent hamlet of Lark Rise is a challenging example of what the church should be doing for the relative poor. It means getting our hands dirty and moving outside our comfort zones... even outside our churches, perhaps?

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Computer destiny post iPad domination...

Pc Coffee Maker

See more funny pictures and videos at Fugly.

A use for all the old PCs after Apple iPads take over the armchair world... as long as it's Fairtrade coffee, of course!

Coffee much needed today at the half way point on After The Fire's wee Help for Haiti tour of Essex and Sussex, last night centre of the lesser known universe, Mersea Island, tonight down in Burgess Hill.

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This is how the world will end...

... and this video from The Elms was shot and edited BEFORE the earthquake and gives an idea of the scale of poverty in Haiti... we can send money, we can help raise money... we MUST cancel the debt.

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Putting money where mouths are... for Haiti

Delighted us old rockers, After The Fire, (or ATF) have been approached to play not one, nay, two fundraisers next weekend to raise money for the needs of the folk in Haiti:

Jan 29th 2010 - Haiti Fundraiser - ATF plus two Bands £5 min donation
Essex Youth Camp - Mersea - CO5 8SX - Doors Open 7:30pm

Jan 30th 2010 - Haiti Fundraiser - Touchstone, The Puritans and ATF £5 min donation
St Paul's Catholic College - Burgess Hill - RH15 8WA - Doors Open 6:30pm

Spread the word!

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Social media working to raise funds...

Image of iPhone courtesy mashable.com who report how the Red Cross have now received over $1,000,000 from this text campaign to raise funds for urgently needed support in earthquake torn Haiti. In the UK a number of websites now offer direct links to the charities offering a means of making a credit card donation online.

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Social media working to help ...

The speed at which information and images can be propagated has increased significantly over the last couple of years. Is this where Social Media can mature?

Early disaster updates were posted on Gleaning information from Haiti

Mashable reports on how Twitter carried mobile/cell phone pictures, as above and below, across the web within minutes of the disastrous earthquake

A Posterous instant blog is set-up to carry updates from aid workers and journalists in Haiti

The disaster become a top trend in Twitter

Christian Aid, Tear Fund, Oxfam commence donation programs immediately using their Twitter accounts (@decappeal @oxfamgb @christian_aid) to post more information - please act

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Art and Christianity Part One - Artwork

I have been troubled that I had not responded to a couple of Meme requests back in 2009 so am now trying to catch up and Epiphany is a good day to give this post.

This Meme was started by Jonathan Evens and his proposal is here:

To list an artwork, drama, piece of music, novel, and poem that you think each express something of the essence of Christianity and for each one explain why. Then tag five other people.

Artwork: Antony Gormley 'Field for the British Isles'

I have actually been working on it for a while, it took a lot longer than I imagined when I first saw I had been tagged. Therefore I have decided to split the sections across five posts in this order:

Artwork: Antony Gormley - 'Field for the British Isles'
Drama: Film 'Chariots of Fire' (1981)
Music: J S Bach - St Matthew Passion
Novel: Victoria Hislop - The Island
Poem: Wilfred Owen - The Parable of the Old Man and the Young

I was privileged to stumble across Antony Gormley's 'Field for the British Isles' installation at The British Museum when my son was in theatre undergoing major surgery at Great Ormond Street hospital 7 years ago in 2002. Was just wandering around in a daze and landed up in the museum... was horrified at the vandalism our imperial nation had casued to many locations in the name of archaeology, what wicked crimes? Then there in the central Great Court was Gormley's 'Fields'... totally amazing!

I will never forget it, the sea of faces that so reflected humanity looking up at me and with the emotion of the day it all caught up with me. It felt like I was God! There I could see 'all people that on earth do dwell' and had abundant compassion and love for all of them, light clay, dark clay, large, small, friendly, angry, happy, sad, quirky, whatever. I had no favourites, in my strange mental state it was as though each were my son and not inamimate objects. Part of this was each piece was unique, individually created by a volunteer from a starting point of simply being given a ball of clay and basic instructions.

I am so grateful this moment happened, I might have steered clear of potential crowds had I known beforehand. It helped to ease the agony of wondering how my boy was at that very time, a spiritual distraction!

Read more about the 'Fields' project here.

Despite the risk he has already been nobbled I tag: Mike Todd

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Weirdos and outcasts unite...

Today we celebrate Epiphany when the 'wise men' arrived to give the baby Jesus some gifts, a combination of the valuable and scary. Checking around the various knowledgeable bloggers it's emerging these guys were pretty quirky and not the sort of folk made very welcome in the established church. Ok, they arrived late, initially nearly screwed up everything by going to the wrong place and yet they are significant. The early church re-branded them as kings because they wouldn't fit the mould of power and respectability as astrologers and possibly trans-gender eunuchs....

Weirdos that mess up and arrive late? Sounds like musicians to me!

Nativity! The film exposed...

Thoroughly enjoyed this gem of a British made film directed by Debbie Isitt. Martin Freeman is excellent as the weary primary teacher, Mr Maddens, who gets landed with producing this year's Nativity play for his underachieving school. His regular routines are completely disrupted by the arrival of an over exuberant teaching assistant, Mr Poppy, who unwittingly challenges the staus quo. Meanwhile in the 'posh' school down the road Mr Maddens' former drama school colleague always gets top reviews for his near perfect, yet clinical, productions.

As the story unfolds humour and pathos run hand in hand yielding tears of laughter and heartbreak in equal measure. Despite slipping into some of the ghastly music that Hollywood has shoehorned into Christmas there is an amazing scene towards the end which I felt had deep theological significance alongside the film's overall themes of restoring creativity, self-esteem, inspiration, grace, redemption and forgiveness. How institutions need a Mr Poppy!

Heartily recommended - 4 stars out of 5.

Caught in the thicket...

A challenging article in eXaminer.com where a church makes Mission a higher priority than Monument...

The congregation of First Baptist Church in Vermont when faced with four times the number of homeless folk to feed this year decided to put up for sale a Tiffany's stained glass window worth around $75,000 to meet the bill. This sacrificial act was noticed and drew wider attention when ABC ran a local news report. As a result the church received donations from all over the US raising enough funds for the urgent needs thereby enabling the window to be retained...

Faith in action, just like Abraham! h/t Gavin Richardson

Mad Mersea Mayhem!

 

Scenes at the fourth Mersea Island Boxing Day swim to raise money for the RNLI today... a gorgeous day for it! This event has now grown from a handful of entrants in its first year to nearly 100 watched by a crowd of around 600.

Stand by your man... (NOT!)

Anyone in the UK cannot have missed the story today of Father Tim Jones, parish priest at St Lawrence and St Hilda in York, who has been pilloried not only by the media but by his Archdeacon as well. Unbelieveable... well, maybe it isn't so surprising.

It is well worth reading the full transcript of Fr. Tim's excellent sermon on Sunday 20th, based around the Magnificat which includes the sentence: 'My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my saviour.' Now although Fr. Tim does actually concede that shoplifting could, in extremis, be a solution, the context is clear in his sermon. Over and above that is the point he made so clearly on BBC Five Live today that the 'tut tutting' contempt of the relative wealthy (who spend 100s or even 1000s on 'utter tat for Christmas') for some poor unfortunate who has just taken a can of ravioli worth 80p is a 'grotesque indictment of who we are'. I am minded of the established Biblical principal of allowing certain of our crops at the side of our fields to be gleaned by the poor... there is a precedent for taking only what you need, remember the Manna in the wilderness?

What was really encouraging was to listen to some of the callers who had shown enormous and generous compassion, some simply turning a blind eye to some transgressors and others simply paying for the goods that someone had tried to liberate. In stark contrast the Archdeacon of York was condescending and dismissive, promising to give Father Tim a good talking to to put him straight. How ironic that, once again, the establishment is so readily prepared to undermine someone acting in a Christlike manner and, in a corporate sense, not stand by their very own?

Respect Fr. Tim, keep up the good work... oh that we (read I) may learn how to be as dangerous as Jesus too.

On the side of the Rebel Jesus...

This amazing song from Jackson Browne is one of my fave Christmas pieces with so much truth and depth compared to other commercial stuff and what we sing in church. Verse two is really hard hitting linking 'Temple Trading' to both the church and environmental issues way back in the early nineties:

Ah, they call Him by the "Prince Of Peace"
And they call Him by "The Saviour"
And they pray to Him upon the seas
And in every bold endeavor
And they fill His churches with their pride and gold
As their faith in Him increases
But they've turned the nature that I worship in
From a temple to a robber's den
In the words of the rebel Jesus

In the last verse he apologises for appearing to be judgemental (which I wonder if that's another sideswipe at the established church!) before closing the song with the fantastic proclamation:

So I bid you pleasure and I bid you cheer
From a heathen and a pagan
On the side of the rebel Jesus

More and H/T from Steve Stockman's Blog.

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Away in a (bus shelter) manger..

After our local Christmas Market here on Mersea my son and I were 'walking' the crib back to the church when I thought I would quickly snap our local bus shelter with the manger inside... this links in with the bus stop ad that's running. Then today I read Ship of Fools co-editor Steve Goddard's tweet about the nativity cribs abandoned in London to draw attention to the plight of the 100,000 children that sleep rough each year. This is a campaign launched by the charity 'Railway Children' which champions the welfare of street children.

Encouraging yet deeply challenging stuff...

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It doesn't have to always be this way...

This article on Jonny Baker's Blog caught my eye today... initially because I know Walthamstow well and had many happy years living there and my son Sam was born in Whipp's Cross round the corner.

Just when I was getting a bit despondent along comes news of a bit of 'proper' church which made changes to their regular routine enabling them to become missional where the community is. The word re-invent is often applied to church. My preference is to use the verb re-imagine and this scheme, by ordained C of E vicar Revd Tony Cant, currently at St. Lukes, is spot on. Jonny Baker takes up the story here:

...he has been looking for ways to get involved in the community rather than get the community involved in the church. one that came up was the start of a farmers market on sunday. the market was looking for a manager so tony took the role. so as a vicar he works at the farmers market every sunday instead of leading worship in the church building! it's relational stuff... then every market has a stall for a community project. tony as manager said that st lukes church would take it. every week they brew teas and coffees all day and give them away and chat with people and stall holders. so instead of being in church on sunday they are in the market place with the community.

The article goes on to highlight the typical age profile issues of many churches, it was strangely re-assuring that this applies to an urban area as well as our rural one here out in the sticks.

Check out the full post here: Church on the High Street

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Imagine a world...

Came across this when following links from Seth Godin's blog which made me think. Some amazing and pertinent statements from Acumen Fund's CEO, Jaqueline Novogratz:

It takes embracing the World with both arms and expecting no thanks in return. It takes moving beyond trite assumption and petty ideology and really listening to one another.

Yep, challenging stuff...

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What If Jesus Meant All That Stuff?

Now this made me sit up and take notice! How amazing (and, I would venture to suggest, how Christlike?) that regular Greenbelt speaker and author Shane Claiborne has this hard hitting article in the mainstream blokey magazine 'Esquire'? It starts with a challenging apology:

To all my nonbelieving, sort-of-believing, and used-to-be-believing friends: I feel like I should begin with a confession. I am sorry that so often the biggest obstacle to God has been Christians. Christians who have had so much to say with our mouths and so little to show with our lives. I am sorry that so often we have forgotten the Christ of our Christianity.

Forgive us. Forgive us for the embarrassing things we have done in the name of God.

As we accelerate towards Christmas it pains me to sing some of the choral stuff we do, gorgeous tunes and harmonies, yet words that bear no resemblance to the real thing. Shane doesn't miss making this point either:

It is this Jesus who was born in a stank manger in the middle of a genocide. That is the God that we are just as likely to find in the streets as in the sanctuary, who can redeem revolutionaries and tax collectors, the oppressed and the oppressors... a God who is saving some of us from the ghettos of poverty, and some of us from the ghettos of wealth.

Go read the full article!

h/t Greenbelt Blog

We remember them...

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In 1944 Major John Pott was shot on the battlefield in woods near Arnhem. Struggling to write what he imagined was a final letter to his new wife he was discovered nearly 20 hours later by German troops and subsequently incarcerated for the rest of World War Two in a Prisoner of War camp until released by American in 1945. His grandson, Joel Pott, lead singer of rock band Athlete has penned Black Swan Song which the band will be performing at the Royal British Legion Silence in the Square event on the 11th Nov 2009.

I saw Athlete perform at this year's Greenbelt Festival 2009 and when they performed this song it was one of those special moments when, despite the conflict of emotions the song deals with, you are lifted up to another place. This morning I read the lyrics as a form of Intercession in our Family Service which preceded our main Remembrance Day service.

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Bright eyes... and one buttock playing!

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A truly wonderful 'sermon' on classical music in a week that has been quite bizarre...

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