I'm so excited

the possibility oif sounding like a crazed teenager in this post is fully possible but i am very excited................In Late November i am to the UK to visit family - it will be the first tiem in 12 years i have set foot in dear old blighty - so needeless to say that is pretty exciting. but wait there is more - on the way we have five days in LA across the road from the disneyland park and we have a 5 day pass - wwwwoooooooooooooohooooooooooooo.. But there's more - we now have kids so we have a legitimate excuse to go on every ride - no cool factor to live up to.... We also get to spend Christmas with my parents - pppppprezzzzzzzieeeeeeeeesssssss. And what it also pretty cool i get to meet two of the most influential theologians in my life - well that are still living anyway - Pete Ward - the liquid Church guy, and Bishop Graham Cray - needles to say this is almost as exciting as Disney land with the kids,...

More on Provocative

Graham Tomlin has this great illustration of the connection between the church and the Kingdom of God. He compares it to being like a part of an immigrant community situated thousand of miles from home, kinda like East LA. 15 years ago i caught a bus through East LA and was blown away by it's expression on Mexican and Hispanic culture - it was not an exact copy of Mexico but blended and reinterpreted it's mexican origins into something new. You felt like you were in Mexico sensualy but it was moved into a very Los Angeles expression. It was not a cultural ghetto frozen in time, but nor was it the same as every suburb around it.
Is this the call to our church to inhabit our world? - not in a ghetto culture type way but a way that sensualy resembles the Kingdom of God, but at the same time is wrapped up in my local context - the place I live.... When I encounter other christians and get a 'whiff' so to speak of the Kingdom among us then I feel as though i am literaly in heaven.

Halleujah, come Lord Jesus come,
establish your immigrant culture among us.

is nothing sacred

i just got my first comments to my blogs - 14 replies on one item.... and it was all spam is nothing sacred.....

Constantine... gotta love that movie

Jonathan Edwards preached about it, CS Lewis described it’s workings in the Screwtape letters, and in 2005 Keanu Reeves gives us a graphic illustration of its reality.
What is it? Hell of course. That place that is seldom mentioned in our churches is becoming the subject matter of Hollywood, most recently through Hell Boy (2004) and Constantine (2005). One reason we do not talk about it much in Church is for fear of offending people. Why would Hollywood choose to use it as a subject matter then? Possibly because, through the experience of the story we become better people. One of the characters Gabriel (an angel) nails it, when she comments that we reach out more to God and experience his Love when we are at our worst – when we experience hell on earth – through the experience we become better people. Hell shows us ultimately the depth of God’s love for us.
The reality of Hell is inseparable from the Christian truths of Sin, God’s Holiness and the cross. It is an essential detail in the story that gives the cross it’s meaning, whether it is an exothermic or endothermic reaction is not essential. The fate of the lost is essential and it would seem Hollywood is ‘teaching’ some of what the Church has forgotten. The problem is that Hollywood does this in a way that reveals truth but distorts it also and doing so reveals where a lot of those outside of the Christian faith stand. It is not belief in God, heaven and hell that is the issue, but rather a warped view that sees God as, “just a child with an anthill", (John Constantine). The reality for many people like John Constantine is that they want nothing to do with God, because they have misunderstood who He is. My fear is that this misunderstanding has often come through what people have seen in the lives of Christians.
I hope Hollywood goes on making movies like Constantine, they are a challenge to the belief systems of those who watch them, nut they are also a challenge to the Church to not only talk the truth but model it also. As for your young people chances are they will watch this movie, I hope that you have the sense to discus the messages it carries with them

Interesting - how the genre of Horror finds it very easy to promote spirtual themes'
Scott Derickson - writer and director of the Hellraiser V - inferno - put 's it down to this
"It may be impossible to make a really good movie about God that people can take seriously. But you can really speak to them by making a good movie about the Devil, and therefore inherently making a movie about God."
What is certain God can use all sorts of tools to reveal His truth to us.

Provocative Church

just been reading Graham Tomlin's book The Provocative Church - he visited our region a while back and for several months provocative became part of the language...unfortunatly like cheap blu tak it did not stick. I think we miss the mark considerably when it comes to being provocative... it's a shame really...

Youth work...

As a youth worker I have gifts and abilities - some area i am strong in others i quite frankly suck at. but i was employed as a youth worker because of my ability to work with youth - simple really isn't it.
Anyway it seems that one fo the main frustrations that myself and colleagues face is making the other aspects of the job work in such a way that it creates enough space to do the core task of youth work.
Anyway for what it is worth here is job description for a team to help protect and cover the youth worker in the areas of weakness - use it if you wish but please credit the source - ie ME


The Youth Ministry Oversight Team

Purpose: To share in and share the vision of the youth ministry

Qualifications
· Ability to relate to understand the needs of young people – experience in youth work or parenting of teens.
· Some understanding of how the Church works
· Good relationship with the youth worker - trust
· Ability to provide wisdom – share the bigger picture
· Ability to network in the life of the Church
· Think outside of the square if needed
· Problem solver
· Good listener
· All members to be approved by the pastor/vicar.

What this is not
· You are not the youth worker
· You are not a supervision team – your role is over seeing the youth ministry not the youth worker.

Role
· Prayer support – ongoing needs of youth ministry
· Networking (sharing the needs of the youth ministry and helping the youth worker fill the basic needs, finding transport, recruiting help etc..)
· Share and encourage the vision among the Church ( it is envisaged that the church has some sense of vision, often youth workers struggle to interpret this vision for their area of ministry the oversite team will share that vision and discuss how best to interpret it).
· Allow the youth worker to work to their strengths – get on with the task the have been called for (youth workers spend a lot of time doing peripheral stuff to attempt to keep people in the loop of what is happening in youth ministry – while this is important it often distracts form their real call to ministry - youth.)
· Transition – youth worker have a natural life span – the oversight team will aid in the transition between workers by keeping the established vision alive (assuming it is working), introducing the new worker and helping them become established in the life of the Church and community.

The Meeting
· To meet regularly – time set by youth worker – I would suggest 2 times per term
· Meetings are to be of informal nature
· Agenda is set by the youth worker
· Meeting is for sharing of information:
Progress of the youth ministry
Place of the youth ministry in the life of the Church
Prayer needs
Encouragement of the main youth worker

Extra curricular
· To attend occasional youth events – you are not there as a leader, or to check up on the youth worker, but to be informed of the needs of the youth ministry some first hand experience will be helpful.
· To proactively watch out for young people in the church
· To promote the youth ministry and its needs through existing networks – vestry, church services, small groups

It's a big wide world out there

hi
after months of reading what other people think - it's time to enter into this big wide world and give you all my thoughts.
life, god,music, movies and of course the odd things that go on in my head......
enjoy
Michael