This is a set of intercessions based upon the Queen and Bowie song Under Pressure.
Oct192011
Oct132011
Going to Church for the First Time?
Phil Ritchie posted this on his blog with the simple question, “is this what church feels like”? What a wonderful video. I have struggled to articulate what it is like for a hairy biker like myself to enter the church for the first time. It is two evenings ago that I was trying to explain this to a group of cradle Christians using the metaphor of going into a betting shop for the first time. I won’t be doing that again, I will be showing this clip!!
I must mention this to the Canon Missioner for his “Welcome” training day!
Oct52011
Becoming a People Movement
You may remember that I blogged about Living distinctively a couple of months ago. One of the main parts of the study is a DVD interviewing Christians who are working at the top of their field. One of the people interviewed was Patrick Dixon, “Futurist”. He was inspiring so I decided to follow him. He just uploaded this to YouTube:
There are some fascinating statistics quoted here as he uses them to illustrate how we move from “hierarchical leadership” to “people movement”. The Church ™ is currently struggling to integrate a hierarchical management structure within newly formed teams that are created to work together. The “people movement” that Patrick describes is surely the perfect description of the calling Jesus made upon each of us. A transformative, missional community.
So how do we encourage people to work effectively together? How do we enable “teams” to create real relationships within them? How do we foster our communities to become more than institutions but people movements that spread from place to place?
Oct42011
Where Do Good Ideas Come From?
I came across this video last week when I had limited access to the internet.
One of the key things about the alt:worship movement is that it has allowed the ideas that people have to develop, to flourish, to mutate and to be explored. Historically, the church has been the hub of the arts and provided funding, space and time for much of our cultural heritage in the United Kingdom. Music, painting, sculpture and writing, in fact most of the “high culture” of the past millennium was not just inspired by but funded by the church. It strikes me that the current pattern for is becoming geared towards creating management structures within our churches rather than spaces for ideas. Phil Ritchie spotted something similar and asked the question “where are the poet priests?” a few months ago. I also posted about the “envisioning lab“.
How do we create an environment in which good ideas can be fostered within our church structures? Just some food for thought.