#GodWithUs

I have a shocking confession to make, before I became a Curate, I never kept Advent. I know right, how can I be a Priest?




Well as a family we often went to Grandparents, who didn't go to church on Christmas day, yet it wasn't the Anglican church alone which made me appreciate Advent and Christmas (though it certainly helped marrying into an Anglican family). I think there were 3 things:

1. Happy Birthday Lord Jesus- My parents are Christians and Christmas was never about Father Christmas, we celebrated Jesus' birthday. So though we didn't always attend church on Christmas day (This varied depending on where we were) Jesus was always central. We appreciated what we had been given and not just getting. My children are not bothered by Father Christmas, they get excited they enjoy it without having a view of God something like Santa (are you good enough to earn God's favour, does God actually care or he is dispenser of stuff that we want). God is far more generous we get his love and forgiveness which we don't deserve.

2. 12 Days of Christmas- No not 12 days of bargains before Christmas but the 12 days starting on Christmas day. This is something Cath continues to remind our children, it isn't over on Christmas Day, which is good news for them as they live in a vicarage. It involves having family to stay with us and going to see other family, enjoying a break (Subject to weddings and what day Christmas falls on I usually have a week off after the Christmas service is over). Which reminds us that it isn't all about a big meal and presents. God's generosity is bigger than we can imagine, so generous he comes to our world and gives himself.


3. Christmas is for sharing- It was my time at Bangor Community Church. The church I was part of as a student at University. I used to stay around to help with the Christmas meal, we held this at first at Bangor Cathedral, I haven't always been part of this, but this year we are helping with the Christmas meal here at Christ Church. Christmas day service is usually a small gathering, people away at family, or having attended midnight services or Christingles or Crib services on Christmas Eve. Yet for me I have felt a longing to serve on Christmas day (yes the day when I am literally exhausted), can I sit down and enjoy this feasting while others are alone or hungry? I don't have a big enough hall or facilities to feed everyone, but lets give what we can and not what we can't. The good news of Jesus' coming was for sharing, Angels shared it with Shepherds and was Good News of Great Joy! It truly is for sharing, that we can know Peace, with God, with each other and know peace in our own lives.

Advent has become a need for me. Christmas season is a time of countless services, school visits, and visiting. If I don't have advent the time of preparation then when Christmas day arrives I can become resentful, I sit here today with little voice, and low energy. You see Advent reminds me again and again I need to carefully prepare myself, not by buying presents for my nearest and dearest, writing cards (sorry if I missed you out), but by checking my heart and life, am I responding like Mary who said "let it be", Joseph who named the baby Jesus, the shepherds who left flocks (there livelihood, income and purpose in life), the Wise Men who journeyed long (yes they don't arrive till epiphany but there's always one or two of us who are late). When I do check my heart and life I realise how much I am in need of the Saviour born that Christmas morn.

I also spend a lot of time listening to music over Advent and this song spoke to me:

It is the lines:

From seed to Sequoia
and
From Bethlehem seed to Calvary Sequoia

The Sequoia is a huge tree many of which are very old, they are strong and  seem when you stand below them to stretch to the heavens. Christmas stretches from that first Advent to the final Advent through the cross.

For me then Christmas is a great gift, the Son of God come to earth, but one labelled with a cross of love, with a message, yes you can know peace, yes you can know forgiveness, but one day we will meet face to face, be ready.

So this Christmas may I say "Merry Christmas" but also get ready.

Bookaid

I have been on placement this week, and having completed my Common Purpose course (more on that another time), I thought I would take a look at some local charities and see where the church, public, private and not for profit organisations work together.

You can never have too many books just look at my house:

On Monday I spent time with BOOKAID in Ranskill, I bought some books too:

• Vol 1 & 2 of Simon Shama's History of Britain
• Can't Swim, Ride, Run- Andy Holgate (Brilliant book, review coming soon)
• Trianing Techniques for Cyclists- Bicycling Magazine  
• Eden Project- Matt Wilson
• The Bible Jesus Read- Philip Yancey
• Hello I love you: Adventures in Adoptive Fatherhood- Ted Kluck
• James: Mercy Triumphs (DVD)- Beth Moore

Thought I would list them to let you know some of the range of books available (I almost bought Calvin's Institutes's but I have a better copy of Vol.1 and want a set).

BOOKAID is a very simple charity established in 1987, they want to provide Christian books to serve the church in the UK and abroad. People travel from miles around to buy books and drop books off, yet it is not very well known in the area, I find it a brilliant resource.

Book Aid- Ranskill

It is however a difficult charity for those who have no faith to get behind on first glance, but this is where management of a shop (even by Volunteer's) makes a difference. I spoke with Russell and Stuart and they have begun to transform the shop, it now has a children's area, Complimentary tea and coffee (it doesn't give you nice comments, but is nice), with comfy chairs to sit on. They have opened up one of the back rooms and have a packing area to show what they do with books which come in and go out.

They want to make the venue a haven for people to come in, where they might be able to have prayer and relax. It's great, maybe a book club, or reading group. The venue could have many uses and it's rare to have parking for a project like this. You could easily have a computer club or conversation group, but it will need to work with the church opposite and others in the community to achieve this, always work with your neighbours! I know St John's in Bramcote where I trained support it and many other churches and Christians. It now has a good fiction and non fiction section too, though not sure where the Lance Armstrong Biography should go...

If you think this is a good idea one simple change could make a difference. It is likely that many popular Christian titles are in stock here, and more than likely some which are rarer, before you go to Amazon or the like you could come here instead...if you were in the building trade could you give time, could you volunteer? All you need to do is like books and be friendly (the second of which is the harder skill in my experience).

I like to buy a book, sit down with a cup of tea, maybe a cookie (OK, yes always with a cookie), and enjoy 30 minutes of peace and quite, so maybe it is already a haven...

Subversive Liturgy?

"The day the "world changed" was not September 11th but way back in 33AD. The most significant event in our pasts is not our most shameful transgressions but the death and resurrection of Jesus. Our pasts are defined not by our sins but by Christ's victory. God's story is the lens through which we understand our current world..." (Shane Claiborne, Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals)

A few months ago i spent some time with my fellow curates in looking at Worship. I thought a quick read of this book would be helpful in continuing the conversation. As a priest in the Church of England, I spend a large chunk of my week planning the service, either the sermon series, the music way in advance, the All Age worship, Collective Worship, or the service looming in a few days. I feel a pressure in this to always come up with something creative and new, to keep the services fresh. Yet our said communion and evensong have a set format which has some seasonal variation but no scope for wholesale change. There is something good about this too. We have four services (Sometimes 5) on a Sunday, if each of them needed to be constructed from scratch then this would be unmanageable. Even if the framework was used from Common Worship.

In worship we join in the communion of the saints, which reminds us of our place as inheritors of the promise from those who have gone before us, but also reminds us of our calling to tell another generation too of the hope within us, we stand in-between those who have gone before us and a generation not yet born, but are also tasked with sharing the good news to all.

It is easy to restrict ourselves to a reduced diet, by that I mean both liturgically and scripturally. Think about it for a minute, it is easy to stay within the gospels(though obviously you can edit out the bits you don't want to preach) when it comes to our preaching and it is easy to say familiar words each Sunday (whether you have set liturgy or not). During our session at St John's one thing that came up time and again is that liturgy should help us remember we are part of the big story. Just as it is easy to preach David and Goliath as a moral tale, the bully got his comeuppance, do we then conclude by saying that by our own skill and cunning we too can slay the giant we are faced with? Is David a moral example to follow or is the story so much bigger than that?

Here's a link to the companion website for the book
http://commonprayer.net/about

Leitorgia- Is often translated "the work of the people" or "public worship" both express part of it, however what I enjoyed about Shane Claiborne's introduction is the way he asks us to overlay our annual calendar with the liturgical calendar. It helps remind us that though January the 1st is the start of the calendar we use in this part of the world, the liturgical one begins in Advent. The working week begins on Monday, but Sunday is the beginning of the liturgical week. Though Easter floats around because of the moon (why do we still do this?), Easter itself asks us to look at the one who made the Sun and the Moon and is the source of all life. The liturgical calendar is in fact subversive. It asks us to look at our lives and see them as part of the big story. We centre ourselves upon Jesus Christ, As we pray and read scripture we are drawn into a story, the stories of the children of Israel are our stories. We too wander in the desert, turn away from the grace of God and forget who we are. Just like the disciples we too reject and abandon Christ, but just like the disciples and the children of Israel we too experience the grace and mercy of God who calls us "chosen and dearly loved". We too can join in the family prayer:

Our Father
Who art in heaven
Hallowed be thy name
Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven
Give us today our daily bread
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one
For thine is the kingdom the power and glory
Forever and ever
Amen

Run forest run

I am not a great runner, i just took up running to give me head space and for general fitness. Yet since I have started I have caught the bug. I love it but now I am hitting the point where I am looking at ways of improving my running by tracking what I do and getting comfortable in my running.

• You can learn from my mistakes!

So it is a case of spending lots of money? 

Well no, I started with an ordinary pair of trainers with a pair of trainer socks.

This brought a painful problem, blisters, but since then I have brought a better fitting pair of running trainers and 3 pairs of anti blister socks. Not a massive outlay, less than £10 for the socks and £40 for the trainers. No more blisters!


I started with a couple of pairs of old shorts, one I still run in but I had to buy a second pair as I needed one with a secure pocket. Again no need to spend a lot of money just find a pair which are comfortable.

As we have had an amazingly warm summer I needed a running vest as it was too hot/ Again run in what's comfortable for you, cotton t shirts don't work for me as I sweat a lot!  Short sleeve means you will need a sweat band especially if you are like me.

• Join a club or run with a friend

Running on my own lost its appeal. As I tracked my running I found that I had improved by around 5 minutes  for 5km, but plateaued, I was also getting bored. The same routes after 5 months were getting dull. So I went running with a better runner than me and ran another 5 minutes quicker for the 5km and gained a new route too. It felt great. But I can usually only run first thing so not easy to arrange a running buddy for then. So a running club seems the way forward, for two reasons. 1/ Membership brings membership to SPORT ENGLAND and reduced entry to running events but 2/ More importantly people to run with. This has been the biggest boast. Talking to others who run, which is inspiring. One of the runners is on his 18th Great North Run!

• Tracking:

So far I have tried Nike+IPod & Mapmy Run using the GPS on my phone.

Neither option has been seamless.

I don't have Nike trainers, I have odd feet and find they are not very comfortable, so I have the nike trainer wallet with the Nike+ sensor in it. This is fine plugging in...
However, I have stopped running with music or podcasts for two reasons, running hazards-plenty of them around from people reversing out of drives to uneven surfaces. Most races and the running club have a no headphones rule, so need to run without!

MapMy Run has been great for logging my runs providing the GPS works properly on my phone and the 3G can connect, this isn't always possible, two of the local villages have poor 3G reception. However, once you have established a few training runs and map them providing you time the run on a stop watch you can deal with any issues this throws up.

Yet it is becoming a pain for training. ie circuits or club training. This is because of introducing laps, cool down periods, and not knowing the routes well. This isn't a long term solution.

So watch this space I have two options I am looking at GPS watches to deal with this issue...

Coffee and Ritual

The one treat I have indulged in is a coffee machine (thanks M&D). I think it is going through the ritual of making a coffee which is satisfying. Grinding the beans, and smelling the fresh grinds, running the water through the system twice. Brewing the coffee the aroma rising and then steaming the milk. It cannot be rushed or you end up with a luke-warm coffee.

It is anything but instant, and I don't always have time to do it. When I worked as mortgage adviser I would be in back to back meetings and would not always have time for a break, sometimes missing lunch or only having a snatched break but I liked making the customers a cup of tea as I had to go down stairs and boil the kettle and brew the tea or make the coffee which gave me time to think and clear my head from the last appointment.

As a trainee priest we have a lot of ritual in the Church of England but I am beginning to feel the need to emphasise the pauses within a service, that we might stop and prepare ourselves as we go. In fact this was a bit of the conversation I had with someone from church on Monday. In life leaving and entering are important, in our services our children leave the service and come back in for communion and we have a start and a finish, so some of my thinking over the last few days has been on this.

However back to the coffee for a minute sometimes you need tools to assist you and it takes time to do these things well. My lovely wife bought me this espresso cup:

You may have noticed it says Grumpy Mule on it, I think she may be referring to the occasional morning when a coffee seems to be an essential before saying hello.

It will take time before I have worked through some of these things and even with the right tools I still need to slow down and not rush and rely on the Holy Spirit to reveal more of Jesus.

I enjoy coffee and I think it is great hospitality to be able to offer it to visitors, a warm welcome and fresh cup of coffee I think are essential! I hope that our rituals may be life giving because God is the author of life and Jesus came to bring life and life in all its fullness...






Coffee drinks illustrated - Lokesh Dhakar

100th Post

Well today I post my 100th blog post. Something which gave me a little stage fright, what could I write which would be profound and yet at the same time fun?

Well it stumped me, so I thought I would say thanks for reading the blog. It has been a while as I am really trying to both catch up with my reading schedule (I have a mountain of assignments to write), and integrate new technology into life (Kindle and an Android Phone). Both have been recommendations as ways to work better I will blog a simple users guide to each...

Basically I went to my dyspraxia study skills and found that simple things make a profound difference. I have a rubbish memory but have just learned the planets from Mercury- Pluto in about 10 minutes (using mind mapping and story telling) which is amazing, and it encourages me to keep trying. The reason I ended up with the new phone was talking through my organisation (lack of) and the 6 places I keep info of the stuff I am meant to do. Now I have it in one place my pocket!

But I have now been introduced to the world of Android phones, and I am loving it, it will make blogging easier and should hopefully resolve the issue I have in logging in from time to time. As long as I stop playing angry birds...

Social Networking the Solution to bad memory?

I had to laugh a little at myself this week, when I realised that those I interact with on social media are less likely for me to have one of my blank moments (I have dyspraxia which sometimes means I cannot connect names and faces including really close friends) the name usually pops into my head at some point after the person has gone, so trying to learn the names of everyone in the congregation at my placement church has been interesting, but those who are on facebook I have had less trouble recalling first time.

Another example is my prayer triplet, I see them everyday at college, I can recall what they have asked me to pray for in a week, yet at times I struggle to remember the names of  their children. I had my support assessment this week and it was recommended that I steer clear from a paper diary (1. I can't read it.  2. I lose it. 3. I don't always have it with me & 4. It is not big enough to hold all the info I need) So having lost my phone I was given a blackberry (thanks Lesley)  and have spent the last 3 days sorting out the calender and contacts so they sync with each other.

It might actually work for me...we shall see... maybe I could take photos of people when I first meet them and label them? Not sure if social etiquette will allow for that! Still I got a CD from the book sale at college entitled: A great memory which only needs a few minutes a day, by the end of it I should have a great memory. Now where did I put it?

Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus...

I have pretty much finished reading this book, I have a couple of chapters to go but I thought I would add a quote I have been ruminating on Spangler & Trevsberg quote a rabbinic parable:

There are four types among those who sit in the presence of the rabbis: the sponge, the funnel, the strainer and the sieve. 'The sponge', which soaks up everything. 'The funnel', which takes it in at this end and lets out at the other. 'The strainer', which lets out the wine and retains the dregs. 'The sieve', which removes the chaff and retains the fine flour.
(Spangler & Trevberg, 2009, 31)

I will  get round the book review when I get the book back (I thought it was good, so I lent it to a friend!).