revmusings

Just got back from holiday at our flat in Devon - good weather generally ( which I judge by only using the umbrella once and being able to spend many hours sitting outside the Beachcomer cafe and reading!) We did lots of days out and despite knowing the area quite well still finding new places and new trips to do. We only tried to use the Sat Nav once when we got lost but as it was on Dartmoor there was no signal so we had to use our instincts and a good old fashioned map to find out way.

But it did remind me of a recent children's talk I heard using Sat Navs. The preacher's one says 'Turn round you are going the wrong way' should they stray from the directions given. This was linked to God telling us off when we stray and reminding us to get back to the right path. God has told me this many a time but that has more often been about my attitudes and behaviours rather than the direction I am going - The God of this Sat Nav has only one route we are supposed to travel and it is disaster if we fail to follow instructions.

My Sat Nav is more gracious - when I deviate from the prescribed route my lovely lady merely says 're-calculating'. Admittedly, she does try to get me back to the route she prefers ( Leicester to South London has to be via the M1) but after a while, when she realises this is not going to happen, she accepts this and re-calculates to a new route (via the M11). There is a plan A but also a plan B, C, D etc. Somehow God sometimes does this too -  God uses my weird and selfish choices and still manages to weave them into the divine plan.

I realise you can pick all kind of theological holes in this very simplistic Sat Nav thinking but for me it is the thought that even if I go the wrong way somehow God always me leads forward, uses my many mistakes and poor choices and it is not the end of the world. Of course, that is no excuse for not seeking God and God's desires for my life but that, in the absence of telegrams from God or a bit of sky writing, as long as I have tried to do my best all will be well ( and even if I haven't God's graciousness can still re-calaculate my route through  life)

How does a bank get away with opening an account in someone's name, take a large amount of money from it and then charge them interest? Well HSBC have done just that over a dispute that they finally have agreed was not the person's fault yet still they ask for the interest?

I love it when the same idea comes at you from many different sources and  begin to hear God.....

None of them are new or innovotive but I really want to explore them as I begin a new ministry.

In no particular order...

• Hospitality and meals - Jesus did it a lot and so should we inside and outside the church
• Authentic relationships - really care so we don't respond or expect 'fine' as the response to 'how are you' at all times but actually engage with one another in all of life's journey
• Have as many non-Christian friends as we have Christian and spend more of our time outside the church
• Disciples- grow and mature us everywhere we go others can see Christ in us and all we say and do and are
• Confidence in our ability to hear God through scripture - so everyday with Jesus not Selwyn or whoever
• Prayer and worship that reflects (as the psalms do) all aspects of life - joy and sorrow, life and death, confidence and fear, trust and doubt
• Openess to and care of the stranger and alien - remembering our life on the margins as the people of God and fighting for others to have freedom as well.
• Difference is enriching not threatening - within the church as well as outside of it.

I know there are more thoughts milling round my mind - the queston now is how....

I am off to a conference tomorrow called: Voices from the Margins - What can Baptists Learn from the Emergent Church

How interesting that ASBO Jesus should have this cartoon today:

I increasingly believe that the church needs to do a lot more going out - Cafe church in Costa, a church allotment, meetings in a pub and on a commuter train are some of the many ideas that I know some churches are trying. The Baptist Union calls them Crossing Places.

We need to be bold and step out for God.....we all just wish it wasn't so scary! But why do people find it scary? These are people just like us, they eat and sleep and laugh and cry and are loved by God just the same. Maybe its not them we are scared of but our fear is that when people ask about our faith we will be found empty - our experience of God and our relationship with God a bit of a relic of the past rather than a vibrtant current experience - is this what really holds us back?

Popped into town to pay a cheque into the bank and found a European Food Market - excellent to wander round, smell lots of different aromas. It was like being in France or Spain though I am not sure Peru and Asia is in Europe but both were represented.

At one end were some street performers playing South American panpipes just to add the the atmosphere.

This reminded me of a blog I read this morning -  Geoff Colmer has asked what music moves you? (the hymn- I cannot tell - always makes me cry)

This panpipe music always moves me - it makes me smile for it is the music of the land of my birth but it also makes me cry as I have no memories of my country as I was only a baby when I came to UK. So how is it that this music moves me so much and stirs such a strong longing to go back - can infant memories of such music really stay in the sub-conscious and have such a deep effect?

One day I hope to return.....

A complaint to ASDA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H8HnaTIcmk

These two weeks post announcement have been strange, not least because I happen to be only doing one service in the next two weeks (link missionaries followed by Church Anniversary) and then I am on holiday. I have some visiting to do and some forward planning for Advent and Christmas and two day conferences but generally the pace has slowed. (I hope to start clearing and shredding in the spare time)

But as a result I do not feel stressed but I know it will come as I move towards Christmas and moving so finding these Ten commandmentson another blog- see here was excellent - I plan to print them out and put them up in  my study:

TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR REDUCING STRESS

1. Thou shalt not be perfect, or even try.

2. Thou shalt not try to be all things to all people.

3. Thou shalt leave undone things that ought to be

done.

4. Thou shalt not spread thyself too thin.

5. Thou shalt learn to say No.

6. Thou shalt schedule time for thyself and for thy

support network.

7. Thou shalt switch off and do nothing regularly.

8. Thou shalt be boring, inelegant, untidy and

unattractive at times.

9. Thou shalt not feel guilty.

10. Thou shalt very definitely not be thine own worst

enemy, but thine own best friend.