Alternative to the Valedictory

Phil Hughes showed me his alternative to the Valedictory service at the end of the Summer term, brings a whole new meaning to being sent out in the power of the Lord....



Nice One Phil!

WWJD?

So they ask "What Would Jesus Do?" Well I am pretty sure He WOULDN'T manufacture Christian products in a country where Christianity is illegal and Christians are being persecuted and tortured just for refusing to recount their faith. And probably made by people who receive so little in wages they might as well be in slavery.

While in Wesley Owen last week I noticed that the WWJD wrist band bears the legend 'Made in China' Go Figure....

Check this out

Bible stories for Kids are actually going to be aired on the CBBC channel in March.

Check out this link!

Quiet Day - more thoughts

OK, so I feel I need to add something to my post on Quiet days. I wrote that article nearly 18 months ago, and while I still stand by what I wrote, I have also mellowed. I can use quiet to reach out to God and there are time when I find it very useful and helpful. Times when God calls me to quiet in order to communicate with me and times when I just need to use quiet to rest in Him.

I still feel however that the enforced quiet days, the guilt often piled on people when they admit to not having a regular 'quiet time' and the expectation on Christians that quiet MUST form a part of their spirituality is unequivocally WRONG. It is a medieval monastic world-view that is totally unfair to impose on others.

My quiet day is going well today, I feel the need and the desire to spend time with God in quiet, and that is what I'll do. I do hope yours is good too.

With (quiet) Blessings

Kite Flying Spirituality

OK this is not quite what I mean when I say I am into Kite Spirituality, but it is none the less very very cool!

A Quiet day for Hyperactives?

Its quiet day again at Trinity Today, so here - by popular demand - is a rerun of my views on quiet spirituality from last year:

I have a confession - I hate quiet days. Now before you reach for the gravel to stone me, let
me explain.

I am quite a frenetic person (as anyone who has sat near me during a lecture can testify), I
like to be busy, I like to have several things on the go at once and I like noise.

To me it is totally bizarre that fourteen centuries since the idea was first conceived, western
Christianity cannot get beyond a monastic ideology of spending time with God, when, for
many of us it just simply does not work.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I like to spend time with God, to listen for the ‘still small
voice’ and to be in His presence. But I find this virtually impossible to do through quiet days
and long quiet times. Put simply, quiet days just don’t cut the mustard for me.

When I spend time with God I like to be active and spend time with God. I like to go for a
walk, climb a mountain (well alright a small hill), take my collection of kites out for a spin. I
like to shout, to (believe it or not) sing and to talk out loud to God.

As a result of all this I have spent much of my Christian life feeling like a failure when I
haven’t met God in quiet times, or have failed to successfully sit through a quiet day without
almost exploding. It is only in the past two or three years that I have realised it is OK to
meet Him in other ways, and that not to conform to the western ideal of monastic spirituality,
is acceptable.

Now I recognise that for many of you being quiet is exactly the way you need to spend time
with God. So I have a suggestion: instead of ‘Quiet Days’ let’s have ‘God Days’ a time set
aside for us all to spend time with our Lord in a way suitable to the unique personality he
created in each and everyone of us. And for those of us who want to jump, scream shout,
play music and generally meet our Lord through noise, lets sound-proof LR1 and the rest of
you can shut us in there for the duration!

(c)Ali Mepham Nov. 2005

Ministry takes it out of you...

Ellen Loudon put me on to these two blog posts about the managing the workload once ordained. I think its something we should all take a look at:

http://alternativeworship.org/paulsblog/

http://elizaphanian.blogspot.com/2007/01/workload-priorities-vocation.html

Any thoughts anyone?

Stick bun Competition

As promised here are the top 3 winning entries:

3rd Simon Dunn:

to the tune of Jingle Bells

Sticky Bun Sticky Bun
I would like to win
Join the jelly in my belly
Cake is not a sin.

2nd Sarah Jarvis:

I am writing to you as Mother Superior od the Almighty-Sticky-Bun-Order or ASBO for short. We believe that the Sticky Bun is the best. If far out does every other baked product known to man. Here at ASBO we rely on the sticky bun as our daily source of strength, and unfortunately we are experiencing an all-time low in out stock, causing some rather anti-social behaviour from some of our sisters. I plead with you to send as many stick buns as you can spare - without them I really don't know what damage the ASBO nuns will do.

Thank you and may the blessing of the Sticky Bun be upon you.

Yours FAITHfully

M.S. Jarvis ASBO.

AND THE WINNER IS:

Anna Pennington (Aged 10):

I would like a stick bun because it is not very fattening for me. Because I eat veg and fruit. I try to maintain a healthy diet. Another reason is that I was able to explain to my teacher what hermeneutics meant. I am deprived because on the way home from school we used to go the bakery but now it is shut FOREVER!! So I can't have cake any more.

---------------------------------------


A clear an worthy winner I feel!

Been a bit quiet...

OK - so I am guilty of the biggest sin in blogging - not keeping things up to date. Needless to say things have been a bit busy recently, what with an increased family size and a dissertation and a whole load of other excuses. Still now its February and time to start up again. Hopefully there will be a new issue of the mag very soon and maybe even something controversial.

In the meantime here is a picture of Walter Brueggemann: