AnotherRubbishBlog

Christianity is well boring...

2006-06-02T19:54:00.000+01:00

Just a thought. Nearly every 'big cheese' 'example to look up to' in evangelical Christian circles is a very boring, white male wearing a suit. That's pretty boring. Who want's to be like that?

An Update and Some Thoughts on Marketing

2006-04-24T21:15:00.000+01:00

Back at College and really enjoying it. Things are super hectic, think I'm gonna be working on an essay a week up until the start of June. Which should prove interesting. The Blog's suffered a bit as a result of my busy-ness but hopefully I can keep it up a little bit more in the coming weeks.

This last weekend the new student committee for College went away to Hedger's farm to get to know each other and dream and pray and what not. It was a quality time - we all really enjoyed it and I think it was really valuable in terms of looking for the way forward. We talked a lot about having big faith in God (when we dream big and aim high God is gonna step up and be counted), being honest and vulnerable, application of Theology and how we can encourage all these things in the student committee. I'm representing the missions side of things on behalf of the student body for the next year which is cool. We've already got fifteen people signed up for the funding by fasting program this coming term which is fantastic considering there were 6 last year. Please pray for more! It basically involves people giving up their Friday lunch in order to give their money to charity and (if they choose) to pray for mission across the UK and world. I wasn't very excited about this prior to starting but I think it's a cool thing to do. What a small sacrifice to make as well!

As for some thoughts on marketing...
I was thinking about how much literature mission organisations and charities produce to try and recruit people to their cause. I'm not saying this is always bad. It just seems though that it is giving in so much to consumerism and marketing. Obviously it's expensive and wasteful of natural resources which are obvious drawbacks but it just strikes me as weak. Why the heck are people trying to sell serving God to people? The Bible makes it clear that following God is tough and will result in you being persecuted and spat on and hated. Why are mission organisations trying to offer people little packages that will really 'work for them'. It just seems silly. Surely if people really felt led to serve God in a certain way then they are always going to find these organisations to help equip them? This marketing side of things just encourages temporary shallow commitments. Which is just what we don't need more of. We've got to keep people informed of what we are doing but organisations who try to sell these things in 'attractive' ways just seem to be missing the point? Or maybe I'm just unrealistic?

Roland Allen pt.1

2006-04-13T00:16:00.000+01:00

Thought I'd post some quotes up from the Roland Allen book I am part way through. First one...

"Many of our missionaries welcome spontaneous zeal, provided there is not too much of it for their restrictions, just as an engineer laying out the course of a river is glad of some water to fill his channels, but does not want a flood which may I sweep away his embankments. Such missionaries pray for the wind of the Spirit but not for a rushing mighty wind. I am writing because I believe in a rushing mighty wind, and desire its presence at all costs to our restrictions. But if that is what we are talking about, it is futile to imagine that we can control it." – Roland Allen, Spontaneous Expansion Of The Church, page 16.

We are all missionaries. I think sometimes we think can control God. We just need to let him do his thang. God help us.

A Bit of an Update....

2006-04-11T22:48:00.000+01:00

Well Easter holidays are closing in but it's been a pretty decent one. This last weekend I went up to London and hung out with some good friends. Which was fun. Might get some photos when I get this thing working easier. Oh and I also got some nice new glasses to replace my not-so-recently broken old ones.

I've finished my book fast early (thanks to Tom Williams for trying to keep me accountable), gave up last Thursday, just felt a little fatigued by it. It wasn't really having a positive effect. It did make me realise how lowly I rate the Bible. In my head I rate the Bible as the best book ever (which it is), but in reality I don't give it the attention or respoect it deserves. This probably deserves some expanding on, but I'll save it for another time. Wierdly, since I started reading again I've read the Bible more and things have just been better. Since I finished the fast I've been reading Spontaneous Expansion of the Church by Roland Allen, which was written in the 1930s. He was a missionary and a bit of a visionary and I've really enjoyed the book so far. Unfortunately his message is as needed today as it was 80 years ago, but I'm still encouraged by some of his ideas. I'll post some nice little quotes up in the coming days. I'm also reading The Jesus Creed (hence the picture) by Scot McKnight which is proving also really good. Again, I'll post some stuff up sometime soon and it should give a bit of a flavour for the book.

I seem to always listen to more new music when I'm at home and I've really got into a few artists since I've been home. Imogen Heap used to be part of Frou Frou and is awesome, her solo stuff is probably even better than her old stuff. Death From Above 1979 are a quality - hip shakingly good band, with a pretty big sound for two people. Thanks to Pete for the tip-off. You should listen to Pete's band too. Also, just today I found out about ex-Further Seems Forever vocalist Jason Gleason's new band, ActionReaction, who are shaping up to sound pretty good. All of those are worth checking out if you haven't already.

So it's another week of chillin and spillin (great phrase) and then back to Le Coll. Looking forward to it, should be fun. I'll be back soon with some quotes from Roland Allen's book. Peace out.

Other Websites...

2006-04-06T14:05:00.000+01:00

I've updated the links section to actually have more than just my MySpace on it now. All of those are worth checking out at some point for different reasons. I'll leave you free to explore them. I particularly want to highlight Backyard Missionary, which often has some really helpful thoughts on it. At the moment there's a particularly awesome two part piece on Youth Ministry that can be found here and here. Also on Si Johnston's site there is another great two piece article on Church employees/leadership/general church stuff. That one is here and here.

I'd rather you read that stuff than anything I've got to say at the moment, go check it out, I'll be back in a few days.

Same Old Question...

2006-03-31T22:56:00.000+01:00

I know a lot of people who know me are sick of asking this question, but they can deal with it. I'm intersted in hearing some real constructive feedback again. If you're sick of it ignore it. For me this has been a really big question for about 18 months. I can't even remember if I thought of it or if someone else asked it. But it has a big bearing on the way we live. Every day 29,000 children under the age of five die of preventable diseases. Very little money can save these kids from dying and offer them life. If this is the case how can we justify spending a fiver on going to the cinema? Like rather than going to the cinema we can give say, (pick a number out of the air) 10 kids the chance to live. Surely this is the better option? What do you guys think? Is it really realistic to live this (and all the extensions of this thinking) out? Should I do it?

Birthday

2006-03-30T16:34:00.000+01:00

Today I am twenty. Huzzah.

The last couple of days I have been putting the new version of these into these. It's mostly been very boring but hey, at least it was a little bit of money. Huzzah.

Some Thoughts From Last Night

2006-03-28T13:20:00.000+01:00

Last Night I couldn't sleep and I was writing in my Journal, which I hardly ever do, but I think some interesting things came out of it. I was thinking about where my life is really headed - is it even important for me to know? I dunno, but I'd like to know anyways. So I thought I'd just draw out a few things and put them out there. They're not necessarily very profound but I think they're good things. They probably don't make sense.

- I want to be simple for God. It's easy to dream big and want to do the massive things but I think following God in the mundane and boring is much harder. And it's this which most of us have to do. Thinking big is good but that stuff will only come once we're living every day as we should, doing the 'easy things' well.

- Life is crooked without God, it's always pointed straigh back inwards. We're only fully human when we live in the light of God's pure goodness.

- Exciting is often mundane.

- This is life. THIS is life. This IS life. This is LIFE.

- If I really understood how temporary this life is then I wouldn't waste time. I waste lots of time. This is very frustrating.

hmmmm....

Capture and Release...

2006-03-24T12:20:00.000Z

Thank God for the release of Norman Kember and the other two Christian Peacemaker Teams guys. I don't really know how to treat these situations in terms of God. I believe that God was with them in their troubled time but I also wonder why some are released and others aren't? It's a mystery to me but I guess something to wrestle and struggle with. All we can do I think is trust God as just and keep exploring it. Just as an after thought, I think maybe one of the reasons we struggle with these ideas so much is because we are so stuck on looking at the things of this world. If those three guys had have been killed in Iraq then they would have been returning to their creator which really can't be viewed as a bad thing. I think I can be guilty of prizing this life too much.

Alongside this I also thought it would be good to remember the family of Tom Fox, one of those who didn't come back alive, at the moment. Tom's Blog, which is well worth a look, can be found here.

Sick of Status Quo Christianity...

2006-03-19T23:40:00.000Z

...and sick of complaining about it. I don't know what it is. I just feel envisioned tonight somewhat. I'm always quick to jump on the back of the church and complain about how it's all going wrong. And things are. And I complain of lukewarm, tepid, middle-class, consumer, culture compromised, indifferent christianity. This is doesn't reflect Christ, who we serve. Christ is full of radical love, total dedication, devotion above all things to God. He is full of peace and grace. This isn't the easy option.

So it's time to stop complaining and start living it. No more messing about with a compromised Christianity. I can claim to live it and believe it. I can claim good Theology. I can claim to have a passion for all sorts. So let's live it.

I felt really tonight that I should stop reading. Knowledge is good, but we've got to get our knowledge from the right places. What's really the point in reading books about the Bible when I consistently disregard it and don't read it. And if I do, it's in really crappy portions. I was planning to read a lot over Easter. And I still am. But I'm going to read the Bible. Anyone want to join me on a book fast for the next month? Till the 19th April I'm not going to read any other book apart from the Bible. I really want to read the whole Bible in that time, but I'm not going to make any promises that I can't keep.

And I'm going to pray more. There's a brilliant quote... "The only thing more amazing than prayer is that knowing what we know about prayer, we don't pray". I don't know who said it, and I'm sure they said it much more eloquently than me. But it's time to get serious about these things. Enough of tepid Christianity, Jesus hates it, Revelation 3:15and16 says... "I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth."

Time to get hot... Keep me accountable...

Into the Unknown...

2006-03-19T00:21:00.000Z

New Blog. Hopefully this will prove a fruitful experiment. Who knows where this space will go? I hope it is somewhere useful for me and others. I don't have any real vision for it or anything, hopefully I might share and develop some ideas here, and interact with people in a good way. Here goes...