It was a great day around the Table yesterday, exploring the theme of growing church from scratch. It was a bit like a gathering of the tribes of people working on the edge with young people and communities, with lots of StreetSpace peps, some VFX, Worth Unlimited, Urban Expression, CMS, and CYM peps all gathering in Hodge Hill with Janey and Al Barrett. As you can imagine conversations were important, stimulating and out there. Simon Succliffe kicked the day off brilliantly with some mobile new testament ecclesiology, I took up the story looking at how youth ministry informed how we got to where we are now, and Jo Dolby started to unpack the tearing of the temple curtain and the implications this offers our communities. Then Janey Barret led us through an art space involving fruit, and Al shared on the wonderful approach of Hodge Hill. The next event is in Oxford, eating alone, looking at how we sustain a pioneer spirituality.

You can find my slides and notes at Church from scratch copy

Recently I had the equally heartbreaking and humbling experience of watching two girls show each other what they had in their packed lunch boxes that day. One opened her box that simply contained a single Mr Kipling Angel slice and the other opened her box to show a pack of Skips (crisps). The girl with the crisps turned to the other, and said “don’t worry we can share”.

The privelage of witnessing companionship and love of the girls is obviously tempered with anger that children in the UK in 2015 should be in this position.

Today I had to pull the car to the side of the road as I drove to pick up my daughter as I caught the news about the latest conservative idea not change the inheritance tax rules to disqualify houses upto a £1000000 (a million) pounds, and the talk of being able to pass onto your family your house. I understand this is aimed at the middle class vote but the inherent injustice of the systems that woo the more well off and that have penalised the poorest, meant I too once again pull the car to the side and weep.

I cannot square the circle or cope with my emotions as I reflected on the generousity and humanity of the girls sharing their packed lunch verses the inhumanity of those in power, and the steps they will take to try and stay there.

As you may know things are really tough for the central finance for Streetspace / FYT and John Wheatley, Dylan Barker and I have been working hard on funding bids to make up the shortfall. We have submitted loads of grants we are hoping to hear from soon but we are looking at raising around £25000. As employees of FYT, a charity, there are certain processes and procedures that need to be followed and so we are meeting on Thursday where formal warning notices that our jobs are risk will be have issued to all three of us. This gives us another month to raise income or further cut costs or hours and our hope and prayer is it will not get as far as redundancy.

In many ways we see this an important positive opportunity to push into the new world of what pioneering youth work and mission really means and get even more creative with our approach. Our aim for the coming few years had been to transition the whole of StreetSpace from fees and bills to gifts and conversation, but this is going to take time and unless some of the grants come in, or we raise income in another way we may struggle to make that transition.

So I would value your prayers for us, our families and the extended StreetSpace community. As said we have some grant applications already in, and many people I know via facebook already support frontline youth work projects, so please do not divert your giving but if you think you can help us financially you can do so via:
an online donation to FYT using: https://www.give.net/20022128
by phone, text: FYTR01 £(then either 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 10)’ to 70070
To make a monthly donation or one off gift by cheque or BACS, please use this form http://www.fyt.org.uk/…/wp-co…/uploads/FYT_Response-Form.pdf so we can claim the tax back to increase your gift at no extra cost to you.

I am loving Ian Adams morning bell reflections for lent you can find out more here. This series of snowy, slightly out of focus images and words seems to have been taken from a train or moving vehicle. The challenging words bring me up short, and as lent should makes me re-evaluate and prepare myself for the year ahead.

The images and words set off all sorts of connections in my brain and as I sit with them I move from a disconcertion, to peace to hope as I look forward to the Easter. The movement reminds me to sit with the disconcerting feelings they raise and to embrace the words in the now. The peace comes not as a relief but from a knowing that we can live beyond the temporal, (perhaps at times only fleetingly) but we need to embrace the reality of the everyday and ourselves if we are to do so.

I was privileged to be part of the Incarnate Gathering last week, and whilst I was asked to speak I received far more than I gave. The theme was Other and I shared around Other as the space between us. It was great to meet Abdul Rehman Malik who is a journalist, speaker and part of the Radical Middle Way. Abdul spoke on “Everything Perishes Except the Face of God: Seeking the One in a Hyper Diverse World”. His shared stories from the Muslim tradition offered some great insight into notions of Other.

In my usual way this ended up with me putting two and two together and coming up with five. The weekend started me wondering about how notions of Other connect with the ongoing story of fullness of life. We know there can be no fullness of shalom for us, when there is poverty, oppression and disparity for others, when we cannot break bread with others who may differ in perspective. It started me wondering about the points of tension, in the Christan faith that separated myself and Abdul, and the particularity of communion.

One person shared a story of how they had had a passover meal, with people of different backgrounds and faith stories and towards the end had moved into another room to take communion. On the table the symbols the bread and wine were surrounded by the everyday life objects that had unconsciously been placed on the table, a nappy, keys, bags, etc. It was a wonderful image of community and incarnation, yet they were conscious that as they shared communion no matter how inclusive their language was, some would be excluded or exclude themselves from the table.

Now I know I am dangerous ground playing with the Sacrament, but what if communion is another part of the ongoing story. More than that what if by its very nature it has the possibility to include rather than exclude, to help us towards the redemption of the whole of creation, not by seeing other as something that may taint, but as a resource towards wholeness and shalom. Something that helps both us and another creatively hold the space between us, something that recognises difference but imagines and commits to a new way of being.

We need to remember communion has never been a static thing, it is different in different traditions, its elements have changed over time and with different cultures, as have the liturgy and words. BUT Imagine the passover was just the start, the last supper a step along the way, and that the christian tradition thus far has helped us, but now communion once again needs to be re-imagined, perhaps it even needs to be liberated from the christians. It will not be an easy journey as we are both part of a radical monotheistic tradition, but I long for the day when Abdul and I can wrestle in the space between us and perhaps work out what it means for us break bread together.

I have been privileged to hang out with a load of baptists for the past few days looking at Other. I was asked to share a little but loved the input from others in particular Abdul Rehman Malik’s session Everything perishes except the face of God. I wanted to blog the thoughts but I cannot find an order of logic so hear goes a splurg.

I long for the other, I want to explore, I let myself breathe and jump in with both feet.
I find my self caught not by the person but by the space.
The encounter with other brings realization that no difference is found.
A visceral awakening that this space is beyond, a space in between, and space that is clean.
The other is self and together we are held.
The holding amplified, so our uniqueness remains
It is a feeling that cannot be conveyed
but it is feeling that must be expelled.
The other is no longer a stranger in this space that held.
Beyond the words of stranger, of difference, and other
we move towards wilderness, home and mother.

Over the past few weeks I have playing with TaiFlow and developed a move that holds the space, it builds on the thin place idea where heaven and earth come close. I kind of move arms in opposite directions coming together at my core but not quite meeting. It reminds me of the space between us, and the spaciousness g-d offers and holds us within. So it was a joy to get into discussion with Al Barrett, Tim Evans, and Janey Barrett, as we pursued ideas around innovation in the previous post. Al shared the concept that Jesus through the temptation in the wilderness demonstrated that we need to renounce the power of the provider, the power of the performer, and the power of the possessor. As we explored this, it connected so well to the space I was seeking to hold in the TaiFlow move. The incarnation is more about the space between us that our presence creates than our simple presence. The incarnation takes us beyond us and the stranger/other, calls those walls to dust and refuses to colonise the space left, where too often the church seeks to perform, possess, or provide so it becomes a space of intercarnation. (Once again a word Al found)

I am interested in what it means to translate or map the concept that, Innovation is different to adaption, to the idea that church seeks a paradigm shift. adaptation tweaks what is already present, it is part of series is of evolutionary moves. innovation goes back to the drawing without pre subscribed ideas. I have written before on the need for revolution over evolution but I wonder if all the emerging churches talk of paradigm shifts are really just adaptations as still haven’t gone back to the drawing board of who or what is G-d and then really innovated from there.

I came across this poem via a friend of a friend that may help you get where I am coming from

Have you considered the possibility
that everything you believe is wrong,
not merely off a bit, but totally wrong,
nothing like things as they really are?
If you’ve done this, you know how durably fragile
those phantoms we hold in our heads are,
those wisps of thought that people die and kill for,
betray lovers for, give up lifelong friendships for.
If you’ve not done this, you probably don’t understand this poem,
or think it’s not even a poem, but a bit of opaque nonsense,
occupying too much of your day’s time,
so you probably should stop reading it here, now.
But if you’ve arrived at this line,
maybe, just maybe, you’re open to that possibility,
the possibility of being absolutely completely wrong,
about everything that matters.
How different the world seems then:
everyone who was your enemy is your friend,
everything you hated, you now love,
and everything you love slips through your fingers like sand.
(Federico Moramarco)

Last week a I wrote the final report to a brilliant trust that has funded StreetSpace for the last few years, and was simply astounded at all we achieved going from 3 to 62 projects in under four years. I sent the trust pictures from the amazing StreetSpace projects working day in day out in with brilliant young people who really need us.
This week I did our budget for the coming year. As the trusts support is ending and I never let money stop me supporting a potential StreetSpace project, helping young people, we are facing a shortfall and I want to raise some funding to directly support my post and the core work to keep StreetSpace going.
So I am asking friends to help and I am setting the target of raising £2000 a month through regular donations, This might seem like a lot of money but if just half my FB friends donated £10 a month we would hit the target… if every FB friend donated we would smash it and I could spend less time on budgets and more time making work on the ground happen.
I know some of you already support the work, or are committed to local projects, or youth workers themselves but those of you who know me well know I want to change the world, lets do this….please consider a monthly donation – please download and use our response form: HERE

http://www.fyt.org.uk/…/wp-co…/uploads/FYT_Response-Form.pdf

This horizon scanning paper on the social attitudes of young people is interesting. Looking at how social attitudes have changed it explores several key areas including
Values and personal autonomy
Aspirations
Attitudes to society and government
Wellbeing