One of the young people lent us a new worship song compliation. After some hesitancy I thought I would give it a go. I thought I know it is not my cup of tea but I should have a listen with an open mind.
It was good to hear one song that was focussed on justice and mercy in the refrain but the rest was very samey, in terms of style and language, do these people listen to westlife all day. I gave it a go but I just dont get it, the young person who gave it me would not spend all day listening to westlife or singing their stuff but to me the sound and the structure seems so similar to many of their recent tracks even down to the key changes. (opps i have just admitted listening to westlife in my defence this is because i spend a lot of time inthe car with radio two on – which i dont mind admitting I listen to)

Maybe Westlife are more cutting edge than I gave them credit for!333999

I was thinking about the close proximity in the bible text between when Jesus says to Peter he is the rock on which He will build the church and Jesus’ rebuke to Peter for thinking of the ways of man not God. Matt 16 v13-23

When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.
From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!” Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”

How easy it is for our human visions and versions of church to have in mind the things of men or women and not in mind the things of God and so become a stumbling block on the path to Christ.In Her Shoes buy Autumn move Trainwreck: My Life as an Idiot ipod

Mark has posted some great thoughts about being church and living shalom here Since coming to faith I have been committed to shalom and really it was as I explored and tried to live out a falteringly shalom lifestyle that I was drawn more and more into community mission and where we are now of Church on the edge, trying to grow church fom scratch with marginalised young people.

The community of God… will be a community that does not live for itself but is deeply involved in the concerns of its neighborhood. It will be the church for the specific place where it lives, not the church for those who wish to be members of it – or, rather, it will be for them insofar as they are willing to be for the wider community.
The Gospel in a pluralist society Leslie Newbiggin

Yet doing church from scratch confilcts in some ways with the need for us to become powerless, as we draw others into ur community who are not at the same place maintaining this call to be a community that does not live for itself becomes harder to maintain. Recently we have had a couple of conversations with the young people about our relatioships with other young people in the community. They are wary, guarded aybe even jealous yet they are part of the community we serve. As we leave at the end of the month to take a group on skate pilgrimage and rite of passage

• Hero Wanted dvdrip Memento

and they enter more into our community is this a serving the wider communitysomething we need to ensure we hold a non negotiable, even though they are committing to christ, but to explore.

Another great offering from ASBO Jesus. Check out more of Jons stuff hereCaptain Blood psp

I don’t normally listen to podcasts but this one came across my in box, from a variety of sources. I guess this is because it picks up different themes and interests from the eceltic networks i am in, from practice based mission/youth work, to Emerging church networks, to anabaptist links. There is some I struggle with but am interested in the concept of radical orthodoxy, particularly around the trancendancy of God, the issues explored around reason and faith and some of the issues around the societial, and cosmic dimensions of church I am really into because of my community bias, but have questions about how Millbank places the parish as core to this, and is so strongly critical of network approaches.
Good stuff but not always easy concepts to get your head aroundHatchet movies

I was really thirsty during the church service this morning. When I drank the communion wine it was all the more relevant somehow. Part of me wished I was hungry too…

Recent posts by James and Richard have really got me thinking – for a couple of minutes! 🙂

What I love about church (and I’m talking about what I think of as church, which isn’t necessarily what I turn up to on a Sunday) are the intimate relationships and the dream of intimate relationships. The idea of having honesty, love, concern, responsibility in a set of relationships. Thinking about these things makes me believe that life as a disciple is possible.

What I hate about church (and I do mean hate!) are the formal shortcuts that lead to relationships that lack the above qualities. I believe that the presence of organisation tempts us to formalise our relationships and encourages us to think that we can treat each other with less grace, it tempts us to think that we don’t have failings, tempts us to look for specks in eyes when we have logs in our own. Formalisation makes us forget our humanity and the centrality of close relationships. We look at the world and see how it operates and we think that we can run the business of church like that, instead of recognising that church isn’t a business, it is people, people who need love, people who need to give love. It’s not what we do, it’s the way that we do it – sometimes we think that the ends justifies the means, that the business is more important than the love.