An epic journey of wallpaper and ??

This weekend I plan on embarking on a journey of epic proportions, via B and Q. I was prompted to make this journey when Bethany came home with a note to bring in a special book to school for her RE lesson next week. My plan (please note I have not convinced the children or Lori of the idea yet) is to write our Bible scroll. Hence the need for the trip to B and Q for a roll of wallpaper. My hope is that as we write and draw the journey of the Bible it will resonate (although the kids might not use that word) with our journey. However do we include it all, should I leave out some bits? The bibles the children have all are selective, but in some ways it is the boring bits like the genealogies that will most easy for the kids to make links to our journeys. Do we write the psalms, and come up with our own wise sayings, at the moment for Jo that may well be buy the orange properties when playing Monopoly. Ah the wisdom of youth!
Meet%20them%20where%20theyre%20at%202.ppt

Rethinking church

I have posted the article that YOUTHWORK magazine ran on Off the Beaten track. I was looking at the simple church site which got me thinking again about missional church and definitions. So I thought I could post up the article if anyone was interested as it also gives a fair description of where I am coming from. Youthwork are inviting comments so feel free.
Tacking.doc

…..afflict the comfortable

Today I went to a conference on Funding in the South West. It was generally very good and amongst other things we heard from the CEO of the Big Lottery Fund, which has replaced the New Opportunities Fund and Community Fund. The new young people’s fund has been launched £200million to be distributed – priorities on Disadvantage, Proven young peoples involvement at all levels, Innovation, Demand led. Although some big questions raised on how much may be top sliced from the overall Big Lottery Fund (£600million) if London wins it bid to host the Olympics.

There was also a really good introduction to fundraising session by Jonathan Farnhill who used to work at the Salmon Centre. I also went to a session on income generation which had some good inputs. We were told that the slides from the workshops would be going up on web at www.creatingexcellence.org.uk but I haven’t seen them there yet. Two great quotes Jonathan used:- “Art is not a mirror to reflect reality but a hammer with which to smash it� Brecht. Secondly from Gilbran “If you cant comfort the afflicted – afflict the comfortable�

This worked surprisingly well

I ran this session at a group in Bristol recently as was surprised it went down so well. It was quite risky as I didn’t know the group well. Hearing God in the world.doc

I am off to do a session at the Youthwork conference tomorrow and came across the following image. It has been a fairly mixed up process in preping for the conference and still unsure how I feel so thought the image quite apt.

Heresy understood

I came across a quote by Soren Kierkegaard who said “life is lived forward but understood backward�. On one hand it could be just hindsight, but I like the intentionality of living your life forward, rather than just passing through. I have posted up the info about The FaSt Game which we developed over 5 years ago. At the time I was getting loads of stick for wanting to call it a form of church. It is interesting reading the reviews it got at the time and how there was nothing else like it around. In some ways they still isn’t, but to call it what it was designed to be is no longer heresy. Or have I just got thicker skin than all those years ago?
The Fast Game.doc