Start of a great week. In the 24x7 prayer room set up with Advent journey reflections. Tonight just for me for as long as I can stay awake.
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Start of a great week. In the 24x7 prayer room set up with Advent journey reflections. Tonight just for me for as long as I can stay awake.
Posted on Sunday, November 29, 2009 at 11:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Posted on Sunday, November 29, 2009 at 10:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
When Christians gather to pray things happen. They are changed and the communities around are changed. This can get negative responses (which probably show we are doing the right thing).
Today this was clear and obvious in Raunds. Within two hours of our latest 24x7 prayer room opening some young vandals (yes we saw them) kicked and smashed our brand new sign advertising the prayer week.
So tonight in the prayer room we are praying for the kids in Raunds who are so frightened of prayer that they want to try to stop it. May the Spirit of the living God break into their lives so that they might learn of the love of the God who created them and who calls them by name.
I will be putting up a temporary poster tonight inviting the vandals to contact me to hear that they are forgiven and point out that they are welcome to come in and discover a welcome and love.
Oh and I'll be ordering replacement parts for the sign.
Posted on Sunday, November 29, 2009 at 08:40 PM in Methodist, Religion | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
Posted on Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 02:51 PM in Methodist | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
Posted on Monday, November 23, 2009 at 02:59 AM in Java | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
This afternoon marked the launch of the 3rd year of Hope in Thrapston. What started with Hope 08 and continued with Hope 09 will carry on, indeed grow in 2010.
So Christians from all the Churches in Thrapston gathered for worship this afternoon at St James. This time we had decided on a cafe style of worship, one that was hindered at least for me by far too many nice cakes :-)
As with all our Hope events all the Churches and all the clergy in the town were involved. We were welcomed by Charles, Vicar of Thrapston (whose congregation were enthused by his service on Hope this morning). Our worship was lead by James from Thrapston Baptist Church.
Arthur, the outgoing Baptist minister had prepared a video of photos of recent projects which we watched before prayers of praise and thanks for some of the projects during the last 9 months or so. We had people from each project lead the prayers but kept this down to only 11 projects for time purposes. It is amazing that God has been so busy in Thrapston that we all find it difficult to keep track. The projects/events mentioned were:
After some more singing we then introduced and prayed for projects and events that are coming up in the next few months. Again these were led by a variety of people including Father Brian and Arthur. They included:
Lots more being planned for later in the year
We then closed by singing together before Charles led a commissioning of the coming events and sent us back out into the community.The numbers were great and so was the response, we have seen growth in the numbers of people supporting Hope over the years and again there were new faces which is great news.
Posted on Sunday, November 22, 2009 at 11:50 PM in Methodist, Religion | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
As a Methodist it has been incredibly exciting to see how many Methodists are at Mission21. The whole team of District Evangelism Enablers are here plus many others lay and ordained.
Beyond the individuals here it is great to see how much the Methodist Church as a denomination has invested in it for example
It has also been great to meet other Methodists, some old friends and some new. Last night a few of us were sharing stories in the pub which included some amazingly encouraging stories of God at work in Methodism.
One thing I have noticed with a little sadness is that many of the District Enablers seem to be ministers who have not wanted a second Circuit appointment. Maybe we need to see penalty points assigned to circuits whose ministers do not seek another circuit appointment when they come to leave. If a circuit has a history of ministers leaving and not wanting other appointments then maybe the circuits should be put into some kind of "special measures".
Posted on Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 09:37 AM in Methodist, Religion | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
A couple of weeks ago, so I am told, one of the Raunds Methodist Church leadership team was in a meeting with another member of staff when they were setting dates for something. A date was suggested and the Raunds member said "I can't make that night, we have a Raunds leadership team meeting". They were told "You can't be, Dave is away at the Mission21 Church Planting conference then". The reply was clear "Of course we can, we do it all the time, how else would anything get done".
Well sure enough, on Tuesday evening this week they had the leadership meeting while I was in the last session of the 24x7 Discipleship stream for the day.
By Wednesday morning I had copies of the minutes and sure enough they got lots done (mostly focused on practical getting on with the mission of the Church - like preparing for the coming 24x7 prayer week) plus ecumenical stuff, property stuff, finance. One of the other great things was the progress they made on providing a permanent Prayer room for the town - something I have been dreaming of for a long time.
I got some other updates by facebook and tonight I got a copy of the letter they have sent to St Peter's CoE inviting them to join us for Sunday lunch after the joint covenant service in January.
This is absolutely how it should be. Methodists believe in the priesthood of all believers. Ministers have a representative role not a hierarchical one. Every leadership team should be strong enough and empowered enough to meet without a minister present and every minister and leadership team should make sure that they trust each other for this to be a normal event.
I have blogged quite a few times over the years about the Raunds Leadership Team and this is just another example of why I have the best job in the world. Well except for the bit that will see me up a ladder hanging the nativity lights on Saturday morning (all future Churches should be only one story high please).
It was of course thinking about this that freed me up to book another conference (see my post 42: Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism in Britain Project).
Posted on Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 12:25 AM in Methodist | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Hallelujah.
I assume I don't have to make it clear that it is the response from Mr Boxall that is the cause of celebration not the terrible act that led to the need to respond - that was obvious wasn't it, I really didn't need to write this extra bit did I because everyone knows what Jesus teaches about love, enemies and forgiveness. I just wish we took the teaching and example of Jesus more seriously more of the time.
Posted on Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 11:26 PM in Religion | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Lots of great people here.
Posted on Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 09:57 AM in Religion | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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