Man in a Tree

How do you help a man who has slept three nights in a tree? A man who has slept in a tree rather than on the ground for fear of being attacked. A man who says he has been abandoned by his partner with no money, no spare clothes, and no identification. The Salvation Army hostels were all full; and the local authority hostel offered to see him - but a man without id and proof of benefits can't be admitted into a hostel.

Yesterday we warmed our friend up, gave him the benefit of the doubt in terms of his story along with some food, a rail fare, and a letter of introduction to the local authority hostel.

But tonight he came back having spent a fourth night in the tree. All out of ideas now, and unwilling to give any more money, we gave him a hot meal, made some sandwiches and found some fruit - and off he went to try and get himself back home to at least get some id.

Frustrated at the limitations of what we can do, and angry that someone can get into this position in the first place, I am most struck by the fear in his eyes. A grown, fit, strong man frightened by his experiences on the streets and frightened at the prospect of more time there.

I sit writing this, reflecting on my meeting with him, in the warmth of my home. "Come, Lord Jesus" we sing - sometimes so glibly. We look to God's redemptive plan to make the whole of creation new, where no one need sleep in a tree. We live in between the Kingdom now and the Kindom not yet - but today the tension is hard to live in.

Serial Disconnects

Last week we had the privilege of conducting a funeral for a lady who I didn't know, and who was only known to a couple of members of the church. The family, none of whom are church attenders, and half of whom aren't speaking to the other half, wanted me to make some personal comments about the lady all the same, so I visited, listened, made notes and included some appropriate remarks in my message. For all of that I am still left with a feeling that I completely failed to make any connection.

This week has been an interesting week (and it's only Wednesday) in which I have met some interesting people. Three encounters one after the other have given me lots to think about.

Firstly, a lady came in wanting our help in getting rehoused. We had a long conversation in which I tried to explain that all I could do was make some phone calls on her behalf, but she wouldn't give me any details once I went to get a notebook. As always, there was another side of her story that she wasn't prepared to share with me. After a while she thanked me and left, maybe a little less aggressive than she arrived. I'm not sure what was achieved.

As she left, one of our "regulars" came in and before I had even held out my hand he was telling me about his anxiety. He attends worship occasionally, but struggles with all kinds of mental health problems. We have tried to befriend him, but every conversation starts and ends the same. After a while he left. I'm not sure what was achieved.

A short while later another lady came in - a mature student from overseas looking for a church. I spent some time talking to her, praying with her, trying to make sense of her faltering English, hoping she would make be able to make some sense of me. I wasn't sure what was achieved...

...until the following day the lady came to Alpha.

I constantly try to encourage all our staff and volunteers to go the extra mile in trying to make Jesus known to everyone that we encounter, but in a day of conversations with people needing help how have I managed to do that? In a period of one disconnect after another I am thinking that it's no use trying to be a signpost to the Kingdom if people don't even recognise a signpost when they see one.

I'm not sure what was achieved, but I am thankful that God sent these people our way, and I think He will find a way to overcome my failures to connect.

All Hallows Eve

Being on holiday last week meant that I didn't have to tolerate the banality of Halloween and trick-or-treating children. Theological objections aside the Americanisation that make this the second most commercially "holiday" after Christmas brings out the grumpy old man in me.

However, the break at Centerparcs made me realise what it is that really bothers me: it isn't the children, after all, but the adults that accompany them. Centerparcs got in on the act by putting on a Halloween treasure hunt - which we were happy to opt out of - but the spectacle of adults in fancy dress paying over the odds for pre-carved pumpkins seemed to be over-indulgent parenting at its worst.

Next day, the pumpkins were on a sale pile and the Christmas trees were up!

...But that was not exactly a surprise.

Last week we had 34 kids attend our church's Light Party. Not sure they didn't all get dragged into Halloween nonsense as well, but hopefully something we were able to share last week has stuck with them.

Red Squirrels

Just back from a really good family break at the Centerparcs resort in the Lake District. A good week to just do dad stuff - and only a couple of hours from home. I didn't realise that red squirrels were still around in significant numbers in the UK, but Cumbria has lots. The amount of effort that forest rangers etc. put into protecting red squirrels is very impressive - but the public are involved too - we were all invited to contact the squirrel-watch team if we saw any grey squirrels in Cumbria.

Autumn colours in the Lake District were fantastic.

Holiday came to a crashing end the minute we walked through the front door to a note complaining about our security system going off all week and an answerphone message asking us to conduct a funeral this week.

But if God is involved in making red squirrels (as well as the grey vermin types) then I guess He will sustain us as we take our places back on the bridge this week.

Officers' Councils

Last week we attended our first officers' councils at Swanick. A really good and positive experience when God came very close. Being so new to officership I really valued the time to reflect on our experience so far, the appointment itself, and being able to share with Lynley in praying for God's vision and wisdom here.

Bible studies focused on 2 Peter 1. A key challenge for me was to consider how up front I am about Jesus in our everyday missional activities. I have a very broad understanding of mission, and tend to focus on encouraging people to be signposts for the Kingdom in all the various activities we do. I still think that is the right thing, but I have been challenged to be more vocal about Jesus and the Hope we have in Him.

I would hope that Jesus is already up front and centre in all that I, and the church here at Failsworth, do - but maybe sometimes we assume that people already know why we are active in serving our community, or perhaps we are waiting for them to ask the questions that Kingdom activity will provoke. Maybe, we need to be more upfront with the gospel and speak without waiting for the questions.

Back in the office this week, and a busy week to come, but my prayer is that we're going to have meaningful conversations with Jesus this week.

God is good.

Harvest

We had a really great weekend at Failsworth celebrating Harvest with a potato pie supper (northern delicacy, apparently) and quiz on Saturday and a good Sunday of celebration and thanksgiving.

The best bit was seeing some new people come to Sunday worship.

I really enjoy harvest - it's just a great time to be intentionally thankful, and even though some of our people may be facing difficulties of all kinds, despite those circumstances we can still choose to worship God and give Him thanks. I spent a little time yesterday with one of our "spiritual giants", and then had a telephone conversation with someone else later in the day - both people who embody the "I can't choose my circumstances but I can choose my attitude" approach to life. Thank God for positive encouragers.

I have been very challenged in my own life to think about what the harvest of my life will be. Something to reflect on some more as we head off to our first Officers' Councils tomorrow.

A Life of Privilege

Today has been a difficult day. Not the first we have faced, and it certainly won't be the last. Failsworth SA is a great church to be part of, but a complex place to lead: 17 employees working across 2 sites with all the management challenges they bring; holding together a community of faith whose diversity in expression and SA heritage touches the extremes at both ends; a demanding programme that will need to flex if we are to develop some of the new ministries that God has laid on our hearts.

Today was a day when the diary had to be changed at short notice due to factors outside my control - pastoral and managerial. It is often like that. However, amidst all the challenges I am overwhelmed by a sense of privilege. I am privileged in having been called by God and appointed to serve Him here; privileged in being involved in people's lives; privileged to be able to play my part in God's mission in Failsworth.

A couple of weeks ago we conducted the funeral of lady whose family are not yet Christians. Today, we have sat by the bedside of one of our soldiers suddenly taken very ill and had the privilege of ministering not just to her, but also to her family who, again, are not yet Christians. Earlier this week I collected some harvest tins from one of our neighbouring churches and later the same day we handed them straight out to a lady with three children and a drug habit to feed, who, because of the postal strike hadn't been able to receive her "crisis loan" from the DSS.

Sometimes, when personnel issues and the day-to-day stuff that goes with our building and other assets seem to have me bogged down, I have found myself wondering whether I am spending enough time with people who do not yet name the name of Jesus Christ. Today, I have realised that God has graciously been placing me alongside such people all along. I pray that I will be the signpost to the Kingdom that someone needs to see.

Difficulty and privilege seem to go hand-in-hand...

...And I wouldn't be doing anything else.

Blog Relaunch?

I feel very challenged to relaunch my blog. In the first few weeks (which have turned into months) of our appointment at Failsworth I decided I needed to stay away from writing my own thoughts in such a public place, but maybe the time has come to step back into this. Facebook is fun (although the novelty of attacking other people's zombies soon wears off) but doesn't provide the right environment for reflection and dialogue so here I am again, sat in front of Blogger's rather clunky user interface (which doesn't work properly with my new MacBook - a vastly superior machine imho).

Also, an attempt to use a new profile resulted in the blogger tools completely trashing my blog roll and book list! I still want a new three-column template but I must be losing my confidence with technology!

What I need from the blog hasn't really changed: A place to reflect on what God is teaching me through the things that we do and the people we do them with; a place to wrestle with some of the bigger questions; and a place to dialogue if anyone is interested.

Undertakings

Last Thursday (5th July) we had the secretary for personnel in to take us through the undertakings signed by every Salvation Army officer. Following his brief lecture we went and signed our undertakings without ceremony - all quite natural and rather understated.

It was suggested that we need to remember signing the undertakings - essentially the contract that is, of course, no contract at all as the key emphasis is that there is no legal relationship between officer and Salvation Army - the relationship is fundamentally spiritual.

Another milestone, certainly, but perhaps a lot more than that?

Evil and the Justice of God

Just completed N.T. Wright's "Evil and the Justice of God". At 109 pages this is considerably slimmer than some of Bishop Tom's other material (see http://urbanarmy.blogspot.com/2007/07/nt-wrights-resurrection-44.html and others) but no less thought-provoking.

As elsewhere, Wright argues for a broader reading of Scripture and, in particular, the gospels. Whereas we tend to reduce atonement theories to one verse (Mark 10:45) read holistically the gospels "tell the story of how the evil in the world - political, social, personal, moral, emotional - reached its height; and they tell how God's long-term plan for Israel (and for himself!) finally came to its climax." (pp47f)

"Jesus... had long realized, that as Israel's representative it was his task, and his alone, to do what... Israel's God had said that he and he alone could do... The only way of doing justice to what the gospels are trying to tell us is to grasp the picture in its entirety and swallow it whole." (p54)

Mixed metaphors, perhaps, but a treatment of the problem of evil that focuses on what God, through Jesus has graciously done about it more than the nature of evil itself has been helpful. It has been humbling to realise again the awesome mystery of all that the atonement represents - and to be reminded that I am as much as part of the problem as anyone else...
...and only God's faithfulness and grace makes anything else possible.

Learning the Doctrines

With only 30 days to go to commissioning, today we started learning to recite the Salvation Army's eleven articles of faith. A strange feeling, but oddly good - getting to grips with the wording, but also taking the opportunity to revisit the meaning of some of them.

Lots to think about, but lots to celebrate. God is good.

Calling All Peacemakers

This evening, Lynley and I went along to church.co.uk/waterloo to hear Rob Bell speaking as part of his "Calling All Peacemakers" tour. A very helpful and inspiring evening - and one that has helped me in my own thinking about mission. It was good to be reminded that God cares for the whole of the creation He has declared good. Bell develops the concept of shalom - the idea of wholeness, reconciliation, and restoration. There is a sense in which our mission is to identify where in our communities there is the absence of shalom, and to then work to restore it.

Bell's content aside, the evening was also an object lesson in communication - holding a congregation's attention for over an hour, without notes and no introduction, sung worship etc. He just arrived on the platform, got started, stopped when he had finished, and left. Simple, powerful and effective.

Easter 2007

This Easter has been one of real contrasts, and perhaps because of the variety of the training situation, possibly quite unique.

On Palm Sunday we completed our final preaching placement at Clapton. We have really enjoyed this placement - a very chaotic, unpredictable inner city church, and God has shown us new things about what it means to lead His people. A lively upbeat all-age service, with lots of interaction - a good way to start Holy Week.

Holy Week itself at William Booth College has been very special these last two years. An enormous cross is suspended from the ceiling of the Assembly Hall, and we meet every morning for an hour's meditation, sat in a circle around the cross. Much to think about and, as always, within the WBC community we minister to each other - through drama, dance, music, readings, shared prayer and story.

Good Friday saw the usual two public meetings at the college, again around the cross in the Assembly Hall. A highlight for me and many others was a dance item that presented the events of Calvary in a way that is hard to describe in words, but helped make a significant connection. During the afternoon of Good Friday we went to the nearby Ruskin Park for an outreach event, working closely with some of the other local churches. The band played on the newly refurbished bandstage, a short worship service was held, a special children's ministry area was set up where children in the park could have fun, as well as be told the Easter story in a way that was accessible to them, and coffee and hot cross buns were given out to the public. Someone counted around 250 people at one point, and a number of people made their way to the evening meeting as a result. A fantastic opportunity, great to be part of it, and God really used the efforts of all involved. My time as college bandmaster will soon come to an end, and this event will remain in my memory as one of the most productive open air initiatives I have ever been part of.

Easter Saturday and Sunday is time away for most cadets - one of the few times we work in small teams around the country, and one of the only times we get to work with the other session. Lynley and I were part of a team that went to Forestdale, near Croydon, South London. On the Saturday morning we ran a children's event in the local playground, near to the school where the Forestdale corps worships. The corps had run a holiday club during the week and this was intended to provide some continuity for the holiday club children continuing their links with the corps into Easter Sunday. A very busy morning mostly led by Lynley with a variety of games and, of course, an Easter egg hunt.

Easter Sunday morning we were back at Forestdale to lead their Easter worship. A chaotic, interactive all-age service - informal but meaningful to be part of. The evening was a complete contrast, as some of us went on to Croydon Citadel to lead their evening worship. Croydon is more traditional, more formal and almost the other end of the spectrum to Forestdale. It was a privilege to be part of the team, and a privilege to preach at Croydon.

In all the contrast of a busy week, the central truths are the same. We preach Christ, and Him crucified... but He is Risen. He is Risen Indeed!

But we don't want to give you that...

After an "interesting" couple of weeks, Lynley and I have now been appointed to the Failsworth Corps in the Central North Division, just a couple of miles closer to Manchester than our original appointment at Oldham Roundthorn.

There have been a number of lessons to take from this experience:

(1) Not to get ahead of ourselves. We had visited the appointment, seen the hall, toured the house, driven round the community, prayed for a vision, and were in the process of working some of those issues through when we were called into the Principal's office to be given our second appointment. I think it's a bit like buying and selling houses - it's not actually yours until you show up and collect the keys. In the meantime, there's a task to be done where we are now. Perhaps if we get ahead of ourselves we get ahead of God? We would have gone happily to Oldham; we will go happily to Failsworth - we have a sense of confidence and peace that despite the real sense of frustration in the last couple of weeks, God's hand is in this, and He will place us where He needs us to be.

(2) Don't take your children to see houses that you may not end up living in. We may be at peace with the situation we find ourselves in, but that doesn't alter the fact that Christian, particularly, and Caitlin less so, have been unsettled by the revelation that things aren't always as definite as they may appear.

(3) What to do with words of encouragement and affirmation that we received in connection with our original appointment? Still working that through, especially now that we are receiving more of the same in connection with our latest appointment.

All that aside, we are very happy to be going to Failsworth and are very excited by all the possibilities before us. As we've been preparing Easter Sunday material for Forestdale and Croydon this week, both Lynley and I have started to think about Easter in Failsworth next year - although I remind myself that lesson 1 above still applies. It was good to speak to a couple of the church leaders on the phone last week, and a great thrill to discover that a couple of them had found their way to this Blog site and left a message. It was so helpful to receive their encouragement and the promise of their prayers. That said, I am now a little conscious that they are out there reading some of my ramblings before they have a chance to get to know me!

When we first came to college we wrote a few lines each for the Salvationist. In my comment I quoted from a song the line, "Where I cannot see I'll trust" (SASB 489). I was reminded of that same line in a card we received from a friend this week.

God is doing His thing in Oldham, Failsworth and William Booth College. It's an amazing thing that someone like me gets to join in.

He is Able.

Four Months Today...

To my shame I haven't added any entries since January. A lot has happened since then, most obviously our appointment to the Oldham Roundthorn corps in the summer. The last few weeks have passed in a blur, and the emotional rollercoaster that goes with being very excited about our forthcoming move, whilst at the same time being a little anxious about the awesome responsibility that God, through the Salvation Army, is entrusting to us. In all that we are tempted to stress about the words of the chorus, "He is Able" - featured so helpfully here at a recent Spiritual Day, have been reassuring.

Our next practical challenge is to sort out schooling. We will need a reception year place for Caitlin, and a year 4 place for Christian, ideally at the same school. Even receiving our appointment in February hasn't helped us as the deadline for applying for reception places in Oldham was December 31st 2006! But...

He is able!

Oh, and four months today signifies that commissioning is 4 months time to the day.

Back on the Platform

The last two Sundays we have had the privilege of platform ministry again - today to Clapton for our Sunday placement, last weekend to Cardiff Ely for YP Annual.

We are enjoying the placement at Clapton - but today I am struck by the contrasts of a worshipping community in a challenging inner city area, a congregation of haves and have nots certainly, but also what the iChurch people would call "messy church". Someone commented that some of the people don't know how to behave in church, but as I reflect on the way in which people so readily accept us, share with us in conversation and, through their own response and participation in worship, minister to us - maybe it's not so messy after all...

Au Revoir Starbucks

Our local Sainsburys also plays host to our local Starbucks. Last Friday came the news that the coffee shop was closing for 6 months refurbishment. Sad news indeed - even 4-year old Caitlin was asking why! Many of us in the Denmark Hill community will miss Starbucks - not only for the convenience of a coffee before, after, or during grocery shopping - but also as a place of escape and refuge!

Saturday saw a number of us passing through for a final latte and a fond farewell.

The unwritten rules of the Starbucks/WBC social code: when and when not to sit with cadets or staff - will have to be applied in other places for now.

The good news is that the staff have been relocated to another site and the coffee shop should be back before commissioning. In the meantime there is a Caffe Nero in East Dulwich, not to mention our friendly coffee stand in Denmark Hill station (you can just about get a cappuccino between morning prayers and first lecture).

And the news was a lot worse for a certain staff member who was given a Starbucks top-up card for Christmas!

Self-Promised Progress

Much to my disappointment, in Sydney England managed to lose 3 wickets on day 4 before the highlights of day 3 had even finished in the UK!

In the meantime, I did at least manage to get up to date on my reading plan, so progress to date now stands at:

• OT - Gen 11:9
• NT - Mt. 5:20
• Psalms - 4:8
• Proverbs - 1:7

Other stats of interest are:

• 34 days to appointment
• 197 days to commissioning

More importantly, key verses of the day are:

"But you, Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, the one who lifts my head high." (Psalm 3:3, TNIV)

"In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety." (Psalm 5:8, TNIV)

Taking Stock, Thinking Blog

I have been browsing some of the blogs I check into from time to time and find myself wondering why it is other people have more to say. As I sit here waiting for the "highlights" of today's play in the 5th Ashes Test I find myself thinking about work I should be doing:

- Preparation for the YP Annual next weekend at Cardiff Ely
- A 2000-word paper on post-modernity
- A seminar paper and presentation on ordination
- Completing review & evaluation self-assessment documents
- Preparing Monday's band practice

Alternatively, I could be reading any number of books.

I am also aware that this year I have made a personal commitment to a "read the Bible in a year" plan - something I haven't done for quite a while. It's day 4 of the reading plan, but I am still on day 2. I am resolving to catch up after the cricket. Maybe if nothing else, this blog could be my own personal accountability place!

College life has started again, and already we are back in reflective mood as we approach our next review and evaluation (a bit like an appraisal). Having to write about one's own spiritual development is quite a daunting task... So I have opted for the cricket highlights instead!

Next time I check in here I should at least be back on track with the reading plan!