There seem to be prayer resources all over the web, the latest ones to appear on radar are here at the rejesus site, and they're very good, hope they do some more in this series. 4 prayer worksheets for people who arent' used to praying, or who need some help praying in a more creative way.
Whilst we're on the subject of prayer, other links to prayer resources on the web include:
1. Prayer exercises: see previous post on this at http://davidkeen.blogspot.com/2007/08/prayer-exercises.html
Lost in Wonder is, believe it or not, an online labyrinth, so now you can walk round in circles without leaving your chair. Or if your chair spins round....
Small rituals is a good collection of meditations, prayer activities, poems etc.
2. Prayer ideas for all-age church, see http://www.barnabasinchurches.org.uk/pages/483s.htm#Prayer - the Barnabas trust site has literally hundreds of ideas on prayer, using the Bible in worship etc.
3. Liturgical resources
http://www.oremus.org/liturgy/ which has a library of Anglican liturgical stuff from various places, and is itself signposted from a new Anglican resource site, Transforming Worship, which seems to be a good place for bringing together liturgy, set readings, hymns, seasonal materials etc.
Linked from both of the above is the CofE's own worship site, which if you dig around enough you can find 'New Patterns for Worship' complete and online. This is effectively a small library of liturgical bits and pieces, which is a sight cheaper to view online than it is to buy hardback!
4. Prayer and worship
Jonny Bakers worship tricks is a cumulative library of interactive ideas for use in worship, very creative, lots of poems, videos, photos etc., and collected from sources all over the place.
5. Subscription Sites
There are various other sites which want you to subcribe, or register, such as
12 baskets
R.U.N
Proost
and of course, Sermonspice, home of the Christmas Linebacker, where you can get an online preview of stuff before you part with large numbers of dollars
all of these last 4 seem designed for churches which use multimedia, projectors, videos and visuals, and are only really worth getting into if this is a regular thing in your worship.
But the last word (on a day where it was revealed that Brits were the biggest shoplifters in Europe, it seems we can't see something with a price tag without wanting it for free), must go to
http://www.blog.freechristianresources.org/ which is a website linking to free christian resources on the net, on the principle that God's love is free, so what business do Christians have in charging one another for stuff.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Monday, October 29, 2007
Stuart Murray-Williams in Yeovil
It's all happening in November! Taster sessions next week for the 'Mission Shaped Ministry' course running in Taunton, and then a few days after that, at Yeovil Community Church......
Stuart Murray is a while known speaker and author particularly on the subject of church and church planting. He will be with us on Sunday Nov 18th and everyone is welcome to come along as appropriate.
10.00 - 12.00 Speaking (from about 11) at the GateWay on 'radical discipleship in post-christendom'
2.00 - 3.00 an informal coffee time with any church leaders that want to come along and chat to him
3.00 - 4.30 workshop on 'planting churches without buildings' open to all - especially those interested in the new estates
Please advertise this in your congregation - especially the workshop. If you want to come and chat to him at 2pm then you'd be very welcome.
great opportunity to learn from one of the top thinkers on church planting in todays UK culture, this is normally the kind of bloke you need to go to major national conferences to see. If you live anywhere near Yeovil, make the most of it.
Stuart Murray is a while known speaker and author particularly on the subject of church and church planting. He will be with us on Sunday Nov 18th and everyone is welcome to come along as appropriate.
10.00 - 12.00 Speaking (from about 11) at the GateWay on 'radical discipleship in post-christendom'
2.00 - 3.00 an informal coffee time with any church leaders that want to come along and chat to him
3.00 - 4.30 workshop on 'planting churches without buildings' open to all - especially those interested in the new estates
Please advertise this in your congregation - especially the workshop. If you want to come and chat to him at 2pm then you'd be very welcome.
great opportunity to learn from one of the top thinkers on church planting in todays UK culture, this is normally the kind of bloke you need to go to major national conferences to see. If you live anywhere near Yeovil, make the most of it.
The following appeared in my inbox during the week off, in a mailing from www.celluk.org.uk .
I want to be part of a community that I love and that loves me. A place where
we get past the polite niceness, beyond the pretence and the masks, and get
really irritated with each other. And then stick at it and stick together.
I want to be part of something that is marked by its welcome, its hospitality and
its inclusiveness. A place with fuzzy edges, where no one decides who belongs
and is ‘in’ or ‘out’. I want to be part of a group of people who are obsessed with
Jesus, rather than Christianity. A place that is passionately focussed on Jesus
and learning to live as followers of his way in real life today. A place where
we’re becoming more like Jesus as we learn the ancient spiritual disciplines and
work together to make them part of our lives.
I want to belong to a community where I can be myself, warts and all.
A place that, on the one hand will accept me as I am right now, but on the other
hand will provoke and inspire me to become more of what I could be. A place
where my brokenness, fears and habits are part of the process. A place where
we hold on to the ‘ideal’ but also celebrate the ‘real’.
I want to be part of something that treats people like adults. A place that values
everyone’s experience and perspective. A place where people are motivated by
love rather than guilt. I want to be part of a community that is both of our culture,
so that it connects with the language, images, music and experiences of
everyday life; but one that also goes against the grain of our culture because we
serve one another, live sacrificially and cross boundaries of class, age and colour.
A place that makes the difference in the things that feel too big for us as individuals.
Whether that’s the hassle my kids will get when they can’t wear designer
trainers or the impotence I feel in the face of ethical and environmental
issues.
A place that makes us yearn for justice and beauty. A place that equips us for
life in the worlds we live in, and gives us the fire we need to change them.
Of course my dream is impossibly idealistic, but I’ve decided that even if we
never get there, I want to give everything to trying. Dream has always sought to
be “an oasis in the desert”, and that’s precious. But at the same time, it needs to
be a desert in the oasis. A place that makes us more thirsty for Jesus and his
kingdom.
What a great vision. The trouble is, most of us will read this and think 'if I want to be part of this, I'd better leave my own church and find the one which is like this'. A consumerist rather than a community response. Or we could do the hard thing: pray that the Christian community we're part of becomes this way, and offer ourselves to God for Him to use us to answer our own prayer.
I want to be part of a community that I love and that loves me. A place where
we get past the polite niceness, beyond the pretence and the masks, and get
really irritated with each other. And then stick at it and stick together.
I want to be part of something that is marked by its welcome, its hospitality and
its inclusiveness. A place with fuzzy edges, where no one decides who belongs
and is ‘in’ or ‘out’. I want to be part of a group of people who are obsessed with
Jesus, rather than Christianity. A place that is passionately focussed on Jesus
and learning to live as followers of his way in real life today. A place where
we’re becoming more like Jesus as we learn the ancient spiritual disciplines and
work together to make them part of our lives.
I want to belong to a community where I can be myself, warts and all.
A place that, on the one hand will accept me as I am right now, but on the other
hand will provoke and inspire me to become more of what I could be. A place
where my brokenness, fears and habits are part of the process. A place where
we hold on to the ‘ideal’ but also celebrate the ‘real’.
I want to be part of something that treats people like adults. A place that values
everyone’s experience and perspective. A place where people are motivated by
love rather than guilt. I want to be part of a community that is both of our culture,
so that it connects with the language, images, music and experiences of
everyday life; but one that also goes against the grain of our culture because we
serve one another, live sacrificially and cross boundaries of class, age and colour.
A place that makes the difference in the things that feel too big for us as individuals.
Whether that’s the hassle my kids will get when they can’t wear designer
trainers or the impotence I feel in the face of ethical and environmental
issues.
A place that makes us yearn for justice and beauty. A place that equips us for
life in the worlds we live in, and gives us the fire we need to change them.
Of course my dream is impossibly idealistic, but I’ve decided that even if we
never get there, I want to give everything to trying. Dream has always sought to
be “an oasis in the desert”, and that’s precious. But at the same time, it needs to
be a desert in the oasis. A place that makes us more thirsty for Jesus and his
kingdom.
What a great vision. The trouble is, most of us will read this and think 'if I want to be part of this, I'd better leave my own church and find the one which is like this'. A consumerist rather than a community response. Or we could do the hard thing: pray that the Christian community we're part of becomes this way, and offer ourselves to God for Him to use us to answer our own prayer.
Eugene Peterson, again
Yet more stuff from 'Christ plays in 10,000 places', because it's worth quoting:
“For those of us who are interested in living the truth and not just acquiring information, it is necessary to discover the meaning of a word by looking it up in teh Sotry, not the dictionary.”
“The greatest temptation always crouching at the door of prayer is to use prayer as a way to avoid God: using God language to avoid God relationship; using the name of God as a screen behind which to hide from God. Cliches are the usual verbal giveaways of prayer that is, in fact, nonprayer.”
“The trials of Jesus force us, if we are to stay true to the story we are reading, to give up the notion that the Chrisitan community, rightly and obediently lived, can somehow, if we just put our minds to it, be tarted up sufficiently to catch the admiring eye of the world…..God’s revelation of himself is rejected far more often than it is accepted.....if we, as the continuing company of Jeuss, seem to have achieved an easy accommodation with our culture, how did we pull off what Jesus and the community of Jesus failed to accomplish?”
“For those of us who are interested in living the truth and not just acquiring information, it is necessary to discover the meaning of a word by looking it up in teh Sotry, not the dictionary.”
“The greatest temptation always crouching at the door of prayer is to use prayer as a way to avoid God: using God language to avoid God relationship; using the name of God as a screen behind which to hide from God. Cliches are the usual verbal giveaways of prayer that is, in fact, nonprayer.”
“The trials of Jesus force us, if we are to stay true to the story we are reading, to give up the notion that the Chrisitan community, rightly and obediently lived, can somehow, if we just put our minds to it, be tarted up sufficiently to catch the admiring eye of the world…..God’s revelation of himself is rejected far more often than it is accepted.....if we, as the continuing company of Jeuss, seem to have achieved an easy accommodation with our culture, how did we pull off what Jesus and the community of Jesus failed to accomplish?”
Sunday, October 21, 2007
We'll be right back after this short break
School half term = all quiet on the blog front for a week or so. Or maybe it's just embarassment after the previous post.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Come on England!
Let's do it again, and come on Lewis Hamilton whilst we're at it, make it a great double for English sport this weekend.Footbal? I don't even want to spell it correctly, let alone watch it. If England don't get through it will spare us the nauseating media hype and hero-worship. I wouldn't dare go on a rugby pitch, I'd be dead within 30 seconds, but these guys have plenty to teach footballers about respect for the referee and how to play competitive sport properly.
In case you missed it last time, here's the link to Jason Robinson's interview last week which reveals why he came out of retirement to play. Robinson is a committed Christian, so if you're looking for a Christmas present for someone, you could always try his autobiography
Update, Sunday evening: that's the last time I try my hand at encouraging our sportsmen. Kiss of death. 2nd is good though....
Thursday, October 18, 2007
A Rural Diocese, Not
I was at a meeting in Wells the other day where it was stated several times that Bath and Wells was a predominantly rural Diocese. Being a townie I mentally started totting up the populations of the urban centres around Somerset, and soon came to a figure which made me sceptical.
So here's the stats:
Bath and Wells Diocese population 859,000
Major Towns
Weston Super Mare 72,000 (2001 figure, this is much higher now)
Bath 90,000
Taunton 60,000
Yeovil 42,000
Bridgwater 36,500
Frome 24,500
Clevedon 23,000
Portishead 21,000
Other towns/centres with population over 10,000: Street, Minehead, Chard, Nailsea, Keynsham, Midsomer Norton, Wellington, Wells
Between them these centres have 450,000 residents, just over half the population of the Diocese, and with new housebuilding since a lot of the figures were collected, the population count is probably higher than this.
'Predominantly rural' is true of Bath and Wells Diocese for land use, not true for population.
So here's the stats:
Bath and Wells Diocese population 859,000
Major Towns
Weston Super Mare 72,000 (2001 figure, this is much higher now)
Bath 90,000
Taunton 60,000
Yeovil 42,000
Bridgwater 36,500
Frome 24,500
Clevedon 23,000
Portishead 21,000
Other towns/centres with population over 10,000: Street, Minehead, Chard, Nailsea, Keynsham, Midsomer Norton, Wellington, Wells
Between them these centres have 450,000 residents, just over half the population of the Diocese, and with new housebuilding since a lot of the figures were collected, the population count is probably higher than this.
'Predominantly rural' is true of Bath and Wells Diocese for land use, not true for population.
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