Prayers around Work and Redundancy

from the CofE website

Prayer for those remaining in the workplace

Life has changed:
colleagues have gone – redundant, out of work.
Suddenly, what seemed so secure is now so very fragile.

It’s hard to know what I feel:
sadness, certainly,
guilt, almost, at still having a job to go to,
and fear of the future:
who will be next?
how will I cope with the increased pressure of work?

Lord Jesus, in the midst of this uncertainty, help me to keep going:
to work to the best of my ability,
taking each day at a time,
and taking time each day to walk with you

for you are the way, the truth and the life. Amen.

other prayers on the site cover redundancy, debt, the new year, and world events. There's even one for working out your household budget. Ht Ruth Gledhill

On the same topic, there is a one-day conference coming up next week: 'The Church, Economic Uncertainty and the South-West', happening in Taunton on 13th Jan. Here are the details and booking info.

Guidance

There's a lot of guidance going on at the start of the New Testament. Matthew's Magi are guided by stars, scripture, dreams and common sense, Herod is guided only by self-preservation. It's a fascinating insight into how God guides, and how we do, or don't, respond.

God speaks to the wise men first through the planets: a culture which saw all of creation as a whole, with key earthly events reflected in the heavens, would naturally associate strange planetary movements with important earthly events. Tom Wright suggests that the Star of Bethelehem was probably the triple conjunction of Jupiter (king planet) with Saturn (represents the Jewish nation) in 7BC, which fits with Herods known death in 4BC.

It's interesting that God is able to get through to the Magi through the stars, but Herod, surrounded by scribes and teachers of the law, with the scriptures readily available, is completely hard hearted: a new Pharaoh. Both he and the Magi hear the scripture about the new king's birth in Bethlehem, the Magi respond by making pilgrimage to worship, Herod responds by staying put and plotting murder.

It just goes to show that having the Bible doesn't mean you'll listen to it, and being surrounded by teachers of the word doesn't guarantee that they'll be right either. It's the Gentile outsiders who hear what God's saying, and the Jewish insiders who don't (or, for fear of Herod, do hear but do nothing about it).

It's entirely possible to be a Christian, yet completely deaf to God's voice. To use an illustration I used on Sunday, most Christians have let Jesus into the car, but not many of us have given him the driving seat. We keep the wheel, and let him along as a passenger, asking for advice or encouragement occasionally, but keeping complete control over direction and speed. Or if we do pluck up the courage to swap seats, we install dual controls so that we can brake hard if we don't like what Jesus is doing.

Finally the Magi are warned in a dream to avoid Herod, and using their common sense they plot an alternative journey home. They're open to hearing God, so he uses yet another way of speaking to them. Their story suggests that if God wants to speak, he'll find ways of getting through to us, even if they're a bit unconventional. Unfortunately the story also teaches us that when God does speak, if we don't want to listen then it doesn't really matter what medium God uses.

PS if you want to get really into listening to scripture, then I highly recommend this post, which gives a great summary of some Bible meditation methods, and how to spend time with a passage, or a phrase, to let it speak. Alternatively if you like things with Latin titles, then try this nice simple guide to Lectio Divina

Wikio blog rankings Jan 09 - Christian/religious blogs

The January Wikio rankings went up today, though Matt Wardman got a sneak peek at the top 30 last week. Here are the Christian/religious blogs in the top 200

24 Cranmer +3
115 St Aidan to Abbey Manor -11
120 SPCK/SSG News Notes and Info +53
130 The Cartoon Blog -12
140 Of Course I Could be Wrong (Madpriest) +37
141 Damian Thomson +59
143 Metacatholic (Doug Chaplin) +17
159 Anglican Mainstream (it's not a blog!!!!! It's a new site with forums) +21
176 Tall Skinny Kiwi -12

the peloton is clustering nicely at the beginning of a new year (or the end of the old: the data is based on December traffic), and I'm struck by what a peculiar picture of Christendom is painted by this collection of bloggers......

If you think it's too peculiar, then you can register your favourite blogs with Wikio (you don't have to be the author) and watch the cream rise to the top. Other stuff has been known to rise to the top too, if you've ever seen the brewing process in action, so I'd better be careful with my metaphors.

see Decembers list here, and comments on November. Dave Bish has an alternative list, based on Technorati, and having virtually no similarities with the list above!!!! The absence of Bishop Alan from either list is sufficient to warrant pinches of salt on the sideplate.

Child Friendly Churches - Welcome or Warning Sign?

The Anglican Diocese of Liverpool have an excellent scheme called "Child Friendly Church", a self-assessment (PDF 130k) which covers areas such as having a Child Protection Policy in place, safe environment, continuing training for group leaders in the children's work and other criteria. This is the logo:

I'm not sure about this design, bearing in mind that we have roadsigns in our consciousness, and a red border usually mean "danger" or "warning". Circular signs are giving orders.

So I had a rethink.

Signs Giving Orders

Signs with red circles are mostly prohibitive. For example, the "No Cycling" sign may be most commonly encountered by children:

(source of photo - East Riding Media Library)

Warning Signs

Warning signs are usually triangular with a red border, such as the "Warning - Children Crossing" sign. Here a red border again warns of potential danger to children.

Safe for Children Here: Home Zone

The only "safe environment" sign I can find is this one for "Entry to a Home Zone":

A rectangular sign means "Giving Information".

Crossing Patrol

The logo looks most like this one from a school crossing patrol:

but that is still a "warning take care" sign, rather than a "welcome here" sign.

Wrapping Up

So surely a "Child-Friendly Church" sign should be on a blue, rectangular background - and with a clear indication what the body was that authorised the scheme (as is done already) to make sure that no one can ever mistake it for a road sign.

Time for a revamp, perhaps? How about this for a first cut attempt? I'd add a Diocesan Coat of Arms in minature somewhere, and use the copyright figures from the existing logo - which I can't use here, of course.

Comments are welcome. What do you think?

(this is a guest post by Matt Wardman, cross-posted from yesterdays Wardman Wire)

Review Questions 1

Part of my plan for the new year is to get back into the habit of a couple of hours on a Monday morning reviewing how things are going, and planning the week ahead instead of just ploughing into it.

Here's a list of questions which I picked up from the superb Arrow Leadership programme a few years go. This is one of several sets of questions which I use, the idea is to come back to these every 6 weeks or so, though often it's less frequent. I have them on a sheet of A4, and use a large notebook to jot down my answers/thoughts. The same notebook comes with me on retreats and quiet days, so that all the jottings go in the same place.

God
1. How is your relationship with God?
2. What have you read in the Bible in the last week?
3. What has God said to you in the reading?
4. Where do you find yourself resisting Him these days?

Prayer
5. What specific things are you praying for in regard to others?
6. What specific things are you praying for in regard to yourself?

Habits and lifestyle
7. What are the specific tasks facing you right now which you consider incomplete?
8. What habits intimidate you?
9. What general reading are you doing?
10. What have you done to play?

Relationships
11. How are you doing with your friends, spouse, children?
12. If I were to ask a close friend or spouse about your state of mind, state of spirit, state of energy level, what would the answer be?

Conflict
13. Are you sensing any spiritual attacks from the enemy right now?
14. If Satan were to try and invalidate you as a person or as a servant of the Lord, how might he do it?
15. What is the state of your sexual perspective? Tempted? Dealing with fantasies? Entertainment?
16. Where are you financially right now? Are things under control? under anxiety? in great debt?
17. Are there any unresolved conflicts in you circle of relationships right now?

Renewal
18. When was the last time you spent time with a good friend of your own gender?
19. What kind of time have you spent with anyone who is a non-Christian this past month?
20. Are you sleeping well?

Review
21. What challenges do you think you're going to face in the coming week? Month?
22. What would you say are you greatest fears at this present time?
23. Do you like yourself at the moment?
24. What are the greatest confusions about your relationship with God?

Subheadings are mine, to break the list up a bit - the original is just a list of 24 questions, and it works quite well like that, as life can't easily be broken up into boxes. At different times, different questions are more 'alive' than others, either to provoke action, prayer, or ring warning bells. I've been using this for roughly 7 years now, and it's still very helpful.

Trescothick 'Coming Back to Me'

Review of Marcus Trescothicks excellent and painfully honest autobiography just posted at the Wardman Wire, so go there for the full monty, but here's a snippet:

Thoughts
Firstly, I remove every cricketing hat I’ve ever worn to Trescothick for being so honest. One of the great fears of people with mental illness is what others will think of them if they let on, and having the tabloid press following your every move can’t make things any easier. The book adds to the increasing number of public figures who’ve gone public about mental illness (though Trescothick is careful to remind us that depression is actually a physical illness - perhaps we should call it a chemical illness, since that’s the root basis of it). John Prescott (bulimia) Stephen Fry (bipolar) David Beckham (OCD) - there is a celebrity patron saint for most forms of chemical illness now, and hopefully this signals a cultural shift in the way we deal with these things.

Secondly: it’s clear that Trescothick was broken on the wheel of international cricket. Money has come to dominate the game, as it has in football, and cricket schedules have changed what’s involved in playing for a national side. Most of the 2005 Ashes-winning side have broken down physically (Simon Jones, Ashley Giles, Andrew Flintoff, Michael Vaughan, Steve Harmison), mentally (Trescothick, possibly Harmison again for his touring blues), or suffered a dip in form which was cured primarily by a break from the whole business (Andrew Strauss). You have to ask of others (Bell, Cook) whether they’d score more runs if they played fewer games, and don’t forget to add Ryan Sidebottom, our top bowler of 2008, to the injury list.....

....English players will continue to crack because they no longer get a proper rest. Even if we win the Ashes this summer against an increasingly shaky Australia, enjoy it whilst it lasts, because half of that winning side will be out of action by summer 2010. We’ve known since God created the Sabbath that rest is vital to a sustainable and fruitful life, but both cricket and culture now run as close to empty as they can just in case He got it wrong.

It would be tempting to pass Trescothicks book off as an honest, brave account of something deeply personal, and nothing more. But Trescothick notes that when he told manager Duncan Fletcher the truth for the first time “Duncan even went so far as to raise other instances of players disappearing from the game for reasons that weren’t apparent at the time but which now appeared to him to make perfect sense” (p290). He probably wouldn’t claim this for himself, but the powers that be need to hear this as a warning voice from the professional cricketing community.

And those of us who consume our cricket via Sky need to ask if we’re just the innocent viewing public, or something more. If the likes of Sky couldn’t make money out of televised cricket, they wouldn’t push so hard for more fixtures, or dangle such large sums of money over the various national cricketing bodies. Just as every Google search leaves a carbon footprint, everyone who pays commercially for their televised sport contributes to the culture our sportsmen and women have to play in. If that culture breaks them, who is to blame?

Around the World in 80 Faiths

After winning an award for 2007s 'Extreme Pilgrim', Rev. Peter 'Indiana' Owen-Jones gets 8 one-hour programmes to explore 80 religions around the world. Around the World in 80 Faiths is part travelogue, part comparative religion, the first episode was eminently watchable, provocative, and fascinating.

The blurb says: Peter's mission is to witness and take part in rites rarely filmed before, to learn about how humankind practices religion. As an Anglican priest, Peter witnesses cultures and behaviours that challenge his values and prejudices. At times he's surprised, even offended, but at others he finds the experience enlightening. And amidst the baffling and the bizarre, he finds moments of great human warmth and serenity.

Episode 1 took in SW Asia, from Indonesia to Australia and on into the S Pacific. On the way the 10 faiths encountered included a traditional burial ceremony (the body is kept embalmed for years at the family home), an Iraqi sect who follow John the Baptist but live in Australia, Wiccans from Sydney, Aboriginal 'baby smoking', traditional tribal religion on a Pacific Islands and 2 groups which have emerged from it - one a charistmatic Christian healing sect, the other a peculiar cult based on the US flag.

Jones deals with both the various faiths themselves, as well as the legacy of Christian missions. In some places local customs and rituals have been destroyed, in others creatively integrated into Christian practice, whilst one group in Indonesia (I think) had just stuck a couple of hymns onto it's basically pagan burial ceremony to keep the church happy, but otherwise carried on regardless. Lots of interesting lessons about how well, or otherwise, mission has really engaged with local culture. Where the missionaries simply trampled all over it, and said 'our faith is better', Christianity doesn't seem to have taken root. One Aboriginal said they'd got 'too much' Christianity, and went on to list the various denominations which her people had. Point taken!

It was quite challenging to watch a fellow vicar join with a coven of 'urban witches' in Sydney: it exploded the myth that pagan wiccans worship the devil, but at the same time there's a difference between observing something and taking part in it. I'd have been deeply uncomfortable taking part - verbally or physically - in anything which invoked spirits and powers other than that of Jesus. Jones struggled with whether to take part, but decided he needed to see and experience what went on, to find out as much as he could.

Jones is clear that he believes in God rather than nature, so at least there is some discernment going on, but there's was also a bit of an English Heritage flavour: if something is ancient, it is therefore good, and needs to be preserved at all costs. Jones attended an aboriginal 'baby smoking' (not quite as bad as it sounds, but not much fun for the babies), and was disappointed to find that there was no deep meaning to it - he suggested this was because the Aborigines had forgotten their ancient faith (having become Christians) and so had kept the ritual but lost the meaning. If I were the babies, I'd have them lose the ritual too: having to sit naked on smouldering shrubs isn't anyone's idea of fun.

Other reviews:
Barbaras Republic (not impressed)
Chris at the CARM discussion forum (very positive)
and a couple more:
TvScoop (liked it)
Lapis Lazuli (jury's out, runs the risk of being superficial)

oh yes, and there's a book of the series too, I'm guessing the publication will be straight after the end of episode 8.

Back into action

The discerning reader may have noticed a certain 'scheduled posts' feel about this blog since Christmas Day, and they'd be right. Blogging proper will restart tomorrow, with various reviews:

Indiana Owen-Jones 'Around the World In 80 Faiths', BBC2, 2/1/09
Marcus Trescothick 'Coming Back to Me', sports book of the year 2008
'The Shack', probably the most talked about 'Christian' book of 2008.
Rob Bell 'Jesus Wants to Save Christians'

and all the usual nonsense....