The Evolution of the Ice Bucket Challenge

Ice Bucket Challenge: Have some iced water thrown over you, give money to support research into Motor Neurone Disease, and nominate some other people.

Ice Bucket Challenge 2: After watching 14 video clips on Facebook, you now know about the Ice Bucket Challenge, but can you remember which charity it's in aid of?

Ice Bucket Challenge 3: You've been Iced. Will you remember to donate to charity?

Ice Bin-It Challenge: A bearded man throws some ice cream into a bin in a tent in a field. You are the BBC, can you turn this into a ratings winner and front-page news?

Nice Bouquet Challenge: You are a man, you want to buy your wife some flowers. Do you get some at the petrol station (cheap, convenient, sachet of that powdery stuff that's supposed to keep them alive), or a proper flower arranger (a what? more expensive, but more thoughtful). Or do you abandon the idea because making the right decision is too stressful?

Ice Bouquet Challenge: once you've bought the flowers, how do you make them last as long as possible? Tip: don't put them in the freezer. The wife can't see them and the flowers die.

House Pack-It Challenge: How many party donors can you get into the House of Lords without causing a national scandal? Quite a few it seems.

House Quit-It Challenge: You are a Tory MP. You have some sympathy with UKIP. You have even more sympathy with keeping your job. Your parliamentary seat is on the coast. Do you jump ship now and take a risk, or wait until Carswell wins and look like an unprincipled opportunist? Are you an unprincipled opportunist? Sorry, silly question, you're an MP.

Ice Baptism Challenge: You are a vicar in a suburban church who spends hours preparing for and doing baptisms for families you never see again. How might you show people, that baptism into Christian faith is a bit more demanding than showing up once in your life in a white bonnet, and cut your workload at the same time? Can you fit an ice machine into the vestry?

Ice Baptism Challenge 2: A fresh expression of church among the Inuit.

Training your dog in evangelism

A friend has the maxim that, if he has a bright idea, he waits for at least 2 other people to come up with the same idea before doing anything about it......

Being out and about is vital as lots of life in Derwent is conducted out on the street so we got a dog, and it was brilliant to see the kind of 'God things' that happened as a result. Billy looks like a greyhound on steroids but he's actually a lurcher/Staffordshire bull terrier cross so he has got quite a lot of street cred because of his quite 'tough' appearance. When we first took him out for walks, people would say things like, 'Would you look at the muscle tone on that?!' The irony is that he wouldn't hurt a fly, but Billy's unconventional looks have certainly sparked many a chat we wouldn't otherwise have had. There are a number of neighbours we now count as friends through these haphazard conversations. (read the full story here)


and from a new book on sharing faith:

Some of their ideas are pretty quirky - like getting a dog just so you can chat to your neighbours when they happen to be in their garden - but the idea behind them is the same: to get talking to the people around us.

Their ideas are laid out in their new book from Moody Publishers - A Field Guide for Everyday Mission: 30 Days and 101 Ways to Demonstrate the Gospel. 

"Walk your dog when your neighbors are outside. Strike up conversations. Invite them over. No dog? Here's your chance to guilt trip your spouse into getting one," they write.  

There. You were thinking about getting a dog weren't you? Not that 'guilt tripping your spouse' is a great way to conduct your marriage, though I'm hoping that quote is tongue in cheek. 

It's also an ethical dilemma: how does a Christian (or any person for that matter) justify spending money on feeding, insuring, housing etc. a dog when there are human beings who have neither food or homes? 

I once did a research degree on a chap who declared that his dog was his spiritual director. It took me years for my attitude to our canine friends to recover, though now we own a dog, I can occasionally see what he was getting at, even though I disagree with just about everything else he said. 

Don't Read This, Read...

this

http://frrme.org/canon-andrews-blog/

and keep praying for Iraq, especially the Christian population there.

Love Is....

The following piece was penned for the local newspaper, but as a dedicated recycler....

"Love is patient

love is kind

Love does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud

Love is not rude, it is not self-seeking

it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth

It always protects, always trusts

always hopes, always perseveres."

It’s the height of the wedding season. In line with national trends, we’re doing more weddings this year at St. James than last year, which in turn was busier than the year before. More often than not, the couple choose these famous words as one of the readings. Originally written by St. Paul 2000 years ago to a feuding church in Corinth, they’ve stood the test of time as a vivid picture of love in action.

Standing in front of the newly married Mr and Mrs, I ask them to take that reading, and cross out the word ‘love’. Then write in their own first name. David is patient (#fail) David is kind (sometimes), David does not envy … I’ll stop there. You can tell a lot about the character of the bride and groom from the amount of laughter coming from their guests at each line!

The words from Corinthians act as a plumb-line, a standard that we can measure ourselves against, because love can grow, or it can decay. One trend that really encourages me is the number of couples doing marriage preparation with us. Not preparation for the event, but for married life after it. How to talk, how to forgive, how to resolve conflict, agreeing your goals and values, working out a pattern of time together and apart.

All the couples who do marriage prep find it hugely helpful. Often the men need dragging along to the first session, but by week 3 everyone is telling their workmates about it. Having time to take stock, to learn, to invest in each other, is the best time a couple can spend before their wedding day.

It really doesn’t matter how much you spend in cash on the celebrations, its what you spend on each other in time, attention and love that makes the difference. Marriages might be made in heaven, but the couple pick up the maintenance contract.

And what’s true for marriage is true for friendship, and for our own characters as well. We reap what we sow. CS Lewis wrote “Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of.” (yes, I know I posted the same quote yesterday)

When I stand in front of the happy couple, I pray that they’ll make a daily decision to love. When it’s easy, and when it’s hard. So that each time they put their name into the Corinthians reading, they’ll find it’s a little closer to the truth. 

The APR of the Soul

“Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.” (CS Lewis)

The best thing anyone can do

There's an encouraging and challenging interview with Justin Welby by the evangelist J. John, done a few months ago, with an edited transcript published here at God and Politics.  Here's a few snippets

What does it mean to be an Anglican?


It first of all means to be a Christian – to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. The most important decision any person can ever make is to become a disciple of Jesus Christ. It’s the best thing anyone can do. Secondly, they follow in a particular tradition, which varies around the world. (I love the clarity of this answer, so refreshing, no small print)

So Archbishop, what are your hopes for the Church of England, your hopes for Britain?

My hopes are for a Church that learns much more to disagree well and to cope with diversity, that is incredibly flexible, that holds to the traditions where they serve the gospel and is incredibly flexible about living in a rapidly changing culture and learns how to deal with that. A Church that grows in the number of the faithful, committed disciples of Jesus Christ, year in and year out, and has a new confidence in the gospel and, above all, a Church that is consumed by love for Jesus.

Archbishop, how can we pray for you?

You can pray first of all for wisdom to know what to do, because it’s sometimes very difficult. Secondly, for patience, to know when to do it, because timing is often everything. And thirdly, for courage to do it even when it’s going to be really difficult.

worth reading in full. Or if you want to watch/listen for an hour.

Women Bishops: The Morning After

Do you ever have those chats where the other person takes ages to get round to what they wanted to say in the first place? It's felt a bit like that as a vicar in the CofE over the last few years - we were going to get round to having women bishops (or 'bishops' as they're now called) eventually, but by 'eck it's taken a long time.

Self-indulgently long in fact.

I tweeted a couple of things on the #synod hashtag yesterday, which got 75 retweets/favourites between them, so must have struck a chord:

"Looking forward to the day when 85 people want to speak at #synod about evangelism" (85 people had indicated that they wanted to speak in the debate)

"Well done #synod, good call. Now back to that tedious old stuff about making disciples of all nations."

It's scandalous that we have taken up so much time, energy and angst over this - yes it's an important issue, but I don't see people queueing up to talk at General Synod about the main thing Jesus set the church up for in the first place, to make disciples of all nations (involving baptising new believers and teaching them the ways of Jesus). It doesn't matter whether a man, a woman or a goat is dressed in a purple shirt if we are not actually making disciples. Yes lets get this right, but lets also remember that it's not the main thing. 

Alongside this  - and this is where I get thrown out of the CofE completely - is whether we really understand what a bishop is in the first place. The CofE claims to have a 'threefold order of bishops, priests, and deacons'. It doesn't of course, it only has a twofold order of bishops and priests, Deacons used to be a holding pattern for women who were called to the priesthood but not allowed to go there by the church. Now it's something that priests do for a year before, through an episcopally-applied software upgrade, they're then allowed to bless people and run a church (I simplify, of course...). 

Several dioceses don't have permanent deacons: people who have a call to be a deacon in the church, and have been ordained specifically to that role. Which makes a bit of a nonsense of the 'threefold order' claim. In the meantime we take a word used for a member of the team leadership of a local church in the NT (overseer/episkopoi) and freight it with 2000 years worth of historical and theological baggage. The God and Politics blog summarises the early part of that history. It's always seemed a bit odd for evangelicals to be debating who should or shouldn't be a bishop, when our understanding and practice has such a slim biblical basis in the first place. 

But then, perhaps that's what God intended. The first batch of deacons hardly stuck to the job description: they were supposed to oversee the distribution of food, but we know of one who became a travelling evangelist (Philip) and another (Stephen) got himself killed after doing lots of miracles culminating in a showdown with the authorities. The labels and roles matter less than the authorisation, and the priority, in everything, to get the word out. 

In all this there are positive signs - the national priorities of the CofE now include growing the church, and reshaping ministry, so there are signs we're alive to the issues above. 

Final point: in the inevitable 'who will the first woman bishop be?' over the coming months, lets keep coming back not to the personalities or the politics, but to the mission of the church. Because if we aren't doing what Jesus set us up to do, then we are not truly the church. Female or male, I'm not that fussed who we have in leadership in the CofE as long as they have the same priorities as Jesus. 

Church Leaders: The Legacy Thing

I'm enjoying, and being challenged by, Tim Chesters 'Unreached: Growing Churches in Working Class and Deprived Areas'. It's packed with good insights - e.g. on the contrasts between middle and working class culture (e.g. on reliability - middle class meaning = chronologically reliable, turning up on time etc., working class = emotionally reliable, there for you when you need them).

Here's a bit that's got me chewing: bits in brackets are my paraphrases. And it applies in any culture.

"What is church growth? According to the parable of the sower (where 3/4 of the seed is wasted) it's not about numbers, but about the fruit of changed lives...the size of our Sunday congregagtion can all too easily become the focus and measure of how we feel about ourselves. (But) the goal is not numbers, but heart change. 

This brings a very different focus to the ministry. We don't need to feel insecure about leading a small church. Jesus has a small 'church' who all ran away when the crunch came! It means we can be bold in challenging unbelief, because we're not worried about people not attending....It means we can and will rely on God...when we aim for heart change, we are forced to realise it is not under our control (and therefore we pray more)

It means we leave a legacy. A church in our areas fell apart when the pastor left. The pastor had been caring, but had not taught the gospel or confronted sin. When he left, there was nothing. I want to leave behind a legacy of changed lives."

All too often we leave a legacy of changed premises (according to the wife of one theological college head 'show me a vicar who has been in post 7 years and I'll show you a building project'. Guilty m'lady) but not changed lives. The former is easier than the latter. We find ourselves encouraging deeper involvement in the church, rather than deeper growth in discipleship.

I want to leave behind a legacy of changed lives, for Jesus. Chester is reminding me why I do all this in the first place, and making me wonder about whether I'm aiming for that legacy, or something else.