Tag Archive for 'Church'

‘Supply vicars’ unable to control unruly congregation

Published
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Jon
on 8 May 2008
in Christianity and Media
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I’m loving the satirical news posted over at NewsBiscuit and this particular article caught my eye!

‘Supply vicars’ unable to control unruly congregation

Rural parishes unable to find permanent members of the clergy have been forced to bring in supply vicars whose inexperience and lack of authority has made them vulnerable to disruptive parishioners, says a new report.

One temporary priest was reduced to tears with heckling and catcalling during his sermon, and when he looked up he saw that all the church-goers had turned their pews round to face the opposite direction. ‘These young supply vicars do not have the experience to be able to hold the attention of wayward Christians,’ admitted the Archbishop of Canterbury. ‘The moment they turn their back they are pelted with screwed up service sheets and Alpha Course leaflets made into paper planes, and many of them just don’t know what to do.’

In a small church in South Devon, one vicar was subjected to mass humming, while another gradually became aware that the mumbling and feigned coughing around the congregation was part of a daring game where each church-goer had to say the word ‘bollocks’ slightly louder than the last. In extreme cases of disruption, tearful vicars have run out to the vestry and phoned for the bishop, who has had to come down and give the congregation a serious talking to.

‘People imagine that church-goers are serene and gentle people, but nothing could be further from the truth’ said one vicar who has quit the Church after the pressure became too great. ‘On one occassion I asked the elderly congregation what they normally did for Evensong, and the old ladies told me they usually did black mass and sacrificed a goat to Beelzebub. How was I to know it was a wind up? It was only when I smeared the goat’s blood on my face and saw them giggling that I realized I had made a bit of an idiot of myself.’

Genius!

Values Session 9: Support (Part 2)

Published
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Jon
on 10 April 2008
in Youth Group Resources, Youth Ministry and Youth Work
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This is part of an 11-session series for 11-14 year olds, teaching our mission statement and the importance of its values:

We exist to learn to follow Jesus, to show honour to God, to use our gifts to serve, to support each other, and to share our faith.

Session Aim: To think about ways we can support and encourage each other to follow Jesus

Activity: Positive Paper
Give everyone a piece of paper and stick it to his or her back. Tell the group that they must move around and write an encouraging message on everyone else’s piece of paper. The message must be about either their character or their gifts and abilities (e.g. “You’re great at dancing”). It must not be about appearance or possessions (e.g. “Nice Haircut”). Finish the exercise and allow some time for everyone to read the messages. Encourage them to keep them inside their Bibles.

Read: Hebrews 10:25

Let us think about each other and help each other to show love and do good deeds. You should not stay away from the church meetings, as some are doing, but you should meet together and encourage each other. Do this even more as you see the day coming.

Illustration: All In This Together
Use the clip from near the end of Disney’s High School Musical where they sing “We’re all in this together”. The group will probably join in singing all the words! When finished, ask them about the lyrics to the song and how it relates to supporting each other.

Discuss:

  • What can you personally do to help encourage a Christian friend?
  • Why do you come to church? What do you do when you are there?
  • What does the writer of Hebrews say about church?

Pray:

  • Ask God to support any Christians that are struggling at the moment. This could include friends and those persecuted in other countries.
  • Pray for any issues affecting the group this week.

Challenge:
When you are next at a Christian meeting (like church or Ignite), find a way to encourage someone else in his or her relationship with God.

Further Reading: Hebrews 12:1-3

We have around us many people whose lives tell us what faith means. So let us run the race that is before us and never give up. We should remove from our lives anything that would get in the way and the sin that so easily holds us back.
Let us look only to Jesus, the One who began our faith and who makes it perfect. He suffered death on the cross. But he accepted the shame as if it were nothing because of the joy that God put before him. And now he is sitting at the right side of God’s throne. Think about Jesus’ example. He held on while wicked people were doing evil things to him. So do not get tired and stop trying.

Fuel Weekend

Published
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Jon
on 5 April 2008
in Youth Ministry and Youth Work
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IMG_0717.JPG
Fuel, our youth group for 15-18 year olds is away on a residential at Lodge Hill. We’ve been doing some teaching on the Gospel (more on that topic soon), and the power of the Holy Spirit. God has been with us and we’ve already had a first time commitment to the faith!

This afternoon, we spent some time doing team building and low ropes activities which was great fun (Some more photos are available on Flickr) then tonight some of the team have set up a Labyrinth which I’m getting really excited about!

Maybe I’ll comment more when I’m home and had some sleep! Keep your prayers with us.

Palm Sunday

Published
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Jon
on 16 March 2008
in Christianity, Youth Ministry and Youth Work
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Just a quick post to say that we had an EXCELLENT church service this morning totally prepared and led by the young people!

As part of the World Vision 24 Hour Famine, the group fasted from 6pm Saturday night and then delivered a creatively challenging service on the theme of global poverty. As well as leading the worship, they hosted the event, gave the notices, created some short videos, did a dance and a drama, an activity for the kids, built a ’slum’ in the church, involved everyone in creative prayer, presented a short talk and hosted a cake sale! The only adults involved in the whole thing were Gareth playing guitar in the band and me doing a quick interview. David, our church elder never even picked up a mic.

Honestly, I was so impressed with them all. Each person in the group really pulled their weight and I’ve been getting amazing feedback from the congregation all day.

Also, in terms of money raised, a whopping £300 was made from the cake sale alone without any of the sponsorship money in yet! The total’s gonna be pretty high! As I’m off on holiday tomorrow, it was a great way to finish up before taking a break (although I’m pretty exhausted now).

Oh and thanks to Adam at YMX for the twitter updates that led to a whole load of Flickr image links! You gotta love the World Wide Web.

Worshipful Dance

Published
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Jon
on 3 March 2008
in Christianity, Personal and Youth Ministry
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I have to be honest; I just don’t get dancing in church!

That may be a strong statement to start off a blog post, so let me elaborate a little here. I do understand the medium of dance as a creative expression, and I appreciate it in things such as ballets or stage performances. I understand it as a response to the rhythm in music and I can comprehend how people enjoy and participate in dance. I even understand it as an expression of joy and worship to God in the same way that I love to sing. But what I don’t get is why in some churches, people insist on spontaneously running up on stage and twirling around before gracefully bending over double and lying on the floor in front of the congregation! There are times when this is totally right and it is clear that God is working through the dancer, but there are times that it isn’t and that can be very distracting.

I remember a few years back standing at the side of the main stage in the big top at Spring Harvest ready to go on and talk about what the young people were up to. While I was waiting, the band were leading worship and three dancers were taking it in turns to do their thing on stage while the others waited at the side. As one dancer finished her move (with a flag), she came to the side of the stage. Realising her two partners were also off the stage, she urgently whispered: “Quick, there’s no-one dancing! Someone get up there now!”

Up until that point, I hadn’t taken much notice of the dancing. But I then watched as one of them sprang into life and launched herself onto the stage in a complicated spin, twist, dive, stretch-arm-out, bow-head manoeuvre simply to fill out the space on the platform. If the dancer’s role was to worship God in their expressive way, why was it so important that one of them was always seen on the stage?

I don’t tell that story to dismiss the medium of dance as worship, nor to criticise those who do it, but I do sometimes question the motive. If you’re worshipping God, do it wherever you are in the congregation. I don’t have to go onto stage to be able to sing!

Last week at church we started with a choreographed dance involving some of the young people. I didn’t really appreciate the complexities of what they were doing, how they moved, or even if it was any good. Rather, I loved seeing their faces filled with excitement and joy as they used their skills. That’s the best kind of dancing for me!

Church Forgives Youth Pastor For Slaying

Published
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Jon
on 21 February 2008
in Christianity, Youth Ministry and Youth Work
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No, he wasn’t heavily into some computer game, instead former youth pastor Calvin Wayne Inman, 29, has been charged for the death of a convenience store clerk during a robbery. He was 16 at the time.

Apparently after being recently ordained and with support from his church, Inman went to the Police and confessed to the murder he committed 14 years ago. What I love about this story is the way the church praise him for his recent actions:

“He’s a hero, really,” said Kelley Graham, 24. “I don’t know how many people would do what he did. The Bible says you just need to confess to God. Calvin took an extra step.”

Robin Thac said her 17-year-old son was active in the youth group that Inman led.
“I am thrilled my son has a role model to accept responsibility the way Calvin has,” Thac said. “There are way too many men who don’t accept responsibility.”

If a similar situation were to happen here, I would expect the response from parents to be far more negative: “The youth leader’s a murderer! What was he teaching my kids?!”

Maybe, I’m being too judgemental on the parents ;). However, That church really do forgiveness well and show Christ in their actions. It could be a great discussion with the older members of a group.

Ht to Gman.

Cross Denominational Working

Published
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Jon
on 13 February 2008
in Christianity, Youth Ministry and Youth Work
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Our local leaders fraternal
Our local leaders fraternal ;)

Since starting my role at ACC, I’ve spent a bit of time meeting up with Youth Workers from other churches in the local area. Although there’s a few of us, a gathering had rarely happened before and so it’s been good to share coffee, stories, and recently events with these other men and women of faith.

At the same time that these relationships have formed and totally separately, a wider group of non-denominational church-based workers have been meeting across the south coast for the very same purpose.

It seems that God is doing something in mixing up the denominations to share and support each other and it’s not just here locally. Youth Hacks had a good post about the benefits of meeting with workers from other churches. Here are a few highlights:

Let off steam - We all have crap to deal with in our communities, and sometimes we need to talk about it. Its great to be able to do some healthy venting to someone from outside of your community.
Share ideas - No matter how cool your ideas are or how long you’ve been in ministry, the folks down the road are probably doing some cool stuff. And there might be a couple of things they can learn from you, too.
Kill unrealistic expectations - Its easy to imagine that other churches have it all together. I was relieved to hear that our neighboring youth workers deal with the same problems that we do. It normalized the problem and helped me to stop beating up on myself about silly things.

Although meeting together is fine, the Christian Youth Work blog is questioning whether we actually need to show unity through practical example. Isn’t communication enough?

I don’t see that there is any actual need for us to physically do things together, because we may all be called to work with different people, at different times, and do different things, so is it more important that we work together, or be seen to be working together, or that we follow the calling that God has placed upon us?

Personally, I think working with others is vital in building trust and relationships. It will also benefit the young people who access the various activities when they see their workers communicating and sharing. As such, I’ve also continued to meet with LAYA, the Littlehampton Area Youth Agencies. This is a planning and information-sharing group made up of statutory and voluntary agencies who run services for young people. I used to be part of it in my previous role, but I now represent the first church invited to attend. As a result the church is becoming known by these professional agencies for the quality and varied work we do.

So how can you work with other churches and agencies to enhance your work and what God is doing through you?

The Radical Reformission

Published
by
Jon
on 9 December 2007
in Christianity and Media
. 1 Comment

Reaching out without selling out

Although I’ve known of Pastor Mark Driscoll for some time due to his exposure in the emerging church scene, I’d never read anything of his directly until a friend gave me this to read during our recent holiday. I have to say, that although sceptical when I picked it up, I loved this book!

The main thrust of the book is about getting back to the business of sharing the gospel with the world by being present in the various cultures around us. Driscoll argues that to fulfill this mission we must have equal emphasis on the gospel, the culture and the church. To leave one out leads to parachurch, liberalism or fundamentalism. For examples and explanations of this, read the introduction.

Reformission is a radical call for Christians and Christian churches to recommit to living and speaking the gospel, and to doing so regardless of the pressures to compromise the truth of the gospel or to conceal its power within the safety of the church.

I found the whole argument rather compelling and it certainly reinforces my own experiences about the relationship between gospel, culture and church. In fact, I agreed with pretty much everything he was saying! Throughout the book he punctuates chapters with real-life interviews with people who are living out ‘reformission’ and therefore back up his argument.

Driscoll has a really honest yet direct writing style which is bound to get up the nose of certain traditional Christians. For example:

Doesn’t the story sound like the plot of a trashy, daytime television talk show? The God-Man is born to a teenage virgin in an animal stall, grows up with a blue-collar dad in a dumpy rural town, and has a weird cousin named John, who lives in the woods and survives on a steady diet of bugs, sugar, and repentance.

I would highly recommend this book if you’ve ever longed to see Jesus transform the world around you but become disheartened by the evil in the world and the traditions within the church. Driscoll helpfully puts all these struggles into context and explains an exciting way forwards; reformission!

The Golden Compass Debate

Published
by
Jon
on 8 December 2007
in Christianity and Media
. 1 Comment


This week I’ve had a number of discussions with Christian friends who were planning to go see The Golden Compass movie as a fun-filled family outing. No problem there! But when I asked these people if they were going to have a chat with their kids after seeing the movie, I received a number of blank stares. Now I’m never one for jumping on a bandwagon, but the lack of understanding of the themes contained in the movie by parents was quite surprising. It seems the predictable Christian boycott outcry (a la ‘Harry Potter’) has passed a large number of people by.

I’ve not yet seen the movie nor read the books, but a few years back I bought Northern Lights (The original English title for The Golden Compass before it was Americanized) for a non-Christian friend without realising the strong anti-church themes contained in the story. This led to a great deal of discussion between us (much of which has been helpful) and I’m thankful for the dialogue. My hope is that other Christians will take the opportunity this movie presents to talk about the issues it raises rather than attack them as heretical. In fact some Christians see the movie as purely positive.

What Pullman encourages is unmediated, critical thinking – the only antidote to the mental stupor that today’s culture cultivates in young people. And Pullman does so in multiple ways. For example, by turning the familiar story lines of Genesis, Narnia, and the like, on their heads – thereby prompting the reader to reimagine those stories for him- or herself. In short, Pullman doesn’t tell his readers what to think, but how to think. And to think, period. This, I suspect, is what Pullman’s critics really find unnerving.

For more in-depth and thoughtful responses to the movie, check out Tim Abbott’s and Dr. Headley’s posts on the subject with some great links to other resources so you can make up your own minds.

Arun Community Church Podcast: 2 Kings 5

Published
by
Jon
on 8 October 2007
in Christianity and Personal
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I had the privilege of preaching to the church yesterday on the topic of Naaman’s healing in 2 Kings 5. There’s so much in that passage, I had to really condense it to make it suitable for a family service. If you want to have a listen, click here. You can subscribe to the weekly podcast from there too.