The Journey

I’m feeling a little like Homer, and yes I mean Homer of the Simpson kind, not some really old bloke. Seems to me that someone, mentioning no names, is busy trying to teach again, I hate it when He does that. Recently I have had so many things happen to me which I normaly warn other people about that I am getting a little paranoid. Take Twitter for instance, I constantly warn others about the dangers of people misunderstanding what is said. Yet just the other day I had not one, but a number of people misinterpret one of my tweets. And how about this site which has been down for a while, why? Because the database got corrupt, but do not panic Max is the king of backups isn’t he? Well I thought I was, but to cut a long story short I was let down by my hosting company who overwrite their backups every week! So that mean’s the latest backup included the corruption. Panic not, my mantra is, “if it’s not backed up in three places it’s not backed up”, so I’ll simply use one of the other backups. Yes well the less said about that the better, so let’s move on. It’s not just in the tech world either; I have also had a number of “foot in mouth” situations with friends and family recently.

I keep having quotes about logs and eyes rolling around my head. Somewhere I can hear advice from an old friend about not judging if I don’t want to be judged. In short I battling against a point of view that many in the world would say was justified, but which my Lord would have me reconsider. It’s not some type of crises it’s just my Father teaching me in the here and now. So, I’m learning to be graceful even when I don’t feel full of grace, because the consequences of not are that I seem to be humbled. I’m learning not to judge when I know I am right, because being right isn’t the same as living right. I’m learning that other people are on a journey to, and if I want acceptance from God that I am learning then I need to accept others are learning as well. I’m off to St Johns next week for a summer school, and I’m looking forward to the space to reflect a bit more.

By the way I have rebuilt the site from scratch so if you got a load of updates that you have already had please accept by grovelling apologies. Doh!

Keeping on track, with my goal in mind, has been quite difficult over the last six months. Too much stuff in my life has always been an issue, or even a personality trait, but I hadn’t realised how overloaded my life was. The fact that I cut out a major time consumer (heading up youth the 11-14s youth work) and still did not have enough time in my life to keep up with college work, goes to show how I had let things get out of hand. A friend (Iain for those that know him) joked recently that I could always cut out the family, or work to free up more time. I think it was only half a joke, and half a wake up call.

Of course the first part of my life that lost out to this overload, was my time with God. So with that in mind I had another spring clean of my life earlier this month. I have stopped pretending I will continue with some projects that had really ground to halt. I have told some sad looking people, that I can not do what they want me to do. I am trying to be a little smarter with what I do. Where my work can be used twice with a little tweaking, it is used twice. Believe it or not one of the biggest things I am trying to do is to go to bed a little earlier. And finally I re-did my study plan (again), which now looks more scary then it did when I started. Which is why I still need to be ruthless with the No word. Saying no was never a strong point of mine, but going forward, if I am to say yes to God, I will have to be stronger with No to some people.

It’s this time of year that I normally send out an email wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, and explaining that Suzy and I will be donating the money we would have spent on Christmas cards to Toybox. Toybox are a fantastic charity that work with street children in Latin America. In many ways nothing has changed this year. We still want to wish you a Merry Christmas and we still will be donating the money we would have spent on cards to a charity, only this year it’s a different charity. It’s not that we suddenly feel Toybox don’t deserve the money, it’s just this year there is a charity that is slightly closer to home.

On Thursday 10th December 2009 our daughter Becky who has self funded a trip through many kind friends, flies off to India to visit and work with Mustard Seed Ministries (http://www.msm.org.uk) for a couple of weeks. Mustard Seed are about enabling local charities and people to impact the young and old who are in need, in their communities. I have met Rick and Gilly who work with MSM in India and greatly admire the work they do. I won’t say that the concept of our daughter going out to India doesn’t scare us, but we know she is with good people and in Gods hands. I know Becky will come back greatly impacted by the visit, and in many ways these types of trips bring greater short term benefit to the individual visiting then they do to those in need. However I believe that over the long term, people like Becky being exposed to different cultures and situations benefit those in need greatly. Those visiting change their life views, and get involved with compassionate issues more over their life.

So I hope you forgive me once more, if you don’t receive a piece of card form me this year. You will know that somehow, somewhere the cash that would have bought the card that you would have thrown away in January, will carry on working with those in need. I’m pretty sure that Jesus didn’t intend his birth to fund a card industry, and would rather we celebrate His birth by helping those in the world who need our help. A slightly out of scope post for this site, but actually it dawned on me as I wrestle with my journey and where that should take me, my daughter is also taking these initial steps, only nearly thirty years my junior. It makes me both proud and scared to be her Dad.

Belinda, a puzzled friend who cares, approached me last night and asked what was happening? It seems John, (my mate, vicar and Belinda’s husband) had received a request for a reference for me to work on Club 1. Strange they thought, Max isn’t doing what he said he was. Not that I am incapable of saying one thing and doing another, but in this case I blame God. In my human self I thought there were only two options, but God had a third, which I think I may have secretly hoped for. Having said that I would not work at Club 1, but would pastor or go as a delegate, I then get asked to pastor at Club 1. Why does God do that? Why does he seem to come to the rescue at the last moment once we have made a decision to listen to him? This is a fairly small example of a repeating pattern in my life. Maybe, just maybe I should listen more!

In other news, you will be glad to hear the writers block did go away and a couple of essays have since gone in. The family then dragged me of to Florida for a couple of weeks. They claimed that they had been saving up for five years and they deserved the holiday. We had great holiday and particularly enjoyed our time at Discovery Cove and swimming with Dolphins. Partly the dolphin’s fault and partly the fact I still need to cull some activities out of my life, I am now two essays behind my self imposed study plan. This means I have four to complete before the end of the year. It’s not an insurmountable mountain, particularly as with the original study plan I had assumed no work over Christmas, but once again I need to knuckle down. Is there something in my make-up that likes stress, or am I just plain lazy?

Blaming God and the Dolphins? Well someone has to be to blame don’t they? And it couldn’t possibly be me!

I am suffering writers block at the moment. Well to call it writers block is stretching the truth a little, it''s more writers avoidance. I have read my books, emailed my tutor of my intention to write something, tidied my pencils, made notes, organized my files, cleaned my desk and now finally even posted a journal entry. All for what? Well probably all to avoid actually writing something, that some person who I do not know from Adam will read, and in my mind tear apart. Anyone would think I haven''t done this for twenty years. The reality is that I should have sent it by now, and so in my desperation, I figured making a semi public statement would force me into doing some work. So It''s Friday night, I have a clear day tomorrow, the family are all out saving the world one child a time with puppets and so I have no more excuses.

I have just sent an email to the leader of Club 1 that I thought I would never send. For those not intimately familiar with the mud of Bath & West Show Ground, New Wine is a Christian camp held in Shepton Mallet, Somerset every year.  And Club 1 is the best place to be for 12 and 13 year olds and has also been my home for at least one week of my life for the last eight years. Anyway, I just sent an email to the leader of Club 1 saying that it won’t be nine years in 2010.  This combined with the stepping down from leading our 11-14s youth work at COGS has been by far the hardest decision so far on this journey. We will still be at New Wine just not working in Club 1, which possibly makes it harder for me.

My thinking? Well I''m not always the fastest to spot the obvious in my life that every one else can plainly see, but it is dawning on me that I really do need to do less, if I am going to complete this course.  So with that in mind I decided I could only do one week at New Wine next year, which raised a dilemma that has been going around my head for the last month or so.  Do I work on Club 1 or do I seek to work on a pastoral team and continue to build skills for the future?  During this deliberation a bizarre third option became apparent; I could attend as a delegate, and not work!  Pastor or delegate I''m not sure and will leave in Gods hands over the next year, but I did feel the prompting that it should be one of those two and not Club 1.

As I type this I am strangely peaceful about my decision.  Whether I had already subconsciously made the decision weeks ago and have already mourned that loss I''m not sure, because I have certainly felt sadness as I thought about the possibility of stopping Club 1.  However I do feel at peace now, which in my life is generally a sign that God is saying something along the lines of “wow he actually listened this time.”  I''m grateful for my time in Club 1 and for the two leaders I served under, and I am sure I will continue to pop in and catch up when at New Wine, but for now one door closes as another opens.  I suspect more may need to close as we move on over the next few years, because the door I have started opening seems to be a large one.

iTunes University is an extension of iTunes Podcasts. It’s an excellent resource for those who are studying. Plenty of background audio and videos from colleges around the world. I’ve posted a quick how to video. See the full size up at http://www.vimeo.com/6542509 or press play below.

I’m a little brain dead after a day of discovering that I don’t know very much. I’m probably mangling a famous quote but I believe someone once said that wisdom was moving from ‘believing you know all you could know about a subject to understanding how little you really know about a subject.’ Well if that’s the case I became a very wise man today as I discovered all I really don’t know about theology. But it excites me that there is so much to learn about our God. Is that a little sad? It’s scares me intensely as well. I’m not talking about having to somehow find fifteen hours a week to complete this course within the two years I have set. More about the impact it will have on my relationship with my Father God. I expect to be challenged and I expect my assumptions to be questioned, but what I don’t want to do is to lose my relationship with our mighty creator God. I don’t want to boil down the traditions of ‘church’ and mull over the situations of the New and Old Testament writers, to discover I have some how boxed our Lord into a neat little package. I want to continue to be awed by Him and surprised by Him. Is it possible to seek to know our God in a deeply intellectual way whilst maintaining a relationship with Him? I guess if we are not willing to explore that concept then what is our faith based upon? Of course many have gone before me and come out the other side on fire for their Father. But then many have lost their way on the same journey. So it is with great excitement and a little trepidation that I take another step on the journey.

So now it really has begun, I felt I should at least briefly reflect on my first night.  The first night of Theological training that is, well in truth the first night of hi and welcome.  Tomorrow promises to be hard work but for now it was food, chat and worship in that order.  Much like the rest of my life really, and it drew me to compare it to our model of sharing about Jesus.   If you look at the way Jesus went about telling people of the Kingdom of Heaven, He seemed to follow that mode as well, food, chat and then worship.  After all, he was forever getting into trouble for eating with the ‘wrong’ people.  Sometimes we forget how Jesus did it and turn the whole thing around.  It goes something like this.  If you come to our Church and worship, then I might chat to you after a couple of weeks, and may even invite you back to my place sometime over the next decade, for food.  Seems to me that already St Js has taught me, or at least reminded me about the way we really should share the love of Jesus.  I am sure over the next couple of years there will be ups and downs as we explore what Gods plan is, but I have to say tonight was a good way to start.

Where to start? I guess I won’t go into my background too much as you probably know me, and if not perhaps that will come out as we progress on the journey. We are here because over ten years ago when we became Christians Suzy and I felt very clearly that God was prompting us to prepare ourselves for the second phase of our lives. The exact words I wrote in my Bible at the time were “Prepare yourselves for the work I have for you.” About eighteen months ago we experienced a number of things that lead us to conclude that perhaps we had been treading water for a while. The outcome of this was that after much prayer and soul searching we felt that it was time to move forward. So what did moving forward look like? Well the truth is we are still on that journey of discovery, but we have concluded it looks like some form of leadership within Gods plan. To that end over the last year I applied and was accepted for the distance learning CertHE in Theology and Vocation at St Johns in Nottingham, UK. This wasn''t a simple step because amongst other things it meant stepping down from leading my beloved 11s-14s at COGS our Church in Portsmouth. This course which starts this September 2009, is a two year course that may or may not lead onto completing further training to become a full theology degree. In parallel we are exploring the possibly of ordination with the Church of England, something which still blows my mind. It’s very early stages and neither Suzy or I are sure it is the ultimate destination, but that said we are a whole lot more open to the concept then we were a couple of years ago.

What ever the route is or where ever we end up there are some big hurdles in the way, which we will not get over without Gods intervention. Perhaps this is why we were treading water, but now I am comforted if we end up in some form of leadership it will be because God wants us there, because without Him it will not be possible.