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I am hoping to get along to this event, which is in three short months time…
If you fancy getting involved, or just showing your face, check out their site, and get involved. Be the change you want to see…
Those kind people at Zondervan sent me a copy of Jesus for President to review, so here goes…
I regard this as one of the best, most challenging and thought provoking books around at the moment. Despite it’s American target audience (we don’t have a president here – yet) this makes great reading for any reader, as its themes are universal.
This is unlikely to look like any book you have ever read before, it’s got nearly as much in common with a graphic novel as it has with a standard text book. The best comparison I can give, and it is quite inappropriate really given the anti consumerist approach of the authors, is with a Howies clothing catalogue. It has that same earthy, lived in, thoughtful, artistic and engaging feel, but thankfully without the pictures of models wearing expensive clothes.
Put simply, this has got to be one of the most beautifully designed books on the market – working with the writing, the design emphasises the creative, radical spirit of the text, and the provocative joy of the authors. Quite rightly the designers, Holly and Ryan Sharp, are credited at the end of the book along with the writers. The colour is full throughout the book, with design elements interacting with the text throughout, which adds immensely to the value of the content. If you liked the look of ‘Irresistible Revolution’ then this is a quantum leap forward, like as if the publishers suddenly realised what this thing was all about…
In some ways it reminds me of an illuminated manuscript, from back in the day of monkishness, when religious texts were coloured and illustrated by devoted scholars. This fits with the fact that the authors are part of the new monastic movement – and perhaps this could be seen as the contemporary equivalent.
But aside from a fantastic design job – what does the latest offering from our dreadlocked brother actually contain? Well first point to make, there are very clearly two voices audible in this book. Claiborne and Haw have coinciding views, but different emphases, or perhaps just different experiences, which while bringing occasional difficulties to the academic niceties of the text, actually helps lend weight to this book. Actually – if you count the design, then add in one or two more voices as well.
Written throughout in easily digestible chunks, the book begins as a dissection of a theme of radical God politics which the authors show running through the bible. It sidetracks through stories of friends, writings of early Christians and reflections on current affairs.
It’s a book of stories, parables, and prophecy, it is not supposed to be a tome, or a text book, or a prize winning essay – this is a work of love, an object of discussion, a catalyst (for want of a less clichéd term) for renewed engagement with the themes, and an encouragement to live a different way.
Rather than taking an easy option, such as a single standpoint, of a Christian anarchy for example, or an anti war vote, Claiborne and Haw manage to turn the whole idea around, arguing for a radical Christian engagement with politics and society in a way that is at once submissive and subversive. American voters wanting to know who the writers say they should vote for, will find themselves left with the same choices, but hopefully looking at them through new, or perhaps ancient lenses. I suspect also that this will help many bring a new creativity to their decision making.
Pacifism and anti (or non) consumerism are key themes, but they each form only part of the overall principal argument, which is to see God’s people as a people set apart by God, called to live another way, and to follow only one leader. It critiques the philosophy that one can serve God, and walk in the way of the world.
This clarion call to a subversive and renewed people of God is a creative and stimulating read – it’s not without its problems, one cant help thinking that if Claiborne authors another book, he will have come close to being part of the system which he so clearly wants to work against, but at the same time, I like many others would be happy to read anything he writes. One might also question how the authors can happily work with others such as Jim Wallis who argue for a more conventional approach to politics… clearly McLaren is not the only one with a generous orthodoxy these days.
Some readers may find biblical references to apocryphal books troubling or confusing, I don’t, in fact I like it. Some factual discrepancies may exist within the text, (numbers of dead in Iraq, or etc) but these are minor when looked at in context, and can be put down to the issue of dual authorship.
It’s a beautiful, peaceful, challenging, affirming, prophetic, subversive and creative book, well worth reading, sharing, mulling over… likely to become a classic.
Links:
Not being brought up in the Church of England and all that, I dont know really very much about liturgy, and proper liturgical ways, but I notice Mark Berry has just posted up his meditation material for tomorrow which is the feast day of St Julian don’t y’know.
He’s got a nifty thing going on with hazelnuts, which looks cool, and is doubtless destined to be deemed a ‘worship trick’ by Jonny B.
In the meantime, and back on the subject of liturgy etc, I’ve just written some stuff for tomorrow too, for the meditational/devotional beginning to our prayer morning. In case you are interested - here it is.
Begin with a welcoming, a corporate chant, and a silent meditation on Bible passage. Then:
The Affirming. (Read this out loud together).
Oh Lord
Our God
We submit again to you today.
Still our hearts
Calm our heads
As you calmed the storm.
Creator, redeemer, companion
Father, prince, friend
Almighty, unstinting, constant.
You who always were
Forever are
Ever more shall be
We who breathe in,
And breathe out,
Know your goodness
*Take some moments to silently resubmit to God – confessing your sins and asking that he takes you forward with him today.
The Asking. (Read this out loud together).
We ask today Lord:
That we would not judge
That we would see beauty in all others.
That we would come before you in humility.
That we would set aside our wants, for the sake of others.
We ask today Father:
That you would provide for your people.
That you would lead us away from temptations.
That we would see the world through your eyes.
That you would raise up more to work alongside us.
We ask today Spirit:
That you would comfort those who mourn.
That you would inspire those whose hearts begin to falter.
That you would remind us of our commitments.
That you would strengthen weary limbs.
*Take some moments to silently ask God for his word for your life today.
The calling. (Read this out loud together).
We call on each other to rise up.
We call on our hearts to stay firm.
We call on our hands to grip.
We call on the Lord – for he is our source, our inspiration, our light.
We call on each other to live today.
We call on our minds to choose life.
We call on our legs to stay strong beneath us.
We call on the Lord – for he is our redeemer, our strength, our all in all.
*Take some moments to silently ask God to be your strength today.
The blessing. (Read this out loud together).
Bless the Lord, Oh my soul.
May this day bring peace to the troubled,
Comfort to the downcast
Clarity to the confused
Joy amidst tears
Laughter amidst pain
Bless the Lord, Oh my soul.
* take some moments to pray for those who are suffering or oppressed. If none come to mind, pray for justice to flow like a river over the war zones of the world.
Closing prayer:
Oh High King of heaven, we worship you.
Have mercy on your children.
Fill us afresh today with your holy spirit.
Revive in us passion for the lost and the least.
That your kingdom may come,
On earth as in heaven,
In Jesus mighty name,
Amen.
About ten years or so ago, I was priveliged to be part of a small group of people who were involved in something called SPEAK. SPEAK started out as, and went on to become, a campaigning and prayer based movement of students and young people, dedicated to tackling injustice.
I believe there are now SPEAK cells in various universities, and SPEAK activists in various parts of the UK as well as other countries.
I was contacted the other day by someone from SPEAK, who didnt know of my previous connections with the movement (I was only a lad in them days) and asked me if I could publicise their upcoming gathering in Sheffield - which sadly I wont be able to attend.
The whole thing is being held in ‘the world’s biggest dress’ itself a symbolic statement of protest about the garment industry - another thing that is close to my heart.
I would warmly reccomend that you check them out if you can be in Sheffield on May 10th and 11th. You can read more about it here. Should be great.
Today was an important day for us, we officially told the community here that in August, our family will be leaving South Wales, and heading back up the road to Humberside, from whence we arrived some four years ago.
Part of our trip away over Easter was spent talking to folk in Grimsby about our thoughts and plans for this time, and as we had already talked it over with our leaders, and family members etc, today was the last part of the journey in terms of telling people our plan.
In fact when we originally planned to come down here, our plan was that we would remain for about two or three years. The death of our son this time last year meant that any thoughts of moving on at that time were shelved, and I’m glad. This last year in Llanelli has been very special.
What will this mean for our work? My work will carry on much as it does now, although obviously I’ll be less involved in the day to day life of the community here. The plan is that I will return to Llanelli once a month for meetings, and from time to time the whole family will come down together.
Why go back to Grimsby? The reasons are many and varied. But most importantly we just feel it is the right thing for us to do. Unfortunately it does mean leaving this lovely part of the world, and our happy home for something quite uncertain. We dont know where we’ll live, how we’ll afford to pay a normal rent, or how we’ll cope so far from the Welsh beaches we love so much! But with uncertainty comes excitement, excitement at what God has got for us over the next years, and the thrill of moving into destiny.
Its no secret that Horizons is something of a monastic community in its own way, and I think that is something we’ll be looking to grow around us in Grimsby too. Kelly has a strong vision for enabling local church to move outwards from within… in other words not being totally reliant on ‘mission agencies’ for the initiatives in terms of overseas trips, but being able to call on resources that will allow them to go themselves.
Thanks to a cheap rent, we live on very meagre income at the moment, unless we can find similarly cheap accomodation (unlikely 
) we’ll have to find ways of earning more money. Possibly I’ll take more writing on again, or maybe there’s another way. We’d love to open a coffee shop, but so far that hasnt worked out in planning yet.
I will of course continue my work with organic cotton, which continues at its usual snail’s pace! And lots of other interesting opportunities are floating around too - so we’ll just have to see what happens.
In our meeting this morning Gareth spoke about the question of ‘why are you here?’ referring to here in Llanelli - not on the earth :) His answer was ’so that God can change you.’ I can testify to that, we’ve been changed a lot over the last four years, and I’m thankful for it.
Lets just see what the next few years have in store…
Macy Lou Jones is still in critical condition, but is doing well, we are optimistic about the outcome of her treatment. She is of course still very ill, and we’re not getting complacent just yet.
She’s in Great Ormond Street Hospital, where she was airlifted at the weekend. She’s got the best care she could possibly have, and it seems like the knife edge is broadening out!
We’re all really pleased with the progress she has made, but it is still one step at a time.
see previous post on Macy Lou Jones here.
Gareth Jones is the leader of World Horizons UK - his two week old daughter, Macy Lou is critically ill.
After catching a virus, she grew very ill. She has now been diagnosed as having blood poisoning, and her internal organs have begun to stop working.
She is being flown tonight to Great Ormond Street hospital in London, where there is a unique machine which can properly oxygenate her blood.
It has been a major battle to get her to this point - she has until late this afternoon been too poorly to move. She is currently reliant on heart and lung bypass machines.
Please will you join us in praying for her? She needs the touch of God to heal her body, and her parents Gareth and Helen need all the support we can give.
Macy means ‘weapon’ and Louise means ‘renowned fighter’. These names are significant – Macy is in a fight for her life, our adversary would love to steal her away, and even more he would love to divert our attention from the truth of who our king is.
Our heart’s cry, our desire, our desperate plea is that God would show his great power and heal our little sister.
Please pray for her.
It’s been great reading the guest blogs on backyard missionary from Jarrod McKenna - who has written eloquently about Ghandi - and the outworkings of what he said. The latest addition to the series is no exception!
McKenna seems an interesting an intelligent guy - and I was able to take a few minutes to read more about the work he does in Australia this morning. Seems like he’s in the same line as Shane Claiborne - the prominent activist from the US, and indeed the two reference one another here and there.
McKenna’s thoughts make inspirational and encouraging reading for anyone who wants to embrace the radical nature of the Christian faith - just as Shane’s book provides a good platform for those who want to learn what it means to live a Jesus following life - rather than just ‘be a Christian’. I did enjoy McKenna’s comment that if he were to write a book, it wouldnt be ‘how to live as an ordinary radical’ but rather “A how [not] to”.
McKenna also quips that: “Maybe our book would be called ‘The Resistible Revolution’ or ‘The Very Resistible Revolution’.”
I particularly like the focuses on peacemaking and community which both of these guys espouse - in my view this is integral to Christianity.
I would encourage anyone interested to read more about what Jarrod has to say in his guest blogs on bym, and to take a closer look at both the Simple Way community and EPYC in Oz.
We did a half hour devotional on thursday - based around the idea of journey, and using the voyage of saint Brendan as an outline model - I’ve pasted it below in case anyone would find it useful.
Our guys found this a really useful exercise - good for relationship, good for personal reflection - good fun, worth a try!
As followers of Jesus, we are all on journeys, both as individuals in our personal spiritual walk, and as a group – on an adventure together.
Navigatio…
Today’s devotional time is based around the concept of journey, and we’re going to use as a starting point the story of Saint Brendan the Navigator, who sailed from Ireland to America in a small boat made of animal skins.
To follow the voyage of Saint Brendan, we are going to split into groups to take our own journey. Each group will be given a number 1 to 5, and they will each start at the corresponding station in the journey (group 1 at point 1, etc.) At the sound of the bell, each group will move to the next station on their journey, one person should read aloud to the group whatever is on the sheet found at that station.
At each point there will be a small piece of the story of Brendan the Navigator’s journey, and an exercise to do, either individually or as a group.
After the 5 points have been visited, the groups will return to the meeting room.
Text for station 1) Brendan set sail from Ireland – not knowing for certain where he would end up. He embarked on a journey – desperate to reach the promised land. His desperation led to him setting sail into the unknown, in a boat made of wicker and cow hide.
Reflect for a moment on what lengths you would go to, in order to pursue God’s calling. Are there places you would refuse to go to, or lengths to which you would not extend yourself? Ask God to reveal these to you, and ask him to help you face your fears.
Text for station 2) Brendan chose fourteen monks to accompany him on his journey, but as they were about to set off, three others asked to join them. Two of these were motivated by wrongful thoughts, and were found out.
Reflect and ask God to reveal to you any wrongful motivations for things you are involved in, and ask him to root out of you any pride, selfishness, or desire for earthly gain.
Text for station 3) The story of Brendan’s journey was long regarded as totally fanciful, until someone attempted a similar voyage, and found it is actually possible to sail across the Atlantic in such a boat.
Reflect on the inadequacy of human knowledge – how little we know of the world around us, and how much less we know of God. Ask God to help you to hold your own beliefs in humility, and respect others – even when they seem crazy.
Text for station 4) One of the amazing parts of Brendan’s voyage is a story of finding Judas Iscariot on a rock in the middle of the ocean.
Share with the group the one Bible character (excluding Jesus) that you would wish to meet and talk to today…
Text for station 5) Brendan the navigator set sail with no map, no gps, no rescue service as back up. He relied on the courage of his firm convictions, and a dogged belief in his mission.
If you feel able, share with the group a challenge that you would like the courage to take on. Keep it short, and don’t elaborate too much – allow others to share the burden with you.
Note: If you are interested in reading about the voyage of Saint Brendan yourself - the translation of his famous account can be found here.
tonight we tried a little something with Google Earth,
as a way of reminding us of God’s awesome majesty…
we set a google earth tour running projected on a white wall…
having first marked about 30 countries and cities in different parts of the world.
You can set the tour to loop infinitely, and set the amount of time the tour stops at each place - maximum one minute.
We did the tour for an hour, having first done a kind of text based slide show with a few reminders of God’s awesomeness - phrases like ‘Oh God, we are so small’ and other bits and pieces.
Behind the whole thing we ran a soundtrack of different pieces of music - chosen to invoke certain themes.
Playlist included tracks from Abbess, Terl Bryant’s Psalm, LLS, etc.
Now that its dark at night again, we got a great atmosphere with some candles and incense - I think it worked pretty well - needs a few tweaks of course. If anybody else has been doing this, and has suggestions, I’d like to hear them.
A few people have asked me about the group meditation material we have been using at World Horizons UK as part of our corporate devotional times.
So in case anyone wants to use it, I’ve pasted one of the recent scripted meditations below.
In explanation - this is written by me, but based on what has gone before - visualised meditations that I have read - as written by others. I think its great to share these things, and if anyone wants to mash this one up a bit - please do - I’d love to hear about it if you do. Should say too that its obviously based on the kind of visualisation exercise that Ignatius of Loyola was keen on.
These kind of meditations only form a small part of the wealth of ways of approaching the Bible and Jesus - so use them sparingly is my advice - and be sensitive to who you have in your group - these things will upset some people whose imaginations are particularly sensitive!
You might find it useful to use some quiet ambient music in the background when you do these things - but it must be really unobtrusive to avoid disturbing the multi sensory approach - you could make something in ableton live to do the job - I did that today and it seemed to work quite well. If not - the old Late Late service CD’s may hold useful stuff, as well as the stuff coming out of Grace in London [via proost] - and others too.
I prefer not to use secular material for the following reason - not because I think it is intrinsically bad, but because I think that in this situation it can prove to be a stumbling block to some… they might be wrong, but this is not an appropriate time to deal with that.
So anyway - here’s the text, hope its useful.
Sea of Galilee meditation
This is a led meditation, where we are going to put our minds into the place of a character from the Bible, the aim of the exercise is to experience an encounter with Jesus.
In this one we’re going to use the story leading up to the call of the first disciples, found in Luke chapter 5. (Read passage.)
It’s important to find yourself a comfortable position where you can relax and concentrate on your meditation. Try a straight back and feet flat on the floor - or kneeling. If you find yourself losing concentration, just rest for a moment and then refocus yourself.
If you can’t get on with the meditation at all, don’t worry, but please sit quietly so that others can concentrate more readily.
Close your eyes.
Take a moment to acknowledge the darkness, to get used to seeing nothing.
Let the darkness clear…
You are in a boat on the sea of galilee, you and your brother.
Picture the boat you are in…
Can you hear the waves rippling past you? The wood of your boat creaking?
Can you feel the boat rock beneath you?
Dip your hand into the water, is it cold to the touch?
What can you smell in the air?
You are on the way back from a long hard night of fishing.
What are you doing in the boat now? Where is your brother?
Is the sun shining above you?
Can you feel wind against your face?
It’s early morning, you’ve been fishing all night, how does your body feel?
You are heading to the shore, feeling the wind straining at the sail, you are almost home, nearly finished your fishing trip, looking forward to a rest.
As you look at the shore, you can see a crowd of people, listening to a rabbi teach.
The young rabbi you can recognise as Jesus, you have heard of him, a bold preacher – a radical, someone worthy of great respect.
But you are a nobody, you weren’t good enough to be a rabbi’s disciple, so you’ve become a fisherman, working the sea of galilee with your partners.
And you’re not even a great fisherman, last night you caught nothing.
How do you feel in your heart?
What can you taste in your mouth as you consider your failures?
Look up, someone is calling out to you – it’s Jesus.
How does he look at you? What do you see in his eyes?
He wants you to let him in to your boat, he’s being pressed to the water’s edge by the crowds.
Feel your tiredness melt away as you rush to serve the holy man.
What do you need to make ready in your boat?
And the rabbi is approaching, wading through the waves to your boat, as you reach out to help him on board – how do you feel?
As he settles himself in the boat, to continue his teaching, what are you thinking?
You, the failure, the scruffy fisherman with a reputation for being a bit rough and ready, the man who wasn’t good enough to be a rabbi’s disciple, not good for much except working the sea…
Now you’ve been given a front row seat for the biggest show in town, this is the guy who everyone is talking about, and he’s in your boat!
Jesus has finished teaching and now he’s looking at you again – what is he saying?
He wants you to go back out into the deep water – and put your nets out….
Time to confess your failure – you’re a rubbish fisherman – how does your stomach feel as you admit your failure to the master?
Why does he want to show you up again? What is he trying to prove?
But you cant go against the rabbi – you lower your nets into the deep water, as the nets sink, feel the sinking feeling in your heart too – you know what is coming….
Then feel the strain on the nets…
Feel your muscles tense, there’s something in the net…
The nets are beginning to tear… feel the adrenalin rush through your body…
You wave wildly to the other boat to come and help you, there are so many fish the boats are going to sink – your heart is pounding – look over at Jesus, what is he doing?
What is going through your mind?
Who is this man?
What would you say if he asked you to abandon everything, even this massive catch of fish, even your boat, even your family, to follow him?
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