CORPORATE BLOGS

Read an interesting article in the TIMES today about the role of blogging in the corporate world. with DELL getting a lot of flack from Jeff Jarvis (www.buzzmachine.com), they have decided to follow other companies leads and develop customer accountability and dialogue through corporate blogs. these blogs are designed to cut out the 'corporate speak' and allow people to engage with 'real people' within companies and reassure them that they have a sense of connection to brands through electronic communication.

Futurist Patrick Dixon suggests 'people have grown tired of hype and spin. that's why the future of marketing belongs to honest information, accurate data and clear claims based on truth'.

it is encouraging to see so many church leaders taking to blogging, it is a welcome step in allowing conversation to develop between the congregation and it's leadership. the church should stand for honesty, transparency and accountability, in todays era the blog is one more tool we should embrace as church leaders

The power of faith

with everything going on in the middle east - this caused me to reflect on the words of the song 'it's a mad world'

ELEVEN YEARS ON

Yesterday was our 11th wedding anniversary! we had a great day mooching about the house (the boys were at their granny's) then last night we went out for a meal to apparently one of our better eateries in east belfast, it was a bit of a let down, if i was a food critic i would have labelled it 'lacking in imagination and living on a previous reputation'

THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY

went to see this last night, if you haven't been - go, very thought provoking and stirring, here's a brief synopis of the storyline:

Ireland 1920: workers from field and country unite to form volunteer guerrilla armies to face the ruthless 'Black and Tan' squads that are being shipped from Britain to block Ireland's bid for independence.
Driven by a deep sense of duty and a love for his country, Damien abandons his burgeoning career as a doctor and joins his brother, Teddy, in a dangerous and violent fight for freedom.
As the freedom fighters' bold tactics bring the British to breaking point, both sides finally agree to a treaty to end the bloodshed. But despite the apparent victory, civil war erupts and families who fought side by side find themselves pitted against one another as sworn enemies, putting their loyalties to the ultimate test.

AFRAID TO PARTY

Sitting at my computer patting myself on the back, i have just finished the first chapter of a youth resource titled 'afraid to party' - it is an attempt to engage young people in the necessity to embrace the role of parties in their lives. rather than adopt the stance that all parties are wrong and you should not go to them, i want to encourage young people to see that our call is to be present in society and for teens that means the party scene. the first chapter deals with the reality that no matter where you turn life is celebrated in the forms of parties, that consumerism is a key value and that we have no option but to follow the role of our leader 'Jesus' and subject ourselves to the criticism of religious types who operate out of fear rather than faith.

'“Whenever Jesus wasn’t preaching or teaching you’d find him at a party. It might be a tax collector’s or a Pharisee’s home. The guests might include poor people in the community or the riffraff. What seemed to bother the stuffy “religious” types was not that Jesus went to parties, but that he seemed to enjoy himself too much. That, I think, is why they called him a glutton and winebibber.” (michael card)

can we dream of young people throwing parties that everyone wants to be at, of them always being included in the invite list and redefining the values of hospitality, generousity and community?

FAREWELL TIM

Today is a sad day, i have just said goodbye to one of my colleagues - Tim Carroll. Tim ran our Joels Place project for the past two years and before that was on the first intern program that we ran. he will be missed in our little office but is off to USA and Brazil for the next 10 months.

BEING PRESENT

Today i spent some time with a good friend who i have not seen in a while, unfortunately him and his wife have recently lost their third child at 33 weeks. as i was driving down, i was, as usual caught up in myself, trying to play out how i would respond to his questions, anticipating how to deal with the crisis of faith that something like this throws up, getting myself psyched up for 'being right'. i felt the tug of the Holy Spirit reminding me that all i was being called to do today was to be present, not be right!. it has stuck with me the rest of the day, simply to be a presence allows God to work, when i try to be right i run the risk of being religious rather than honest.

CLOSING DOORS

I've just closed the door to our boys playroom - i just could not face tidying it up again. i think at times there are rooms in my life that i just close the door on and leave a mess, a lack of motivation to be disciplined and make an effort.

TRAMPOLINE FOR SALE

It is almost midnight - i have just spent the entire evening setting up joshua's birthday present a 13 ft trampoline, now jenny and i have looked at it and decided that it might be a tad too big for the garden! anyone want to buy it?

AMUSING EMERGING

Found this on tallskinnykiwi's site:

THE PRACTICE OF SLOWING

John Ortberg in his excellent book - the life you have always wanted devotes a chapter to the practice of slowing. living life in the fast lane and never taking time to draw back , allow time for reflection and restoration is similar to driving your car in third gear at maximium revs everywhere you go - he draws out four points that are helpful in working out whether you are living a hurriied life:
1. everything is a race - do you look at the store checkout and work out which one is the fastest and then move to it, do you overtake on the INSIDE, how quickly do you eat your lunch and get back to work (do you even take a lunch break?)

2.clutter - what is your desk like, your car interior, your bedroom do you move papers from one tray to the other and never get around to doing anything?

3.shallownes - a lack of depth in your committments to relationships, work, church, your own goals (only 4% of people actually action on goals that they set), your own spiritual formation and that of those that have been entrusted to you

4.lack of sense of control - things happen to you rather than you making them happen, the feeling that you are never on top of things, that you are becoming a master of plate spinning.

so thoughts tomorrow on how to address these areas in your life but answer this question honestly - do you find yourself believing yourself when you say ' this time (day/week/month) is an exception, it is busier that usual it will not last' - the realitiy is that it will and you will be saying the same thing next week, month or even year!

CHEEKY MONKEYS

here is a picture of nephew russells fifth birthday party - just back from a great place called cheeky monkeys in Coleraine, they have the nicest carmel squares i have tasted for a long time, nice leather sofas for the parents to relax in while the kids run wild! i'm pushing for the new church building to have a kids indoor play area, so i have somewhere to play during my lunch break! in fact it would serve as a great area of creativity lying in a giant ball pool i reckon. speaking of giant ball pools, i heard of one university in Leeds last year during fresher week who had a big 24-7 prayer tent outside the students union, one of the key stations was a ball pool with bible verses written on each ball! Very cool. any of our belfast students up for that?

THOUGHTS FROM THE 4TH CENTURY

following on from yesterdays post - here are some thoughts on silence and solitude that i wrote last year for a series of daily devotionals, silence is a central part to any retreat, not pure lack of noise but rather the absence of the normal noises that bombard you in your daily routine:

Jesus loved people, but he also knew what it took to be effective for God by taking time out for himself. This practice of silence and solitude was taken to the extreme by the monks of the 4th century. Known as the desert fathers they removed themselves from society and went and lived out their faith in the desert with not much more than a palm tree and some sand for comfort! Developing silence in your life takes time, it does not mean that you never speak to anyone, but will help as you draw close to God and see that sometimes noise is not important, simply being still is the right response. There is a story that two monks once met and during their entire time together never spoke a word, now picture that happening at your next cell meeting! So here are a few tips that will help you as you try and still yourself before God.
• Practice ‘little solitudes’ – when you get up in the morning, take a moment before you rush into things and be still. Try and build in other times in your day when you can pause take a breath and be still. the psalmists call these selah moments - drive to work a different route, have the cd player/ipod/radio switched off and allow your senses to be more alert. john welsey's mother when things got too much for her used to throw her sirt over her head and the children knew it was her down time!
• Find your own ‘desert’ – try and get somewhere that you can get your own space, might be your room [not your bed as you associate it with sleep], down at the bottom of the garden, the park. A place that you can link with spending time with God. i have a chair in our top floor that i use - when i want to chill out and have some retreat time.
• Try and do without words for a period of time. Start of easy with an evening, or morning and build up to a day. Make sure and let others know what you are doing so they don’t think that you are being unsociable! the writer in the book of eccelesiasties calls our conversation at times 'the sacrifice of fools' - words particularly our own can have an inflated meaning in our own perspective.

let me know how you get on

BORROWED WIRELESS

Yes i am still up the north coast, having an amazing few days away with jenny, the boys and joining us tonight, my mum. it is great we are staying in a lovely house just round the corner from the caravan park where my brother and his family plus dave & gillian from church have sites. guess what? someone has wireless in the area, have kindly not locked it and so here i am blogging while lying in the sun!

late last night i had a beautiful few hours, reading, praying, journaling and checking out everyone's blogs! walking round the caravan park today it struck me the sense of peace there is in this small community that checks out of belfast and heads north every summer, people chat, smile and kids play together. vans are open and there is a sense of shared responsibility for the welfare of each other (we stayed in the park last year for a while in a friends van).

this got me thinking, why is here like this and not my street, other peoples streets? one conclusion is that people interact much better in the context of retreat - when we step back from the place of pressure and routine and live a little less hectic, i think we create space for people to be more who they were created to be. i love retreats in fact i think that it is an important discipline to develop in our lives. it has got me thinking about the how to make this a living practicicality for those in our churches- more thoughts to follow

NORTH COAST

just finished Rob Bell's excellent book - Velvet Elvis, a great read, i will blog some thoughts on it when i get back. heading off today to the north coast for a few days to hook up with my brother and his family, back to blogging on monday.

LEADERS ARE READERS

Leaders are readers, to be able to read the NOW defines a leader. to misread is to mislead. we must interpret what we see and make sense of it. once the moment of truth is in play, you either can read the moment or you can't. it calls for a prophetic gifting to be able to operate in the NOW MOMENT. The Desert Fathers of the fourth century were leaders who lived in the comteplative tradition. yet they were people who were able to guide others throught the path of life. many travelled huge distances to seek their wisdom. 'these sages were able to read the culture, a person and the Holy Spirit simultaneously in order to offer something of substance' (page 176), all marks of true prophet. to lead in years ahead will require leaders to cultivate the desert discernment that comes from the interaction between the visible and the invisible. leaders miss true discernment because they are one-dimensional, they deal only with the visible.

the desert fathers had a tradition of reading sacred texts, to soak themselves in Scripture. one of the functions of these texts is to draw the reader into the eternal, a portal of the unseen, to be part of the mystery that accompanies them. only in a committment to slow, deliberate reading of scripture will a leader's heart be shaped.

JESUS JUNK

I'm in on of those moods: watch out!

SPIDERMAN - EVERYONE'S HERO

Found this on Marko's site www.ysmarko.com

7 MINUTES

Sitting in Merge watching the game (world cup final -that is presuming you are on this planet). Hendy has just won the prize for getting the time for the first goal! congrats Hendy you have won a wonder CD!

FREEDOM - THE LEADERS GIFT

two weeks ago i have had the privilage to hang out with our EQUIP students, it has revived in me again the need to be in accountable, healthy relationships. Fleming in his book ' LEADERSHIP WISDOM FROM UNLIKELY VOICES ' devotes a chapter to this area. streetreach is going great, will try and post over the weekend!

Relationships matter and leads to organisational health. The effectiveness of a leader's organisation or team comes from a leaders wholeness. to be open, vulnerable and transparent is a gift of leadership. Henri Nouwen writes ' the temptation of power is greatest when intimacy is a threat'. too often leaders hide behind the name of their position, yet self-disclosure is about as popular as streaking on a local beach! we desire to appear together or in control! relationships precede work, the power of a team increases as relationships among team members deepen. as each person feels this sense of belonging, it frees them up to be themselves,a release from being something different from who we really are. without this personal freedom, team will always lag behind in their full potential.

Lance H.K Secretan states ' organisations are teams who depend on their relationships to achieve shared goals. this chemistry leads to friendship and the most successful teams are collections of friends. it is not enought to respect others in your team, because functional respect is based on the personality. deep friendship is a human connection between souls. when the soul is troubled by an absence of Chemistry among employees, performance suffers and the spirit withers.

leaders who model and encourage openness will experience team effectiveness.

THE ANNOINTING

every so often at a worship gathering, i get this sensation, a mixture of goose bumps, strength, courage & faith. i wondered what it was until a few years ago, Robin had just recorded his Revival in Belfast 2 and was playing the next morning in church. i was standing at the back with this sensation when Paul Reid walked past and said -'do you feel the annointing' - BINGO that's what it was, i was sensing the presence and annointing of God in a place making it a 'thin place'. heaven and earth layered on top of each other, meeting together.

saturday night at summer madness i had the same sensation only this time not in the main event but the smart one venue, Pete Kernoghan was DJ'ing and i was VJ'ing, the place was packed with hundreds of people and at one point i looked over at Pete and could see that he was worshipping his heart out before God, offering up his spiritual act of worship on the decks - it was beautiful!

BTW - we only got to play because someone had messed up the flights for Andy Hunter to come over - ah well you snooze you lose!