Finding God outside Church :: in nature

And we might even have a game of conkers!

Lemon Tree - 24th September

A few years ago at school we had a talk from an Ofsted inspector to help us prepare for a forthcoming inspection. He told a story where he was chatting to a pupil at a school he was inspecting. He told the pupil that he was impressed by the beautiful flowers along the main drive leading to the school. The pupil replied "Oh, you mean the Ofsted flowers!"

The other day I was looking at the God TV website and I noticed they have a current campaign to raise money to plant a million trees in Israel to "prepare the Holy Land for the return of the King". They are asking people to donate £15 to buy a tree, and they currently have over five hundred thousand trees pledged.

Now, I don't want to be judgmental, but from what I know about Jesus there would be many other things he would prefer us to spend fifteen million pounds on in preparation for his return. How about doing something to help people who are starving, like he told us to? I don't think he would be very pleased that his followers were pissing around planting Ofsted flowers when they should be trying to advance the kingdom that he will bring in completely when he returns. Do they think it will be a nice surprise for Jesus, that they have managed to keep this campaign a secret from him? The instigators of this camapaign say that "We believe this incredible prophetic action will be a blessing to the Jewish people and the land of Israel. Through this simple act of obedience God will reward us beyond all we could ask or think, for he who blesses Israel shall be blessed. (Numbers 24:9)". Leaving aside the question of whether we shouldn't be trying to bless the Palestinian people a bit to redress some of the vast injustices they have suffered, this quote reveals that the true incentive for this is simply to get a good return on your money - you invest £15 and you'll be guaranteed much more in return thanks to a spurious and selective interpretation of a verse in the book of Numbers. I don't know how much of your £15 "God TV" takes, but I'm guessing that it is not nothing. The whole thing makes me mad.

Anyway, rant over, this leads me to introduce September's film, The Lemon Tree, a story about the troubles in the West Bank and the security wall. It is supposed to be a great film, with much to discuss afterwards.

A Churchless Faith - 10th September

I'd like us to think through some of the points raised in Alan Jamieson's book A Churchless Faith, which analyses why so many people choose to leave evangelical/charismatic churches and to consider if we can develop our 'outreach' to such people.

Challenge 4 :: Grow

Grow something that we can either eat or decorate the table with at the Christmas celebration meal.

Challenge 3 :: Bible

Read, study and reflect on Isaiah chapters 1 and 58

Challenge 2 :: Talk

Talk to someone who doesn't ever go to church about their spirituality; where do they find depth and meaning in life?

Challenge 1 :: Journal

Keep a journal of times in your days when you do find God. This could possibly take the form of a gratitude journal, where you make a habit of each day writing down three things that you are grateful for that happened that day. As well as your own personal journal please feel free to leave comments here so that others can share your experiences.

Finding God outside Church

A group of us discussed the forthcoming theme last Thursday and came up with some areas to look at and some challenges. All of this is designed to help up to recognise 'thin places' - times where the barrier between this life and the spiritual realm becomes thin and permeable. Here are the areas we'll investigate in the coming weeks:

17 September :: Finding God outside Church - in the mundane
1 October :: Finding God outside Church - in nature
15 October :: Finding God outside Church - in the arts
29 October :: Art project
5 November :: Finding God outside Church - in relationships
19 November :: Finding God outside Church - in the poor
3 December :: Finding God outside Church - in rites of passage
17 December :: Celebration party

We also came up with four challenges/homework tasks/assignments. These are optional, of course, but highly recommended! (I think we'll scrap the idea of collating the work into a book, too few people in the group seem up to that.)

Tim - sorry, in updating this I have deleted your comment about Dave Tomlinson's book Running in to God. We'll refer to that throughout, no doubt.

Greenbelt review

(With apologies to those who didn't come and are sick of all the talking about it)

I thought I'd make a space on the blog for people to share some of their highlights from GB; what they enjoyed, learned, times of encountering God.

I came across two very interesting articles in the Guardian today. I think that both should be generally of interest to sofachurchers even if you didn't get to the festival.

A very English revolution - In Greenbelt we see a new style of Christianity, defined by the idea that the modern world is a resource rather than a threat.

An atheist goes to Greenbelt - What happened when we sent a staunch atheist to a Christian arts festival to talk with evangelicals? Can Jessica stay out of the arms of Jesus?

Also making the news was the revealing of the results of a survey to find the 10 worst Bible verses:
The Bible's bad bits: silent women, mass murder and a weary concubine.