control arms

the night before last i managed to squeeze in two hUBS in one night: our campaigning hUB and our poetry slam hUB that serves the Oxford performance poetry community, in particular 'Hammer and Tongue' which is one of the leading poetry slams in the country.
i really enjoyed both of them and i find it really stimulating to see such a diversity of mission going on.
the campaigning hUB focussed this time on the 'control arms' campaign which is being run jointly by Amnesty, Iansa, and Oxfam, to try and get an international treaty in place to control the sale of small arms to countries and regimes that have a poor record when it comes to human rights etc. apparently someone is killed by small arms (which include machine guns and all kinds of crap) every minute and small arms kill far more people than 'weapons of mass destruction' but are not subject to any kind of international regulation. so the campaign is to try and get an international treaty in place. the idea is that you take a photo of yourself (like the ones above) and upload them - they are trying to get a million photos which will make it the largest photo petition ever. you can get involved and add yours here.

island hopping

next week Pip and i are holidaying (great word) up in Scotland for a couple of weeks. we have free use of a cottage on Mull and we also plan to take a small tent and do some island hopping around the Western Isles. does anyone have any suggestions as to where we should visit?

hmmm...

thanks to Chris Bullivant (I think..) for this.

a pilgrimage on your doorstep

this afternoon i did something i've been meaning to do for a long time: i went to see the home of CS Lewis - The Kilns - on the outskirts of Oxford.
in order to do this i had to become an American tourist for the day. there's a conference on in Oxford at the moment for about 450 Americans. The CS Lewis Foundation put it on each summer and get mega speakers to come and talk - Rick Warren was there on Monday morning. Chuck Colson at some point. Joss Ackland, the actor who played Lewis in the film 'Shadowlands' is coming to do a dramatic performance of one of Lewis's sermons - 'The Weight of Glory' - on Friday night (edit: it was Anthony Hopkins - Ackland played Lewis in something else). the Americans pay big bucks for all of this.
as some of the sessions are held at St Aldates church, where i am still currently on the staff, i snuck in (snuck in? i've been surrounded by Americans all afternoon and i think it's rubbed off) the other morning to hear Rick Warren, more out of curiosity than anything else. apparently, 'The Purpose Driven Life' has been the best selling book, globally, for the last 3 years in a row - more even than Harry Potter. Anyway, I wasn't expecting to like Warren at all but surprisingly i thought he was a really good speaker who had a lot of really good things to say. maybe i'm not as 'emerging' as i thought i was!
so, all week they're doing these tours of Lewis's house 'The Kilns' and i was talking this lunchtime to someone who used to work at St Aldates and is involved now in organising the conference and she suggested i hop on the coach and go. so i did. i pretty much managed to conceal my nationality all afternoon by being a miserable git and not talking to anyone.
It was great to visit the house, and the church down the road where Lewis and his brother Warren used to go for more than 30 years (and to sit in the spot he used to sit in). The CS Lewis Foundation have restored the house from old photographs to what it would have been like when Lewis lived there and it was very evocative to sit in his study and imagine him sitting at the desk and writing the Chronicles of Narnia, Mere Christianity etc.
It's not just a museum but also a working study centre and there are a small number of post-grad students who live and study there during the academic year.

here's a half baked thought

we had a great weekend away back in february this year. weekends away always seem to be times of accelerated growth and community building etc. after our last one a number of people said we should have 2 a year rather than 1. i have been thinking over the last week and i've had a crazy thought:
if weekends away are such significant times, why don't we JUST do weekends away - like one a month or something like that. the first weekend of every month could be a weekend away. and not do anything in between (or maybe do small groups or something). a fund could be set up for people who would struggle to pay for it. it could be quite a monastic thing - eating together, set times of prayer etc. and you get all the benefits of having recreational time together etc.
ok - maybe it's a bit of a crazy idea, but you gotta admit it's a pattern of church we haven't seen before.

a question

i heard someone the other day talking a lot about 'kingdom theology' which i agree is a very interesting and important subject. in my experience the Kingdom of God - or 'signs of the kingdom' - is often defined quite narrowly - it's about people being physically healed etc. as i have pondered some of these things over the last few days i have been asking myself the following question: if there was the same standard of health care, medicine, hospitals etc. in Jesus' day as we have in ours would he have healed as many people? did Jesus heal so many people because there wasn't really any other way that they would have got better if he hadn't?
it's an honest question? i don't have any agenda or axe to grind.

what's your ecological footprint?

this is interesting. find out what 'ecological footprint' your lifestyle leaves. My 'footprint' average comes out at 2.4 global hectares. the average for people in this country is 5.3 global hectares. there are apparently 1.8 biologically productive global hectares per person on the planet. so, if everyone lived like i did we would still need 1.3 planets to sustain our lives. take the test here.

very pleased about this....

'Women Bishops come a step closer' (from the BBC)

holiday reading

Holiday in St Ives, Cornwall

just back from a great week in St Ives, Cornwall, one of our favourite places, the place where we got engaged. if you're down in Cornwall this summer and you haven't been to St Ives before i encourage you to go - i think it's got a bit of everything: a great beach, some fantastic restaurants, the Tate gallery plus lots of other little galleries (there are apparently 500 working artists on the St Ives peninsular).
we stayed in a great little fishermans cottage (he didn't seem to mind) right in the heart of St Ives with the beach at one end of the cobbled street and The Sloop Inn at the other.
the weather wasn't great but at least it didn't really rain so we could still do stuff. it's very hard to resist the temptation to think that the whole world's against you when a heat wave starts the day you are leaving though! we did get our wet suits on and get into the sea a few times anyway.
It was Pip's birthday on Friday so after going out for dinner we drank champagne on the beach watching the sunset (everyone say 'ahhh'..) and then we decided the perfect end to the day would be a swim in the sea (funny how you get ideas like that after a bottle of champagne), so even though it was 10pm we went for it anyway.
we definitely didn't want to come back! we stopped off at Perranporth on the way back for one last sea-swim and saw a shoal of mackerel really close to where we were swimming.
anyway, now we are back in landlocked Oxford - pretty much as far as you can get from the sea in any direction. still, it's home.

emerging church/post-charismatic : do the two necessarily go together?

had what felt like a very helpful chat with Jason Clark on the phone yesterday about how i feel clearly called to engage with new expressions of church (and lead one) but how that doesn't necessarily mean that i want to be 'post-charismatic'. these two things seem to go hand-in-hand very often and i'm not sure why. anyway, Jason tells the story of our conversation in more detail here and there's a bit of chat about it in the comments if you are interested.

line spacing on my blog

for some bizarre reason Blogger has recently decided to condense the line spacing on my blog. it used to be spaced like the text in my profile on the left hand side of the blog but now it is squashed. i don't like it. does anyone know why it does that and how i could fix it?

Podcasting - the next big thing

Now that the latest version of iTunes - 4.9 i think it is - includes a podcast facility i think podcasting is gonna go ballistic. i have experimented a bit with programmes like iPodder but it's a bit of a pain in the butt. having podcasting integrated into iTunes is gonna be the thing that sparks it off big time i think. i, like Jonny, have subscribed to Mark Kermode's film reviews from Radio 5, and also i'm trying out Tim Bednar's podcast, and one from an emerging church in Minneapolis called 'Bluer', and one called the Leadership podcast. these, i think, are all available from within iTunes via the Music store (look for the new podcast section). there's bound to be a lot of rubbish so i think it's a case of trying some stuff out and seeing what's hot and what's not. anyone found any really good ones

Quote of the Day

"Christians find their true identity when they are involved in mission" - the inimitable David Bosch (of course).

St Irenaeus

without wanting to distract attention from the previous important announcement i couldn't let today pass without drawing attention to the fact that it is the feast day (not sure why they are called that anymore) of St Irenaeus of Lyon. He is definitely one of my favourite early church fathers (2 generations from the N.T. apostles). he had a tremendously rich understanding of salvation which has been called 'representation' (to distinguish it from 'substitution'). For Irenaeus, it was vital to understand that Christ was the last Adam who represented the whole of humanity (like the first Adam did) - taking it through death and out into resurrection. There's lots more that could be said but this ain't the time or place. here are some other facts (from religionfacts.com):

Born: c. 115 AD, Smyrna
Died: 202 AD, Lyons, Gaul (France)
Feast day: June 28

St. Irenaeus was bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul, which is now Lyons, France. He was a disciple of Polycarp, who himself was a disciple of John the Evangelist. He is recognized as a saint by both the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church, and his writings were formative in the early development of Christian theology. His most famous work is Against Heresies, a lengthy description and refutation of Gnosticism.

Announcement: 30 people in 1 coracle

well - having had all the necessary conversations - i can now finally announce (although most people reading this will already know about it) that hOME - our fledgeling Christian community - will be de-coupling from our mother church this September and learning to stand on our own two feet a bit more. St Aldates has given us a start in life and has incubated our egg. but it now feels like it's time to move on. the egg is hatching and so the mother hen is getting off.

we still have the full support of the Bishop and the Diocese and we will be relocating in Oxford. we are in conversation with another church about the possibility of some sort of partnership and a mutual sharing of resources but it won't be the same kind of relationship we've had with St Aldates.

I'm really excited about the future possibilities and this move feels really right although it will put a strain on our resources and may involve me finding some other work. we'll see.

so, those in our community who feel the missionary call of the great missionary God to go with us will be getting into our coracle and heading out in a couple of months time. and we'll see where the Holy Spirit takes us.

catch up blog

can't believe it's over a week since my last blog post - i thought i had ceased to be a bad blogger and had turned into a good blogger - taking plenty of virtual fibre to keep my blogging regular. but no! so...here's a catch up blog on what i've been up to over the last week. there really isn't that much to report:
i did find out that i have been paying too much tax for the last two years (!!!) so went to see my newly appointed tax adviser (probably appointed 2 years too late some might say!) on Thursday and did tax returns and the like and she told me to expect a rebate which will be nice.

went to the Bishop's house on Thursday evening for his annual clergy garden party type thing. very nice and pleasant in the kind of way you would imagine it to be when lots of C of E clergy drink pimms on the lawn.

Pip and i went up to N Wales on Friday for my Nan/grandmother's 90th birthday celebration tea. she's losing it, bless her...said to us "I can't believe I'm 80" to which we replied "you're not 80 you're 90". i guess that happens...i can't always remember how old i am these days but i normally manage to guess within 10 years.

came back on Saturday and went to an awesome party with some friends - Alan, Di, Jim, Beckie and Jon - on Saturday night. it was the relaunch party for our local pub, The Fishes. this kind of thing can often be a case of "here's your voucher entitling you to ONE free glass of nasty wine and a tesco-value hotdog" BUT NO! this party had people walking round with trays of glasses of champagne, trays of oysters, buckets of ice cold Corona, strawberries coated in frozen chocolate, an amazing buffet/BBQ with seared tuna, steak, chicken skewers etc. ALL FOR FREE! Probably the best free party i've been to. so, that's The Fishes in North Hinksey, Oxford, ladies and gentlemen (they deserve a plug after that).

Sunday: AM went to the priesting ordination of one of my colleagues at St Aldates - Helen Azer, who's the Curate here. was asked to be the Rector's representative in his absence so that meant robing and processing, laying hands (with the Bish and other clergy) on those being priested, and assisting with the administration of communion.

Monday: went down to London for a blather with some people thinking about how we can resource each other as we explore the creating of new forms of church. something quite good might come out of the discussion but i'm not at liberty to say what or with who at this point. watch this space.

catch up complete.

emergent UK Coordinating Day

It was a privilege to be invited by Jason Clark to be involved in the Emergent UK Planning Day held at the London School of Theology on Saturday. It was a time to meet new people and have an input into the ongoing development of 'Emergent' in the UK. Here's a photo of those involved in the day (you can see me sweltering in the heat on the left towards the back) and you can read more about the day here on Jason's blog.

emergentcoordinatingdayjune05
Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

'The Rebel Sell' - are we addicted to being on the edge?

I have just finished reading this book - 'The Rebel Sell: How the Counter Culture became Consumer Culture' - by two Canadians, Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter and i can honestly say it is one of the most challenging books i have read for a long time. Their basic premise - which they then work through lots of different countercultural issues - is that the whole idea of a counterculture mitigates against real positive change in society because it derides the whole notion of incremental change through political engagement. The only thing worth pursuing, the countercultual critics would say, is a total overthrow of the system...anything less than that is not worth getting out of bed for.
So, for Heath and Potter - 2 Canadian academics (and, I suspect, neo-Marxists), the idea of the counterculture can actually get in the way of real change.

They also have some very interesting things to say about the marketing of rebellion and cool, and this aspect of the book raised a fascinating question for me about emerging church. here is my question:

if all the perspectives, values, practices etc. that we are fighting for in the whole emerging church 'movement' suddenly got adopted by the mainstream church, would we be happy and once more 'play nicely with all the other children'? or would we be looking for something else to preserve our distinctiveness on the edge of church? i.e. are we purely interested in those theological/ecclesiological issues or do we derive some sense of identity from being the 'emerging' church that has more to do with wanting to be on the edge, wanting to be cool and rebellious, than it has to do with anything else?

Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

dreams plans visions

great exhibition on at Modern Art Oxford at the moment that Pip and I went to yesterday. they've invited all kinds of people, artists, and groups to contribute their vision for the Oxford of the future. I like the way they've focused on a date in the not too distant future - 2015 - which is far enough away to allow the imagination room to explore but near enough to anchor it all in a sense of what could actually be possible. we saw some great stuff - interviews with local people, a giant panoramic photo of a 'solar powered Oxford', a video about the future Oxford mono-rail, artists sketches of what the centre of the city could look like in the future etc. if you're in the Oxford area and particularly if you have a passion for the city like I do then i highly recommend you go along. it's only on for 10 days (till June 19th) and more details can be found here.

dreamsplansvisions
Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

what's your theological worldview?

below is the result i got when i took this quick online test. follow the link at the bottom of the post in order to take the test yourself. BTW i don't agree with some of the description of who i am supposed to be, especially the second sentence!

You scored as Emergent/Postmodern. You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this. Emergent/Postmodern 71% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 64% Roman Catholic 61% Neo orthodox 57% Charismatic/Pentecostal 32% Classical Liberal 32% Reformed Evangelical 25% Modern Liberal 18% Fundamentalist 7% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

dropping by un-announced...

so last night, around 20 to midnight, Pip and I had both been to our respective huddle meetings and were just winding down about to go to bed, and the phone goes. it's not the kinda time we normally expect phone calls, so I screen it, and hear that it's my old mate from theological college, Paddy Malone who now lives in London. he asks me what i'm up to tomorrow and i say 'not much' as Friday is supposed to be my day off. i surmise from his question that he might be around the Oxford area so I ask him where he is - is he staying with mutual friends of ours who live around the corner from us? he says he's a bit nearer than that...i suspect that perhaps he is outside our front door wanting somewhere to stay for the night. he tells me i'm wrong and invites me to look out of our back window. as i do so i can just about make out a light at the bottom of our garden. and as i move out of our back door i also see that a tent has been pitched and some food is being cooked on a camping gas stove. Paddy and another friend - Simon Lockett - have canoed down the river from Simon's house in the village of Islip, a few miles north of Oxford, all the way to our back garden, hitched up the boat and set up camp at the bottom of our garden.
after much cracking up Pads, Simon, Pippa and I crack open a couple of bottles of wine and get a proper camp fire vibe going. Three hours, some fine wine, some very fine single malt, and some lovely cuban cigars, later i retire to bed thinking that that was possibly one of the oddest ends to a day i have ever experienced.

Saint Columba

Saint Columba
Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

today is the feast day of Saint Columba of Iona. He was a very important important early Celtic apostle, who left Ireland and planted a monastery on the Isle of Iona off the western coast of Scotland. i have been there - it's beautiful. from there a team was eventually sent to the Isle of Lindisfarne - now known as Holy Island - off the east coast of Northern England, which was the base from which much of Northern England was first evangelised. you can read more about Columba here.

re:source church plant training - creating church in the emerging culture

resourceflyer
Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

this looks like a great day. wish i could go to it but it's the first day of our holiday in Cornwall.

messin about on the river

messin about on the river
Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

this afternoon, friday's generally being my days off, Steve (our Deacon) and i went on an adventure down the river. most of you will know that we are lucky enough to have the river at the bottom of our garden. and someone was kind enough to let us have a couple of boats (a one-man kyak and a 3/4 person canadian canoe). one of the best things to do is to go to the pub in North Hinksey in the boat - land it at the pub garden and go in for a pint. this afternoon Steve and i attempted the never-before-attempted full circuit. from our house (circled in red on above map) we head South and then fork right to N Hinksey village (pub closed for refurb at the moment - shame). then head North again, pass under main (Botley) Road, then take the East fork and then head South again to bring us back home. (you might need to click on the map for a larger version if you are really interested in seeing our route)
it was a great trip. we stopped about three quarters of the way for some refreshments (my fab wife had even made me a packed lunch!!). it did start chucking it down with rain on the last stretch but that just added to the illusion of being frontier, intrepid explorers.

soul-food

this Saturday morning hOME begins a new 'hOME-option'. those who feel they would benefit are gathering for breakfast and then we're going to get spiritually nourished by doing a kind of group-lectio-divina reading of scripture and then allowing plenty of time to pray for each other afterwards. we're planning on doing it the first Saturday morning of each month.

soul-food
Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

open theism

there's an interesting conversation going on over at TallSkinnyKiwi about what some consider to be the theological hallmarks of those who associate with the emerging church (in fact TSK has set up a voting system so we can find out just how heretical the emerging church actually is (by the standards prescribed by the conservatives).

one of the theological positions in question is that of open theism. those of you who know me know that i am a big advocate of the open theist position as i think it offers a truly beautiful (as well as bibilical) view of a God who risks and makes himself vulerable in order to have the kind of relationship with his creatures that he desires - one characterised by genuine mutuality and love. but i'm not going to go into all the details here. for those who want to find out more about this position I've just found an interesting site here by one of the theologians advocating this position.

what does 'The Monastery' have to tell us about evangelism?

i, like many others, have thoroughly enjoyed watching the mini-series 'The Monastery' the last 3 Tuesday evenings. for those of you who missed it, it was a kind of monastic 'Big Brother' type of reality show. (and BTW i think i am just NOT going to watch any of the latest BB - i think you have to make an upfront decision cos once you start watching it it kinda sucks you in and destroys your soul). 5 guys from diverse walks of life (one worked in the soft porn industry, another was a Buddhist scholar, another was involved in the loyalist paramilitaries in N Ireland etc.) who all went and spent 40 days with the Brothers at Worth Abbey in Sussex.
Anyway, it seemed to me that what happened with these guys had quite a lot to say about how we 'do' evangelism. normally, evangelism takes the form of The People In The Know dispensing The Knowledge (not in the London cabbie sense) to the great unwashed; whereas what was happening with the guys in the programme was that they were being invited to be part of the community..to pray with the community, work with them, just be with them doing whatever they did. and the monks certainly weren't seeker sensitive in terms of adapting their worship to make it more 'intelligible'. and these guys were really impacted with many of them having a profound experience of 'the other'.
Now, I know that we are supposed to know all about 'belonging before believing' and all of that sort of thing but it was nice to see it in action. in my experience 'belonging before believing' can mean that we include non-churched people into our social networks but it doesn't often mean that they participate in our worship with us. as these guys were 'bathed in liturgical rhythms' and included in all aspects of the community they were changed.

But i do have a nagging question. a lot of us have been inspired by the monastic tradition in recent years - i certainly have been. and a lot of us are exploring monastic values and practices in our communities - we certainly are. and i am convinced that there are few things as potent as living in (monastic) community to really change us as people. but in our re-contextualisation of monastic values and practices have we left out the really life-changing stuff?? is it the raw experience of living in residential community, corporately praying together 5 times a day (including the middle of the night), working together etc. etc. that carries the ability to transform us; and do our attempts to take the ethos, the values, and the practices of monasticism and transplant and 'virtualise' them into the context of contemporary culture rob them of their power?

I mean, it's all very well to be called to prayer in a dispersed community by an SMS message rather than the chapel bell in the cloisters, but is it just missing the point?

personalised google

google are now offering the possibility of personalising your google home page. you can opt to have your latest gmail e mails on disply along with a local weather forecast and lots of other 'widgets' of your choosing. you can even drag and drop them around the page to your liking. visit google labs and click the link.

sometimes you just need to put your feet in the earth (or the sand in this case)

Pip and I got away for 24 hours this weekend just gone to visit some friends in the town where we first met - Chichester in West Sussex on the South Coast where we both used to live. just south of Chichester there's an absolutely fantastic beach - one of the best beaches i have found in the UK - in a place called West Wittering. we managed to get some time there on Sunday morning. it was fantastic. and this is a very therepeutic thing to do.....

westwittering1
Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

there's not many beaches to beat this....

westwittering2
Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

Narnia

trailer for the first of the Narnia films - 'The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe' - can be viewed here. it looks quite good. out this december.

church un-spun

I was talking to Pete Ward yesterday and he was telling me about a woman who has done some research on spirituality in Kendal in the Lake District..looking at church life/growth and the growth of alternative spiritualities. one interesting thing that came out of it was that when she was talking to yoga practitioners, reiki healers etc. etc. they were all keen to make sure that their name was included in the report. however, when she was talking to people in the church they were really concerned about anonymity ("you ain't seen me, right?"). this led to an interesting conversation about a culture of secrecy and perhaps fear in our churches, where people are afraid to challenge or critique what they see for fear of being labelled a troublemaker or 'speaking out against the Lord's anointed'.
i heard RT Kendall speak the other day (back to the old school!) at the New Wine Leaders conference. it totally wasn't my culture at all but it was interesting in a number of ways. in the last session he spoke about 'total forgiveness' from the life of Joseph. and he was saying that one of the ways that you know that you have forgiven someone is that you never tell anyone what they have done to you (he thought it was allowable to tell ONE other person for therepeutic reasons)...in other words to 'cover their shame'. he talked about our desire to tell others what has been done to us being a strategy we employ to try to turn others against the person who has wronged us.
a lot of what he said made sense but there is still part of me that thinks that if we aren't careful we end up colluding with this culture of spin where we have to maintain the myth that everything in the garden is lovely.
so...how do we keep our hearts right, be generous, kind, and forgiving, yet at the same time work towards having transparent communities of faith?

The Monastery

a new series started on BBC2 on Tuesday evening called 'The Monastery'. The idea being that 5 men from a variety of backgrounds enter Worth Abbey near Crawley for 40 days to try to find some meaning for their lives. It's a 3 part series following their experiences. i missed this week's episode as i was away at a conference but a friend taped it so i'll be watching it soon. it looks fascinating and it makes me wonder whether those of us exploring a re-contextualized monasticism are perhaps tapping into something that has an appeal in the culture. when we began to plant hOME 2 years ago i talked a lot about us not planting a church but planting a monastery. it's a big vision, and as with all of these things, it takes longer than you think. but we have made a decent start - focusing on the building of community and living by a rule-of-life. and it seems like there is a recovery of the radical missional side of monasticism that was certainly present in celtic monasticism as practiced in these islands (now the UK). surely the fact that so many groups and churches around the world have begun to re-explore the monastic tradition is a sign that the Spirit is doing something.

bbcmonastery
Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

high on democracy

been to vote first thing this morning. i like the fact that we get to vote twice (actually 3 times cos you get 2 votes in the local elections). it meant i was able to mix and match my vote. so in the parliamentary vote i voted Lib Dems (they were always going to win in our constituency but i would have voted for them anyway cos don't we all believe that tactical voting is of the devil?) and voted for 1 Lib Dem and 1 Green councillor in the local vote. i know that traditionally in this country you're not supposed to tell anyone who you vote for but i think that's nonsense so i'm telling you.
it is a wierd feeling - voting. wierd in a good way. you really do feel like you are empowered and have a say...even though your contribution is minimal and i do question how much power there is even in democracy to actually make a difference.
My friend Chris makes this point well when he writes:

"So I say, in the end, vote for whoever you want, because they probably
aren't going to run the country radically differently than the other 2
parties any how. But make sure to make a difference in what you
do...live the life that God has called us to live: seeking justice,
defending the poor, offering the good news, etc. That's the stuff
that really matters, and that's what's gonna make a difference...if we
all focussed on what more we could do as individuals rather than what
the rich white boys are doing in London, I think we'd start to see
real change. Practically speaking, things like racism and greed and
shallow consumerism aren't going to be changed by policies imposed
from the top-down, they're going to change based on individual efforts
of folks like us. I guess at heart I'm really an anarchist!"

This makes me ask questions about the almost religious zeal of people like President Bush who seems to be making something of a a personal crusade out of bringing democracy to the whole world. (perhaps he should have started with Florida!). i still think it's probably the best system we have available but perhaps we are over optimistic about it sometimes.

i started this post feeling really positive about the democratic process and by the end of it the shine has already worn off somewhat!

cruel perhaps, but fun nevertheless

I know he's an easy target but i couldn't resist sharing it!

bushsanta
Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

a first foray into film making

a little while ago i blogged about how i made a film (using iMovie and iDVD) for a service we were doing on the theme of 'submission'. i took a track from the latest u2 album and played with some images to suggest that perhaps we could imagine Bono's words as being the words that God might say to humanity (rather than the words that Bono might say to his Dad). this film is now available to be viewed on-line here.
this is my first foray into film-making and i am keenly aware of my limitations. it's a pretty basic idea and a pretty basic short film, but some people asked to see it so i thought it was perhaps worth putting into the public arena anyway.
see what you think.

maclaren videos

you can watch some excellent videos of St Brian of Maclaren here.

letter writing hUB off to a flier

one of the most exciting things that's going on for me at the moment is the slow but sure development of our mission hUBS. these are our small units that are dedicated to being a blessing to the world, as opposed to our hUDDLEs which are our small groups dedicated to being a blessing to us! (as in they are focussed on nurture and pastoral care etc.). we really sense that our hUBS are where the action is. some are focussed on causes (campaigning etc.), some on compassion ('mercy' ministries), and some on culture (poetry slam, clubbing etc.). it's all mission. see our web site to see how it all fits together.
last night the new letter-writing/campaigning hUB met for the first time. we wrote a bunch of letters to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the subject of Trade Justice. and we listened to Coldplay (seemed appropriate) and drank tea and ate biscuits. our letters are of course, only a drop in the ocean but every little helps. It's much easier to write letters in a group than on your own - unless you have a hell of a lot more will power than me.
we also talked about what other things we would like to campaign about. we want to get a good mixture of local and global campaigning. i am hoping that we can write to/meet the managers of local supermarkets to try to persuade them to use biodegradeable carrier bags and to generally cut down on their packaging.
tonight i am going to pay frisbee with the Ultimate Frisbee hUB.

it's fun to do ministry with your friends

Mark and I were in theological college and he is now a curate in Croydon, S London. he was the popular choice in our year for 'most likely to become a Bishop' due to his very large theological brain and his very large heart for God. he happened to be in Oxford last week visiting some friends and so i coaxed him to come along to our hOME worship night where he provided our homily (in other words he told some stories and talked with us about kneeling in the knee prints of Jesus and praying to the Father like Jesus did). although we (+ two others) meet quarterly to talk and pray (and invariably go for a curry and some beers) it's the first time since we left college that we have done any 'ministry' together. it's fun to do ministry with your friends.

Matt and Mark
Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

whoshouldyouvotefor.com

unsure of who you should vote for? visit here and complete the online quiz on the major issues and it will tell you where you stand in relation to the policies of the major parties. my results were as follows:

Who should I vote for?

Your expected outcome:

Liberal Democrat

Your actual outcome:

Labour -4
Conservative -55
	Liberal Democrat 66
UK Independence Party -21
	Green 46

You should vote: Liberal Democrat

The LibDems take a strong stand against tax cuts and a strong one in favour of public services: they would make long-term residential care for the elderly free across the UK, and scrap university tuition fees. They are in favour of a ban on smoking in public places, but would relax laws on cannabis. They propose to change vehicle taxation to be based on usage rather than ownership.

Take the test at Who Should You Vote For

Big Preach II

On Sunday i did my second big preach on consecutive sundays at our 'mother' church. decided to go for a 'secret agent' theme. the idea being: the church is a community that has discovered a secret (Eph. 3, Col. 1 - a mystery that has now been disclosed etc.) and that we as individuals and as community are agents of change, agents of the kingdom...working to make this secret known as we participate with God in the missio dei. started off with a secret-agent quiz where we found out who really knew their secret agents. this included trying to name all 5 Bonds (although there is some controversy here as some people insist there are 6 if you include David Niven in Casino Royale - the very first (pre Connery), but 'unofficial', Bond film). This all makes it sound like i am a big Bond fan - which I'm not really.
i think i was a little on the provocative side perhaps - i really went after the personalised, privatised, 'my own personal saviour', mentality...talked about how i always used to read the word 'you' in the New testament as you-singular rather than you-plural....and how God's primary concern is for the people of God first and foremost rather than the individual (am I turning into a Catholic?!)...it's the church that is the agent of the kingdom. i also managed to squeeze in some Eddie Izzard which always helps to coat the pill.
i realise i am able to do the 'big preach' type of thing when called upon - and people have been very complimentary - but i, like a lot of others, still have serious questions about the big, set-piece, monologue as a means of learning, certainly if that's the only model of learning/teaching being used in a community. David Norrington's book, 'To Preach or not to Preach' suggests that much or most of what we mean by preaching in church today is completely alien to the New Testament - in other words: preaching is unbiblical!

Nufonix

Nufonix is music download service that i have just discovered while searching for a track i heard on Groove Salad internet radio from SOMA FM in San Francisco. It looks like it has a great selection of downtempo, lounge, minimal, and chill out stuff (as well as techno and house etc.). and the best bit is that you can set up an account and download tracks for $0.98 which works out here as about 50p. It's easy to import them into iTunes too.

top_nufonixname
Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

TV Turnoff Week

tvheadermar3_2
Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

TV Turnoff Week is an annual event organised by Adbusters. This year it's on April 25th-May 1st. The idea is to encourage everyone to turn off their TV for a week and enjoy the resulting increased mental health and detoxification. This year - and this looks like fun! - they are selling a little gizmo that turns off any TV when you point the gizmo at it. and they're selling it at cost for $10 which is peanuts over here. there's a little vid clip on the site which shows them testing it out at an electrical retail store! it's gotta be time for some cultural subversiveness. get yours here.

going global

hey.....it looks like i've had my first visitor from South America (check 'hitmaps' on sidebar)...hooray!

Big Preach last night

i'm a lazy blogger. i realise my posting frequency has gone way down recently and i am gonna try to address that.
last night i did a big preach at St Aldates. haven't done one for a while. but the rector is away so it's all hands on deck.
did it on John 15 - abiding in the vine - in parallel with Gen 1:26f - God creating humankind on Day 6 and their first full day i.e. day 7 - being a day of rest...so 'work from rest' rather than 'rest from work'.
Jesus says quite clearly in John 15 that those who abide in him WILL BE FRUITFUL. I think sometimes we invest far too much of our energy in trying to be fruitful, trying to grow fruit (i did in fact use the phrase 'clench and squeeze' in front of 600 people last night...but i did apologise after commenting that it was probably the first (and last) time that phrase had been used from that platform), and not enough time and energy focused on 'abiding in the vine'. not that that means we don't do anything except walk around in a super-spiritual haze, just that we live out of a different centre where we realise that it's not all down to us to make it happen. if we abide, we WILL be fruitful. and of course i wanted to enlarge our understanding of what 'being fruitful' meant - to make it a much more holistic concept, understood as demonstrating God's creative power - in relationships, in church, at work, in our relationship with the land etc. and tracing a line from the original creation mandate ('be fruitful and multiply'), through God's covenant with Israel, the ministry of Jesus, and the great commission in Matt. 28.
am also down to preach next sunday morning (two sundays in a row - unheard of!) and am working on a 'secret-agent' idea. hmmmm...

today's top tip

...here's some great advice which i have completely failed to follow today: Leave the house before you think of a worthwhile reason to stay in.

Geography Olympics

Thanks to Rich for this. Test your knowledge of which country is where, with this online quiz - and compete for your country at the same time. i only managed a score of 20% but they did give me a lot of African countries! Unfortunately i lowered our country's score average by something like 0.3%. doh! Currently the UK is only 91st on the leaderboard with a poorer geographic knowledge than even the USA (sorry American friends, maybe it's just your president whose knowledge of foreign countries seems to be so poor!) who surpisingly come out in first place at the moment with a quiz average of 77.028.
take part here.

Good Friday 05

Good Friday 05
Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

Easter Sunday Dawn Service 05

Easter Sunday Dawn Service 05
Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

hOME: new series

today we are announcing a new series which we will be engaging with in hOME over the next 3 months. we wanted to really focus in on who God is...so we're going to spend a month on each person of the trinity: a month on the Father, a month on the Son, and a month on the Spirit. and we're going to come at it from lots of different angles - teaching, worship, art, discussion etc. through our central meetings and our huddles.

trinityseries
Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

The Album Leaf - Seal Beach EP

One of the dangers of listening to 'Groove Salad' on SOMA FM over the internet (see yesterday's post) is that you hear some absolutely beautiful music that you really want in your collection. this is certainly true of the 'Seal Beach' EP by a bloke that calls himself 'The Album Leaf' (real name Jimmy Lavelle, from San Diego, CA). Heard a track from it the other day, found it cheap on Amazon, and it arrived this morning. it certainly lives up to my expectations - achingly beautiful, rhodes-heavy, electronica (and some 'real' instrument downtempo stuff). I think it will be feauturing in some of our services soon. get it here!

albumleaf
Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

Tom and Christine Sine at SPEAK

We really enjoyed having Tom and Christine Sine come and speak at hOME last year. they're back in the country next month. i've been sent the following details:

"Mission 4 Justice" ˆ April 15th, 7-9.30pm
Tom and Christine Sine are speaking on mission, justice, life and faith for
students and young adults. Tom and Christine are internationally known
speakers on Christian
social justice and action, and developing lifestyles of balance and peace in
the midst of a hectic world.
Venue: St Mary's Church, 57 Kennington Park Road, SE11 4JQ.
Nearest tube: Kennington or Elephant and Castle (10 minutes Walk).
Tickets are £5 available on the door.

They have been invited by SPEAK as part of the Trade Justice Global Week of
Action, 10-16 April - when thousands of campaigners all around the world
will be campaigning for trade justice. As you may remember, trade is one of
the 3 key issues (along with aid and debt) that's being addressed by the
Make Poverty History campaign.

see the SPEAK web site for more info:

Groove Salad from SOMA FM

i'm loving this amazing internet radio station from San Francisco. they are playing consistently fantastic downtempo, ambient and chill-out electronica, and what's more it's commercial-free. it's available through iTunes or through the SOMA web site. Go listen!

SomaFMbkg
Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

hotel Rwanda

Pip and I went to see this last night. it is truly an astonishing film and if you haven't seen it yet i really recommend that you do so. it beggars belief how people can inflict so much suffering on one another. and in the case of Rwanda it beggars belief how the rest of the world can just turn a blind eye to the suffering and genocide of a million people. the US and the UK were actually lobbying for the withdrawal of the few UN Peacekeepers that were actually even there.
as with Schindler's List there is a power in telling the story through one man which makes it so much more personal and so much more easy to relate to. watching the film made me even more keenly aware of what a responsibility the church has to seek the kingdom of God in the world and to be on the frontline of political campaigning and lobbying as well as direct relief efforts. cos this stuff is going on all the time....Darfur is being called 'Rwanda in slow motion' for example.
as part of our mission efforts in hOME we are hoping to see mission hUBS being involved in these sorts of issues, through things like letter writing etc. it's just a small contribution but hopefully it can still make a difference.

hotelrwanda
Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

the BIG ONE!

so, this week is the BIG ONE in the church year. yesterday we had a simple service of readings, meditation and prayer for Palm Sunday - focusing particularly on the fact that the same crowd that was welcoming Jesus as King was baying for his blood less than a week later. we also looked at how easy it is to follow Jesus when we think he's serving our agenda (which for the crowds on Palm Sunday was - to have a revolutionary king to overthrow the Romans), but how easy it is to turn away when God's agenda takes us by surprise. it was a nice, quiet, reflective service for just a handful of us.
tomorrow will be robed up and processing in the Cathedral for the annual 'Blessing of the Oils and Renewal of Ordination Vows' service that the Bishop leads each Holy Week. the oil is blessed and then taken back to parishes (of the non-geographic type in our case) to be used in prayer for healing. i think it's great that all (or should I say 'most' - the evangelical clergy are often conspicuous by their absence at these sorts of occasions) of the clergy from the Diocese have the chance to come together to re-affirm the vows they made at their ordination and I for one am looking forward to it.
On Maundy Thursday we will be joining with our Mother church - St Aldates - for a Passover Meal led by a Jewish guy - Joseph Steinberg. I went last year...you may not believe it but it was actually quite a laugh and interesting from a cultural point of view, as well as taking you deeper into the kind of meal Jesus would have celebrated on that night all those years ago.
On Good Friday we are going to gather again for another service of readings, prayers, and meditation, and then possibly to watch 'The Passion of the Christ' again - something that i guess a lot of groups will be doing on Friday.
On Easter Sunday morning hOME is going to experiment with an outdoor dawn service (for the hardy few!).
quite a week then!

new hOME web site

our new web site has finally been (almost) finished. view it here. comments welcomed!

being truly counter-cultural

we have been reflecting recently on the amazingly transient nature of our generation - particularly in Oxford. on our recent weekend away, when people presented objects that represented hopes or dreams for the future, the vast majority of people spoke of something that involved travelling or living elsewhere. i'm not knocking that necessarily, but it has massive implications for building church together - when there is such a high turnover of relationships. for us in Oxford, it also has to do with things like the exorbitant price of housing which makes it very difficult to put down roots. anyway, there's a great piece from Jason about this sort of thing on his blog:

"Anyhow that got me mulling over, how despite the fact that our lives are so short, we get more and more fadish as a species. Maybe part of the postmodern condition is that we flit from one thing to another, unable to committ to anything, fadish, and living for the now, in our brief lives. Maybe being counter cultural isn't about not having sex, maybe it's about committment, to others, to settling, staying and dwelling. No one seems to stay any more. We withdraw as consumers at the drop of a hat, from work, places we live, friendships, our churches. Have we lost what it means to do life together in proximity, over time?

What if staying in one place, being accountable, working through the difficult issues of life, staying committed to each other rather than moving on to fresh fields, was one of the most radical things we could do. In a culture that tells us to keep our options open, in case we miss out, maybe we are called to lay aside our options for the sake of others.

What would our community look like if we built churches, that we did life together in for 40, 50 years of more, rather than micro churches that are here today and gone tommorow. To celebrate births, growing up of children, marriages, and deaths, to retell and incarnate the christian story with a group of people, in a place for the whole of our lives?

Or are we keeping our options open, scared of missing out on something better, when maybe we have something better within our grasp already?

In a life that is brief, maybe the biggest risk I can take is to stay where I am, to invest everything I have and not leave, to dwell, to develop long memories and connections to a place and people."

DJing tonight

myself and another hOMEboy - Gareth - are DJ ing at the Thirst Bar tonight. definitely one of the nicer bars in town. we'll be spinning some quality house music down there from around 11pm onwards if anyone fancies coming down.

a better photo of me and the Bishop (see blog entry below)

thanks for the photo, Mike!

BishandMatt
Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

food for the soul....

just read the whole of the Eugene Peterson interview i quoted in the entry below. it really is worth the read. excellent stuff. find it here.

clerical dress, hmmmm....

last night we had a confirmation service at St Aldates, the mother church of hOME. whenever the bishop comes one of the clergy at the church acts as his chaplain for the evening - carrying his crook, holding his service sheet for him to read from, and generally making sure he's ok. last night it was my turn. here's a pic. apologies for the poor quality of the photo...it was taken on my phone in poor light.
a number of people made the usual jibes about the whole dressing up thing. understandably so. it doesn't happen very often so it's always a bit of a novelty for people, and also for me i guess. people assumed that i must have hated it but actually i found it to be quite a privilege. the Bishop of Oxford has been kind to me and it was great to be able to do a little something for him. it did make me wonder about the whole 'robes' thing though. i can definitely see two sides to it. a good friend of mine suggested to me years ago that as soon as you put a dog collar on you lose your 'annointing' (not language i would use but you know what he meant, i'm sure). his point was that Jesus never appealed to an office as the source of his power - he was an ordinary man filled with the power of God. the donning of clerical gear appeals to a sense of status in order to gain power. i have a certain sympathy with that outlook.
on the other hand, last night i reflected on the fact that me wearing robes said something about what was important to me without me having to use words. the clothes expressed something of who i was - not in a "do you know who I am?" sort of way, but more to do with saying something about a vocation that God has called me to. we so often rely on words to express those things. wearing robes is a way of speaking about what is important in a visual rather than a verbal way.
I guess another reason we DON'T wear robes (apart from wanting to obliterate the clergy/laity divide - and i'm all for the abolition of the laity) is to somehow be 'culturally relevant'.It would seem that the mighty Eugene Peterson, for one, is dead against the idea of the pursuit of cultural relevance. I read him on the subject - from an interview in Christianity Today - at this blog. Here's a little snippet from Eugene to whet your appetite:

"I think relevance is a crock. I don't think people care a whole lot about what kind of music you have or how you shape the service. They want a place where God is taken seriously, where they're taken seriously, where there is no manipulation of their emotions or their consumer needs."

I think Eugene's got a point but for me what we're about is not primarily about relevance. I've blogged previously about how i think cultural relevance doesn't make sense if the aim is to be incarnational (you don't need to tell a Japanese person living in Japan to try to be relevant to their culture). any other comments?

thebishopandi
Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

hOME in today's Times

along with other fresh expressions of church in the Oxford Diocese, hOME makes a brief appearance in an article in today's Times. you can read it here.

Gospel-Driven Church

On the whole i'm enjoying Ian Stackhouse's book (which a lot of people seem to be reading) although i'm not sure i agree with everything he has to say (he's coming from quite a Reformed, Calvinist perspective that doesn't sit that comfortably with me, for example). his contention that much evangelical spirituality is predicated on the idea that by raising the spiritual temperature (i.e. working harder in prayer etc.) we can somehow precipitate a 'move of God' seems insightful to me. there's certainly a lot of that sort of 'COME ON!' thinking in the contemporary church. over the years i have seen many people give up on church when the revival that has been promised for so long has failed to materialise. year after year they were told that 'this is the year of the favour of the Lord' (not so sure that this was exactly what Isaiah had in mind). disillusionment was always just around the corner. for some time now i have felt drawn to a spirituality that has more to do with spiritual formation through the faithful practice of the spiritual disciplines in community. For Stackhouse, much contemporary evangelical spirituality is almost Old Testament in its character: continually pursuing something more from God (like there's something missing) rather than trusting and resting in what has already been accomplished through Christ. it's a fine line though, i guess, isn't it? not many of us would want to disagree with St Bono when he said, "I still haven't found what I'm looking for". It's that pesky 'already, but not yet' eschatological thing again.
One thing that has struck me about Stackhouse's book is his missiology, or rather, a lack of one. admittedly i have not yet finished reading it but he doesn't seem to have one in what i've read so far and, flicking through the rest of the book, it doesn't look like one is coming. perhaps this book does not include missiology within its remit but in what it does contain i am picking up a sense that for Stackhouse, in an almost Anglo-Catholic sense, mission is about getting the church right, being faithful.

"the formation of a...charismatic, evangelical community, under the Word and the sacraments, and empowered by the Holy Spirit of God, is the ultimate proclamation of the gospel" (p.178)

Now I am one of the first to say that one of the best ways to do mission is to plant new expressions of church, i.e. that doing church is a good way to do mission, but Stackhouse seems to reduce the task of mission to the pursuit of a faithful church life. what about the missio dei? what about seeking, and attending to, the kingdom in the world? perhaps i've misread him. would anyone else who's read the book care to comment?

Gospel-Driven Church
Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

bush vs jesus

bushvsjesus
Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

this was brought to my attention by Chris. you'll need to click on it to get it large enough to read the text. worth a look though.

'To clarify this Journey...'

I'm taking the risk of cutting pasting an entire article rather than just linking to it, cos i think it's such a great piece and i resonate with it so deeply. i wouldn't want you to not follow the link! to view the article, by Brother Maynard, in its original context at emergingchurch.info go here. there are a couple of minor questions i would want to ask about a couple of points but that should wait for another time so as not to lessen the impact. enjoy..

"Seems there’s some misunderstanding about the journey we’re on. To some, it looks like the journey to leave the church we’re in… which to me is evidence that we aren’t explaining it very well. Given that observation, I thought it might help to take another stab at it in hopes of clarifying it in my own mind if nowhere else.

I long for a church that is low-key. I’m tired of hype, I’m tired of noise, and I’m tired of intensity. I used to like all those things, but I no longer equate these with “signs of life.” I long for something more contemplative, a place that can acknowledge worship as being intellectual as well as emotional.

I long for a church with deep interpersonal relationships. I was attracted to a place that talked about relationships and tried to build relationally, but with growth, time, and change, what started as relational has become merely functional. Faith walks need camaradarie, lives shared one with another

I long for the attainable challenge of Jesus. Put the other way, I’m tired of being challenged, by which I refer not to the challenge of the gospel or the challenge of Jesus, but to the challenge of leaders who seem to continually push for greater levels of sanctification. Ever unattainable, this leaves one straining for an unreachable goal and feeling cast down for falling short. To elaborate, this causes a situation in which a believer perpetually feels or is actually considered “not quite good enough” to engage in ministry. I long for the challenges which God give the grace to attain, rather than the challenges of men which one strives fruitlessly to attain.

I long for a decentralized structure, and I long for servant leadership among peers. Power corrupts, which is a danger in the church as anywhere else… and a heirarchical structure is the breeding-ground for the corruption of church leaders. Jesus talked about this, about what can happen to church leaders who start well but end up enamoured with their positions. Practically speaking, this drives the necessity for decentralization so that the structures can be interrelated but independently manageable in smaller sizes.

I long for a culturally relevant church. I don’t understand why cross-cultural missionaries attempt to understand culture to present the gospel within it, while churches in the developed world tend to simply withdraw from their own culture, often condemning its evils. Unfortunately for them, our culture is filled with people who need to see real Christianity in action — they’ve seen enough caricatures of Christianity already. Being culturally relevant in the early 21st century means understanding -gasp!- postmodernism.

I long for a church that can be outwardly-focused without constantly pushing evangelism on the congregation, and for a church that does not relate evangelism with church growth as an end.

I long for a church that recognizes the value of ancient traditions. I’ve long been saddened by the iconophobia in many evangelical circles, discomfort with symbolism, suspicion toward any type of mysticism, and the ignoring of rich faith traditions from Advent to Passover.

I long for a church that is not uncomfortable with mystery or with the sacraments. The evangelical understanding I’ve been taught on the Eucharist is anemic, and the standard baptism explanation of “an outward symbol of an inward faith” misses the spiritual act, which still has an element of mystery in it.

I long for a church that recognizes the value of story. Scripture is story, and so are the lives it touches. One cannot presume to talk about relationship without recognizing the importance of personal stories.

So this is the path I’m on… I am seeking a place that is in pursuit of the things I long for. If I can’t find a place like that, I’ll find some people who are in pursuit of the things I long for, and together we’ll create such a place. The path I’m on is the pursuit of these things I long for in the church.

Is this path a reaction to church? Partly. It would be easy to list the things I don’t like about the church and give that as the reason to leave… but that really misses the heart of it. Please understand that I’m not mad at the church. I have been frustrated, but the path I’m on puts an end to the frustration and helps me to be able to avoid getting mad. To unpack that a little, I’ve tried for several years to change things. Big things, small things, things that bug me, things I think are wrong. Let’s just say there’s resistance, and leave it at that for now. It does tell me that this church will never be what I hope for, and efforts to change it will only result in frustration and/or pain. In other words, no good will come from my efforts to change it… it is what it is. Now, I’m not dismissing the church or writing it off. On the contrary, I consider it a part of my heritage; for many years it was a rich part, and something for which I’m deeply thankful. On the other hand, I’ve reached the point where I long for different things than the things I longed for when I first signed on.

So the basic thing about this journey is the same as about any journey… it’s not about the place we’re leaving, it’s about the place we’re going. Even if we don’t know where we’re going; it wouldn’t be the first such journey instigated by God."

Rule-of-Life

one of the things we do in hOME is explore the idea of living by a rule-of-life. some of us explore it more than others! we spent a chunk of time working on it at the weekend away. there are a number of aspects to what we do in hOME that are influenced by the monastic tradition and this is one of them. it starts from a recognition that, left to our own devices, we don't live the way we would ideally like to live. we tend towards a lack of focus. a rule-of-life is a tool to help us to overcome this. we wanted our Rule to be one that was holistic in nature i.e. traditionally discipleship has been thought about in terms of the 'spiritual' parts of our lives. we wanted a tool that would help us to be whole-life disciples. so our Rule operates in 4 areas (see diagram below) which help us to be holistic. we make S.M.A.R.T. commitments in each of these areas that we ask the others in our huddles (small groups) to hold us accountable for. the 4 areas come with 4 questions:

Prayer: what are you doing to develop your relationship with God?
Mission: what are you doing to share in God's mission in the world?
Resources: what are you doing with the things you have?
Personal Development: what are you doing to help you grow as a person?

so we make commitments in each area in answering those questions. these are not things put on us by others but things that we choose for ourselves. for example, someone might commit to reading a psalm before getting out of bed each morning etc. we look to make the commitments rhythmic and sustainable. this is a TOOl. the goal is not to practice the Rule-of-Life. the goal is to get to the point where we have found a rhythm to our lives that we have internalised, that has become second nature to us, that we live out of, and that helps us to live the way we want to live.

one-life
Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

hOME weekend away ~2

we had a cracking weekend away last weekend at the Eton Dorney centre next to the river where apparently they are going to hold the rowing etc. if we win the bid to stage the Olympics in 2012. unfortunately we were limited to bringing 25 people due to the size of the centre but i think it was a good number to have (and we had a couple of day visitors - Kate and Elizabeth - on the Saturday). as a centre they were obviously more geared up for teenagers than adults which was illustrated by the fact that when we were welcomed to the centre on the friday night we were told that we weren't allowed to chew gum and it sounded like there was a curfew of 10.30pm! (althought i think i might have misunderstood that last point). still the staff were helpful and really understanding when we spilt candle wax on the carpet (I should probably own up and say it was ME, and i should also give credit where it's due and thanks Jon W who scraped it off amazingly well).
our focus for the weekend was 'mission' - looking particularly at how we need to understand mission in the light of the missio dei..the mission of God. In other words, when we talk about mission we are talking about God's mission. we looked at the focus of the missio dei - the world (for God so loved THE WORLD) - and the content of the missio dei (the renewal of all things in Christ, which was the work that God began on Easter Sunday morning in the resurrection of Christ (as the first-fruits). the mission of God includes movements of peace, justice, reconciliation, ecology etc. as well as the more traditional understanding of it being about calling and inviting people into relationship with God. we then looked at how all of that cashes out for us in hOME and we launched the idea of mission hUBS (tho some people had been operating in this way for a while - liek the poetry slam guys)....micro outward focused groups joining in with the mission of God to the world. we looked at 3 different areas that they would conceivably operate in: causes, compassion, and culture (to reflect the breadth of the missio dei) : and then broke into three groups to brainstorm these areas in more depth according to the passion that God has put into our hearts. there was some remarkably creative and diverse ideas coming out from the 3 groups which represented possible directions for our hUBS to go in. throughout the course of the rest of the weekend we made the 3 brainstorms available and people put their name next to the things that interested them. we're going to publish this somehow so people can see who else in the community is interested in the same things as they are, make the connections and take responsibility for the next step as we seek to see the community of hOME become a greater blessing to the world around us.
we also spent some time on Sunday examining our Rule-of-Life which i'll blog some more about in a separate post cos this one is already way too long.
it was great to start each day with morning prayer from the Anglican Liturgy, and also to celebrate communion together on Sunday morning.
all of that sounds very spiritual so i should also mention that we did go to the pub both nights, played wide games, had a pub quiz (but not at the pub), played football and Ultimate frisbee, celebrated birthdays, shared objects which represented hopes and dreams for the future for each of us, and generally had a good time!

weekendaway1
Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

what's in a name?!

i'm working on content material for the new hOME website and i've got to the ubiquitous 'Contacts' page. after putting in the usual caveat that this is not a list of who the important people are in the community i have gone on to list people by their functions (please refer back to earlier post about positional/functional leadership and relating that to categories of 'being' as well as 'doing')...Warden, Deacon, Archivist, Artist-in-Residence etc. the problem is that I have no idea what to call myself. i am quite enjoying the fact that it's a problem because perhaps there is some significance in that. perhaps titles have had their day. but i don't want to think of it as a title, more as a description (like the others i've mentioned above). and it is only for things like web sites. i mean no one is going to address me as 'Vicar Matt' etc. But what do i put? 'Pastor' is not going to work for me 'cos pastoral ministry is not my strength area (my wife will back me up on that one) tho I'm getting better. 'Leader' is too vague 'cos actually there are a lot of people in our community who that would apply to. my current favourite, to go with the monastic theme that is an important strand in our community, is 'Abbot' but i think it might be a bit daft. there is some interesting info about the origin and role of an Abbot here. any suggestions? (what an opportunity for those who want to take the bobba!)

Polycarp

well whaddya know! i was only talking about him in the pub last night and lo and behold today is the feast day of Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna. crazy! he was an important chap in the early church and a disciple of the Apostle John. read more about him here. (still meaning to blog about hOME weekend away but still haven't got round to it yet!).

COTA - Ordo CD

got my copy of the new Church of the Apostles CD this morning and have loaded it up onto iTunes and listening to it while i work (and blog!) this morning. so far i love it - it sounds really fresh when so much worship music these days sounds same-ey. and i am really impressed by the deep use of scripture in the songs. pretty much every line of the songs so far (I'm currently on track 7 of 13) is a direct quote from scripture. actually the words from track 7 come from Martin Luther! if it's true that songs shape our internal world far more quickly and perhaps effectively than the spoken word then having songs so steeped in scripture can only be a good thing. there is a remarkable resonance between what we are trying to build here in hOME, Oxford, and what's going on in Seattle with the Church of the Apostles, albeit with some differences in cultural expression (like our music is influenced more by club/chill out culture). i thank God for Karen and the Church of the Apostles and often find myself in conversation referring to them as being very close to us in their vision. And Karen, if you're reading this, I'm looking forward to hanging out this summer when you come over for Greenbelt. anyway, you can get the album here (and also listen to a couple of extracts). if you're purchasing from the UK then even with the shipping costs it's still remarkably cheap for a full length album thanks to the mighty pound! well worth it.

COTA - Ordo
Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

misheard lyrics

i'm gonna post about our exhausting but rockin weekend away soon but for now....Jon introduced me to a great web site at the weekend called amiright.com where people share lyrics they have misheard. this is one of my favourites so far: the song is the theme tune from 'Friends' and the line should be..."when it hasn't been your day, your month, or even your year"; but the misheard version goes..."when it hasn't been your day we all come home and wee in your ear". schoolboy humour? maybe but i would be even more concerned about what kind of person i had become if i didn't find that funny.

the 2nd annual hOME weekend away

a load of us are heading off today to the Eton Dorney Centre near Windsor for the 2nd annual hOME weekend away which we did for the first time around this time last year. last year we had to cook for ourselves, this year we're going upmarket - a bit - and having our meals cooked for us! we're going to focus on how we do mission from a starting point of an understanding of the missio dei (the mission of God) which I'm going to give some input into tonight. we've also asked people to bring with them an object that represents for them a hope or dream for the future. should be a fun weekend.

Eton Dorney Centre
Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

first online Lent Group session last night

Last night we had the first session of our online Lent Study Group at the Habbo Hotel. we were a little short on numbers - only 4 of us there - as some people couldn't make it but that may have been a blessing due to the rapidity of the conversation. anyway, it was a lot of fun. Chris showed up wearing a reindeer hat. jim looked surprisingly like his real life self. i was playing out a personal fantasy by giving myself big hair - an afro in fact. At least Naomi showed up as a girl and didn't completely reinvent herself! there was some waving and quite a lot of dancing. in fact as we drerw our discussion to a close we decided to all have one last dance together. as i sat looking at my computer screen i was cracking up! what a crazy world we live in. we expressed some frustrations with the book - Christina Baxter : 'The Wounds of Jesus' - but nevertheless managed to have some good conversation about corporate repentance and shouldering each others burdens. i think we need some furniture though. it's amazing how virtually uncomfortable you feel when you can't sit down in a virtual room!

habbo hotel
Originally uploaded by Matt Rees.

cat and mouse

our cat is very fascinated by the mouse (on my computer) - she sits on my lap while i work and watches it. sometimes she thinks about chasing it. i just thought that was funny. she's a postmodern cat - not interested in conventional mice anymore.

Common Worship Daily Prayer

as an Anglican Priest one is supposed to pray the daily office each day. over recent years i have discovered more and more of the power and importance of liturgical prayer and it has become a much more common feature of both my personal prayer life and the prayer life of our community. readers of this blog will know that i have been using the prayer book of the Northumbria Community for a while now. more recently i have discovered that the official Anglican daily prayer liturgy is available online (and updated daily with all the relevant scripture passages included). now i know it sounds crazy but since i made this discovery recently i have actually been using the official anglican daily office - sometimes i like to live on the edge. who'd have thought it - an anglican priest discovering the anglican daily prayer liturgy....it's a mad world. anyway, it's available here and i'll update my sidebar too.