wasn't expecting to like this...

I am not normally a man who delves very deeply into the world of modern-day soul, it's not normally on my musical radar. I was surprised - I'm not sure why - to hear that U2 had recorded a version of their song 'One' with Mary J Blige. Then I heard it in Vancouver and it absolutely blew me away. Got straight on the net and downloaded it from iTunes. If you haven't heard it...boy...the girl can sing. It's even brought a tear to my eye. So...there's no accounting for taste...maybe I should explore further (and while I'm at it I could go the whole hog and 'pimp my ride' - can you do that to a Honda Civic?!).

San Francisco

The last leg of our trip - San Francisco - was, again like Vancouver and Seattle, fantastic. As previously mentioned (below) we had found a great hotel on the web - right in the heart of the city just off Market Street.
On our first day there we walked around Haight Ashbury which of course was the centre of the whole 60's hippie counterculture - nowadays more of a hippy museum than anything else but still worth a look anyway. We hired some bikes and cycled round Golden Gate park & saw the Japanese tea garden and De Young museum - well worth doing. We also sat and chilled out in the Panhandle - a smaller park nearby where Hendrix played in the Summer of Love in 1968.
It was great to connect with Mark Scandrette and his household and we had dinner at their place in the Mission District that night.
Day 2 was spent taking a look at Grace Cathedral, then lunch with Bob Carlton, Chinatown, and North Beach - particularly City Lights Bookstore owned by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and the centre of the Beat scene in the 50's and early 60's. City Lights - the first bookstore to sell paperbacks in the States - was the epicentre of that whole scene, getting raided for selling banned books, Ginsberg and Kerouac hanging out etc. Here's a shot of me outside it:
So we rode up and down on the Cable Cars - went all the way down to Fisherman's Wharf and saw Alcatraz from a distance.
Day 3 we hired a car and drove out of the city - over Golden Gate Bridge (see pic above) and into Marin County. Stopped in Sausalito for lunch, found a great beach, drove for a while up Highway 1 before heading back over the bridge to the city where we found another great beach at the end of Golden Gate Park. had a quiet night as it was our last and we had to get up early to catch the plane to Vancouver for our connection back home.
San Francisco is a wonderful city - colourful and creative, great to look at, fascinating. I have wanted to go ever since seeing The Last Waltz (and by the way I saw THE guitar that Robbie Robertson played in TLW in The Experience Museum in Seattle - how excited was I!).
I was sad to leave and really hope to be able to go back.

Seattle

So - I finally get around to blogging the rest of the trip (now that we are back in the UK and we've got our jet-lag on). First up (following Vancouver (see post below)) - Seattle.
We had such a good time there. Very people intensive. Karen picked us up (we took the boat from Vancouver Island) and we headed straight to Brouer's Bar where they have the finest selection of Belgian ales known to man.
We were staying in the COTA Abbey (pictured) in the Fremont area (North Seattle), courtesy of our good friend Abbess karen. It was great to see how creatively they use the space and also to see their plans for the future of the building - transforming it into a totally multi-functional arts/community/worship/cafe space.
So we were there for the day conference on new-monasticism that COTA hosted, and it was great to connect with guys from the east coast - Shane Claiborne and Amber from The Simple Way in Philadelphia, and Chris and Cassie Haw from Camden House in Camden, New Jersey - and to hear about their communities, as well as hearing about the monastic element of COTA. I shared a little of our journey in the monastic tradition here in hOME, Oxford.

I think it's true to say that the East Coast guys represented one stream of new-monasticism (probably Franciscan - very involved in living amongst the poor as the primary expression of their faith (and it was amazing to hear the kind of radical lives they are living in community) - and COTA and hOME representing another stream of new-monasticism (probably Benedictine - more of an emphasis on prayer and spiritual practices). At some point I would like to develop further this idea of the different streams of new-monasticism as reflections of the different streams of classic monasticism - where are the new-Dominicans, the new-Jesuits etc.??

On the Thursday evening - after the new-monasticism day - we headed to the COTA Theology pub (in Ye Olde English authentic pub called 'The Reading Gaol' - v kitsch, especially with Pip actually coming from Reading) with Travis in the chair.

The Friday and Saturday were spent participating in Tom and Christine Sine's 'Church has Left the Building' conference along with Mark Pierson, the guys from Thursday, Rachelle Mee-Chapman, and plenty of others who I hadn't met before. It was a good time. Mark and I had a little freak out moment when we both thought we were covering the same material in our repsective seminars - both drawing from the 'slow food' movement - but as it turned out, he was taking it in a worship direction (local tastes and flavours etc) whereas I was talking about spiritual formation.

My seminar seemed to go well (you can never really tell - Christians are always so nice!) but, rather ironically as I was talking about slow-church, I seriously struggled to keep to time and had to rush through some of the interactive stuff that I had planned to linger longer on.
Perhaps I shouldn't have spent the first 5 mins talking about The Waltons but I couldn't resist it after I found a great rocking chair which I decided to sit and rock on whilst doing the talk (see pic - I know, it looks like I've rocked myself to sleep!).
Pip was worried that my Bristish humour (and that of Eddie Izzard of whom I showed a couple of clips) wouldn't translate. But people seemed to laugh in the right places. Again, perhaps they were just being kind!
Anyway, the material was a kind of theological reflection on mine/our journey over the last number of years from what I would call a 'fast-church' model (un-reconstructed charismatic-evangelical) - using phrases like 'revival fatigue' and 'spiritual viagra' - to a more blended-spirituality that I was calling 'slow-church'. This isn't the place to unpack all the points I was making. Another time maybe.
So it was fun to connect with people from Evergreen church in Portland, and also Nadia from Colorado (who I had met previously when she and her husband Matthew had visited the UK recently) - all of whom were also staying in the Abbey.

Anyway, we finished the conference with a meal at the Sine's house along with the other participants. And then on Sunday we took a look around the Fremont area (including the famous 'Fremont Troll' - thanks for the tip Sue!) before the COTA Taize service.

Then after a fantastic meal out on Sunday night with Karen and Travis (see photo), on Monday morning Travis took us to the airport for our flight to San Francisco.
At some point I'll put a flickr album up. Well done for reading such a long post!

San Francisco update

I'm going to blog about the last week which we've spent in Seattle - which was great - in the next post but just wanted to do a quick update on where we're at now.
We flew into San Francisco this lunch-time and headed downtown to find our hotel. Having found it you can only imagine my joy when I discovered that it was literally spitting distance from the main Apple store in town (Market Street) - the mother ship - or as Karen called it last night - The Vatican (see picture). I write this entry from there. So if any of you emerging church mac addict types are planning to visit San Francisco may I recommend our hotel : The Mosser - a funky little boutique hotel that even has a built in recording studio for some reason.
So - thanks to Karen (our fantastic introductions agent!) - we are hoping to hook up with Mark Scandrette (dinner at his place tomorrow night) and Bob Carlton while we're in town. It's great to be part of the global emerging church family - friends in every town!
Anyway, when I get a chance I'll blog Seattle.

Vancouver

I'm posting this from a coffee shop in Seattle - opposite Fremont Abbey (see next post) but I thought I'd take the opportunity to update my blog with news of our trip so far. This is my first time to N America and also the longest flight I've ever done, so the jet lag was a bit of a nightmare but it was good to be in a hotel with a pool etc. for very early morning swims when I couldn't sleep etc. This image is the view from our hotel room overlooking the harbour in downtown Vancouver. We could watch the sea-planes take off and land and see the mountains to the north.
We loved Vancouver - it's such a great city. We hired bikes one day and cycled round Stanley Park - fantastic - round the shoreline to Yaletown (a very funky area). There is literally a Starbucks on almost every corner in Vancouver and as breakfast in our hotel was very expensive (we found out on the first morning) we had breakfast in the Starbucks round the corner from our hotel each morning.
On our last night we had dinner in the revolving restaurant at the top of our hotel which gave us a great 360 degree view of the city. On our last day we went to the aquarium and saw the dolphins, the biggest sea-lion known to man (chernobyl sea-lion I called it), balooga's, sea-otters etc.
Then we took the boat to Vancouver Island where we were staying with an old college friend of Pip's - Maila - and her family: husband Rob and little daughter Teija (+ dog and 2 cats). They live in a classic N American house with a porch etc. - just like in the Waltons! Here's a pic:

We had a great time with them - spent two afternoons on the beach, went to the iMax cinema one night, out for dinner etc.. Vancouver Island is actually the same size as England+Scotland - not the small island I was imagining.
I've put a set of photos on flickr here.
We then took the boat from Victoria down to Seattle - where we are now - for the next leg of the trip which I'll blog about in the next entry. Tomorrow we go to San Francisco for the last leg of the trip.

Holy Saturday Service of Vows + Easter Sunday

Those who track this blog will know that yesterday was a very significant day in the life of the hOME community here in Oxford. We had a 'Service of Vows' at Dorchester Abbey (a very old monastic site just outside Oxford). We had Bishop Colin with us and many renewed their baptismal vows and 8 of us made monastic vows of simplicity, purity, accountability and presence (our versions of poverty, chastity, obedience and stability) for the year to come. These 8 form the first ever hOME Chapter and I am thankful to God for my brothers and sisters who form the stable core at the heart of hOME in what is a very transitory culture. I have uploaded a flickr set of photos (taken by Jim) here.
This morning (Easter) we had a really great, mellow, Resurrection Breakfast - fruit, pastries, coffee etc. by the river at the end of our garden, and then an easter egg hunt, followed by a service of prayer and meditations in our house. We had a long length of muslin - representing the grave clothes - that we laid over each of us where we sat, and then we went through the service - prayers, the lectionary texts, a visual meditation using a great video (from highwayvideo.com) + the track 'early' by Chicane, a reading from Tom Wright, and a meditation using the questions : 'where do we need to see resurrection in our lives/world?' and 'where can we already see signs of resurrection?', and then we finished with a eucharist. tops.
This afternoon I'm trying to put the finishing touches on my seminar 'slow church' for the conference in Seattle - tomorrow we fly to Vancouver. phew!

The Great Triduum (or 'the great 3 days')

Next year I want Holy Week to be more Holy rather than the week I run around like a headless chicken trying to get lots of services prepared!
However, really looking forward to:
Good Friday Prayer Gathering this afternoon including Stations of the Cross Meditation.
Holy Saturday Service of the Vows : tomorrow afternoon in Dorchester Abbey with the Bishop -
people renewing baptismal vows with some of us making year long new-monastic vows (with the
hope being that these will be renewed each Easter, but this is the first time).
Resurrection Breakfast on Sunday morning with a service of prayer and meditation following.
Then, the day after, i.e. Easter Monday, Pip and I are heading off for 3 weeks to Vancouver (week 1), Seattle (week 2, where we will be hooking up with Karen and the COTA crew, staying at their Abbey, and participating in their new monasticism conference and I'll be doing a workshop ('Slow Church') at the Tom and Christine Sine 'The Church Has Left the Building' conference), and then on to San Francisco (week 3), before flying back to the UK.
It was nuts to think about doing this trip the day after Easter (won't do that again) - but really looking forward to it all the same.

p.s. apologies to all who have been waiting with bated breath for my next thrilling blog post - our 'upgraded' broadband line at home has been down for around 6 weeks now! Good old British Telecom.

hOME Chapter Retreat at Burford Priory

I have been a very poor blogger recently due to ongoing broadband issues at our house (my advice - don't ask for a line speed upgrade unless you really need one as it might take a month to put right).
Anyway, just had a fantastic weekend at Burford Priory Some of you will know that in hOME we have a special service coming up on Holy Saturday (the day between Good Friday and Easter Monday) at Dorchester Abbey where some will be renewing baptismal vows and, in addition, others will be making a form of Monastic Vows for the year to come - vows of simplicity, purity, accountability, and presence (our versions of the traditional monastic vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and stability). The idea is that we will renew the vows each year at Easter. Those making the vows will be given a cross to wear by the Bishop with 4 knots on the cord representing the 4 vows.
Those who take the vows will form the Chapter within hOME to serve and bless the wider community. Membership of the Chapter has been open to anyone who feels called by God to explore this path, and the provisional Chapter has been gathering through Lent to write the Vows and the Rule that we will all hold in common. Once formed the Chapter will elect an Abbot.
Part of this Chapter formation process has been the weekend just gone in Burford Priory - a wonderful Benedictine Monastery where we stayed for 2 nights, prayed with Brothers and Sisters 5 times a day, ate meals with the community in silence whilst being read to (so not technically silence then!) and had some group time with the Abbot there - Brother Stuart.
Your prayers are apprciated - particularly for the one or two who are still wrestling with whether or not to go ahead and make the vows for the year to come.

Sigur Ros tonight

off to see Sigur Ros at the Hammersmith Apollo in London tonight. Can't wait. Also can't wait for the ADSL to get fixed on our landline. Sort it out BT! Can't take much more of dial-up. If I'd have known getting a speed upgrade on our line would cause this much grief I'm not sure if I would have bothered. Remember kids - faster ain't always better.

Pray as you Go

I am very disappointed with Simon Kirby who I saw yesterday for not tipping us all off earlier to Pray as You Go which is a 10 minute daily podcast for lent produced by the Jesuits in the UK. I haven't listened in yet but apparently each day there is some prayers, music, meditation suggestions etc. It lasts about 10 minutes and a new one is produced each day. So I guess I will just pick up from today's podcast rather than try to work through the backlog.

Fasting and Feasting (or - what having a beer can teach you about the kingdom of God)

As those of us from the more liturgical end of the church know, we are in the middle of the season of Lent. And, of course, with Lent being a penitential season it is customary to fast.
This Lent I am fasting alcohol. For me this fast is a good balance between being something genuinely sacrificial - I enjoy a drink and the two times so far this lent I have been out for a curry it's been murder not to have the customary pint of beer with it (I mean, curry without lager is like Morecombe without Wise, Torvill without Dean or Tom without Jerry - you get the idea!)...Jim (who is also fasting alcohol) and I tried Kaliber (a non-alcoholic beer) with our curry the other week but it was disgusting) - but on the other hand it's not so debilitating that the fast becomes the focus of everything (like it can do when you are fasting food etc.)
Lent is 40 days long and runs from Ash Wednesday to Maundy Thursday - but it doesn't include the Sundays in between: those are feast days.
So we don't fast on Sundays because on those days (even in the penitential season of Lent) we remember the resurrection.
So I have a beer or two on Sundays.
At first I just thought - "great, a day off!" but the deeper we get into this season I have started to appreciate the rich theological resonance created by Sundays being a feast day not a fast day.
Not that I get drunk on Sundays or anything like that! But enjoying a beer or two on Sundays in contrast to the rest of the week when I am tee-total really speaks to me about the celebrative dimension of the Kingdom of God and the 'age to come' (which of course is breaking into this present age). When I have a beer on a Sunday night (I would be worried if I reached over for a beer when the alarm went off on Sunday morning - just cos it was Sunday and I could!) I am reminded of the new, resurrection life of the Kingdom - and I give thanks.

if microsoft re-packaged the iPod

here.

Spiritual Direction

Recently I have felt led by God to offer spiritual direction to anyone who would find it helpful. Yesterday I had my first session with a person who asked me about it. I felt it was a really good beginning and a real privilege to come alongside and begin to listen to the movement of God in this persons life. I tried to make it clear that our time together wouldn't necessarily be about me dispensing spiritual wisdom but more to do with me joining this person in a very intentional way for the next part of their journey as a human being and helping to discern what God is doing in their life.
If there is anyone else in the Oxford area who reads this blog and who would find this useful to them then do get in touch - matt@home-online.org

Album Leaf videos

readers of this blog will know that I am a huge fan of the beautiful atmospheric ambience of The Album Leaf (aka Jimmy Lavalle). There are videos of a couple of tracks - 'Malmo' and 'Another Day'- available here (along with clips from a whole load of other peeps that I've never heard of!)

Oscars Party

today I am desperately trying to avoid hearing any news on the Oscars last night (so I am not reading any blogs just in case) as tonight Jim is hosting an Oscars party. He recorded the awards ceremony last night and a bunch of us are getting together to watch the highlights (i.e. skipping the ads and the awards for 'best sound recording in a nature documentary' - that sort of thing). Perhaps there should have been a dress code and jim should have required us to come dressed as if we were receiving an award (cos Jim does look great in a dress).

Pop Music Profundity

The Arctic Monkeys - hottest new brit band - explore the eastern apophatic theological tradition with their debut album 'Whatever People Say I Am, that's What I'm Not". Seeing that people are saying that they are fantastic perhaps they would like the chance to rename their album.
More pop profundity in evidence this week with Beyonce releasing a single ('Check Up On It') which seems to be an entire song dedicated to her ass.

good day/bad day

I read an interview with Douglas Coupland recently where he said that every morning he goes out and buys lots of newspapers - if they all have the same headline we're in trouble, if they have different headlines he knows we'll be ok for another day.

good night and good luck

Went to see this last night and was surprised at how little I enjoyed it. I thought Mark Kermode- may he live forever - made a good point (in his review of The Constant Gardener) when he said that sometimes if a film carries a worthy or important message we can feel compelled to say that it is a good film. That's how I felt about Good Night and Good Luck : loved the message (how important the freedom to dissent is in a society) but the film-making choices didn't work for me at all - not a single exterior shot, hardly any wide shots, no soundtrack (apart from the few Jazz songs that were used to break up the monotonous pace) - and by the way, isn't it interesting to see how much we have come to rely on soundtracks in films to dictate the pace and the mood...to tell us how we are supposed to be feeling - all these things added up to a not particularly enjoyable filmgoing experience for me.
But then again, what do we go to the movies for? to be entertained (which I wasn't) or to be informed (which I guess I was).
I am surprised, though, that this film has made it into the nominations for the Oscar for best film. I can only think (as Chris pointed out in the pub afterwards) that perhaps that is because of the parallels with the possible current erosion of civil liberties under Bush and Blair in their war on terror and the thinking that whoever is not for us is against us - which is very McCarthy-ite.

I hate.....

....finishing a season of 24!!!

ash wednesday

video funny

If you are easily offended by 'toilet humour' this may not be the one for you (also avoid if you don't think Christians should poke fun at the church)...but this video (of 'the farting preacher') is hilarious. Thanks to Chris for the tip off. (Mac users will need Windows Media Player for Mac)

Guy Kawasaki on 'creating community'

Jason Clark recently turned me on to this fella - Guy Kawasaki - who used to work for Apple but now, I'm not exactly sure what he does....write books by the looks of things. His blog is fascinating. He's coming from a kind of corporate management angle - which I know is a huge turn off for those of us walking away from a CEO style of church leadership - but I think he's got some real wisdom that is definitely apply-able to church. His latest post is called 'The Art of Creating Community'. He makes 8 suggestions:
1. Create something worth building a community around
2. Identify and recruit your thunderlizards—immediately! (evangelists for your 'product')
3. Assign one person the task of building a community (questionable in our case but he's talking about someone who wakes up in the morning with the building of the community at the top of her/his priorities for the day)
4. Give people something concrete to chew on. (i.e. make the community 'open source' so that people can re-code it for themselves)
5. Create an open system (giving people tools to tweak what's going on)
6. Welcome criticism
7. Foster discourse
8. Publicize the existence of the community
If you can see past the corporate overtones and look for the undertones (great name for a band) then there's something worth taking from this I think. Read the full piece here.

football (non sports fans look away now)

for the first time in I don't know how long, Spurs are in with a shout of a decent league placing and possibly european football next season as a result. The teams seriously vying with us for 4th place are Arsenal and Bolton (I am discounting West Ham because I honestly don't believe they can keep their run going). I have been looking at the remaining games and trying to predict the points haul for Spurs, Arsenal and Bolton from their remaining games to see how things will end up. Here are my predictions:

Arsenal
v Blackburn (a) 1
v Fulham (a) 1
v Liverpool (h) 1
v Charlton (h) 3
v Portsmouth (a) 3
v Aston Villa (h) 3
v Man Utd (a) 0
v West Brom (h) 3
v Man City (a) 3
v Spurs (h) 1
v Sunderland (a) 3
v Wigan (h) 3
= 25 more points
= total of 66 points (4th place)

Spurs

v Wigan (h) 3
v Blackburn (h) 3
v Chelsea (a) 0
v Birmingham (a) 3
v West Brom (h) 3
v Newcastle (a) 0
v Man City (h) 3
v Everton (a) 0
v Man Utd (h) 1
v Aresenal (a) 1
v Bolton (h) 1
v West Ham (a) 1
= 19 more points
= total of 64 points (5th place)

Bolton
v Fulham (h) 3
v Newcastle (a) 1
v West Ham (h) 3
v Sunderland (h) 3
v Middlesborough (a) 1
v Man Utd (h) 1
v Liverpool (a) 0
v Chelsea (h) 0
v West Brom (a) 1
v Charlton (h) 3
v Spurs (a) 0
v Birmingham (h) 3
= 19 more points
= total of 58 points (6th place)

so it looks like Arsenal could pip us to 4th place and the final Champions League spot. If that happens I will be gutted and be looking back to the final minutes of the game at home to West Ham when we conceded an equaliser (thereby losing 2 points) in the final minute, as we also did against Sunderland last Sunday. Those goals and therefore those points, I predict, will be the difference between us playing in the Champions League and the Uefa Cup next season.
It's all an improvement on last year but it'll be a shame to miss out on the CL by a couple of points.
Any other football fans like to disagree with my prognosis?

generalising

I am really enjoying this book - it's a very helpful survey of what's going on and the common themes that emerge from what's going on. i've already found it useful in clarifying my thinking, particularly when there's stuff you know intuitively but you haven't quite put it into words yet. There have been plenty of those moments.
But one aspect of the book disappoints and frustrates me and that is that it seems to continually generalise and perhaps doesn't recognise the diversity of approaches that are going on. Continually we are told that "emerging churches do this" or "emerging churches do that" or "such and such is important to emerging churches". I know for a fact that there is more diversity that this in the emerging church community.
They are doing a great job at picking out important themes, and Andrew Jones is probably right that this is the best book yet on the 'emerging church' but they just need to be more careful about some of their language I feel. Does this resonate with anyone else who has read the book?

Maclaren resonds (or perhaps 'Maclaren gives lesson in how to engage in a conversation')

Thankfully, after Mark Driscoll's awful, unkind post (see my blog entry below), Brian Maclaren has now responded here: an example if ever we needed one (and it would seem that we do) of how to engage in conversation/debate in an irenic, humble, and kind way. Remember people, it's not just about being right.

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

some of you will know that the small christian community that I am a part of here in Oxford - 'home' (www.home-online.org) - are in negotiations to buy the lease on a small, independent cinema in Oxford.

We plan to refurbish it and continue to run it as a cinema but then use it for church on Sunday nights - that way it will function as a home for our community and also both a missional and cultural interface. A missional interface in the sense that we expect around 18,000 attendees at films throughout the year who will hear about the church, and missional also in that we will use the cinema as a base for serving and blessing the local community. A cultural interface as our church becomes a patron of the arts (we would hope to show the work of local film-makers etc.) as well as making a contribution to the conversations that are engendered by films in our culture (especially given the important role that cinema has in reflecting and contructing narratives).

We are busy putting together business plans for funding applications, loans and grants but it is clear that although once set up the project will be self financing, the initial purchase of the lease and assets is going to require a fairly significant capital investment.

So we are looking for funders - people who believe in the project as outlined above (and I will happily talk further about it), who can see with the eyes of faith the potential, and who are able and willing to invest financially in the mission and ministry of our community. If that describes you, then please get in touch with me at matt@home-online.org

how not to engage in conversation

Mark Driscoll is the pastor of Mars Hill Church (a Very Important church apparently). In this article he clearly demonstrates how NOT to go about having a helpful conversation on an important subject. Thanks Mark! You can find my comments about half way down.

that bloke's a nutter

I always think it's odd when people walk down the street smiling to themselves but today I became one of them. But it's very difficult not to do so when you're listening to the Ricky Gervais podcast (also available through iTunes). I walked through the city centre trying very hard not to laugh out loud and look like a complete nutter.

The Church Has Left the Building

Really looking forward to heading out to Vancouver and Seattle in April. We plan to spend some time in Vancouver and Vancouver Island and then head down to Seattle where we will be at the Church of the Apostles New Monasticism Learning Party (and it will be great to hang out with Karen and the other Apostles) and then I'll be taking part in Tom and Christine Sine's Mustard Seed Associates 'The Church Has Left the Building' 2 day conference. I am planning on doing a workshop/seminar on the subject 'Slow Church' drawing from the philosophy behind the whole 'Slow' movement (slow food etc.). Should be fun.

apple logo

has anyone else ever wondered whether there was any intentional link between the apple logo and the Genesis account of Adam and Eve eating from the tree of the knowledge fo good and evil? or do i need to get out more?

Spinal Tap

I am delighted to discover that my Spinal Tap DVD contains a commentary done by Spinal Tap IN CHARACTER. I've had the disc for ages without knowing it contained it. It is truly hilarious.

meChurch

where it's all about you. see here.

a weekend of films and film stars

had a pretty film-heavy weekend. started to feel a bit like a Jake Gylenhaal stalker as I saw him in Brokeback Mountain on Friday night (with Pippa and Suzie) and Jarhead last night (with Rich). Enjoyed both films. I think Brokeback Mountain is a landmark film as we're used to seeing gay characters in films but they are usually quite camp. This is the first film that I can remember seeing (though there must be others?) where the gay characters aren't.
The problem is that it's far too easy to pigeon-hole the camp variety. Brokeback Mountain doesn't allow you to do that, which makes it a far more intriguing film. And very sad.
Really enjoyed Jarhead too (for those not in the know, it's Sam Mendes' (American Beauty, beau of Kate Winslet) new film). Set against the backdrop of the first Gulf War it raises some interesting questions about the futility of war. It definitely seemed that some in the cinema failed to pick up on such subtleties. You've got to worry when the young guys in the seats behind you know the names of the guns!
The day was topped off with a fine curry with Rich and Chris, although we were Grouchy Old Men as we had to sit near to a long table of very loud teenage girls. Then as they left we noticed that one of them was Hermione from Harry Potter. Which didn't make them less annoying.

Lewis

those who know me well know I am a huge Inspector Morse fan (one of those little idiosyncracies that either make me interesting or, more likely, a bit of a loser!). Anyway, the much-anticipated spin-off based on Morse's old side-kick, Lewis, will soon be on the telly. There's an interview with kevin Whately, the actor who plays Lewis, here. The show is on Sunday 29th January.

the most perfect song

my friend Rich thinks the most perfect song ever is 'Fake Plastic Trees' by Radiohead. It's a fine song but I think the accolade should probably go to 'Lover You Should've Come Over' by Jeff Buckley. Perhaps we are both wrong. what do you think?

the cult of mac

ok - i obviously can't afford the just announced MacBook Pro but I set aside some money given to me at Christmas to wait and see what Steve Jobs announced today in San Francisco so I've just ordered the new adapter for the iPod (which charges it and hooks it up to your hi-fi) + the tiny remote control that goes with it. sweet. if you too feel so inclined, go here, although judging by the slowness of the apple site at the moment there are a lot of people doing so.

Stop Press : new Mac laptop...

just announced by Jobs - the Macbook Pro...with intel chips, remote control, built in iSight camera. fastest laptop ever. Lordy.

Top Win

Sometimes you just can't beat going down the pub, having a couple of pints with a good mate (good to see you Jim) and watching your team win away from home. well done everyone involved in a thoroughly enjoyable evening!

It's good to walk

The hOME New Year's Day Walk has turned into something of a tradition - i.e. we've now done it 3 times. Had a fine time the other day at near Dorchester where we walked up Wittenham Clumps (the theme song for the day seemed to be "my clumps, my clumps, my lovely Wittenham clumps"! - those of you that have been lucky enough to not hear the latest Black Eyed Peas single will have no idea what I'm talking about). The New Year's Day Walk has become a familiar orientation point for me in my mental world. It's a time to think back to the last one and all that has happened in between and also to think about who was there last year and has since moved on - to call them to mind so that they still live on in the memory of our community.

Paris

we had a great few days in Paris courtesy of Suzie whose Godfather has a flat there (thanks Suze). Saw the usual sights - Eiffel Tower (wonderfully lit up), Musee D'orsay (fantastic collection of Russian art), Les Deux Magots cafe in Saint Germain district (haunt of Hemingway, Satre and de Beauvoir), the outside of the Louvre, Sacre Couer, as well as some great meals out and general walking around. Also saw the new Woody Allen - Match Point - which Pippa and Suzie loved but I wasn't that sure about. Also found a fantastic bar - Au Trappistes - with a great selection of Belgian Abbey Ales. Had a Beelzebub and thought of Karen! Doing 190mph on Eurostar through the northern french countryside was something as well.

Attention Mac Users

i've been having a play around with a new web browser made by Mozilla (makers of Firefox) and made for use exclusively on macs ("mozilla power, mac style"). It's called 'Camino' and so far I'm pretty impressed. It's fast and it's got some great features (like being able to search your history etc.) You can also instruct Camino to not only block pop-ups but also screen out adverts on web pages, which it does pretty well. Fellow Mac users go here to check it out.
Secondly, most Mac users know that Steve Jobs' keynote speech from Macworld San Francisco is the one to watch so I thought I would remind us all that it's happening on Tuesday January 10th at 9am (5pm UK time). You can normally watch a webcast of it pretty soon afterwards on the Apple site. We wait with bated breath to see what he's going to announce this year.

Paris Today

sorry about the lack of a 'Happy Christmas to all my readers' post. have been at my parents house in N Wales for a few days. got back to Oxford last night and today we are heading off to Paris for a few days on Eurostar. We have a friend who has an uncle who has a flat in the Latin quarter, so we get to stay in a top location for free...which is nice.

Ricky Gervais podcast

very funny! go here for RSS feed and links to previous episodes you may have missed.
UPDATE : having just listened to episode 2 it's not for the faint-hearted!

definitely my favourite advent image

i think it speaks for itself.

Re:mix. Re:make. Re:configure. Re:consider.

I'm loving this! San Francisco creative collective Rebar paid the parking meter for a couple of hours in a built up area of downtown San Francisco and used the time to create a garden in the parking space figuring that the time was theirs to do whatever they wanted to with it. Passers by fed the meter to keep it all going, and some sat down on the bench, read the paper, chatted...
I think it's a wonderful idea - a real image of redemption for me. It kinda reminds me of Isaiah's garden in the desert. More info and some wonderful pics here.
Thanks to Jonny for the link.

'9'

We had a great end to the hOME year last night at our carol service - a service of 9 lessons and carols - (idea knicked from Jonny and Grace's re-interpretation of this old tradition). We borrowed a fantastic old Oxford Movement/Anglo-Catholic revival church (as it was set back from the road some of our guys made a brilliant illuminated walkway using tea-lights in jam jars to lead to the church door) for the night (perfect ambience for some pre-service Sigur Ros), lit it, fired up the projectors, dusted off the mirror-ball, and then 9 members of the hOME community re-interpreted the 9 traditional readings.
They were all great - but I particularly enjoyed Jules's use of 'Planet Telex' by Radiohead in the first reading (from Genesis) - "everything is broken, everyone is broken", Esme's dramatic soundscape (which she made herself using Pro Tools) of what the shepherds might have heard on the hillside the night the angels appeared, Chris's imaginative story helping us to put ourselves in Mary's place, and Julet's movement piece (to Nitin Sawnhey) where she danced while holding a light and started high up on the balcony and then moved down and in amongst the congregation to represent Christ the light of the world coming to earth and presencing himself amongst us.
But mentioning these items particularly makes it sound like the others weren't any good, which of course is not true. It's just that some of the pieces impacted me more than others.
Tom did a great job on the music front - unearthing some fantastic re-workings of Christmas carols by electronic composer Mars Lasar (you can find him if you search in iTunes) as well as contributing some of his own pieces. So we ended up singing 9 re-worked carols too which was great.
That was our last service of the year and it felt like a good end to an eventful 12 months.
more pictures are available here.

Churches decide not to bother with Christmas

Apparently some of the mega-churches in the U.S. have decided not to have a service on Christmas day. I say 'why stop there?' Why not go the whole hog and stop celebrating Easter as well? Of course, this is slightly hypocritical of me as our little church has its last service of the year tomorrow night (our carol service - see here for more info) and won't be having a service on Christmas Day. But we were planning to until we realised that hardly any of our small congregation was going to be around. We are small. Willow Creek has a congregation of around 20,000. What's their excuse? Read the whole story here.

Sufjan Stevens Christmas Tunes

absolutely loving the Sufjan Stevens Christmas songs available for download free (for some reason!) here. Thanks to Jonny for the link. I think we'll be using some of these at our Carol Service this coming Sunday.

we do romance too

Just back from a fantastic 24 hour wedding anniversary break at The Falkland Arms (winner of countless Real Ale awards) in a beautiful, classic English, village called Great Tew in North Oxfordshire. Any townie looking for a romantic (4 poster beds etc.) get-away should give it a try.

which '24' character are you?

take the test here!

Holiness

I have been reflecting a little on the Advent Sunday lectionary readings for last Sunday and the coming Sunday. There's a lot in there about John the Baptist. He makes the comparison between himself and Jesus - 'I baptise with water, one comes after me who will bapstise you with the Holy Spirit'. I wonder whether John's baptism has to do with turning from something and Jesus' baptism (with the Holy Spirit) has to do with embracing something.
It's not enough just to turn/repent, we also need to embrace.
I think my concept of holiness for too long has been to do with NOT doing certain things - i.e. defined by absence. I wonder whether I/we need to rediscover (cos there's nothing new) a concept of holiness that has to do with DOING things (that are good) rather than NOT doing things that are bad. i.e. defined by presence (of good things).
You can either try to remove the air from a jam jar by sucking it out or by filling it full of water. i know which one is easier.

Ancient-Future Time

My office is just behind the Christian Bookshop in East Oxford. I pop in once a week for my copy of the Church Times (oh I am so Anglican!). Normally for buying books I use Amazon, or, being in Oxford, we have a fantastic selection of bookshops in the city centre. But this book - 'Ancient-Future Time' - caught my eye so I picked up a copy.
I know that Robert Webber is 'Mr Ancient-Future' (has he TM'd the phrase yet!) and this is one of a zillion books he seems to have published with that phrase in the title, but as we are at the beginning of a new liturgical year I thought he might have some interesting to say about a spirituality that is formed by the seasons of the church year. we'll see.

Teaching Team

we're looking for some new models for how we do teaching at hOME. Last night we had the inaugural meeting of the newly formed hOME Teaching Team.
The idea is to explore some more collaborative teachings styles. At the beginning of each month those with an interest or a sense of calling to wrestle with and teach the scriptures in the context of our community will gather to look at the Sunday lectionary texts for the following month (so last night we were looking at the texts for January). Out of the creative discussion that follows ideas and themes will emerge which people can then take away and shape up into talks (and the plan is that some people will work in pairs etc. and think of creative ways of helping the gathered community to engage with the texts).
We had a really great first meeting. To me, as someone who has spent many hours over recent years sitting alone in a room trying to come up with some interesting and spiritually nourishing things to say from a text, to work on texts in a group setting was a very rich way to approach the task of doing a talk. Especially if, like me, you are an extrovert processor. We were finding that there was a real synergy to this approach as one person tossed out an idea which someone else then developed and added to.
And I like the idea of broadening the teaching base and democratizing it a bit more - taking it out of the exclusive domain of the 'professionals' and releasing more people with a gift/desire/passion for this work, to learn together and from each other.

Sigur Ros

Sigur Ros are playing a one off show at the Hammersmith Apollo in London on March 29th. pre-sale tickets go on sale today. i'm tempted but £25 a ticket seems a bit steep to me.

There's only one Edgar Davids

As a Spurs fan I couldn't let Edgar Davids' first goal for Tottenham go unmentioned on this blog. For my money he is still one of the standout players in world football and he is doing a great job for Spurs. It was great to see him really enjoying scoring his first goal for the club on Saturday.

Bulldog

In the process of switching our broadband and phone over to Bulldog who are offering 8 meg broadband for £9.75 per month. The offer expires at the end of November so get your skates on if you're tempted.

Advent Sunday

Yesterday, of course, was Advent Sunday - the beginning of the church year. A season of anticipation and expectancy. We had our regular Eucharist but added some Advent spice with a short candle lighting ritual at the beginning using the U2 track '40' (in darkness) followed by the Delirious track 'There is a light that shines in the darkness' (I know - I've lost all my emerging church kudos by mentioning Delirious...woops) as Pippa lit the 'Christ' candle at the back of the room and walked into the circle of sofas and then lit each person's candle. Simple but effective. We sang some of our home-grown songs (and it was good to have Martin singing for the first time), read the lectionary readings and Suzie shared some reflections on 'Watching, Waiting and Hoping' (I particularly enjoyed her tie in with the 'buy now pay later'/instant gratification culture we live in). We then prayed the eucharist liturgy together (and Jim has brought back a fantastic chalice and patten from Iona for us to use).
One of the things that I was most pleased about last night was the way people lingered after the service had 'officially' ended and prayed for each other without it being 'organised'. We have been struggling for a while to find some natural ways to incorporate 'prayer ministry' (for want of a better phrase) into our services without reverting to the overly hyped-up practices of many charismatic churches. It was great to see people in 2's and 3's around the place just simply and quietly praying for each other where they sat. I hope we see more of that.

Devon

A dozen of us from hOME went down to Devon for a couple of nights this last weekend. 5 of the crazy fools even went surfing in the Atlantic. I was not one of them. They tried to convince me that a winter wet suit would see me right but I wasn't buying it. I mean, there was snow on the ground for crying out loud. Anyway, a good time was had by all and we got back in time to celebrate Advent Sunday last night (see next post).

The Big Ideas of 2006

Even though I am more sceptical these days of the adbusters agenda after reading 'The Rebel Sell' the end of year issue of the adbusters magazine is always worth getting. I picked up a copy from Borders the other day. Get yours at all good newsagents now!

more on the emergent conversation day

Jonny has reminded me that there is some stuff that really chimes in with what we were talking about on Saturday in the introduction to his book 'Alternative Worship'. Reading his blog post sent me back to re-read it, and i wish I had done so before we went to St Albans as it's really relevant to what we were talking about. here's an excerpt:

"Alternative worship was 'post-charismatic', particularly in the determination of most groups to reject the culture of chorus singing and the worship group with worship leader. We have already noted the time lag between the musical forms (soft rock, easy listening) adopted by the charismatic renewal and the forms current in 'secular youth music'. There was a reaction against a performance-based musical idiom, in favour of one oriented to communal celebration and participation. People were also reacting against a model of the working of the Holy Spirit which stressed immediacy, spontaneity and extemporizing as the true signs of 'the Spirit moving'. The charismatic renewal contained an explicit critique of liturgical tradition as 'formal therefore unfree'. Most alternative worship groups have rejected this opposition and turned to embrace form, set prayers and liturgical patterns. Both the turn from choruses and the turn from an exclusive emphasis on 'free prayer' reflected an aesthetic and a spiritual disillusionment with these forms; a sense that they had produced a culture of banality in worship. A number of groups have retained a strong affinity with the theology of charismatic renewal, which they seek to explore within a new cultural mix."

I found that to be a helpful summary of some of the stuff we were talking about on Saturday.

I am still trying to discover, though, more groups like the one Jonny mentions at the end there - having a strong affinity with the theology of charismatic renewal but seeking to explore that within a new cultural mix. I'm sure there must be more groups out there like that - perhaps similar to us in hOME in wanting to explore the intersection of ancient/future liturgical forms whilst holding on to a charismatic spirituality - I just haven't found many yet. If that describes you, get in touch.

The Constant Gardener

Pip and I went to see this last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. we stopped off at 'The Big Bang' beforehand which is a sausage restaurant (choose a combination from a selection of sausages, mash, and jus - I went for the traditional Oxford sausages with a carrot and swede mash and a red wine jus - delicious). Anyway, it's a really well made film by the director of 'City of God'. without wanting to spoil it for those who haven't seen it yet, it does make you wonder how much of this sort of thing really goes on and how much is covered up. if you haven't seen it yet that will obviously make no sense whatsoever! do go and see it.

photos from the emergent day

Jason has a collection of photos from the Emergent discussion day last Saturday here.

Emergent Conversation Day : The Holy Spirit in the Emerging Culture

Yesterday half a dozen or so of us from hOME went across to St Albans for a discussion day, looking at the subject of the place of the Holy Spirit in the emerging church/culture.
Jason Clark and I facilitated the day with a few minutes of input from the two of us at the start of play to get the ball rolling. we both shared our stories and how we had come to be having this conversation.
my take on it was really about wondering why, as i connect with people from the emerging church and alternative worship scenes, that i keep coming across so many people who could perhaps be described as being 'post-charismatic' i.e. "I used to be into all of that 10 years ago but i've moved on now" - that sort of thing. and i wondered whether the two things (i.e. emerging church and being post-charismatic) necessarily went together.
there was some very helpful discussion about babies and bath water - and how perhaps people had rejected charismatic spirituality becuase it had become so closely identified with a mono-cultural expression of christianity that in distancing yourself from that culture you also distance yourself from the essence of the spirituality behind it because the two have become so intertwined.
so i shared about becoming concerned with some of the things i had witnessed over the years in the charismatic/pentecostal movement - using two phrases - 'revival fatigue' and 'spiritual viagra' - to describe what i had seen. i am particularly concerned about how a purely charismatic spirituality (i.e. ignoring the other traditions) can so easily lead to burn out i.e. it is not sustainable.

i suggested there were two possible responses (although there are probably more):
1. adopt (and integrate charismatic spirituality within) a more 'preaching-centric' view where long term spiritual sustainability is acheieved through a basis in regular biblical exposition or
2. seek to integrate a charismatic spirituality within the liturgical-contemplative tradition to offer increased sustainability.

i said that hOME was exploring the second of these options - we are investigating a spirituality that emerges at the intersection of the liturgical/contemplative (in new forms) and the charismatic. unfortunately we don't seem to have come across too many others attempting to explore that territory.

all in all it was a good day. i was pleased we attempted an open-source approach with people writing up their questions on post-it notes and then self organising them on a wall - leading us into small group discussion and then feeding back.

i thought we lost our way a little bit in the afternoon with the feeding back session. it was probably a little on the long side and also it felt a little like we were struggling to stay on the subject and avoid a general discussion about the emerging church in general.

Giving

I am currently working on the hOME (hOME is our church in case anyone is visiting here for the first time) budget for the coming year.
we are a small and fragile emerging/alt church community with a vision for mission and growth but while we are at the early stages of our community life it's kinda tough making ends meet.
we're getting there and some of our guys are really giving sacrificially which is wonderful.
but if there is anyone else out there in the blogosphere - any individuals or fellow emerging churches - who believes in what we are doing and feels prompted to support our mission then we would be very pleased to hear from you.
you can e mail me at matt@home-online.org

Why Halloween is bad

thanks to Chris for this hilarious photo.

Courtney Pine tonight

I'm looking forward to seeing Courtney Pine play tonight in Cheltenham. A friend of mine once described Jazz as the musical equivalent of speaking in tongues. i'll be seeking the gift of interpretation this evening. Jazz club....nice.

Clustr Maps

I'm glad Rich put me on to Clustrmaps a while back. Now I can see where in the world people who visit my blog are from. I'm pleased to say I have now had visitors from most continents. If you are at all interested - and who wouldn't be!! - then you can see my Clustr Map here.

Jamie Oliver in Italy

anyone see this last night? Jamie Oliver was visiting a monastery as part of his tour of Italy (apparently they had a legendary herb garden). there were some great lines: "I don't even know what religion I am. I think I might be Church of England." and "food is my religion, and the dinner table is my altar". He offered to say grace before meal and got it slightly wrong in an amusing way: "for what we are about to receive may God be truly thankful".
But seriously, it was fascinating to see these decrepid old monks - who had been eating tinned vegetables and the like, much to Jamie's displeasure - come alive with some good cooking. Jamie did a BBQ outside and got them all involved with the cooking - he wanted them to share in the experience of preparing the food and to have a laugh as they did so - and then even had them dancing a little bit to The Cure that he had playing from the stereo of his VW Camper Van.
In a funny sort of way he was a bit like the way I imagine Jesus would have been.

Bishop Richard

Richard Harries, our Bishop here in Oxford, announced the other day that he will retire next Easter. I, for one, have a great deal of respect, fondness and admiration for him though I am aware that he set the cat amongst the pigeons somewhat with the whole Jeffrey John affair. He has always been kind to me and I will miss him.

Saint Eddie of Izzard and the college of preachers

just got my hands on the Eddie Izzard box set which I've been after for a while. still by far and away my favourite comedian even after being given a good run for his money by people like Demetri Martin and Ross Noble.
Someone I once knew wrote an essay in theological college entitled "The Stand Up comedy of Eddie Izzard as a model for contemporary preaching". The point he was making was that a lot of Eddie Izzard comedy is based on his ability to take something that we are overly familiar with - the fact that bees make honey for instance - and play around with it in such a way that enables us to see again how wonderful (and occasionally bizarre) life is.
This is something that good preaching should do (and sorry, fellow emerging church travellers, but i still believe in preaching...perhaps there are some different ways to do it but still..). Good preaching/speaking/chatting/dialoguing should enable us to look again at something we have perhaps looked at a thousand times before, and enable us to see it again for the first time.

confessional

yesterday i worked later than i planned to at the office and therefore when it came time to cycle home it had got dark and i didn't have my lights.
as i set off from St Clements a guy was getting out of his car and just said "lights" as i cycled past. for some reason this kind of thing gives me 'cycle-rage'. of course i was too slow (and cycling too fast) to come back with something witty (like, i could have shouted "...camera, action" or "manners" but didn't think of it in time). so i just looked back and said "what?" to which of course he just shouted "lights" again. i just let it go and cycled off.
i think i'm usually a fairly patient guy. i get a little road-rage occasionally when i'm driving (as my wife will confirm) but nothing too crazy. so why does this sort of thing really wind me up? i guess it could be to do with the fact that there's no chance of a conversation - it's just someone shouting a word at you. anyone care to psychologise?

very funny

this is hilarious! U2 (and friends) as you have never seent them before. thanks to mootblog for the link.

emerging church conversation and discussion day

go here to register.

the gift of our presence

after a night at church where lots of friends weren't there for various reasons I was stirred to read these words from Jason Clark's blog this morning:

"I suggested to our church family that one of the greatest gifts we can give each other in a consumer society is our time, and presence."

"Community, takes time, proximity, interaction, and above all the cost of giving our time to others."

Cutting Edge Retreat

hOME is partly funded by a Diocesan group called 'Cutting Edge Ministries' which has been set up to fund new missional communities in the Diocese of Oxford. i am away for a 24 hour retreat with them and we have some input from people like Stuart Murray-Williams, Mike Moynagh and Pete Ward.
i think when i come on these things i am always looking for a good balance between the conceptual, the spiritual, and the experiential (i.e. connecting with what's actually happening on the ground). i think this retreat (we are just about to start the last session) has had a pretty good balance to it. this morning Pete led a helpful session where we started from our experience of what's happening (which we uncovered by using imaginative journey + the nuts and bolts of how we spent our week last week, what our focus was in the first week we started our 'project' (not a word I like), and also choosing and telling a story from the last two years) and then looking for theological motifs and scriptural texts that illuminate what's actually happening.
as well as that we have had some nice reflective worship, including some body prayer and the use of a Japanese drum last night.

hOME now podcasting

we are now podcasting the talks from hOME. you will find us in the iTunes podcast directory under podcasts/religion & spirituality/christianity and then under the h's. we are about 7 places above HTB, but it's not a league table.
you can also get the audio direct from our web site (and the RSS feed is there too), but as i'm compressing the files they are not playable in Windows Media Player at the moment - some might see that as discrimination in favour of Mac users, but even Windows users can use iTunes these days so it shouldn't be a problem.
the podcasts may seem a little 'old church' at the moment - they are all of me talking, and the talks are a little on the lengthy side. but that's because we are in a new season of the life of the church and are doing some re-envisioning. it won't always be me on the podcast, I promise.

Rant: I hate insurance companies

Last night Pip and I went for what we thought would be a quiet drink in a village pub a few miles from where we live. we parked our car in the car park (as you do) but someone driving a 4x4 reversed into it on their way out of the car park. they didn't stop but instead drove off. we knew nothing of this as we were still inside the pub. Someone who was in the car park at the time came into the pub and asked for the owner of the car. It may not look like much damage but we can't close the door properly and these kinds of bodywork jobs are always pricy.
I called the Police. we were told to go and report it at the Police station. which we did. took till about 12.45am. I didn't do this because i was particularly bothered about them catching the guy (we only had a partial reg number for the car so i knew it was unlikely) but to cover us for when i called the insurance company. I needn't have bothered.
Apparently even though it wasn't our fault, and even though we have a witness, and even though we have reported it to the Police, we are still going to have to pay for the damage one way or another - either directly by paying for the repairs or indirectly by claiming and then losing our no claims bonus. Insurance companies are such a rip off. You pay them hundreds of pounds a year and for what? We have fully comprehensive cover. that is a very misleading phrase. they make sure that whatever happens it's you that's going to be out of pocket, not them. I have no idea why i bother having insurance at all (I know, I know, it's a legal requirement etc etc.) All i know is that this morning we are seriously out of pocket for a car accident that isn't our fault even though we have fully comprehensive cover. that ain't right.