Over the past couple of years, every time I take a training session or do a talk in church I’ve used more and more images as I’ve realised I’m a visual learner and there is something about the power of art and visuals that communicates powerfully in tandem with the words we speak. I lament how so often it seems the evangelical church has lost art and the power and beauty of visual art in fear of being offensive or blasphemous. I was at a wedding recently in a new church building which apart from candles and decorations felt like an empty soulless shell. I long for churches to recover visual art. It’s not something I ever grew up with attending a brethren church but a conviction that has grown as I have become more aware of the creativity that God instills in us and the power of beauty to instil hope.

So bring on a more colourful and beauty-full church – and enjoy the posters on Jim LePage’s site many of which depict the books in a wonderful honesty we sometimes don’t get in church…

I managed two bunches of spearmint. Maybe in spring…

On Saturday I spent an hour or so weeding and cutting back some of the dead plants from the summer. With the crazy warm November there are bulbs sprouting everywhere. My old enemy the creeping buttercup is also everywhere, spreading its creepers and popping up in bunches of those leaves I’ve come to hate. Gardening, or more accurately in my case spending time in the garden is an incredibly profound and renewing experience. Today I was going over some training material in work on character formation, then I flicked on Twitter and came across this, which really resonated:

Besides being a practical, life-nurturing task, gardening is also always a spiritual activity. In it we attempt to make room for what is beautiful, delectable, and even holy. Every act of gardening thus presupposes and embodies a way of relating to creation and to God, a way that invariably invokes moral and theological decisions.

From an article by Norman Wirzba

Sometimes the best presents don’t cost a lot of money.

Sometimes we do build up a collection of unwanted presents. What’s the worst present you’ve ever received?

I’m trying to remember. While I do check out some responses by a few Dubs on this video by Tearfund:

Sometimes the best presents are things given to others on our behalf like at advent conspiracy

What are the best or worst Christmas presents you have ever received?

“When people cease to be surrounded by beauty, they cease to hope”

N.T Wright

In less than 48 hours time myself and two friends will be hitting the hills and waterways of West Cork for the 2011 Innovista Challenge.

We’ll be:

cycling 25km
running 8km and
kayaking 1.5km
(on what is looking like being a cold October morning)

The time for training has passed. The emergency whistle has been purchased and bike serviced.  Now time to start praying we make it to the finish line in one piece. And of course one other vital way you can help us make it across the finish line in Skibbereen is to sponsor us!

But first why, on a cold October morning are we putting our bodies through such pain?

Robbie* is a teenager from inner city Dublin. He lives in a community where drug and alcohol abuse is rife and the best paying job prospect for young males is as a drug dealer.

Alcoholism and a parent in prison have devastated Robbie’s family life. It is no surprise that he has dropped out of school early and has a police record for violent behaviour. Today his future has ‘prison’ written all over it.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Robbie is intelligent, talented and influential. He has incredible potential. Imagine if he used that potential to influence his peers for good, to bring change in his community. Robbie could be a future leader.

To do that he needs people around him who will invest deeply in him; who will show him that another way is possible; who will encourage him and cheer him on; who will do what most of us would consider normal.

Future Leaders is an initiative created for young people like Robbie. We want to break the cycle of hopelessness and despair and help him experience that change is possible. We want to equip Robbie and his peers with the skills, courage and character to be leaders who change their own lives and transform their communities.

Robbie is part of the Future Leaders pilot programme that’s being delivered by Innovista Ireland and a local church.

There are hundreds of teenagers like Robbie who can become future leaders. Your support will enable us to expand the programme, giving more young people their much needed opportunity to see that there is a better way and become part of the change that’s needed where they are.

That’s why we’re doing the challenge. Please give whatever you can …here’s how:

If you live in Ireland  (or anywhere else, and are not a UK taxpayer) click here to give via sponsor.ie

If you are a taxpayer in Northern Ireland or the rest of the UK  click here to give via JustGiving (which enables us to claim tax relief on your gift)

You can also support us in the challenge by sharing this page and encouraging your friends to get on board.

Thanks!

*Name changed for privacy reasons

I had to double take when I read this, living in Dublin puts some of the issues I grew up with in a great deal of perspective.

The reason? Because members of the Orange Order are banned from attending Catholic masses and in so attending they have apparently:

“sold their principles for political expediency”

It seems crazy that two politicians who in their attendance of the funeral are reaching out and walking some of the steps of reconciliation between the communities, who are showing respect, should be censured in this way and indeed be accused of political expediency.

What can we do to bring an end to this sectarianism that pollutes the north? What is the role of the church in speaking up and speaking prophetically? What is the role of the ‘chaplains’ of the Orange Order to be held to account by their denominations?

It seems as if the Orange Order is still living in a fear and siege mentality – afraid of the pollution that will come from the ‘papists’. Maybe it’s time for them to re-examine their ‘Protestant faith’ and take some time to soak in the the words of Jesus who is at it’s centre. They are welcome to take a trip down the road to see that of the ‘threats’ (if such language is even appropriate) to their ‘faith’, the Catholic church doesn’t exactly have the influence it once had. But then if the Catholic church is not a threat, and their identity is rooted in opposition to that church then who are they?

Perhaps that is the issue. When we find our identity in opposition to an ‘other’ we define ourselves by what we are not. When that ‘other’ wanes in power or influence we are left with an identity crisis. Perhaps a legitimate question is ‘is there a future for the Orange Order?’.

“Picture by picture, the criminals are being identified and arrested”

So said David Cameron today of the rioters and looters. They will be arrested and charged and then jailed? Alan Sugar is leading a campaign from his twitter account to name, shame and identify all those involved. Fair enough. The reasons why this has happened are complex, and we need a justice system, people need to be punished. But is the answer simply to send people to prison? Does a prison sentence prevent someone from re-offending?

A study by the British Ministry of Justice seemed to suggest that short sentences aren’t particularly effective in reducing re-offending rates. Admittedly the difference in this study between community sevice and jail terms isn’t that significant, but surely it is a start.

Britain and Ireland’s jails are bursting at the seams. Is it time to rethink how we punish criminals? It seems to me especially with the current riots that throwing rioters in jail although retributive isn’t going to be effective in reforming their characters. I guess only God can ultimately do that. Do we need more of a restorative justice system? With the rioters and looters should they be put to work in repairing what they have destroyed, or put to work in serving communities, in restoring vandalised and damaged parks, playgrounds, gardens and estates?

I realise there is no simple answer and even to change the justice system slowly is difficult but surely it is time to think carefully about how much it is possible to reform and punish people without simply resorting to jail.

The world is a better place for the life and legacy of John Stott, who died yesterday. ‘Uncle John’ – the grandfather of evangelicalism not just in the UK but globally, will be missed.

I still remember the first time I heard him speak in Belfast (with that wonderful ‘BBC’ accent) castigating preachers for sermons that were as

dry as dust and as dour as dishwater

and reminding us that the teacher or preacher is not the be all and end all but that the sermon is to be like the starter from which people can go home and feast on the main course themselves. They are words that still shape my thinking.

I am thankful for his sharp mind and the priority he placed on thinking Christianly and rigorously, and the need for double listening that he championed.  His BST commentary on the Sermon on the Mount still ranks as one of those significant books in shaping my faith. I’m thankful that through his writing I was introduced to Bohnhoeffer, Samuel Escobar, Rene Padilla and many other Christian thinkers who have been formative in my life.

He leaves a significant legacy – setting up Lausanne, the Lausanne Covenant, LICC, and the investment in the church in the two thirds world through the Langham Partnership amongst the many books and commentaries he has written. Although I suspect he was more interested in being faithful to Jesus than the legacy he leaves.

Most of all he was a humble and gracious man – who rarely criticised or condemned others publicly, or got immersed in contraversy in the way we  see too often in the church today.

We need more wise, humble and gracious leaders like him.

Even the Pope is getting in on the act…

Is the model of leadership practised in most of our churches really a biblical one?

How can we move towards an understanding and practice of leadership that is less ‘one-man-band’ or about maintaining the status quo but instead more closely reflects the New Testament?

Those are the questions I have been asked to tackle in a seminar at New Horizon on Wednesday 20th July. At 10pm (As if the questions weren’t daunting enough!)

What do you think?

Head on over to weigh in…