Energ-III-ze

Attended a one-off teaching event organised by the West of Scotland Division of the Salvation Army. 3 "i" refer to inform, inspire, involve... and it certainly informative, inspirational and involving.

We kicked off with some fab praise with Paul, Jen, Morag ((my second fav drummer after John Bonham)) and Martin.

We then had Chick Yuill's inspirational teaching from Acts 10: 1-23. Basically we need to celebrate faithfulness but appreciate that faithfulness on its own will not cut it. We need to face facts: continuing to do the same things faithfully won't work! We have 2 choices - failure or future - because we are where we have NEVER been before.

Society has moved from...

* Farm to Feel Good : people are seeking authentic experiences.
* Religiousity to Spirituality : churches are not rejected because people are too spiritual but because they are not spiritual enough!
* Paragraphs to Pictures : we are now more visually literate and apprehend with our imagination and heart instead of just cold logic.
* Principles to People : If you rigidly stand for something then you wont fall for anything...but... you won't have any people to stand with.

Chick then spoke of the need to breakthrough the blockages / barriers that we have. In the reading, Peter, a Jew, didn't mix with unclean people... until the Lord gave him the vision that nothing or noone was unclean who the Lord calls clean.

We need to breakfree... We have the option of deep painful change or slow painful death. In breaking free, we need to move from...

* Fortresses to Families : Its not about friendly churches but friends... open & inclusive relationships.
* Maintenance to Mission : We are too good at ecclesiastical taxidermy. We stuff things that worked and regard them with affection instead of burying them and moving on.

Truly inspired!

There were a number of seminars and the two that were most meaningful for me were the session on church planting by Adrian & Yvonne from The Brook in Atherton, near Manchester. Olly and I feel called to create something new within the Salvation Army... create / plant / whatever a community of faith that is relevant and real 24/7. My friend, the Soos, things I should have my own church - well I want to be part of a church that he would feel welcome / part of. Their seminar was inspirational in that they acknowledged that church changes and we need to move on from the inherited model of church into new expressions that will move towards meeting the needs of our pluralist, multi-cultural society.

The second seminar that I benefited from was presented by Graeme Hodge from the Salvation Army's International Development team. We have had the pleasure of Graeme staying with us... we are heading to Nando's for some food with friends... he is then leading our church meeting tomorrow morning.

He spoke about all the work his team are doing to make a difference in the lives of people in the developing world. This isn't relief but development... with micro loans to help people, especially women, to trade and build businesses... He also spoke of the Army's work raising awareness about human trafficking ((link)) - the work they are doing telling people about all the human trafficked girls forced into prostitution for the World Cup in Germany. Tremendous work.

He highlighted some of the options available for getting involved... Would love to give a couple of weeks of my holidays to help others... Maybe soon.

At the end, Chick summed up the day with a song from Jimmy Cliff: Dreams...

Every dream must be realised.
Every vision actualised.
Every hope materialised.
Every mission crystalised.

Cool!

Lastly, it was fab to hook up with Chris and Lorraine

What a great day! Now to Nando's...

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