morning bell 400

It's morning bell number 400 today. I love being part of this...

StillPoint story

Good to see a story on StillPoint - the project that Matt Rees and I run together - in the latest edition of e-xpressions. You can view the story written by Ian Mobsby from an interview with us here.

Ernesto's art

It was good to do some work with artist-priest Ernesto Lozada-Uzuriaga Steele last week. If you are in or around Oxford on Saturday it's the opening of Ernesto's new exhibition and the launch of his new book on Saturday night at the Ark-T in Cowley. Great work! The pic is Ernesto's Olive Tree III [2009]

here's the tender coming

Really enjoying 'here's the tender coming' by the Unthanks. Brilliant. Thanks Cara.

ways into small missional community [9] earthy good news?

Here's the latest in the series of posts I'm doing for the Small Missional Communities project on starting and sustaining new project-communities

This latest post in the ‘ways into small missional community’ series is an exercise in [re]discovering roots and imagining the future.

The great story of Jesus is known as ‘Gospel’ - which means ‘good news’. So it may be important to ask how Jesus could be good news where we are, in this place, for these people and for this setting.

It can be helpful to break this down into two questions:
first [and here’s the return to roots] ‘why is Jesus good news?’
then second [and here’s imagining the future] ‘so what could this good news look like here?’

We may have lots of responses to the roots question. But what might that lead to? How is the good news felt and tasted, lived and experienced? In the task of creating Christ-following missional communities we need to discover earthy ways of expressing and living the good news where we are.

An example: one of many possible answers to the roots question might be to say that Jesus is good news because he shows us that God is love. Now there’s wonder in that idea - it’s perhaps the most beautiful of all equations - but how do we say it and live it in ways that are more than cliche or jargon? The imagined future question takes us into the earthy business of how God’s love could be lived and experienced here. What might that actually look like ‘on the ground’? How could 'God's love' be shared and encountered in real ways in this neighbourhood or network? What can you imagine happening?

So why is Jesus good news for you? And what could the good news look like where you are - in, around and through the community-project of which you are part, or of which you are dreaming?

StillPoint meditation

Matt will be hosting a StillPoint meditation happening tonight 9pm @ssMary+John on Cowley Road Oxford - will be really good!

freefallin

Have just started to learn to play mandolin again - well for the first time really, previous attempt was not a success. Our friend Jackie wants to do the same with guitar so we're teaming up. Plan is to learn a song a week, starting with 3 simple chords. First song: 'freefallin' by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - simple chords, slow pace, and a fine song. Pic is from the TP gig at Knebworth which I went to back in the day with my buddy Mike.

Third Space

I've been working together for a while with a group called Third Space in Matlock, Derbyshire, and they are now linking in with the Small Missional Communities project and CMS, seeing this as their primary place of belonging - the first group to do so 'formally'! They are very good news, doing imaginative stuff and really wanting to be and to make a difference in the way of Jesus the change-bringer where they are. A very big welcome to Third Space people: may you be blessed and may you bring blessing... peace to you Ian