iGod

A new year of promise, pageantry and potential. What’s not to like?

I am rather excited about this year. Now I admit it might just have something to do with the fact that it is the year of the Olympics. My family were fortunate enough to get allocated some tickets for the games. Okay, so it’s not an event that I would naturally choose to watch but, hey, the others are happy. Yes, I am slightly embarrassed to tell you what it is, so let’s just quietly move on shall we?

2012 is also a leap year, which means you liberated women can propose to the man in your life on 29 February.

It is also the Chinese Year of the Dragon, though I am not quite sure what anyone is ever suppose to do with that knowledge, but thought you should know anyway.

The other big event is, of course, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. There will be a river pageant like in days of old floating down the Thames with a boasted flotilla of 1,000 boats.

A specially designed river barge will hold her majesty, which we are told will be 64 feet in length, decked in red and gold. That will be quite a sight to behold, but nevertheless I can’t seem to get the image out of my head of the queen being told to jump off the barge and open the locks by her husband. “Put your back into it, Liz, we’ve still got another six to go until we reach Windsor!”

The other day I found a somewhat dubious online blog called The Year 2012 that gives you an endless stream of information on all things 2012. It contains the weird, wonderful and just plain wacky. And, if you were to believe everything it said, you’d probably want to stay in bed for the whole of the year.

So what are you thoughts on the future? Excited, Worried? Non-plussed?

At the beginning of each year I usually encourage our church to reflect a little on our own personal visions for our lives. We ask: what are our expectations? What do we want achieve? What do we want to improve upon?

Maybe it is improving the quality of the relationship with our children or spouse. Maybe it is something simple like reading more, praying more, giving more. Maybe it is working on some personal character issues.

The point is we are created to be purposeful. We believe that God wants us to reach our full potential as human beings and get the most out of the precious life given to us.

After all, didn’t Jesus say, “I have come that you may have life and have it to the full?”

So we go into the New Year with fresh expectations that it will lead to a year of life-changing experiences. It will undoubtedly have its challenges and difficulties, but it is in these times that faith is fashioned and our awareness of God’s involvement in everyday life grows.

For many of us, 2012 it will undoubtedly be a full year, but hopefully will be a personally fulfilling one too. For the Christian who believes in the Life-Giver, it comes with that deeper profundity still, which is something that we are more than happy to share with you. Maybe one of your own life goals could be to come to church sometime soon.

Whatever you do, I wish you a very happy and life-enriching New Year.

ASD

Small Wins versus Big Wins

In the light of last weekend's debacle in South Africa, Seth Godin gives us a timely lesson in the pertinence of winning.

"A toddler wants what she wants, now. That's a win.

A little later, when we're more mature, we might define winning as getting what we want at the expense of someone else. I win when you lose. And yes, winning still means now, not later.

A demagogue cares so much about winning that he'd rather wreck the system itself than lose. It's okay, he believes, to root for the failure of the republic or to destroy civility or democracy if it leads to something that could be called a win.

What happens when you define a win as getting closer to someone who wants the same thing? Or when you define it as improvement over time? Or in creating trust?"

Often I have found myself saying to someone, "Are you winning?" It is a light throwaway comment, but I guess I am asking is: are you making progress, are things changing, do you see things moving on?

Of course, one of the key emotional benefits of winning is feeling satisfied and fulfilled, but I do wonder how many of us feel like that.

In the advertising business world, of which I have been apart of for the last 25 odd years, winning accounts is everything, It is a tough world to survive in for sure.

But when you win business it feels great because often so many 'man hours' and effort have gone into it. Staff may get rewarded with pay rises, bonuses, industry awards, but I want to suggest these are not the best wins you can have.

For me, the best wins are in the small, everyday, barely noticed stuff.

It is grabbing a deep and meaningful twenty minute conversation with one of my daughters. It is having a chance meeting with someone in Caffe Nero and finding out we have so much in common.  It is finally seeing signs of new grass seed growing over a stubborn bald patch of grass in the back garden. It is seeing someone unexpectedly smiling through their adversity.

Jesus said, "Don't worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will worry about itself." (Matthew 6:34)

We need to dismiss that mindset that tells us something ahead is always going to be bigger and better than today. It may, but equally it may not.

As a result, we will end up missing the small stuff in life. Therefore, cherish the small things today, because one day you may you look back and see that they were actually the big things.

ASD

40 years ago three men land on the moon - and read from the book of Genesis

I can remember being woken up by my father and brought downstairs to watch the moment when three US astronauts landed on the moon for the very first time. The year was 1969. I was just five years old. It was a very vivid memory.

I heard last week that Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buz Aldrin did something rather remarkable before stepping out of Apollo 11. The three of them read from the Book of Genesis, then apparently Neil Armstrong took Communion.

For reasons at the time, due to an atheist complaining about reading from a Bible in space, this latter fact had been concealed. I wonder what fresh meaning that simple meal of the bread and the wine had for Armstrong.

The Guardian on Saturday published its original front page. On it was an article quoting the Pope's reaction: "In an ecstasy of this prophetic day - a real triumph for man-made means for the dominion of the universe - we must not forget man's need and duty to dominate himself."

At the time there were three major conflicts raging back down on planet earth: Vietnam, Nigeria and the Middle East - with a fourth just erupted between El Salvador and Honduras.

The Pope concluded: "It is absolutely necessary that the heart of man should become freer, better, more religious as the power of his machines, his weapons, his instruments become greater and more dangerous."

To Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin's minds the world must have just looked plain innocent.

it makes me reflect on how Genesis chapter 1 must have read to them thousands of miles away from the earth; and how Jesus' death and resurrection was seen. One can only imagine. From their perspective, I am sure It would have looked perfect and untainted, and inconceivable that a tiny planet like theirs could hurt itself so much.

Neil Armstrong commented later, "It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small."

In John 3:30 when John the Baptist testifies about Jesus, he says forthrightly: "He must become greater; I must become less." When we have the kind of perspective of John the Bapist or Neil Armstrong there is hope for humanity. While we still want to be great we know the human race has its work cut out.

ASD

Zoweee!....iGod is 3 years old!

 I ask you to permit me a little self indulgence, as I never felt I would be doing iGod for three years. If being honest I thought I would have run out of things to say by now or simply lost interest.

Of all the posts over the last 36 months the two that still get frequents hits are neo-atheism and Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall and his mission to save battery hens. I am not really sure that they are that notable for what they say, but nevertheless still get surprisingly high click rates.

However that is all in the past. It is what is happening now that matters most. Today is the start to another week and another post.

Yet I do find myself trying to remember why I started this blogging lark. I think part of it was to see how my precious faith works out in a secular pluralist world. Another part of was simply about doing an online spiritual journal that might help some of us in our own journies of faith. I like to think it was not thinly veiled vanity. I am not sure how well I have suceeded, but I have been stimulated and had fun trying to contribute to stuff that happens in life.

My aim for iGod has always been to keep comment fairly light to be accessible to all, regardless of where people are at faithwise. It still remains "a place to reflect, contemplate, be informed and share life stuff." In the last 17 it has made its home on the Stour Valley Vineyard Church website, where I pastor a Vineyard church plant with my wife, so obviously I have a local and global context in mind nowadays.

The positive side of this is that I have to be accountable for my words, something that some of us considered while attending EA's Bloggers forum last year, which produced the fruit of the 10 Blogging Commandments.

Anyway, it's time to blow out the candles. Snuff said! (he he!)  Oh, c'mon, it is my birthday!

Let's keep the conversation going.

ASD