iGod

Starting the year well and all that jazz

(Article by ASD reproduced from the Sudbury Mercury newspaper)

Around the New Year I was visiting family in Hastings and went for a walk on a particularly wet and windy day. Traipsing through the soggy half-closed streets in the old town I noticed a scruffy looking arrow sign for a Retro Shop. I felt it needed following. Now calling something retro means we can admire old junk and feel good about it or, if you prefer a kinder definition, it’s coolness on a budget.

What happened next was totally unexpected. On entering the small, dull-lit shop I saw staring at me in the vinyl records section a long-forgotten favourite LP (Long Player for the download generation).

The record was called All Star Festival, a compilation of jazz songs put together in 1963 to raise funds for United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

There is a particular track on it from ‘the first lady of song’, Ella Fitzgerald, called All of Me. Now I know I am being objectionably subjective, but it has to be the best ever version of the Marks and Simon classic. It has the most amazing vocal arrangement and a startling performance to match. Quite frankly, there’s not much not to like?

Trying not to give away my excitement I sauntered casually up the counter to the young guy chewing gum and asked how much he wanted for this scruffy old record. “Six quid!”

“I’ll take it!”  After asking for a waterproof bag I hurriedly left and rejoined the battering winds and rain on the seafront almost kicking my heels in the air with unabashed delight. Almost.

Finding something we want in life is an amazing experience. But rediscovering something that has brought us joy in the past can be equally as satisfying, if not more.

Jesus talks at length about lost things: lost sheep, a lost coin, a lost son and lost opportunities. This is what he does when he wants to make a big point and not lose his audience. He gives us a perfect picture of joy recovered. In this case a relationship with God the Father.

Losing our joie de vivre isn’t good. Our joylessness can become the lens in which everything else in life is viewed through. Some would say it makes us hard, cynical, untrusting and emotionally cold towards others. Whatever it does, it is a bad place to be.

It is not that life doesn’t continue, but it is just not as rewarding or fulfilling as it could be. We may not even be aware that something is missing from our lives.

So what’s to be done as we begin a New Year? Well, at this point Christians tend to listen closely to the Bible’s words where it utters, “the joy of the Lord is our strength”. We get on our knees, do some ‘carpet time’ and spill our hearts out to God, because we think there is something in prayer. Why not give it a go for yourself and see what happens?

Meanwhile, if you have lost the number for your local church you can find a full list here.

Happy hunting.

ASD

Try this Life Vision exercise as you start 2011

Every new year I encourage our church through our HOME groups to carry out an audit on their life with a view of moving on in the next. Personally, I have found it invaluable to start January by being accountable to myself in every area of my life.

Now I recognise that life is tough and some of us maybe glad to put the previous year behind us, but I think we also can take some encouragement from marking progress in our lives, not just in a devotional sense but in a holistic sense too, remembering that Jesus was wonderfully and paradoxically fully God and fully man. The flesh matters!

So here an exercise that you may find useful to start the year on a right footing. Have fun!

A. Your Life Now

1. Ask yourself: where are you at in your life at the moment?

• Spiritually
• Relationally
• Physically

1. What have been your own personal disappointments in the last year?
2. What have been the highlights?

 

B.  First steps to a new Life Vision

1. Pray about it
2. Write your goals down
3. Be honest with yourself
4. Make realistic goals, not idealistic ones
5. Be bold!

Now get typing or write out maybe 4 or 5 single-sentence goals with an action by the side of each under 3 headings:

• Spiritual life
• Home life
• Work life

 

C.  What now?

1. Make yourself a coffee and go and pray over your goals
2. Stick up your goals and and actions on the kitchen pin board, mirror in your bedroom, fridge or, if you prefer, put it in the front of your BIble
3. Aim to review your progress at 3 months intervals throughout the year
4. Importantly, don't give up! Stay encouraged.

Remember Paul's words to the Philippian Church, "I can do all things in him who strengthens me." (Phil 4:13 RSV)

ASD

 

Sheesh! Another new year already. How are you feeling?

So here we are in 2011. How are you feeling? Excited? Apprehensive? Non-plussed? Made any New Year resolutions?

To be honest, I am not one for making any rash promises anymore. Goodness knows I have tried. When I was in my late teenage years and early twenties, before becoming a Christian, I can remember countless times after New Year’s Eve bashes promising never to touch another drop of drink again (now that’s original), never to smoke another cigarette (another cliché), never to eat so much ever again, go vegetarian, get fit, oh the list went on.

Maybe one of the reasons why we fail is because resolutions are made out of how we feel at that time. They are made ‘off the bat’. Some sagacious bod, probably not Plato, said, a quickly made promise is quickly broken. Yeh, true, but let’s give a nod towards human nature. If we feel bad about ourselves we tend to want to address it. It’s a natural and not a wrong thing to do I feel.

I was talking to a gym rep who came knocking at our offices one day trying to sell discounted membership, but the deal was you had to sign up in January and had to take it out for the whole year. He told me in an unguarded moment that most gyms heavily market themselves in January to cash in on people’s weakness.

Gyms also know that usually by March the seasonal angst of many of us needing to get fit starts to weaken its grip and its business back to normal so, of course, the trips become as rare as seeing My Little pony win in the Grand National.

It makes me wonder how people see Church. I accept the fact that some find their way to us because they are feeling guilty and need to find peace. They have tried all else, so we get a look in.

For others, it may just be a Christmas, Remembrance Sunday or Easter thing. Others still, it is for births, marriages or funerals or ‘hatch, match and dispatch’ as we colloquially say in my Anglican circles.

Now, I am truly not judging anyone as our road to God is often different and not without its encounters, but to be honest you don’t tend to come to church if you feel like your life is sorted, do you? Much like you probably wouldn’t go to the gym if you feel good about your body.

But we all have needs, it just some are less obvious than others. We also often need a trigger to get us there. I wish it wasn’t like that and we could come in our perfect, wonderful and healthy states, but actually I think that is a myth anyway. Anyone who says that they have life sorted and are unbothered by some sort of suffering probably has a long wooden nose.

Most people who come to Stour Valley Vineyard Church want to see real change in their lives. They are not happy with their lot and want life to have a greater significance for them. They realise that something is seriously missing, and it really doesn’t take long for them to see what it is.

For some, it’s true, they will drift in and out of church like gym membership, but for the others, they tend to hand around and want to go deeper in their experience of Jesus. Once they have worked through their misconceptions of church and experienced worship, the Bible and the power of prayer, they find people who accept them without judgement, who don’t make them feel worse than they already feel about themselves.

Yes, we have a ‘Get fit and stay healthy plan’, but it comes with a 'strictly no strings attached' policy. For us, belonging starts with relationships.

ASD

Out with the old, in with the renewed

On what has been a challenging year for many financially and personally, a very happy New year to everyone.

For myself, I am grateful to God for another year to serve. By the goodness of God our church has grown, spiritually and numerically. I feel I have also grown through the experience, as well as personally through other trials along the way. I have undoubtedly made mistakes, but hopefully I have done some right too.  So I can't think I will be making any new resolutions, but rather simply renewing my promises and keep on keeping on.

Tonight, on New Year's Eve, I'll be taking it easy with the family. Maybe it is just an age thing. I came across this quote today:

"Youth is when you're allowed to stay up late on New Year's Eve. Middle age is when you're forced to." - Bill Vaughn.

But here is, perhaps, a slightly deeper, more thoughtful quote from GK Chesterton:

"The object of a new year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made new year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. Unless a man starts on the strange assumption that he has never existed before, it is quite certain that he will never exist afterwards. Unless a man be born again, he shall by no means enter into the Kingdom of Heaven."

Wherever you are in your own personal journey of faith, may you know His peace and mercy in 2010. Let's continue the conversation then.

ASD

Read and feed with WordLive from Scripture Union

Happy New Year and welcome to 2008.

Hope you had a great Christmas whatever you were doing. It was a significant one for us as Stour Valley Vineyard held its first Christmas service. A fantastic occasion made only possible by so many fantastic people who helped to pull it all together. Thank you.

Now it’s back to normal life and, if you are like me, there is a reluctance to go back into the same old, same old routine.

Speaking as a Christian who wants to live a life less ordinary, I am always looking for new ways to develop my spiritual journey into God. One of those areas that always needs addressing is the discipline of reading the Bible regularly.

If your life is anything like mine it can be at times quite erratic. Although I am set against the notion of New Year resolutions I do think it allows time for reflection and a fresh appraisal of the way that we do life. But like anything worthwhile it requires conviction and commitment on our part to make it happen.

WordLive from Scripture Union should help a little. It’s a brand new online application that has just gone live as from 1^st January and may be the answer to a lot of people’s prayers.

For instance, it enables you to read a daily Bible passage on your computer, mobile/PDA or your iPod. But it is a lot more than just that.

This is what the site says about its new application...

                                                                                      

• Read the translation you prefer
• Listen to music and podcasts
• Meditate with images and video
• Dig deeper into further bible study
• Use WordLive on the move, whenever and wherever

There is a clever moving carousel of icons that you can click on at any time that allows you to explore things like the theology and its significance, reading an accompanying prayer, listening to a reflective piece of music or picking up on the theme as part of a small group study.

WordLive Mobile is also worth looking at if you are a busy out and about kind of person. It delivers WordLive directly onto your mobile phone or ‘Crackberry’. WordLive Mobile contains all of the day’s text-based activities and information about multimedia activities you might want to try out from your computer.

Anyway, enough flagrant plugging!  It's just one way to start the New Year and it won’t cost you any money, especially being so near to after Christmas. However, it does rely on donations, so if you become a regular you might want to support it with a gift.

Have a good year.

ASD

 

 

Happy Christmas from the Grinch and me!

"And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store? What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more!"

The Grinch, Dr Suess

Have a great Christmas and a peaceful New Year. God's blessings.

ASD

A Year of Living Generously

Happy New Year!

To form the newspapers are full of stories, theories and advice on how to lose weight and feel better about yourself.  I hear around me how people are resolved to do more exercise, drink less at lunchtimes and finish work earlier to see their families more.

Personally, I am not one for making New Year resolutions.  At the very least, they smack of wishful thinking, hewn from the hype of New Year celebrations. At best, they are rash decisions made out of the low ebb of human feeling, i.e. guilt. And, I for one, would have to put my hand up for both of these. So I have decided not to put myself under this self-condemnation.

Here is a quote I heard recently from Jamie Allen, vicar of St Andrew’s, Great Cornard Suffolk:    “Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.” (Oprah Winfrey)

Spurred on by reading one of my Christmas presents, Free of Charge by Miroslav Volf, I have one growing conclusion. Though, in fairness, it has been brewing for some time. If Jesus’ words, “It is better to give than receive”, mean anything then they need to find their context in a practical situation.  Otherwise how will we ever know their efficacy? Furthermore, I believe it can be a central part of our spiritual journey into God.

Recently, I came across a website called A Year of Living Generously. It’s an online community/movement that encourages people to do something for others with no personal gain to themselves. I cannot tell if this website has a Christian organisation behind it, but even if it doesn’t it has Christian values written all over it.  Anyhow, check it out; it might be for you. If anyone knows anymore about it, I love to hear your experiences.

ASD