Its been a while!

I realise its been a while since I posted anything on here, and so I thought it was about time I got to it again, although it could be another few months before Ipost again! So what's going on? Well, work is becoming very interesting with a wide range of projects, course and challenges to be dealt with.

We are in the process of getting the Street Pastors initiative http://www.streetpastors.co.uk/ off the ground which is going to be great for our local area and will help the Police deal with anti social behaviour and the many stag and hen parties that come into Whitley Bay in the summer, as well as dealing with the regular night time economy throughout the year.

Another venture which has proved to be challenging and equipping is the msi course http://www.freshexpressions.org.uk/missionshapedintro which come out of Fresh Expressions. This 6 week course is there to help churches get their heads around fresh expressions and it also helps churches to think think about mission in its broadest sense.

I have also been working over the last couple of years with one of our churches in one of the villages surrounding Whitley Bay, it has been great to get to know the folk and to make connections with other people in the village as we work on events together. This is also a challenge as many of the folk in the church are elderly and are happy to just keep the show on the road, and maybe aren't so keen to get involved in new ideas and projects. What is clear though, is that many churches are beginning to see that things can't go on as they are and some thing will need to change otherwise over the next few years we will see an awful lot of small churches closing.

The next few weeks, months and years are going to be interesting!

YouTube - Crosby Beach - Dream Labyrinth

I have been thinking recently about what faith communities can do to interact with the world around them, in doing so i stumbled across something on Facebook that one of my friends is doing in Scarborough that got me thinking. She is a minister and created a sacred space on the beach for people to light lanterns to remember those who they have lost through illness and also to think about those who are ill.

Then after looking on the Fresh Expressions web site

http://www.freshexpressions.org.uk/ recently i found something on their about a fresh expression called 'dream' that does Guerilla worship - that is tuning up in public spaces and doing forms of worship, one of these guerilla worship events took place on Crosby beach where they created a labyrinth in the sand - YouTube - Crosby Beach - Dream Labyrinth

Since I am near the coast I'm wondering about doing something similar here, so if you have any thoughts or ideas, why not share them. I'm also looking for other creative ways to do things like this so if you have any ideas then post them on here, or put something on facebook

Hope and Action

Looks like some good stuff on here, comes out of the United Methodist Church Hope and Action

Its been a long time

Sorry its been a while since i posted anything, there has been a lot going on over these last few months. The early part of this year was pretty tough as we lost one of our best friends to Cancer, she had been battling with it for a while and in the end she passed away peacefully one night, although we thought this time would come we had hoped to have a little longer before she left us. Its never easy to lose someone you love and care for and watching those who loved her the most has been hard.

Also this year my cousins wife has been diagnosed with cancer as well and she is in the throws of treatment, which is dreadful to watch. In the last few years i have watched many people fight this dreadful disease and it really is remarkable how people cope with such devastating news.

If i'm honest one of the reasons i struggled in the early days i was in pastoral work was because of the amount of illness i saw, it just seemed to impact me in ways i never thought possible.

So what else has been going on? Well, Karen and i have just returned from visiting friends in the States, if you want to see what we got up to then have a look at our travel bloghttp://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Wandering-Wylies/Trips/8454 We had a great time and certainly come back relaxed.

Over these last few months as well as dealing with all these various issues i have also been thinking through various issues in relation to my own faith. I have to say that i don't find bible study, prayer to be easy... apart from to say that its easier NOT to do it! I realise that a 'relationship' with God is vital if my faith is to have meaning and purpose and so i have been trying (not to purposefully) to recognise God in the everyday things of life... the good and the bad. When you do this, i think it alters our perception of who God is and what God does, you begin to see Gods fingerprint or handy-work in the strangest places.

I suppose though my attention falls on to issues of the church, and i hope to ponder some of these questions over the next few blogs, so watch this space!

The Bunnymen

Every now and again i attend a gig that makes the hairs on the back of my head tingle, tonight was such an occasion, I've seen Echo and the Bunnymen once before and they were dreadful! But tonight they were amazing! It was great to hear the old stuff, it brought back memory's of listening to there albums when i was younger... age is weird thing! It's also been great to listen to there new stuff, there most recent album is excellent.

I also enjoyed the support band 'Strangeways' which is rare as normally they can be awful! they had two lead singers and they were very good, I'm going to be looking out for them. I'm a recent convert to Spotify, an interesting way to check out new music before buying it! Even though I'm in to the new technology of Ipods and such things, i also download a lot of new music as well, but i still much prefer the 'real' thing, I like the artwork and the content of the inserts. There's something good about holding a CD! I also have to admit to liking vinyl as well, i try to find rare stuff, but i often find i don't know what I'm looking for! It seems the more i read Record Collector the more confused i get.