andygoodliff

Goodliff Close

On our youth weekend away while driving around Huntingdon, we found this road, so I made sure we got a picture.

Grief (updated)

Reading The Complex Christ (I know I've come to the party a little late with this book), I came across this, which hit home.

There is a spectacular lack of grief in our churches today. The texts of so many Christian magazines, sermons and songs are all woven into an enormous blanket of denial that we wrap warmly around us, smothering the honest doubts with an ever-optimistic hue of 'everything is good, and God is with us.' Hands are raised, but never to ask questions, only in surrender to programs of services, outreaches, prayer meetings and worship. Eyes are shut, less blinded by glory as blind to the fact that numbers are falling, chruches are closing, the 'revival' didn't come, society is losing interest and our circle of influence is decreasing.' (p.33)

Nothing we sing or hear in our churches speaks of sorrow and grief. Our worship ignores real life. It is unable to say anything in times of hurricanes and bombs, job loss, illness or divorce. We need to find ways of embracing grief, of facing the truth that everything is not always good. I wonder whether this can happen in large churches ... emerging churches in part are able to connect with reality of what life brings because they tend to be small communities where grief and pain and doubt are more difficult to hide or deny. 

Just wanted to draw attention to this post by my friend ashley, which I thought was a rather interesting expression of grief/despair at the world.

25 Today!

I'm 25 today. I'm not sure I've done everything I wanted to do by the time I as 25. But that's a good thing. Hannah gave me a toolbox and a set of screwdrivers (I did give her a watering can for her birthday!) Off tonight for a curry with friends.

Apologies for my slackness in blogging. Life seems so busy and nothing has grabbed me to blog about. I picked up The Complex Christ (Kester Brown) and Performing the Faith (Hauerwas) on the weekend and I'm looking forward to getting a copy of Robert Fisk's (reporter for the Independent) new book. Our weekend away with the young people was fantastic. A well balanced weekend. The young people responded to everything we did. I've got church issues on the way regarding church planting and what to do with our building, what to do with a hall we won, what happens at the family christmas service where the children normally do everything. I'm in the reassessing my role/calling and whether there's an opportunity to have a go at doing church a little different. I'll try and get back into the swing of writing very soon.