Meditation

Hope you have all remained suitably chillaxed after last weeks gathering.

As promised, here are the books that Jack recommended for the next few sessions:

Eat This Book – The Art of Spiritual Reading, by Eugene Peterson. A look at the ancient discipline of lectio divina – spiritual reading – for a postmodern culture. Very good.

Everything Belongs – The Gift of Contemplative Prayer, by Richard Rohr – recommended by Ian Wedd.

Celebration of Discipline, by Richard Foster, practical instruction on the spiritual disciplines.

Christian spirituality – A Historical Sketch, by George A. Lane, S.J. Lane looks at the sources of the Christian spiritual traditions in order to establish a firm ground for a contemporary spirituality.

Loving God With All Your Mind – Thinking as a Christian in the Postmodern World, by Gene Edward Veith, Jr.

The Celtic Wheel of the Year – Celtic and Christian Prayers – Tess Ward. Beautiful guided prayers for every day of the year.

and the Gene Edward Veith, Jr. quote:

“. . .everything the mind is capable of doing is to be devoted to loving God. It would seem then that if your mind can spin out complex mathematical calculations, you are to love God in mathematics. If your mind can plan a business, design a building, analyze a novel, understand a philosophical problem, or imagine a story, you are to love God in your planning, designing, analyzing, understanding, or imagining. When Jesus says “all” mind, He is claiming every mental faculty we have.” Gene Edward Veith, Jr. Loving God With All Your Mind, pg. 150

 

Making Sense of Lent

Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, in partnership with BBC Radio 4 and BBC Local Radio, are running a series of broadcasts and resources entitled “Making sense of Lent”. They are exploring a different sense each week over lent, and using it to inform devotional times, teaching etc etc.

There are resources for each week, which include something to reflect on, stories, prayer, bibles readings, ideas for response, along with a few vidoes and podcasts thrown in for good measure.

I’m really excited about this. It really ties in some of the things with have been exploring to do with the church calender and the senses.

You can find more here:

Making sense of Lent

 

Shhhh…..

Here’s the link to the Jay Pathak talk on silence I mentioned on Saturday:

http://www.arvadavineyard.org/sermons/10.05.08.mp3

If you have a chance to listen to it I would really recommend it.

There are also some new book recommendations to have a look at for those of you that wish to build on the stuff that we have been doing on the sense and symbols series. check em out.

 

With a God this big, we need 5 senses

In doing a spot of research for this weeks session, I came across this post:

http://www.jesussite.com/blog/2008/06/the-5-senses-in-worship/

What struck me about this extract, was the author’s absolute awe and reverance at how big God is. He suggests that in order to begin to understand some of the richness of God’s character, we need 5 senses. He communicates with us through all 5, and uses all 5 to reveal a little something of himself.

That is what we are after, afterall isn’t it? To know just the smallest bit more of God’s presence, power, grace, majesty and love. As we begin to explore new elements to worship, we start to see new elements of God. What a wonderful prospect.

 

Take a Deep Breath In

Life gets busy: Christmas and the run up to Christmas is busy; after a short break over the holiday season, January quickly comes round with more busyness. This extract from ‘Punk Monk’ by Andy Freeman and Pete Greig, challenges us with the importance of slowing down, and taking in a big gulp of God:

Bono once asked the extraordinary and dynamic South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu if he ever gets time for pray and meditation.
“What are you taking about?” shrieked Tutu with a broad grin, “Do you think we are able to do this stuff if we didn’t?”
As we seek to establish a life-dynamic that balances prayer and action, receiving and giving, being and doing, we must remember that the priority is the inward breath. Adam was mere dust until God first breathed into his nostrils. Likewise, a newborn baby cannot cry until he has taken his first great gulp of air, a breath with unfurls his lungs like a sail and begins a process that will last as long as his life. The midwife knows that nothing else is more urgent than that first breath – everything else in life will flow from there. In just the same way, as we seek to develop a rhythm of life, we cannot breath out God’s life and God’s dreams […] until we have first breathed them in by being with Him.

[…] We live in a frenetic culture that seems at times to be seeking to rebuild the Tower of Babel in its craving to consume and conquer. […] Like those fated builders, we desire to be connected, we are driven to make a name for ourselves, we reach fro the skies with new technology. In our pride we aspire to be like God.

[…] In such a frenetic context, the call to withdraw from busyness, to switch off your mobile phone, to ration your use of the internet and email, to swap doing for being, is a radically prophetic one.

We cannot do anything save for the in take of God’s life-breath in us.  As we start a new term, we want to take time and consider how we might breathe it in.

At this point in the new year, why not being 2009 by taking a deep breath in.

 

Monastery Day

Hi guys, so we’re off to the Abbey on Friday for a retreat day. Here’s some details…

If you want to travel in convoy meet us at the Warehouse for 9:15 and we’ll dish out directions. (If anyone needs a lift let us know)

If you just want to make your own way there, head for Launde Abbey and aim to arrive for coffee at 10am.

The Address is Launde Abbey, East Norton, Leicester LE7 9XB. LINK TO MAP

Lunch is provided for, but make sure you bring your bible, note book etc and wrap up warm as we’ll make good use of the lovely grounds – weather permitting!!

The cost of the day has been subsidised, but please bring a tenner with you. If this is a problem let us know.

If you’ve got any questions give  Sam or Ronnie a call.

See you there.

 

Who is this…?

The Apostles creed:

 

We believe in God, the Father Almighty,

    the Creator of heaven and earth,

    and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

 

Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit,

    born of the Virgin Mary,

    suffered under Pontius Pilate,

    was crucified, died, and was buried.

 

He descended into hell.

 

The third day He arose again from the dead.

 

He ascended into heaven

    and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,

    whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.

 

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church,

    the communion of saints,

    the forgiveness of sins,

    the resurrection of the body,

    and life everlasting.

 

 

It was a really interesting discussion on Tuesday. Some important questions were asked:

 

Are the creeds constricting or liberating?

 

What was the context within which the creeds were developed? What cultural and political factors were at play in its development?

  

Is it enough to know Jesus or do we also need to know the right things about Jesus?

 

Now we have a day or two digest it all, what thoughts have you had? Elizabeth has started us off (sorry, Elizabeth, my “J-ness” has compelled me to copy your comment below, Thanks for starting us off)

 

Body Theology

Orion has kindly up loaded his notes from his talk on Body theology. They can be found here:

 

http://snipr.com/bodytheologynotes

 

… and for those of you that want to, the mp3 of the session can be found here:

 

http://snipr.com/bodytheology

 

It was a great session, raising lots of questions, particularly abut how we respond to a re-consideration of the body, and embodied worship. Orion suggested that we respond in the following ways:

 

1) Justice – Hostility to Consumerism, how we eat, how we clothe ourselves.

2) Beauty, Aesthetics – Appreciating and Creating Beauty. Exercise, Sex etc. …

3) Eschatological–Missional Community – Meeting together, anticipating re-creation, evangelism. Eating together. The eucharist.

 

The main questions is raised for me were: What does that mean practically? How do we live out embodied worship and the ‘ushering in’ of renewal that NT Wright talks about? Do things like kneeling during prayer or worship, or physical acts like fasting, lighting candles, using incense take on more significance in an embodied worship life?

 

Discuss. What questions did you have?    

 

We’re back on line!

The Life of Worship blog is now back up and running for the 2008 – 2009 course. Welcome.

We hope that this will be a great place to continue some of the conversations we’ll be having on the Tuesday/Saturday sessions. So watch this space…

In the meantime… while thinking about worship in all of its forms, THIS is surely the only direction the culturally savvy church should be going in…