i am currently reading a great wee book (see image below), it is full of wise words and big ideas. an all round great read, this one i think will be one of those books that i pick up and an read again and again and again.
what books do you find yourself returning to again and again?
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“The church today should be getting ready and talking about issues of tomorrow and not issues of 20 and 30 years ago, because the church is going to be squeezed in a wringer. If we found it tough in these last few years, what are we going to do when we are faced with the real changes that are ahead?…”
“One of the greatest injustices we do to our young people is to ask them to be conservatives. Christianity is not concervative, but revolutionary. To be conservative today is to miss the whole point, for conservation means standing in the flow of the status quo, and the status que no longer belongs to us….”
“If we want to be fair, we must teach the young to be revolutionaries, revolutionaries against the status quo.”
This was written by Francis Schaeffer almost 40 years ago, have we listened to his advice?
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looks like the labour party are not the only organisation struggling with leadership currently.
read more here from this excellent blog…
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some difficult reading…..
Taken from here.
Reading the Ryan Report, by Mike Philpott
The first four years of my grammar school education were spent among barbarians.
Despite the advice of my parents to attend a state school, I chose a Catholic grammar – firstly because it was alleged to be the best in the area and secondly because I knew several people who attended it and wouldn’t have to make new friends. To this day, it’s the worst decision I have taken.
My abiding memory of the place is unrelenting violence. Teachers carried canes and straps as a matter of course. Those who were not men of the cloth were bad enough. But the priests were unrivalled in their appetite for savagery. I recall one Latin teacher who played a sadistic game every day in class. He used to ask questions about Latin vocabulary, and if you got one wrong you were told to stand in one corner of the room. If you were still in that corner by the end of the lesson, you received four strokes of the cane. Each time you got one right, you moved to another corner, which subtracted one stroke from your final total. So to get back to your seat, you had to answer four questions correctly.
Even though this was nearly 40 years ago, I still wonder from time to time how the mind of a teacher could contrive such a perverse entertainment from the business of learning.
Many years later, while covering the funeral of a victim of the Troubles as a reporter, I encountered this savage again. What was most staggering about the meeting was that he spoke as if nothing had happened. The fact is, he saw it as normal. And he was by no means alone. Another teacher caned the entire class because one person had damaged a door and everyone else refused to turn him over to summary justice.
This violence percolated downwards to those on the receiving end. Some regained their self respect by turning to bullying, doling out yet more punishment to the weaker members of the class.
The people I felt sorriest for were the boarders, who were trapped in this atmosphere of brutality and sexual repression 24 hours a day, and the kids whose entire existence was dominated by the Catholic Church – everything from the youth clubs they attended to the forced trips to the west of Ireland, where their summer holidays were spent speaking Irish and dominated even more heavily by Catholicism.
Luckily, I escaped over the fence to a state school, where teachers were human and pupils gasped in disbelief at what happened to their Catholic counterparts.
Those formative years have left me with an abiding hatred not just of the institutions of the Catholic Church, but of all organised religion. I have a particular well of rage reserved for religious schools of whatever denomination, whose only purpose is indoctrination and control. Why is there any need for any religion to have a role in education in any state?
But I wonder what it’s like to be a Catholic priest, after years of innuendo and being the butt of jokes. Pity and scorn are the only two emotions they seem to conjure up these days. As for those higher up the food chain, with their scarlet robes and airs of importance, the only emotion they evoke is anger. Some of them knew about the abuse and helped to hide it, in common with the other authorities at the time.
Together with the MPs’ expenses scandal, the Ryan report on abuse proves that decades of moral guidance were hollow and that the concept of justice doesn’t exist.
B) Community of Grace
Remember we shape the communities we belong to, the choice and option of which community we belong to is in some way up to you and me. So what sort of community are we shaping.
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thanks to ignite.
to sum up the 1st session today with the ‘focus’ weekend……
‘are you ready to be you’?
all that preparation etc for a simple 5 word moment of revelation and truth.
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I have been thinking-struggling with the issue of identity for some time now, both who am i, and what is the authentic identity of the church. i believe both are closely linked and rely on each other. i have decided to discuss this subject at a weekend away i have been invited to speak at. i hope to post some of my preparation and thoughts here for comment and suggestion. please also feel free to make suggestions and share your own thoughts and struggles with the subject matter and maybe togehter we can begin to find our true identity and the powerful dna of this amazing community called church.
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Confession.
I bind unto myself today The strong name of the Trinity, By invocation of the same, The Three in One and One in Three. I bind this day to me for ever, By power of faith, Christ’s Incarnation; His baptism in the Jordan River; His death on cross for my salvation; His bursting from the spicèd tomb; His riding up the heavenly way; His coming at the day of doom; I bind unto myself today. I bind unto myself the power Of the great love of the Cherubim; The sweet ‘Well done’ in judgment hour; The service of the Seraphim, Confessors’ faith, Apostles’ word, The Patriarchs’ prayers, the Prophets’ scrolls, All good deeds done unto the Lord, And purity of virgin souls. I bind unto myself today The virtues of the starlit heaven, The glorious sun’s life-giving ray, The whiteness of the moon at even, The flashing of the lightning free, The whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks, The stable earth, the deep salt sea, Around the old eternal rocks. I bind unto myself today The power of God to hold and lead, His eye to watch, His might to stay, His ear to hearken to my need. The wisdom of my God to teach, His hand to guide, his shield to ward, The word of God to give me speech, His heavenly host to be my guard. Against the demon snares of sin, The vice that gives temptation force, The natural lusts that war within, The hostile men that mar my course; Or few or many, far or nigh, In every place and in all hours Against their fierce hostility, I bind to me these holy powers. Against all Satan’s spells and wiles, Against false words of heresy, Against the knowledge that defiles, Against the heart’s idolatry, Against the wizard’s evil craft, Against the death-wound and the burning The choking wave and the poisoned shaft, Protect me, Christ, till thy returning. Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger. I bind unto myself the name, The strong name of the Trinity; By invocation of the same. The Three in One, and One in Three, Of whom all nature hath creation, Eternal Father, Spirit, Word: Praise to the Lord of my salvation, salvation is of Christ the Lord.
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i was more than shocked last night when i first became aware of the incident at the army barracks in Antrim. i am old enough to remember ‘the troubles’ and i suppose i had got used to this new era we live in. last night that seemed to be more tenuous than ever. lets hope and pray our politicians and community leaders use wisdom and speak with calm reassurance and not fall into the old tribal blame game. More than ever this wee island needs to see the followers of Jesus leading and showing the way of, grace, forgiveness, peace, freedom and life.
now is the time to awake and speak out and take our place no longer cowering in the shadows of our safe little spiritual cliques and take the call of Jesus seriously and become the salt and light we where created to be!
S:
today 31st dec 2008 was my last official day as an employee of Shore Street Church, thankfully i finally got all the paperwork sorted out. as i was leaving the church i wandered into one of the rooms and as i stood there thinking about all the great amazing and fun times i have had there with all the different groups of young people i must admit i felt a bit emotional. i will miss the young people from SST so much.
i am also now past my nervous moment i had yesterday and am looking forward to next monday as i start my new job.
all that is left is to wish you all a very happy new year and i will see you back here in 2009.
S:
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