October 31st is an interesting day for the Church. How to engage positively with modern culture while still celebrating the Light? One approach is to subvert the festival to point in another direction altogether (i.e to Jesus).

One possibility is to run a Light Party – a celebration of all that is light, with music, games, and sweets. The idea being it’s even better than dressing up as a zombie and going trick or treating!

Another approach is to carve a ‘Christian’ pumpkin – as illustrated here. There is a little poem that goes with it that is a sort of prayer, but also explains the symbolism. I take no credit at all for this! (And apologies if your browser renders it in Comic Sans; I’ve just said “cursive”).

(via http://www.dltk-bible.com/a_christian_pumpkin.htm)

Virgin Media just keep on increasing their lowest tier of broadband, at least in this area. This time last year, we have 20Mbps, which was boosted to 50Mbps, and has just been bosted again to 75Mbps.

My LAN only runs at 100Mbps!

I’m a panelist for broadband speed monitoring, and I quite like the profile of the download and upload speeds over the last 12 months:

There’s clearly a bit of instability / variation in the download speeds, as one would expect, which is a shame as it masks the steps up a bit. Still, I like it.

Journalling is, I think, one of the more misunderstood spiritual disciplines. There’s a sense that you have to be super spiritual to keep one, or write 5 sides of A4 a day. Certainly if you were to read the journals of spiritual “heavyweights”, it could be quite a daunting and demoralising experience.

It doesn’t need to be a masterpiece though, and the simple act of writing down your thoughts, and occasionally going back to reflect on them is extremely valuable, as well as being an interesting and enjoyable exercise. The first rule is to ditch the guilt. It doesn’t matter if you do it three times a day, once a week, or once a year at Easter (or whatever). That said, the more you use it, the more valuable it is, and I’d suggest that less than once a year is probably too infrequent to make it worthwhile. Of course life ebbs and flows, I’ve certainly gone for more than a year between entries once or twice over the 16 years I’ve been keeping one.

So what is a journal? Well, I would describe it as record of thoughts and feelings, particuarly of a spiritual nature. I also include significant events in my journal, as I believe we are holistic beings, and occurances like getting married, having a child, losing a parent, changing jobs, moving house, taking on or dropping responsibilities, and so on will affect us spiritually as well as emotionally and physically.

Personally, I use a filofax (I’m actually on my second now), because I find it useful to be able to write entries on loose-leaf filofax paper and insert them later if I’m away without my journal. Many people use a hardback notebook that’s solely for that purpose. Whatever you choose, it should be a book that is special in some way, and only used for journalling – it needs to hold up to decades of use. At its best, it’s an extremely personal, intimate, cherished thing, and a dog-eared A4 refill pad is unlikely to be helpful to the process!! I would encourage you not to use a computer in this instance – the enforced slowness and personalisation (and permanence) of hand-writing is valuable. You should use a pen that is, at the very least, comfortable and writes well (I don’t actually use a fountain pen, by the way.)

You should find a way that’s most the helpful the easiest for you to actually do. Here’s how I write mine; Firstly, I find a quiet spot, ideally with a cup of coffee. I open up to a new page, and write the date, and usually some form of heading. My headings are often where I physically am at that point in time (e.g. “Willersely Castle”) – although this is more a reflection of the fact I tend to write it more when I’m out and about than when I’m at home! They can also be an indication of whatever has prompted me to write an entry.

I then just write as little or as much as I feel like, or have time for. I have entries that are literally one or two words – often a picture or word that someone has had for me. Other times I will write at length about what’s going on with me – things that are great, things that aren’t so good, things that I’m confused about and trying to work out. I often find little thoughts pop in to my head about things I’d been intending to journal, but hadn’t got around to (e.g. “That reminds me – a few weeks ago in Church, there was a sermon all about that, and I’d never really thought before how Jesus did so and so and his disciples reacted by doing this and that!”).

I also usually try and intentionally finish an entry – even if it’s as simple as “That’s all for now.” Otherwise it can feel a bit disconcerting when you come back to reading them in the future, and an entry stops what feels like halfway through.

If you exercise spritual disciplines like Lectio Divino or the Awareness Examen, journalling is the ideal medium to make a note of it. Similarly if you worship in a more charistmatic/prophectic tradition, words and pictures should absolutely go in the journal.

In case it isn’t already clear, you should read it back to yourself from time to time! Maybe not the whole thing cover to cover, although I try and do this once a year – and of course when you’ve just started journalling it doesn’t take long to read it all back. I also find that when I’m writing an entry I will sometimes want to refer back to something I’ve written on the subject previously.

Finally, don’t let anyone else read it. By all means read passages out to someone if it’s appropriate – say a mentor or prayer partner – and perhaps even let them view a specific entry. But in general it has to be sacrosant and private, a place where you can write down the deepest and darkest truths. Somewhere you can admit to yourself your sin, struggles and fears; perhaps as a first step to admitting them to someone else. If you allow other people to read it, you will (subconciously or others) start write for them, or for your image, and not for you.

If you need further convincing, here are some of the benefits I’ve experienced over the years:

• The very act of stopping and writing reflectively has slowed me down and deepened me as a person.
• Having to actually put thoughts and feelings into words on paper crystalises them, and sometimes helps you realise that you don’t actually think what you thought you thought!
• It becomes a record of what God has done, over time, which builds faith and worship. Sometimes it is only years later that an answer to prayer can be recognised, but this is only really possible if the prayer has been recorded in the first place.
• It’s a key part of my decision making process. Both as a way to martial my thoughts, and also to reflect on any similarities with situations I’ve faced in the past.
• You can’t argue with pen and ink (or edit it) in 10 years time! It’s a “warts’n’all” record of what you were thinking and feeling at a point in time.

As to the spiritual “heavyweights”? Perhaps an analogy is helpful; If you visit a top-notch restaurant, and are served the most exquisite food, you don’t expect to be able to go home and re-create the dish the next day. It takes skill, equipment, experience, ingredients, and a whole lot of practice to create something that amazing. What you can do is cook something, and perhaps try and learn some of the techniques, keep improving as a chef. You may never create a meal as wonderful as the professional, but I can guarantee that you can make something delicious and unique.

In Romans 6:23, Paul says:

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Aside from the obvious quip (“That’s fine, thanks – I’ll sin on a voluntary basis”), I’ve been reflecting on this recently, and my own experience of sin and death. Sin, for the purposes of this post, is anything which is contrary to God’s will, plan, or nature. It must be kept that in mind that God, and Jesus’ sacrifice, are far greater than any sin we could conceieve of, or do – however bad we are (or feel we are), God always has the last word, and sees us as pure and sinless if we allow Him to.

Back to the verse; I’ve been wondering if this is a verse that operates on several levels (as a lot of them do), and it is referring to all three of literal/physical, metaphorical, and spiritual death?

The spiritual element is perhaps the most transparent reading, especially given the contrast with eternal life in Christ. If we reject God’s gift, we are choosing to spend eternity without God – separated from him by our own sin. Amazingly all we have to do is confess Christ as Lord, and repent of (i.e. say sorry, and turn from) our sin, and God’s gift is that He sees us just as if we’d never sinned. I think the spiritual means in the here and now also – in that sin robs of us the fullness of life. When we do stuff wrong, we feel guillty, grumpy, fed up, and of course separated from God. There is some overlap with what I describe as metaphorical death below – perhaps a better expression for that would be abstract or metaphysical. Not sure!

The physical/literal is an equally valid reading, in my opinion. If we (persistently) sin, our physical bodies pay the price here and now. This may be through the direct abuse of our bodies (drinking, smoking, drugs, driving when tired, not getting enough sleep, over/under eating, unfitness, suicide at the extreme). We’re told elsewhere in scripture that our bodies are temples or the Holy Spirit, and therefore anything we do which damages our body is out of kilter with God’s plan.
It might also be the direct effect of others’ sin. The obvious current example is the so-called IS. Their torture and murder is sin, but the consequential death is that of the victims. The refugees drowning are another group in this category – there can be no doubt that their plight is a direct result on sin on the part of others. Finally, physical death can be the direct effect of our corporate sin – whether that’s hubris (for example, arrogance around an unsinkable titantic, or building houses on fault-line/flood-plans, or tearing up mangroves), or our sin against creation – extreme weather, some forms of cancer.

But I think there is a third interpretation, which is metaphorical death. It’s probably easiest to explain this by example. If I sin against my wife (for example, by having an affair or using pornography), that will ultimately lead to the death of our marriage. It will lead to ‘little deaths’ in the short-term, as trust and intimacy is eroded, and long-term to the death of the relationship. Similarly, if I sin against my employer, by stealing from work, or not doing my job properly, this will lead to the death of my job (i.e. I get the sack), and possibly my career. If I sin against my children by being short-tempered, or abusive, that leads to the death of the relationship. If I am in a position of trust, and abuse that, it will lead to the death of that position.

Of course, there is death without sin. Bad stuff happens sometimes. But from what I see, sin always brings death, sooner or later, in one form or another.

All of the above said, Christians are also Easter people, and recognise that death isn’t the final word. Just as Jesus was resurrected, so is death ultimately beaten. This means even if (say) a relationship has died, there is still the hope of resurrection! As our physical bodies die, so is there hope (sure hope) of resurrection and eternal life with Jesus.

So far in my ordination training, the vast majority of assessed work has been via a written essay, usually of 2,500 words.

UPDATE: By the look of this year’s handbook, the citation rules have changed, and we are allowed to use the altogether more sensible Harvard referencing system. The styling also seems a lot more relaxed, with wording like “usually” and “normally”. The only hard requirements seem to be regarding the title page, and what it must show. The point about not doing it manually still stands though.

These need to be academic, with – frankly – some very odd style and reference guidelines. They approximate the Modern Humanities Research Association Style Guide, which in turn broadly approximates the Oxford referencing style.

The citation style and bibliography are horrible to do manually, and you shouldn’t even consider it. At the very least you should be using the referencing system in Word, with some sort of bibliography that you can re-use in subsequent assignments. I’m afraid I don’t know how to do this though! My colleagues on the course have managed to submit essays which met the required style, so it must be possible to set up Word in this way.

I personally use LaTeX, which is a typesetting system designed for publication of scientific documents, and is absolutely fantastic. It does all the styling, referencing, bibliography, page breaks, and creates beautiful documents. All I have to do is type in the actual content (which is where I want to be spending my time, not fighting against Word). It has three significant drawbacks though:

• It has a very steep learning curve,
• It is targeted at the scientific community, so there are hoops to jump through for humanities, and
• In this context, it only makes PDFs

The last one is the only serious one – on the Yorkshire Ministry Course (and therefore maybe Common Awards) there is a very strong preference for Word documents. I have so far been allowed to submit PDFs, but I fear the day may come when I’m not allowed to.

I guess another drawback is the fact that its name makes one think of rubber!! (Although it’s pronounced “lay tek” – and you’ll have noticed my careful capitalisation.)

Fortunately, in recent years it has become far easier to run LaTeX on Windows. I use proTeXt, which comes with the very good TeXStudio editor for writing documents. It’s even possible to get it running on Android, but I haven’t had too much joy.

Anyway, I have jotted down some notes on how to set up LaTeX to speak Common Awards over on the page called, funnily enough, using LaTeX for common awards.

Some years ago, I read a book called “Contemplative Youth Ministry”, by Mark Yaconelli. This was while I was a youth group leader, and it is a book that has changed my life and my spirituality. I mentioned it already in the context of Lectio Divino.

It’s a book about understanding God’s role, and our role. About moving away from anxiety driven ministry to Spirit lead (and equipped) ministry. It’s about saying “actually, these young people have a deep relationship with God, and maybe I’m here because God wants me to learn from them, and not the other way around. Or maybe this is the only way God can get my attention.”

At my best, I can hand the keys over to God. Usually, however, I still find it oh so easy to slip back into an anxiety driven mode of operation, and try to take the initiative where it should be left in the hands of the Lord. As a wise person once said; The problem with living sacrifices is that they tend to crawl off the altar.

The antidote to this anxiety and activity is, in my experience, contemplation and reflection. Slowing down. Stopping even. Waiting and listening. Being, not doing.

One of the exercises that really helps me do this is Lectio Divino, as I already mentioned. The other is the Awareness Examen. At this point I must mention another book – “Sleeping With Bread – Holding what gives you life” by Dennis Linn et al. This book revealed and released the Examen to me in a very helpful way – it’s not a big book, and doesn’t take long to read, but I whole-heartedly recommend it.

What is it?

As it’s most simple, it is a reflection on a given event or time-period (say the last 24 hours), that involves two questions:

• What did I like about it?
• What didn’t I like about it?

There are a million and one ways to phrase these questions – “favourite thing / least favourite thing”, “high point / low point”, “what gave me energy / sapped my energy” – but they all come down to moments of consolation and moments of desolation.

Consolation involves things that lift us, energise us, give us wings. Things that we feel we could do forever. Things that bring peace and rest to our souls and spirits. Times when we are who we are made to be. Desolation is just the opposite – things that drag us down, wear us out, leave us feeling run down. Our heart sinks at the thought of them, and they rob us of our energy. Times when we are a square peg in a round hole, feeling lost and confused.

How to do it

The Examen itself need only take 5 or 10 minutes. Start (as such) by stopping. Just stop. Put everything down. Find a quiet corner. Relax, and try to settle your mind – if anything important comes to mind, jot it down (so you don’t forget it), then move on. If you like, say a short prayer to God, asking for his wisdom and voice. When you are settled, cast your mind back to this time yesterday, and replay the events between then and now. Don’t analyse them or regret them – just bring them to mind, and remember how they felt. What went well? What was a disaster? What was neutral? What points particularly stand out, if any? Remember, you are just identifying them; not evaluating them, not trying to understand them, not working out what to do about them – just recognising them.

Once you have reached “now”, try to narrow down the events to one or two points of consolation and desolation. These may be events or great importance and significance, or events of little or no consequence what-so-ever. As always, I would strongly recommend you write it down in a journal, even just in note form (as long as you will still understand the notes in 5 or 10 years time!)

If you like you can now reflect upon these – although the first few times through there is likely to be little value in trying to get too deep. As you start to build up a history, however, you can start to reflect on whether any patterns are emerging. Ask God if there is something about the way He’s made you that He would like to draw your attention to. Write down any thoughts or insights or feelings the exercise or reflection brings.

It is worth highlighting that neither consolation nor desolation is inherently good or bad, in and of itself. It’s not automatically right to do consolation activities and automatically wrong to do desolation activities. It’s not necessarily good that certain activities are consolation and some are desolation. It’s not necessarily bad to have desolation (even though it may feel that way).

Why do it?

So what is the point? Well, as I understand it there are three benefits of the Examen. Firstly, it increases our self-awareness in specific situations. If negative thoughts and feelings start to bring us down, this may just be down to being in the middle of a desolation. This knowledge in itself gives us the opportunity to step outside ourselves (as such), and to perhaps respond in a more positive manner. Conversely we may recognise ourselves in a consolation, and fully immerse ourselves in the moment, enjoying it to the full. This is perhaps an incidental benefit, however.

Secondly, and more importantly for me, it paints a picture over time. It paints a picture of who I am, and how I’ve been made. It helps me see the things that give me life and joy, and the things which take them away. It helps me makes decisions about how I use my time, about my work, my ministry, my relationships. No one can avoid desolation – and it wouldn’t be healthy to try to – but equally no one can survive without consolation. You can’t give all the time without receiving. In fact, I would say you need more consolation than desolation, otherwise things are going to go south.

I’ve a friend who does the Examen every day with his family, and who writes down his own personal points of consolation and desolation in his journal. Through this activity he has gained a deeper appreciation of the things that provide support and comfort in his life, as well as a greater awareness of the things that drag him down. It hasn’t radically changed his life, but it has made him realise how precious certain things are.

The final benefit is as a contemplative exercise. The very act of stopping, and thinking and reflecting is hugely beneficial. As another wise person said once; we will quite happily sit at a bus stop for 5, 10, or even 15 minutes, waiting for a bus, yet how long we will sit and wait for God? I recognise in myself that a lot of my activity is fuelled by anxiety, and that at times I’m almost scared of being alone with myself, for fear of what I might discover – that I might discover that actually underneath all the activity there isn’t anything?

I’ll end with a quick test: When you find yourself with a couple of minutes spare, do you immediately get out your phone and check Facebook/Twitter/E-mail? Do you get your book out and snatch a page or two? Do you strike up a conversation? Do you start mentally reviewing your “to-do” list? These things aren’t bad, but my experience is that trying to fill every second of every day is an unhealthy way to live, and may be a indication of being driven by anxiety and the need to feel busy all the time.

So, could you commit to spending 5 minutes of time every night this week, perhaps just before going to sleep, to ‘replay’ the previous 24 hours and reflect upon the highs and lows?

Right – hopefully that’s everything back up and running again!

The hack didn’t affect my customised theme (and I’ve restored a clean version from my source-control anyway). I suspect there will be little dark corners that don’t quite work, but the site is looking much like I would expect it to.

My WordPress site apparently got hacked while I was away on holiday (which is why the site went down).

I’ve done a fresh installation, but am not going to copy the theme customisations across just yet until I have a chance to make sure nothing’s been compromised!

I think Life Verses are probably a bit of a marmite thing – you either love the idea, or hate it/don’t see the point. I must confess that I haven’t read any direct explanation of what they are, so I’ve inferred it from some of the youthwork books I’ve read and my own personal experience. As a concept, they perhaps grab youth a bit more readily, but I think there may be value whatever your age.

In essence, and as I understand it, a Life Verse is a particularly verse from the Bible that you feel God has given you as a ongoing guide and ‘touchstone’. It is a verse to keep coming back to again and again, when times are good and when times are bad. It’s a verse to memorise, and read again when facing life’s decisions. It may be because the content of the verse is particularly relevant, or because it was a verse that was given you to at an important or special place or time, and revisiting the verse takes you back there.

Either way, it’s a particular verse that speaks to you of God and His goodness, and His plan for your life, that is special to you. Probably worth mentioning that I don’t think it’s set in stone either, and your verse(s) may change as you time goes by.

How do you choose a life verse? Well, at the risk of going all Harry Potter, I think it chooses you; you just have to be open to God speaking. I certainly wouldn’t suggest starting at Genesis 1 and reading through until you find one! Keeping a journal is a good starting point – write it down when something strikes you or especially speaks to you (perhaps during a
Lectio Divino?). Write it down when someone has a word/passage for you. I intend to write about journalling in a future post, but it’s a discipline I highly recommend.

It may be this increased awareness/intentionally is enough – that you find a verse that immediately says “Life Verse” to you. It may take some deeper reflection and thought, and looking back through your journal. I would probably recommend avoiding the ‘obvious’/general ones, like I know the plans I have for you in Jeremiah, or For God so loved the world in John 3, unless these are promises that seem particularly relevant and personal to your circumstances or background. A Life Verse is a verse that is tailor-made for you.

I have two life verses at present. The first is from Ephesians 4.

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Ephesians 4:11-13

My heart is for “equipping the saints.” Or perfecting, or preparing, or training, or knitting – however you choose to translate katartismon.

The second is from Jeremiah –

Then I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will lead you with knowledge and understanding.
Jeremiah 3:15

How did I choose these? Well, Ephesians 4 was a no-brainer. It was immediately clear to me as my calling when I started my serious walk with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit some 18 years ago. Jeremiah came a little later in the course of my ‘daily’ scripture reading. Again when I read it is leapt out at me as a twofold promise, (a) that God will provide shepherds, and (b) that they will be after God’s own heart, and lead with knowledge and understanding. The logical conclusion is that if God were to provide me as a shepherd, I will be after His own heart, and lead his people with knowledge and understanding. This is and has been an enormous comfort and encouragement to me as a potential leader.

I received both these verses before I knew anything about Life Verses. When I set out to discern my own Life Verse, the approach I took was to set aside an afternoon to write down all the verses I’d felt God had spoken to me through specifically. This included all the verses I’ve underlined or highlighted in my Bible, and any I’d written in my journal. This in itself was an interesting exercise, as I’d anticipated there would be perhaps 5 or 10 – instead of which I filled 3 sides of A4!! I knew Eph 4 would be one before I started, and as soon as I re-read Jer 3 I knew this was one as well. Nevertheless I completed the exercise, and decided to allow a couple of weeks to pray and reflect on which specific verses I should choose. This didn’t change the outcome, and actually the process of writing them all out was potentially more of a hindrance than a help – just revisiting them all was enough as it turned out.

So I guess the message is don’t sweat it. If the concept resonates with you, then you are probably already pretty close to having a Life Verse. It may be not a way God wants to speak to you/guide you at present, and it is certainly no substitute for time spent getting to know the Lord, His ways, and His voice. However it just may be something that you find helpful…

(Download PDF Template)

Sometimes a little bit of structure can make a huge difference, especially when trying to do a Bible study.

I must confess that I find it very hard to engage with the ‘standard’ sort of Bible study, where you start off with a list of comprehension questions (“Where was Peter when he first saw Jesus?” “Who else was in the boat?”), and then move onto discussion and application. I don’t want to be negative about this approach – which can be very helpful and appropriate, particularly for complex or less familiar passages – but I often struggle with them.

They also require a significant investment from the “setter” or leader – who needs to have studied the passage in depth, identified the key discussion points, and tried to discern God’s agenda for application to the particular group. Again this is an entirely helpful and appropriate approach, and when preparing a talk or sermon I would say is essential.

However, for a week by week Bible study in a small group, I believe there are other approaches which have a lower ‘barrier to entry’ and facilitate both discussion and deep engagement with the text – and with no real preparation required by the group or leader!

The principle is simple: Choose a passage. Pray. Split into small groups (2 or 3) and read the passage. Answer 4 questions. Reconvene and feedback/discuss your answers as the whole group.
It can also be done individually rather than in small groups.

The 4 questions are:

1. What did I learn, or what struck me in a new way?
2. What does the passage tell me about God?
3. What does the passage tell me about people?
4. What did I find difficult about the passage, or what questions does it raise?

These 4 questions can be on a piece of A4 paper, split into quadrants, and each group or individual has a copy. The four quandrants are marked with an icon symbolising the question: a candle (what was new), an up arrow (about God), a down arrow (about others), and a question mark (questions/difficulties). You can download a PDF version of the Swedish Bible Study for your own printing out.

The excerise can take as long as you like, but 20-30 mins is probably a good length of time for a typical study passage (15-20 verses) with 10-12 people, in groups of four – so 15-20 minutes answering the questions, then 5-10 minutes feeding back. If you opt for a discussion, prayer, and/or response time, then the sky’s the limit (but don’t let it drag!)

You may also want to include a response/application element – what action do a need to take as a result of this study? What changes do I need to make?

My thanks to the Growing Leaders course for introducing me to this study technique.