Heaven

Thought I'd post this here rather than on the Visions site, as it provoked some interesting discussions in the pub.
( I can hardly say Visions are all behind it) Although we discussed the concepts at the planning meeting, we had some interesting discussions post-service as to whether Heaven is a democracy or not (I stand by what I said, in context) and whether it is a nation-state or not. (I think it is, so there! Its a Kingdom, they are generally regarded as nation states). But then a little controversy to shake people out of the populist clouds and harps mentality is no bad thing I recon.

Voice 1 - Heaven is like a mustard seed. A tiny thing which when planted grows enormous. So big that people fly for miles to live there.

Voice 2 - Heaven is not like a nightclub with a restricted guestlist and room for only a few hundred packed in like sardines.

Voice 2 - Heaven is like yeast that a cook took and mixed with flour. It was so contagious that all the dough rose in less than an hour.

Voice 1 - Heaven is not like a really long church service with hard pews and your least-favourite hymns or a party by an unpopular person that noone would want to come to.

Voice 1 - Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, something so fantastic that its worth selling everythig else to get it.

Voice 2 - Heaven is not like a mouldy old pot hidden in a field which some historian says is valuable but you’re really not convinced. Or a really overpriced Christmas present ....that you didnt really like, but had to smile when you recieved it.

Voice 2 - Heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. He spots the “big one” that’ll keep him in cash for the rest of his life, and knows its worth trading all his old stock to get it.

Voice 1 - Heaven is not a like a merchant who has fine pearls and only sells them to the “right” people who wear designer clothes, speak with the right accents and carry platinum cards.

Voice 1 - Heaven is like a net that is thrown into the sea and catches fish of every kind. Even the weird looking ones with big teeth that noone would really want to eat and couldn’t possibly get in (could they?)
When they got the catch in they sorted out the good and bad fish. Funny that, some of the scary looking ones stayed and some really quite respectable looking fish got thrown out.

Voice 2 - Heaven is like a high-interest bank account. You can store up treasure there. You can make a deposit by selling stuff and giving the money to poor people and by being insulted and persecuted and having people say bad stuff about you because you happen to follow Jesus Christ.

Voice 2- Heaven is not like the sort of bank where you have to have references, copies of your birth certificate and proof of address and where they deny you entry based on your previous credit-rating.

Voice 1 - Heaven is a place where the down-to-earth childlike people are the important ones. Its a place you can’t get into if your head is too big and you refuse to shrink it.

Heaven is not an idea or a made-up place, a carrot to entice people to be good or a dream to make death less sad, as Hell is not a nightmare to frighten naughty children.

Heaven is like a big wedding-party. Loads of people get invites but some people just don’t want to come, so they send out folks to scour the streets and grab anyone who fancies coming. Do you want to come? I hear the food is great.

Heaven is not a car park, where you just sit and sit for ages and ages not doing anything because you are dead. In fact if you want to stay dead you generally avoid the place as Heaven is a place of never-ending life.

The Kingdom of Heaven is near. You don’t have to travel miles and miles to get there. You don’t even have to die to get there, because it is a place of growth. It is growing within you, within us, even when it doesn’t feel like it.

The Kingdom of Heaven is not stifling stagnation. It is not hate, it is not evil. Heaven is not like a fluffy cloud, a Philadelphia cheese advert, an endless expanse of nirvana-like nothing, a floaty polite thought, a place where everyone wears their nightie all day, Heaven is not disembodied or a-polittical.

Heaven is a kingdom. A political nation-state with a real flesh-and-blood political ruler, whose manifesto contains policies such as “Love one another” . It is also, contrary to popular opinion, a demoncracy in at least one sense. For you have to choose to vote "yes" to the ruler to enter. The government does not violently force itself on you. You may vote "no" if you wish and go elsewhere, but elsewhere isn’t much fun.

More discoveries...Garage Band.

My other recent discovery has been Garage Band. For years I've been using Cubase to write songs, which has worked very well.
I also have a collection of MIDI boxes and old synths together in my office, connected with lots of spaghetti, but gradually they are dying. My Emu sampler has died. I'm not too sad though, as the best thing about it was the 909 drum samples I took from my friend Paul. My Cheetah cool bass noises box went a couple of years ago, and, although I love my CS1X its a complete pain to program, and I just felt like I needed some new sounds.

That, combined with the fact that I had garage band on my Mac anyway (its free, as it comes with the machine) led me to explore it! Actually I'm pretty impressed. I can't believe a piece of software that is free can do so much. So, instead of splashing out on another MIDI box, I've bought the analogue soft-synths pack for Garage Band and the Jam Pack 2. Tasty! Now I have my cool bass noises back, and my 909 and am hoping this will lead the Abbess into new realms of creativity. Its certainly worked this week. I wrote 3 hymn remixes in one day (but then I did have a deadline because of the wedding which helped!)

If you want to check out my past compositions go to.
http://www.soundclick.com/abbess
Abbess is my band name by the way.

Arkaos (I *love* it!)

Sorry I've not been posting much lately. I've been busy doing lots of stuff for Naomi's wedding (the full multimedia Visions works!) and at the same time trying to write 6000 words on the synod of Whitby for college. Anyway, in between all that frantic activity, I have been making some discoveries. We were asked to do visuals at a recent youth event, and, as not many of us were available (and it was the day before the make poverty history march in Edinburgh) I didn't want to take all our equipment with me. So I downloaded the trial version of Arkaos and just went with a laptop and projector. I am impressed! Its not so good at actual "mixing" as you have to define the transparency parameters of each clip beforehand, rather than mix on the fly. But it is so great at dance stuff, as you have lots of choice of effects including tunnels, cubes, bubbles, filmstrips floating up the wall etc to spice up even relatively simple video clips, and "playing" in real time is really easy. The downside is that playing with Arkaos for three hours gave me some strange dreams of walking up the high street which suddenly wrapped itself around a spinning cube!

The other good thing about the software from a church perspective is that you can buy 6 licenses for the price of 1 and a 1/2
so that your whole church-video-team can have it, play on it and learn to use it. It works on Macs and PCs too.

If you want to check out the software for yourself this is the URL of the Arkaos site.
http://www.arkaos.net/

I'm in Seattle

I'm in Seattle at the moment for three weeks, and rather than filling up this blog with Seattle stuff (as I'd like to keep it for my creative worship ideas) I've done a separate seattle blog at http://www.sueinseattle.blogspot.com. Better than postcards!

Thomas

Last Sunday's bible reading was about Thomas, his doubts, and Jesus showing him his scars. Our team designed a prayer
idea based on this. These words were up on the wall....
Show me your scars
I have shown you mine
I have let you touch them
Tell me where it still hurts
The scar from long ago
Or the more recent wound
Let me see *your* hands
Let me see inside your side
Into your heartbreak
Into your memories
Let me heal your pain.
Then we invited everyone who wished to, to take a piece of paper and a pencil and write their scars and hurts as a prayer. When they'd finished the prayer we asked them to fold the paper and place at the bottom of a small plant-pot, putting soil on top of it, and then planting a pea seed over it. We then asked everyone who had done one, to take it home in a freezer bag (so the soil didn't spill) and as they watered their pea seed every day, to pray for the other people's scars and hurts.

Peas grow quite quickly, so hopefully there will be little green shoots of hope and new life popping up soon in the plant pots!

More Songs

I've been in the studio again this week. I finally got around to writing the backing track for a song that I wrote at least 5 years ago. Plus I've done a trip hop (ish) remix of abide with me. You know how the verses go...but we've added the following rap segments between them.
V1
Live with me Lord in my heartbreak and my pain.
When I need a good friend
Hold me close and keep me sane
When the lights have gone out
And there’s darkness all around
Come step into my life
I’m so lost, help me get found.
V2
Yes there’s change and decay
And the leaves fall off the trees
And the dreams that I had
Seem to all get up and leave.
And the young all get old
And the old get sick and die
And I miss how things were
And sometimes it makes me cry.
V3
What occurs to me now
As I’ve seen too many graves
Is that death’s done quite well
In the great plans that You made
But I hold to the hope
And the promise that You gave
That we will live again
And we will rise from the grave.

Stones

The other Visions team did the service on Sunday, and I was pretty impressed by their prayer idea.
The theme was the raising of Lazarus, When the other team planned the service they said they felt Jesus had been misunderstood as he waited rather than going straight to his friend. We were invited to write hidden things that we didn't always want to reveal for fear of being misunderstood (or more global misunderstandings ie political situations) on a sticker and hide it under a stone. But the instruction was given that later everyone would get to see these things, even if they ended up being fairly anonymous. Later - "no stone was left unturned' as we randomly chose a stone and prayed for the situation or person who had written something under that stone, and when we replaced the stone, we had it turned upwards. The stones ended up being pretty profound and revealing! Definitely a very cool way of praying for each other!

Textures

Ages ago someone sent me a link to a textures site with high resolution images that are free to download. I finally got around to looking at them yesterday. There are some really good ones on there! I really liked the cloudscapes and the doors. Anyway here's the link if you want to check them out for yourself.
http://www.mayang.com/textures/

The 80's revisited

On Sunday I dug up and old tune that I hadn't used for years, Tower of Strength by the Mission. I realised that the main reason I hadn't used it for years was because in the mid 90s it sounded so dated, yet now, with the goth revival it
sounds surprisingly fresh once more. The other reason I hadn't used it though, was because I'd never got round to buying
it myself. Then I found it up on the iTunes site. That's the best thing about that site. If you want one song for a worship service you don't have to go to the hassle of buying a whole album! Another 80s classic I bought recently from iTunes (remixed this time) was the Timo Maas instrumental mix of Enjoy the Silence. Nice stuff. I'm sure we could do some liturgy or a reading or something over it!

I leave you with the first verse of Tower of Strength. (just to show you why I like it!)

You raise me up
When I'm on the floor
You see me through
When I'm lonely and scared
And I'm feeling true to the written word
And you're true to me.
But still I need more.
It would tear me apart
To feel noone ever cared
For me for me for me.
You are a tower of strength to me.

Praxis Day

Yesterday I went to a Praxis day on alternative worship and emerging church, which was conveniently held at St Cuthbert's.
It was great to catch up with Jonny Baker and Paul Roberts there, and to meet Nick Mercer. His presentation on postmodernism was great with a compelling mix of quotes on the screen, music by Leftfield and some profound insights into what is going on culturally. Malc, Sophs and I did a half hour worship slot, as part of the day at lunchtime, and I did a meditation on the temptations in the desert as part of this, linking it to where we are at as a church in these changing times.

This Desert Planet.

Voice 1 - In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptised by John in the Jordan.
And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.
Voice 2 - A desert planet....
Once we stood by the clear waters, knowing who we were, who the church was and where we were going....
...now we’re in the desert....
...uncharted territory.
...severe and bleak.
...but full of Eastern promise.
...the rules are different.
The old ways don’t work.
...it is a lonely place,
and dangerous.
There are snakes and scorpions.
Alien creatures.
we have been stripped of our illusions
of growth...
of plenty...
and we are in the desert.
waiting...
for God to speak.
Voice 1 - Turn these stones into bread.
Voice 2 - the instant solution.
the quick fix. If we just..if we just...
change our chairs, change our prayers, fix the roof.
Then everything will be lovely.
Won’t it?
Voice 1 - The tempter said. Go on. Turn these stones into bread
Voice 2 - bread. like the bread used to be, in the old days...
in a warm hearth in Nazareth.
It was so good then. I can almost smell the yeast.
A quick-fix and they’ll all come back.
Voice 1 - But it is written. You can’t live by bread alone.
Voice 2 - We need more than that. In this desert planet.
Voice 1 - Every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Living God, we need you here, to tell us what to do.
Feed us with your words, we are hungry!
Show us the next step. How to be your church in this
undiscovered world.
As we sit in the sand and try to hear you.
Voice 1 - And the tempter said. Look. Here are all the kingdoms of the world. I’ll give you all of this. If you just worship me.
Voice 2 - Yes. Maybe that would be easier.
Maybe we should give up. And join the others.
Worship at (insert name of shop) , religiously.
Or (insert musician), or (insert computer giant), or (insert bank),
I believe in the Holy Catalog Church.
Voice 1 - You can have it all. Worship me.
Voice 2 - Everything we’ve ever wanted.
At a price. But that price would be too high.
Voice 1 - Worship the Lord your God, and serve only Him.
Voice 2 - Who else can we turn to.
You’re the one who gives us life.
And though we may we walking in the wilderness.
You are here with us.
Let us glimpse a burning bush somewhere on the way.
This is a lonely planet.
Voice 1 - He will command his angels. They’ll protect you. You needn’t even stub your toes.
Voice 2 - Our attendance is plummeting but we needn’t fear
the angels will catch us.
Someone else will fix it. We’ll leave it up to them.
An evangelist with a funny name, or the parish next-door.
This desert is too difficult. So maybe I’ll just sleep.
Voice 1 - Jesus answered the tempter. Do not put the Lord your God to the test.
Voice 2 - Jesus Help us.
Its hard to find the energy. When the sand pushes against us.
When we stumble in the wilderness. When we can’t see the way.
When the old signposts have disappeared
And all we have are sand-dunes.
But we know...
We can’t do a quick-fix
We can’t give up
We can’t leave it to someone else.
Voice 1 - Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit returned.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.
Because he has anointed me.
To bring good news to the poor.
Voice 2 - Good news came from out of the desert.
There is good news.
God has brought us here to hear it.
And God will lead us
To the Promised Land.

CTBI week

Had a really interesting week in Swanwick at a CTBI gathering. I was running a labyrinth there with some installations on the life of Jesus in the prayer zone. Sorry I never brought a camera with me, so can't show you pictures. But the prayer rooms looked brilliant and I really enjoyed the worship stuff which was organised by Alison Adam which had an Iona feel to it, and which was atmospheric and interactive in many ways. I felt surprisingly at home really. The food at Swanwick is utterly brilliant (in fact I daren't weigh myself now!) and I very much enjoyed meeting lots of leaders from different churches.Anyway while I was there I noticed that in the chapel they had lots and lots of tiles for tealights. Tealights, though lovely, can be a bit of a pain from the fire hazard point of view, as they get very hot underneath and I have known of people setting fire to wooden tables by leaving them for a while. Its impressive to watch!! Anyway these ordinary bathroom tiles seemed a great solution to the problem, and they can be tesselated any way you choose. Into a cross, a labyrinth, or any other shape you wish, and easily removed afterwards. Cool!