Full House

At the beginning of the summer, I wrote about the group of teenagers that have emerged from a youth club that our eldest two children used to belong to. The club stopped meeting at the beginning of the year, and a few months later, we asked Reuben and Ellie if they wanted to invite a few frriends over. We started in about May with 17, and last week, we had fifty-three in our home! I talked to them in the middle bit when we feed them, about cravings ( a lot of them have a nicotine addiction) and had a few chats later with some of them about what we believe, who we believe in and why on earth we fill our house with them at the end of a busy week.

We'll keep you posted about how it's going...

Censorship in the Press

Once again the UK national press have buried news that should have hit the headlines. When we were away at the back end of August, examination results were published. I was looking forward to the sensational headlines, but they weren't even hidden amongst the adverts for things nobody wants to buy. For the benefit of those who wanted the full story on this summer's outocmes, here's a few of the headlines that didn't get printed in your Daily Whatever.

• Disadvantaged Bog-Standard Comprehensive surrounded by Grammar Schools Reaches National Average at Key Stage 3.
• Community College Exceeds its GCSE targets by 3% despite Grammar Schools dumping their unwanted pupils on them.
• Over 1 in 30 pupils in Highly Selective Grammar fails to reach basic target of 5 A* to C grades

Oh, well, maybe next year....

Busy Summer

Haven't done any blogs recently. Fairly hectic summer. Abi was working for most of it, but we managed a long weekend with old Northamptonshire friends in Kettering and Raunds at the end of July. Reuben and Ellie went off to Audacious, a church youth event in Portsmouth and we took Caleb to my mum's in Bournemouth. While we were there, we went to London for a couple of days, staying in a Travelodge (very basic). We did lots of touristy things, including the London Eye and a trip to Covent Garden. We also went to see the Lord of the Rings musical, which was absolutely brilliant.

Over the bank holiday weekend, we camped in Cornwall, meeting up with more old friends, mostly Northamptonshire exiles and their new mates. To finish a great break, Reuben had a birthday bash with over 40 school friends, followed by about six staying for a sleepover (or should I say Wakeover).

Technology

You hear about parents having to be taught by their children about how to use new technology: I thought of myself as a bit of a techie, but not any more.

Last month my old phone finally died and Abi bought me a new one. "You've got bluetooth" I was told by a friend at work. "Oh, great" I replied, not knowing quite what he meant. So, my 14 year old son had to show me.

The next day when I had a free lesson, I decided to walk round the maths faculty rooms with my bluetooth on. I detected nine phones on, and went into each classroom, asking the students to turn their phones off. Seven of them did... the other two changed their names to a rude message to me.

I told this to a friend from church, who laughed so hard, he has now permanently changed his bluetooth name to **** off Sparky!


I managed to get the last laugh though. I visited the classes next time they had maths, with a message that our friendly community policeman was on his way with a tracking device that would identify your bluetooth name, your phone number and where you were sitting to within three feet.

To avoid detection, about 20 students have all changed their names to Reuben (my son, who is also a student at the school). He keeps getting told off by teachers for having his phone on in lessons, even when it is off. I have decided that perhaps from now on I will keep my phone experiments to looking at the manual at home...

Sparks flying...

Where on earth have we been for the last five months? Well, first of all, Reuben and Ellie have both become MSN-dependent, so getting onto the computer has become so much more difficult. I have been doing my usual summer work with the EDEXCEL exam board, and have just finished my marking allocation. Abigail has been busy with making her waistcoats, and her first design has finally made a sale. It is about to be withdrawn from the website, so if you want a "surf's up" waistcoat for a beach wedding, you'd better get in quick - it's in one of the speciality designs sections, there is a link lower down on this site from "Global Warming and Abi Going Back To Work." The actual business is thriving and is moving to a larger building in Totnes in the next couple of months.

So then, what have we been up to? I guess the biggest two things are related, and will take some time to explain. About three years ago, when our church was in difficulties and we were finding that our faces did not fit, Abi and our eldest two children all got involved in a youth club, RIOT (acronym for Righteous Invasion Of Truth), at a local Pentecostal Church. When our position became completely unmanageable with the Torquay church, there was a natural link already through RIOT, and we joined this Paignton based church.

RIOT was in effect the mission field of our whole family; however, in December last year the main youth leaders made the decision to focus their attention on those who were prepared to commit themselves in specified ways to a discipleship programme called "The Academy." We realised that this had little appeal for the ones we were there for, and were not surprised when almost all of those who signed up were from church families - not including our own children, which was a decision based on both its unsuitability for them personally and also for their longing to be there for their unchurched friends.

After struggling for a few months with constant questions at work of, "When's RIOT coming back, sir?" mostly from young people I then didn't even know, we finally told our children in the middle of May that they could invite "half a dozen" of their friends that Friday evening. They were invited to stay a couple of hours, with a noise curfew of 9 o'clock for the sake of the neighbours. Three weeks later, we had over twenty, and yesterday thirty-six filled our front room for the talent show of juggling, music playing and dancing (which took place in our increasingly muddy garden).

Although we have expectations, we don't lecture them. We have had to learn to turn a blind eye to smoking in the garden, but have asked them if they are desparately addicted to nicotine, to limit themselves to one during the evening, which most of the smokers respect. We have had only one alcohol related issue, which is unlikely to be repeated by the individual concerned.

At eight o'clock, we feed them doughnuts, chips, pizzas or cookies; on one occasion serving a barbecue. While they are eating, we spend no more than five minutes to formally welcome them and remind them not to come to early, not to leave too late, not to spill out onto the street and to respect our property and neighbourhood. Most of all we tell them that God loves them and wants to know them as a friend.... and that we will explore that more some time in the future.... and that's all. No preach, no "all eyes closed, yes sir, you at the back, I see your hand." Many of them made responses like this at RIOT which is yet to be followed up, but when any of them are ready to start to take life as a friend of Jesus seriously, hopefully we will be there to help them.

Reactions have been mixed. Some of the parents think we are crazy, some are suspicious of "us and that church..." We have not publicised this at church, and some second-hand criticism has come our way, but none directly to us (Christians, that's the way to do it, eh...). We have had supportive comments from all of those who we invite to speak objectively into our lives. Most of all, we have been overwhelmed by the response of the incredibly grateful teenagers, who for at least one evening per week are safe from the seducing eyes of the drug dealers that pollute our town.

So, our Friday nights are no longer peaceful. Nor is the rest of the week, because this is not a meeting - it's a lifestyle that takes up all your time.

I don't know if anything will come of this. However, I do know that if we do nothing, then nothing will certainly come of that...

Aspirations...

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Acts 2:42-47

Devotion +
Awe +
Togetherness +
Generosity +
Thankfulness +
Favour
=============
Increase
=============

How's it going for you...

New windows

Last week was very cold: not the best time of year to have great big holes in your walls while your windows are being replaced. When I came home, all the internal doors were shut, and the rooms were all very warm, because although the thermostat was turned down to zero, the central heating was trying in vain to reach that temperature: I think it will be some time before the double glazing makes up for the cost of heating the house for those four days, let alone the cost of the windows...

Now we're much warmer, and it's great to not have to come home to flaking paint and rotting wood. I've also started back at the fitness suite to try to rid myself of my own personal double glazing. I will keep you posted on my progress.

Am I schizo...?

At times I seem to be two different people.

I am patient.

I can patiently explain a complicated mathematical process to a struggling student, carefully going over the parts they struggle with as often as necessary until they develop the required skills to tackle the process independently.

I am impatient.

However, as a car driver, I am far less tolerant of other road users who take an age to get in gear when the traffic lights go green. Am I impatient? Probably, but when you've waited ten minutes or more to get through a set of lights that will be green for about 20 seconds, and over half of this time passes before the first car moves, and there's a queue of about fifty more cars behind you, perhaps it's the dopey one at the front who is more insensitive to the people behind them than I am of their slow response.

I am tolerant.

More frequently, I find I am in contradiction with myself in the church environment. As a teacher, I am far more disreeet in the classroom about dealing with behaviour that five years ago I would have confronted publicly...

I am intolerant.

I am amazed when I see fellow church members inappropriately criticising others. How quick we can all be to jump down one another's throats at the slightest hint of anything we don't like, irrespective of whether or not it is a moral issue.

I am controlling.

I spend most of my time at work as a teacher exercising good classroom management, which apart from being organised means controlling young people.

I am releasing.... (but still intolerant)...

At church, my whole approach is to want to release people, not control them, and I find my levels of exasperation steadily increasing when I see people who should know better, obsessed with their ministry, their status, their calling, their relationships, their destiny, their significance, and using other people to achieve their aim. This "me - centred Christianity" is about as far removed from what I read in the Bible as you can get. The leadership I read about in the Bible is all about how to empower people, not about how to empower myself at others' expense.

I am fed up with empires.

The church is so blinded by who's going to lead, who's in charge, that it has almost completely lost the plot. The Christian media is full of those who get paid by others to be professional christians, ususally male up to 15 years either side of 55, and not about ordinary people. If you want to get on in the church, you've got to lead a home group, then maybe you can preach occasionally, then eventually rise to the dizzy heights of elder, or even senior leader, before taking your empire into the region and the nation. So, we now have Vineyard churches all over the UK named after one in California, and are starting to see those associated with one in Australia known for its Hills and its Songs, er... called Hillsongs!

I keep getting told I am a leader.... (but don't want to be part of an empire)

In just about every church I have been part of, at some point I have been told I should be an elder. Once, even the elders told me this, and I briefly was one. The church is crammed full of gifted people, but I don't see why there is this obsession with using your gifts in the church: as an experienced communicator, I can preach a good sermon with the rest, but that's what makes me good at my job - it doesn't necessarily make me a future church leader. It doesn't necessarily mean that I have the wisdom to empower people and take them to the next level in their lives, which is actually what we should all be encouraging one another to do all of the time.

I guess this post didn't finish off where I intended it to - got a bit carried away and just ended up having a rant: sorry! This is not a criticism of any particular church or person - I have seen these things far too often to attribute my rantings to any one individual or group, so don't go taking it personally.... unless of course, you feel any of this applies to you....

Bad Timing

I was sent on a course by my Principal today, with a colleague in the Maths faculty. He dropped me off at the site where I left my car this morning.

It was a training evening for my own college until 6:15, and having been out all day and arriving back at 4:30, I thought I might get off a bit earlier than the rest of the college....

... except that I arrived to get into my car just as the Principal was in the car park!

So I've gone to the training session after all :-( Didn't want to arrive in the middle of a session so thought I would write this.

Oh well, take away tonight then....

Consumer Society

Some people are always after the latest and best thing: a better paid job, a bigger house, a better image, a faster car etc. There is not very much wrong with many of these things in themselves; however, when it becomes a strong focus, it starts to become something that is demanding on the individual who is constantly striving for the bigger and the better.

This attitude can also invade the church. In the 1980s and 1990s, little secret was made of the fact that many of the Bible Weeks were simply an advertisement encouraging people to join a particular network, or support a ministry.

What is the long term effect of this? We now have a consumer led church. In my limited experience, I have seen many times churches grow, only to lose many of their congregation when a new ministry opens up in the town. Some towns I am aware of have a history of this happening in a repeating cycle. You don't like women elders? Try your local New Frontiers Church. Worship dull? Try Hillsongs. Bit too glitzy and want a more intimate, soaking feel? Partners in Harvest is for you then. If you don't like your church, don't try to work these things through: try a different one, or even start a new one yourself.

I've always been amazed by the flimsy reasons some people give for leaving a church. It's true that I have moved on myself a few times, but have always tried to work things out, and only as a last resort leave, but in good relationship with the ones I have left. This is not always easy, and at times when you want to speak a few home truths, it's often better to keep quiet: a friend of mine often says that if you go out of your way to seek vindication in a disagreement, God won't go out of His way to help you.

Sometimes you come across something that really hits the mark for you, and when you lose it you spend far too much time trying to rediscover it, when actually what we should be doing is applying what we have learned or experienced into the situations we now find ourselves in. Then maybe the church will learn to be relational and not the pleasure seeking, self-serving, need meeting, tradition bound dinosaur we are so often perceived as by outsiders.