creating church in the emerging culture

Off to a day confernce on Saturday down in Birmingham. The conference is being hosted by Re:source which is an inter-demoninational resourcing, church planting, networking organisation.

As the title of this post suggests, the conference is about church in the emerging culture, and mission and all that kinda thing. Amongst those contributing to the day is Jonny Baker, who works for CMS. He also taught me on my under-graduate degree course with the Centre For Youth Ministry.

I'm kinda interested in all this mission, church, emerging culture kinda thing. It ties in with my current degree, and is also really useful as I think about where the youth work here at Holy Trinity is going. One of the things I'm doing as part of my job, is seeking to develop relationships with young who are hanging out in our local park, skateboarding, playing basketball etc etc. At the moment I really don't know where it's gonna end up, but I believe it will be good to hear some stories from other people looking to develop new models of 'church'.

truth 05

Last Saturday I was helping out at a youth event, which is part of a series of 'conferences' called Truth 05. They're put on by Nail The Truth.

Nail The Truth started as the Youth Ministry of All Saint's Ecclesall, but is now developing into a citywide resourcing, networking kinda thing.

What's encouraging for me, is that although not everyone involved shares the same theological views on everything, people are working together. I know that I've been guilty (and still am sometimes) of slating the way different people do things, but it's been really good to meet, pray and work together on stuff. I think its a healthy example to demonstrate to the young people we work with, as well as our own local churches, communities, and society at large.

green day

On Saturday I went to see Green Day at Milton Keynes Bowl. Green Day were excellent, playing a good mix of new stuff as well as some old classics. I've never seen them before, but I was really impressed by the show that they put on - loads of pyrotechnics, fireworks, ticker tape. Slightly over the top, but I guess that's the whole point.


Green Day @ Milton Keynes Bowl 

Supporting Green Day were Jimmy Eat World, a rather disappointing band from Staines called Hard-Fi, and an American band called Taking Back Sunday. Not only were the pretty good musically, I also really like the name.

amercians - they're actually not all bad

During this last week there have been a whole load of Americans visiting All Saint's Ecclesall, which is one of our neighbouring churches. We've had some of these young people down to Holy Trinity to do a bit of gardening around the church. They were really hard-working, and it was a humbling/encouraging experience having these young people and their leaders here, just serving.


Gardening Team at Holy Trinity 

We also had quite a lot of the team down in Millhouses Park, during what would have been a detached work session. When you've got 30 odd American people playing 'soccer' and basketball, it makes doing detached work a bit different. But that time in the park really got me dreaming about how the detached work could, and hopefully will, develop in the future.

the last month - again

I know it's been ages since I posted. There's no real excuse for the slackness, other a combination of busyness and lazyness.

The last month has been pretty good, but it really does feel like its been non-stop. As I think back I can remember a hectic weekend on Scout Camp. I have to admit that despite some intial scepticism, I really enjoyed myself. Chopping wood and making fire is most agreeable.

The youth work at Holy Trinity seems to be going ok. Some bits are going better than others, but then thats just life. You can really tell that we've now been about 9 months without a vicar. Although I'm a bit apprehensive about having a new (earthly) boss, I know that the church needs it.