It shouldn't happen to a Pastor?

I have just got off the phone from an irate man from Eastleigh wanting to speak to someone at the church about a pastoral matter. The phone call gets put through to me eventually and I endeavour to placate the very upset individual! "The music is too loud!" he says, having heard this complaint regularly, I start to apologise with the standard line that I use. Most Sundays there is someone who thinks the music is too loud and it is never the sound engineer or the drummer... I wonder if people ever complained about the volume of the pipe organ when it was first introduced into the local parish church? Still it is a part of modern church leadership that you can have the dead being raised, people overcoming addictions and new people discovering the way of Christ but somebody will ALWAYS complain about something unnecessary and mundane. It normally tends to be the ones who have been in the church for decades and feel they have the right to vent their frustrations about the change that has been imposed by all these new people that have recently joined the church.

So I am used to complaints, some I take in my stride and make all the right noises to encourage the complainant that I am listening and taking them seriously, but there are some that seem very personal about my style or my approach or my lack of this, that or the other and I always take them personally (funny that!) - my friend Jim says "you're a wee bit sensitive, Sim!" which always offends me!! :o)

So, I am on the phone to this guy upset about the volume being too loud trying to placate him with my normal grunts of encouragement when he says "and it was 3 O'Clock in the afternoon!" - what? oh, he's not talking about our Church worship band after all he is talking about his neighbour! He just wanted someone to talk to, to complain to, to have his say and for some reason went through the yellow pages and rang me at Central Hall. A strange phone call to start the week off, but if someone in desperation sees the church as a place of refuge and a place to be listened to then I am all up for helping out the needy for surely that is what Matthew 25 tells us.

So if you need help and you want someone to rant to about the stuff that life throws at you give me a call the confessional is open!!!

This week I am in a bunch of meetings with our Church Fun Day on Saturday in Victoria Country Park for a BBQ and games for about 300 people, then speaking on Sunday morning. Great day yesterday morning with an awesome response to the offering - God is good...

Dedication's what you need...

Yesterday we had our fourth child Jemimah dedicated at Central Hall. It was a perfect day! We had both sides of the family including Lottie's Nan who is 90 and and my Granny who is 93 - amazing! Theo did a great job of leading through the service and friends and family swarmed forward to pray for my beautiful little girl. Friends from our last Church, Arun Community Church had taken time out to come and join us and Rich Hubbard spoke on Faith it was a great time of celebration with the wider church family.

Then it was back to our house for a BBQ with over 50 people crowding our recently re-modelled garden - weather was perfect and the new half price BBQ from Asda passed the test and everyone was fed plenty. We still have loads of salad and pasta in the fridge!

But the thing was on Saturday night I was starting to get concerned that we were making too much effort on the food and tidying the house and garden that we were forgetting the real reason for the day of thanking God for the life of Jemimah. But as I reflected I realised I was just getting a bit religious and not recognising that hosting a party for my daughter, having friends and family all mixed and eating together is very important. The prayers of thanks need to go with the celebrations and so often we put one in a 'spiritual' box and one in a 'worldly' box.

I know God can cope with the complexities, I sometimes wonder if I can? I know that God is as interested in the church service as the party, food and conversation but sometimes I revert to a religious mindset... fortunately I have great friends and family who keep my thinking straight!

Thanks to all those who made the effort to come to Southampton for the day much appreciated...

This week I have several meetings, finalising budget for September, looking through applications for childrens worker post, preparing for speaking on Sunday looking at Values through a Father eyes (its Fathers Day in the UK) and trying to finish my final assignment.

Seeing is Believing?

Last week we were fortunate enough to have Bill Johnson and Randy Clarke speaking at the Global Awakening Conference at Central Hall. Held over four days it was sold out with 800 delegates every day coming from all over Europe.

Over the four days there were hundreds of healings and some excellent teaching...

But in some eighteen sessions of teaching it was only two things that really grabbed me over the time that they were with us. Firstly it was good to see Central Hall full. I am completely believing that we will see Central Hall full again for our Sunday services. What was a City Centred Church of 500 people meeting at Central Hall has become a Network of Church Communities all around the city and region with almost 1000 people meeting in eight different gatherings.

God has been good and New Community is flourishing but Central Hall can seat 800 easily and on a Sunday morning we have around 220 - 240 attendees with 70-80 of those being under 11. I would love to see the building full once more and people queuing up to get in!

I was able to see a glimpse of the possibility last week. People were queuing from 8am to get the best seats for the 9am start, the building was full and God's Spirit was at work. Wouldn't that be great on a Sunday morning. I put myself in the middle of the Main Auditorium and looked at all the people and asked God to let it happen.

I already believed it, but now I've seen it...

The other thing I picked up was about our theology or understanding versus our expectation. Biblically we believe in healing but we don't expect it to happen every time we meet someone in need and we pray. That has to change. We need to increase our faith to see what we know is possible become a reality. I want physical healing to become a standard part of our Church Community, that as people go about their normal business that God's Spirit will invade their lives and healings will happen in our city on a regular basis.

I don't want to chase the manifestation of God (I get a little annoyed by those that do!), I want to chase God himself and as I worship him, put him in his rightful place, get my life working to his rhythm then there will be an outpouring of his Spirit at every level of our society.

So, I have seen the possibilities, and like Thomas, now I believe it more than ever...

Seeing may not be believing, in and of itself, but it helps!

Building Fun...

Over the Easter Break some of my friends have gone to Cornwall, a team from the church went to South Africa to work in an orphanage and some of my friends spent 2 weeks touring around Scotland. A time to relax, take stock, breathe...

yeh, that would have been nice but instead I woke up on Easter Saturday and decided to build a new bedroom! What? Mad! I know!!

Lottie and I had been talking for a while about how we could increase our house size to match the increase in our family. We only had three bedrooms and four kids with the boys getting bigger and needing their own space. We had discussed building extensions and all sorts for thousands of pounds onto the mortgage (gulp!) but then came to the conclusion that we could probably get a similar result by splitting our pretty large bedroom into two. So I woke up on Easter Saturday and got on with it!

To be honest in the main it was easier than I thought, the stud walls and plasterboard took just over a day, but plastering the joins, cutting the coving at the right angle and hanging the door - not so easy! The door is still not right, but if you lift the handle and open it quickly it is fine, don't what all the fuss is about... So on Saturday night just gone, 1 week after starting the project Zak and Levi were tucked up in their own rooms and we had been downgraded to their old room.

But when I go to woke them up yesterday morning for Church, where do I find them? In bed together - because they were missing each other!! Maybe they will ask me to knock the wall down again!

Still a good job done and for less than £300 we have a four bedroom house instead of a 3 bed, I should be on one of those DIY shows that Lottie loves to watch.

Anyway back to normality today with kids back to school (found the uniforms, but not the PE kit or one of their lunch boxes!! might have plastered it into the new wall...), Central Coffee is open again and another busy week ahead.

Moorlands College tomorrow and Wednesday for the last Study Break of the year and then we have a huge conference at Central Hall with Randy Clarke and Bill Johnson. 4 days with 800 people packed into the building - it is going to be fun! Strategy day with Links International on Saturday and then Baptisms on Sunday morning. Really looking forward to the baptisms as it is the first that we have had on a Sunday morning for some time. Hope you have a great week, follow me on twitter for regular updates...

EASTER SUNDAY BALLOON LAUNCH

Awesome time on Easter Sunday morning. With around 450 of us at Central Hall we celebrated Easter together and then as part of the Hope 08 initiative we wrote our prayers for the city on tags and then attached them to balloons for a massive balloon launch.

By itself this would be pretty spectacular, but across the city a further 26 churches joined together and around 3000 balloons were released with prayers for the city at exactly 11.30am.

The timing had to be exact because nearby Southampton Airport were holding back planes until we had completed the launch. Just as well they were holding them back as quite a number landed on the airport runway (oops!) and had to be cleared away and others were seen hanging off St Mary's Stadium but most of the 3000 balloons made it a little further afield!!

Apart from the weather (which was pretty wet!), the balloon launch seemed a huge success all round the city - see more pictures here.

The only bizarre thing to this excellent story is how it came about:

I am sure that I saw it advertised on the Hope 08 website as a national initiative that all churches around the country would be doing on Easter Sunday. So, thinking this was the case I stood in front of a large number of church leaders across Southampton and sold it to them as that! Unfortunately when we had the list of 27 churches complete we contacted Hope 08 to let them know so they could add information to what was happening across the country. They were pretty impressed with what we were doing and thought it was a great idea, but no other churches were taking part across the country and they had never heard of the idea!!! OOOOPS!

Still it was a great idea (wherever it came from) and an opportunity to pray for the city together as churches. We also got a couple of photos on national news and some pretty good coverage in the local papers...

THE KING OF ALL ICEBREAKERS?

I've seen it all now... Yesterday we had a "staff retreat" at Central Hall where we talked about the vision and the strategy of New Community and where we were heading. I found it very useful time and very well facilitated. But...

...the highlight of the day had to be when we were asked, as both an icebreaker and a meditation, to write a psalm line by line as a team - a bit like spiritual consequences. You know, you write a line pass on the paper and the next person adds their line. I guess I was a little tired and not quite as prepared as King David to write a psalm so when the guy next to me writes: "I dived into the sea of tranquility", I wrote "and then realised I had forgotten my towel" next line that came along was: "I washed my face with tears of joy", so again I wrote "and I still had no towel" it didn't get any better when I received: "I shouted into the depths of despair", and lacking any spiritual insight I wrote: "and all I got was an echo, echo, echo..." and lastly:
"I faced the long and winding road ahead of me", I couldn't help but add "so I turned on my GPS for guidance".

I know, I know - immature but funny. One day I'll grow up!

Don't you just love icebreakers and group work? I wonder what God thinks?