A Few Fun Memories

Recently I read an article describing how we store up many of our memories outside our heads, whether online, in diaries, or other people.

A big part of who I am is tied up in the people I’m connected to through shared memories. Whenever we’ve taken a group of teenage lads out on a youth camp it’s always interested me to notice how different they are with each other after climbing up and down a mountain together: more relaxed, confident and in-sync with each other. Sharing experiences does this, it creates community, it cements family.

How many of these shared memories can a small group make together over the course of a year? Browsing through my photos and videos from the last year I decided to let you in on a few of ours. These ones all focus on what’s gone on inside our house, and you’ll see why at the end of the post.

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Smashed Windows

Smashed Windows 1

There’s been an air of discouragement around recently, with friends struggling and moving out, difficult situations and a slowdown of momentum in the wider church. Things have generally felt a bit stuck at home.

When God wants to speak to us as a whole group we often find he’ll say the same thing at once to several of us. Maybe it’s to make sure it filters through, but most importantly I think it gives us a unity of heart as we adjust our course.

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New stuff starting tonight

New stuff starting tonight 2

New stuff starting tonight 3We’ve been talking a lot recently at Adams Avenue about stuff, our future, our houses, what we want to do, this and that.

After talking and praying and talking and talking and eating and talking some more we want to relaunch in some way, to have a bit of a weekly rhythm of things that we do.

We’re thinking prayer and worship gigs, an open house evening, an Acts 29 ministry training thing, and some other stuff.

Now, one of the things we want to do each week, as it goes, is a bible study.

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Lucky Are The Unlucky – Praying Through the Beatitudes

Lucky Are The Unlucky - Praying Through the Beatitudes 4

Lucky Are The Unlucky - Praying Through the Beatitudes 5

The beatitudes.

Those compelling, befuddling, counterintuitive bombshells. Nine bullet points spoken by Jesus, now respected by millions in every nation and religion the world over.

It seems impossible to properly get a handle on them, but they themselves have gripped so many people. It seems impossible to understand them abstracted from lived experience, but as we start to read and live them those few words provide a comfort that’s not pat, a wisdom that confounds and a pattern for a new kind of society. Those few words have fomented many movements that are doing their bit to redeem the trajectory of humanity.

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A few ideas for Christian small groups

Joseph Solomon explains a few simple practices that can help small groups grow deep and rich. We’ve reinvented and enjoyed a few of these, they’ve been very helpful.

Stuff covered:

  • Inductive bible study
  • Hotseat (or as we call it “grill a brother”)
  • Missional community (though I think he’s talking about missional activity as missional community does everything in the context of mission)
  • Shout-out night

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Our Sabbath Week

Our Sabbath Week 6

Right after coming back from the bible week, without conferring Josh and I both thought it would be worthwhile for us to each spend a week out of normal life resting, praying and considering the future. We’d already arranged a couple of things last week including tea around a neighbour’s house, so we delayed it until this week. Now we’re into our second day.

Josh, Sam and I are staying in local community houses and still working during the day, and Andy’s jetted off to bonny Scotland to be with his family. It will be strange not seeing the regulars like our neighbours the Bannisters, Rhiannon, Marley, Ali, et al.

My pad for the week is with the welcoming folk at Cornhill, a country manor just a few yards from the house in which I grew up over sixteen years. As well as simple relaxation it’ll be a good opportunity to spend some time with my gran and mum who live on-site, and I’m sure I’ll spend quite a bit of time chatting with Jesus while walking out in the fields too.

Our Sabbath Week 7

Cornhill Manor

Bible Week

Bible Week 8

My friends and I spent the week just gone at a monastery in Leicestershire called Mount St Bernard Abbey. Many people would visit such a place to get away from the hecticness of day to day life, to seek God or to find out about the monastic lifestyle. We on the other hand went for a bible week along with 15 other young Christians from our church to grasp when, what and who the word of God is.

We Bible Week 9all need God’s word in our lives and this monastery exists for people to seek, love and find God in all parts (and hours) of their lives. The main Abbey is a beautiful stone building made of marble on the inside, and is used by the monks and visitors in specific hours throughout the day and night to sing their way through the bible. Most people from the Bible group would spend 20-100 minutes each day meeting with God, watching a service take place or following the Psalms as they were sang out. Personally I was able to receive God’s peace and truth whilst God’s Word echoed around this huge building from reverent hearts.

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Grill A Brother

Grill A Brother 10

Grill A Brother 11One evening every week we have our special weekly house meal, commonly referred to as “agape”.

Agape centres around a meal and is an opportunity for our committed core church groups to strengthen their relationships, going deeper with one another. It’s an anchor for the anchored. It’s an opportunity to fill our bellies, fill our souls and fill our spirits with good food. We share hospitality, meet one another heart to heart, spend some time worshipping and hopefully find a savour of God in it all.

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Disturb us, Lord

Disturb us, Lord 12

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.

We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

Sir Francis Drake -1577