COTC Homecoming Party

We celebrated the end of our building project, and rededicated the building last night. The place looked beautiful, as did everybody, and there was quite a lot of dancing. But the new floor is okay!
Lots of picture on my flickr page. [more to come]

You are here

Well we have had some adventures this summer, but it is good to be back. Yesterday had a real sense of new beginnings - and that wasn't just the lovely new building.
For those of you who missed it here is the 'Streets' film that Ruth made.

Music Downloads

Francis Blight has been in the studio with Stuart Mclean and others, and their work seems to be paying off. You can listen to tracks online and download a free MP3 of ‘My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less’
His 6 track mini album called 'New skin for old song' is now available at Cross Rhythms Direct

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Wikimapia

This is cool - a cross between wikipedia and google maps called Wikimapia. It is essentially google maps with articles about landmarks. Anyone can add locations and articles, so why not contribute your favourite places around Islington (or beyond). I have added Church on the Corner.

jLow in Egypt

Judy Low is heading out to Egypt for three months with World Horizons. She is going to be working at two special needs centres outside Cairo and utilising her physiotherapy skills.

Please book tickets now for her fundraiser in the 18th August. Flyer here

It will be great fun, and we want to support JLow in this adventure. And Tom Preston will preside over the wine tasting which always makes for a memorable evening...
It will take place at the crypt at St James Clerkenwell Price includes a 3 Course meal & Wine Tasting.
but buy your tickets now or you will miss out!

Greenbelt

Greenbelt is a christian Arts & music festival. And as christian events go it is pretty good. Really high calibre speakers, a good focus on justice issues, innovative alt. worship. It still has moments when it is a bit cheesy, but it is the best christian event of the year. If you haven't planned to come yet talk to Roseanne about it.

COTC on Tour

This sunday is the first of our ON TOUR events. We are visiting Moot at St Matthews Westminster [Map]

Moot are hosting a labyrinth service which is an ancient form of worship reframed into the contemporary as way of prayer and intimacy with God. Through it people have experienced God whether they are spiritually searching or have a Christian faith. Additionally, the BBC will be recording the event, but don’t feel intimidated – your ability to worship and encounter God will be the focus of the time. For more info on labyrinths see www.labyrinth.org.uk

We will get there at 6.30pm in time to grab a coffee and chat with people involved in the community, the service will start at 7pm.

Place: St Matthews Church
Meet up: 6.15 outside Westminster tube (facing Big Ben)

The Monastery Revisited

I’ve been to a few churches around town and they just annoy the **** out of me because they’re so fake, and the people look so lost, and the people on the stage just look so plastic and so charming and so seductive, and I just think ‘I don’t believe in these people’. These people are not an expression of faith. So, I’d much rather just slip into a church and sit there for 10 minutes and have a bit of quiet time, or pray at home. I don’t feel that you necessarily have to turn up at a certain place at a certain time dressed in a certain way to express your faith and live out your faith. I think there’s other ways of doing it.

I am once again inspired by this BBC 2 Series 'The Monstery", and this is the experience of church of a genuinely seeking spiritual guy. His experience is far from unique, and this is important.

Easier to Lie?

Below is the video from St Mary's last night based around a song by aqualung called "easier to lie..."

The Lost

I'm not planning on making a habit of this, but recorded the talk for last week on DVD. If you missed it you can watch it below.
Part 1

Part 2

What is next for the Morning Service

Last Sunday our morning congregation had lunch together and we talked about where our service was going. We had a really good conversation, and you can read the notes from it here:
What is next for the morning Service

Responses and further thoughts are welcome below. My plan is to draw these ideas together into a statement of vision, and present this to both services as part of our vision seeking exercise.

To the ends of the Earth

We started our new series last Sunday at Church called 'To the ends of the earth'. The first in the series is The Call and if you missed it, or want a recap you can download it here

Comments below as usual

Creative Consultants

We have set up a part of this website for creative ideas for church, a place to throw ideas around, or ask for advice. I hope it will be a resource for our service leaders or any of you involved in communicating, and a way of continuing our pursuit of authentic creative worship.
It is moderated by some of the experienced creatives in church so you can throw ideas at them, or seek their wisdom on how to do stuff better...

Answers

Bit tired this morning because I sat up way too late last night answering questions on Yahoo's new Answers forum. It is quite an interesting concept - people get to ask any question they like, whether it is about their homework, or about the existence of God, and then others answer them and you can vote on the best answer.
As ever with these online discussions there is plenty on nonsense, but I am intrigued by the possibilities.

I think this might be a great idea for the church website - what do you think?

I haven't found the technology to implement something like this. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Rejection hurts

We are going video crazy on this blog - sorry about that. However here is a genius advertisement by a US denomination called 'ejector pew' and asking for peoples stories of rejection by church.

"God doesn't reject people. Neither do we"

a short film about prayer

We have been doing better at being creative this term at COTC, the service leaders have been taking initiatives, and that has had inspired lots of others. Jeremy made a short film about prayer, a beautiful simple piece of work drawing on the image of a message in a bottle.
He writes...
'I think the message in a bottle makes a interesting metaphor for prayer, because it is simultaneously a symbol of both hope and desperation. The castaway on a desert island resorts to messages flung into the outgoing tide because there is no other way to communicate. And at the same time, there's hope as that message is thrown into the sea - hope that someone will find it, that someone will send help. It's a last hope and an only hope. And it's going to take patience. It's a symbol of hopeful waiting, and faith in eventual rescue'.

Son of Man

I really enjoy making these videos to tie into talks at church, but they take ages to do.

I had been meaning to do this one based around my favorite Doves track called 'Pounding', and finally got the chance. We used it as part of the talk 'Son of Man' thinking about the apocalyptic subtext of Jesus ministry.

You can watch it here. [8mb Quicktime]

Blue sky

One of the questions we have been asking ourselves as part of the vision team is this.
'If you were to start church from scratch how would it look.'

I know this may seem theoretical, and of course we need to be practical, but I want us to have at least tried to think how we might be, rather than just trying to fix what we have.

I wonder how you would answer the question?

Coralie Grace Davids

We are desperately sad at the news of Anthony and Peachy's tragedy.

Thank you to all of you who have promised to pray throughout the day.

Even if you can only pray for them for a few minutes at your given time we want the Davids to know they are surrounded by our prayers. Please set a reminder. If you are not on the list email me and I will allocate you a time.

6am Claire Pearson
7am Liz Tissing
7.30am Pete Burnham
8am Gemma Gent
8.30am Tom Crease
9am Ruth Crease
10am B Arnold
11am Sarah Perrin
11.30am Stavroulla Andreou
12pm Sarah Wall
1pm Ellie Welsh
1.30pm Jayne Welburn
2pm Jo Arkell
2.30pm Angela Fletcher
3pm Jane Love
4pm Amy Winger
5pm Danny and Kirsty Allen
6pm Sophia Hanvey
6.30pm Willow Kail
7pm Claire Dean
8pm Vicky Mirfin
8.30pm Sonya & Nick Sireau
9pm Alex Goldfinch
9.30pm Michele and Terence Berry
10pm James Mortley
10.30pm Sarah Hulcoop
11pm Mark Fletcher
12am Dan & Summer Passerelli
1am Elizabeth Cameron

Vision

As you may be aware we are in the process of reworking the vision and direction of our Evening Service at the moment, and we would value your prayers. As part of that we would be interested in your responses to a couple of questions...

If our goal is making and maturing disciples, are we right in thinking that we tend to put much more emphasis on maturing than making? Is that important?

How appropriate is it for a church to focus its energy and attention on reaching a particular section of our community (eg in our case young, professional, educated)?

What is your Theological worldview?

Had lots of conversations about this Theological worldview quiz recently, so I thought I would post it on this blog too. It isn't too serious, and neither is it flawless, but it is interesting and a good discussion starter. Take it here, and post your results in the comments below.

If you are not aware of Kurt Vonnegut you should be. His article in the Guardian last saturday was fantastic writing. Speaking of the hypocrisy in American politics he writes:
For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.
"Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon? Give me a break!
Enjoy the article.

COTC from Space

One of the coolest free apps around was until recently only available for windows, but Google earth is now being developed for Mac (hooray!). It is not officially releaced but the Beta version got leaked, and you can pick it up here. They seem to be improving the resolution and you can now see COTC clearly from space.

Chaos Theology: Fear

I really enjoyed this piece written by Jo, which ellie performed in response to the question What do I fear?

I’ve reached the conclusion that what I fear most is constantly chasing down the many things in life which seem to be in perpetual motion – my career for one. What if I never get where I want to be? What if I’m just not good enough? When is my boss going to see through the act and realise I don’t actually know what I’m doing? My career has a life of its own, running away from me like a load of marbles dropped on the floor. I chase them but there are always more to be retrieved, and the more I get hold of, the more there are to chase. I’m afraid that the only way to stop the game is to let go of all the glass balls – just let them roll away. But what then? What would I do with myself then?

You can read the whole piece here.

'Narnia represents everything that is most hateful about religion'

Perhaps you have read Polly Toynbee's passionate article on the new Narnia film. Well worth a read. It is not one of her more measured responses, and all the more interesting for that.

Every one of those thorns, the nuns used to tell my mother, is hammered into Jesus's holy head every day that you don't eat your greens or say your prayers.

The article gives some real insight into Polly Toynbee's real issues with abusive religion, which we want to be hugely sympathetic to.

The two dons may have shared the same love of unquestioning feudal power, with worlds of obedient plebs and inferior folk eager to bend at the knee to any passing superior white persons - even children; both their fantasy worlds and their Christianity assumes that rigid hierarchy of power - lord of lords, king of kings, prince of peace to be worshipped and adored.

But essentially this is a power struggle between conservatism and liberalism, and christianity is caught up in it. I don't think we want the agenda of Jesus associated with that power struggle, and in order to do that any conversation will have to be humble about the failings of the church in the past and its throwing its substantial weigh behind political and social conservatism. However the crucial issue is this:

So Lewis weaves his dreams to invade children's minds with Christian iconography that is part fairytale wonder and joy - but heavily laden with guilt, blame, sacrifice and a suffering that is dark with emotional sadism.

Interwoven with that struggle however is a philosophical debate. Scientific humanism will allow no limits to be placed on human power and potential. Here we need to disagree. Pollys humanism is her weakness - her privilege and education, social standing and personal stature make her naive about the reality of human experience. We are guilty, we do suffer - the answer is not education (though that is a profound good) we do need redemption - but trying to help Polly to see that is a massive task, particularly given her experiences.

Chaos theology: Love

Notes from last nights final sermon in the Chaos Theology series are available here.

Quake Gig

Last night we hosted one of a series of Quake Gigs in aid of the victims of the South east Asia earthquake. It was an amazing night, with a wonderful mix of homegrown talent and special guests. Enjoy these video clips.

More photo's and video to follow (email me pictures if you have them), but thank you to all the artists, and to all of you who came and enjoyed and gave generously.

Chaos Theology: environment

The fundamental challenge of any serious appreciation of the environmental crisis facing our generation is that we cannot hope to sustain the lifestyle we cling to, while denying it to others on the planet.
Perhaps for us the least comfortable aspect of Jesus call to kingdom living is the commitment to simplicity.
Is there life after materialism? Is their a better way?

Chaos Theology: Spirituality

Imagine life was a Waterstone's bookshop...
Spirituality is a huge growth industry in our Culture, yet christians are unwilling, or afraid to engage. This sermon was intended to help us understand and connect with the secular spirituality of our age. I am not so sure how well the sermon recording thing is going, so someone suggested a summary of the sermon, based on my notes. Is this a better plan? If there areprevious Chaos Theology sermons that notes would be useful for I can provide those too.

Paul - A new play by Howard Brenton

"Taking the remarkable life and moral teachings of this profound religious thinker, Howard Brenton explores the extraordinary phenomenon of faith. While offering a secular reading of the story of Christ’s resurrection, at the play’s heart Paul preaches from his Letter to the Corinthians, the eloquence of which cannot fail to move."

The Creative communications homegroup went to see the play last week, and they found it somewhat provocative. Stavs has recounted one of the pivotal moments which you can read here. What do you think?