Wildfire Prayer

A Twitter conversation with Matt Carso @yvesraven from Sanctus1 in Manchester has prompted me to drop a quick blog post about something I've been thinking about for a little while.

One of the delights about social media is the possibility of engaging people in immediate prayer needs and immediate intercessory prayer requests.

While this has been made possible by mass communication and the chain-letter style text message. Facebook events and Twitter have facilitated a viral way of seeking prayer for immediate need.

This is what I'd like to call Wildfire Prayer, I am sure there are a plethora of other names, but the principle is that once a prayer need is raised, that need can be made known to friends/followers, who make it known, etc, and before you know it, countless numbers might be praying.

A few times I have organised prayer "events" on Facebook for folk, and what has been interesting has been the number of people who I (the creator of the prayer event) know, the number of people who the "subject" of the prayer event know, and the number of people neither the "subject" or I know!

Long may God use social media in this way.

Naturally, this Wildfire Prayer requires pastoral sensitivity and an awareness of boundaries / data protection.

Bad examples of Wildfire Prayer might include:

"Pray for my friend Jez, who is suffering from terrible piles."
"Pray for my friend Jen Whatever, who has lost her mastercard on the number 47a heading for Lincoln bus terminal"
"Pray for my friend Jay, whose not getting on with his mum and hates her"

Silly examples I know, but as we send out these Wildfire Prayers lets make sure its okay to do it.

big church meets big mission

In the past four years I have become fascinated by mission. It is the theological discipline that excites me most.
And in the beginning of those years I had to come to understand that mission is bigger than evangelism. I have realised that every strain of church approaches this differently and that as a result, each church has strengths and weaknesses.
Over these four years I have drifted away from the big church, attractional model into something different. But even here I am aware of weaknesses of other forms of church.

Part of my enthusiasm for missiology has been developed by reading some seriously exciting missiological writing. And in May this year, it feels like two huge threads of my life will be meeting up. The big church model of New Wine charismatic church and the smaller mission community.

Alan Hirsch will be speaking at the New Wine Leaders Conference (no Bill Johnson this year).
And by my reckoning this could be a huge turning point for the big church to see another way and the smaller mission ommunities to re-connect with the big church.
Let's pray for fruit!

becoming a human becoming

I paint.
At times.
And I write.
Poetry.
Prayers.
And I study.
And I read.
Books of poetry.
Books about art and spirituality.
Books of fiction.
Particularly American.
But others as well.

I do other things too.
I watch films.
European documentaries.
About bees.
Or nuclear waste.

I like to travel.
And I like lasagne
And coffee.
And funicular railways.

Some of these things I do because I love them.
Some of these tings I do because I am interested in them.
Some of these things I don't so much do because anything.
Some of them I do because they are me.
Puke if you need to.
That is allowed.

Often I pick things up for a while and then put them down again.
Maybe for years.
Maybe just for a few weeks.
But slowly.
I am coming to realise.
As if by an epiphany being printed slowly on a BBC micro computer.
At primary school.
Revealed line by line.
On the paper with the perforated punch holes..
Slowly.
Slowly but surely.
It is being revealed to me.
Who I am.

Before I went to university in 1998 I wanted to articulate something.
To say something.
But my sister was the artist.
So I didn't paint.
And I couldn't write poetry.
The poetry I had encountered never really spoke to me.
So I tried writing heavy metal songs.
But they were garbled and meaningless.
So instead I read.
I didn't say anything.
I read what others had said.
Camus.
Orwell.
And I related to their words.

At university I studied cultural studies.
So I encountered philosophy.
Literature.
Politics.
Psychology.
Religious studies.
Theatre.
Foucault.
Rousseau.
Miliband.
Baudrillard.
De Beauvoir.
Jung.
Hegel.
Mannheim.
Bataille.
Gramsci.
McLuhan.
Derrida.
Lacan.
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.

And while at university I became very good friends with a poet.
And we talked for hours about Pink Floyd.
Tom Waits.
Christ.
And I learnt to write what I wanted to write.
And I wrote.
And in 2000 I read poetry at my first poetry festival.
And those poems were the 5 out of 200 or so I'd written that really said what I wanted to say.
(Recently I shreaded the other 195 or so because they weren't really my poems. Just things I had written).
And I kept writing.
I was, for a time separated from a loved one and I spilled my heart in letters and verses.
And then we were reunited and the need to articulate those feelings was gone.
But I kept writing.
And I read at another poetry festival.
And I submitted poems left right and centre.

And then when I started work, I started to use pastels.
The poetry notebooks went away and the pastels and shades appeared.
Greys of five different kinds.
Smudged and scratched.
Blues, light and blues deep.
And I picked up my guitar again.
And I then I got a new job.

And occasionally I would write poetry for that job.
Or even a liturgy.
Or paint something.
I even studied some short courses.
Very occasionally.
It was in a church.
A wonderful community church.
Where the busyness of life and debt took over.
And I stopped writing and painting.
Except for the odd occasion.
But I kept reading.
And I kept yearning to say something.
And I kept scribbling notes.
And ideas.
And thoughts I would like to develop.

And then I went away.
To a place with so much need.
That meeting the needs were so important.
That other things got put down.
But even there crayons and colours had their place.
So I used them.

And then I went to college.
And over time.
I picked things back up.
The paints.
The pen.
The visits to galleries.
Expanded.
Grew.
And I realised that these things.
Alongside some others.
These things were me.
These things were who I am.
And actually.
Who I have always been.
But I just forgot.
Or never knew.

I began to paint again.
I began to create.
To consider things I had never had the voice to share.
I studied again.
I visited galleries again.
And I wrote again.
And I felt like me.

When I worked with the community church.
The Image of God was paramount.
It focused my every action.
It was central to my motivations.
That others might recognise who God had made them to be.
How God had made them to be.
I wanted to enable others to see themselves as God sees them.

Perhaps now, I am beginning.
Beginning too understand.

To understand what that means for me.
For who God has made me to be.
For what loves and hopes and dreams and desires and aspects of myself are central to my existence.
And maybe I feel.
Maybe I feel that for the first time in so long a time.
Or maybe for the first time, I am becoming a human becoming.
Seeing who I am.
And what I cannot be without.
And this birth is painful.
And it hurts.
And I struggle.
And I don't know what it all means.
And that is a constant shadow.
But then again, even that shadow.
Perhaps that also is who I am.

Who I have been made to be.
So I paint.
And I write.
And I study.
And I long to travel.
And I long to visit exhibitions.

And I look at lost years.
And realise that they weren't lost.
They were the steps towards becoming.
They were the people of Israel on a walk that should last a few weeks.
But that lasts for forty years.
Only for me it wasn't forty years.
Perhaps it was only 32.

1 Samuel 3:1-10 - A 7 minute sermon for a 9:30 service on Sunday.

Hannah was unable to become pregnant. And she was troubled by this, she carried a deep hurt in her heart, like a scar. In one of her dark moments Hannah visited the temple of the Lord and in her bitterness of soul, she prayed to God, “Lord, hear my sadness, feel my pain, remember me, be merciful to me. Give me a son and I will give him back to you.”

As she prayed, she prayed silently and her lips moved. A priest called Eli wandered past her and said, “stop your drinking”, thinking she was drunk. And Hannah explained that she wasn’t drunk and she shared her story.

The priest, Eli, blessed Hannah and Hannah left.

In due time she conceived and gave birth to a boy, whom she called Samuel, because Samuel sounds like “heard of God”.

When Samuel had grown up a few years she took him to the temple and saw Eli. And she said, “Remember me, here’s the son that God has given me, and so I’m giving him back to God.”

And Hannah prayed a beautiful prayer about God’s faithfulness. And she left Samuel in Eli’s care. And Samuel learnt to minister before the Lord under Eli’s guidance.

Samuel grew up, and Eli grew older and older until he was very old and going blind.

And so we reach our reading.

In a situation where the word of God was rare, where there were few visions.

Where the people of God had got into a rut, and were not expecting God to speak.

Or perhaps.

Perhaps, rather than not expecting God to speak,

Perhaps, they just weren’t giving God any room to speak.

We have Eli, who has become a living, embodiment, a metaphor for the people’s relationship with God.

People weren’t paying much attention to the word of God.

And Eli was going blind, so he couldn’t read it.

And so there is this perpetual situation of trying to learn how to live when God’s word seems rare.

And one evening Eli is lying down resting, with the temple’s light source, the symbolic, lamp of God slowly burning down. Sometime in the night, the light would go out, and a new lamp would be prepared to be lit the next day.

And again, symbolism is powerful here, as the lamp starts to fade physically, it becomes a metaphor for the light of God. God’s public presence in the world.

The light is fading in the temple and soon it will be left in darkness.

And THEN.

Then, into this context, this background of shadows and a growing sense of rising darkness, God speaks.

But God doesn’t move a mountain, or send a firestorm or a flood.

God speaks, and to Samuel’s young ears, it sounds just like Eli.

This amazing sign from God, and it sounds like a voice in the night.

And it sounds like the voice of Eli.

Or maybe it doesn’t, maybe it does sound like God, a real “God” sounding voice, but Samuel is just too humble to imagine that God would speak to him.

Samuel, who sleeps in the temple of the Lord, near the Ark of God.

The voice, calls Samuel by name. “Samuel”.

And Samuel responds, he speaks into the silence and stillness, with the light flickering down.

“Here I am”

And Samuel goes to see Eli, who says, “it wasn’t me.”

And the same thing happens again. And again. But the third time.

When Samuel speaks to Eli and says to him, “Here I am; you called me.” Something changes for Eli.

It’s like scales falling off his nearly blind eyes.

It’s like the booming voice of God in the near silence of the temple.

Eli remembers, he remembers that he used to know what it was like to hear God talk to him. To read God’s word.

To actually experience God as a reality for himself.

But not just to hear God’s voice, but to be called, as if by name.

And Eli tells this to Samuel. It’s the Lord speaking to you.

Eli, the priest of countless years, tells this young man Samuel, who we are told in verse 7, doesn’t even know God yet. And did not understand the word of God.

And Eli, knowing Samuel, and knowing how innocent and humble Samuel is to all that God might be saying to him. Tells him what to do.

And I wonder whether as Eli was giving this advice to Samuel, whether he was thinking that perhaps he should take some of his own medicine.

And so Samuel, the humble, the diligent, the quiet, goes back to his blankets and lies down.

And the Lord came and stood next to him and said, “Samuel! Samuel!”

The Lord made himself known to Samuel in a profound way. Are we prepared to get that close to God, or rather, to let God get that close to us?

The Lord came and stood next to Samuel.

And Samuel answered, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

Could we say that?

“Speak Lord, I am listening.”

Or even before this, could we even say that we are listening in expectation of hearing God’s voice.

Bishop Stephen Cottrell, asks the same questions in a wonderful little book called, Do Nothing To Change Your Life. And I want to recommend it to you.

But I also don’t want to recommend any other voices, or inputs to add to the collection that clog up our lives already.

TV, telephones, newspapers, Twitter, the BBC website, long distance phone calls, BBM’s, iPods, iPlayer, Sky TV, or maybe even UCB Christian radio.

I used to have an amazing spiritual breakfast every morning, four chapters of the Bible, and a time of prayer.

And then we had a baby! And that pattern has continued in times and seasons, but the daily spiritual diet has become more sporadic, piece meal, no more morning Bible binges, but snacks of scripture throughout the day.

And in the busy-ness of life, whether you have children or not, the pressures on our time and on our senses mount up.

And the only answer, is to actively, deliberately make space.

And that is hard.

To find silence.

And so as I finish jabbering at you, we are going to pause for a minute.

Before we sing a marvellous hymn, all about listening for that still small voice.

And in this silence, I want to encourage you to offer yourselves to God once more, as Hannah offered Samuel.

and silently say the words that Samuel said, “Here I am.”

And then listen.

ONE MINUTE PAUSE

Father God, be to us the still small voice that whispers in the dark. Be to us the loud crash of cymbals that drown out the noise of the world. Be to us, the physical presence that draws close and calls us each by name. AMEN.

Travel With Me. My latest poem/post.

Luke 2:4-7 TARGUM

So many people had journeys to make. And Mary and Joseph also had a journey to make. They travelled from Nazareth a town in Galilee, upwards to the village of Bethlehem in the hills of Judea. Whether or on a donkey, or by foot, the journey passed through lush olive groves and dry desert climes. Bethlehem was widely known as the “town of David” and Mary and Joseph travelled to Bethlehem, secure in the knowledge that Joseph belonged to the house of David, for Joseph was a descendent of King David himself. Joseph went with Mary to the village of Bethlehem, to register for Caesar Augustus’ census.

Mary was Joseph’s betrothed, his fiancé who he was to marry. She was pregnant with a child to be born of God. They arrived in Bethlehem in the midst of busyness, people coming and going, travelling from far and wide to register for Caesar Augustus’ census. They found hospitality with Joseph’s distant family. The family already had guests in the guest room and so Joseph and the heavily pregnant Mary found themselves sharing the family room with the cousins of a previous generation.

While they were staying with Joseph’s distant family Mary’s labour began. As her contractions grew more regular, women from the neighbourhood started to arrive at the house, they made their way through the stable and up the few steps into the family room with its assorted mangers. As the women arrived, the men of the household offered Mary encouragement and then left to await the news in a neighbour’s house. Then the nearest the village had to a midwife arrived and with the women from the community helped to deliver the baby. Mary’s first child, her son was born and swaddled in cloths and placed into a sheep’s manger. The women from the neighbourhood dispersed and the men returned. And so it was that the boy slept his first night in a room with Mary and Joseph, and some distant relatives as well.

Falling For Mary (an advent poem)

Mary, I am sorry, for the way I’ve acted towards you.


For the silent disdain I’ve held in my tradition, without ever really knowing it.

Ten years ago those words and prayers about you confused me and I just couldn’t understand,

Your place and role in God’s Father plan.

I never quite got what it was you did, but have a kid,

A kid who was God, but there was much more to it than I gave you credit for.

And then three years ago I re-read those words you said.

Recorded in that book.

And I read them again and again nearly every day.

Words about how God sends the rich away without what they came for.

Those things you said about the humility of a servant.

And how God is merciful, forever.

And I grew to appreciate you more.

Found something in you like a revolution.

And realised that your words held a power that was beyond who you were.

That the song you sang in all its magnificence,

Was itself a miraculous event.

Last year I saw your face, painted with oils deep and rich.

On an island off the coast of Scotland.

You were dressed in blue, your head covered, your eyes deep and penetrating.

And I couldn’t look away.

From that gaze, that,

Felt like it held time together.

And then this Spring I spent so many days with other pictures of you.

Brush strokes trying to tell the story of that moment.

When the messenger of God visited you.

And I wondered.

How you felt.

Whether you were scared?

Or pious?

Or submissive?

Or strong?

Or both.

And I think I started to fall in love with you.

When I realised that,

Beyond the pictures in their gilded frames.

And white lilies.

And red needlework.

And doves.

And prayer books.

Was you.

Humble.

Brave.

And resilient.

So resilient.

And I realised that those words you sang in that song,

Were sung from your experience.

And that the eyes with which you looked.

Upon the messenger of God.

Were eyes, just like, the eyes of every other.

And before it all,

I began to see you, for who I’d never let you be.

And since July, I’ve seen those eyes again, nearly every single day,

Eyes shaped out of coloured glass and penetrating in power.

And another gilded frame, with its golds and reds and blues.

And the boy on your lap.

The boy, held close to your heart,

The very same heart to be pierced,

As Simeon said.

And in the darkness of this growing winter,

In the midst of this season of waiting.

I am slowly understanding.

Just what advent means.

And I’m slowly understanding,

Just who you were called to be.

And I’m slowly getting a grip on,

What that is supposed to mean to me.