headwayyouth- phil smith's blog

How very humourous

Finding these money saving tips for youthworkers very useful

Resources...

As you probably know i'm in the process of pulling together link to whole pile of resources that may be of use to people like yourself. Just found jesus painter today and thought it might be of interest...

fair ground fun...

    You get to do some odd things as a Methodist local preacher, but today was well up there with the most humourous of them all! I was invited to lead a service to open a fairground in a quaint little village ten miles south of Darlington called north cowton. I expected a few rows of chairs and a lecturn, kinda like those outdoor weddings you see on american films, but far from it... Largely due to the rain, myself and the organist were situated in the waltzers and the congregations crowded under a coconut shy... very bizarre!

The fair is clearly a big annual event and each year the small methodist chapel holds this service not out of tradition or because they want to, but because every year the people of the village ask them to do so. The church is a central part to the community and so it makes sense that on this special occasion the church should play a special part. I've never lived in a village before but i find the concept of the village chapel something worth considering as we continue think about what it means to be church when there are fewer geographical communities left.

"How to get the punters in the pews"

I try my best to keep an eye on what is reported in the british press re. anytihng to do with church so apologies that i missed this article last saturday about what makes a growing church. In the article Colin Sedgewick rightly says that around the country are many churches of all denomination that are "energetic and growing", so those that are declining should pay attention... he goes on to highlight a number of clearly identifiable traits in these 'successful' churches.

I read the article just this morning and although with my trad hat on i found it interesting, with my emergent hat i found it saddening, because for the emerging church surely 'energetic and growing' are not the qualities by which we judge our success, and i'm not quite sure mainline denominations should be using them either... i'm trying to think of two other alternatives which might suit the emerging church; deep and open? sincere and loving? any ideas???

Day off humour!

Really enjoyed watching street running on channel four this morning- if you've no idea what i'm talking about check out the pics here and especially the albums here. My youth group are really getting into it so it was good to get ahead of them while they're at school. The interview at Durham went well and it looks like sometime in the next 18months i'm going to start studying an MA in Theological Research.

I'm quite a fan of shipoffools so was very humoured when tallskinnykiwi led me to larknews. Particularly enjoyed this humourous article about a guy who has had stigmata and a crown of thorns tatooed!

Bricking it...

I'm off to Durham University this afternoon to be interviewed for the Master's Course in Theological Research... scary mary!

"Does anything about methodism at the minute excite me?"

Lou asked this question in response to yesterday's post about willow creek etc and i've been thinking about it all morning while trying to fix the computer of a member of my youth group- a task which is looking less and less possible as it becomes more and more likely that the hard drive has turned into toast!

I was really moved to here about Graham Horsley's words at Easter People, where he spoke of being in a David and Goliath battle and his giant being the structure and institution of the Methodist Church. I can see where he's coming from. All the structures that are inplace seem to be hindering rather than encouraging growth... but judging by this article in the Times this week, i guess every denomination has it's own giant!

What does excite me is that, although it is behind most denominations, the methodist church is starting to take the emerging church seriously and is slowly realising that charismatic worship is not the be all and end all eg. in september the methodist church is employing a new guy to work on fresh expressions stuff alongside Steven Croft.

What worries me is that i don't think people are taking this movement seriously enough to reverse the current decline in membership...

quantity and quality

Found this slideshow and this article on the web today. It's a review by businessweek (an american magazine) of Willow Creek Church. I was flicking through it and felt remarkably unimpressed. I work at your typical british methodist church and everyone here looks up to willow creek and saddleback and all those other megachurches but it makes me shrivel... i used to go to a large charismatic church and enjoyed the nice little knees up we had but the emerging church movement and particularly brother maynards musings, which i keep coming back to, excite me a lot more!

I watched Closer with Zoe (Mrs Smith to be) again last night and although i find it v. disturbing at times i enjoyed it, a really clever insight into a world of messy relationships... a world which i know little about... besides the domestics i hear from next door to my terrace house. Closer was her suggestion, so in return i think we'll be watching the Corporation in the near future...

new look...

made some alterations to the colour of the blog today... as you can hopefully see! i was getting some feedback that it wasn't that readable. hopefully this will help a little. more ammendmant to content and design coming soon! if you have any suggestions do email me

For a bit of a crack...

For a bit of a crack i've just done Sven's test your theology quiz...

You scored as Emergent/Postmodern. You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this.

Emergent/Postmodern		86%
Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan		79%
Neo orthodox		79%
Charismatic/Pentecostal		57%
Roman Catholic		57%
Classical Liberal		57%
Reformed Evangelical		46%
Modern Liberal		36%
Fundamentalist		14%

What's your theological worldview?
created with QuizFarm.com