Post Colonial

If you dont know if your post modern or modern, just make darned sure that you are post colonial as i superceeds much of those other two things.
Post Colonial????
Are YOU Post Do$minant Culture
Are You Post Vested Interests
Are You Post Hierachy
Are You Post any divide that is counter to being All One In Christ - Priest Laity??
Are You Post ............................... what else do you think is embodied in the colonial empirical era that you need to be POST.............and are you. Thats the real question.

been a while

Thats me - when i was young enough to have dreams, like going into space or being a stuntman. I didnt become either, but it held me in good stead to know i could have a dream and pursue it. I managed to get lots of bruises trying, and once i tried an excercise in faith - i flicked through a world map with a pencil and a blindfold and said = where i place this pencil God, i am willing to go. Really shouldnt have done it in front of my family cause id put the pencil on the moon !!!! I think part of me has been there ever since.


The Church Should Inhabit No Separate Sphere, But Inhabit All Spheres - Henry Drummond - Scotland.

Not new news, but always worth picking up on anything which highlights the uselessness of church as an independant sphere in society, instead of being functionally present in all spheres.

You Spin Me Right Round Baby Right Round Like A Record Baby Right Round Round Round (dead or alive) Concentic Circles of Church as weve known it.

Ohhhhhh so very bored now, bored of seeing more people's dreams rejected by the construct or at times worse, they are embraced and the individual becomes COMMODIFIED as the construct says this is now a vision of the church, dispite frequently having little to do with it once it gets the title 'church'.

One guy i met had approached a church leader to see if they had any people looking to connect cross denominationally to partner in a work amidst un churched youth. The pastor said, "no - we dont have anyone like that", my friend asked Are You Sure? "Yes totally sure - our church's vision is for 6 distinct things and this is not one of them, God will not have given us people who's vision is not one of these"......... All Puke Now!! Its even worse when you know that church does have someone with such a dream but they would never voice it because of something like this.

We had to save the world once - With Only 2 Weeks To Do It...Really !!!
I was at a conference for youth church and we got teamed up with ywamers and lots of mission practitioners who should know better.
We are told we are in a town and have two weeks to win everyone for christ before the end of the world. How were we going to do it????
Well, the group decided we NEED A COMMON VISION SO WE CAN BE OF ONE HEART AND MIND.............what a Crock !!! So, we indeed laid everything down, and wrestled to find a singular strategy. I tried to point out that we had doctors, dentists, tradesmen, shop owners, kids workers etc etc, who had located themselves for mission and to be christ, and you now want to pull them out of there to focus on a singular centred vision. How useful!!!

Really bored with this stuff at the moment........just goes round and round and round, there seem to be so few people who feel able to give themselves to what God has prepared for them, because they are valued for doing something other than this. Worse still, many churches i know now consider themselves to have DONE the workplace thing, because they have done a sermon on it and embraced some new corporate language about how community is expressed and where church lives, but have dont nothing structurally or operationally to allow any transition. What kind of process is that i wonder?

But i continue in faith, for the ones and the twos who will hopefully begin a critical mass situation and take this further than i ever could.
g

SPOT THE LEADER

Ok - this is really from the archives, best quality ive got - sorry.
Anyways, this one is intended to be a simple visual stimulant.
This is Bliss community Summer 95 after we began it in Oct 94.
Can you spot the leaders?
No one in this picture is over 25
No one in this picture is using it as their youth group, nor are they pit stopping here for fun and real church is somewhere else for them. This is it - thrown in the pot and beginning a journey together. If the presence of the Holy Spirit at a gathering can be seen as a affirmation that your not doign something totally out of wack - then this one was a total God head fry, lots of vibrant pictures in my head even if this one is rather worn. Thats me flashing flesh in the front and johnny the main instigator sat down with my son jesse in front and daugther holly behind. Oh to be young again, oh to keep thinking life and not preparing for end of life . Cummon!

All That Glistens

All That Glistens Is Not Gold.................... But I Tell You What
SOME OF IT DARNED WELL IS !

Im the ugly one with the fringe in the left corner(i had just become a christian some weeks earlier), this was my crew, my family, the MODRAPHENIACS DORSET SCOOTER CLUB - i think this was 86/87. The group pic was taken on the isle of wight rally in 1983, im in there somewhere.
My friends had names like skunkhead / skid / bugsy/ beef/trooper................... sounds like the guys youd storm the beaches of normandy with!

When i got into God at the age of 18, i walked away from all this, i walked away from popping pills (couldnt smoke dope - made me throw up), walked away from the adventures of getting off with lovely lassies at the weekend, walked away from getting into other peoples fights to vent my own repressed anger issues, walked away from what was accurately described in The WHO soundtrack film 'quadaraphenia' as A WAY OF LIFE........................ but what i hadnt appreciated at the time was, i was also walking away from my family, not my , but certainly my kith and kin (scots for family).
Last night i went to the final evening of a weekender, not far from where i live, for the modrapheniacs 30th anniversary, my older brother invited me, having been the scootering generation before me and a founder member in the 70's - number 4 to be precise. (he got honoured on stage last night as 'the unsung hero of the club' - i was well chuffed for him).

Anyways.... i will eventually get to the point as this isnt just a nostalgic rant.
There had been 2000 folks there over the weekend - 400 bikes went for a run into town, must of been a blast but i missed it. So - im there last night and it was a total delight, as grand a family reunion as anyone could wish to make in their family. People i could hardly recognise, names i could remember just about. People kept saying 'have you seen so and so, or so and so is here' i i couldnt remember half of them, people i had apparantly spent a lot of time with.
I felt...........................at times....................... that i was a complete and total arse. These folks had a continuum - while i had been divorced - i felt like i had been labotomised - that part of my memory had been taken - or worse, given up.
Why? Cause when i got into god at 18 i turned my back on this - why? cause thats what you did when you got into 'church' - church which separates itself off from life and you along with it as it takes you deep into the colon of its sub culture.
Last night i felt i had in some ways missed more than i had gained in that experience of separation. At one level i needed it, i was certainly well on my way to going ballistic before i got out of it, but to have separated off??????.................... very sad indeed. In part its the ideology of church, that it saves you FROM something, into something 'other' than what you were in. Why, becuase church alledgedly exists in a place other that where you are. And theres the problem. No one comes alongside you in what your in, they just rip you out of it..................... something I DO NOT see in the bible as a methodology of Jesus.

These folks i met again, they are great people, some have been married 20+ years with lovely kids, some have been far more loyal and nurturing in their relationships than one might generally see in some aspects of the church. There was some real gold there - some real gems of people who God loves and who, by the very nature of Gods creation, he is intrinsically in - they are made in HIS image, and there is much good there. Dont get me wrong, there were some total nightmares too, depending on whats side someone had gotten out of bed or what time of the month it was - me for instance!
It was my family - and can still be my family if i have finished separating off.
My nick name was SPROGG or SPROGGY. This came about cause at 15, when i would go over the pub to talk folks into giving me a lift out on sunday runs............ i was the youngest. One wonderful woman came up to me last night and said that 'I was called sprogg cause that meant 'baby' and the she used to mother me - they felt it was their duty to look after me and keep me from harm'. Isnt that wonderful, isnt that full of who God is and what Jesus longs to see.

I had to appologise last night to a few people, i felt if i was to have integrity that i needed to do this. I wanted to do this. I appologised for turning my back on them, for 'sodding off', for cutting myself off, and that it had been my loss'.
Actually - where i come from they call that repentance - and you dont do that unless you follow it up with a corresponding action. Its time for me to re join my family at one level, to re join the story of my tribe, maybe even bring a bit of jesus with me, who, whilst he is everywhere and most certainly around these guys.............. may not have been quite as present as he could of been had i stayed around. Thats something else to repent of too.

So................. the dj asked the modrapheniacs to get on the stage where everyone could see them, i didnt need to think twice about wether that meant me too...................... cause its family!

Also - in closing............... there were people who hadnt come this year but had come last year. I was sad to have missed them.................. isnt it good to feel things like that, sad that you missed people, that they matter, that they not just 'meant' something to you, but still 'mean' something too.

All that glistens might not be Gold - But some of it is!
g
(sprogg)