Faith is like a football club!

I was chatting on Monday to a friend about our respective football clubs, Southampton and Notts County and sharing our love for lower league football. The premiership is so over rated! We shared storeys of administration, lack of money, having to sell players and another season stuck in the league we find ourselves in. Being a football fan is a bit like sitting on a roller coaster but not know where it goes next but we keep coming back for more and would not change teams even for all the trophies in the world.

Faith, like supporting a football team isn't straight forward, it can be up and down and we don't know where it's headed. It sometimes seems like we have no faith or that God has let us down. We can feel that just when things seem going well we then get stuck or something happens that makes us question God.

Yet, in my experience the more we feel faithless, God reveals his faithfulness to us in some new way. Having faith in God doesn't make our life's easier but it gives the struggles purpose and hope.

Faith is like a football team just not as overpaid!

Matt

Am I a nutter?

The short answer to the questions is probably "yes" I am a nutter. For one; I support Southampton, two; I love jigsaws and three; I have rediscovered the joy of Lego at the age of 30. For many in the world, this would suggest I am a nutter.

Tony Blair was asked about how his faith impacts his politics. His reply was along the lines of; if you talk about your faith in this system, people tend to think your a nutter. Recently, "The Archbishop of Canterbury has accused the government of treating religious faith as an "eccentricity" practised by "oddities"."

So am I nutter or an oddity because I am someone who has faith? Of course I am! On the face of it, believing in something (God in our faith) you can't see, touch, smell or hear is strange, slightly odd. I could go into all the arguements about God being in all things because he is the creator but that still doesn't make it "normal". In the last couple of weeks I have had 3 or 4 strange faces pulled at me when I told them I am a "vicar". Aparently, I don't look like one and seem a bit to normal to be one. Having faith in God isn't rational, I don't believe faith is surposed to be rational as it wouldn't be faith. That would make it religion.

If being a Christian makes you a nutter, then why are there so many nutters in the world?

Matt

Do you know your neighbours?

The research below is very interesting and I have been greatly challenged by it in recent days.

Some 96% of the over-65s among the 2,000 people asked said they knew their neighbours' names, but the figure fell to 66% among those aged under 25.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8393872.stm

On Tuesday morning two of the Children from next door came and gave me a Christmas card with "To Lizzy, Matt and Ruby the dog" on the envelope. Sadly I can't remember their names and can't say that I have had a long enought conversation to find out what they do, what school the kids go to or what faith they are.

Memo to self: Practice what you preach.

Matt

Dirt can be good for the church?

Dirt can be good for children, say scientists:Messy play should be encouraged, according to the hygiene hypothesis Children should be allowed to get dirty, according to scientists who have found being too clean can impair the skin's ability to heal.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8373690.stm

As a "soon to be parent" I noticed this and thought it was worth look. I have always been a believer that our society has become obsessed with cleanliness, over subscription of drugs and Health and Safety. But I do recognise the importance of these things in the running of a church community. Peoples safety should not be taken lightly and God demands we are good stewards of our the people we serve.

My point is more focused on how spiritually safe our churches have become and how we have sought to ensure that any mess is kept out of our churches, especially in worship. By playing it safe and keeping things tidy we are in danger of minimising opportunities of restoration and healing to take place on individuals and as a body of followers. We are fooling ourselves to think we can leave our sin at the door of our churches and worship as if we are all OK. It does a disservice to God and to our friends who we worship with. Maybe we need more sin in the church (this is not the same as being more sinful).

Dirt is good for the church because it allows God to clean us up, make us right and recreate our minds, bodies and spirits repeatedly. This does not mean we sin on purpose but bring the realities of our everyday life before God (not just on a Sunday), before our community and deal with it. Being exposed to the dirt of life will not harm us because God promises that he will protect us where ever we are. Jesus prayed for His disciples and us in John 17 that we would not be taken out of the world but be protected as we interact with it.

Then why are we scared to get our churches dirty?

Matt