A journal of record about the development of a project to retell the Gospel for the people of postcode 2528
My humblest apologies for the complete lack of anything on this blog. I am about to head across the skies and seas to the UK to take part in and attend Greenbelt (http://www.greenbelt.org.uk) and I promise that once I get back the gspl:2528 blog will undergo a revamp and get back on with banging on about the gospel for postcode 2528.
I may even post a blog or two from Blighty whilst I am there!!
Live Long and dance like a loon!
OK Do your self a favour and click on this:
Mad!!
I hope and pray everyone has a fantastic 2009. Here at gspl;2528 HQ we are hoping to lay some rubber on the road and get some traction happening with gspl:2528 – get it out there and see what happens. Should be fun – should be good – will be interesting!
Happy New Year to all!
Rob!
Ok this isn’t my idea but it sounds pretty good. And as we have a few U2-aholics in the church (and community) it might be worth a shot sometime next year.
Check it out here:
http://lostingraceland.wordpress.com/2008/11/30/u2charist/
Thanks to Rosemary at Lost in Graceland.
Nice people in Cardiff
Hey! Apologies for not posting for a bit – you missed a great night with Michelle asking the tough questions; and me doing some chilled stuff (again). This week is our last for a little while (Christmas is coming like a train and there’s no way to avoid the impact – especially as we are involved in some other stuff and it’s full on so we’ll stop gspl;2528 for a couple a weeks) so…
We are having a party!
Time to jingle those bells, deck the hall and sing a carol (maybe!). it’s also Becky’s birthday – and she’s had to wait all year for this – so we’re partying it up a bit.
Bring something to share, and as many friends as you like.
We might still do communion – but that’s Ross’s department this week!
By the way Ross has been flat out like a lizard drinking which when you are a self employed illustrator is a good thing – so praise God and pass the pencil sharpener!
So usual place (SCBC – corner Antrim and William Avenues Warilla) and usual time – around 7pm.
Come along. It should be fun.
And if nothing else we will have communion in the other sense – the coming together bit.
Sharing, caring and such like. Nice.
Sometimes, despite our best efforts, we make awful mistakes, stuff up, and miss the plot almost completely. I guess it just goes to prove how much we need God – I am aware we all make mistakes but sometimes we can really lose the plot and stuff up and it become more like one step forward 5 steps back. I try, but without God, my efforts will only take me so far. No matter how sorry I may feel in the moment – I need to take a good hard look at myself, and hand it back to God and learn (again) to rely on Him.
This probably won’t make too much sense but I don’t really want to go into details apart from saying I am sorry I have let myself down more than anything. I just needed to say this publicly, I guess, to keep myself accountable to myself. And God.
Please pray for me – and the rest of the gspl:2528 team – even though this has nothing much to do with them.
We now return you to normal programming….
Rob!
This Sunday night Stuart is taking a good hard look at Jesus and how we can see His Divinity displayed through His miracles. Of course, as this is the second in our Communion series we will also have another look at the whole Communion thing. Next week I will be leading a bit of a reflective Chilled communion – after a busy Sunday (for our church) we’re just going to chill out a bit and have a bit of music and quiet – and a reflection on the agony and guilt-tripping the poor disciples must have gone through after Jesus was crucified and before His resurrection.
On Friday I went to Manly to a Forge NSW Intensive (well, I managed the first of a 2 1/2 day Intensive) Organising the Revolution: Training Missional Leaders http://www.forge.org.au/index.php/20070322133/NSW/Events/Events.html which was fantastic. I got to hear Mark Sayers – who was great – a brilliant observer of the culture we live in. Here’s the gist of what he was talking about yesterday: http://marksayers.wordpress.com/2008/11/05/the-missional-context-we-find-ourselves-in/ which I thought summed up the situation we find ourselves in really well. I also heard Mike Frost who is also great and Stephen Said who was also fantastic (especially as he had the ‘graveyard shift’ of the late afternoon.
I also picked up some books which means more reading! But i also got to meet lots of wildly excited young people (and the odd one or two older dudes and dudesses!) who are doing exciting things and trying new ideas out and new ways of doing church. A great day and I wish that I had been able to nake all 2 1/2 days of the Intensive – next time!! Forge do a great job and these Intensives are fantastic way of developing the missional leaders we need to do church differently in the 21st Century.
Sorry for the break over October, we’re all rested and fired up for the rest of the year. The good news is we’re back on this Sunday (the 2nd November) at our new venue, SCBC on the corner of William and Antrim Avenues in Warilla from 7:00pm. We’ll be having a BBQ dinner to hang out and catch up with each other on what we’ve been up to over a sausage and a smile 
.
Also, we’ll be starting a 6 week look at communion, what it’s for, what it means in this day and age, and what it is about Jesus we’re remembering by doing it. Those of us who have taken part in communion before will know that we usually do communion to remember the sacrifice Jesus took for us on the cross. This week though we will look at what got Jesus crucified in the first place. He lived a life that caused some to conspire to have him killed, and though he knew it would be the death of him, he kept on living this way, kept on shaking things up and kept on questioning the old rules and the religious traditions.
So come along for a feed, a good chat and maybe even a good think.
It’ll be great to have you there!!!!!!!!!! Yeah yeah.
7.00pm on the corner of William and Antrim Avernues Warilla.
This is an idea in gestation.
After going for a walk along the beach yesterday and looking across the channel to Warilla I was wondering how we can do church in a culturally relavent way for people in 2528. So I wondered ‘how’ people gather, what is the cultural way people commune with each other, what way do ordinary warillarites celebrate community? Warilla is predominately Aussie withe a large dose of Pommies thrown in and about 20% ‘others’ – but prdominately Australian – and working/non-working and lower middle class. I figured that unlike other places Warilla people don’t do coffee – there aren’t enough coffee shops – they don’t do much apart from clubs – and BBQ’s. So what would a ‘BBQ church’ look like? I had a look and here’s one possibility
http://tilttoronto.blogspot.com/2008/08/communion-bbq-on-sunday.html
Today’s sermon at church was about Ezekiel getting the tap on the shoulder from God to go tell ‘those rebellious people’ the message. (Ezekiel 2) These were his own people – God says I’m not sending you to people with a strange language – I am sending you to people who understand you (they won’t listen but tell them anyway!). So is BBQ church a way to be church in a culturally relevant way for the people of 2528.
Maybe we could use something like http://www.redoak.com.au/02_01.html or http://www.redoak.com.au/02_07.html or Kilkenney instead of red wine or grape juice for BBQ communion with a crusty cob loaf.
Instead of singing maybe just a set of tunes on the CD that says what we want to convey the mood… and instead of a sermon, a conversation on a theme.
Just a thought – on an idea who’s time has come!?
Rob!
Sorry for the lack of activity on the blog. My slackness rather than any other reason. Life. It gets in the way sometimes.
Anyway, with the aid of our friends in Welsh places over at Lost in Graceland, here’s a link to some top Welsh language music – for free – and there’s even a Welsh rapper on the album!!! Tidy!!
http://lostingraceland.wordpress.com/2008/10/07/dan-y-cownter-3/
As Molly would have said back in the day, on Count Down (which will immediately age me) Do Yourself a Favour and get some Welsh music into your life!
Back in gspl:2528 land, we are planning our next round of gspl:2528 Sunday Nights which will be on through November.
A couple of things have been happening while I haven’t been posting so I will get onto it and fill in the blanks on the next post!
Check back soon!
Rob!
