Disengagement

I imagine we all know people who have disengaged from church; who have found it too painful or taxing or frustrating or confusing to keep coming back. I’m thinking in particular of leaders, who want to believe that church is a good thing, but have battled against too much evidence to the contrary.

Often they get sins pinned on them as the reason for their disconnection. Perhaps they don’t pray enough or have inappropriate relationships. Perhaps they need more faith, more vision, more repentance. Or perhaps they need someone to actually listen to the things they find hard, to acknowledge the contradictions that do seem to come with being church, and to help them find creative and real ways to navigate those tensions.

In October we are hosting the ‘Engaged’ weekend in Cambridge, which is a conversation for those who find themselves disengaging or are friends with those who are. It will be creative, participatory, real and engaging. It is about still loving Jesus even if we can’t make sense of the rest.

Together we will explore staying engaged - with God, each other, with church, society, and with theology. It might just open up new possibilities for each of us to be what God made us: a contribution to the world in which we live.

Date: 27-28 October 2007
Details: www.citylifechurch.net/engaged

Who said preaching was dead?

On Monday evening I went to hear Rob Bell. A blank stage in a theatre. A stool and a plain white light. Rob appeared on stage. No singing. Not even a prayer to open. An hour and 15 minutes of preaching. No notes. Sort of John Cleese meets Eddie Izzard meets Bill Hybels. Stories about Jesus, creation, the Scriptures, Jewish culture applied to our current global scene. Really challenging stuff. The audience - mainly young adults - was rivetted. At the end no appeal just applause.

Next Vista Community gathering

Dates for the next Vista Gathering...

Friday 11 - Saturday 12th January 2008

Venue: Luton's Thistle Hotel

Accommodation cost: £49 all inc.Includes Fri evening meal, Sat breakfast, Sat lunch.

There will be an additional charge for admin/programme etc. More details to follow.

Putting it into practise

Been very challenged by Graham Cray's talk about sabbath last week. The biggest challenge is.........putting it into practise. We had a long talk in our team today about diary management and developing some common practises to avoid burn-out and stay healthy. Saying 'no' to people is really difficult. Any tips?

Event for men

We have Eric Delve speaking at a Men's Day on Saturday July 7th at Central Hall, Southampton. The day runs 9.30am - 4.30pm. It will be very good. Details here.

Let the party begin

Welcome to the new Vista Community blog. An opportunity for us to share some cyber space together as we learn and grow and discover what God has for us. I'll start with a summary of the last couple of days we spent together at the beautiful Oast Houses in Kent (or was it East Sussex?).

About 35 of us from a wide variety of churches and mission organisations gathered yesterday, 4th June, for 24 hours of friendship and exploration. We kicked off with a time of sharing and updating and praying for one another. We had an especially great dinner together - great because the standard of cuisine in Christian Retreat Centres aren't normally that great! After dinner Roger Ellis shared a paper he had written, 'Where does the new church movement go from here?'. We'll publish the paper on here soon. There was some lively discussion after which we opened a few bottles of wine and whiled away the rest of the evening.

After breakfast we spent some time in worship and prayer before Bishop Graham Cray led a session on maintaining our personal spiritual life. He talked about developing regular sabbath rhythms weekly, monthly, annually but stressed the importance of changed character not simply changed practise. The discipline of rest and renewal is simply a framework to allow God's Spirit to do his work in us.

It's about the 4th time we've met like this and it is starting to feel like real community. We'll use this blog to let people know about future dates, conferences and events that we think might be helpful. We're also creating a Facebook group to keep in touch.

First Post!

Testing, testing...