My sermon the other week was about focusing on God as the Lord’s Prayer help us to do. It was an appropriate place to begin our exploration of the Holy Land.

We journeyed down the Mount of Olives, with its amazing view of the old city, to Dominus Flavit. We were met at the gate by a monk, sitting under a tree with a pipe and a pint of what looked very much like beer! He reminded me of friar tuck in Robin Hood!

The church commemorates the place where Jesus looked out over the city, and wept. It struck me that things haven’t changed much. A city of God which is divided equally by walls and belief. Today was Friday prayers and it’s still Ramadan so the Muslim Quarter was packed with people. The police were out in force but the rest of the city was quiet.

Gethsemane next and my favourite church, the church of all nations. For the first time the connection between the lord’s prayer and Jesus’ prayer in the garden struck me. Read them together and you’ll see what I mean.

Onwards to the tomb of Mary. Down lots of stairs into the dark of an Orthodox church. And the smell… Incense and candles.

From there we walked around outside the city walls to avoid the crowds to the dung gate and the western wall. The wall is as close as the Jews can get to where the Temple housing the Holy of Holies and the Ark of the Covenant once stood.

And that was our morning. More later but it’s time for bed. Off to the Holy Sepulchre at 6.30am.

We arrived in Jerusalem early this evening to be met by good friends. It was so good to see them and doesn’t seem like a year since we last met.

Last year we came to help with a summer camp, this year is for a pilgrimage to see the Holy Sites and to meet with people to hear about life in this beautiful broken country.

Tomorrow we are starting our day at the top of the mount of olives and working our way down the hill. Ramadan and the Sabbath collide tomorrow night so we will be steering clear of what promises to be a tense afternoon in the old city.

I’m interested to see how our group experience this Holy Land. And I’m interested to see how I encounter it with more time and space to see and think and feel it.

I think most of the places we’re staying have wi-fi so I’ll try to blog as we go but no doubt the detail will come next week when we’re home.

Now, to sleep. It’s been a long day. And we’re sleeping in the Knight’s Palace hotel, where the knights of the crusades gathered centuries ago. I wonder what the people of those times would make of it now?

Over at We Live Simply Jonathan is thinking about ‘downtime’.

His thoughts really made me think.

We probably all have a sense that we are more available than we used to be.  The mobile phone sorted that out.  But the smart phone has taken our availability to a whole new level.

Email on your phone so people can contact you anytime, and expect you to answer.

Twitter.  Facebook.  FourSquare.  All designed to keep you ‘in touch’ but as this article on Life Hack suggests there is a huge downside.

…what’s actually happening in the life of many  professionals is not amusing at all.  Their companies  have taken the opportunity given them by technology and the recession to convince employees to spend more  “down time” doing work.  At the same time, they send a subtle message that  “staying in touch” with work also means being available 24 hours  a day for 52 weeks of the year.

Converting “Down Time” Nowadays, it seems, everyone with a smartphone has gotten into the habit of continuously trying to convert “down time” into useful, work time.  Here are some everyday examples of ways in which many professionals are converting their “down time.”

• - a manager driving on the highway at 70 m.p.h. sends a text to his team  (while spilling hot coffee into his lap)
• - an engineer in a meeting that’s going slowly, checks her email and replies (missing two action items assigned to her)
• - an accountant watching his child play baseball on Saturday morning closes a deal in the fourth inning via cellphone (and lies to his  son about seeing him make his first catch ever)
• - a supervisor attending 3 days of personal productivity training is unable to leave her smartphone untouched for more than 15 minutes (and later complains that  the trainer was ineffective)
• - a consultant speaking to a client on the phone remembers that  he should have sent an urgent message to a colleague, and quietly does so (even as the client notes the sudden lapse in attention and interprets it as a lack of interest in continuing the relationship)
• - a hard driving attorney once again takes his smartphone to the  urinal where he can multi-task (… and is noticed by his boss’ husband who happened to borrow his smartphone just five minutes earlier)
• - a family cheers in unison when executive-Mom forgets her  smartphone at home 5 hours into the annual vacation (and falls into  despair when FedEx delivers it the next day)

I recently asked a client: “How did your big presentation to the executive team go?”  She responded: “OK… but the CEO spent the entire hour on his (expletive)  Blackberry.”

This was bad news for my client, whose project was now being viewed by the CEO as another chunk of his “down time.”

Rest is essential.  Spending time with the people you love is too.  These people need you to be available to them too.

For many people reading this your life, like mine, will be complicated by the fact that you work from home.  People call at mealtimes because they know you will be there.  People expect you to reply to email because they know you can pick it up anytime.  And we feed those expectations because we pick up the phone and answer the emails at 2am.  We like the versatility and the chance to arrange our days but we need to switch it off sometimes.

Working from home also brings isolation.  Twitter and Facebook give the feeling of company.  But like at work when you might chat to your colleagues over coffee there comes a time when you just need to get on with work.  That’s why you’re there after all.  The same is true when working at home.

So, I’ll be turning my work email off at 5pm and on at 9am.  It will stay off at the weekend unless I’m working.  When I’m off I won’t be looking and when I’m with my wife or my kids I’m going to try to keep my phone in my pocket unless I’m taking photos or using it to enhance our day.

So, what do you think?

I was supposed to collect a group of 11 Hungarian youth workers at Edinburgh airport tonight but that’s not happening as European airspace remains closed.

That means we have had to cancel plans (thanks to the nice people who we were going to visit) and also cancel accommodation… which has been a bit more problematic.

We had booked the group into a hostel in Glasgow.  We paid the whole thing up front so we could get a small discount.  They won’t give us any of the cash back.  If we had only paid a deposit we would only have lost 10%.

They are going to let us change the dates, as long as we re-book in the near future.  Thanks.

So, I now have some time to work on my dissertation that I wasn’t expecting.  And a hole in our budget that I wasn’t expecting either.

This weekend was the United Reformed Church’s Synod of Scotland meeting.  For the last few of years Youth Forum for 12-16 year-olds has met alongside Synod.  This year, following FURY Assembly’s plea to highlight the plight of the Invisible Children of Uganda, Youth Forum spent the weekend considering how we could tell the story of children who are abducted and forced to fight.

Every night hundreds of children gather in towns because staying at home in the countryside at night is too dangerous.  The Lord’s Resistance Army abduct children, kill their families and force them to become child soldiers.

The issue, highlighted by Invisible Children, is one which shocked and moved us.  We were delighted that following the young people’s presentation Synod discussed and debated how they could help.

The Synod of Scotland resolves to encourage churches to investigate the issue of child soldiers, to raise awareness of their plight, campaign for an end to this inhuman practice and to pray regularly for these children, their families and their communities…. to make these invisible children visible.

We also heard a report that the project we highlighted last year, a leprosy colony in Malawi, has been successful in achieving some of it’s ambitions, a process kick-started by the Youth Forum highlighting the needs of the project to Synod.

It’s easy to think that the problems of the world are too big, too far away, and that we are too small to affect change.

This weekend has been a reminder that we can make change.  It reminded us that we can shine light into dark places.

We have just returned from visiting NORTH for the first time and it’s an amazing place.

The landscape is bleak, battered by wind and weather.  It’s a truly wild place.  And it is beautiful.

This is the beach at Strathy, just along the coast from Thurso, past Dounreay.  It was stunning in the rain and the wind so it’s hard to imagine just how amazing it looks in the sunshine.

We spent a weekend with some of the warmest people we have met.  Saturday was spent having interesting conversations with people who really care about their church and the children in and around it and Church on Sunday was full of fun and laughter and chocolate.

If you ever get the chance follow the signs and head NORTH.  You won’t regret it.

People have expectations of us.  At work our boss, our colleagues, our constituents, congregations or customers all have lots of expectations of us, each one as different as they are.

Who sets these expectations and who decides when and if you have met or exceeded them?

I find that often in my work that people don’t know what to expect of me, or that their expectations of what I will do with them are very different to what I think they need.

That might mean that they are disappointed because they didn’t get what they wanted or expected.

Is that a good thing?

Or should our jobs be about meeting people’s expectations?

What room does that leave for creativity, prophecy and vision?

Did you grow up in a Christian home?

How do you know?

Those were two of the questions which were posed by Lucy Moore during Messy Church training on Saturday.

The assembled throng laughed nervously and made jokes about growing up in a bungalow and how they had never asked their house if it had accepted Jesus as its Lord and Saviour before confronting the fact that this is a hard question.

I grew up in a house with two Christian parents.  I went to church every week and Boys’ Brigade.  But that didn’t make it a ‘Christian home’.  Did it?  We prayed each night before bed.  Did that make it a Christian home?  My dad became a minister.  Did that make it a Christian home?

The question and answers led to an interesting discussion asking:

‘How do we model faith at home?’

So, I’m asking you:

Did you grow up in a Christian home?

How do you know?

And as an extra bonus question:

Would your kids (or future kids) give the same answer as you?

The United Reformed Church are hosting their 1st Webinars – “Who the Heck Are We? Exploring the Identity of the URC” on:

Wednesday 24th March 2010, 12:30pm – 1:30pm:
This is an invitation to all our ecumenical and external partners who work with the United Reformed Church.

Saturday 27th March 2010:
This is an invitation to EVERY member or visitor of the United Reformed Church.
There are 4 time slots available between 9am – 2.30pm. More details can be found if you click on “Q&A re: The Webinar” below.

What is a Webinar?

A Webinar is a convenient way of hosting a meeting online for up to 1000 people to attend. All you need is connection to the internet to join in and a computer or laptop. For maximum participation, use your computer’s built-in audio (i.e. speakers and microphone or use a headset) to contribute. You can also participate in the meeting by “calling into the webinar” using an ordinary landline at a cost of a local telephone call. You can attend the meeting via your mobile, if your mobile supports internet connection.

But how does it work?

You will be sent an invitation by email and asked to register your details (i.e. your name, address and some questions e.g. which Synod or organisation you belong to etc). Once completed, a confirmation email will be sent to you confirming your place. The email will feature your direct link to the webinar. This link is UNIQUE TO YOU and enables you to securely gain access to the meeting. At the time that you have decided to attend the webinar, you must click on your direct link.

If you don’t have my email address already, how will I be invited?

To attend your exciting online event, please contact Denese Chikwendu, Campaign Co-ordinator at: denese [dot] chikwendu [at] urc [dot] org [dot] uk or call her on 020 7916 2020 or Lawrence Moore at: lawrence [dot] moore [at] urc [dot] org [dot] uk . Please be ready to give us your full name and correct email address. Denese Chikwendu can also send you hard copies of “Save the Date” cards for you to hand out to members, visitors and friends. (They are the size of business cards for convenience).

Help! I’m not convinced – I haven’t done a webinar before…

Don’t worry, we will be hosting test runs so that everyone can try out the application and feel more comfortable with it. We plan to host test runs from w/c 22nd February 2010 to w/c 15th March 2010; so that’s 4 weeks of practice! Each session will last approximately 30 – 45 minutes. There will be:

• 2 sessions per week for all URC members to join an informal webinar where we can discuss church related issues or general current affairs/ news etc. EACH TUESDAY AND THURSDAY between 2pm – 3pm.
• 1 session per week for all of our URC external partners to join an informal webinar. EACH WEDNESDAY between 2pm – 3pm.

More details will shortly be available on the topics below:

1. A full set of Q&A re: The Webinar, including time slots for 27th March 2010
2. Email template/ Invitation – for URC members and friends – invite more people!
3. Email template/Invitation – for URC ecumenical and external partners – invite more people!
4. Save the Date card – A4 notice for your church/ church notice board/ share at the next Church meeting
5. Save the Date card – A4 notice for external partners and colleagues
6. View Webinar Demo – https://www2.gotowebinar.com/en_US/webinar/pre/G2W_Demo.tmpl or https://www2.gotomeeting.com/en_US/pre/quickTour.tmpl

Image on the front page and above is ‘Mouse’ by pure9 , Licence: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/deed.en

The current discussion assumes that ministry in its current form is a good thing and that every congregation benefits from having one.

I don’t think that’s a good place to begin.

No-one is really grappling seriously with the question ‘What are ministers for?’.

I worry that ‘training for ministry’ is really training to be a theologian.  Those aren’t the same things.

I think theological education is vitally important in training for ministry but it doesn’t address most of the tasks ministers undertake.  Community work, counselling, visiting, organising, encouraging, public speaking, marketing…

Until we answer the question “what are ministers for?’ then the conversation about where we put them is premature.