I’ve just watched David Miliband’s speech launching his bid to be Labour leader.  He seems like a good guy.  He said all the right things.  Hope, justice, equality…  But I wasn’t inspired.

Sometimes inspiration is as much how you say it as what you say.

I’m sitting thinking about a sermon for Sunday.  It’s Pentecost, one of those Sundays which is hugely important to the church.  It’s also one of those festivals which comes around every year and has had every angle of it preached on over the years.

I want to say the right things… but I also want people to be inspired.

So, in my usual Monday practice I went looking for inspiration in my usual places.

I found it on Roddy Hamilton’s site:

When those who trust love no longer wait for someone else to fix the problem of the church,

when faith is too important to hand it over to leaders to sort out,

when justice leaves behind those who think she is but a subset of the church’s work rather than the whole thing,

when followers give up on those who procrastinate about inclusion,

when diversity becomes an invite to a table of bread broken safely among people wearing their hidden truths across their foreheads,

when communion is a feast served by non-ordained women, children and men who know heaven won’t implode in doing so,

when the doctrine makers use marker pens to write ‘sorry’ over half their words,

when creeds are written in questions rather than in statements,

when dandelions become the plant of choice breaking out just where the ground has been cleansed against it,

then it is Pentecost.

Hope, justice, equality… but sometimes how you say it is just as important.

Thanks for inspiring me Roddy.

Whether you are a creator or curator of worship there are always times when the blank screen seems to stay blank longer than you would like.  Words don’t come.

I find that those weeks are the ones where I haven’t had the time to read enough, to talk enough or to think and pray enough.  Most weeks there are places I go looking for inspiration.  Places where I know I might find that one line, one thought, one fragment of something which will ignite my imagination.

People create worship in lots of different ways.  I like to begin at the beginning and at the end.  I think a Call to Worship and a Benediction set a tone and a context that help me to fill in the part in the middle.  But before I put pen to paper or press a key I visit some places…

Abbotsford

Roddy posts a ‘Chocolate Teapot’ most weeks.  These are his first reactions to the text for the week.  A thought, or at least the start of one…  He also frequently posts fantastic prayers which I find help me with those beginnings and endings

Laughing Bird

A great lectionary resource.  I head straight for the commission and benediction section.  Again, just a few words can crystalise a theme.

Disclosing New Worlds

Lawrence Moore’s great commentary blog.  Unfortunately, but understandably, it is difficult to keep up this kind of in-depth stuff each week but check the archive for some brilliant stuff.

Lectionary Liturgies

Great liturgies based on the Revised Common Lectionary.

The Text This Week

The one stop shop for all your worship needs.  Loads of links to all kinds of places.

So, where do you go for inspiration?

Do you ever get times where you seem to lack inspiration?  I’m feeling a little like that just now.  I’ve got things to do.  Stuff to be getting on with.  I just don’t seem to have much to say or write about.

I guess it’s all about stimulation.  I’ve not read much recently, heard anything new or watched any new movies.  I’ve been too busy and ill (manflu).

Why is it that those things that stimulate our brains always seem like less than work but they are always the things that feed us and make us work better?

So, in a bid to be inspired… what inspires you?  What have you read?  What idea is buzzing round your brain?  What’s your next big thing?

There are few conferences that I really wish I could go to, but TED is one, and not just for the very cool conference bags! The TED 2008 conference is almost here. You can follow the build up at the TED Blog and watch some amazing talks like this one from Isobel Allende and this one from LOST creator JJ Abrams:

I wonder… what would you talk about given 15 minutes with some of the smartest people on the planet?