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BlogHere are the thoughts and news of the people in our community. Leave a comment as you wish. If you want to join the blogging ask Mark.
Sunday, March 23, 2008A Journey through Easter Week: Easter SundayDay 1: Palm Sunday Day 2: Great Monday Day 3: Holy Tuesday Day 4: Spy Wednesday Day 5: Maundy Thursday Day 6: Good Friday   Today in the plastic bag: a piece of linen A animated reading for today can be found here: SGM LifeWords: Dead Man Walking Labels: easter, festivals, reflective, worship Posted by: Mark | 7:44 AM |
Saturday, March 22, 2008A Journey through Easter Week: Holy SaturdayDay 1: Palm Sunday Day 2: Great Monday Day 3: Holy Tuesday Day 4: Spy Wednesday Day 5: Maundy Thursday Day 6: Good Friday   Today in the plastic bag: myrrh & spices A animated reading for today can be found here: SGM LifeWords: Watch this Space See an extended Easter Saturday reflection here. Labels: easter, festivals, reflective, worship Posted by: Mark | 2:16 PM |
Friday, March 21, 2008A Journey through Easter Week: Good FridayDay 1: Palm Sunday Day 2: Great Monday Day 3: Holy Tuesday Day 4: Spy Wednesday Day 5: Maundy Thursday Also click here for Good Friday Extras: Stations of the Cross.   Today in the plastic bag: Thorn bush cutting A animated reading for today can be found here: SGM LifeWords: Finished Labels: easter, reflective, worship Posted by: Mark | 10:34 AM |
Good Friday ExtrasStations of the Cross The Stations of the cross are a way of reflecting on Jesus crucifixion by contemplating each stage of Jesus final journey one at a time. This originates with the Catholic church, and they designated 14 of these 'stations'. Some of the stations are based more in Catholic traditon than the Gospel texts themselves, but I think there is some good stuff in there!
Ponder the cross with this Massive Attack song in the background: Labels: easter, festivals, reflective, worship Posted by: Mark | 10:24 AM |
Thursday, March 20, 2008A Journey through Easter Week: Maundy ThursdayDay 1: Palm Sunday Day 2: Great Monday Day 3: Holy Tuesday Day 4: Spy Wednesday Day 5: Maundy Thursday Also click here for Maundy Thursday Extras: Thoughts on Passover.   Today in the plastic bag: a broken piece of MatzahA animated reading for today can be found here: SGM LifeWords: Remember Me Labels: easter, festivals, reflective, worship Posted by: Mark | 12:04 PM |
Maundy Thursday Extras
 Maundy Thursday marks Jesus' Last Supper. This last supper was a Passover feast, and had deep profound meaning for what Jesus was doing and was about to do. For the last 3 years we have had a Jewish Christian in to lead us through a "Jesus int he Passover" feast. It really has been a wonderful experience each time. Since we have not done that this year, I was wondering how to get the experiential, interactive nature of the Passover that I love so much. I figured that it could probably be done at home at multiple levels. Clearly at this point a full Jesus in the Passover event is a bit late in the day to organise. Although if you do wish to do that I have a full script that I have edited to make it accessible to the "amateur". Please to email me if you want a copy. I have also edited down a more accessible version, and all you really need it some Matzah [although any crackers would do] and some wine [no, nothing else would do there ;o)]. This includes what i consider to be the crucial elements that is acheivable for a family over an evening meal. Why not give it a try? You can download it here: Here are the steps:
A more simple thing to do thise evening is to share crackers and wine over the meal and remember Jesus' words: While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, ... "Take it; this is my body." Then he took the cup, gave thanks and ... they all drank from it. "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many."Consider the cracker's features: "He was pierced for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by his stripes we are healed"(Isaiah 53:5) All credit for the "Jesus in the Passover" source material goes to my friend Andy Wertheim. Posted by: Mark | 11:22 AM |
Wednesday, March 19, 2008A Journey through Easter Week: Spy WednesdayDay 1: Palm Sunday Day 2: Great Monday Day 3: Holy Tuesday Day 4: Spy Wednesday Day 5: Maundy Thursday Believe it or not, Spy Wednesday is a traditional name for today. It marks the day that Judas agreed to betray Jesus. "Spy" maybe doesn't have quite the sme connotations as it used - being a spy is now a cool thing, thanks to James Bond! However I still think that it is a great name!   Today in the plastic bag: a silver [chocolate] coin A animated reading for today can be found here: SGM LifeWords: Unchartered Territory This takes a slightly different tack thenus today, but it is still great! Labels: easter, festivals, reflective, worship Posted by: Mark | 3:38 PM |
Tuesday, March 18, 2008A Journey through Easter Week: Holy TuesdayDay 1: Palm Sunday Day 2: Great Monday Day 3: Holy Tuesday Day 4: Spy Wednesday Day 5: Maundy Thursday Right, back on track with the names!!   Today in the Plastic bag: a perfume card An animated reading for today can be found here: SGM LifeWords: Beautiful Things [This video reading thing is amazing! Really links with what we have done, even though they are only releasing it day by day!] On Sunday i also meant to hand this out: Easter in Northampton, Hope '08. There are a number of things going on in town to reflect on Easter organised by the Hope '08 team. They look cool! National Hope 08 site here. Northampton Hope 08 Site. Labels: easter, festivals, reflective, worship Posted by: Mark | 1:34 PM |
Monday, March 17, 2008A Journey through Easter Week: Great MondayDay 1: Palm Sunday Day 2: Great Monday Day 3: Holy Tuesday Day 4: Spy Wednesday Day 5: Maundy Thursday A little confession: I made up the name "Great Monday". Traditionally it is probably holy Monday, but i wanted a little variety!!   Today the plastic bag contains a seed. Can anyone get the link? An animated reading for today can be found here: SGM LifeWords: Destroy this Temple Labels: easter, festivals, reflective Posted by: Mark | 5:50 PM |
Sunday, March 16, 2008A Journey through Easter Week: Palm SundayDay 1: Palm Sunday Day 2: Great Monday Day 3: Holy Tuesday Day 4: Spy Wednesday Day 5: Maundy Thursday Today we started our journey through Easter week together. We started with a meal together, and had a [very] brief look at the triumphal entry. Our journey together is marked by an envelope for each day [or an egg for each for the kids]. I am going to share the contents here each day, and provide extra links if I have any! Feel free to comment on the topic for each day.   In addition the envelope contained: a plastic bag full of confetti! An animated reading for today can be found here: SGM LifeWords: Lay Down Your Cloak Labels: easter, festivals, reflective Posted by: Mark | 10:22 PM |
Tuesday, April 10, 2007Post Easter 2007Easter has come and gone; 40 days of prayer and fasting has come and gone. 40 dasy without coffee finshed on Sunday morning with a frsh brew. To be honest i was a little worried that i might have gone off it after that long - but no. Resurrection Coffee - beautiful. My first day back at work today was a different story. A couple of cups of dodgy instant stuff was tooo much! I think that might be a good thing! Easter Sunday at Parklands was a great morning. Lovely to see some of our friends join us. The highlight, apart from kat and em's thespian prowess, was the flowering of the cross. It was a beautiful thing seeing the rough wooden cross gradually being beautified as everyone in the place added flowers. It really was a powerful image, and quite emotional. here's a picture that captures the end result:  Click on it and ponder it for a while... Unfortunately, i didn;'t get in early enough with the camera [did anyone else?] but here are a couple of in process shots:   I attempted to talk on "Resurrection Life!". You can download it here. UPDATE: As you know if you were there, just before I got up to talk I managed to trap Jack's [my 8year old son] big toe under the door to the men's toilets. Maddy rushed him down to A&E. Fortunately nothing was broken, but he did need a drilling of the nail to release the pressure! Last Year's Easter Posts Can be found here: Good Friday Reflections Easter Saturday - The Road to Emmaus Easter Sunday - Because he is risen Labels: easter, festivals, podcast, reflective, worship Posted by: Mark | 4:44 PM |
Monday, March 19, 2007Passover 2007
 Download our little Booklet introducing and giving our take on Passover here. Posted by: Mark | 4:29 PM |
Thursday, February 22, 2007Synchronising our lives with the life and death of Jesus[that is the title i like anyway!!] "40 days" has started, so i thought i would post here my introductory thoughts. Synchronise with Jesus Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness (Luke 4:1-13), right after his baptism, and before his public ministry started. During that period he was tempted, and was faithful to God, and returned in “the power of the Spirit”. Through a period of 40 days of prayer and fasting, we identify with Jesus, put ourselves into his story, and begin to learn something of his life. In this way we begin to get in step, to synchronise our lives with the life and death of Jesus. This becomes particularly meaningful when we see this as a build up to Easter, and the celebration of Jesus resurrection, his life which is for us! The reality is that for us we have everything we need. We live our lives full: plenty of activity, plenty of food, plenty of information, plenty to drink. But it is a time to seek God. We can do this by de-cluttering and reprioritising: put aside, trim down, refocus, seek. And as a result to consider trusting in God, to believe in Him that he is the source the means and the goal of life – and to act like it! So it is about re-orientating, re-prioritising life, in the way of Jesus. From self to God, from needing stuff to needing God, from having to giving. Practicalities Fasting: Consider going without something for the 40 days in order to experience that refocusing on God. There are 3 sections: Corporate prayer meeting: Life with God, 21st Feb – 11th Mar; Thurs 8th Mar Life Together, 12th Mar – 25th Mar; Thurs 22nd Mar Life with Others, 26th Mar – 8th Apr; Thurs 5th Apr Groups Meditiation: Meditate with the church on the passage allocated for each section. [first one is Phil 2:5-11] Pray: Pray with the church along the lines of our corporate prayer plan for each section. Register for the almost daily e-mail! Celebrate: Celebrate Easter! 8th April (10:30am @ Parklands) Downloads Download 40 days Introductory Leaflet Download my Article on Easter and Festivals Take at look at Emily's research here! If you are looking for some tips for the Practice of Lent, you could try some of these: Count Your Blessings with Christian Aid Love Life Live Lent 40 Ideas for Lent from Ship of Fools Grace Lent Community Blog On Emma's suggestion I am reading: Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter  , which is great.Labels: discipleship, easter, festivals, worship Posted by: Mark | 8:59 AM |
Wednesday, April 19, 2006Bono's SpeechYesterday I came across a link to a video of Bono's speech at the prayer breakfast that I linked to a while back. I am tempted to embed it here to force you to watch it ... but that would be cruel to the dail-up guys!! Wacth it now!! "Religion often gets in the way of God" Oh, and I got this Easter quote over the weekend, which I liked: Today is Good Friday, and Sunday is Easter – but how many of us want Easter perks without Calvary pain? A friend of mine wrote: "We are more concerned with happiness than holiness. We seek to be served rather than to serve. We want a church that makes us feel good rather than one which challenges us. So often we opt for a religion that costs us little. We stress our rights, not our responsibilities; our freedom in Christ rather than our debt to Christ; our security rather than our sacrifice." [came from here]Posted by: Mark | 8:21 AM |
Sunday, April 16, 2006Because He is Risen(a poem by Gerard Kelly) Because he is risen Labels: easter, reflective Posted by: Mark | 12:03 PM |
Saturday, April 15, 2006Easter Saturday - The Road to Emmaus
What did the Disciples think? What is it like when God seemingly doesn't act? The disciples on the road to Emmaus is one of my favourite Easter sub-stories. The hopelessness that you touch at the start of the story powerfully reflects the feelings of Easter Saturday. There were 2 disciples walking away from Jerusalem this is what they said: They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, "Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?"Luke 24:17b-21a They had waited so long for God's redemption. So long for a prophetic voice. The darkness of waiting had burst out into life. A prophet had come. But now once again they are plunged back into darkness. Hear it: "He was a prophet powerful in word and deed". A great man doing the great things. He spoke with authority a prophetic voice. He healed the sick, the blind, the deaf, the lame. You can almost hear them reminiscing! What more could they hope for surely this is the one? If he cannot fulfill the hopes that had built up over a thousand years, who could? He was different. Hear their expectations and disappointment: "We had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel". They had hoped that Jesus was going to be the one who would defeat the Romans and kick them out of the Promised land. To restore the fortunes to the nation, to be their ruler. Hadn't they just seen hints of it just a few days before? When he entered Jerusalem, people had welcomed him and recognized who he was - they wanted him to be king. That is what they had hoped for and surely now it was going to become a reality. Luke doesn't hide this hope from us, it is here at the end of the Gospel and right there at the start of Acts "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?". But these hopes were locked in a tomb behind a great big stone. This was not just the sadness of losing a great friend although there was that. It was the despair that results from loosing all your hope. They had placed all of their hopes in him, They had placed all their eggs in one basket. And now it was all over. They somehow had to find a way to rebuild, but how could they. How could they trust anyone again? Everything must be treated with suspicion. How could they hope again? To understand the thinking of these two disciples is to understand the state of our culture. A culture let down by the hopes of a better world through human effort and progress, let down by a story world that has failed. And so suspicion and lack of purpose dominate. But Jesus whispers in their and our ears, "you have misunderstood the story". There is another way but it involves death for a greater purpose. It is also the message to us. As we place security in hopes and dreams, God's great purposes in our lives. When will they happen? What is God doing about it? God calls us to lay them down in the tomb, and whispers one message in our ears: "Have faith in God" Have faith in God. Not in hopes dreams and visions but in God, in the all powerful one who calls us to faithfully trust what we cannot see, even as the two disciples could not see Jesus on the road. Have a faithful trust in God. Trust him. Trust in the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. Allow him to your Alpha and Omega, the beginning and end of your life. Trust him to be your North, South, East and West. Allow him to fence the borders of your life. Allow him to dictate your world. To stand on the ground that he has allocated for you for this time. Put all your eggs in his basket. Have faith in God Labels: easter, reflective Posted by: Mark | 10:39 AM |
Thursday, April 13, 2006Good FridayLast night we focussed on the events of Good Friday. I know, I know it was two days early. You just need to have a bit of grace for us on that one! I enjoyed the evening. It was a way of thinking about the cross that is not our most familiar. But I felt that it was beneficial. Here is the flow of the evening: Building on Passover we celebrated on Sunday evening, we moved to: 1) The Garden of Gethsemane.  We read a meditation reflection on what it is like to be alone, to live be in fear [From Jonny Baker's book alternative worship]. Extract: Voice 1: 'Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me' We watched this really great Flash video retelling the story [part 1] We had a wooden cross and began to build a picture of the events leading up to Jesus' death. Then we talked together about: 2) Passionate Peter  Peter is central to the story. Peter, it seems was a passionate man.A man all out. He is the one pledging allegiance unto death. He is the one who cut off the servants ear for Jesus. He is the one disciple said to be pushing through to get close to the trial. He too is the one who denied him. Luke 22:24-34 Luke 22:47-52 Luke 22:54-62 We read this peom by Luci Shaw: Judas, Peter We watched this Jonny Cash video as we felt it captured Peter's feelings, and our response: Jonny Cash Hurt We added Silver coins before the cross to represent betrayals. 3) Crucifixion Jesus' trials before the Sanhedrin and then Pilate had gone relatively quickly. False accusations were flying, along with some fists and spittle. But Jesus had held his own. He had remained calm, silent apart from a few carefully chosen words. The result was that, as he had known, he was to be killed, crucified on a Roman cross. Mark 15:16-20 We added a crow of thorns and a purple robe to the cross.  The Cross is laid on Jesus’ Back.The burden he carried on his back was not so much the burden of the great rough wooden beam, but the sin of the world that he bore. Yours and my sin laid upon him. In the pain and weakness that you see as you look into his eyes, you begin to grasp the true reality of our sin to God and the price that had to be paid. For a moment it becomes too much and Jesus falls. He is pulled up and made to continue. Jesus is nailed to the cross
Nails were added before the cross Mark 15:33-39 Jesus dies on the cross Hanging as a criminal amongst criminals, beaten, a mocking crown on his head and a mocking title above, deserted by all including his Father, Jesus finally gives up his spirit to death with one final cry "It is finished". It is at the foot of this cross, on which hangs a dead messiah, that we see truly who Jesus was and is. We kneel in its shadow unable to comprehend the reality of what has taken place, upon this King was laid the sins of the world, this is the consequences of my sin. The shadow cast from this cross embraces, not just you and me, but a crowd of multitudes from every tribe and nation. We declare together in unbelief and in awe and wonder, "surely this man was the son of God". We responded in song and prayer. Labels: easter Posted by: Mark | 4:23 PM |
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