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Well, it's 3pm here, and 11pm with you. I'm sitting in a Mark Driscoll sermon, your probably doing ..... whatever. The preaching at the resurgence conference has been pretty good. The highlight has been CJ Mahaney. He was amazing. He took us through the start of 1 Corinthians and reminded us that even though Corinth was a completely rubbish and rebelious church - Paul could still give thanks for them, he still loved them, he still cared for them. How? By remembering that they were called by God. That was a massive challenge for me. It was worth flying out just for that sermon.
I think Mark is talking about Eldership at the moment... anyway I'll watch it on the web when I get back.
I actually spoke to Mark today - on the way to the toilet, and then continued to follow him to the toilet (I think I freaked him out a bit). Anyway, I get one chance to talk to him - so what do I say? 'Please come and speak in the Cardiff Mens convention.' Well, I haven't got the right to do that, but I'm sure they won't mind.
Anyway, better listen to the sermon.
A question for you to respond to:
Over 100 people have watched my video blog (I guess Becca makes up about 50 of those :)). Is this seomthing we should be doing more on ProGnosis? Would you like us to make more video's? And if so, what kind of videos would you want: diary/ blog type stuff, or subject based?
Comment away....

Right, back to the sermon - he's opened his Bible - so I better do the same.

"Art is the cry of distress uttered by those who experience at first hand the fate of mankind. Who are not reconciled to it, but come to grips with it. Who do not apathetically wait upon the motor called 'hidden forces', but hurl themselves in among the moving wheels, to understand how it all works. Who do not turn their eyes away to shield themselves from emotions, but open them wide, so as to tackle what must be tackled. Who do, however close their eyes, in order to perceive things incommunicable by the senses, to envision within themselves the process that only seems to be in the world outside. The world revolves within: what bursts out is merely the echo - the work of art!"

Forgive me, this is not the lightest thought for a melancholic Friday afternoon. (But melancholic this Friday afternoon certainly is...) But this is something I've been wrestling with for a while. There's no reason to take Mr Schoenberg as authoritive, but I have a sneaky suspicion that he is, on the whole, right. Admittedly as Christians we have a more hopeful perspective on existence, but I'm hugely drawn to this intentional attitude to engaging with culture. Not only engaging with culture in terms understanding it, (something I'm always banging on about) Christians should be engaging creatively. Not only do I want to see Christians reading their environment, I'd love to see Christians writing it, too. And painting it. And composing it.

But then the can of worms really gets well and truly opened. What should a Christian's art look like? I'm pretty sure I know what it shouldn't look like, and I've (ranted) blogged about this on numerous occasions... But I'm struggling to formulate an ideal in my own head about what we should be aiming at. For example, Christians suffer as much as the next person - as we know, the gospel is no immunity-card for suffering - so if a Christian writes about their suffering, they are likely to produce an art-work as bleak as the work of the person who is without the gospel. And where then is the salt and light? On the other hand, most of us are familiar with the emotionally detatched Christian sub-culture which seems to bear no resemblance to real life (or at the very least to any of my life-experiences...) Cheesey it may be, but the one thing it has going for it is that it is different...

So is there a happy medium? Is there a balance between distinctive and authentic to be struck? Has anyone seen anything close? If so, what does it look like? Answers on a postcard dear friends, because my head is spinning...

So for the next two weeks Jon will be posting 'idea'/'concept' blogs from the states, he'll also be video blogging everyday (hopefully, let's see him keep that up) as well us usuall contributors...contributing. Anywho the long and the short is that it should get pretty busy round here. We'll keep this post with a link to Jon's daily diary from the confrences in the states at the top so please please please roll up your sleaves, scroll down and check out all the other content we'll be slinging your way. For now, adios

Today I went to the first day of ‘Wired: 2008 Saddleback Church small group conference.' The majority of teaching was taken by Steve Gladen and one session was taken by Mr Purpose Driven himself.

The biggest thing that stood out was how Warren attacked the ‘Reveal' book by Willow Creek (see earlier blogs). He said that it didn't have to happen, that it's hardly brain surgery to help people grow spiritually, and that our greatest concern should not be ‘church growth' but ‘individual spiritual growth'. In so many ways he was bang on. It was inspiring to hear that we need to grow in our faith and keep going for the long haul. But what was odd was this - there was no exposition in today's conference. There were loads of verses quoted - but they were rarely put in context and very often quoted in a different translation to make a point - often a point that the text did not make!

I found this unbelievably frustrating. NOW LET ME BE CLEAR: What was preached was good and ‘biblical', so why use the Bible in such a weak way? I have no idea!

Now before you reformed boys get excited and rip into Warren, it was just like being in an reformed conference... sorry to offend. Warren does the classic reformed preach - ‘here is a verse, here is a word I like, now let me talk about that for the next 45 minutes.'

Today has reminded me that I need to strive to stick to the Bible and show my workings. It is not good enough to quote the Bible - in fact, it is dangerous to do so without qulaification  - we must teach and explain the Bible.

I've found that boys and girls have very different tastes, every orange wednesday this becomes clearer to me. It was my choice to watch Blades of Glory, it was Jenny's to watch Freedom Writers. Next week, we'll go and see the U2 film (that's my choice), this week it was Jenny's with Juno (and secretly, I was very pleased, because it would have been mine too).
It's a film about a teenage pregnancy. Here's the trailer.

As far as the film goes, you sort of see it coming. Girl gets pregnant / girl tells boy / girl (thankfully) bottles out of an abortion / girl decides to give the baby up / girl wrecks a marriage / girl has baby / girl gives away baby / girl sings a song with baby's dad. And even though what I've just typed looks more like a particularly dark episode of Byker Grove, it is really funny. All of it. Her telling him having warmed him up by complimenting his mum's detergent? Funny. Her telling her best friend that she's 'for shiz prego'? funny. Her parents admitting that they'd rather she be on hard drugs? (Dark, but) funny. It made me laugh. So as far as a comedy goes, it's job well done Juno.

Go and see it. It's funny. But, maybe there's a lesson or two to learn from it. They could have disowned her, but Juno's parents' reaction to her being pregnant calms and they stand by her - that's a lesson. And as the 9 months tick by, you see Juno becoming more and more leperised by her classmates, and the reaction of those that walk with her is inspiringly counter-cultural. As I watched it, I thought of how I might react if a sixteen year old I knew got 'caught out'. Which one of her classmates would I be most like? "For shame Juno, how could you..?"

And the thing is, it would be so easy to now make this blog about guilt. 'Teenage pregnancy happens in churches, so be more like Juno's good friends, and less like the bullies that give her a hard time.' And that would look like a good thing. Externally, that'd be the right thing to do. But internally, that's another matter. It may look like the right thing to do, but it's not the gospel. It's just moralising.

You see, it's not just doing that right thing that's important. It's doing it for the right reason, with the right motivation. And our reason is always the cross. It's only when we see ourselves in Juno that we'll be changed 'internally'. Before God, we're all Junos - we've all been caught out and should be every bit ashamed. But the gospel is that Jesus, who in dying on the cross became the ultimate Juno - bearing the ultimate shame - our shame. Mark 15 shows Jesus being mocked by everyone, even sworn enemies united to shame him. And as they did, he was taking our place, and feeling our shame. When we get this, we'll see that we have nothing to hide behind when a Juno walks in our church. We won't want to help simply because 'it's the right thing to do' but because 'we can because Jesus dealt with our shame and loved us when he should have chucked us in the skip, and we have no right to see her as any different to us'.

It has got faults, of course it does. The biggest one being that it downplays the reality of the situation it describes. It glamorises a child having a child. And at the end of the film, I was left thinking 'that was one hairy year in the life of Juno McGuff, thank goodness it's all over now, and she can get back to playing the guitar with her boyfriend'; that's not a good thing. But I stilll don't think that that's no reason to not go and see it. Don't get all reformed and precious about making light of sin. Take your friends, and use it. This film will be seen by millions, lets make the most of it.

Well, I'm only 31 and have been Pastor at Ammanford Evangelical Church for less than 4 years - but I'm on my first sabbatical. Bizarre. So, why do it? Because I can. The leadership at AEC are very encouraging and supportive (Particularly my eldership). They are keen that I develop spiritually and have a marathon rather than sprint mentality. This means that the idea of taking 6 weeks off every few years to read, think, and be exposed to other churches is an idea they welcome. Indeed, originally my contract stated that I could take every August off (although that never really happened due to my own bad diary keeping).

So, I've just arrived in America for 2 weeks of conferences. They are a slightly odd pairing. The first is in Rick Warren World (Saddleback - Purpose Driven Fame) and the second is in Mark Driscol World (Mars Hill - the reformed one, not the dodgy RB one). Both claim to be evangelical and both are highly based on a single personality. However, both are very different in approach to scripture and mission. I'm looking forward to comparing and contrasting and being able to learn a lot.

So, what do I aim to learn? During this sabbatical I am trying to understand more of what it means to be ‘Biblical community'. What should a believer experience in the local church? How can AEC develop to love people better? And more particularly - how do we support and make central an increasingly elderly and house bound population?

So far one thing has come to the top a lot. Are you ready for my first conclusion? Well, it's hardly brain surgery, but it is making a profound impact on me... The community of God (the local church) should be a radically forgiving group. Reading through Matthew and having private chats with people who have left local churches due to ‘problems': The massive issue is forgiveness. We are a community based on forgiveness (through the cross) and must live in the light of the that forgiveness. That means forgiving people who have hurt you, who have not changed, who have hurt those close to you, and who have done things that they simply should have known not to do ... even if they are Pastors!

I am increasingly convinced that the large MAJORITY of the problems in the church are based on un-forgiveness, which leads to bitterness.

Imagine a church, not where people don't hurt others (as that is inevitable), but where the hurt people forgive and let go. Now that would be an amazing community to be in.