Ken Costa – Voices and Choices

Our world has been described as VUCA.  Volatile  Uncertain – we don’t know what tomorrow will bring  Complex A = Anxious or Angry Have we ever known a more divided time? When we are trying to make the divisions even greater. ‘Age of anxiety’ may be suppressing the anger?  Pressure and stress Coldplay ‘Everyday life’ Chris Martin wants to express more anger’ https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chris-martin-coldplay-interview-singer-everyday-life-new-album-god-is-the-answer-children-apple-moses-hxzp8h625 St Augustine “Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.”  People are facing the realities.  The story we live is lived according to the back story of this uncertainty which is the prevailing narrative of the world.  Look at Coca Cola ads over the years. They capture the zeitgeist of where we are. We are living in the post-realworld.  Reality is becoming blurred. VR, AR. What is the real world? ‘Taste the feeling’ is the latest ad. They are merging categories. We are called to describe reality in the light of God (David Ford).  So what will an […]

The Gospel of John – Abundant Meaning, Abundant Love.’ David Ford

David Ford is Regus Professor of Theology at Cambridge and I was just privileged to hear him speak on ‘The Gospel of John – Abundant meaning, Abundant love.’ Here are my unedited notes. John’s is a gospel of abundance. He’s studied it for 19 years and still feels he has had a cup from a huge barrel.  John 3:16 sums up the gospel – it’s all about love! It’s the latest to be written, and we think John knew the synoptics. So we can make connections with them. He may have written it in Ephesus, and even knew the Pauline tradition so here you have the gospel narrative and the theology so he was known as ‘ho theologos’in the Eastern church.  Hans Urs von Balthasar “Most saint’s lives can be summed up as the exegesis of one scripture.”  John wants you to think in terms of abundance. How many fish? How much wine? How much glory! He wants us to think differently about big concepts, about time, and about love.  1 John is the first commentary on John – a Johannine community […]

REFRAMATION – A Great Book To Get ASAP

I wouldn’t usually review a book half way through but I was given an advance copy and it sat on my ‘to read’ pile until a couple of days ago – then it grabbed hold of me. I’m definitely going to get lots of copies available for LAUNCH this year as this book is so needed. Amidst all the books on church techniques, strategies and goals (which I love) comes one which asks so many challenging questions and provides great insight into what the heck it is we are actually even doing. And why ‘it’ isn’t doing what it’s supposed to. Reframation – what’s that? Well Alan likes to make up new words when old ones don’t fit, or add a couple together to make a new one – which I think is cokay.  The basic idea of the book that is everyone sees through a frame, and we need to reframe our understandings of God, people and the church – which needs to keep on reforming rather than say ‘Oh yeah we did that 500 years ago.’ (See what they […]

LAUNCH! One Word Changed Everything For Me.

“LAUNCH out into the deep, and let down your nets for a catch.” Luke 5:4 Peter was a Type A who had been doing everything he knew to do. Working hard, tiring himself out, much effort, little effectiveness, he was pretty much always mending his nets, but that didn’t mean he was successful. The nets were empty and he was frustrated and exhausted. Then the landlubber he calls Lord stands in Peter’s boat as if he owns it and says ‘Launch out into deep water’ That word LAUNCH changed everything for Peter, and reading this passage a few years ago it did so for me too. It has become the name of the multiplication event I helped found, which has now been challenging and equipping hundreds of leaders from around the world to dream bigger and adventure further, to go where God is sending them to reach those he wants them to reach. “Launch” is from epanago, which means “bring up”, “stir up”. “excite”, “lead back”, “elevate”, “exalt”, “bring back”, “withdraw”, “retreat”, and “put out to sea”. That’s what we will do […]