sat in the airport waiting to head back to london from belfast. lots of cheers coming from the bar so i guess ireland are winning the rugby?...
the soliton sessions are simply a chance for people to get together and share ideas, stories and conversations about faith, spirituality and mission. it's very relaxed and conversational in style. 50-60 people gathered from ireland, n.ireland, the us, canada, england, scotland. the sessions were spread across one day in belfast and then the weekend in kellys, the (in)famous night club in port rush on the north atlantic coast.
as always at these things the best thing was the relationships - catching up with friends and meeting new people. it was great to see si johnston again - miss him being in london. between him and gareth higgins they hosted the time. i led a couple of worship reflections - reworking some of the stuff from grace when we were rethinking who we were - see this service in the archive if you want the liturgy and this blog post for info on the video . and a couple of conversations. one that i hadn't anticipated i'd lead in advance but seemed to be worth talking about was about helping families and children in communities. i think the challenge here is that often these newer/emerging churches are focused on mission amongst a young adult crowd and not geared up to help families but it doesn't take long before people in the community start to have some! whilst the traditional sunday school approach isn't what people are looking for it's good to talk about expectations and ideas to help support families helping their childrens' faith be nurtured.
juliet turner and aaron espe (i think that was the name) performed a very intimate acoustic concert saturday night. the weather was amazing all weeekend with incredible misty mornings and heavy frosts. the north atlantic beaches are stunning with great surf. sadly we never made it to a distillery but we did help si get through plenty of his whisky...
i stayed with jonny and susan from ikon when i was in belfast (thanks guys). jonny has started a blog posting what he is on his easel in the studio at the time. he also gave me a quick demo of ableton live which was cool might have to try it out. ikon have their first service tonight in their new venue - the black box. it's a wonderful space and of course couldn't be a more apt name. the visit also co-incided with an ikon art exhibition at the waterfront - co:ordinates exploring the co-ordinates of ikon. it officially opens tuesday evening but i was around when it was being put up so got a sneak preview. amazing to have a community with so much artistic talent - loved the heresy monopoly game created by michael.
while i was in belfast i also caught up with spike at cms ireland. good to exchange ideas. they are working on creating a course called discover for churches in ireland in three 6 week blocks. should be one to watch out for in 2008...
i will add some pics to flickr later this week when i get a moment (enjoyed meeting gail who is a photographer).
glad that ireland was good - sad not to be able to make it but have to feed the family etc etc - on the subject of which, i have done a lot of thinking and wondering and praying and ministering about, with and amongst children and their families in small and very emergent gatherings of folks around the world - i would be really interested in talking with anyone who has a creative passion for this area or anyone who is involved with missional cells right now where children are leading us in the way - be great if you could put me in touch with some people - thanks jonny -peace
julie
Posted by: julie | February 05, 2007 at 08:07 PM
Great Pic Jonny - as always. Good to hear about ikon - wish them well.
The cheering at the bar on Saturday would have been Patterson's kicks going over against the English - Ireland didn't play until Sunday!
Posted by: Duncan | February 06, 2007 at 11:52 AM
Hi Julie, Jonny.
I'm a children's/families pastor at a church in Glasgow. Something we are really focussing on at the moment is our ministry to families, which I agree is something often missing from emerging ecclesiologies. One thing we're finding is that there is a lot of scope for using creative/alt. worship practises in all-age worship.
We have a monthly all-age service which often uses these kinds of ideas. Last week was one of these services. The focus was on "love" as the first of a series on the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5. One of the stations (video version at http://www.worshiphousemedia.com/index.cfm?hndl=details&tab=MM&id=5390) had people tearing up 'social ills' like hate and greed, and making them into something lovely. Parents were encouraged to visit this and other stations with their children and explain the significance of what they were seeing/doing to their children.
There's a key challenge here in sharing the vision for family ministry with parents, for whom a paradigm shift is sometimes needed after years of the understanding that the Youth/Children's workers are the ones who do ministry with children, and parents just kind of leave them to it on Sunday.
One other thought. We also had a station where people made "valentines" cards expressing love and encouragment to others in our church community. One adult, struggling with addiction, got a card saying "God is always there". It was made and written by a 6-year-old girl. It made the morning - seeing ministry by children and not just to them.
Posted by: Jamie | February 06, 2007 at 12:34 PM
that is so great - i live just up the road from you jamie so will be in touch !!! i think amazing God inspired things must happen all the time through this website !! thanks jonny,
peace
julie
Posted by: julie | February 07, 2007 at 10:03 PM