Tikhtak

50 Years of Guildford Cathedral

 I am working with Guildford CathedralEducation Centre to create a play that local schools will perform to commemorate its  50th birthday. It will take place over 3 days in January 2011 and today we spent time looking at 5 decades of local history in order to come up with a good title. At the moment the favourite title is "Brick in the wall" It relates to the story of a lady called Eleanora, who single handed led a campaign after the second world war to get people to buy a brick for the cathedral. People could then sign the bricks. It was a success and it was not long before enough bricks were bought. I encouraged Charlotte, one of the Cathedral team to start a blog and she did and called it Guildford Cathedral is 50

Curating Worship book launch

My good friend and former CMS colleague Jonny Baker had the launch of his new book "Curating Worship" at the scooter cafe in Waterloo on Thursday night. I made a joke as I left that I will hide the book catching the tube home as its tube theme might draw peoples attention to me.I ended up reading it as I traveled and even was brave enough to take this photo as I waited for my train!! Jonny's book is trying to challenge the church to think a bit differently and creatively. Instead of going along with the models of church worship we are used to with a leader at the front directing/leading others. This book is very much an insight into Jonny himself. I always used to say he had the power of delegation, but you know what I think I meant was the power of curation. He has actually not written much of the book himself! He has curated a book about curation! His definition of it sums it up: "A worship curator makes a context and a frame for worship, arranging elements in it. The content is provided by other people." This is certainly a good educational model of involving the participants in their own learning. Often in worship we can feel like an audience passively participating with our mind wondering off to other things. I am the kind of person who likes to do things and be involved in a more practical way so the ideas in this book appeal to my kind of personality/learning style. It was great to meet Martin Poole who tells his story in the book. He is responsible for turning beach huts into a living advent calendar over the last few Christmas's. I love this idea of taking something known to everyone and using it n a creative way outside of the four walls of the church to present the chrisitian message in a new and creative way. I'll read on!

From a Canadian summer to an English Autumn

After spending 3 and half weeks in a sunny Canada coming back to a rainy England was never going to be easy! We spent a lot of quality time with family and have taken too many photo's to mention. This one of Zara was one of my favourites!While in Winnipeg I enjoyed Playing Wii in the basement with Michael my nephew  as all the other children played around us and this theme continued in thunder bay with a few late night sessions playing Fifa on PS3 and watching Dvd's. It was great to spend time with so many faces that we knew in a foreign country and we travelled about everywhere in convoy visiting various sites and eating, chatting and singing together in the evenings. After a week in Thunder Bay we drove 10 hours back to Winnipeg and It was good to see again the Old Bill in Winnipeg and his daughter Christine. He is a pastor inan inner city church who I had worked with in 2006 on a trip with Jonny Baker for CMS. We joined him at Central Park, a community rejuvenation project that had turned a space used for drugs and the like into a community space with an all weather soccer pitch in the middle. Nice!! You might think that this photo is of Bill and Christine with a bear...But no that's me!! Arriving back in England has been quite challenging. Irfana has a month of work left before she finishes her time as the youth and children's worker at Holy Trinity Church, which means within a year we have both been made redundant. It is a time of opportunity with no particular ties to the area any more we could go on an adventure! But it will also be a challenge to find work to pay the bills. Watch this space! At the weekend it was nice to take part in an impromptu street party in our neighborhood and get to know people who live on our estate better. Zara got her face painted and people took to the streets and cooked various food for all to eat for free. Caribbean, Indian, Greek... I was in heaven. With a bit of food in the belly I feel ready for the challenges ahead.