Advent Candles Welcome and Reveal The Light Of the World

Don't just curse this winter darkness, Light a candle in the darkness...

John 1:9

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.

Winter Dawn over the Ribble

Discovering new gifts and ministries

At Preston Captain Janet Martin feels called to develop a new ministry of shadow puppet evangelism.

Although the gift is not specifically mentioned in the New Testament it seems particularly appropriate at Christmas Time when we reach out to those people who are still walking in darkness.

Poverty At Christmas

Our Salvation Army centre in Preston has this week been throbbing with activity and looking like a Toys R Us warehouse and a Kwik Save supermarket. Our team of volunteers has spent hours stuffing gifts of food and toys into plastic bags and answering phone calls from health visitors and social workers as to when they can come and collect the parcels for their clients. We've had hundreds of referrals about people in need across this relatively small city. And we try our hardest to make sure no family is disappointed, though with so many cans of baked beans in the food hampers one wonders about the impact on the health of the nation, let alone the gaseous contribution to global warming.


Without a doubt this generous giving is both welcome and necessary, and many people in poverty will be glad to receive something that helps them enjoy their Christmas. But it must leave us with lots of questions:


Why only at Christmas is the wider community so sentimentally concerned for the homeless and the poor, when so much more could be done by sustained giving by direct debit, or even by taxation?

Does small scale charitable giving make a real long tem difference to people's lives when we all know there are deeper causes behind poverty, or does it trap them in dependency?

What is the role of government as opposed to / or in partnership with the charitable sector in making an impact on these problems?

To their credit the Tory Party has been doing some serious work and analysis on these issues and you can read their report on http://povertydebate.typepad.com/voluntary_sector/

Their analysis is heavy on family breakdown, addiction and educational failure as the main causes, and it is not surprising there is a lot of criticism of current government policy. To be fair they have done a lot of listening to organisations in the Third Sector and picked up a lot of issues we have been highlighting for ages.

There is an intersting comment on the social policy list at

http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0612&L=social-policy&T=0&F=&S=&P=2067

which suggests that the Royal Family is a pretty dysfunctional family the only difference being that it has a lot more (tax payer's ) money.

There is also an interesting recent analysis of poverty statistics at http://www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/socialpolicy/1979.asp

As usual I want to ask WWJD "what would Jesus do?"

Of course we could quote his saying "the poor you have always with you" Matthew 26:10-12 and take it as a fatalistic acceptance of the status quo and a command to concentrate on worship and spirituality. While the context of a woman pouring expensive perfumed ointment on the Saviour's feet does support the second part of that reading I believe we should reject any suggestion that Jesus condones involuntary poverty.

Indeed it is interesting that he was saying this to a bunch of disciples who included Judas Iscariot, the group's accountant, who loved money and betrayed him for cash a couple of verses later..

And it was also undoubtedly a reference to

Deuteronomy 15:11There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.

Which in the context of the earlier verse

Deuteronomy 15:4However, there should be no poor among you, for in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you,

suggests poverty is a result of sin... not the sin of those who have become poor but the sin of those who have failed to share equally the riches God has blessed them with..

Even Paul ( often thought to be a conservative) spells this out more clearly than Karl Marx ever did

2 Corinthians 8:13Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality.
14. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality,

I wonder does he mean just a little charitable giving at Christmas? Or Maybe something much more radical... at which we all consistently fail and need God's forgiveness and grace. For after all this is the model we see in the incarnation, in the birth of Emmanuel, as a baby in squalid temporary accommodation and before long as an asylum seeking refugee.

2 Corinthians 8:9For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

Celebrating Winter Binge

While the tabloid press mislead everyone with the urban myth of the banning of the traditional English Christmas by politically correct secular councillors, and the great and the good including archbishops and even their Muslim friends tut tut in horror some of us as Christians feel a much greater issue is at stake.

Of course Christmas has not been banned; the furore is just part of the racist hysteria and backlash against those who have struggled for years to promote diversity and racial justice, and serves as just another weapon in the vilification of the "other" in our society.

At this time of year I remember with affection Oliver Cromwell who for very good and Christian reasons in the 1650's actually did ban Christmas. And I lament the downward slide back into the secular winterbinge we now suffer. Charles Dickens and the late victorians who invented Santa have much blame to bear, for it was they who trivialised, and sentimentalised the nativity season. The secularised English winterbinge with its images of snow and robins, reindeer and bauble bedecked spruce trees is a very late invented tradition. As everyone says it gets earlier and worse each year and the biggest joy that marks a successful Christmas is booming retail sales which boost the flagging British and global economy.

Of course there is goodwill, and some extra giving to charity.. see For a few days homeless people may be taken off the street and kept warm and well fed, toys are collected and given to the poorest families, and the height of radical Christmas chic is to buy a goat for a farmer in Africa as the present for the auntie who already has everything (see http://shop.christianaid.org.uk/ ). Yet the injustice and suffering and warfare contiue around the world for the other 364 days each year. There's a warm self righteous glow, but nothing is really changed.

For most people though the festive season is just that. An orgy of spending followed by an orgy or eating drinking, sub-misltoe kissing and worse! And a guilt filled January where resoultions for a healthier lifestyle sometimes make it to about the 15th.

What a tragedy and a travesty of the feast of the Incarnation.. !

There is one tradition of the English Christmas that is beyond compare. The performance of Handel's Messiah (which I was privileged to hear last night in Preston's Guildhall). There is no way of avoiding the mystery and the challenge of the story for the words that are set to music are pure Scripture, glorious in ispiration and revelaing the greatest story every told. What a wonderful way to memorise Bible verses. No wonder everyone stands as the choir booms out the Hallelujah chorus. One only wonders how many of the singers and the orchestra fully understand the significance of the lyrics.

Indeed at its root the celebration of Christmas should be about the miracle of "the word made flesh",

As Charles Wesly put it
"our God contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man"

As Graham Kendrick put it

From heaven you came, helpless babe,
Entered our world, your glory veiled;
Not to be served but to serve,
And give Your life That we might live.

Come see His hands And His feet,
The scars that speak of sacrifice;
Hands that flung stars Into space
To cruel nails Surrendered.


If this is the true meaning of Christmas it should transform our lives, it should transform our world..

And it is something to celebrate, with a song and a carol or two such as "Joy to the World"

Joy to the world! the Lord is come:
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare him room,
And heaven and nature sing (x2) And heaven,and heaven and nature sing.

And even I will not say no to a helping of Christmas pud

and at least one more beer.

A virtual christmas card

HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND BEST WISHES FOR THE NEW YEAR

CHRISTMAS GREETINGS & ANNUAL NEWSLETTER

December 2006
Dear Friends,

As usual we thought we had better tell you what we’ve been doing this year, as there must be at least a handful of people who are interested. There is a lot to thank God for and we end the year all in good health and reasonable spirits, if a bit tired and battered by lots of the little things that make up the stresses of modern life. We’ve now been in Preston nearly five years, have built up a fairly good network of friends and community contacts and are well involved in the life of our local church, which has many positive aspects, but will never be perfect as long as we are there (and as long as it stays CofE!).

With teenagers in the family we do less together than a few years ago, but we did have family holidays with the relatives in Scotland, with many familiar faces at Capernwray and a great week based in Berwick on Tweed joined by our London friend Catherine. We still miss the Newham networks and the buzz of the East End, but try to keep in touch by phone, email and the occasional visit or get together. And even up in Preston we mustered half a dozen Hammers fans to watch the Cup Final together.. (we wuz robbed!! … and we won’t talk about this season so far).

Greg has had a very different year actually having to go out of the house and to get into work by 9am each weekday. The job at The Salvation Army is very rewarding, helping to run the community centre, managing Big Issue sellers, networking into the community and writing funding bids to develop the work. We’ve raised over £15k for a playground and garden project and £25k to set up a computer suite; all we need now is half a salary for the next few years to keep me in the post beyond next summer. I’ve spent a lot of spare time on the allotment, walking the hound and doing digital photography. You can find out more by looking at my blog which links to various web sites that cover different bits of my life: http://gregsnewblogcredo.blogspot.com/

Jane has had a pretty miserable year at work having been forcibly relocated to Merseyside where she is now stuck in a field probation office in Southport. Workload is excessive, electronic record keeping wastes 85% of the time, all to provide a scapegoat for the Home Secretary to blame when the tabloids have a headline about a paedophile or a murderer who is “on probation”. One bright spot she is off to Bulgaria in January to deliver 10 days training to their new Probation service. The other bright spot is the “accidentally” tinted bright red hair style!

Marcus and Martha being teenagers just don’t want to be mentioned in this letter at all, but we can tell you the former is soon due to take GCSE’s and went on a school trip to the Western Front, while the latter is very active in Christian groups at school and church.
NB: Greg’s suit is pure digital editing!!

So here’s wishing every blessing for Christmas and the New Year 2007
Greg, Jane, Marcus & Martha

Glorious Lakeland

Some photos from a day in the lakes October 14th. I only took the photos...... God shaped the scenery!

Christians Inciting Hatred

I was recently emailed with a suggestion to look at this:

Christian Voice's anti-gay site, http://www.true-vision.org/ which spoofs the police True Vision site at http://www.report-it.org.uk/ ?

Personally I find it distasteful and embarrassing. The spoof site of course is downright deceitful. It is hard to see how this tone of diatribe there can do anything to advance the cause of Christ. Rather it adds to the climate of hatred and prejudice against those groups which do not conform to some traditional narrow norms.

I understand there are some hard teachings in the Bible on sexual ethics, prohibition on many practices and a clear positive view of heterosexual marriage. However there are many issues about how we read, interpret and appply scripture in our desire to be faithful disciples today. Surely the heart of the gospel is grace, forgiveness, love and redemption and not the strict code of the law.

What would Jesus do remains a good question. What would Jesus get angry at? Evidently (from John 8;1-11) not at the woman taken in adultery but at the self righteous religious men who wanted to cast stones but dare not cast the first one when they reflected on their own sin. What Jesus seemed to get angry at in the Temple (John 2 13-16) was social exclusion, of gentiles, women and other outcasts, and at exploitation of the poor by the money changers and the religious authorities. And here he was following the teaching in the OT law and prophets in which a handful of verses about homosexual practices seem overwhelmed by the hundreds about idolatory, poverty and oppression, and God's compassion for widows, orphans and the stranger or foreigner within the community.

Updates on my web site

I've recently tidied up the home page on my main web site
http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/credoconsultancy/uelhome.htm

and put some new links in some pages especially
http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/credoconsultancy/urbmiss.htm

The Veil Debate Unmasked

As a Christian who has lived in multi-faith communities all my adult life I get more alarmed each week about the prejudice and ignorance of the mainstream white, British "christian" society in which I live and where I don't really belong.

The current debate about veils is percieved as (and actually may be) a coded attack on Islam and Muslims, a clear case of Islamaphobia and percieved as another battle in the "war on terrorism" or "clash of civilisations". It is not really a question of individual rights but of social identities linked to faith commitments.

It will not be surprisising if the debate polarises matters further that more Muslim women will decide to wear the veil and assert their identity and rights and more Brits and "Christians" will criticise them or worse. I didn't see the Question Time programme last night that came from Preston but understand it highlighted some local people's feelings on the issue.

The co-ordinated statements by government ministers are also giving racists and Islamaphobes implicit permission to attack, or speak hurtfully to Muslim women. We read of an incident in Liverpool where a woman's veil was torn from her face, and in Preston a woman going to her local post office was told to remove her veil before being served. Christians should remember the events in Germany that led to KristalNacht and Auschwitz and the faithful response of some Christians like Bonhoffer.

Surely we should be doing all in our power to work for social cohesion which is an important component of the Biblical concept of Shalom. But that is not helped by demanding that others be conformed to the worldly culture of the present age, when we all need to be transformed by the renewing of our mind.

The idea that hiding your face betrays a desire to flee from engagement with others is clearly culture bound and part of modernist secular thinking rather than a priciple derived from Christian values. The most I would concede is that Muslim women need to be aware that some non-muslims are "freaked out" by talking to a face they can't see. There are consequences of their choice then but we must leave them free to make it..

Muslims tend to be blamed for being segregated from the rest of society. But let's be fair about this. Historically most of them have not had much choice about this, through the economics of the housing market compounded by discrimination by estate agents and sellers. In fact the Census statistics show that while most Muslims live and interact (and are usually happily integrated) in diverse multi-cultural multifaith areas, while there are millions of white "christians" who live in neighbourhoods where only a tiny handful of their neighbours are from other backgrounds. Usually they live there by choice, as the areas are greener, nicer, more affluent and "better" for bringing up their kids. Who then is responsible for increasing segregation?

It is time that Christians stopped tolerating sterotyping, misinformation and hostility to minorities for surely this is a transgression against the 9th commandment "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor."

And it can only be special pleading on behalf of "us" against them to major on the persecution of Christians (for their faith or more often ethnic/communal identity), or to suggest that wearing a cross is an insignificant ornament while wearing a veil is a cause for concern.

2005 English Church Census

There are some interesting headline findings here showing a mixed picture of church decline in recent years. Thanks to Peter Brierley's work there is now a quite useful time series showing what has been happening in Christian England over two to three decades.

For the details of the 2005 English Church Census please Click Here
http://www.christian-research.org.uk/intro.htm

Interim report on consultation on new migrant communities in Preston

Summary Report on:
Christian Ministry and New International Communities in the North West; (Migrant workers, asylum seekers, refugees, students)
A consultation for Christians in Preston, and surrounding parts of Lancashire, and Cumbria: Hosted by Preston Christian Action Network
on Saturday September 23rd 2006;
at The Salvation Army,Harrington Street, Preston PR1 7BN

Eighteen people mainly representing Christian churches, networks and projects in Preston and across the North West, from a variety of denominational and ethnic backgrounds attended this event. (See list of participants).

We began with prayer and worship led by Tim Keightley, director of the Foxton Centre in Preston.

We heard our keynote speaker Rev Canon Alan J Robson MSc Lincolnshire Agricultural Chaplain, present a detailed analysis of the situation in the agricultural and food processing industries in his county and the role of economic migrants within it. He presented a complex picture in which many workers are vulnerable and subject to exploitation. He talked about the work he, representing the churches and a consortium of other agencies had been undertaking to address the situation and gave us some interesting ideas which stimulated debate in the group.

• 
  30, 000 migrant workers in Lincolnshire. Mainly 'controlled' by 'gangmasters' / labour providers from both host and migrant community backgrounds.. but the new law about gang master's won't work -poorly thought out and many loopholes
  
  The need for migrant workers, in the fields at harvest time and in the canneries and packhouses, is enormous - "Supermarkets would be collapse if it were not for migrant workers". Meanwhile agricultural commodity prices are held down and traditional farmers have become an endangered species.
  
  Issues for the workers include: manipulation and abuse, childcare, housing, cultural issues, interpretation and translation, advocacy
  
  There has been a piecemeal approach to responding to migrant workers - for example at one time four different welcome packs were produced. To respond to this a charitable company has been established. One project they are involved in is training migrants as interpreters/ translators
  
  Niall Cooper director of Church Action on Poverty then spoke about the Living Ghosts campaign which seeks to give a voice to asylum seekers and refugees and highlight the injustices and destitution they often face as people with minimal rights in the UK.
  
  Possible Responses:
  · -Over many years CAP has run "Poverty hearings" - helping/ encouraging those who are experiencing a situation to speak out so we can hear their stories
  
  · -Getting stories into the press: local papers are often sympathetic of a good human interest story
  
  · -There is a place for the church to speak out: there is power in them doing so. The recent Faithful Cities report said some strong things on these issues.
  
  John East of the Wesley House Asylum Seekers Project in Blackburn with Aftab Mogul (one of the project users) continued this theme and using an interview method presented a powerful story of one Pakistani Christian family’s experience in coming to the UK to seek asylum.
  
  After lunch we broke into small groups to discuss our reactions, explore possible lines of action and prayed together .
  
  
  When we came together in a final plenary session the actions various people committed themselves to undertake included:
  
  
• General awareness raising in the churches to make people aware of the injustices faced by (and the differences between) economic migrants and asylum seekers
  
• Campaigning targeted at politicians and decision makers on these issues, and encouragement for Christians to stand for office.
  
• In Preston asking some fairly sharp questions of the Local Strategic Partnership to find out if they know what is happening locally.
  
• Encourage development of interagency partnerships to make an impact on the situation without duplicating effort.
  
• Making church buildings available for activities such as English Language classes, translation and advocacy services etc.
  
• Being much more welcoming in our churches of newcomers of different cultures and nationalities.
  
• Undertaking local grass roots research involving contacting and meeting people from the new communities, listening and giving them a voice and enabling them to shape the ministries and projects which will meet their needs.

If you have comments or want to share your ideas with us please email credoconsultancy@maister-smith.fsnet.co.uk

East Lancs Railway

Spent some time last Saturday at the East Lancashire Railway in Bury..

the photos wont upload but you can see them at http://www.flickr.com/photos/19757911@N00

one week's visitors at the Salvation Army

This week at our community centre we've been trying to keep a count of the people who have come into the building for activities, meetings or help. It's been a pretty busy week and not finished yet but it looks as if we will top 500 in the total count. And this has been a week when several of our regular groups were not running.. But it seems all human life has been there.. and it's kept us on our toes... The list has included:

about 15 volunteers with disabilities or learning dificulties working on our garden project or lunch club.

10 homeless big issue sellers

4 destitute people asking for clothing or in the case of one couple sleeping bags and blankets so they can be more comfortable when sleeping rough

40 students involved in the Christian Union Freshers week

over 100 people attending the AGMs of two voluntary sector organisations

30 local tenants to their landlords display of possible kitchen improvements

30 members of the regular meetings of the MS group, and Narcotics Anonymous

50 elderly ladies at fellowship or social club meetings

Not to mention 3 disruptive youngsters intent on causing trouble or making a nuisance leading to visits from a fire engine and two police constables working on the case.

Tomorrow we've got a consultation on ministry among new migrant communities....and on Sunday there will be regular Salvation Army...

And I've been trying to get space to work on multiple funding bids for the next stage involving an ICT project..

How do we find time to reflect and build an adequate theology and spiritual dynamic to cover all of this.... Thankfully God is big enough to hold it together...

Colossians 1

15He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross

Some holiday photos

JUST Back From Holidays

In Berwick On Tweed and Northumberland where I took these photos of seine net salmon fishers on the river, and plenty more you can see at http://www.flickr.com/photos/19757911@N00/

Also a family week at Capernwray Hall

Both highly recomended.

Frank Smith : Born 100 years ago today

Today. September 1st 2006 is the centenary of the birth 9f my father Frank Smith. sadly he died in 1975 so is not eligible for the Royal Telegram

See http://www.maister-smith.fsnet.co.uk/familyweb/smiths.htm

for a bit of the family history.

Obviously the anniversary makes one reflective and nostalgic, and gives a sense of the passage of the years. But from a personal viewpointit makes me thankful and happy that I had the privilege of knowing my Dad and of being my father's son.

The second of ten children in a Lincolnshire Methodist family he lived in the county all his life except for a few years or reluctant military service in World war II. He was far from rich or famous, left school and home at 13 to work "in service" on a large local farm, subsequently moving out of agriculture into the building trade . When he retired in the 1970's he was soon on an old age pension of £30 a week which was more than he had ever earned.

I remember my dad as a loving warm hearted parent, but above all as an intelligent and learned self taught man. Though he had been denied the chance of a thorough formal education, he was a great reader, and had valuable opinions on politics, history and science and loved to talk about these issues with anyone. One of his best stories was how during the war an officer inspecting the barracks had found a copy of Marx's Das Kapital on his bedside table, and asked if he had been reading this sunversive rubbish. In a reply which verged on insubordination he said "Sir, I think if you could be bothered to read it yourself you would find it is not rubbish at all".

To my Dad then I owe much of my own intellectual development, and a fair amount of my personality (we won't go into details there). He also gave me a love of cycling as pleasure and as a means of transport, though undoubtedly he was faster than me. One of my treasured possessions is his medal for the fastest veteran in a club race in 1950, 1hr 8 mins for a 25 mile time trial.

Unlike my mother, and the most of his brothers he found conventional Christian Faith somewhat difficult, and though he rarely talked about it, probably lived and died an agnostic. But if God's grace is as broad as I understand it to be and if you can judge a person by the fruits of their life, then I tend to belief that he has one of the many mansions in our Father's house.

Hello again

This is a new blog that I've had to set up as somehow in the upgrading to the BETA system that google seems to have forced on us without notification I have manged to lose the ability to access and add to my previous blog...

You can still reach the archived postings of that on
http://credoconsultancy.blogspot.com/