Alpha 2010

Just been reading my blog post about last year's Alpha poster campaign. This year: "The meaning of life is ______ . "

I can just imagine the graffiti...

Internet evangelism

Sometimes my life can be really surreal. I'm sitting in the church office at 9.20am on a Monday morning and I get an instant message from a Chinese friend who is a new Christian saying that she has a new boyfriend but he doesn't want to go to church. So suddenly I'm involved in a bit of crisis discipleship over the internet with someone who doesn't speak much English... God has a sense of humour.

I love my job.

On being a COW

...that's Community Outreach Worker. We hadn't noticed the unfortunate initials when the job title was agreed. Moooooooooooo!

Let's come back to the Alpha poster business (now that I've calmed down a bit!). Unfortunate, that. Incidentally, not only has someone ruined a poster but they've carved a tick into the metal-and-plastic sandwich board sign we keep outside the church during the day. The national Alpha office in its finite wisdom has come up with a poster campaign which invites vandalism. I mean, if you give people a tick list, they're going to tick it, right? The national website offers you the opportunity to register your tick electronically (currently 40% "yes", 27% "no", 33% "probably." You have to wonder if all the Christians are going on there and voting repeatedly to skew the stats.) On one level, the vandalism shows that people are reading the posters. On another level, it suggests to me an irritation with organised Christianity. People want to register their atheism. I know I did, back when atheism made a lot more sense to me than Christianity.

Please please please, can we have a poster with a cute cartoon next year???

Emma loses her sense of humour

Have you seen the latest Alpha course posters?

DOES GOD EXIST?

YES
NO
PROBABLY

...with tick boxes next to each option. Well, this afternoon Phil noticed that someone had ticked one of the boxes on my beautiful Alpha display. You can probably guess which one they ticked.

Caffeine addiction, cake-related injury, life, the universe and everything

Yesterday afternoon was one of those times when I am reminded how much I love what I do. Although I've given up my job in London I am still working two days a week at the chaplaincy at Queen Mary college in Mile End. The cake-related injury was the result of much 'creaming' (using a metal spoon to squish vanilla essence and sugar into butter, for those of you who don't bake). It takes a good ten minutes of strenous creaming to make a decent batch of butter icing, at the end of which a blister had formed on the second finger of my right hand. But oh, the cakes tasted good... It's the university exam period right now and the students appreciate sugary treats when they come into the chaplaincy between exams. Actually, they appreciate them so much that I have to hide batches away in order to ration everyone's sugar intake.

Anyway, yesterday afternoon while I was sitting nursing my blister and some of the students were sitting around trying to summon up the energy to go and do some more revision, we covered a whole host of conversation topics. Caffeine addiction and dehydration (this was uncomfortable for me as I suffer from migraines brought on by dehydration), the doctrine of the trinity, belief in God, evolution (briefly), the Tamil Tigers, the situation in Gaza, the state of Israel, the BNP, Buddhism, veganism, my own brand of vegetarianism (which was derided - but I'm used to that), my testimony (the 30-second version), blind faith, inquiring faith, the Old Testament, the apostle Paul's comments on celibacy, Christian love, finishing up with three of us getting little Gideon New Testaments out (not at my suggestion, incidentally) and reading 1 Corinthians 13.

Blisters aside, being paid to have discussions like this, with young adults who are mostly sceptical about Christianity, is heavenly.

The wilderness

A few weeks ago I had one of those moments when a Bible passage literally jumps off the page and hits you in the face. I was reading a Grove booklet about evangelism when this passage from Deuteronomy hit me:

Remember the long way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments... Therefore keep the commandments of the LORD your God, by walking in his ways and by fearing him. For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land... (Deuteronomy 8:2, 6-7)

One of the interesting things is that I have used the word 'wilderness' several times over the last few months to describe my state of confusion, lack of direction, not knowing which way God wanted me to go. I hadn't connected this word with the Israelites' forty year journey to the promised land, however. It occurs to me that perhaps God is deliberately withholding information from me in order that I learn some tough lessons. A wise friend pointed out to me recently that Jesus never suggested that life as a Christian would be easy - quite the opposite, in fact.

The hardest thing for me is my desire to be productive and purposeful, to find a clear direction for my life, particularly bearing in mind that I turn 30 this summer. Many people have pointed out to me that a woman is often at her most confident and happy in her 30s. However, most people would expect a woman of 30 to be on some kind of career path (either that or busy having babies!). Limbo is not easy. But then I suppose the idea that I am in limbo presupposes that the purpose of life is to be productive. If our purpose in life is to worship God, then we can do that just as well when we are "between jobs"!

A bend in the road

The change of blog title and colour scheme mark some big changes for gherkin girl. In the shadow of the aforementioned architectural oddity no longer, I am taking some time out and find myself back in Chelmsford...well, in Maldon actually, staying with friends. I've been finding life tough in London, and needed to recuperate and get back in touch with God. Feeling horribly guilty, but maybe this is just what I needed to happen in order to get me to face up to some truths: namely, that the things I do will never satisfy in themselves, and the more I chase around desperately trying to figure out what God wants me to do with my life the further I stray from the point.

You never let go

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
Your perfect love is casting out fear
And even when I’m caught in the middle of the storms of this life
I won’t turn back, I know You are near

And I will fear no evil
For my God is with me
And if my God is with me
Whom then shall I fear? Whom then shall I fear?

Oh no, You never let go
Through the calm and through the storm
Oh no, You never let go
In every high and every low
Oh no, You never let go
Lord, You never let go of me

And I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on
A glorious light beyond all compare
And there will be an end to these troubles, but until that day comes
We’ll live to know You here on the earth

Yes, I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on
And there will be an end to these troubles, but until that day comes
Still I will praise You, still I will praise You

Matt Redman

Everything in its time

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:

a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

What does the worker gain from his toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil--this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him. Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been before; and God will call the past to account.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-15

Some people say they don't understand why Ecclesiastes is in the Bible - it seems so depressing. But I have also read that apparently it is the book in the Bible which speaks most to today's young people. I love the book, and find it strangely comforting.

Year of the RAT...

I woke this morning at 5am to hear something rustling in my room. I grew up with two cats, so late-night (or, in this case, early-morning) rustling, not to mention large furry thing jumping on bed, was not a rare occurrence. However, remembering that both my childhood pets had been gathered to their ancestors, and that I was living in a pet-free household, the horrible realisation quickly dawned that SOMETHING FURRY AND UNINVITED was exploring my bedroom. Then - oh horror of horrors - it started squeaking. My mind leapt to the Dick Whittington story tape my brother and I used to listen to when we were little. When Dick gets his first room in London, he has to try and sleep at night while rats scurry over his bedclothes...

I used my mobile to try and throw light on the corner from which the suspicious rustling and squeaking seemed to be emanating...nothing. I calculated how many strides it would take me to reach my bedroom door, and the likelihood of my sudden movement causing aforementioned scurrying over my naked feet. And if I took my duvet with me, with a view to trying to kip elsewhere, I would be impeded by its weight, which could cost me valuable seconds when fleeing the room. In the end, I ran for it.

Unfortunately, in the middle of the night when one is sleep-deprived, one's brain starts throwing out irrational panicky thoughts. Obviously I was a bigger slob than I realised - I knew other people left dirty plates in their rooms from time to time, but I'd never heard of other people attracting RATS! How long would it take Rentokil to get here? Maybe they wouldn't have any available slots today? Would the Rentokil man nod knowingly when entering my room and say "I thought so - we got a classic slob scenario here." Would I ever feel comfortable sleeping in my lovingly decorated room again?

Fortunately, as for Dick Whittington, morning brought calm and sanity. My supervisor, Kerry, tells me that this is a side effect of living in London, and that all the houses round here get MICE once a year. Not huge, smelly, fearsome rats, but tiny, cute little mousies. In the cold light of day I discovered what had attracted them - an unopened bag of sushi rice, now sporting a little mouse-tooth-sized hole in the bottom. Apparently the best way to deal with them is to lay down traps. The question is, can a vegetarian countenance bringing such violent deaths to these small furry pieces of creation?

You betcha, I need my sleep.

The journey continues

Today was the first session of Journeys, a Christian course for people exploring spirituality, which I am being trusted to run on my own. The whole process of advertising and promoting the course has been an interesting learning experience for me. I finally understand Rebecca Manley Pippert's comment that evangelism felt like something you wouldn't do to a dog, let alone someone you liked(!). I know and like a lot of people here who wouldn't describe themselves as Christians, and I would love to discuss spiritual things with them in an open, relaxed and non-threatening way. The Journeys course is excellent in that it is designed to be informal, low-key and accessible for people with a whole range of beliefs. However, I really hate the thought that my friends here will think I am only nice to them because I secretly want to 'evangelize' them. Yesterday, with 24 hours to go, I had to force myself to start inviting people directly (and I call myself an evangelist!). This morning I prayed "Lord, if one person comes, great. If five people come, great. If no one comes, great - I'll just have to think of something else."

In the end, five people came - which was more than I was expecting - and we had a great time chatting and a fantastic discussion after the DVD. We covered other religions, the trinity, the cross, the Holy Spirit, life after death... Actually no one talked about the DVD at all, but this is something I have found in the past when running The Alpha Course. The presentation, whether a talk or a DVD, works as a stimulus for discussion but people rarely stay on the topic. I went into Alpha mode today, only giving my own opinion when I was asked for it, and in fact the conversation flowed easily with very little input from me. I told everyone it was over at 3.30, so that they could go if they needed to, but people stayed for ages afterwards, until I had to throw the remaining two out of the building when it closed at 5pm.

Thankfully we have a God who works in spite of us!

On the street

Street outreach continues to be the most rewarding aspect of my work here. I don't know exactly why. Certainly I like the fact that we are trying to offer friendship and support to very vulnerable women - but then I could do this in a community centre. For some reason, however, I enjoy being up at odd times, walking around dark streets in the cold. I think maybe it's because I like the idea of "going out" to find people who wouldn't necessarily walk into a community centre (let alone a church). If you'll excuse me sounding a bit holy, I think it's the kind of thing Jesus would do. There's a whole community of people 'on the street' - not necessarily homeless, but working on the street - it's like a parallel world which exists right there in the same place where young trendy people come to drink in wine bars and buy vintage clothes. A friend of mine was surprised to learn that there was a lot of prostitution going on in the area we cover; I explained that you wouldn't necessarily see it if you weren't looking. And yet the women, like the homeless beggars, are right there.

The Kingdom of God

A uncharacteristically churchy title for this blog post, but this is the phrase that has been in my head today. This morning I had my second meeting with my new mentee, a Bangladeshi woman who has recently come to England. We walked around the market practising English conversation. She bought me a cup of tea (I tried to pay!). There was a nice moment when the shop lady said how much it was, and my lady didn't understand, so I repeated it, and then she got out her £2 coin and looked at me as if to say, "Is that right?", and I gave her the thumbs up. It's extremely rare to see white eastenders and Bangladeshi immigrants mixing socially, but how amazing would it be if every newcomer had a local to help them in the first few months? How much easier would integration become?

Away in a manger

The Christmas season has involved several surreal new experiences, none of them unpleasant (!). Collecting money with the Salvation Army band in Oxford Street was great fun, although after an hour and a half of standing on a cold street holding a bucket my muscles had pretty much seized up. It was fun watching all the shoppers, though, being asked for directions (I don't know where ANYTHING is), occasionally having a brief chat with passersby, shoving my bucket through a cab window to receive a contribution from the driver! The most surreal moment was when a bright yellow bus emblazoned with the Corona beer logo pulled up directly beside the Salvation Army band (there was a set of traffic lights there), complete with man in Corona beer bottle costume dancing on the upper deck of the bus.

On Saturday we had 'Christmas on the Farm', an outdoor nativity held at the city farm in Stepney. All the characters (shepherd, wise men, innkeeper etc.) were played by adults except for Mary and Joseph, played by two children, and baby Jesus, played by a doll. I was the angel. We arrived several hours early to set up, only to discover that there were three very large, aggressive-looking pigs in the pig shed which was supposed to be our 'stable'. I volunteered to jump over a fence with a bucket of pig feed to lure the porkers out while two of the menfolk swiftly placed a bit of metal fencing over the entrance. Unfortunately, during our lunch break the pigs broke back in, so we repeated the operation and put Joan on pig watch. It rained all day, which put a bit of a dampener on things, but it was still a good laugh and the people that came seemed to enjoy it. Many people see Christmas on the Farm as their bit of 'church' for the year.

In the bleak mid-winter...

Man, it's cold! I really don't cope well with cold. Or heat. Basically, it's hard to get the temperature right for me. Maybe I have bad circulation... Anyway, Christmas is fast approaching and I have been preparing some advent worship for our small group of Sunday morning worshippers (we had an amazing 14 for worship last Sunday - we were quite overwhelmed!). Every year I tell myself I will buy a Christmas CD and every year I forget until it's far too late to bother. But this year I have discovered the delights of fast and cheap mp3 download, with the excuse of Sunday worship to prepare for.

The really weird thing is that even though I have heard the same carols and the same Christmas story every year for as long as I can remember, and have believed it for the last five years, this year I am finding myself very moved by the whole thing. I was watching a film version of the nativity story on my laptop in the Idea Store (library to you and me - I did have the headphones on, by the way) and found myself blubbing in public - most alarming. This morning I have been trying to plan a simple act of worship for advent based on Christmas carols and have found myself in tears once again. The following carol starts me off crying every time - it's my favourite:

In the bleak midwinter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen,
Snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter,
Long ago.

Our God, heaven cannot hold him,
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When he comes to reign;
In the bleak midwinter
A stable place sufficed
The Lord God almighty,
Jesus Christ.

Enough for him, whom Cherubim
Worship night and day
A breast full of milk
And a manger full of hay.
Enough for him, whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
which adore.

Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air;
But only his mother
In her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.

What can I give him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man
I would do my part,
Yet what I can, I give Him —
Give my heart.

Beautiful feet...

"Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved." But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"

Romans 10:13-15

This passage expresses the passion which drives me. 'How are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard?' Though most of the people we meet in our everyday lives here in the UK have heard of Jesus, very few really understand what Jesus is all about, or who he is. For older people there is so much baggage - memories of being bored in church, headlines about child-molesting priests. To younger people, Jesus just seems completely irrelevant. And many younger people (say, 40 and under) grew up while church attendance was steadily declining, and quite possibly were never dragged to Sunday school and may know very little about Jesus.

This is where proclamation comes in - proclaiming the good news. But this is tricky. How can you proclaim if people don't want to hear? Do you just do it anyway? Hence men standing on street corners with loudhailers, large posters at train stations with Bible verses (King James version, of course), leaflet drops, door knocking. I have great respect for anyone who goes cold-calling for Jesus - I have spoken to people for whom this approach has borne fruit. Praise God. The very thought of it makes me cringe in horror. I may be an in-your-face kind of person but I can't bear in-your-face evangelism. But at least door-knockers and street preachers have a sense of urgency! (that is a quotation from someone but I can't remember who...Shane Claiborne??).

The area I am working in does not lend itself to the above approaches. My part of Tower Hamlets is over 50% Muslim - door knocking and large posters with Bible verses in my area are simply going to wind people up. The Alpha Course, fantastic though it is in some contexts, works best with people who already have some basic knowledge of Christianity and want to know more. If you have no idea that Jesus might be relevant to your life, you aren't going to go on an Alpha Course.

So much of the work I am doing would probably be described as 'incarnational', based on the fact that Christ was incarnated into our world - he 'became flesh'. 'The Word became flesh and lived among us' - in the same way, incarnational missionaries seek to live among people and 'proclaim' Christ with their lives. So I am running a reading group for people with mental health problems (we read fiction, not Scripture); helping to promote a mentoring project for women recently arrived in the UK (mostly Bangladeshi Muslim women); working as an assistant to a university chaplain, which largely involves serving food to people, chatting, and washing up. I am very conscious that my life does not have a holy aura most of the time. Do people see Jesus in me? What a terrifying question. I find this verse from Philippians immensely comforting:

For it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Philippians 2:13

Newsflash: Emma expresses an opinion

Strange though it may seem to people who know me well, I actually tend to hold back from expressing strong opinions when I'm in 'work' mode. I trained in the Alpha school of evangelism which emphasises listening, accepting, asking questions and not imposing your own views.

However, this evening I was at a volunteer training session and was chatting to one of the other volunteers about my work doing street outreach to women involved in prostitution. The other woman said: "Oh that's interesting, I've been involved in researching government policy on the sex industry; some people argue that it's a valid choice for women and a paternalistic government shouldn't assume that choice should be taken away. What do you think?" Now, if someone asks you what you think at Alpha, you're allowed to say, although I would tend to go gently when expressing opinions which are likely to be controversial. Granted, I was not on an Alpha course, but I was still a missionary talking to someone who I am pretty sure was not a Christian, being asked a question about an area of ministry I feel passionately about. Normally I would start a long conversation, find out more about the other person's point of view, express my own thoughts with much hesitation and clarification... However, the person running the training had just started to say "If you're all finished, could you please look this way...," so there was no time for beating about the bush, and so I said: "I think it's sick and wrong."

Many, if not most, issues are open to various interpretations, and I usually find I can sympathise with people's views even if I don't agree with them. But when it comes to issues like this I really think our society has gone mad. I love the women I meet who are involved in prostitution, and I know God loves the men who pay as well, but the practice of prostitution itself is surely just plain evil.

Reflections after first night of street outreach

It is nearly 3am and instead of trying to sleep, I am blogging... head very full, need to download (or upload, depending on how you look at it!).

Spent four hours doing street outreach in East London for the first time. Chatted to women involved in prostitution and some drunk homeless guys. One of them got a bit affectionate; luckily we were able to back away and laugh it off. Gave out lots of tea, hot chocolate and condoms, and loads of chocolate bars. Called an ambulance (another first). Spent some time in A&E. Saw a punter, a perfectly normal, nice-looking bloke. Weird. Felt scared walking down dark streets, crossing the road to avoid groups of lads. Ate a bagel with pickled herring at 2am. Feet hurt now. Up at 9.30am...

Too busy not to pray

I have been feeling ill at ease recently, and I think I have located the source of my problem. It is so easy in Christian work to get very busy very quickly, doing lots of things "for God" but not actually involving him in the process. To make things worse, I am one of those people who struggles to still her mind for any length of time. In recent weeks I have taken to playing solitaire on my laptop while watching telly - I am so fidgety I can't even give a TV programme my full attention! I can sustain praying silently and alone for all of about 90 seconds before my attention strays elsewhere. One approach which has worked for me in the past involves producing a collage to represent a passage or verse from the Bible, the idea being that it gives my hands something to do while, in theory at least, my mind is listening to God. Another possibility is that I drag myself out of bed half an hour earlier and walk five minutes down the road to the university chapel where Jenny the chaplain prays every morning with anyone who comes. If anyone is reading this, please pray that God would help me wake up...

"I am the vine, and you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without me." (John 15:5)

Candle wax, money and driving in London

I now have a PAID JOB, which is very exciting. I am assistant to the chaplain at Queen Mary, University of London (see my blog post on the best sign ever), 10 hours a week. The concept of being paid for Christian work is a new and very exciting one for me. On Wednesday I spent a fair portion of the morning trying to get candle wax out of a red carpet using an iron and some kitchen paper...it does work.

This week I have also experienced driving in central London for the first time - a nerve-racking experience. I never know if the other drivers are madmen or if I'm in the wrong lane... I drove a mile down the road last night (it was dark and I was ill) and it took me 25 minutes. Would've been quicker to walk.