Earlier this week I posted a short blog post promoting a new book of Advent reflections I’ve contributed to. But even before beginning writing the blog, I felt an inner conflict. A conflict I’m sure many of the creatives reading – and many more of us – have experienced at some point or other.

A conflict between wanting to share something I’d helped create with people, in order to help bless them – because I genuinely believe the book can and will do that in so many ways – and my own pride and ego, which is desperately wanting people to read it and give me great responses to boost my confidence.

It’s a conflict between healthy ambition and selfish ambition.

A conflict between that part of me that wants to honour God with what I create and see it help others in their walk with Him, and my own ego which wants success for selfish reasons.

It’s also about my own insecurities – that I can’t quite believe that I have had even moderate success at something I love doing and might actually have a gift for, because some part of me just won’t accept that I can be successful, or that God might actually have made me for a purpose and that this might a pointer to what that might be.

Promoting something you’re a part of or have helped create feels a bit selfish, and not very Christian – and certainly, it’s very tempting, especially in the self-centered ‘i-culture’ we live in, to simply promote things for those reasons.

We all want to be loved, and something we often do is look for that in people, rather than simply embracing the unconditional love & grace of God, which doesn’t value us according to our achievements, but sees us in all our nakedness, all our fear, doubt and all our sin – as well as our achievement – and loves us anyway.

A love that would love the same if we lived our whole lives and achieved nothing and got it all wrong every single moment.  (more…)

As many of you know, I occasionally guest blog for a few other sites. One of these is Christine Sine’s Godspace, for which I have written several guest posts. Last Advent I wrote a seasonal devotional for the site. This year Christine and a few others decided to compile a book of devotionals for Advent, and mine was selected to be part of this. The book has recently gone to press – you can see the cover in the picture to the left/above – and is now available from their site.

It’s called ‘Waiting for the Light: An Advent Devotional’. Having seen a provisional copy of the book I can tell you it’s packed full of quality devotionals, one for each day in Advent, written by a variety of different – and very good – authors, including Tom Sine and my own pastor Jason Clark.

Believe it or not Advent is only about three weeks away now – time does move so quickly doesn’t it? –  and over the years I’ve come to value it as much as, if not more, than Christmas Day itself. It allows us to prepare ourselves fully for the coming of Jesus, and reflect more fully on His coming and it’s meaning for us. It also allows us time to reflect on what God has been doing in us over the last year, as we prepare for Jesus coming at Christmas, and then the new calendar year ahead.  (more…)

Hi people! As many of you will know (some of whom because I met you there), I attended a conference a couple of weeks back on Christanity and social media. It followed an awards ceremony the previous day so the whole weekend was called ‘Christian New Media Awards & Conference 2011′, or more simply, CNMAC11. At the conference were several guest speakers from the Christian, digital and creative realms alike, speaking on many different issues around how we as Christians deal with the digital media, how it can impact our lives & culture and its power to change the world. There were seminars on how to navigate twitter, to write code for your blog, how to do handle self-promotion and balance that with being a Christian and pointing away from yourself, and about the importance of retaining a balance between interaction in the digital world and non-digtial world.

One thing that became crystal clear to me is that there no such thing as the ‘virtual’ and ‘real’ worlds, because the online space, the digital realm, is part of the real world – it’s just as real, although different, from physically interacting with someone – and that was abundantly clear by the number of ‘Twitter-friends’, who I’d only known online, that I met and felt like I’d known them for a long time.

There’s a lot to discuss coming from this conference and I have a lot more to share. But for now, I want to share with you a little audio recording I made whilst at the conference with Dr Bex Lewis of the Big Bible Project and #digidisciple (more on that in a future post!). There will be a link down the sidebar eventually but I wanted to share it with you here first, so listen (carefully, the beginning is a bit muffled!) and enjoy me talking about the conference!

I’ve now been back from Greenbelt for three or four days, and had sufficient time to digest what happened over that weekend and what God was doing. Greenbelt was the first time I’d really been away on my own. Although whilst I was there I was blessed to meet loads of people I knew completely randomly – thanks God for the divine coincidences that I prayed for! – I travelled and went through the whole experience on my own, very deliberately. I have to confess there was a slight fear in doing that for the first time, but more the kind of fear which I knew I had to embrace, rather than one I was really scared of.

I have to say as I went around the site and heard such amazing speakers as Brian McClaren, Rob Bell, Peter Rollins and Phyllis Tickle, and experienced the whole Ikon experience on the Saturday evening – which was without doubt the most edgy, creative and innovative worship/liturgical experience I have had – I saw and experienced a freedom in God I had not felt before. I felt alive in new and fresh ways and saw God moving in dynamic, creative and energetic ways which I’d not seen before. There was real discussion about issues that mattered without any fear, even between people that disagreed, there was a sense that we were all participating in this big discussion, a bigger movement that was going on, and this was merely a marker point in that.

At Greenbelt it felt like the shackles of religion and ‘the church’ were down – and in its place we had real community, real freedom and real honest and frank discussion concerning faith and how it relates to the world we live in, and how God is a reality in the world we live in right now, rather than something separate from it.

To me that is how faith should always be – church is important and what we believe is too, but it needs to be about a God who is part of the whole of creation and active, participating in it, and has set us free through death & resurrection, not an imposed set of rules and structures which hold us down.

That freedom is what I experienced at Greenbelt. (more…)

I’m off to Greenbelt tomorrow, for the first time. If you don’t know, Greenbelt is essentially a Christian arts festival held at Cheltenham race course over the August Bank Holiday in the UK. Greenbelt’s slogan is “Where arts, faith & justice collide” and the theme this year is ‘Dreams of Home’, which is sure to be interesting. At Greenbelt there is a strong focus on issues of social justice, creativity, art, social media, theology and as such there are seminars and discussions on varying themes relating to this.

This year there is an amazing line up, with speakers such as Rob Bell, Shane Claiborne, Peter Rollins and Brian McClaren. My former life coach, worship leader/blogger/writer Vicky Beeching, is going to be there too.

But it’s not just speakers from the Christian world that they have on the agenda, there’s also an appearance this year by the likes of Billy Bragg. Greenbelt are well known for always pushing the boudnaries, which is something I love – there is a freedom of expression in faith, an openess to finding God wherever you look for Him.

In conjunction with the speakers they have several music acts/bands, such as Kate Rusby playing, show films and also have space to reflect, pray and receive spiritual direction. They also have a pub on site called the ‘Jesus Arms’, which will be worth a visit I’m sure.

It’s going to be a great experience for me and the first time I’ve been away this year. I’ve been praying and reflecting a lot on what’s to come and asking God to really speak to me and challenge me, and to be honest I just can’t wait to get there. If you are going, I hope you have an amazing weekend, if not, I’d definitely recommend it to you.

If you are going however it would be great to connect, so let me know via my Twitter or Facebook, or just with a reply below, with contact details, and it would be great to get together & connect.

In the meantime, here’s a message from a brother in Christ who’s also going to be there:

As some of you know, I occasionally write blog posts for other sites. Not long ago I was asked to write a blog post for Christine Sine on the theme of ‘Worshipping God in the real world’. I was struggling as to what to write and it was about the time for me to write it, and then we had the riots, looting and violence in London and the rest of the UK last week.

As I prayed and reflected on those events God really spoke to me and it became very clear precisely what I had to share. It also became clear it wouldn’t be easy to share.

So I wrote the post anyhow, and sent it off, and today is published a blog post on Christine’s site entitled ‘Worshipping God in the reality of riots’. It’s one of the most uncomfortable and challenging posts I think I’ve ever written, and I would love you all to read it.

Christine and her husband Tom live in Christian community in Seattle and head up an organisation called ‘Mustard Seed Associates’, and I’ve met them and heard them speak a number of times, their blog is worth a read in its own right. I would recommend to you all that you add it to your blogroll, they have so much to teach us about what it means to live intentionally before God, and a lot to contribute to the ongoing discussion of what means to follow Jesus in the everyday.

Anyhow, my blog post is now up on their site and you can find the post here, go have a look and reflect on it – and let me know your thoughts. I’d love to hear your responses…

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves: Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?”

Those of you who follow me on Twitter (@JamesPrescott77) or Facebook will know that earlier this week I had a quite an intense experience which I cryptically hinted at on my tweet/status updates. I said at the time and have been building up this week to sharing more about it today, and so here I am.

To explain it fully needs some context, which begins with the quote above. It’s actually part of a longer quote by author Marianne Williamson.

Quite thought provoking isn’t it?

The reason why I’ve quoted it will become clear, but the story begins with me. I always like to be quite open in how I write, and the truth is, for some reason, I’d been pretty down on myself recently, and pretty grumpy. There have been some difficult circumstances going on do with family, but nothing too serious that I should be as grumpy as I’d been feeling. However, for one reason or another, I’d been feeling a bit down. I’d had a sense of disillusionment and discontentment, a feeling where you feel a bit down about things, but have no idea what’s making you feel that way.

You ever felt like that?

Those times when you feel down but don’t know why. All reason is telling you that what you’re feeling is illogical and makes no sense, that life is good and you have no real complaints, but you can’t help that cranky negative feeling inside.

Now before I go any further, I’m not talking about clinical depression – that’s a whole different ball game, one I’m not qualified fully to discuss, but totally different to what I’m talking about. I’m also not talking about the kind of down which leads to things like suicide. Those are much more serious and not what I’m talking about at all. The feeling I’m talking about is more akin to disillusionment, negativity, frustration – the kind of thing people really don’t like you to show in public, but which a lot of us, I suspect, often feel deep down. (more…)

I occasionally write posts for other blogs, and one of these is Godspace, written by Christine Sine of Mustard Seed Associates – see links to the right. Each Lent and Advent she invites bloggers from all over the world to write posts appropriate to the season, and I was asked to write a blog post for her on the the question of ‘What difference does it make?’, which is the theme of her Lenten season blog series.

In it I write a little about the rhythm of Lent, and how Lent and giving things up – and taking up new habits – for it is about surrendering control to God.

It’s just been posted here. I’d highly recommend you go and have a read, and share it with others.

We all need rest from time to time. Part of the rhythm of our lives has to be rest. Often in our cutlure we’re encouraged to be busy, to always be doing something. How busy you are can, in some people’s eyes, define how important you are, your social standing, how you’re percieved and ultimately your entire worth.

Often people push ourselves to the extent that they’re dead on our feet working so hard and then going out doing all sorts of things all the time, always active – and it can get to the point where we feel guilty or we’re losing out on something if we take time off and have some proper rest, like going on holiday.

Certainly that’s often what I’ve felt when I’ve considered going on holiday in the past. That I’m missing out, that I should be working hard.

That I’ve done something wrong.

Sometimes religion doesn’t help with these things does it?

As Christians who are part of a church we can be made to feel like we need to be there as much as possible and involved as much as possible, and that we should be serving God all the time and that taking a holiday is somehow absolving our resposibilities.

I’m lucky to be part of a church which is in no way like this, but I have been in other churches where I have definitely felt guilty about taking a break, about having a rest. (more…)