We have the added bonus of two visting speakers picking up on the Hope theme with Steve Hurd speaking in the morning on ‘Hope in suffering’ and Terry Hotchkiss in the evening on ‘Hope in healing’.

So Sunday looks set to be one not to miss!

(Remember to arrive at 10:15am for free tea and coffee to avoid disappointment)

While watching Jeremy Paxman’s interview with Russell Brand last Friday, I was challenged by something Russell said. Towards the end of the interview he stated,“…we need to try to aspire to something more beautiful…perhaps if we were more in tune with more beautiful things we wouldn’t prioritise such peculiar notions”. As I listened I realised, I too often settle for ‘peculiar notions’ rather than beauty.

The deal is at the centre of my faith in God is beauty…

…a beauty that started through something that seemed so ugly, Jesus’ death on a cross, yet through His resurrection reveals such beauty. As what appears so ugly was needed in order that God could bring about restoration to everything including me that is broken…and that is beautiful.

…a beauty that is revealed in a future hope when God will ultimately restores everything and the world will be how it was always designed to be. A place where there is no more pain, suffering death and where God is visibly known and present.

I therefore want to be one who does look to what is of true beauty. In order to inspire me to see it realised in more ways everyday through…

…the hungry being fed

…the homeless being housed

…the distressed being comforted

…seeking peace where there is conflict

...justice being sought where there is exploitation

…ultimately through people knowing restored relationship with God.

I want to live to celebrate, reveal and enjoy true beauty.

How about you?

With festival-stealing headline performances at Reading and Leeds and a critically-acclaimed third album charting Number 1 in the UK, Canadian indie band Arcade Fire have emerged in 2010 as genuine mainstream contenders.

The band’s third album The Suburbs is a searching, aching record that documents a loss of identity amid the pace of the modern world. It articulates a deep desire to return to a feeling that can’t be retrieved; to a time when we took time for granted.

‘When all of the houses they built in the 70’s finally fall,’ sings Win Butler on the title track, ‘[It] meant nothing at all, it meant nothing’.

So what is it about this record that has connected with the public imagination? Apart from the exceptional attention to detail (the album was 3 years in the making), the feeling of uncertainty about who we are and how we fit in is a sentiment that many people identify with. We’re scared of losing ourselves and yet scared of being left behind.

Talking about the album in June this year, lead singer Win Butler said: ‘I think in life in general you want to understand where you came from and where you are. I think that’s where people start to feel schizophrenic about their own life – when where you came from and where you are don’t make sense.’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqEDSVUvJ7A&feature=related)

We’re all searching for answers. Where are you looking?

Arcade Fire play Birmingham LG Arena on 08 December 2010.

Download: We Used to Wait

hope from Oasis church on Vimeo.

The event will run from 1.30pm-5pm at Handsworth King Edward School with lunch included. The event is open to anyone who would like to get involved in planting churches in the future.

To register your interest please use the email address listed below…

Over the summer I had the privilege of reading the ‘The boy in the Striped Pyjamas’.  The author, John Boyne, does not give a description of the book on cover but rather states “If you do start to read this book, you will go on a journey with a nine-year-old boy called Bruno. (Though this isn’t a book for nine-year-olds.) And sooner or later you will arrive with Bruno at a fence…Fences like this exist all over the world. We hope you never have to cross such a fence.”

As I read this comment I was hit with an uncomfortable realisation,  that I…and dare I say we, can all live with fences…fences that act as a divide between us and others…fences that cause us to judge others to see them on the wrong side of the fence…fences that cause us judge ourselves and deem ourselves to be on the wrong side of the fence.

John Boyne is right that fences do exist all around the world I guess what has made me uncomfortable is the thought that maybe they exist more than I would like in my world.

I guess I have been left thinking it is time to see some fences removed…but how?

Maybe the fences we put up point to an ultimate fence, that in dealing with that we can then see the others removed.

At the heart of the Christian faith is the reality that an ultimate fence is there between us and God, a fence that causes us to be unable to know God, to know His love, acceptance and peace.  The tragedy is we can do nothing to remove this fence, however God out of His love for us sent Jesus to the earth to live, die and be resurrected to destroy the fence in order that we can know God’s love, acceptance and peace.

Jesus has removed the ultimate fence in order that we can live without fences…in order that we can show others the acceptance, love and peace that we have found and point them to it.

The question is do we know that this ultimate fence has been removed? If yes, are we then ensuring that we are not still living with fences for ourselves or others?

I know for me I am enjoying living more and more fence free!

Seize the day…seize today.

There can be a danger that we live either for the future (which I know I can do) or continuously in our past that we forget today. That today is to be lived, enjoyed and to be thankful for.

There is a need to stop….

…to breath…

…to think we will never have this day again…to seize today!

This is an attitude that Paul one of the writer’s in the Bible commends when he states ‘make the most of every opportunity’.  But how?

Seize today…

…to forgive

…to be forgiven

…to show kindness

…to be thankful for what you have

…to know hope. Robin William’s character states that we are destined to die but that that is it. The faith I know in Jesus promises something different a hope for the future and for the now. A hope that gives security, peace, value and love. May be for some of us we need to remind ourselves of this, maybe for others of us we need to seize today to discover whether we could know this hope and love.

Seize today…