This evening we looked at new ways of worshipping God, drawing on ideas from the alt.worship/emerging church/fresh expressions movements. We looked at some photos of existing groups (more at Small Fire) and then had a go - we set up ten mini stations in the church to explore. Let us know what you thought!

The challenge this week is to think of a new idea for a similar station - either describe or draw it, or get all the materials together and make it if you can. We might use a few at the forthcoming youth service.


thaw
⠕take an ice cube and place it near to the candles
⠕the heat from the candles represents God’s love
⠕watch as the jelly baby is freed from it's cold prison
⠕think how God has warmed your life


photo
⠕hold the camera at arm’s length and take a photo of yourself
⠕you are an important part of runway and God’s family


bricks
⠕build a wall out of the scouring pads
⠕think of the things that seem to separate you from God
⠕read: ‘For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,
neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ (Romans 8)
⠕knock down your wall


taste
⠕close your eyes; take and eat a sweet at random - is it sweet or sour?
⠕try this a few times until you’ve had both types
⠕think about how life is a mixture of good and bad things
⠕remember that God is with you in the tough times as well as the fun


precious
⠕our cat Paws is our most precious possession
⠕what is your most precious possession?
⠕draw it now in chalk on the blue board
⠕God would have drawn you


nature
⠕look at the flowers and rub the herbs to smell them
⠕thank God for the world
⠕write your favourite natural things on a flower
⠕stick it on the tree


gift
⠕God has given us everything we need
⠕read the Bible verses on the gift
⠕write a short thank-you note to God


flush
⠕sit on the naughty spot think and of something you are ashamed of
⠕write it on a piece of loo roll
⠕put it in the bin as you say sorry to God
⠕we will flush them all away at the end - God forgives you


talent
⠕use a crayon to draw around a talented bit of your body
⠕e.g. your hand if you are arty, your feet if you dance, etc
⠕write your talents inside the shape you drew
⠕thank God for giving you gifts and ask for wisdom to use them


news
⠕find a news story in the paper that you care about
⠕pray that God would help
⠕use a marker pen to highlight the story

Last night we talked about what worship is (and isn't). After drawing round Kyle in 'worshipful' pose and writing our ideas of what worship is inside the outline, we then looked at what the Bible says.

We thought about how worship should be a simple and honest response to God from our hearts. This might be through singing songs, dancing, shouting praise or quietly telling God you love Him. We can also worship God by caring for the needy as Jesus told us to.

We thought about how worship should be about how great God is, and not about how talented we may be. We decided that it's great that there are lots of different styles of musical worship within the church, so there's something to suit everyone.

Tonight's challenges are:
Low altitude - try to worship God in some way every day this week
High altitude - think about the place of sung worship in the church

Back in October we looked at evangelism in the context of the parable of the Sower; that we should spread the good news about Jesus around all of the time, but being aware that only rarely will a seed fall on good soil and grow into a plant. To illustrate this we went outside (in the pouring rain) and threw seeds around in front of the church building, and waited. And here are the results; quite a few came up, only to be removed days later by someone doing the weeding. Make of that what you will!

We looked this evening at how to buy clothes that don't harm people or the environment.

We thought about the low cost of clothes in many high street shops and supermarkets, how they manage to sell them so cheaply. Using information from the report by War on Want we thought about the low wages, long hours and poor conditions forced on these workers.

We also considered the problem of growing cotton intensively, which uses vast amouts of water and pesticide.

Our clothes buying recommendations were...
1. Don't buy new clothes if you really don't need them - try and resist fashion telling you you need the latest whatever.
2. Use a charity shop / eBay and recycle.
3. Use an ethical retailer (eg howies, American Apparel, People Tree, Hug, Ascension, Epona, Gossypium, Kuyichi). They will probably be more expensive, and you probably have to mail order, but the clothes will not be made in sweatshops and may use organic cotton, and be made to last. Maybe buy clothes less often, but better quality.
4. If you have to use normal clothes shops, look at the Clean Up Fashion website, which rates individual stores on their ethical record.

War on Want are asking people to write to three of the stores they think are the worst culprits and express your views. This is our High Altitude Challenge this week.

To contact Asda,write to Angela Spindler, Global Managing Director,George at Asda, Asda House,Southbank,Great Wilson Street, Leeds LS11 5AD,or phone 0113 243 5435.

To contact Tesco,write to Sir Terry Leahy, Chief Executive,New Tesco House,Delamare Road,Cheshunt,Hertfordshire EN8 9SL,or phone 01992 632 222.

To contact Primark,write to Arthur Ryan, Chairman and Managing Director,Primark Stores Limited,Primark House,41 West Street,Reading,Berkshire RG1 1TT,or phone 0118 960 6300.

Thanks for filling in the questionnaires last night about what fun stuff you'd like to get up to over the summer.

It's really odd - all the things that I thought you'd pick (camping, partying, sports) you didn't. All the ones I thought you might be all "we've all done that like a million times", you seemed to really go for!

The most popular choices (and you pretty much all agreed) are:

1. Crocky Trail
2. Trip to seaside
3. Bowling
4. Cinema
5. Alton Towers

The Alton Towers one we may not be able to do at the moment as it's so pricey (but I'll look out for any special offers in the future) but we can definately plan to do some of the others.

I've looked at pics of the Crocky Trail and must say, it doesn't look good. It looks so... well, muddy! (Is there maybe a special girls area where you can leave me to paint my nails and make more bracelets?)

This week your challenge is to keep a list of everything you buy this week. Simple as that. If on Monday, you buy a can of drink and a cinema ticket, just make a note of it on a piece of paper.

Don't worry about writing down how much things cost. It's an exercise to get us to think through the impact of our choices. We'll talk more about that next week!

We looked at the big issue of where life came from tonight - did living things gradually evolve from simpler living things through natural selection (as the scientific evidence suggets), or were they all created together by God (as the start of Genesis says) ?

We spent some time looking at examples of things that suggest (to me, anyway) that God wouldn't have designed them that way. The picture above is of a whale fin skeleton - note the similarity to a human hand. Why would God design those digits to be useless inside a fin?

Another example is the digger wasp, which made Charles Darwin lose his faith. The wasp chooses a caterpillar, then carefully inserts its sting into each of the caterpillar's nerves to paralyse it but keeping it alive. The wasp then lays its eggs inside the caterpillar's body, which provides fresh meat for the growing larvae. It seems strange that God would intentionally design something as cruel as this.

Other examples include the way that the human gullet and windpipe cross over, needing the epiglottis to seal the windpipe as we swallow, which sometimes goes wrong making us choke, and the strange remnant of a tail we all have called the coccyx.

We had a good discussion about why, if we evolved from monkeys, do monkeys still exist? We didn't evolve from the monkeys that exist today, but monkeys, apes and human all evolved from a common ancestor with similar features to all of us. Different species adapted to particular environments. It is unknown what particular environment caused humans to evolve like we are today, but one theory is that we lost most of our thick fur in order to swim more easily. Also, some animals have not changed much for a long time - sharks have been around for 400 million years, long before the dinosaurs - they seem to be perfectly matched to their environment so there is no pressure to evolve.

Many Christians believe in evolution - don't think that creationism/intelligent design is the only choice for Christians. Feel free to leave comments of course, let us know what you think or ask any questions you like.