This is the warcry, stories from the battle front about a modern warriors search for Knighthood, stories of an epic loved affair lived out on a raging battle field.

Language and Spirituality

Monday, January 14th, 2008

Armyguy-010-2008

One could imagine with a title like that, that this was going to be a real serious post… But alas it is not!

Hanna has always wondered how she would do if we where to go as missionaries to Croatia seeing that she doesn’t speak ‘church‘ in Croatian as it turns out we are both having enough problems with language in England.

Last week everyone in the classroom turned different shades of red and purple as we where discussing the conquest and settlement of Canaan, apparently I had used ‘Colorful‘ language (I blame Eddie Izzard for that one)… And Exegesis is not only a hard word, it is also a very challenging activity.

If anyone wonders what Jesus is doing under the sofa, well, any faithful reader of this blog might remember this post.

14.01.2008 Church, Funny, OS, armyguy View Comments

Becoming human.

Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007

As we are well in to the Knightschool week of courage we have done confessions, it is remarkable how hard it can be to confess. Everyone of the squires (self included) wrestled with the “What will they think of me, how can I ever look them in the eyes again?” thought. It strikes me that this is a very human condition, a stubborn refusal to accept our own humanity.

We tend to think of the church as a congregation of saints and that I am the only bad apple in the bunch, the only one who sins, the only one who doesn’t measure up. When in fact we may be better helped by thinking that {{we are a congregation of sinners aspiring to holiness.}} Sometimes we make it, sometimes we fail….

At times when we hover around on our little clouds of holiness, polishing our halo maybe we should do like Jesus, become human. Get real see ourselves and othhers for what they are and start helping each other towards a better self instead of pretending that we got it all together.

23.05.2007 Christian life, Church, Disciple Knight, Ponderings, Saints, knightschool View Comments

We do so little!

Monday, May 7th, 2007

Yesterday I was struck with this thought, All our corps have such a large base of volonteers and people freely giving funds to our work and yet we have so little impact on the community around us.

I am talking about the local corps here and not the Army as a whole. When I worked for the Guardian Angels we had a much bigger impact on the local community with just a handful of teenagers now I ask myself what is the difference?

Well here is what the Angels did….

  •  Most of the Angels time was spent on the streets in uniform, giving the community at least 20 hours exposure a week to our uniformed presence.
  • The angels where well trained in basic communication skills. Say hello to everyone you meet. At any opportunity give the ABC rap (ABC rap was a basic pitch of who we are, what we do, and how you can support)
  • The angels where 100% dependant on the support of the local community (that is where the money and food came from)
  • Every Angels was made to feel like they where super heroes when they donned the uniform therefore they acted like super heroes.
  • The full time volonteers worked full time with no pay and where motivated by their passion alone.
  • The Angels where always in the press, running press campaigns against injustice and violence all the time even after the first hype had died down.

These are some of the things that made the Angels successful I wonder what we could use in the SA corps to make an equal impact in our community.

07.05.2007 Christian life, Church, Guardian Angels, Mission, Ponderings, Salvation Army, Social action, serving, youth work View Comments

The non religious fanatic

Monday, April 23rd, 2007

It is strange and almost humorous to watch Christer Sturmark argue against religious beliefs trying to sell the secular society as the only viable future of the world.

In todays article in expressen Sturmark attacks  religous beliefs with what can only be likened to a religious frenzy as he explains that humanistic values are the salvation for our society that has been opressed by religion for far to long.

I cannot help but wonder what country Christer Sturmark lives in seeing that the religious opression in Sweden that he is fighting consists mainly of a minister on Gotland running a school church liked by Christian, muslim and atheist alike (oh except for the one humanist that got angry) or the fight against the horrid gideon bibles in the Scandic hotel rooms (again one humanist was offended) and Scandic removes the bibles in 130 hotels while happily serving porn in every hotelroom. I would like to personally recommend Christer Sturmark to get one of Mackan Anderssons humanist kits so that he can evade the heavy religious opression in Sweden.

Further in the article Sturmark makes an argument that the 25 top placed countries in UNs human development index are the countries with least believers.  Sturmark also mentions young women dying in illegal abortions as a crime of the church and the spreading of HIV in Africa being the fault of the catholic church for not condoning condoms. Sturmarks own brand of twisted logic is disregarding other factors like monetary standard and that the general wellfare of the country  could have anything to do with how often human rights are violated. He also chooses to ignore the fact that the churches of the world stand for almost all social innovation and aid whereas the humanist might have made the most contributions towards a democratic society they are not in the lead of social welfare and aid to those who are hurting.

Sturmarks comes across as a anti religious fanatic using very religious language and I can only agree whith the opposition, Christer Sturmark is by his rethorics guilty of all those things that he is accusing the religious movement of doing.

23.04.2007 Church, Sweden, bloggosphere, humanism, postmodernism View Comments

The similarities between Christianity and open source

Thursday, April 19th, 2007

Being a full time missionary and a certified Linux proffessional I cannot help but watch how similar these two areas of my life are.

The passion and sacrificial nature of the followers and the resistance of the world

Both communities …

  • …Are run by a mish mash of volonteers and large companies (denominations).
  • …Have highly self motivated volonteers who are giving up on their free time to promote the ideas the communities stand for.
  • …Prozelyze, that is both communities try to spread their ideas to others.
  • …Believe that their ideas are good news.
  • …Battle sceptisizm and biased dissmissals on a daily basis.
  • …Go against the trend of the capitalistic society.
  • …Are told there is no such thing as a free lunch, when presenting the good news

I could go on forever making the list really long. What is interesting though is that the two communities one very modern and one very old are dealing with the problems in exactly the same way. Both communities try to remake their language to be less threatening, in church we call it seeker friendly in the Open Source community we ditched free software and political language about human rights and freedoms.

And while that has gained both camps popularity I believe both camps have lost something….

19.04.2007 Church, Ponderings, Techspeak, postmodernism, relevance View Comments

The call for contemplative silence

Friday, April 13th, 2007

Tuesday night when I was talking at Metro I described the tension between our ministry driven church programs and the call of God to an almost monastic life. It is my firm belief that God is calling us to worship Him before we do any thing for Him. It is also my belief that that worship must start in meditation, contemplation, prayer, praise as we explore our faith inwardly and express it outwardly.

It is clear that there is a need for silence and contemplation in our hyped up, always loud and busy modern world. This is why the Catholic church is still growin, why the Taize movement are captivating young people. While there is a postmodern rejection of religion people are seeking Spirituality like never before.

We must be careful in our efforts to be postmodern and relevant to todays society that we do not loose the mystery of the Christian faith. That we preserve the spiritual disciplines of Contemplation, meditation, silence, fasting, solitude and ritual without loosing the celebration, joy, modern sounds and images of todays society.

13.04.2007 Christian life, Church, contemplation, postmodernism, relevance, worship View Comments

Aim lower, think smaller, give up & go, have a cup of coffe

Tuesday, April 10th, 2007

What a great Christian slogan! All joking aside this is one of the best videos I have seen in a long while… Spread the word!

This is why I am a youth worker for life!

People where fine with me being a youth worker when I was 14 and noone even blinked when I was 18 or 22 but now that I am 33 and going into Officers training, people ask me what my vision of the future is and I say urban youth mission, I get raised eyebrows and a lot of wierd responses like: You will go where the army sends you, do what they tell you. Aren’t you a bit to old for youthwork? Isn’t it time to grow up?

NO NEVER!

We must reach the youth to make a better future, I believe that our children (The children of the world) need to get a vision for the future, needs to learn about chivalry, about prowess, courage, honesty, loyalty, generosity, faith, courtesy, nobility.

Only if they learn to value this as children will it last them and guide them throughout life and only then will we see society change for the better.

10.04.2007 Christian life, Church, Mission, video, youth work View Comments

The king of Kings bled

Thursday, March 29th, 2007

The king of rock, they say lived
The king of lizards is surely dead,
The King of Kings bled.

-Audio Adrenaline, I am not the king

We are watching the first season of Rome and while it is vile in that it very graphicaly portrays the sexual perversion and the pgan worship of the time, Hanna made a very astute comment as we where watching one extremely bloody episode.

As Caesars face was smeared with blod by the pontiff, Hanna said, They where so pagan but they would have truly understood the significance of the blood of Jesus. In our modern clinical society, we live so far from the realities of life. We have brushed , blodd, injury, sicknes and death under the carpet so we do not have to see or think about it. This is why talk of Jesus blood is so utterly disturbing in todays society, while in the historic time of Jesus it was a natural part of everyday life.

While some churches try to tone down the blood we in the salvation army are so wrapped up in the symbolism of the blood that any attempt to get away from it would be futile, and thank God for that!

We need to keep talking about the blood of Jesus, while maybe culturally irrelevant, it is spiritually crucial! Lets bring out our songbooks and find those oldies, There is power, power wonderworking power in the blood of the Lamb! or What can make me whole agaian? nothing but the blood of Jesus!

Blood and Fire that is what we are about, let’s never forget it!

 

29.03.2007 Church, Faith, Hanna, Movies and tv, Ponderings, Salvation Army View Comments

Calebs cadre on the move!

Monday, March 26th, 2007

Calebs CadreSo yesterday it happened the finale of our soldiers courses. nine soldiers where enrolled and two adherents where welcomed into the Riga one fellowship. It was a glorious day!

The service was fantastic, the worship was heavy with the spirit of God and His presence could be felt in every note of worship coming from the plattform rolling over the expectant crowd like waves of heavenly grace.

The actual enrollment ceremony carried a sacred atmosphere and I bet the angels up in heaven crept closer to get a front row seat to this holy event. Articles of war was signed on paper but covenants was sealed in heaven with the stuff that souls and hearts are made of.

After the ceremony Hanna preached an intimate and heartfelt message about changing the atmosphere. God changes the atmosphere by His very being and we need to change the atmosphere around us by bringing the presence of God to wherever we are. The truth of the words where evident in the transformed atmosphere of the meeting hall. After the service we all went to Chili piča to celebrate and it was encouraging to see that most of them opted to stay in uniform for the outing as a witness of the covenant they had made in the morning. And they all looked so good!

It was a great day all in all and one that was the culmination of many months of preparation and prayer.

Since the start of winter we have been running a soldiers class with all the leaders of the youth leaders of Riga on, taking a leaf from the Salvation Army international I decided to have a name for the soldiers course, Calebs cadre. Caleb is one of my favorite heroes. When he ventured into the promised land and saw the giants he exclaimed, They are like bread to us! When he 40 years later (being over eighty years old at the time) was allowed to cherry pick his own place to settle in the promised land he said, I am as strong today as I was 40 years ago give me this mountain (the mountain being the mountain of the giants). Displaying not only a remarkable vigour for an eighty year old man but what we in the Schola would call a strong lion!

I pray that these soldiers will advance with the same sense of pioneer spirit and courage. I pray that they will keep marching until their legs won’t cary them any more and they will be promoted to glory straight from the battle field, in the midst of an ongoing attack, to a well deserved reward in heaven.

VIVAT!

26.03.2007 Battle report, Chivalric values, Church, Hanna, Latvia, Salvation Army, event, uniform View Comments

I would do anything… (Spiritual discipline part 2)

Sunday, March 11th, 2007

We all have heroes of faith, people we look up to that are giants compared to ourselves. Many times have I looked at these giants and said I would do anything to be like him or her. It reminds me of teh commentSteve Martin made at the Oscars a few yeras back.

Looking out over the crowd I see that you are all so beautiful, thin and fit. I would do anything to be like you…. Except train more and eat right.

We all know what it takes to be a hero of faith. It takes prayer, worship, lots of time spent with God. Maybe even fasting and meditation. All in all it is an investment of time, a disruption of ordinary life and it takes getting out of our comfort zone.

When Christ urges us to love God with all our heart, mind and strength doesn’t this stand out as a clear direction to seek His face even when it is not convenient. To pray when there is no time and to do anything and everything to get closer to God, to love God even if it does not fit in to our life of ease.

This is why I need spiritual disciplines, to help me take the road less travelled to be the man God has created me to be.

11.03.2007 Battle report, Christian life, Church, Discipline, Faith, Prayer, Saints, worship View Comments

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