Mangiamo

I'm sad to be sending this email to say that Mangiamo on Western Road will close down on Saturday. If you are a regular, please do drop in and say goodbye on or before that date. Although I clearly am very attached to this place(!), I can't easily put into words why I think this business has been so significant. Please pray, especially for Francesca and the other staff as they all try and figure out what to do next with their lives.

Thank you.

Richard

Anti Slavery Int

Hey guys!

After having seen 'Fair Trade' with Sue (powerful play about true stories of women and girls being trafficked into the UK, produced by Emma Thompson) it has made me more determined to do what I can to stop this utterly evil form of slavery. A few days ago I received a letter from Anti Slavery Int. which encouraged people to write a letter to Jacqui Smith MP to encourage the Government to enforce the law that gives girls and women compensation after being saved or having escaped from their traffickers. This will help the women and girls towards getting back to a 'normal' life (get therapy, pay for legal costs etc) and more importantly, acts as a deterrent against traffickers. At the moment, these women and girls have very little support, even if they have escaped, as the laws the Government have agreed to aren't acting on them (yet)!!

I wrote a letter and have attached it - you can also send it to Jacqui Smith (and put your own name and address, instead of mine :) if you want to - the more letters the more impact...


Thank you!

Ros x

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(for cut and paste...)

Rt Hon Jacqui Smith MP
Secretary of State for the Home Department
The Home Office
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1 4DP

15th February 2009


Dear Jacqui Smith MP,

I am writing to you regarding Trafficked People and their access to compensation.

I welcome the progress made by the Government so far in tackling human trafficking, particularly the recent ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings.

I am however concerned that although victims of trafficking have the right to compensation, and various compensation mechanisms are in existence in the UK, it is extremely rare for a trafficked person to receive compensation.

This compensation plays a vital role in the recovery of a trafficked person and also serves as a deterrent for traffickers.

I therefore urge the Government to implement its Council of Europe Convention obligations on compensation for victims of trafficking. This would include mainstreaming compensation into anti-trafficking policy and practice; outlining concrete actions in the updated Action Plan on Trafficking to overcome the obstacles that prevent trafficked people from receiving compensation; and providing training and issuing guidance on compensation to the police; prosecution and judiciary. The Government should also ensure that sufficient support and legal aid assistance is available to trafficked people.

Many thanks for your time and I look forward to hearing from you regarding this matter and the points raised in this letter.

Yours sincerely,

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Our Valentine's 'Love Meal'

Instead of our usual Sunday afternoon community meal, we decided to all get together on Saturday evening and celebrate Valentine's Day... albeit a little differently. Inclusively, for a start. The families and children, singles and couples all gathered into our house for our first-ever Love Meal. :o) Read Phil's write-up on Toggie Tales.

Back to the '12 Marks...'

Back to the '12 Marks...'

12 marks Back in 2007, every few weeks, a bunch of us met in the Eva Hart to explore a chapter of Rutba House's 'Schools of Conversion: 12 Marks of a New Monasticism'. We got half-way through the book, before moving house and 'busyness' took over. When David suggested that we pick it up again recently, we were all up for it.

We agreed to recap the first six chapters for our first session... just to remind ourselves of what we'd covered so far, some of the things that we felt inspired and challenged by, and what (if anything) had wriggled it's way into our life together.

With drinks ordered and books flopped open, Ian immediately found Shane Claiborne's chapter on sharing economic resources. "That bit about brokerage," he said. "Here it is... 'When the church becomes a place of brokerage rather than an organic community, she ceases to be alive. Brokerage turns the church into an organisation rather than a new family of rebirth.'" And that's where the conversations began...

Ian got us talking about living generously... living consciously open, hospitable lives towards one another... as well as towards 'others', the 'strangers' who we do not yet know, who are unlike us. We talked about the strengths and weaknesses of our community meals together, and the community-house that we (Toggies) share with the Newman family and with Emma's brother-Aaron. We wrestled with ways we could experiment some more with "radical sharing"... sharing/swapping our possessions, our skills, our experience... offering these as a blessing, a gift towards others, for the good of all. A lawnmower? Money? Cooking skills? Artistic ability? Time?

But even amongst our small community, we often don't know one another's needs enough to try meet them with gift and blessing. We suspected that this 'not-knowing' is simply the result of 'not-telling' one another (rather than 'not-caring'), which may mean that we're still learning to trust one another. Or, more likely, we don't like the vulnerability of asking for help when we need it... we prefer to be independent, to 'cope', to sort things out ourselves, to hide behind the assumption that "everyone's busy. They all have enough going on already". Which, I suppose, starves love. As we talked, this common thread emerged again and again... without love, all of this is meaningless.

It came up in other quotes we remembered, such as; "We are not Good Samaritans, nor are we an efficient non-profit provider, we are family with them, and money has lost it's relevance. As one of the early Christians said: 'Starve Mammon with your love'. I hope that Mammon goes hungry around here." Yes, yes, yes.

And; "Redistribution is not a prescription for community. Redistribution is a description of what happens when people fall in love with one another across class lines."

We acknowledged that even our hospitality, our open homes and open lives and our shared meals could become dull, lifeless rituals without love... and that we need to keep checking our hearts for this. Sarah said how pleased she was that we'd had three new people join in with our community meal on Sunday, and they'd all expressed how warmly welcomed they felt, how much they'd enjoyed it. "Hospitality is a sign that a community is alive," writes Ray Simpson, "that it is not afraid." Keep us alive, Jesus!

I mentioned again the paragraphs from 'I Was A Stranger', where the author says that, "...as Jesus was going, he saw". Jesus saw people. He saw people... not problems to be fixed. Not groups. Not labels. He saw unique, beautiful, never-to-be-repeated, created-by-God people, and he loved them. As a community of friends, in all our daily 'going', we long to see people, to see Christ in people, to know them and be known by them, and for love to shape our behaviour in every way.

We admitted that the greatest barrier to this 'way of love' was our selfishness. Most of the time we seek first ourselves (and not Jesus' kingdom). We make things better for ourselves (rather than making disciples), and we meet our own needs, our own desire for comfort and pleasure ahead of others. And sometimes, just 'giving generously' to campaigns and TV appeals is an easy way to keep our consciences/guilt at bay... it briefly distracts us from the call of Christ, to walk this way of love every day, in every way.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As the evening wore on (and the Eva Hart's mostly-male Monday-crowd got a bit noisier), our questions began to echo those we'd been asking when Andy Freeman and Lucie Shuker were with us a couple of weeks ago... God seems to have brought us together, but for what purpose? Is there a common purpose? And if so, how do we express it confidently, and how do we fuel it, grow it?

To explore this, we asked ourselves if there were themes or values or distinctives to our 'life together', things that God has marked us with, things that we have a particular grace for/with... these didn't have to be things that every individual held as a 'top priority', but things that we express and value corporately. Hospitality, for instance. We've been consciously wrapping our spiritual life together around shared homes and shared meals and shared lives, growing a community of welcome, for a few years now. Not necessarily because we feel we ought to... just because it's, well, us.

Prayer would probably be another one. Whenever we've gathered to talk about the shape of our life together, prayer has always been a top priority. Individually and together, we want to become a community of simple, honest prayer (Matthew 6). Whether that's expressed in our daily praying-the-Lord's-prayer, or the weekly Tuesday evenings, or the periods of 24-1(etc.) prayer, or just in the daily rhythms of our working/eating/sleeping/family lives, we want to learn how to pray. Jesus, teach us to pray.

I suggested that one of the themes or distinctives we haven't really explored together, even though we seem to carry it (like a not-yet-born child?), is creativity. When Nate and Merisa Chud, from the Kansas City Boiler Room community, visited us last year, this was their observation... "this is such a creative community!" Although a lot of us express our creative gifts in work or home and smaller settings, perhaps there are ways to explore this creativity in our life together, and also in our reaching out to others?

We also mentioned justice. Many of us are involved in various justice-related projects or movements, and we often gather around particular issues when they come up... people-trafficking, Fair Trade, Make Poverty History, the Comic Relief campaigns, as well as local injustices. We wondered if this might also be a distinctive of our 'life together', a thing that describes something of who we are together, and why God has brought us together.

It felt like we were onto something - something that could help us answer Andy's "for what purpose/s has God brought you together?" question... perhaps these themes, distinctives, values (or others? or along with others?) are things that we will always be, that we always want to be... things that we want to wrap our life together, our following Jesus around, even though they may be expressed in different ways as time goes by and circumstances change.

I wondered if there may be a couple more themes that we might want to add to our short-list. David wondered if maybe three would do - more than that could make things more complicated. And we all wondered, with some excitement I think, what else might emerge as this conversation widened beyond the five of us sat around our Eva Hart pub-table, finishing off our coffees and beers. Dewi suggested we try to arrange another altogether time soon, to follow-up on our time with Andy and Lucie and to pick up their questions where we left off, and to feed back some of tonight's conversation.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In the introduction to 'Schools of Conversion: 12 Marks of a New Monasticism', the author writes this (I've altered some of the terms to apply it more directly to us... I think it an be);

"...perhaps the most difficult direction for Christian communities like ours is to recognise and live out our dependence on God's grace. No matter how thoughtful, how committed, how sacrificial, how well-meaning, how self-critical (and the list could go on indefinitely) - no matter how much care we devote to remaining faithful, the one thing that makes our life together and our mission possible is the grace of God.

This grace is not an abstract unreality or an empty slogan. It can be specified even though it cannot be understood or controlled. Grace is the power of God that comes as sheer gift...

Our dependence upon God's grace comes in very specific ways. That grace is the power that enables us to faithfully live out the vision that God has given us. Grace brings healing and integrity to our fragmented lives. It rebuilds community when our fragmentation threatens to tear us apart. It makes peace among our continuing difference. It turns power from self-seeking into kingdom-seeking. It makes us participants in the kingdom that is coming.

Submitting to our dependence upon grace is vital. Of course, such submission simply is life in Christ..."

And then he goes on to explore what "disciplines of grace" look like... what Bonhoeffer would call "costly grace". But you can read it yourself. Or/and come and join in with us when we explore chapter seven, 'Nurturing Common Life Among Members Of Intentional Community', next time. :o)

Prayer Night At Ros & Jons' (feat Tim)

I spent an age trying to get the fire to light in the fireplace, (the wood was damp :) ), during this time we all chatted about stuff on our hearts... Ros' amazing day at Comic Relief where she had organized a class of kids to visit and share ideas with the directors (which was a great success)! Tim's adventures, 'ministering' to people, at Starbucks in South-end. We then began to pray for people on our hearts, lighting a candle for each, the fire began to roar, and Tim read out these verses throughout our prayer!

Was an amazing time!!
J0N


John 1 v 1-14

Psalm 119 v105

John 8 v 12

Revelation 21 v 23

COMMUNITY MEAL... and SNOW!!

Big up to Sarah for hosting the Community Meal all by herself (three lasagnes and desert for 25 people!!). It was so great to have Rajit, Louise and Mandy with us. Before we broke bread Sarah shared a passage from the Bible and talked about her own experience of God being there with her through good and hard times and how the Bible acknowledges that there are hard times, but God is faithful, and she thanked God for her new job (Congratulations Sarah!!) and Phil encouraged us to keep sharing when we're in over our heads and need prayer and support from one another. Tim (reflecting on the coming of the snow) reminded us to think about the simple things...

It was also Tims' Birthday!!!!!!!

Now we're enjoying the snow...snow fights...crumpets, Italian pancakes and hot chocolate provided by the Togwells and Newmans...hardly anyone can get into work Possibly the best Monday ever :)

J0N

On Becoming A Boiler Room?

Phil posted some notes onto his Toggie Tales blog

As part of our ‘local journey’ - the slow realisation of who we are as a community of believers together, and what God has called us towards together - we invited 24-7’s Andy Freeman and Lucie Shuker to join with us for the evening on Tuesday.

They arrived (along with my office-friend Andrea Percy) just as Barack Obama was being sworn in as America’s 44th President. An historic day for America, and perhaps pivotal for the entire World. I hope that last night’s conversations with Andy and Lucie prove to be pivotal for our small mustard seed community.

Lucie kicked it off by asking us to discuss/explore three core questions in smaller groups;

1. Where have we come from?
(What is our back-story? What have the significant moments along that journey been?)

2. Where are we now?
(In what ways do we currently express our ‘life together’? What are our regular rhythms of life, our spiritual practices? What are our Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats?)

3. Where are we going?
(What is our vision? What would we like to see in five year’s time... and how do we get there?)

As well as the community meals (where we often break bread and pray together, read scripture and sometimes sing together), we realised that we’ve begun to express our life-together in other ways too... in prayer times and story-telling, Bible and book-study, in parties and celebrations, in reaching out to others in different ways.

But in all of this, we realised that it is our relationships that sustain us. “Is this family?” Andy asked. “Is Jesus central? Is it centred around prayer? Can people who don’t know Jesus yet get involved with you? Would they find welcome among you?” When Andy asked what we’d say to someone who asked what we were about, Jon replied immediately; “I’d talk about my friends.”

Rosi; “It’s brought Romford alive for me. I’ve never seen Romford like this before... for me, our community life has opened up my heart for the wider community, and it’s extended into my work too.”

Jon: “I feel encouraged to do what I do better... inspired.”

Ian: “A lot of people talk about ‘going somewhere’ to church... sometimes it’s hard to explain that for me it’s just about life.”

When Andy asked how someone could get involved, I suggested that he ask Miranda, who’s recently ‘got involved’. After joking about my persistent emailing [grin], we agreed that there isn’t really anything to ‘join’ at the moment, but anyone was welcome to ‘join in’, whether they belonged to churches or not, whether they were believers or not.

“Would you call this church then?” Andy probed. And again, Jon was unhesitant. “All the time!”

Because of the mid-week time-pressure, we didn’t explore the third question much - Where are we going? What is our vision? But maybe this is something that we need to do ourselves over the next few weeks.

Phil.

Furry Happy Monsters

Happy Merry New Year!!

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Games Night 08!

Oh what a lovely life...Life is Wonderful...Its a Wonderful Life!

Christmas storytelling 08

Encouragement from South Africa

This is an email sent from Clive (Clive and Zoliswa from Rainbow).
You can read about the orphanage they are setting up in Africa on this page I found here Clive & Zoliswa in Africa
I thought I'd forward this on as I know they are finding it really tough with funding in the current credit crisis and so what Clive is saying meant that much more to me when I read it, so I thought I'd share it with you guys!
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hi everyone, the following is just something i, clive, felt God was saying to me, this is something that is challenging me and it seemed right to pass it on. sometimes in a storm we tend to live more by what seems reasonable than by faith. this is just a challenge to keep looking in the right direction.

A TIME TO CHANGE OUR THINKING?

Something has begun to happen in the world that is threatening some of the things we trust in. A storm has started that is affecting every nation on earth and no-one really knows how long it will last.
It struck me again recently when i read about the disciples in the storm with Jesus, that 4 of the disciples were fishermen. They were the experts , they knew what they were doing. Jesus was the one they trusted in, they had left everything to follow Him, but it was like they didn't need to look to him in this field. This was their field. They knew what they were doing. I can imagine them reassuring the other disciples ' hey its ok guys don't look so worried, we're just gonna adjust the sail - we can ride this one out.' But as the storm went on and the waves got bigger they too began to fear for their lives. Finally they turned to their sleeping friend in the back of the boat and woke Him. He immediately rebuked the storm and the wind and the waves died down. And the disciples said, ' Who is this who commands even the wind and the waves?'
First of all i can think of at least 4 or 5 times when Jesus surprised the fishermen, (James, John, Peter and Andrew) , with His intervention in their field of expertise. Twice instructing them to let down their nets for a big catch after they had caught nothing and twice in storms. (Also Jesus instructed Peter to go and look for a denarius in a fish's mouth!)
After this storm they asked of Jesus 'Who is this?' Jesus had been with them day and night for quite a while, He was their close friend and they knew He had power from God, but here in the storm they saw something they had not seen before. They began to see more of who Jesus was. They began to trust less in themselves and more in Him.
Was it good for them to go through the storm? It didn't feel like it at the time but it was very good. There is no greater treasure than a fuller revelation of Jesus. The word of God has power but we don't just digest these things about Him by reading them on a printed page. We discover the reality of Him by walking through real life with Him and experiencing Him for ourselves. We must ' taste and see that the Lord is good.' Maybe that is an encouragement the next time we go through a crisis. If we walk through it with Him we can find more of Him. As David said ' You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.'
The point i am making about the present financial crisis,is that we in the west have our own way of looking at money and we feel very sure of it and our approach to it. And that we in the church absorb much of that same thinking. Sometimes, especially in difficult times our approach to money can be more western than biblical. The things the world is trusting in are being shaken to the core and everyone who shares in its approach to money will feel the force of that shaking. It's not my purpose here to tell you what i believe the bible says, but to encourage everyone to go back to the bible and listen to what Jesus particularly says about money and our attitude to it for ourselves. LET'S LOOK FOR JESUS IN THE STORM.

Celebrating 60 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

I was part of Amnesty's Fire Up celebration in London on Saturday becoming part of the candle.


...and writing & sending greetings cards...



Amnesty sent out a short film called "You Are Powerful", which is in the post below. Very moving, I think - see what you think.

Rich

Protect The Human (You Are Powerful)

Frances Bardsley prayer room (Last Day)

I've been wondering all evening how to sum up the final day of our prayer room in Frances Bardsley School for Girls. For some of the students (and perhaps the staff too?) today has been a very special day... of fun and laughter, of much-needed peace... and for some, of tears. But maybe I should just let them sum it up?

Here are a few of the 6th former's end-of-week reflections... firstly, B (my favourite, just because it looks so beautiful [grin]);

...and R, who told me she wasn't really "religious or anything". She hung around, spent time in the Be Yourself and Be Still zones, then popped out and brought some friends back with her... and then, a couple of hours later, wrote this;


It was interesting to note the change in the atmosphere of the room over the week... it seemed to affect everyone who visited, and many of them commented on it. "It's so peaceful in here", "You can really feel the difference in here", "I don't want to leave... I feel so relaxed in here".

Most 24-7prayer rooms experience this same phenomenon. As the week progresses and the prayers of students and staff literally fill the room (check out the Prayer Wall pics below, and compare them to earlier in the week!), something else seems to linger in the room as well. A peaceful Presence. And his name, of course, is Jesus.

All this week, students and staff have been 'asking' and 'knocking' and 'seeking' after God in their struggles and circumstances, with silent prayers and words on post-it notes. It shouldn't be a surprise that some have found God... have felt God's presence with them in very real ways, even for the first time.

Because God wants to be found.

Read more from Phil at http://toggietales.typepad.com/toggie_tales/2008/11/frances-bardsley-prayer-room-day5.html#more

Frances Bardsley, Romford

Please pray for Megan's school, Frances Bardsley School for Girls... Phil will be there with Ruth and Jamie Poch from re:gen church all this week, hosting a creative prayer room in the 6th form block.

And pray for Romford.

Hope, Change

Ok, maybe this is just a promotional video, but I guess it can also be a prayer for change and hope across the globe. We pray for our world leaders Lord, bring equality and hope...and where there is greed and curruption, bring new ideas and fairer systems, bring justice for the poor! This is your world Lord!

The River

...a poem from our prayer room;

---The River---

"From a distance I can see the river
it looks as it has always looked
it never seems to alter.

The seasons come.

Spring brings new life,
a lightness in spirit, fragrance,
daffodils, crocuses, blossom, warmth from the sun.
But the river doesn’t change.

Summer – a flourish of green,
the trees are full and populated,
the sun is bright and life is carefree.
As I look at the river, it has shrunk back from its banks, but otherwise, just the same.

Autumn leaves begin to fall,
there’s beauty in their many colours – reds, oranges, yellows, golds, until eventually brown and crunchy leaves.
The winds pick up, birds fly away and I wrap up.
The river rises a little, leaves float on it’s surface, its appearance somehow static and sorry.

Winter brings with it coldness, grey skies, bleakness, and a transparency in natures stark unveiling.
The trees depict a monochrome existence, longing for springs delight.
Snows fall and in winters fleeting sun, there is a brightness and a hope.
Not so for the river, it does not change, it is indifferent.

And so I encounter the ups and downs of life’s seasons
but the river does nothing, it does not change or alter very much,
warmer, colder, deeper, shallower but otherwise unchanged in this shifting world.

Then one spring day, I decide to approach the river.
I have only ever looked at it from afar but I happen to wander closer.
As I do so, I realise that the river is not as still as I had once thought.

A new perspective is born in me,
I see the evidence before my eyes; over time it is the river that has changed the landscape by surging forward and pushing back the banks, twisting and turning, carrying, prevailing, seeking and finding.

The river I have witnessed season after season isn’t actually still, but always moving,
drawn by an unseen power – its current.
I was wrong, the river does respond, it does listen.
The current flows through the river, moving the waters on a journey that is continuous and infinite.

What a foolish mistake to believe that it was motionless, inactive, silent.
The waters keep their momentum, obedient to its current, listening, answering the call of the unseen power.
The river brings life, its waters offer hope, nourishment and will never stop affecting.
I see now that I must not trust in the appearance of things.

I am at the rivers edge, I know I must see more and experience what has been hidden from my inner being.
I put my hand in the river and I can not stop it’s flow, it will always find a way of moving onwards.
I can feel its strength, relentless in its purpose.
It is obvious to me now that there is life below its surface.
This river is far from passive, as I once thought, but instead a surging force constantly at work, season after season.

Spring, summer, autumn, winter
The river moves on and on and I know I want to stay close and journey too –
I want this current, this life to surge forth in me and so I begin to travel through life’s changes,
just as the river does.

I am no longer static, a spectator of a changing world, I am moved and empowered to change by a greater power, trusting now that things are not always as they seem.

No matter what the seasons bring, I will trust the river that lives, that hears, that shapes, that speaks, that answers, that is my constant, that keeps me moving in its flow."

Michaela Hyde