Obama was there, I was there, were you?

Well what do you know, but Barack Obama turned up at Bournemouth. OK it was only a quotation from him on the first night ... but even so ... he was there, so was I were you?


Lots of other great people turned up and contributed to the best assembly I've been at in quite a few years. Great venue, (city and centre), great weather, (not really in Didcot's control but appreciated anyway) and the main event worship was much improved than over the last few years (in my humble opinion). Some great preaching / speaking too and for me the top three speakers were all women (see if you can guess). Prism was again excellent despite not having the greatest of spaces, approaching the 5 core values through biography was most helpful. The last talk was especially one that will stay with me for many a year.


I discovered that just like at Edinburgh, the fringe activities often stir me more that the main events. So I spent a lot of time at Prism and was greatly encouraged in a number of the special interest groups, including the insights into Israel / Palestine from the Baptist Peace Fellowship, http://baptist-peace.org.uk/and the talk given by Richard Kidd and Graham Sparks on Seeing Art. Many of the more straightforward talks I'll be getting on CD and am looking forward to Steve Holmes, Nigel Wright and John Rackley in particular ... sorry i wasn't there for the live thing but sometimes the sun and ice cream was too good to resist!


There were of course things to grumble about, (not least the price of drinks) but in the spirit of the last post i am trying to be restrained. I will mention just one that was more worrying the the cost of a pint. Having spent a lot of time encouraging Christians to see their everyday work as vital missional endeavour I was annoyed to hear BMS reps suggest (possibly unwittingly) that those not enrolled to travel overseas where frittering their lives away on things of no eternal value. That may not be it verbatim but it comes close and captures the essence and the fact that it was given a deliberate opportunity to be repeated causes some concern. All the good talk of incarnational ministry, the many words of encouragement such as 'every baptist a missionary' were uncut by what was said. It was an understandably passionate plea for more overseas candidates but the sloppy vocabulary ended up having the opposite effect on many I spoke with.

It was all exacerbated by the comment that not a lot of people came forward this year to BMS and clearly this can't be right. Surely it might have been exactly right in a year of tough budgets. ASBO Jesus thinks about it this way: Rant over back to the good stuff.
Finally we got Real Life worship off the ground.
This is a Faith and Unity initiative I've been involved with seeking to connect our worship with real life living. We did a launch at Assembly and the website is now up and running live. http://reallifeworship.wordpress.com/ The papers will be unloaded soon. Let us know what you think.


Some people at the launch asked for copies of the final prayer
So here it is:

In a world where so much is false:
From the flowers on the restaurant table
to the shiny happy smiles on the TV
Lord, help us to get real.

In a world where so much else is fake:
from the tan lines on the beach
to the surgically enhanced beauties in the magazine
Lord, help us to be real.

In a world where my banana flavoured milk shake
tastes more banana than bananas
And we still know more about the lives of Posh and Becks
than we do our neighbours
Lord, help us to get real.

In amidst the branded logos
the spin and telepromted passion
Faceless banking,
virtual communities
and help desks where
a computer generated echo
assures us we are valued,

May our worship be real
and may our living be
an authentic sacrifice of worship.


PS
Thanks to my travelling companions and sleeping partner for such good company and conversation.