Our minister is going to live on £1 a day over Christian Aid week to highlight global food poverty.

Read more: http://www.nottinghampost.com/Ministers-giving-roast-highlight-global-food/story-21065340-detail/story.html#ixzz312zq0vM9

The last of the beatitudes from Matthew 5, as explored in theGODlab:

commit:

Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

From the first reading of this, we perhaps think that persecution is something to be avoided, and that persecution is something done to us, not something we choose to do to ourselves – not something we can ‘try out’ as an experiment. Also, Jesus isn’t blessing the persecuted here, he is blessing those persecuted for the sake of righteousness.  Here, Jesus is saying of the persecuted, theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Jesus is placing the kingdom of heaven in the hands of the people who are so committed to a better world that they’re prepared to suffer for it.  Heaven hovers over those who are willing to endure criticism, accusation, violence – persecution in whatever form it comes – for the sake of remaining true to what is good.

The beatitudes, as we have read them have progressed from something as ‘easy’ as being open to God, to this – being willing to be persecuted for the sake of his kingdom.  This final beatitude, perhaps amounts to the word chosen to represent it – commit.  Are you willing to take seriously the news Jesus came to spread? To give yourselves to God?

The final experiment is difficult to state, as it very much depends on where you are on your journey with God at the beginning of these experiments, and it also very much depends on what impact these experiments has had on you over the past weeks.  But wherever you are, the experiment is asking for some degree of commitment to whatever God has revealed to us, to you.  And it is up to you, therefore, to decide if through these experiments, or through other means, you have encountered something of God: a moment of revelation, a ‘God-coincidence‘, a restored relationship, some supernatural occurrence, dream or encounter:

experiment:
•Spot what your commitment is:
What would you be able to stand by?
To testify to?  I'm prepared to say I've searched for God and I've
encountered him ... when I tried ... this,
or when I asked for ... that. Or Maybe it is that you want to
commit to being more curious about God. 
•state your commitment:
Find some time alone with God to tell him what your commitment is.
It doesn't have to wordy - just tell God in your own words.
•Mark your commitment:
In previous times people might have built an altar.  You could
try that, or you might want to do something on a lesser scale.
Write a journal, or a poem, draw a picture, buy some jewellery
or an ornament to represent the commitment, whatever can stand
as a reminder of your experience of God.
•Share your commitment:
If you can, tell somebody about it - in explaining your thoughts
it will help you become clearer about what those thoughts are.
•Watch your commitment:
It can take time for things to happen, but watch and keep
a look out for what God sends your way as a result of having
taken a small but significant step in his direction.

Through these experiments I hope you have found something of God. Hopefully it is a bit like the parable Jesus told. Amongst the bric-a-brac of life, you have found a pearl of priceless worth. And on finding it you are willing to go and sell everything you have in order to buy it.

These posts have very much been short tasters from Roger Brotherton’s book, theGODlab – ISBN 978-1-907080-24-1, available from amazon uk (and probably other places too), and I encourage you read it, if you haven’t already done so.

Two more beatitudes:

focus:

Blessed are the pure in heart,
    for they will see God.

Søren Kierkegaard considered purity of heart.  For him, purity of heart meant clarity and focus and passion and living. So when Jesus blesses the pure in heart, he’s blessing a clear-sighted and uncontaminated approach to life.  Perhaps it is more important that we strive to be pure in heart, rather than whether we attain it.  If we think too much about being pure in heart we know we will never make it – but we can try.  On one occasion, Jesus explained the basic principle by which he operated – he just did what he saw his father doing.  He kept a look out for God’s action in the world and joined in. This experiment is a start to exploring this, as usual in a much truncated form:

experiment:
Pick a prayer like "God, I want to see you."
Or, "God, show me what you're doing today."
Notice anything that occurs to you afterwards - do you want to
go somewhere, or see someone or read something.
You decide what to do with these thoughts.  You may see God in
some of these things - if you do, you may want to thank him
for revealing him to yourself.
When we chase God with all of our heart, we tend to find him.

engage:

Blessed are the peacemakers,
    for they will be called sons of God.

This isn’t about the absence of noise, the absence of disturbance.  This isn’t about keeping the peace either – it about making peace.  It is about the advent of harmony.
Making peace means creating something new into being where there was once disharmony.  It can be a risky business as it is basically quite presumptuous on our part. We can be stepping in to other peoples business, perhaps without invite.  But perhaps in being peacemakers, we are in a way God look-alikes. The experiment:

experiment:
Think about a recurrent situation that frustrates you or annoys you.
Frequently pray peace over the situation or person. Use little
tools to remind you through the day - watch alarms, or associations.
And do some watchful waiting - try and see if there is any way in
you might have an opportunity to move things along to the kind of
peace you would like to see.

Sometimes the acts that make up these steps towards peace are small, but perhaps significant for those involved. But when we pray for peace we get to be ‘in on the act’.  We get to know what it is like to be a child in the family business.

Another couple of beatitudes:

sort:

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
    for they will be satisfied.

Righteousness is a word they can be quite heavily loaded. In choosing the word ‘sorted’, we can instead think anew about getting ourselves put right and wanting the world put right. It doesn’t change the beatitude, but it allows us to look at it anew. This experiment is a start to exploring this, as usual in a much truncated form:

experiment:
Find a quiet place and invite God to join in with your thinking.
Think of an area where you are dissatisfied somewhat.  Don't rush to
find things wrong with your self, instead think of somewhere where
you can see where you are now and a new place where you (and God)
might like to be in the future.  It might help to think of you
becoming the 'true you' who God made you to be.  If you dare,
invite God to be involved in bringing about this new you.
You may want to confess to God times when you 'fall short'
and tend to the 'old you'.

free:

Blessed are the merciful,
    for they will receive mercy.

When we show mercy we are not only free others, but free ourselves too.  In exploring this beatitude we are encouraged to experiment with showing mercy.  But rather than start with our worst enemy (or perhaps our greatest enemy), requiring a seemingly impossible amount of mercy, we should rather start with the people in our everyday lives who perhaps just mildly offend us.  We can move on to the bigger things with practise.

experiment:
Find a quiet place.
Think about somebody who needs your mercy, perhaps somebody you
struggle to relate to well.
Imagine a movie in your mind of a good interaction with this person.
This is the future you would like to be a reality. Invite God into
this situation and pray for this person.
Maybe even release yourself from holding a grudge if you need to.

If a grudge is like emotional muscle cramp, then mercy is the gentle massage that releases us.

 A podcast of Sunday’s is available for download. Sorry, there was a technical issue and it is only the first forty-ish minutes of the service.

Here’s some more beatitudes from the book we are looking at in one of our house groups:

share:

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Here we are encouraged to think about the things we mourn for, and bring them to God.  In laying out of our stall before God and sharing our sufferings with him, we can hope to find comfort in him.  In the book, this is turned into an experiment:

Find a quiet place and talk to God about anything that concerns you.
Share your thoughts with God and sculpt them into requests.
At the end you may conclude by thanking God for listening.

Put as simply as this it may sound too simple or naive, but this isn’t the whole of our conversations with God. But perhaps it is also not a bad place to start.

ground:

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

The word grounded is chosen here, over meek, and although it isn’t a perfect translation, it gets away from the traditional view of meekness that perhaps makes us think of weakness.  Instead we think more of humility, gentleness, presence. It’s more about keeping out feet on the ground in the here and now.  Only in the here-and-now can we be loved, only here can we be loved. So in this experiment we are encouraged to attend to our current experience of whatever we are doing.

experiment:
Find a quiet place.
Focus on your senses and decide to be present in the here-and-now.
Adopt a prayerful gratitude to the world around you.

In this experiment, we may find that out of the being in the here-and-now leads to thoughts about what we need to do. Perhaps these are the moments where the meek (or the grounded) shall inherit the earth.

 A podcast of Sunday’s is available for download. Sorry, there was a technical issue and it is only the first forty-ish minutes of the service.

In one of our house groups we’ve just started reading the book theGODlab, by Roger Brotherton.  The book is described:

“Adopting a take-it-for-a-test-drive approach to spirituality, ‘The GOD Lab’ takes us deep into the exciting and quirky world of knowing God in real life. It is a handbook for spiritual adventurers, a signpost for the curious, and an encouragement for the committed. With freshness and verve it presents eight sayings of Jesus as experiments open to anyone. Whether searching for spiritual connection or just vaguely intrigued by Jesus, this book offers a kind and creative approach to the most profound questions of the human heart.”

But this little video is a good introduction:

This first session, we read the introductory chapters, and looked at first beatitude, which is interpreted in the experiment as ‘open’:

open:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven

This is just the first of the beatitudes, we’ve still got seven more to explore.

Some of the things we were doing in young church today:

Catching fish, like Simon and Andrew did.

The fish that we caught:

“Come”, Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of people.”

Jesus is calling us to dance. And to pass it on. In church today we watched how people started to join in the dance, in this flashmob at Antwerp station.

Later, we also watched Beyond by Sh’maya – we are being called to something great.