Coldplay: The Story of X & Y












The homepage of Coldplay (coldplay.com) has this groovy little insight into community:

'..."Summer 2004 we started to feel something was wrong", says Will Champion (Drummer)... "It didn't have any passion to it, any energy." "What we were doing wasn't good enough. You can get too obsessed with making it perfect, and forget what's really important", says Johnny Buckland (Guitar). "It didn't sound like there was any interaction bewteen us."
So that Summer, for the first time in a year, they began to really hang out together. They played football and baseball. They went out to eat. They made silly videos to put on their website... they remembered first and foremost they were friends. And then they realised what was missing. "To be in a great band, you have to play together," grins Johnny. "There was no identity", says Chris Martin (Vocalist, Guitars, Piano). (So they played together) and then they went back to the studio and all the raw sounds and energy and imperfections that give songs their real soul returned."'


What is this little story saying to our community?
Who is Nitechurch?
Who did Jesus call His friends? And lastly, how is this learning of Coldplay similar to the early gatherings of the disciples? (Acts2.42-47).

We'll explore these themes this Sunday... at 7.

Next Sunday, the Nephilim (Genesis 6.1-9)

Ebonie Jade Irwin - Myrie...

ripples...

I have this memory. I'm standing on the the shore of some calm lake somewhere (the details of the memory have faded with time) with a smooth peeble in my hand. I fling it onto the lake and make it skim on the surface. It eventually stops and sinks and it makes these ripples appear. The ripples grow disproportionally to the force of the boy and the size of the pebble.

There's something in that memory that continues to speak to me. What's it saying to you?

kaivata... 2007

We're going to join some other fun people from The Salvation Army in Aotearoa and Tonga and trip to Fiji to:
- attend a conference on 'kaivata' (reconciliation) at the University of Suva
- serve the locals with some hands-on project (still to be dreamed up)
- frolic in the sun and surf of the Pacific.

Slightly interested?

Start saving and tell the people where you're at now to try and drum up some personal support.
Its going to be good.

poetry...

I penned this poem while listening to some tunes. Its somewhat depressing, though in the end, I think it is hopeful.

“Sometimes you can’t make it, the best you can do is fake it, sometimes you can’t make it on your own.”
(Bono, 2005, Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own, U2, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb)


I can be clever. I can even fake intelligence. Say this, think that, feel nothing.
Smarten up. Speak the truth, live a lie.
Depth is flattering. Shallowness is hiding.
It is impossible to con everyone.
It is too tiring. I can’t fool God.
I have tried. I am not alone.

I live in my own excesses. I have too much of nothing. I am too empty.
I am at home and it makes me sick. I am homesick.
Lost and losing. I am slipping. Falling. Fallen. Down.
I can’t pick myself up.
I have tried. I am not alone.

I follow my own shadow. It’s dark.
I move in circles. Small turns, constricting lines of my own making. Narrow, repetitive spaces. Spinning to shady rhythms.
Dizzy. Dazed by lights that always stay in the distance. Blinded by lust.
I can’t see past my nose.
I have tried. I am not alone.

I have filled my hands with shame. Shameful.
I am a sham.
There is not a lot to me; what you see is not what you get.
I feel like a screen that everyone projects onto.
Reality TV? Really not.
There is no happy ending. No credits. No last page.
I live my own lies.
I can’t live up to the truth I speak.
I have tried. I am not alone.

Stop. Sorrow.
There is something, or is it Someone, stirring in me.
Listen.
I’m tone deaf.
Shhh. There it is.
Did you hear it?
Shhh. Someone is speaking.
Whispering.
There is too much of my own noise I can’t catch what the Voice is saying.
Static. Turn off the TV. Unplug the phone. Shut down the media player.
Shhh..
Speak, I say to the silence, I’m listening.
…
‘You are not alone.’

well, well, well, ...















These photos complete the story of the money we sent to Nigeria.














Revolutionary, eh? What do you think?

silence...

deuteronomy 27.9

psalm 4.4

habakuk 2.20

luke 5.16

shhh: its a quiet revolution

"He enters the classroom, sits down, doesn't say anything. He looks at us and we at him. At first, there are a few giggles, but (Professor) Morrie only shrugs, and eventually a deep silence falls and we begin to notice the smallest sounds, the radiator humming in the corner of the room, the nasal breathing of one of the fat students.
Some of us are agitated. When is he going to say something? We squirm, check our watches. A few students look out the window, trying to be above it all. This goes on for a good fifteen minutes, before Morrie finally breaks in with a whisper. 'What's happenning here?, he asks. Why are we embrassed by silence? What comfort do we find in all the noise?"
(Mitch Albom, 1997, Tuesdays with Morrie)


I have never had a Quiet life (and knowing my passionate family, I'm not likely to either... the smallest member has just sprinted through the house ringing a bell....). What is it to be quiet? What is it to be still? What if we were to commit 15 minutes each day to silence and solitude? What could be more counter-cultural or more Revolutionary than that?

sounds of intimacy...

At hearing the name of "Aslan", the Christ-figure of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe...

"... a very curious thing happened. None of the children knew who Aslan was any more than you do; but the moment the Beaver had spoken these words everyone felt quite different... At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump in its inside. Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror. Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realise that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer."
(CS Lewis, 1950, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)


I think this is what the langugae of intimacy would sound like, the counter-cultural language of a Revolution. What do you think?

subversion....

I got a hold of Eugene Peterson’s “The Contemplative Pastor” and would you believe it, smack in the middle of the text, there is the theme of REVOLUTION. Peterson says this –

“Three things are implicit in subversion. One, the status quo is wrong and must be overthrown if the world is going to be liveable… Two, there is another world aborning (Peterson likes complex and strange words. Aborning means being birthed or ‘coming’) that is liveable. It is in existence, though not visible. Its character is known. The subversive does not operate out of a utopian dream but out of a conviction of the nature of the real world (which is something I’d love to explore with you at NiteChurch in 06). Three, the usual means by which one kingdom is thrown out and another put in its place – military force or democratic elections – are not available. If we have neither a preponderance of power nor a majority of votes, we begin searching for other ways to effect change. We discover the methods of subversion. We find and welcome allies.”
(Eugene Peterson, 1989, The Contemplative Pastor).

Deep stuff and it gets deeper.

Somewhat later in the text, which is itself a Revolutionary Manifesto and not some sterile ‘to do list’ of irrelevant middle-class Pastors, Peterson goes on to debate the power of language. Now, it’s at this point that my heart leapt (poetic prose that means I stayed a little longer on the toilet than I needed and finished the entire chapter). Essentially Peterson contends that there are three forms of language:
a) Language 1 – the language of intimacy.
b) Language 2 – the language of information.
c) Language 3 – the language of motivation.

NiteChurch is good at Language 2 (we offer a lot of loud information about God) and Language 3 (we’re continually trying to motivate people to do something that they wouldn’t normally do on their own initiative – which has got me thinking about the integrity of why we do what we do). Sadly, and I confess to this within my own life, NiteChurch has failed at developing Language 1 (I’m not sure that we’ve helped people discover a language of intimacy, hope, and trust; I’m not sure that we’re good at helping people learn the language of ‘Abba Father’, the intimate heart-felt cry of Jesus). If there is going to be a REVOLUTION in 06, then I honestly think this is going to be where it starts – in learning and living within a language of intimacy.

What do you think?

some 2006 dates...

January
09 Summer School Starts
22 Baby Irwin-Myrie enters the world

February
05 BBQ T at NiteChurch
06 Waitangi Day
12 Metro Rally (a combined gathering of The Salvation Army)
17 First Semester Course Approval
Orientation (The Quiet Revolution kicks off)
19 Re-Start of NiteChurch Sunday Services
27 Formal Lectures Start

March
04-07 The International Leader of The Salvation Army hits ChCh
17-19 40Hour Famine
Justine Duckworth (Urban Vision)

April
14 Mid-Semester Laze (10 days with Urban Vision in Wgtn)
24 First Semester Resumes
25 Anzac Day

May
20 Sports Day

June
05 Queens Birthday
06 Exams

July
02 Founders Day
07-09 Camp Alexander
10 Second Semester Starts

August
24/7
28 Mid-Semester Laze

September
01-03 Live Fire
04 Second Semester Resumes

October
Pre-Christmas Rush
14-15 Nu Zeal (Pete Greig of 24/7 fame in Wgtn)
18 Exams

November
05 Parihaka

December

January 2007 ‘Kaivata’ (10 days learning and serving in Sunny Fiji)

The theme of 2006 is…

A Revolution of Love? A Revolt of the Godly?A Revolution of the Spirit?Are you in?

“With cries of ‘Death unto sin’ and ‘Life unto righteousness’, we go on determined to turn the world upside down. We are not philosophers or the theorists of revolution; buts its agents. Merely to recommend revolution is contemptible. We must make it.” (George Scott Railton).

The language is dated, the sentiment is not. The Revolution is needed now. Here. There. Everywhere. Today.No hype. No empty platitudes. The only thing you’re going to get is some encouragement to get involved and some honest questioning to go with it.

It’ll start local and then go global – in January of 2007 we’re going to Fiji to attend ‘Kaivata’ (a conference about Reconciliation) and to do something practical that’ll help our pacific neighbours.
Are you with us?