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Dec 01

Ethos – ‘Try Again’

A film commissioned by YFC’s ‘Ethos’ project – a series of short films for young adults.

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Aug 27

Bristol Baptist College – Spotlight Films

One of my jobs is based in Bristol Baptist College, and this last year I’ve been working with the staff and students there to create a set of films called ‘Spotlight’. These films aim to tell the story of some of our students, and to provide a snapshot into life as a student on placement. Here are two finished films featuring congregational based students Anne Dunn and Luke Mansfield.

Spotlight – Luke Mansfield from Bristol Baptist College on Vimeo.

Spotlight – Anne Dunn from Bristol Baptist College on Vimeo.

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Mar 18

These Are Things That Can Go Together


A poem inspired by a blog written by Danielle Strickland – http://www.daniellestrickland.com/2015/03/16/things-that-can-go-together/

I am in hospital corridors.
White walls, white floors,
Dropped jaws.
Good news, baby born.
Bad news, treatment withdrawn.
First breath, last breath ever,
These are things that can go together.

I am in prison chains.
Blameless, the only one to blame.
I walk free but I’m crippled with shame,
That sticks and stains,
Despite life regained.
Righteous judgement, grace unmeasured,
These are things that can go together.

I am on battle ground.
Broken, beaten I will not back down.
Weakness is where real strength is found.
In failure, in loss, when enemies surround,
Mercy will come and justice abound.
Hard as a soldier, soft as a feather,
These are things that can go together.

I am in wooden pews.
Abusers seated beside the abused.
Unity, oneness, polarized views,
Wounded healers, beautiful, bruised,
Teachers, preachers, prophets, fools.
Honoured kings, forgotten beggars,
These are things that can go together.

I am under a broken tree.
A man hangs, bleeds for me.
He gives, I live, He dies, I’m free.
God and flesh, crushed seed,
Emptied, defeated, victoriously.
Death and life, now and never,
These are things that can go together.

These are things that can go together.

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Mar 03

Talk from The Table – ‘What is Paradox?’

It was a great privilege to be involved in ‘The Table’, an event co-curated by CYM (Institute for Children, Youth and Mission, FYT (Frontier Youth Trust) and CMS (Church Mission Society). The Table is a series of events aimed at pioneer youth and community workers, of which this was the first. We explored the idea of ‘Tensions Around The Table’ – things we often find clashing and contradicting and how to find balance in all that uncomfortable tension. I gave a short lecture on what paradox is, which you can listen to below. We’ve got another event coming up in April, where we’ll be exploring how to create church with young people. You can find out more about that here.

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Feb 25

Ethos – ‘Arrows’

A film commissioned by YFC’s ‘Ethos’ project – a series of short films for young adults.

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Jul 13

Grandad Hands

A poem written in memory of my Grandad, Lesley George Dolby.

I remember your hands, Grandad hands
Hands holding chalk in the classroom in which you taught
You stood tall, on feet that helped others find their feet
Feet standing on your shoulders and as you got older
Chalkboards were replaced with the digital age
But the impact you had would forever remain
Adults once pupils still remember your name.

I remember your hands, Grandad hands
Hands that toiled over plants and soil
Trimmed edges and once wayward hedges
Well-watered lawns and harvested veggies.
Not a weed to be seen, grass greener than green
Every inch of it ordered and clean
The most beautiful garden I’ve ever seen.

I remember your hands, Grandad hands
Hands holding a glass as you laughed
Reminiscing of days that had passed.
You told me about sports you used to play
You told me about skiving off school for the day
The places you’d been the things you’d seen
Made great bedtime stories when I couldn’t sleep.

I remember your hands, Grandad hands
Hands that held the boy that’s now a man
The man I call Dad, who made me who I am
He’s your richest biggest legacy
The most precious thing you’ve left to me
A Dad who’s always there for me
A Dad who’s Dad you were proud to be.

I remember your hands, Grandad hands
Hands grasping mine as we prayed you’d be fine.
God met our request and you were back to your best
With a smile on your face and a scar on your chest.
But this life’s end isn’t if but when
Because of your faith this isn’t the end
Your Grandad hands, I’ll hold them again.

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Jun 05

The Beautiful Table

‘Last Supper’ by David LaChapelle

My Christianity began in a small village church in Nottinghamshire. After re-finding faith as an adult, and now a parent, my Mum felt it was important my brother and I were brought up in the church, and so off we went, every Sunday, to an old little grey Anglican building. I still remember the moss covered path and before it the stone archway that anyone under the age of eleven could be found climbing all over whilst waiting at the end of the service for parents to finish their cups of weak, luke-warm tea, always served in those green cups and saucers that you never see anywhere else.

This little church holds my first memory of communion. The slightly weird thing that all the grown ups did at the same time, in the same part of the same service they had every Sunday. The thing you had to attend special classes to be a part of and you couldn’t even do that until you were in big school. It seemed unfair, and I remember feeling the exclusion of it, eased slightly on the occasions my Dad was brave enough to sneak me a bit of bread he’d put in his pocket at the altar. I’d had it explained to me in Sunday school, that Jesus had this Last Supper thing with his disciples, that he broke bread and drank wine with them, and asked them to do the same when he had gone, in remembrance of Him. I got it, but I never really got it.

Recently I’ve been thinking again about what my Dad did, and how, despite him not doing it with any deep or even faith based intentions, what he did was a beautiful picture of not just the Kingdom of God, or of communion itself, but the deeper, wider, richer sense of communion that means so much to me as a Christian now. It has reminded me that communion doesn’t have to be an empty, duty motivated or meaningless tradition, it is a scandalous, revolutionary, subversive and dangerous act, which, when done with sincerity and understanding, leaves no one the same again. Because of course, like any sacrament, communion is not just about that physical wine or grape juice, those tasteless paper thin wafers or a beautiful, fluffy chunk of a freshly baked loaf, it is an outward sign of something much bigger, something significant and mysterious. Sometimes as Christians, because of the hundreds of times we practice and take communion, we can forget this. We forget some other things too…

We forget who is invited to the table, and to whom the table belongs.

Communion

You see with all our religion, rituals, rules, regulations, systems, policies, structures, classes and courses around communion and faith itself…we have ended up excluding the very people Jesus spent most of his time with. The very people the table is for. We think that we get to decide who should be able to take it. We think we have the right to say that some are in, some are out, some are worthy, some are not. We draw lines between secular and spiritual, Christian and non-Christian, liberal and conservative, right and wrong, sinner and saint. We think we get to write out the invites and give them to who we want, when the party isn’t even ours.

While we’re on parties and invites, there’s a great parable Jesus told (you can find it in Luke 14:15-24) about a wealthy Master who was holding a huge banquet for his friends. The invites were sent out, the feast was prepared, but when the time came, they all made their excuses and none of them came. So instead the Master tells his servant to go and find anyone he can – poor, broken, rejected, and they sit in his presence and enjoy an incredible banquet. This is the Jesus I know – whose radical inclusivity turns our exclusive, ‘club mentality’ religion on it’s head. And this is our job today as Christians – servants of a great Master who is throwing a party to which anyone is invited. They just have to want to come. That’s it. Our job is to find someone, anyone, but particularly those who feel they aren’t invited; the rejected, the marginalized, the persecuted, the broken, sick and lonely, and tell them that they are invited! They are welcome at His table. My Dad, without realizing it, did what we are called to do, to fight against systems of control and powerful institutions who think they have the right to write the guest list. We get to steal a scrap of bread and give it to those who others think shouldn’t have it, so they know they are welcome, loved, accepted and included.

We forget we shouldn’t be at the table.

I sometimes think about that first communion, that Last Supper. This was not a quiet, peaceful reverent occasion, where everyone got along and had a lovely time. It was already a table filled with misfits, not good enough and mostly uneducated teenage boys. Even the fact that these young men were Jesus’ disciples was incredible – the opposite of the other Jewish Rabbi-Disciple relationships at the time, which saw only the best, most intelligent, wealthy and studious boys make the cut. Instead Jesus chose (amongst others) some fishermen, a tax collector, a zealot and a guy who he ended up nicknaming ‘son of thunder’ because of his temper. Not exactly ‘the best of the best’.

At this meal, Jesus knew one of those disciples would betray him, another would deny him, three times. But these men were at Jesus’ table, joining in with this meal, part of this revolutionary kingdom that would go on to change the entire course of human history. They weren’t just invited to the feast, they were about to be put in charge of it! They were not past sinners, they were present sinners, and still Jesus washes their stinking, filthy feet, shares a meal with them, and trusts them to spread his message to the rest of the world. Ridiculous.

None of us have earned the right to be welcome at His table. We are not good enough, we are present and future sinners, and yet we are invited to the feast. So why do we think we get to decide who is in or out, in leadership or membership? Jesus’ ‘leaders’ wouldn’t even make the shortlist in most of our contemporary churches. We look for the most talented, gifted, educated and impressive, and in doing this we exclude and reject world changers and revolutionaries. I love the David LaChapelle picture that began this post, because it reminds me who is invited to Jesus’ table, and what a scandalous act of grace it is that there is room for me. Not because of anything I have done or said, but in spite of what I have done and said. Because of Jesus, there is a place at the table set for me. I am invited and I shouldn’t be.

We forget the power of the meal.

In any church, or communion, or community, you get a lot of different people. People who don’t all think the same things, people who disagree. There are divisions and differences and those things are painful and sometimes, unresolvable. That is really hard, and it costs us. We get wounded and cynical and we feel like giving up on church, yearning for our faith to be simple again. But in communion, we are reminded not of our divisions and differences, but of our commonality and unity. That whoever we are, whatever we think, in Christ we are part of one community, one Body, the Body of Christ. We belong, we are welcomed and we are loved.

There is something mysterious and beautiful that happens around the sharing of food. We all eat it, we are all hungry, we all need food both physical and spiritual. I think communion is a great reminder of this. And obviously this goes beyond a communion ritual on a Sunday. For me it’s happened over a late night curry with friends, sharing a cup of hot chocolate with young people on detached work, eating pizza with a group of skate park volunteers before we let in 40 excited kids, a cup of tea and a slice of cake with my 94 year old Gran, being offered a sweet by a kid I don’t know at my church. These moments transcend our differences, delete our ‘otherness’ and blur our divides. They are holy, mysterious and beautiful. Only communion can do that.

I’ll finish with one final picture, unfortunately a KFC advert, but a great image of how I hope to live. Making room at the table for others, in deep gratitude for my own place there, meeting and encountering others who remind me of all the ways I am the same as everyone else, when everything else in the world seems to want to highlight the differences and push us further apart. Smiling, laughing, eating, celebrating, in the presence of the one who laid the table, started the party and still sends out the invites today.

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Nov 01

Ethos – ‘I Will Still Dance’


A film commissioned by YFC’s ‘Ethos’ project – a series of short films for young adults.

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May 06

Creative Redemption

redemption_signA few years ago, a friend and I decided to make proper use of a mid-week day off, and travel to a nearby beach town. Because of the timing of our visit and the fact that it was mid-week, everywhere we went was eerily quiet. Walking down the main street we were greeted by the flashing lights and electronic sounds of games arcades, and we decided to visit one, to spend some of our hard earned two pence coins! As I walked into our chosen arcade, a big neon sign caught my eye, with the word ‘redemption’ on it. This was the cash desk where vouchers or tokens won on certain machines could be redeemed for cash. As I looked around a sadness hit me, as I saw many people playing on slot machines, people of all different ages, at about 11am in the morning. You could tell that for some this was a daily hobby, spending hours of time and lots of money in the hope that they would hit the jackpot and be able to make the journey to the redemption desk to exchange their winnings for something greater.

It made me think about how we all search for redemption in one way or another.

That sign has been on my mind again recently as I’ve explored what redemption might mean, a word we use a lot in ‘Christian-land’. We talk about God redeeming us, redeeming things, his redemption plan for the world. I’ve always thought about redemption in terms of being saved by God, that God has redeemed me, which I believe is true. But there is another meaning of redemption which I’ve perhaps neglected, one that takes me back to that slightly sad games arcade in that quiet beach town on my day off.

The second meaning of redemption is about gaining or regaining possession of something, normally in exchange for something else. So in that games arcade, you win tokens which you then exchange for real money. You give in what you have (or what you have is taken from you) and you receive something much better in exchange, something of a higher value. Something better than what you had before.

When I’ve lost things in my life or things have been taken from me – friendships, jobs, projects, whatever…it at times has felt unfair. People have often told me that God will, in time, redeem that situation, that I will get back whatever I’ve lost if I trust Him and wait. But what I’ve come to realise is that it’s so much better than that, and it goes right back to the very core of who God is; a massively creative creator, who is always pioneering new and amazing ways to restore, heal and bring people back to Himself.

Sometimes we don’t get back what was taken from us…we get something even better.

Take the story of Joseph (from the book of Genesis in the bible) as an example. I often imagine what Joseph must have felt like, being ripped away from his father, broken relationships with all his family, sold into slavery and thrown into prison. I wonder about those months and years that he spent in prison, with everything that had happened going round and round his mind. What did he think the redemption plan was? If it was me I would have probably imagined my brothers repenting, me being allowed to go back and live with my family, doing what I was doing before. What was God’s plan? Joseph became one of the most powerful men in Egypt, he saved the lives of thousands of people preventing them from being killed by famine, and in the end his relationship with his family was restored. Wow. Do you think he ever even imagined that as he sat in prison, alone, with his life in shreds? At the end of the story when being reconciled Joseph says this to his brothers; “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” – Genesis 50:20

Or Job. Job literally had everything taken away from him apart from his life. Through all his pain and questioning he never lost faith in God. At the end of his story we are told that ‘the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before’ – Job 42:10.

Or Moses. Because of a stupid mistake Moses went from being the son of a Pharaoh to a shepherd tending sheep in the wilderness. He lost everything. But it was Moses that God used to set the Israelites free from slavery. That’s kind of a big deal.

The bible seems to be full of people who in their loss, in their mistakes, in their grief, trusted God and waited, and out of that came a redemption plan that reached so far beyond their own imaginations. Greater purposes came from those messy situations, where what was taken or lost got replaced with something so much greater, something that stretched so far beyond meeting their own needs into meeting the needs of others.

When things are broken we can try to fix them so that they become exactly what they were before. We can see redemption as getting back what we had before and nothing else. But sometimes we need to just put the broken pieces in the hands of God, trusting that He, as the ultimate and most incredible creator we know, will take those pieces and make the most beautiful mosaic, something that will reach out and bring purpose, destiny, healing and redemption not only to our own lives, but to the lives of many other people.

I love this so much about God. That His creativity is not limited to the earth and the things He has made or done in the past. He is endlessly creative in the ways He engages with us; His provision, His interaction with us, the way He brings healing and restoration, all done differently for each individual, a masterpiece He paints differently for each of us. Even His redemption is creative beyond our comprehension, beyond anything we could ask or imagine in our wildest dreams.

“When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body” – 1 Corinthians 15:37-38

We can be like seeds that get crushed. But it would be ridiculous to try and gather all the tiny parts of a seed and try to put it back together again, as it was before. We would know that this brokenness, the crushing of the seed, put in the right hands and given the right care, can grow into the most incredible tree, that brings life, fruit and shelter to many others for years to come.

I want to be able to trust that God, the first and ultimate artist, is the one who determines what kind of plant the crushed seeds of my life will become. What a relief, because every time I have had a plan in my head and I’ve finally let it go and let God take control, what grows is mind-blowing, overwhelming, something I never could have predicted or created.

It actually makes my own plans look ridiculous.

That is creative redemption, and day by day I am absolutely loving seeing it happen in my own life, and in the lives of others.

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Mar 17

Lent Meditations – Film 6


This is the sixth in a set of six films I was commissioned to make for Scripture Union’s ‘Word Live’ website. The concept and writing for all six films was done by Alex Taylor and Becca Dean.

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