i saw you far away...

The Big Day Out was a hit for young people that came from across the county for much fun and laughter on Saturday. The day was filled with various challenges, around a theme of ‘finding our way’. In the morning I encouraged everyone to say yes to Jesus’ invitation to ‘come follow me’, and we set out to embarrass ourselves by challenges including: putting as many members of the public in telephone boxes, getting photo taken in the back of police cars and randomly directing tourists to the nearest toilets, to name but a few.

Even though I was a leader, I got heartily stuck in to Lazer Tag and became strangely competitive. Made it to 3rd on one game, whereas Steve Bullock remained the champion at 1st for all three games – that guy is a legend!

I’ve just ordered a large poster of the return of the prodigal son. I love this painting of Rembrandt's, and I love it all the more because of Henri Nouwen’s book ‘the return of the prodigal son – a story of homecoming’. The challenge that both the younger and elder son are both lost, and the Father goes out to both of them, welcoming them back home. And that we too are meant to become like the Father 'to only do what we see him doing'... Incredible...

If it comes through in time, we’ll hopefully whack it up on a wall for our next 24hrs of prayer coming up this weekend. It’s funny how pictures can speak of God profoundly. A lot more so than words sometimes. Using different and creative ways to communicate is an interesting exploration, especially when putting together prayer rooms.

I’m reminded of Punk Monk’s chapter on ‘creativity’, about how being creative is worship because it is a response to the Creator. He created out of nothing, yet we can only be creative out of created things. Awesome.

There’s that joke too – the one with the scientists who claim they can do what God has achieved. God puts them to the test and challenges them to create Man. They get straight to work, going and finding some soil and bringing it back to the lab. God interrupts. “eh hem, you find your own soil”…!