The reality of idols...

You might have guessed if you know me well that it wouldn't take long to give my allegience to a football team in Italy. You'd be right and living in Rome it seemed oh so natural that that team be the Giallorossi, AS Roma, and since tickets aren't half as expensive as the Premier League I've even been able to go and watch three games at Stadio Olimpico!

Ok, I haven't blogged for the first time in forever to tell you I became a Roma fan, but more to talk about this fella...


Francesco Totti, il capitano (recipient of the language transferable football song "C'e solo un Capitano"), basically this guy is not a guy he's THE guy. That said he's 33 and arguably very much passed it in the eyes of much of the football world albeit still a hugely gifted and skillful player.

Anyway I digress. Francesco Totti is loved in Rome perhaps more than any other human being and, despite my Roma fan nature, it's really quite disturbing. Yes, the title of this blog wasn't a trick to get you to read about football, it's something football is teaching me afresh.

Totti is a hero, a son of Rome playing for Rome's team, a representation of the people of the eternal city, he's an idol in every sense of the word. Before each game they end the announcement of the team sheet at ten players and then there's the biggest din imagineable, an intense drum roll and then the fans rather than the PA man announces Totti into the starting line up. His title (il Capitano) is chanted and sung throughout the game and every time he gets the ball the expectation level rises four notches. The Romans worship this guy far more than God and it cuts to the quick every time I go to a game.

I was at the game this past Sunday against Sampdoria, Roma had a terrible start to the season but have since gone on a 25 match unbeaten run to claw back Inter Milan and finally take over at the top of the league, Inter won on Saturday to go back to the top but four straight wins would give Roma the Championship anyway. The racket on Sunday was unbelievable, Totti was there to lead the team, everything was well...that was until Sampdoria won the game 2-1, ended the unbeaten run and almost certainly handed Inter the league title. Totti was crushed, the crowd was silent, equally devastated.

And that's the thing about idols, they fail. They don't mean to, they don't try to it's just the reality of putting ultimate trust in something or someone other than God. It hurt on many levels on Sunday but the thing that hurt most was seeing thousands of people failed by the person they believed in more than anyone else and there's no question that hurt him more. It wasn't Totti's fault, in reality he played pretty well, it was just the inevitable catching up with everyone, idol's fail you anyway.

It's sobering to watch reality smack 80,000 idol worshippers in the mouth (and those 80,000 only represent the rest who didn't get tickets) but it's even more sobering to look into my own soul and realise the idols I have. I love Jesus, He's number one, but when I look inside I find so many other things that I allow to have idolatrous power in my life, if all my worship isn't trained on Christ then my soul will find something else to worship instead. I'm just finishing up reading Counerfeit God's by Tim Keller, which is an incredible book on the subject that sheds light on some of the big (and small) idols that can so easily take root in our souls. It's one of those books that punches you in the stomach every time you turn the page and strips away some of the excuses we make to protect those idols we just don't want to let go.

I've started praying for Francesco Totti, he's a leader and if the Lord gets a hold of him he could bring massive change in Rome for Jesus. I'm also praying for every heart in this city that worships him that God would reveal Himself to them, that they could see that He is the only one who will never fail them and the only one truly worthy of their worship.

You might not idolise Francesco Totti, but are there other things or people setting themselves up as gods in your life?

The last 72 hours...

...have been crazy. Simple as. The short news is the Agape UK National Office is moving from Tyseley in the outskirts of Birmingham to Birmingham City Centre!

In the words of my boss Martin, here is the craziness of this week...

The last 48 hours have been a blur of Gods sovereign provision in the Tyseley office – Why?

Tuesday 4.00pm

Fran and I were driving back from a week’s support raising in Sussex and received a call from Peter Hunt to say that the owners of Fairgate House have served 28 days notice for us to vacate the office!

Wednesday 9.30am

We met with the building manager Jeff (with whom we have a great friendship going back 12 years) who offered us a smaller office for more rent per square foot than we were already paying. Under the terms of our agreement they are entitled to ask us to move giving 28 days notice – but not providing like for like and increasing our charges is pretty audacious. But, God is audacious too and his plans can never be thwarted:

But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people he chose for his inheritance. (Ps 33:11,12).

We had three options:

1) Agree to the new terms.

2) Shrink to a skeleton crew and actively seek a new premises in the city centre (a plan we have been working towards for the longer term anyway)

3) Move into somewhere else, but where in 28 days?

1.00pm

Phil Jackman knew that the Birmingham City Cathedral had unoccupied office space in the dead centre of the city. One call later we had a meeting to view - the Cathedral staff bending over backwards to help us.

2.45pm

Me, Andy Dixon and Phil Jackman look round – and think “wow” this is a great opportunity to realise our plans for the future and have a city centre base for the ministry as well as a national office. Phil already uses part of the space for his workplace ministry and it will help us develop much closer working partnerships with the Christian community in the city. The Cathedral ask us to name our price!

4.00pm

Office team pray like billy-ho

5.00 pm

I inform the Cathedral of the amount we can afford.

Thursday 10.00am

The Operations & HR teams meet to discuss options and pray and the general feeling is of great faith for what the Lord seems to be doing.

10.30am

The Cathedral accept our offer.

3.00pm

NLT agree to proceed and we meet with the Cathedral to discuss terms and conditions.

5.00pm

Meet with the Fairgate House manager to inform them we are not taking up the new option.

5.30pm

Receive Legal agreement on new premises and arrange Wednesday 28^th at 10.15am for contract signing, keys hand over and initial plans for computer networking!! And we’re in!!

God has provided a grade A office facility for us in the space of 48 hours – how amazing is He!

So here it is……

Back to Birmingham

Well I am back; I got back almost two weeks ago now, sorry it's been a while since I last updated!

The last two weeks of X-Track got crazy, there was a lot to be done and wrapped up before I flew out of Colorado to attend my friends Seth and Betsy's wedding (right) just outside Akron, Ohio leaving Lauren in Fort Collins to enjoy the US Staff Conference. From there I flew back to England the following day, in hindsight that was probably a little more travel in the space of two days than I bargained for!

I really enjoyed my classes this summer and feel so much better prepared to head to Italy in January. Some of the things I learnt this summer will have a massive impact on how I do ministry there not least the stuff about missiological dilemmas. Another thing that will really stick with me is the community I have been a part of this summer. It's so significant to know that I now have 60 or so friends heading overseas just as I am, people I'll always have a connection with and get chance to spend time with all over the world. I ended my time there with a goodbye party, a cookout in the canyon at Gateway Natural Area up in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It's a truly beautiful place and a group of about 20 of us had a great time eating, fishing and enjoying nature! My personal favourite aspect was "Herman's Honey BBQ Chicken" which was incredible, watching him cook it was as much a part of the experience as eating it!

Since I've been back I have been getting acclimatised once again and working through all the emails and messages I've missed in the seven weeks I was away. Things are coming on well for the staff conference which starts August 18th and I've seen some excellent progress on Fireseeds too! I've also been busy putting together a newsletter which will hopefully get finished and mailed sometime this week!

Life doesn't slow down but I'm so thankful for all that God is doing! Thanks for all your support and prayers!

4th July

This past weekend was 4th July...it's always an interesting day to be British in America!

We had a fun time; at lunchtime we had a BBQ and bake off competition, there were lots of impressive entries as you can see. Sadly in the early afternoon the rain came down in a pretty big mountain storm! We made the best of it and had some fun in the hot tub.

The best news of the day was Lauren winning the bake off with her chocolate pound cake with raspberry and chocolate ganosh! I'm very proud of her and was also particularly pleased with my contribution, grating a dairy milk bar onto the top of the cake...the British got a piece of the winning entry, how ironic! As you can see, Lauren was very pleased with her creation!

We have also had a fun week thinking about biblical culture, contextualisation and missiological dilemmas; it's always interesting to try and figure out whether we should be telling a new Muslim background believer whether or not they should continue to go to the Mosque at risk of being excommunicated from their family or continue to go and simply pray to the Christian God. Far less straightforward than it might sound!

Yesterday Lauren and I also spent a fun afternoon in the mountains...life in Colorado really is beautiful! We took a walk along the Poudre river and enjoyed some of the amazing scenary as youu can see below.

I can't believe we are into our last 2 weeks of X-Track, things are going by so far and yet there's so much more to learn!!

Pulling weeds.

Today was my least favourite day of X-Track. Community service day spent in a natural area pulling up weeds and grass from overgrown areas set aside for native bushes. I got rashes on my arms. My hands hurt.

It got better stopping by Odell's Brewery on the way home for a cold one and then relaxing in the pool. It now got worse again with the onset of a big mountain storm. I'm actually glad tomorrow is back in the classroom.

Singles Weekend

This past weekend we had our X-Track Singles Retreat. I took some time on a hike in the mountains to give you an update on what has been going on as well as give you a sight of the beautiful Rockies!

High Ropes, Low Ropes, No Ropes.

I cannot believe how fast my X-Track classes are flying by; sorry for being blog absent for a week!

This past week has been fun, our classes have ranged from learning about the affects of living overseas on kids to figuring out how to avoid health problems and my one to on language learning!

Language learning has been interesting; being the only beginner Italian speaker I've been having one to one tuition from my friend Nicole who has lived in Florence for the past 7 years! It's been great fun, everyone is saying I have picked up lots of things very fast which is nice of them although I feel like some of my knowledge is pretty abstract. My current favourite phrase is "il coccodrillo sta mangiando Matt Mikalatos" Matt is the director of the conference, I'll let you figure out what I'm saying! Here to the right are those of us who will be in Italy, left to right are Nicole (Florence), Amy (Rome), Cassie & Matt (Florence) and Lauren and I.

We have also been busy doing community service every Wednesday to help us develop our team work and serving; it has been really fun (much to my surprise). The first week I visited an old lady and helped work in her garden and last week I went up into the prairie (left) and ripped ouot barb wire fencing for the city! Apparently antelope like to go underneath fences so we weree pulling out the bottom two rows of wire on the fences to give them space. It was blazing hot but a great time to connect with people and see wildlife like prairie dogs, antelope, mountain goats and even rattlesnakes!

I'm sure you're curious about the obscure title to this post. Yesterday we headed up into the Rocky Mountain National Park to do some team building exercises. Initially we had been told it was a high ropes course and last week an email told us it was in fact a low ropes course. When we finally got there there were no ropes and in many ways it was quite a disappointing time beyond the beautiful scenary and good relational bonding. Here is an example of how beautiful it is up in the mountains!

Tomorrow night those of us from Western Europe are hosting "A Taste of Western Europe" with foods from the different countries; I'll be making bangers and mash...I hope it represents British food in a glorious light even if I'm not Gordon Ramsey!

At the end of this week I'll be heading off into the mountains again for the X-Track singles weekend! I have no idea what it'll be like but we are staying for a couple of nights in Breckenridge (where I skiied back in the winter of 2006!) I don't know what to expect but it should be fun with over 30 singles (and even some of the married couples without kids are joining us the second day!)

I hope all is well with you, life is moving fast out here but the Lord is good and is teaching me great things!