Colourful Dreamer

About six years ago I spent a week in Ireland, both bits. One of the coolest things I did was go to the launch of an album put together for an alternative worship group called Ikon. This was a collection of music particularly by Jonny McEwan (Dubh) and Padraig O Tuama , I also met Jonny Baker from Grace . He helped set up Proost , an online presence for accessing some cool resources for groups looking at entering into the world of alternative worship, and well, offering inspiring resources that fuel faith. Anyhow, I really enjoyed the CD from Ikon, called Dubh. I even brought a boxful back to NZ with me to sell, which I had great fun doing, or giving away. And I had wondered if they had done any more. Today I got the regular newsletter from Proost , and there were two new albums from Dubh, (Jonny McEwan) and links to albums by Padraig. It has made my day. I have now downloaded some of them and am enjoying the mellow tunes playing while I avoid phone calls and getting on with s...

Kia ora I ahve just finished our major youth event, national anglican youth forum. This is one of my hihglights for the year, partly because it is young people that organise and run most of it, which is enormously life giving, and at times really stressful. They do things differently from me, and are at times way more conservative in their spoken attitudes. (I am not so sure about their behaviour though). For me, this event is the living out of what I am on about, offering young people the tradition that has given me life, and then giving htem permission to recreate it. The worship services are mixed, and liturgical, and nothing like what I expereince at church, or what soem people say young people want. They are creative, at times reflective, sometimes loud. And they speak to young people because young people have organised them. And I am about to go to the Solomons for a week with the Franciscans. You know our motto, join the Franciscans and see the world. I am a little nervous, and ...

This is the edited version of what Ben has sent me. My response follows. Hey Ya I actually don’t disagree with any of this – I think there is an inherent weakness in taking the “I” model too far, but I think the same about taking “we” too far as well. In fact if you’d just simple said Yes, we as individuals need to respond and make it out own, and so we need the “I” songs, but they need to be put into the context of us as God’s community In your blog then I would have been in complete agreement – a balance that allows for individual ownership of a relationship with God as a member of all of God’s people both living and departed. We actually facilitate this by a) writing songs that reflect “we” (like - We want to walk with you or Almighty God…which is actually just from the prayerbook) cos to be honest there aren’t that many good “we” songs out there b) Changing songs that can easily be changed such as Jesus be the centre (be OUR source…) and “Open the eyes of OUR heart” However I also ...