Rising Dawn

Sign from above for city club (From York Press)

A CHURCH has used the renaming of a refurbished York nightclub to put out its own message.

A poster outside St Edward’s Church on Tadcaster Road declares: “SALVATION… more than a nightclub.”

But the marketing people behind Club Salvation – formerly Nexus – in George Hudson Street reckon God moves in mysterious ways.

Following my earlier rant about Salvation - the club - placing a promotion outside The Salvation Army it’s good to see another York church getting in on the act. But it’s one of those eternal dilemmas. At what point are you just creating more promotion for the event you object to. Two sayings come to mind. Imitation is flattery and All publicity is good publicity. 

The fact still remains Salvation is not found in a Night Club.

This the derelict former parish church of Pateley Bridge in Nidderdale. It’s up a very steep hill. The faithful would have paid a penence every time they attended just for enduring the gradient.

Which is the real thing?

Originally uploaded by Dawnriser

There’s new night club opening in York. It’s called Salvation. This morning I noticed this phone box advert for the new club sited right outside the Salvation Army.

I had already sounded my own Hurumph about the use of the name Salvation for a night club, but there’s something cynical about the juxtaposition of the club and the church in this commercial way surely designed to exploit the real Salvation of the Christian gospel.
It looks set to insult the fervent faith of members of the Salvation Army. These honest, disciplined, tee total adherents of the Christian Faith stand in stark contrast to the debauchery, drunkenness and licentiousness that defines the city’s nightclubs.
I’m reminded of a new testament scripture that says of Jesus Christ “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
So I leave you to judge - if you needed Salvation which would you go to - the night club or the church?

Planning moves into a new gear to prepare for my sponsored cycle ride to raise money to bring Palestinian Students to the Riding Lights Summer School.

This is route I plan to take

View Larger Map

I start the circular route in Grassington and travel through Leyburn, Hawes, Settle, and Malham before returning to the start after 105 miles. You will notice that it will take me up some challenging inclines. I plan to ride the route in two days with an extra day at the end just in case of any delays, bouts of exhaustion, heavy storms or other hazards.
To sponsor me click here.

Next month I am mounting my trusty steed and peddling round 100 miles of the Yorkshire Dales. It’s a sponsored ride to raise money for the Riding Lights Summer School.

To sponsor me follow this link and make your donation. 

Specifically I’m doing the ride to raise money to bring four students from the Christian Palestinian Community in Bethlehem to the UK. They will join the summer school and return home with new skills to help their community to tell their story.

This follows from the Theatre Company’s production of Salaam Bethlehem last year.

Riding Lights - Past Shows
SALAAM BETHLEHEM
A Riding Lights Theatre Company Production

For the past 18 months we have been making steady progress towards a new play for the season of Advent running right up to Christmas 2007. A play with undertones for all our Christmases, Bridget Foremans SALAAM BETHLEHEM is set in the little town today where the streets are definitely darker beneath the concrete slabs but where the everlasting light still shines.

In May last year we met some of the dwindling Palestinian Christian community, discovering a remarkable range of people whose simple message to Riding Lights was Pray for us, tell our story, visit us.

Before anyone jumps to conclusions and because both inside and outside the Church issues to do with Israel seem to be so contentious… this is not a political play… or it is only political insofar as anything that deals with people is naturally political. We are not colouring in a new roadmap for the Middle East peace process. We are seeking to stand alongside brothers and sisters in the church of Christ. And how grateful all of us should be that they are still there.

MySpace.com - York Youth Mysteries - www.myspace.com/yorkyouthmysteries

York Youth Mysteries - A day of free performance in and around the streets of York City Centre. 21st June 2008!

Riding Lights Youth Theatre is performing one of the plays. It’ll be a fascinating day. Just what will our young people make of the traditional bible stories?

Find out in the streets of York on June 21st, 11am - 5pm

BBC - Nottingham - Faith - God made my leg grow
God made my leg grow
BBC Radio Nottingham presenter Frances Finn has witnessed a miracle. Watch the footage captured on a mobile phone.

This story was mentioned in the sermon at church this evening. You have to watch the footage to see what happens. The event seems to take place without any hype, drama or displays of emotionalism. Just polite applause once the leg has grown.

What do you think?

  The chief executive at the prayer breakfast

I had breakfast with Bill McCarthy,  the Chief Exec of the City of York Council. I joined about 40 leaders from churches in the city for one of their occasional prayer breakfasts in The Spurriergate Centre organised by One Voice York. Key leaders from the city are invited to talk frankly about their expectations of the churches and we spend time praying in response.

This morning Bill McCarthy appealed to us to welcome the strangers and the disadvantaged into the city. While only four percent of York’s population is from outside the UK, it’s the fastest growing sector. He said it was important to integrate these new people into York and he asked for our help. There were leaders representing a broad range of churches from Independent Pentecostal to Roman Catholics, Mr McCarthy’s own persuasion.  There’s a longer report about the event on the One Voice site.

Forgiveness

“What, I wonder, do Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and all the other professional atheists who make good money out of knocking people’s religious faith make of the behaviour of Margaret Mizen in the immediate aftermath of her son Jimmy’s murder?” 

Justin Thacker, Head of Theology at EA, writing in The Friday Night Theology 

The brutal unprovoked killing of Jimmy Mizen left me wondering if anyone was safe in this advanced corner of civilisation called Britain. Then I heard his mother speaking coherently about the love of God and of the people in her church and how she had been supported by their care. I remember hearing similar voices from close family of victims of violence here in my own country. Safety from violent and evil men isn’t guaranteed either here or anywhere else in the world. But universal access to the love of God and the power to forgive is. It’s up to me to accept it.

The Friday Night Theology is a weekly piece from the Evangelical Alliance designed to provoke discussion over the weekend. It’s usually based on a significant event in the news - so it’s topical.

Simon Jenkins: When it comes to kissing and telling, you cant beat this 15th-century gadget
I am baffled as to why this medium is still so derided by futurology gurus. My bulging file marked “death of the book” stretches back almost half a century. Alvin Toffler in 1962 declared in a book that the practice of smearing ink on dead trees was “the last smokestack industry” and would die. A decade ago, Geoffrey Nunberg, in The Future of the Book, declared that “if by books we mean bound printed volumes, then most books will likely disappear soon”. He wisely proffered no date.

I was listening to another series of comments inspired by Cherie Blair’s memoirs as I was reading The Guardian (electronically) and came across Simon Jenkyns column. I’m fascinated by the way our thoughts so often lead us to the medium rather than the message, and here again it’s the book that’s more interesting than the memoir.

Christians were once known as the people of the book, but in their case the message is far more dynamic than the medium. As someone said recently in his observation of Christians, before he became one himself. ”

Christians are these people who are so judgemental, incredibly dull and uptight and yet they believe in something that is so insane it makes Lord of the Rings sound like a dull episode of the Archers.

 If you want to hear the whole talk it was given by Charlie Mackesy at Holy Trinity Brompton recently. You’ll love his jokes!

New Technology is still a million miles away from displacing the book - even now the only advantage of reading on screen is the immediacy - otherwise old tech print wins hands down for me.