Eaton Ford - Grass and flowers

This was a very unusual evening. Dot joined us and arrived ahead of everyone else, Chris was still pushing the vacuum cleaner around as they were late home and had run out of time so she helped finish the washing up and then we took coffees through to the conservatory. Donna also joined us this week, then Sean arrived and told us that because of family committments he'd need to leave early tonight, and the minutes ticked by and there was still no sign of Jim. Then finally, just as Sean was leaving, Jim arrived after a meeting at work that had overrun.

We did spend some time in prayer, but most of the time was spent planning out the basic design for the youth camp leaflet. We showed Dot the 2007 camp video which she hadn't seen before, and we decided on a folded A4 leaflet with the main details on the front in colour, a centre spread of further information for parents, and notes on how to apply on the back cover.

Dot shared a vision she'd had recently. She was walking through a desert, a barren landscape of boulders and sand. The boulders were too large to move and it was terribly hard work walking in the dry sand. Then she noticed that the path she was walking along was turning green and there were little flowers underfoot too. The green path stretched behind her, marking out the route she had taken. Ahead she could see only desert and a little gully where there was a stream. And she understood that when she walked near the stream, the green path became more lush and healthy, but if she strayed away from the stream the green carpet thinned out and became more sandy again.

Great Doddington - Tiny buds

There were many people on our hearts for prayer today, family and friends.

Sherrelea spoke about the judge and the nagging widow and how we should never give up in prayer. Jody mentioned Lamentations 3:22-25. The Lord's compassion and grace are 'new every morning', that is how faithful he is!

Then Jody saw a dead-looking branch of vine, but when she looked closely she noticed that there were tiny buds. And she prophesied, 'When things seem to be dead in the winter, there is still life. It may look dead to you, but it's not dead to me. So don't be anxious. Enjoy the sunshine and the clouds in the sky above, rest in me, have no fear or doubt.'

Chris shared a picture of a tethered goat. And Father said, 'You are not goats, you are the sheep of my flock. You're not tethered to a stake by a rope, but you are tethered to me by my love for you and by your love for me. You are free to wander within the range of my love, and my love reaches you everywhere. You are never beyond reach, you are safe wherever you go, whatever you do - for you are mine.'

In connection with someone Sherrelea knows, Sue said, 'J is going down a corridor, and the doors are closing as he passes by. he is being guided into the truth.'

Glenn read proverbs 31 about the wife of noble character and he felt this was especially relevant for one of us in the meeting. He also shared an experience he'd had many years ago when he'd been afraid of financial failure and was reluctant to pay some bills because there was no income to cover them. But the Lord took away this fear and he went ahead and wrote cheques to cover all the bills (though the funds were not in the bank). On his way home the following day he had a call from a client to say that a large and unexpected cheque was on the point of going out to him. This unexpected amount covered all the outstanding bills.

And finally Sherrelea read Ecclesiastes 3:9-11

Eaton Ford - Empty barn?

While we were chatting this evening and considering prayer needs, Jim's mobile rang with news that a friend's toddler granddaughter had just fallen downstairs and been taken to hospital. We prayed for her and for all the family, and heard later that she was home from hospital with no ill effects.

As we moved into a time of quiet peace in the Lord's presence, Jim reminded us that, 'Even though the barns are empty, I will rejoice in the Lord' (Habakkuk 3:17-18). He pointed out that when we face difficulties in our lives we have to get through them, and often this involves praise and thankfulness despite the problems.

We spent most of the evening considering how to proceed with the youth camp now that we know the school field will not be available. We discussed the kind of leaflet we would need for a door-to-door drop and what information we should put on it.

Eaton Ford (day) - Talking and eating

Roger was unable to make it today, but as usual we spent some time discussing issues in our lives and the lives of friends and family, prayed for some of these needs, chatted informally, and shared a simple lunch together.

Great Doddington - Forest bridge

We talked about Canada for a while, and Jody wondered whether it's right in principle to go or not. We often know what we would like to happen in our lives, and obstacles and difficulties often get in the way, but how do we discern what is right?

Glenn referred to Jeremiah 32 in which Jeremiah buys a field. He has to follow the right process and there is a due process we must go through in everything we do. There's a promise of restoration here, nothing is too hard for the Lord to do.

Jody had a vision of a forest. She saw how the light changes, and there were so very many different shades of green. Looking deeper into the wood she saw a bridge made of the materials produced by the woodland itself. Trunks of trees, rough-cut branches, but with a wire mesh on the footway to prevent people from slipping. She felt that Father wants us to see that the walk we are on encompasses the whole wood, not just one little part of it.

Rachael saw a picture too, this time of people going both ways along a road. Some of them seemed to be on fire, and this seemed to suggest the Holy Spirit. She prayed, 'We want to be on fire for you, burned up by you'.

Chris brought a prophecy. The Lord said, 'I have a throne-room, and it's in your heart. But who will you place upon that throne? Will you put my Son in that place, will you enthrone him in your heart. Or will you put yourself in that place?

We spent some time praying for various people and situations.

Are you an edgling?

Stowe Boyd is a computing/internet/techie guru. He's the kind of guy who tweets from conference sessions every few seconds and he's almost always worth following. He has his ear firmly on society's sounding board, and he picks up and comments on the most subtle of vibrations.

Back in 2006 he wrote a blog post highlighting the way that influence in modern society is moving from 'centroids' to 'edglings'. You might like to consider which term best describes you.

What he wrote about industry, government, and society is equally true for the church. It's uncanny. We think 'house church' is unrelated to developments in society generally, but it's just part of a much wider trend. House church folks are 'edglings' par excellence.

Stowe Boyd - Stowe is what Wolfgang Simson would rightly call a prophet. He may or may not be a believer, but he is a man who sees core issues. He recognises the difference between the day-to-day view of the majority and unborn megatrends that are bubbling beneath the surface. He knows they will burst out soon and surprise everybody. How does a prophet know these things? Prophets don't know in some mysterious way, they are sensitive to tiny vibrations that others miss, subtleties of heart, mind, spirit. When they speak of these things they often go unheard, they are commonly rejected as fools, interfering busybodies, or enemies of the state.

Here are some quotes from Stowe's 2006 post, see how they mesh with the recent growth of house churches worldwide.

Personally, I favor the term Edgling because I want to move away from media metaphors, and use economic or sociological ones. This is not about who is "producing content" and who is "consuming" it: which is the basic paradigm of media thinking. Instead, it is about control moving from the central, large, mass-market organizations -- which includes media companies, but also other large organizations, like government, religious organizations, and so on -- out to the individuals -- we, the people -- at the edge.

As power moves from the center to the edge the "Centroids" -- those that hold with the centralized power of an industrial era -- will scream about all the negatives that they perceive in the out-of-control future that threatens the basis of their worldview. But the Edglings will find it liberating to get out of the stranglehold on information, communication, and the marketplace that centralized organizations attempt to impose.

Centroid or edgling? - Does that ring any bells? Take a look at Stowe's list of characteristics...

	Centroids	Edglings
Work and Politics	Top-down, authoritarian	Bottom-up, egalitarian
Point-of-View	Objective, Impartial	Subjective, Partial
Belonging	Hierarchies	Networks
Family	Nuclear	Post-nuclear networks
Political scope	Nationalism	Regionalism
Media	Mainstream	Participative
Culture	Monocultural	Multicultural
Environment	Exploitative, Unsustainable	Restorative, Sustainable
Spirituality	Centralized, Dogmatic, Outside of Nature	Decentralized, Enigmatic, Nature based

George Barna - You might like to compare this with George Barna's comments in his book 'Revolution'. Here's an extract from p 13-14...

I want to show you what our research has uncovered regarding a growing sub-nation of people, already well over 20 million strong, who are what we call Revolutionaries ... They have no use for churches that play religious games ... worship services that drone on without the presence of God ... ministries that compromise ... people in ministry ... who seek popularity ... man-made monuments ... accredited degrees.

There's a fresh wind blowing through the church as also through society. People sense that it's time to move on, to change the rules, to move from organisations with centralised authority to organic groups at the periphery, where the edglings are living and meeting in a fresh, new way.

It's no longer about organisations, it's about an organism that is alive and can reproduce in a natural way.