The year of 'buying no new stuff'

It's that time of year when the world seems endless with potential and change; today is the day when the change begins and out of last years failures rises a  new and fresh opportunity to become more of who we want to be. I love a New Year challenge and this year is no exception.

My last purchase in 2013.
I hope they will remind me to be a wise old owl
and stop shopping!

This is the year of 'buying no new stuff' for me ( and to varying degrees, my family). Gulp. I am very excited about this but also a little bit scared. Scared because I am going to find it painful and inconvenient and it is going to challenge my primitive need to consume to the core. But I want that challenge. Where as once upon a time the need to acquire meant to survive, or not, it now means more and greater excess, and I'm not sure it makes us happy. And its certainly not good for our beautiful gift of the earth.

My main reason for not buying new stuff this year is I am worried about the state of the earth. We consume as though the earth's resources are infinite and that the waste we produce just disappears when it is out of our sight.             Unfortunately it does not. And that has all sorts of consequences. 

I also want to challenge my need to consume and acquire. I am a consumer more than I care to be or admit. I was not made for this. And I am ready to learn to be content with what we have (which is loads, shed loads). Contentment is going to be key.

So, the rules.

1. Buy nothing new. As in, shiny, out the packet, never been used by anyone else.

2. It is ok to buy second hand items. But, to challenge my need to consume, (gulp), only when we need something.

3. We can buy food and toiletries. (But with an attitude of 'let's use what we've got first'). And pants if we need them! Oh, and perhaps printer ink.

There will be lots of challenges, and perhaps a few fails (where do I get a second hand Brownie gilet which doesn't haven't have someone else's badges all over it?), but I also hope to discover lots of fun stuff, I look forward to greater creativity, contentment and time. I guess I might even have some more money, which could be used for fun times. Happy days.

I look forward to sharing my journey with you over the next months.

I would love to hear your new years challenges or resolutions, please leave a comment.

May you have a wonderful start to 2014, full of peace and joy.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to share this post if you would like to.

'They had everything in common'... It's time to share about the 'Sharing Project'!

So, its high time I told you about 'The Sharing Project'. I have been thinking about it for a while, but just sort of didn't get around to it, you know how it is. Tonight, I feel compelled to share, because I kinda think every church should have one. Its so easy, such fun, and well, just so biblical. For longer than I dare to remember I have been pondering how as a church we can 'share' our stuff. The early church 'had everything in common' (Acts 2v44) but in our individualised busy lives how do we do that today? Ponder, ponder. So, I raise the topic with my dear Women's Group, and we ponder together. After some toing and froing we decide that a Facebook page might be our answer. That night 'The Sharing Project@St Mary's Loughton' was born.

Basically, the Facebook page can be used to give things away, make request for things, offer to lend things and ask to borrow things. Over the last few months, hundreds of transactions have been made. Finished with your travel cot? Make a post, and if it is useful to someone they can say 'yes please', or words to that effect. If more than one person would like an item their names go into a hat, real or otherwise, and a 'winner' is decided. We have given away everything from seafood sticks, to shampoo, to clothes, to furniture, to plants, to crepe paper. Toys feature strongly. Even a Cath Kidston bag.  No money is involved, we're simply passing on stuff that we no longer need, to those to whom it would be useful. So many times, stuff has been posted that others really needed, and were about to buy, that I think God is enjoying this as much as we are. Yesterday, A posted that she had some unopened orange crepe paper to give away, amazingly this is the day before B is about to hunt around town for orange crepe paper for a craft project at toddler church! This sort of thing has happened so many times, bikes, TV units, hairdryers, its just fun, and a real money saving blessing! Sometimes people make requests and so often receive what they were after.

As well as giving things away, we are up for sharing our stuff too! We have a document on the page which details what we have to share. My steam cleaner has so far had three outings, and my bouncy castle went to a party. Inspirational Christian books and videos are inspiring lots of people rather than sitting on a shelf. We are also free to make requests to borrow things. Somethings you just need for a short period and probably wouldn't use again. I have recently borrowed blow up neck cushions, travel adaptors and have responded to a request for a booster car seat. Make a request and within an hour or so, someone has probably got one you can borrow.

The obvious benefit of The Sharing Project is that is saves us some money. For some, this is really significant. If you don't have much money, and you can receive what you need as a gift, it can mean a lot.  For others it might mean that more money is available, and perhaps that money could be used for Kingdom purposes. Our personal giving to our church is changed significantly because there is so much we are given. We are so blessed to receive, for instance, clothes for our children, and we are thrilled to be able to pass on the money that we would have spent on them for eternal purposes instead. However, there is no expectation of this. God loves to give us gifts just to bless us. And blessed we have been!

Another benefit of the Project is the building up of community. What starts in a virtual reality has to become real because the stuff we are sharing is, of course, real. So, the reality is, we all turn up at church with bags of stuff to give to people. Many people we will know. However, some we won't, and so introductions are made, bags given and friendships formed. People cross from one side of the church to the other to do this, its amazing! And so easy!

The fun gets even more exciting when we are able to bless folks we know outside of our church community, as a witness to the love of God we have received. Sometimes we hear of people who have a particular need, we make a request and are able to bless them. Recently we did a local mission, and went about practically loving people in Loughton. One team went to clean a ladies house. While there they discovered that her bed was broken. A request was made, a bed frame found, the man with the van offered to pick it up, bed linen and duvet sorted out, one person researched a good quality mattress and four people chipped in to buy it. The process probably took a couple of hours, and within a week the lady had a new bed. She has also started coming to church.

What has really compelled me to write today is a post made this evening. One of our church members, who has been coming for the last few months and who has very recently become a Christian, has finally escaped a situation of domestic violence and abuse, and has been rehoused with her three children. However, she has NOTHING to put in her house, other than her children's clothes. She needs everything. A friend of hers put the request out, she needs everything a house needs... I kind of chocked up when I read the post an hour after it had appeared. There were 26 comments. A few hours after that there are 69.  Everyone offering things that would be useful, chairs, sofas, beds, bed linen, toys for the children, a table, a new washing machine, fridge, plates, cups, cutlery, mattresses, cushion covers to be made in the ladies favourite colour, curtains, an iron, the list goes on and on. I know our church is full of amazing and generous people, and tonight I was so blessed to see it. This simple channel of a Facebook page means we can quickly and easily bless someone in real need. How else could we have done this? I'm sure there are ways, and I know the church would have been happy to provide some money to help, but this just seems so easy. Tonight the family rallied when one of its members needs became known.

All this makes me think that every church should have a Sharing Project, for all the reasons above. It is really easy to set up, and really easy to manage (we just delete our posts when the items are gone, or requests fulfilled, we also have a few documents for stuff that can be borrowed). For those that don't have a Facebook account we make posts for them. We have kept it just to church members, otherwise it would quickly become an all over town thing and the sense of community would disappear, however, we love to bless people outside of church who we know.

Please think about if you could start one, it really is great fun and a real channel of God's blessing in so many ways.

Please do share this with your friends, I would love the word to spread!

I must remember that I am their teacher

It has occurred to me recently that I have forgotten what an important role I have as a teacher in my children's lives. The role of caring both practically and emotionally remains fairly obvious to me, but that of teacher somehow slips fairly easily out of view. I don't know about you, but sometimes I get exasperated with my children for not being exactly how I want them to be. I somehow expect them to just 'get' things that I no longer have to think much about because at some point they became a habit. Today my middle poppet had a friend around to play. I was getting rather frustrated that she wasn't engaging properly with her friend, making sure that her friend was doing something that she enjoyed and that she was feeling welcome (surely watching the telly is not an ideal playdate!). I then realised that I hadn't actually talked to her about the importance of making people feel welcome and how to be hospitable.  Or even how to be a good friend. It needs to be part of my role to teach her such things, I can't just blame her for not getting it!

Each of our children, with their different personalities, will find some things easier than others. I can see that my boy (2) has a more natural 'tidy gene' than my older poppets. It will still need to be nurtured, but I think order will come more easily to him, its just who he is. Some children seem to just 'get' habits and routines, others just don't. I remember being genuinely amazed when a little girl who was having a sleepover asked if she could brush her teeth. She asked all by herself! "Wow, I didn't know that sort of thing happened!" I thought to myself. I however am still working on the old toilet flushing thing. When I say 'I', I obviously mean teaching my children to form the habit. The Vicarage has a lot of folk coming in and out, its kind of important to me that they get this habit. (Confession: meeting currently going on in lounge, just did quick reckie of loo, all fine, phew!).  I know I have told them a zillion times, about a zillion different things (washing hands, tidying bedroom, table manners, not sucking thumb/hair/clothes etc etc, not dawdling and time wasting, doing homework... the list could go on!) that they have to do or stop doing, and I can be known to get rather frustrated about it, but perhaps I have forgotten to talk to them about the why of things ( when I do this I might even realise that somethings aren't actually as important as I thought!!). Perhaps my teaching methods (verbally repeat repeat repeat! Blow up and hit roof occasionally!) are missing the mark and I need to stop and think a bit more creatively about how to engage with them. Perhaps I need to understand their perspective a bit more ( how will they know they have to hurry up because we are late, if they can't read the time... I'll need to teach them the time then!)

Somehow I need to take this aspect of my parenting role more seriously because there is a lot I need to teach my kids that I can't leave to chance, and that a lot of the world would want to teach differently. Particularly important to me is what they are learning spiritually. I love what my kids are learning at children's church and church clubs, it is  immensely valuable and I am so grateful for it. However, I cannot consider it job done, because the main role is mine (alongside the Vicar). We are their primary spiritual teachers. We need to be talking to them about who God is, how to relate to Him, teaching them how to read the bible and pray. Helping them create habits that will draw them closer to God who loves them. Teaching them how to be a disciple and live it. Our lives need to reflect and model everything we value to them. And so does our speech, how we honour others, how we forgive and love. I live in my head a lot, my head is always busy and I can quite easily forget to speak. I need to remember that explaining my actions might help them to see that my faith affects my behaviour.  To let them know that I am praying about this or that, and getting them to join me. Mainly my 'sit down' times of prayer and bible study happen when they are asleep, early in the morning ( it is hard to preempt them though to be honest!) or in the evening. They don't really see me read the bible much. They don't really see that I have a habit that is important to me. Perhaps I need to make it  more obvious to them.

Today my middle poppet was relieved to find a favourite cassette tape she thought she had lost. She said to me ' I need to keep my desk tidy because then I wouldn't loose my tapes' ( a Hallelujah moment!). Ahhh, yes, a small step in the right direction. Parenting is a long slow process, but little steps of progress can be seen, especially if we look for them. I need to be more ok with that. And I need to remember that I am their teacher (among many other roles!), they were born needing to be taught, and that is part of the role God has given me.

Food for thought!

Today I cleaned out my fridge. I threw away 6 old tomatoes, a slice of deli counter ham, half a slimy  red pepper, a stinky filet of salmon (felt really bad about that one!), a couple of cracked eggs (I felt sad but not bad about that one, our chickens are laying eggs with really thin shells at the moment, and many don't reach the kitchen in one piece, I'm on to it though!), and a whole carton of  out of date double cream.  I then repented. I would like to say that this is the first time I have thrown food away, but to my shame I have done it many times before, many times. Many many times. I wish that I were the only one who does this awful wasteful thing, but I know I am not alone in this. Apparently in the UK we throw away 7.2 million tonnes of food and drink every year, an average of 120kg of food each. That cost us a lot of money, probably about £12 billion. (www.lovefoodhatewaste.com). The thing is I have really been trying to cut down our food waste, I'm quite conscious of it, and have become much better.  I'm just not there yet at being really good at valuing food, at keeping tabs on what is lurking at the back of the fridge.

The other day I received an email from Tearfund about the famine in West Africa, I clicked on the link and saw a mother feeding her children dried leaves because she had nothing else. I wept. Can you imagine having nothing except dried leaves to feed your children? The image keeps coming back to me. I pray that none of her children will die of starvation but about 25, 000 people die of starvation every day. No doubt she loves her children as much as I love mine. If she lived next door I would invite her in and share what we have, out of our abundance. It would change our lives, it would mean less for us, but there would be enough to go around because there is plenty, you can only eat so much, after all.

We live close to the London Olympic site and will hopefully be having some family members of athletes come to stay in our home in a few weeks during the Olympics. As a church we support a number of children through Compassion in Ethiopia, and so to strengthen our link with that beautiful but impoverished country we are hoping, along with a few other church families, to host Ethiopian's. I have begun to wonder what they will make of our lifestyle, my wasteful indulgence, my Christian faith. I want to invite them in, in the name of my Lord Jesus, but I am afraid that I am not reflecting who He is, that I am not living the way He has called me to and that I am not reflecting His glory.

My heart is being reawakened to a passion that the Lord gave me at university when I first read 'Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger' by Ronald Sider (my essay on it was highly passionate and one sided and I got an awful mark, but it completely changed my life), and I am grateful, I am beginning to feel alive again, like my purpose has been revealed. It is growing stronger within me and I am trying to figure out what it looks like to obey Jesus' teaching to feed the hungry, to have concern and compassion for those on the edges of society, for justice. To live prophetically in the midst of vast consumerism which I have swam with for too long. To be a doer of the Word rather than just a hearer.  The Vicar is concerned that I may never smile again under the weight of it all, but I know that the joy of the Lord is our strength, and that my heart rejoices to find its calling. I'm trying to figure it out, and it isn't easy, but it feels the right wrestling match to be having.

For now, my gratefulness to God for His rich generosity towards my family has gone through the roof. I pray that we will be good stewards of His blessings and in turn be a blessing to others.

Family Discipleship - 8.27am Part One

This morning, I kicked myself in the same place I always kick myself at 8.27am. We are trying to leave the house. The Vicar and I are rushing around in a state of panic, trying to find reading books, brush hair, persuade the girls to put their shoes on, and their coats, and "by the way, have you brushed your teeth and washed your faces, No? Go, go go, now quickly, do it, we'll be late!" "WHAT!!! You haven't put your pants on, I can't believe you haven't put your pants on, what will they think of me if you go to school without pants on, go, go, go, go find pants NOW, I said NOW!" "Where is your brother? Drenched in apple juice? Oh. How bad is it? Really bad. Ok". Quick change, 8.27am and onto second outfit of the day!

In the middle of it all I kick myself. Why didn't I prepare better the night before? If I was organised it would be sooo much better. I say this every day. I am frustrated by my own lack of discipline. We've never actually been late for school, and don't often forget things, but just, you know, the process is not very satisfactory, not always very holy. However, today I say it for real, and throughout the day I make a mental list of ways to improve our mornings. I want to train our children in the way they should go ( Proverbs 22v6). I fear that the dear Proverbs 31 'woman of noble character' wouldn't have this much stress getting her children out the door and I don't want my children to think this frantic nervous racing around when patience is stretched and tempers frayed is the way to go! (Although Proverbs 31 woman did have servant girls, which I'm sure must help! A lot.).

So, tonight I did something I don't often do. I prepared the book bags. I didn't want to, in fact I had to force myself to (confession: I fell asleep while praying and woke up feeling groggy as anything, yuck). But I had wanted to mean what I said this morning, so prepared the book bags I did. It took ages. Preparing the book bags involved...

a) I filled out three forms,  2 for school dinners and 1 for music lessons, and wrote three cheques (total £170). Put them in envelopes, wrote the wrong names on them, crossed them out and wrote the right names on ( when I say the wrong names, they were still my children's names, just swapped around. If you thought that you really needed to pray for me then, please do it anyway, all prayer gratefully received!). Unfortunately I make Executive Decisions about all of the above, no time for negotiations. School dinners everyday. Eldest Poppet can learn recorder. I feel a bit guilty about this, and just hope that she really wants to learn the recorder.

b) I filled out two school reading diaries ( having heard them both read, of course!).

c) I found one CD - very important. Tomorrow is the auditions for the talent contest and without the CD they couldn't do their 'thing', and I would be in Big Trouble. They are going to sing and dance to 'Great Big God', go our little evangelists! Last year, my eldest Poppet won the talent show with her friend, singing and dancing to 'Ace Foundation, I'll build my life on Jesus' to the whole school, how cool is that! (very proud Mum moment).

d) I make notes in my diary about various dates and 'don't forgets' to go with them.

e) I scan the kitchen for junk modelling resources in response to a letter from school and decide that at this moment in time, it is a step too far. If I have time in the morning, I'll sort through the bin and find something to send into school.

f) I almost ditch a letter about what 5yr old Poppet is doing at school this term, but then feel guilty and decide to read it instead, it will after all probably be my main source of information about what she is doing at school, because she likes to keep it a secret. Ah yes, topics for the term 'People who help us', I remember now that she asked me for a book about the police to take into school this morning (8.28am to be exact 'Darling, if you need something to take into school, you need to ask me before now, OK?).

At this moment, 5yr old Poppet appears at the doorway, its 9:45pm. She explains to me in the sweetest voice that because she slept in the car for 5 minutes yesterday, and she slept last night, she is "all puffed out from sleeping, and doesn't need to sleep anymore". "Oh, ok, come on lets find 'Topsy and Tim meet the Police". After 20 mins of searching it goes into her book bag. (Praying 'Dear Lord, please help me find the 'Topsy and Tim meet the police' book, felt slightly akin to the car parking space prayer, but sometimes these things are important and the Lord knows that, I'm so glad He is into details!).

 g) Finally, I found the sun hats, just in case it is sunny. They must have them. Of course, they must have their rain coats as well, just in case it is raining (this seems more likely, it is July after all!) What on earth are they going to do if it snows!

So, finally I complete the book bag preparation. I will be grateful in the morning. There were a list of about 12 other things that I could do to ease the 'getting out of the door' panic, but I'm going to introduce them one at a time, otherwise I'll be up until two, will accidentally sleep in in the morning, and we'll all be late late late for school. And wouldn't that be stressful!

How are your BELLS?

Every Wednesday a wonderful group of ladies gather around my kitchen table for a simple soup lunch together. It is a time of laughter, connecting, sharing our lives, relaxing and occasional tears. It is a great blessing to me (and I hope to those who join me), to be surrounded by other women who long to bring Jesus into every area of their lives and together to encourage one another, pray together and support each other.

After eating we get down to the joyously serious stuff. This half term we are talking about BELLS, and I'm excited about it! "A whole half term about BELLS? How do you stretch such a subject so far?" Let me explain. It's a discipleship tool the Vicar came home with from a conference the other day. My dear ladies are used to my having ideas and trying them out on them, so I thought I would give it a go.

So, you take some of your core values as a group and turn them into observable behaviours. If you can then turn them into a word you will remember then that is very helpful, I have been thinking about BELLS all week. To be honest, we have just used the behaviours the Vicar came home with from the conference, to get us going quickly, but we may think of our own ones in time. We then use our time on a Wednesday, after some worship, to reflect on how we have done with our observable behaviours. The spirit of it is, of course, not to just tick boxes, but to use it as a tool for us to grow in relationship with God. So, this is what BELLS means to us...

Bless - the core value is loving one another, so we seek to bless someone in the church, someone outside the church, and then either someone in or out of the church. It can be anything, a little blessing or a big blessing!

Eat - the core value is hospitality, so we seek to eat with someone in the church, someone out of the church, and someone either in or out of the church. We are intentional about being with others, honouring them and inviting them into our lives. Its amazing how much time Jesus spent eating with people, it must be important! (In fact,  in our Wednesday group I feel we have grown a lot together just by starting to eat together).

Listen - we want to be humble and listen to what our Heavenly Father wants to say to us, so we seek to spend an hour a week in contemplative prayer, listening to Him, rather than bringing our requests. It can be a whole hour but equally it can be six lots of ten minutes.

Learn - a sermon on Sunday is not enough to feed us, so we feed ourselves with God's Word daily. We are always reading a Gospel, we want to be more like Jesus, so its great to keep our focus on Him. Then we are also reading another book of the Bible and then any other book which will edify us (doesn't have to be a Christian one). We read as much as suits us, no pressure. We might chew on a couple of verses for days, or gallop through a book in one reading. All cool!

Sent - we are sent out into the world to be a light, to be about our Father's business, doing what He asks us to do. So we reflect and journal (to help us process and remember), ideally each day, and we ask ourselves these questions - 'Where did I work with Jesus today?' and 'Where did I resist Jesus today?'. I gave everyone a note book for journalling in to help get us started (mine was quickly covered with Cath Kidston gift wrap, it makes me smile and helps me hang out with it!).

It is early days, but I have seen my group really begin to grasp this. Wonderfully, it is equally challenging for those who have been Christians 30 years, or 3 months. When we share together about our joys and difficulties with our BELLS from the previous week we can mentor each other and encourage each other. We feel safe to say we have failed, because that is when we learn together. We can pool our bible knowledge to understand a passage we might have found tricky. We might be inspired to know how someone had blessed another, 'if she can do it, perhaps I can!' Struggling to understand how to listen to God? 'Here is how I do it, perhaps it might help'. The possibilities for the discussions and learning from one another are endless, and all the while we are each all growing throughout the week. Oh, and lets pray for each other about all of this, and when we see each other during the week ask 'How are your BELLS? What fun!