http://shutton.simbahosting.co.uk

This site is now closed. Thanks for stopping by.

I will probably set up a site called ‘huttonline’ with my photos from flikr, my videos from vimeo and my tweets and I’ll keep the shell of this site with a note directing people. If a non-personal blog is looking for an author to contribute occasion articles on theological/cultural/ministry based thoughts I may consider joining in.

But as for the huttonline blog, I’ve lit the fuse and the countdown is ticking. Cheers

most of the young people questioned for the study were not looking for answers to “ultimate questions”

Someone was once asked a question “did you know that ignorance and apathy are two of the biggest issues in society today?” to which they replied “I don’t know and I don’t care!” That sums up Gen Y aptly, when it comes to God/religion/Church the overwhelming attitude is “I don’t know, and I don’t care enough to bother to find out”.

Apathy holds sway with  Gen Yers and it does not occur to many of them to even ask the big questions. This poses something of a difficulty for the contemporary church and her mission to introduce the gospel to the under 30s. I have been involved in running church based youth groups for a decade and have experienced the frustration of teenagers whose views are neither black nor white, but varying shades of middle grey – they’re not against God, but neither are they for him. I’d rather a definite “no, because a, b and c” than “maybe, not sure, does it matter anyway?” Trying to help teenagers and young adults clear the hurdles to faith is nigh on impossible when they’re not even in the race.

Richard Dawkins’s campaign to turn Britain’s children against organised religion seems to have failed. Unfortunately, it hasn’t done so because of the depth of Christian belief in this country, but because kids, by and large, can’t be bothered with religion at all.

‘Generation Y’ as a title is perhaps somewhat of a misnomer, as by and large they don’t ask ‘why?’ when it comes to ‘ultimate questions’. Dawkins wants them to, so he can show them ‘why not’, the church wants them to, so it can show them the answers.

But most don’t. That’s postmodernity in HD: no absolute authority, it’s all about me – my experiences, my ideas, my life. Tim Keller – who views cultural developments from a vantage point across the pond – blogged this on Monday:

The underlying thread that ties all this together is the inconceivability of a moral order based on an authority more fundamental than one’s own reason or experience.

The ultimate question, then, for the church is this – how do we bring the gospel to Gen Y, those born into church families and those outside?

For the majority, religion and spirituality was irrelevant for day-to-day living

So the church need to show our children and teenagers actually how applicable and relevant our faith is to daily life. I’ve just preached a short series on ‘Worship’ (Romans 11:33 – 12:2) where I sought to show that true worship involves everything Christians do. It’s not just singing hymns and praying in church. It’s about being holy, for that is ‘God’s will’ for us. The liberating power of holy living is what Gen Yers are yearning for. It’s God’s plan for them to be the people that he made them to be.

I can preach this from a pulpit, but for the message to be effective it has to be embodied by the parents, adults, Gen Xers and fellow Gen Yers. Apathy’s agenda is shelved when young people see Christians living out a purposeful and fulfilled life.

Too often we wait for our children, teenagers and students to ask the ultimate questions. We sometimes go so far as to give them the answers before they’ve asked. But information is not the antidote to apathy. The gospel is far more powerful than apathy and through the gospel God transforms people in their day-to-day activities. ‘Religion and spirituality’ may be ‘irrelevant’ for Generation Y’s every day lives, but the true gospel is certainly not.

I went back to the birthplace. Where it all started. In May last year. Now, a year and a bit later, I’m back to Chesfield Downs’ par 3 course. Nice Autumn afternoon, shot 39 twice, second time playing without tees. My playing partner shot around the same and played well. So, it was back but forwards – I’m playing a lot better now than when I started.

Chesfield Downs is the course where Ryder Cup star Ian Poulter learned his stuff… a good omen for me, I think…

And I nearly got a hole in one! The ball pitched inches to the right of the flag, horseshoed round the hole and popped out inches to the left for an easy birdie

The latest weapon to enter my armoury. A 3wood made by Callaway with 15 degrees loft and a stiff graphite shaft. It’s the 2008/09 model, so I picked it up for a very good price. Let’s hope it makes a difference to my game! Fairways and tee boxes beware…

My golf hasn’t been great for the last few rounds. The last time I played well (for me) was the first round on holiday and it’s been hard work ever since then. Myself and two playing friends from church had arranged a full round at Drayton Park near Abingdon on Saturday afternoon. I’d heard lots of good things about this course – and wasn’t disappointed. Well, I was – but not with the course! My play was far from enjoyable, but I enjoyed the experience, the company and the afternoon.

The course is relatively flat (in contrast to Hinksey which is hilly) and each hole is tree lined, with relatively narrow fairways. Basically you need to be straight off the tee, which I wasn’t! On many holes I went from tee to tree! The return of the horrible hook on the 4th tee put pay to a good score and I couldn’t straighten it out, apart from twice when I aimed right to compensate and the ball flew straight over the trees and didn’t hook at all…  I lost over half a dozen balls (the water claimed a few) and when penalty points were added on, the final score was in the 120s.  On the encouraging side, once I got near the greens I played reasonably well.

So, what now? Well, I’ve worked out that there’s little point in playing 18 holes on a full course until I can use a wood/driver off the tee successfully and can be confident of keeping captain hook at bay. So, I’ll play through the rest of the autumn and then start the new season with a series of lessons with the pro.

People often ask me what I get up to in my job. It’s a good question and one I often ask myself, but don’t always come up with an answer that reflects the range of things I do, which is not great when people are genuinely interested in how a minister uses his time when not preparing sermons. So for a month I am keeping a detailed log of how much time I spend on different activities. Last week was interesting – I didn’t have any sermons to prepare, didn’t do any reading (apart from the Bible) but still the week seemed pretty full. I can now see that over the week I spent about a day on WEST (my Masters degree), a day preparing material for baptismal preparation classes, a day getting ready for an event (Heritage Day), and a few others things beside. Altogether, it came to 54 hours.

A note of caution – ministry is actually more complex than my simple allocations suggest and ‘work hours’ as a statistic is in need of clarification (a few things – such as personal time [Bible and prayer] and church meetings – I’d do anyway as church member in secular employment, for example). At the end of the month I’ll reflect upon the ‘job’ I do and draw some conclusions. For now, here’s the breakdown from week 1.

My favourite photo of the waves in Broadstairs on Bank Holiday Monday two weeks ago.

“Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing.” (Euripides)

I don’t like graffiti, but this at least makes you think. Should we question everything? Initially this seems to run against the grain of faith, there are some things we can’t really question, surely? But, the more I think about it, the more I think that questioning everything is good, to a point. Because when you’ve found the answer, the question has fulfilled its purpose.

The question ought to be the means to an end, not the end itself. However, post-modern ideas suggest the process of asking questions is ‘everything’ and as absolute truth is not obtainable you won’t find the answers, not absolutely anyway. And if you do find (per chance) an answer of sorts, everything is liable to change so you’ll have to keep re-asking the question after all.

It’s like eating. You don’t eat for the sake of eating, you eat to fulfil your needs. So you ask questions to have them answered, not for the sake of asking them. Try fobbing a young inquisitive child off with politician style answers to their questions and I suspect you’ll soon realise that the purpose of their questions is to get the answers.

That is not to say, of course, that every question has an answer. Our mental capabilities are more limited than our imaginations. The Bible raises lots of questions (including relevant ones) that God has chosen not to answer. I was struck recently by reading the end of Jonah when God leaves him (and us) on a rhetorical cliff-hanger.

But for God to be God there has to be a degree of mystery that is beyond us. We don’t like it, but it’s for our good. A goldfish might like to try life outside of the bowl, but staying in there is for its good. Fortunately, though, God gives us the answers to the questions we need to ask. Who is he? What is he like? What is our problem? How can it be rectified? What does the long term future hold?

And if you never ask, you’ll won’t find out. If you never stop asking, you’ll never be satisfied with the answer. So, ask the important questions and accept the answers, and – please – don’t ruin underpasses with graffiti…

On the second leg of my recent holiday I purchased an all-day ticket for the North Foreland Northcliffe course and certainly got my money’s worth! £12 and I got 4 rounds in, 18 holes a time. 72 holes of golf in one day! They are all par3s though, and short ones at that.

A great day for golf, perfect weather, the course was stunning (something to do with the pro-am that was happening on the main course that day) and a real stern test of approach shots with a lot of the pins set in difficult places (give the pros something worthwhile to practice on before the pro-am?). At best I scored in the low-mid 30s on both nines, and for the final three rounds I was playing without tees.

This was the course I reviewed in the golf monthly magazine recently…