All you bibliophiles out there… after much debate and shifting around (all my fault! our old Book Group habit of meeting at Saturday lunchtime clashes with the walking tours!) we have a new time and a new book for the next Dock Book Group.

The time is 9:30am on Saturday 28th May in the luxury surroundings of the TQ Premier Inn – early enough to make a good head start on the day, but not painfully early! – and the Premier Inn does a good breakfast (or a top-notch cup of coffee)

The book, after much discussion, is Rob Bell’s newly-released Love Wins.  Could be a controversial choice – the blogosphere has been burning with debate even since before the book launched, many commentators feeling that Rob Bell had taken a step too far in his views.  But since it’s the book everyone’s talking about, the Dock Book Groupers felt it was good to have an informed view and actually read the thing! – some people appear to have written it off on the basis of the back cover blurb!

The book deals with Heaven, Hell, life, death and everything in between (quite a light read then) – so whether we end up agreeing or disagreeing with Rob’s conclusions, it will be a great chat!

You can find the book on Amazon here (and also watch a wee video from Rob giving an intro to his thinking) – it’s also available on Kindle and as an audiobook on iTunes.

Chris

More input into the Brain of Bennett this week: I’ve been at ‘Sow’, a church-planting conference.

As well as enjoying the teaching and the chat, I’ve been struck throughout the event by the image used on all the backgrounds and billboards – a picture of an open Bible surrounded by shoots of growth in fertile soil (you can just see it at the top left of the photo).  I cant stop looking at it!

That image speaks to me of ‘planting’ the truths of the Bible in fertile earth – not worrying as much about buildings (or boats), traditions or structures, as living out the hope and love and truth of God’s word.  Planting living faith rather than an institution.

It’s making me think a lot about the importance of the Wordlive connection in Dock-World. (If you’re new, Wordlive is a multimedia way of engaging with daily bible readings through a website or podcasts; it crops up often on these blogs (though possibly not often enough!) and it forms the core of our chat at the Dock Walks each week.). As there isn’t (at present…) a forum in the life of The Dock for a weekly sermon, Wordlive is the way that the Dock community centres itself around the Bible. Its a daily discipline in which we can encourage each other, hold each other accountable, help each other through questions and struggles with the difficult bits. 

That’s definitely been my experience over the last few weeks. Two weeks ago, the readings for the week were from the Old Testament book of Song of Songs – a beautiful but very obscure and confusing part of the Bible!  And last week the readings were from the new Testament book of Romans – huge meaty wodges of theology, often hard to grasp. The Wordlive readings were great for my discipline – forcing me to read and engage with parts of the Bible I might’ve been tempted to skip. And the podcasts and website did a fantastic job of drawing out clarity, understanding and application from even the most obscure passages.

But the real key was the conversation at the Dock Walk each Sunday as we discussed our questions from the past week. New perspectives and insights, welded to the background and grounding in the passage that was supplied by Wordlive day-by-day; I could feel doors opening up in my mind as the passage came to life like never before. I’m finding it to be an absolute revolution in my own love for Scripture.

But of course with Wordlive the initiative lies with you. I can’t make you connect to it from day-to-day (any more than I could make you listen to a sermon when I was a ‘regular minister’, I guess!). As Dock-world grows, I would love to keep trying this experiment – trying to find more and more venues, opportunities and settings to connect around the Wordlive readings.   To be, in the great phrase of one of the speakers at the conference, people who “live our normal everyday lives with the Bible open”.

Another great week walking, talking and living life to the full in Dock-World!

First up we had a fantastic morning again on Saturday, sharing brunch with the neighbours in the apartments.  Some new faces, some returning customers, and (of course) lots of exceptionally fine cakes.

It was great to see Bishop Moses again at the Dock Walk on Sunday – another record number of walkers braved the howling wind to hear the news from Sudan, one year on.  It was really encouraging to hear all the positive progress that is happening – but as Moses reminded us, so much more needs to be done – and so much prayer is still required.

Moses is the youngest Bishop in the Anglican communion (and also probably the tallest) – it was really lovely to see him again.  And unlike our first meeting (when he was very offended that I had never heard of John Garang, and I was very offended that he had never heard of the Titanic!) at least this year we both knew what we were talking about!

In other news:  one more significant step (well I think it’s significant) towards the transformation of the TQ from building site to living city: the long wooden tunnel which used to run alongside the Metropolitan College was being dismantled this week – maybe doesn’t sound that exciting to you, but (as any Dock Walker will tell you) that tunnel seemed to last forever when you were stuck in the middle of it – now everything is out in the open air.  Hurrah!

This week also involved preparations for a major event on 31st May.  As anyone who has been on a Walking Tour will tell you (hopefully!), 31st May 1911 was a big date in Titanic’s diary: the launch of the shell of the ship from the slipways into the sea, metal touching seawater for the first time.  (Even though there are other important dates to mark Titanic’s final completion and her departure from Belfast, this is still the biggie – a ship’s launch date is recorded as the first time it hits water, not the day when everything is completed.)

To mark the centenary of this date in a few weeks time, there’s going to be a big ceremony both on land and water right down at the slipways, at the point where 880-odd feet of riveted steel slid into the water in 62 seconds!  I’m very honoured to have been asked to be involved, and various Dock-related figures will be taking part in the day.  This week I got to go on a ‘dry run’ (or a wet run I suppose) for the event with the organisers, on a Lagan Boat Tour out to the slipways and beyond.  It’s pretty much exactly a year since the last time I took that boat trip – fantastic to see how much of the skyline of the TQ has changed in that time!

And finally… not really TQ related – just a quick lucky shot to show that the wild weather of the past week (although it makes things “interesting” on the Walking Tours!) does have its moments of beauty!  A little reminder that the fingerprints of a mighty Creator are all around us in the outside world – it’s our responsibility just to get out there!

Chris

More adventures in the Shared Medley: a few nights ago I was at a service at Westbourne Presbyterian (a near neighbour on the Lower Newtownards Road) to mark the 70-year anniversary of the Belfast Blitz. We entered the church past a massive anti-aircraft gun and searchlight; then we heard sounds and stories from April and May 1941, when Belfast was taking a pounding from relentless waves of Luftwaffe bombers (many of their targets were in the TQ – they were aiming at the shipyards). We listened to eyewitness accounts, ranging from the tragic to the comic – we heard about the man who wanted to return to his house in the middle of an air-raid to fetch his false teeth. “Catch yourself on”, his wife told him, “they’re dropping bombs – not sandwiches”.

As the service progressed, it was the sounds that got to me. Old hymns, sung to bring hope and strength to the soul; old popular songs, sung to keep spirits up in the face of hardship. And the scream of the old air-raid siren; that shriek sent shivers up my spine even on a safe, warm Spring night in 2011, a world away from the darkness and fear of the worst days of the war. It’s hard for me to even conceive what people lived through as the streets of Belfast were pounded and broken night after night.

Thanks to my Titanic Walking Tour knowledge, I now know that there’s an incredible twist to this story if we fast-forward 28 years; 1969 and the massive yellow crane, Goliath is being installed above the Belfast skyline, to be followed by Samson in 1974. If you look closely you can see the a name stamped on the metal; they were built by the German manufacturer Krupp. Back in the 40s, Krupp were major armaments manufacturers, supplying Hitler’s war machine. So it’s distinctly possible that the bombs being dropped on Belfast during the blitz were manufactured by the same company who sent teams over here 3 decades later to help install their two cranes. There are some great stories around the shipyards about how the company policy was the old Basil Fawlty line “don’t mention the war”. But behind the jokes is the profound truth that a community within living memory of the blitz could extend the hand of friendship.

Another few decades later, and forgiveness is something we all still struggle with, both as a nation and as individuals. No-one pretends that it is easy. But we have two shining yellow metal monuments standing above the city to remind us of the power of forgiveness, the hope of change, the immense capacity for people to move from broken past to hopeful future. It’s a hope that carries echoes for me of the heart of God, expressed in powerful words from Psalm 46:

He makes wars cease 
to the ends of the earth.
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; 
he burns the shields with fire.
He says, “Be still, and know that I am God.”

Chris

Things have really changed in Dock-World.

A year ago, lonely and tear-stained, I recorded a very moving and heartfelt song to express my hope that The Dock would soon become a team. Any rumours that I was just miming along to a Celine Dion backing track were of course just completely ridiculous. Well (maybe because of how moving the song was), everything is different now.  The team is growing.  I’ve met some incredible people from all sorts of backgrounds.  I’ve shared coffees, lunches, dinners, worship, laughter, stories, questions, struggles, and so much more with so many fantastic people.

It’s time for a new song…

Chris