I am now using wordpress. Much better than blogger.

Admittedly there is less spitting but there are some remarkable similarities between punk and church planting.

When I was in a punk band I spent most of the time making posters, building websites, creating flyers and putting the name of my band all over the place. Now that I am kind of planting a church I seem to spend most of my time preparing publicity, creating websites, designing flyers and then distributing them! I am having an absolute blast. This morning I had to barter with a laundrette owner and a fast food "restaurant" to get a poster up in their windows! Seriously. And to think I had this idealistic picture of church planting involving reading books by Mark Driscoll, spending hours preparing sermons and prayer walking (whatever that is).

One of the things I have always loved about punk is that there is so much passion and ideology. The passion would drive people to work incredibly hard in the name of their art. Now that we have started The Chapel I can kind of understand how those guys feel. I am passionate about succeeding because I am driven by a belief in Jesus and his church. Simple really.

When I lived in Birmingham I knew a guy. He had a beard. He was a cracking bloke. He now has a blog. Read and be challenged.

After I wrote my post this morning I discovered this.

Matt Sweetman is planting a church in Chicago and gives an honest assessment of the mistakes he has made and lessons he has learnt in the last eight months. I haven't read his blog up until now and don't know Matt but I love his honesty. I wish other church leaders who blog would share their hopes, fears and mistakes in the same way Matt does. This would definitely make the Christian blogosphere significantly more interesting and a lot more useful.

We are six weeks into The Chapel.

The Chapel is a church plant / congregation / campus / site of Christ Church Manchester. We are based in the centre of Fallowfield in the hope that we can reach a very broad range of people in South Central Manchester.

What have we learnt?

• Students think they are trendy and edgy but in reality most of them come from Hampshire and listen to Coldplay. They claim to want church that is not "normal" and "middleclass" but if you offer them a real alternative then they start making excuses!
• Every week there is progress. We have improved the meeting every week.
• Having a cool venue, an excellent band and gimmicks is no substitute for the spirit of God. That is a massive lesson learned.
• Short term thinking only causes pain. Originally we intended to review progress at Christmas but I am now convinced that we need to dig and work hard for years not months. Oddly enough this has helped me rationalise the difficulty's.
• Having a non Christian watch your service is an eye opener. We have had the same bar maid for three weeks running. She stands behind the bar watches us worship and listens to the preach. This makes you consider every single thing you do and realise that you are a complete weirdo.
• Your supporters are never the people you think they will be. The bar manager has been the most helpful and supportive person ever. When we first booked Bar Baa we were told that they would be unhelpful and anti-church. Our experience has been opposite to this.
• Always have a fantastic church behind you. Christ Church Manchester. I would not be in any other church. There is no better church in Manchester. They have endorsed, supported and encouraged even when it is obvious that I have no idea what I am doing.
• You can never watch too much Sci-Fi. Relax and unwind. Relax and unwind....

This list grows week by week. If you read this and you think prayer is important then please ask God that he would bless a band of rag-tag hopefuls who meet in a vodka bar in Manchester. Cheers.

Job done. Discovered a few dodgy worship CDs, a couple of dodgier U2 CDs and a few gaps in my collection but I had a great time.

I did have a crisis of confidence beforehand and wondered whether I should reorganise the albums by year of release but then remembered that I did this before and it requires instant recall of an albums original release date. This became annoying as soon as I had finished.

I also wondered whether I could organise it autobiographically like John Cusack in high fidelity. I tried explaining this to Vix and was met with glazed eyes.

So, boring won and I went alphabetical.

Anyways this great reorganisation meant that I rediscovered this small piece of fried gold.

Just thought you should know....

Yesterday my good friend Al blogged on change. It struck a chord with me as our lives have been constant change since May this year.

• We have had a second child
• Sold a house (eventually)
• Moved city
• I have started a new job and Vix is looking for a new job
• We have joined a new church (I work for these guys)
• We have started an evening meeting for this church
• We have merged two churches together (Something the Simple Pastor is also doing)
• We are starting a new charity for the people of Gorton

With all that's going on we never really pause to catch our breath. Thank goodness.

The change is constant and invigorating. Sometimes I am tempted to suggest to our leaders that we may need to hold off on the constant innovation so that we can build what we already have but then I remember that change comes when God blesses you. To be stuck in the same place with nothing new happening means that you are not laying hold of the kingdom. We desperately want this thing to move forward, for people to get saved, for the church to be massive and important.

It is not about constant upheaval for the sake of it, but rather it's taking the gospel forward and changing to fit with Gods plans. Marvellous.