dream to go 21 - Give us your money!

Honestly, we want your money…. so hand it over.


Why on earth would I give my hard earned money away?
We’re really into “spiritual disciplines” in Dream. They’re ancient practises that flow from the teachings of Jesus. They help to change us from the inside as we learn to align our lives with God. We talk about some of them a lot – like silence, time out, prayer and meditation. We haven’t talked about giving money a lot because it’s a bit taboo in our culture, but we should because Jesus talked about it more than all the other ones! He said it was a key to our hearts and to really learning to trust God.

How much should I give away?
Down the ages lots of followers of Christian spirituality have given 10% of their income away as a basic guide. Others said that was just a silly old fashioned rule and God deserved a lot more than that! As a principle give a proportion regularly rather than just on a whim. As a spiritual discipline it seems to work most powerfully when we give until it hurts a bit and then give some more until it stops hurting and we start enjoying it.

Should I give it all to Dream?
No! We don’t deserve it and we aren’t the most important cause out there… there are people dying of hunger for goodness sake! Give lots to them. Also for loads of people involved, their main spiritual home is their local church, so that deserves the lion’s share of their giving. Maybe you could just pray and ask God to help you decide what proportion of your giving, if any should go to dream.

What will Dream spend it on?
Tea lights! Not really because the materials and running costs of each individual group are met by that group, so it’s the central network expenses we need to find. That’s mostly Richard’s half salary (because I’m worth it) and central stuff like network events, the website, etc. It all comes to around £20k per year.

Ok how do I give?
We've added a new section to our website just for you.

blue like jazz

Just finished reading (Richard Lyall's copy of) Blue Like Jazz by Donald Millar. It came out a few years ago and I heard about it then but never got around to getting a copy.

It is BRILLIANT. Well written. Hilarious (kind of Rob Bell meets Woody Allen). Deeply challenging and extremely easy to read. I notoriously start book and never finish them (I have around fifteen on the go at the moment) but I got through this in no time.

Buy it!

St Hildas

This lunchtime, we're doing a little dream style 'thing' for some of the students at St Hildas secondary school.

The idea is that some people might like to start meeting as a dream group each Thursday lunchtime, working towards a creative worship time once a month. We'll see how it emerges...

Hey if you read this and were there we'd love your comments on this blog.

-What did you think?

-Was it good, rubbish, helpful, useful?

-How would you like to see it develop?

plugged into lectio again

One of the most refreshing parts of the Summer hols for me was being offline in a cottage that didn't even have a mobile signal... just what I needed once I got over the withdrawal symptoms!

It's always nice though to reconnect. Clear the 500 emails (mostly spam for services and substances that I really don't want or need thank you), say hello on facebook and start reading the bible as a community.

Well done to those of you who kept going with Lectio over the Summer. I didn't, but I'm looking forward to the next term's journey through Mark together.

btw the next reading is always posted on a Wednesday, I can't remember why. If anyone has a good reason for preferring a different day, it's easily changed.