Dream Groups

Dream in the Cathedral
Zone 2 is an all-age, cafe style worship service each Sunday morning in term time.

Dream in Haydock
a meeting in Haydock usually on the 2nd Sunday of the month

Dream in Ormskirk
a group that usually meets on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month in Ormskirk

L19:Dream
a monthly meeting in Grassendale, usually the last Thursday of the month

11:57
Discussion group, meeting in Liverpool on the third Wednesday of each month

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Psalm 51

Generous in love - God, give grace! Huge in mercy - wipe out my bad record.
Scrub away my guilt, soak out my sins in your laundry.
I know how bad I've been; my sins are staring me down.

You're the One I've violated, and you've seen it all, seen the full extent of my evil.
You have all the facts before you; whatever you decide about me is fair.
I've been out of step with you for a long time, in the wrong since before I was born.
What you're after is truth from the inside out. 
Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.

Soak me in your laundry and I'll come out clean, scrub me and I'll have a snow-white life.
Tune me in to foot-tapping songs, set these once-broken bones to dancing.
Don't look too close for blemishes, give me a clean bill of health.
God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life. 
Don't throw me out with the trash, or fail to breathe holiness in me.
Bring me back from gray exile, put a fresh wind in my sails!
Give me a job teaching rebels your ways so the lost can find their way home.
Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God, and I'll sing anthems to your life-giving ways.
Unbutton my lips, dear God; I'll let loose with your praise.

Going through the motions doesn't please you, a flawless performance is nothing to you.
I learned God-worship when my pride was shattered.
Heart-shattered lives ready for love don't for a moment escape God's notice.

Make Zion the place you delight in, repair Jerusalem's broken-down walls.
Then you'll get real worship from us, acts of worship small and large, Including all the bulls they can heave onto your altar!

(Translation: The Message)

 
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# Steph 2010-04-22 01:27
Aspects of this translation excite me and other aspects make me cringe...

I love the line "God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life"!

I had fun rewriting vs 13: "Give me a job learning from rebels so that those who sometimes think they're found (like me) can experience your true wild(er)ness and find Jesus' way home".
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# Andrew 2010-04-22 09:26
I'm with Steph on the cringe front. It has to be the ugliest version of Psalm 51 I've ever come across. All the self-consciously "modern" terms are already dated and clumsy and get in the way of the meaning. "Wipe out my bad record" sounds like something from Stock Aitken Waterman. Clunk. "Tune me in to foot-tapping songs" will be the Birdy Song presumably? This is incredibly naff. Better modern translation like the ESV or NIV don't descend to this corny hokum. The Message isn't so much a translation as a rewriting. All translations have issues but why not use something more authentic? I'm off to ask that the "Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise" in the hope that he will "Create in me a clean heart." The Persil advert version in The Message is just a bit too bogged down in the laundry to speak to me. It gets in the way.
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# Richard 2010-04-22 14:44
The Message is naff or over American in places but it's stunning in others. And you are right it's not a strict translation suitable for academic study or analysis. It's great for discussion though. Interestingly most of the new testament and also the book of common prayer were written in street language regarded as cringeworthy at the time! Lots of faults with 'the message' but we'll be sticking with it for now. Just enjoy the bits that help you, and get creative like Steph and re-phrase the others.
A friend who has English as a second language was struggling terribly with the NIV but has found this easier version life giving.
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# Andrew 2010-04-23 01:55
Hi Richard. It's over-egging the pudding a bit to say that the NT and BCP were written in "street language". I'll just tootle along using a different translation, if you don't mind - especially for readings from the Psalms which, even in Hebrew, were stylised and elevated language pointing beyond the ordinary. Surely beauty - of language, image, form and style - has its place, too, in encouraging us to aspire to something outside the mundane? I'm certainly happy that your friend found The Message more helpful than I do. Different strokes, and all that... You're right: it sure does provoke discussion. Yours, penitentially, Andrew :-)
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