Jesus wobbles but he won’t fall down!

Now I don’t mean to dis Traidcraft, they do some great work and sell some great products but when I saw this in their latest catalogue I couldn’t help but think ‘Weeble nativity’.


There are of course many good things and I would well recommend a look through the catalogue.

Dictionary.com

I am currently preparing a session for a group, the title for the session is ‘what makes a Christian’. One of the things I often like to do when given this kind of subject or any subject with a specific word or something in the title I like to look that word up in the dictionary. So I went to dictionary.com and typed in Christian, I was some what surprised by the result:-
American jazz guitarist and blues singer. One of the first to amplify the guitar, he influenced its emergence as a solo instrument in jazz.
Perhaps this is where the church is going wrong?

So basically I’m a living calculator

Saintly

You are Saint Francis of Assisi! You don't care
what you look like (or smell like) as long as
you can live simply and help the poor. You
should be receiving your stigmata any day now.


Which Saint Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

other peoples work

There are a couple of great discussions going on at the moment, particularly interested in Sarah's discussion on youth work/ministry and would encourage you to have a good read.

Youthblog also has an interesting piece on the latest addition to English Bible translations the 100 minute bible which I have to admit I had a bit of a rant about but that’s just me be a silly and taking things personally.

Things that make you feel old!

I think the first thing that really had this effect upon me was my little brother leaving behind the teenage years, he will within the next year be leaving behind his 20’s (sorry for announcing this to the world Mark).

One of the biggest impacts to help me feel old though was also several years ago running a youth group who were putting the latest ‘Now’ album on the CD player (somewhere around Now 35) and they asked “was there a now 1?” to which I replied “yes, it was just called ‘Now that’s what I call music’ I have it” (it’s a great album) Then came the question “what’s on it?” it was at this point that I realised most of the young people I was talking to at the time were not even born when it came out and probably would not understand the concept of Vinyl either!

The latest was this:-
Being a Dad is great and I don’t fell old because of being a Dad, but a Dad who’s son wears a school uniform, I’m not ready for that! (sorry to all those for whom this happened a long time ago and I have now made you feel even older)

Networking

Just come back fro the Diocesan Network Meeting, a great gathering, thanks Ian and great to meet up with friends old (well none of you were that old I suppose) and new, disappointing amount of people getting wet during the punting though. For all those that were in my boat Gill (my wife) seems to recall that I was actually not to bad the last time we went!

I said at some stage I would be posting about mobile phones so here goes not that it is that exciting really:-
As I was out driving the bus the other day a saw a young lady ridding a horse down a country lane an idyllic kind of oldy worldy kind of situation in many respects but there she was chatting on the phone, it just struck me the difference between probably one of the oldest modes of transport known to Man combined with one of the most modern forms of communication. They seem to fit together about as well as Matt Redman Songs in a BCP service (Sorry Sarah more TLA’s). But isn’t it sad how now we cant be away from our phones for even half an hour (apart from while punting as I didn’t want to wreck mine anymore than it already is!)

Two observations from today though, one, when your phone starts to vibrate as people are praying for you it can be very distracting! Two when following directions from a web site check them with a map today I had to go down roads that didn’t exist, thus I got lost and arrived late!

PS I have been informed that my RSS feed does not work, i shall try and get this fixed in the next few days!

Update:
Some great pictures on Sarahs blog of the punting experiance!

White Horse Show

Our youngest driver!

I don’t know I get nagged to write something then when I do no-one leaves me any comments anyway, I feel so along and used but neglected at the same time, and I thought you were my friends?

I have several things I want to blog about so there may be a few over the next few days, look out form mobile phones and school’s!

I thought I should mention the White Horse Show though, a local kind of county show at which we had the bus for the first time this year which was great. I must say a huge thank you to the organisers who gave us a prime spot which was great, I think we have learnt a few things we need to take into consideration for next year but on the whole I was great to be there with several people coming on to find out what it was all about. One of the most encouraging things was two lads who spent certainly most of the Monday on the bus making use of the computer games etc but also asking a lot of questions about the work of the bus and more importantly the chap we do it all for, so praise God that even when we were there to raise the profile of the work God used the opportunity to share His good news, if only we could have conversations like that in our normal day to day running!

This summer and a little rant

Sorry it has been so long again, the summer as been a busy one and I seem to have hardly been in the office which has been great, would have been even better still of more of that time had been spent with young people but one thing I did do and had a great time was soul survivor B. We had a group of 60 including leaders which was great fun. I have to say though I was disappointed by one session I went to called ‘I’m the only Christian in the village’ although aimed at young people rather than youth leaders I felt as a rural based youth worker it might have some interesting comments. Now don’t get me wrong I have nothing against the two youth workers leading the session they as far as I am aware good youth workers but they are from HTB, they had a few of their young people talking about their experiences in their boarding school where the amount of Christians was low, my problem is, at the weekend these young people went to their youth group at HTB, they have no real idea of what it is like to be ‘the only Christian in the village’ and I felt that the resources behind these young people was way out of reach for many young people living in villages today, lets get real Soul Survivor, if you want to do a session on feeling alone in your faith, get people from villages to talk about it not people from probably one of the largest churches in the country with resources in abundance. In my work I cover an area of 160 square miles, over 30 churches, approx 13,000 people (about 9,000 of whom live within 2 communities) there are villages with less than 500 people, I cover this on a part time basis, if I had the resources available to me that HTB has I’m sure I could do a lot more, but lets be realistic it isn’t going to happen. When is the church going to wake up that villages are here, (sorry I’m getting on my hobby horse now) there has been such a focus on Urban Priority Areas and I know there are real needs in these areas but the needs are just as real in the villages but the resources aren’t there, lets look at the broader picture here.
I’m going to stop now or else I will go on for hours but let me know your thoughts, I would be interested to here vies from anyone involved in Soul Survivor or HTB if you know anyone to point in this direction.