Ramblings of a Very Catholic Evangelical

Who are you?

2011-11-15T15:28:00.001Z

Mirrors -
Many people have mirrors in their homes– infact only particularly odd people don’t. But how often do we ever bother to look at ourselves?

I am reminded of [pretty much every lame pop song in the last 20 years] that has a lyric along the lines of “I don’t recognise my own reflection” – but when do we? How many of us know exactly what we look like – this in turn reminds me of the dilbert comic sketch when the man test was to ask someone what they are wearing, and a man would have to check. But then again what we look like doesn’t matter that much – because what other people look like doesn’t matter either.

[[aside: Ok so for some people there is a range of attractiveness that above means you’ll want to ask them out and below means you might offer them a shower, so yes it does matter – to some extent, but really your closest friend is not your closest friend because of how they look – and to be honest with most relationships, while initial attraction played its part – if there was nothing else it doesn’t last. ]]

So how would you describe yourself when you look in a mirror? After the initial physical description is over you may use words like ‘funny’ or ‘smart’ – maybe you’ve been watching the apprentice and you’ll start using hyperbole like “a go getter” “I don’t fit the mould” etc.

However – take a few moments to ask yourself:

Who are you? -keep asking this after each answer you give, keep asking until you don’t know what else to say

What do you want?

Where are you going?

Do you have anything worth dying for? – most people who love can think of something but.. then the next question:

Do you have anything worth living for? – can you justify why?

From a Christian perspective it seems at first glance like those questions are wrong – we know that no one has greater love than to lay down their life for another, however do not forget that Jesus came back – alive – and gave the apostles work to be done – alive – not just time filling until they can get martyred. So what do you have/do that is worth living for?

[yes I did just steal those questions from Babylon 5, but that doesn’t make them less striking]

I was recently forced to face the veritas of who I am, and the answer did not surprise me and did surprise me all at once. I will change with time no doubt, but then that just emphasises the importance of the question: ‘Where are you going?’
The whole world around us is changing everyday, and we change with it, - as the fictional Rev Dexter said “I'll tell you something my friends. The world is changing every day, the only question is who's doing it." – and hence I’d say “you are changing every day, the only question is who’s changing you.”
make sure you are choosing how you’ll change.

Occupy London

2011-10-30T13:52:00.003Z

After a little rant against the Cathedrals handling of the situation, I thought it was time to give a view on the actual issues raised (or trying to be raised) by the group who are camped outside of St Paul's

They have an initial statement here http://occupylsx.org/?p=221
And due to a lack of any more up-to-date manifesto, I will be mainly looking at these aims:

1 The current system is unsustainable. It is undemocratic and unjust. We need alternatives; this is where we work towards them.

The current system of (for example) giving the top echelons in financial companies 40% pay rises when the company has not increased in value (or at least not by anything like that much) while giving most employees a 2% pay rise - that is unsustainable.
Partly because one day the company won't have enough money to keep giving pay rises of that amount, but mainly because people are fed up with the injustice.

We need alternative: - ok like what?
Oh so you claim to be hammering this out while in the camp site? ok.

2 We are of all ethnicities, backgrounds, genders, generations, sexualities dis/abilities and faiths. We stand together with occupations all over the world.

Ok so you're not just one group who think they're being picked on. Ok... and what do you want?

3 We refuse to pay for the banks’ crisis.

Too late. And what do you propose as the alternative? Thanks to the fiat system of currency we have, to let all the banks collapse would not be good news for the rest of us (or our pensions).
Also I think this shows a common mis-understanding (that will likely stay for a long time) - the current UK government money problems are not the result of the bailouts. It is due to the excessive government spending that caused a deficit to be formed.

In brief- imagine that the UK had £100 and then gained another £100 every year due to tax etc. They decided to spend £200 every year so that they could do more - the result was that the debt level grew and grew.
One day the UK gave an extra £200 to the banks - and hence had a larger debt.
But the real problem was that they were spending £200 every year but only got £100. After a few years those who lend money to the UK start to say 'hold on, it doesn't look like you'll ever be able to pay as back - maybe we should stop lending you money'.
The UK can't just stop spending this money easily - as it is tied up with peoples salaries, and hence jobs will eventually be lost in trying to rebalance this.

The figures (obviously) and proportions are not like that in reality, but the point is we are spending more than we have - all the time. Choosing to not spending money on bailing out banks wouldn't have made much of a difference to our current financial situation.

4 We do not accept the cuts as either necessary or inevitable. We demand an end to global tax injustice and our democracy representing corporations instead of the people.

I think I already said my piece on cuts - until you can generate more income to the government the cuts are inevitable.
An end to global tax injustice? What injustice? They need to be clearer.
They especially need to be clear about what it is with democracy that they think is an example of representing corporations not people.

5 We want regulators to be genuinely independent of the industries they regulate.

That is something I definitely support. It makes so much common sense.

6 We support the strike on the 30th November and the student action on the 9thNovember, and actions to defend our health services, welfare, education and employment, and to stop wars and arms dealing.

Ok. I think they need to be clear as to what causes they support not what actions. No one is openly against the health services, or education or employment. Some people are against welfare in its current state.

7 We want structural change towards authentic global equality. The world’s resources must go towards caring for people and the planet, not the military, corporate profits or the rich.

Ok - what sort of proportions are we talking about? If you spend less on the military that will mean job cuts.

I will say that I agree in principle - world governments spend far too little on caring for the planet.
Take http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=38326&Cr=Ivoire&Cr1 for example.
Why does the UN need to ask for $160 million?( = £100 million in real money ;)
Obama has more lost down the back of his metaphorical sofa.

That's not a large amount of money these days (for countries). There are more examples I could give- however it does appear that the UK is slightly ahead of the curve in terms of giving aid.

8 We stand in solidarity with the global oppressed and we call for an end to the actions of our government and others in causing this oppression.

Who's oppressed? It sounds like a nice soundbite, but one person’s minimum wage is another mans oppressed etc.

9 This is what democracy looks like. Come and join us!

Democracy looks like a large number of vague points that could be interpreted very differently by different people? Oh dear.
In fairness the 'Come and join us' line does seem to have born fruit. They have managed to continually debate the issues and welcome others who want to join in. Ofcourse that does mean finding out what they now believe is very difficult - they have no central leadership (as far as I can tell), and according to newspapers alot of people now distance themselves from the initial statement.

So - do I support this?
Well some parts I do and some parts I don't. Many have said it's better to be doing something than nothing - and this is a mantra I have often used. However when I use it, it's part of a justification for escalating an action into a mini-coup d'état or something else serious. When used in this situation I feel that the apapthy it is tyring to combat is being replaced by a new type of apathy - people are sitting in tents, talking, and doing various "things" like wearing a funny mask and somehow hoping that will be enough to topple a world system.

I think I am against it - it would be better for people to blog to each other, or talk on the book of faces, or similar.
It would actually be better to organise a series of forums to discuss what is wrong with society and to then make a series of demands to the government for a new law that says X and then another that says Y. If you really want you can then start encampments.

Now with such an unclear message, it is easy for people to ignore- and ignore it they will.

Because to be honest, the much more interesting issues are what on earth St Paul's can do next to make the situation worse? And why is it that there are a few people who actually believe the rubbish they've been saying?

St Paul's and the Campsite

2011-10-28T19:22:00.003+01:00

And so, after a long period of not blogging I feel the need to come to this.

St Paul’s Cathedral and its reaction to the protestors against capitalism.

To me this seems to be a case of a well-meaning cathedral getting in over its heads. In many ways it shows just how ill-equipped our clergy are at dealing with media.

So what has happened (from my perspective – sitting in my flat in Coventry miles away from the actual scene)?

Well a number of protestors decided that they wanted to send a message to bankers that they weren’t happy with capitalism. – a separate post about their message etc will appear (one day). And these people tried to set up camp outside the financial centre, however police moved them on – due to geography http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/56206000/jpg/_56206135_1c0e5f4b-1135-4542-856c-8d3549873a4f.jpg the cathedral is just next to the stock exchange and so was a natural area for protestors to start congregating. The police at this time prepared to move the protestors on again, however a Canon (note A not THE) of the Cathedral told the police to move on and supported the right of the protestors to a peaceful demonstration.

A week on and the Cathedral had decided that they wanted the protestors to move on – I’m not certain as to why – this call was echoed by the Bishop of London, and the Archbishop of Canterbury. The cathedral then decided they wanted to close because of health and safety reasons – and called on the protestors to leave so that they could re-open. Now they have re-opened because suddenly they realise that HS isn’t a problem.
On top of this the Canon who welcomed them had decided to resign because “he didn’t want a scene like Dale farm on the steps of St Paul’s”. Essentially saying that the church will try to evict them eventually and he wasn’t happy with that.

So - what do I think should have happened?
Well for a start, when 200 odd people with tents appear outside your building you should ask questions before saying “yes you’re welcome to stay”.

Secondly it should surely have been the Deans decision, not a Canon, whether or not they are invited to stay.

Thirdly, if they want the protestors to go, be clear about that but don’t make up rubbish to do with HS rules.

Now onto the first two areas of concern.
A Canon, should not be casually making statements like “we welcome these protestors” without thinking it through. He should have thought “What will happen in a weeks’ time, or in two weeks?” But he didn’t, he wanted to appear inclusive and now the church is paying the price.

Clergy need to think about the consequences of their actions. And especially what did the Dean think? This isn’t the largest problem in the world, but to me it highlights a lack of foresight that in the “real world” would result in disciplinary proceedings.

As to the third point – this is actually two points.
What do they want, and Health and Safety (or HS for short).
I’m going to deal with Health and Safety first. If there’s one thing I learned from working in various churches it’s that health and safety concerns are very rarely connected with health and safety. A certain church “does not have a ladder” because it hasn’t been risk assessed, however if the warden feels it’s time to sweep the leaves of the flat roof extension suddenly a ladder appears quite miraculously from a cupboard. When another church wants to remove old fixtures they are ‘temporarily stored’ in a shed with the express hope that enough fungus will grow on them so that they can be disposed of due to HS. They don’t just bin them because other rules would prevent that.
Health and safety is often brandished by Vicars when they need to slow something down or stop it, but can’t find a suitable reason. It is equally brandished by other Vicars when they need to go above other rules that would stop them doing what needs to be done. But when it comes to the mundane they are often ignored because that roof won’t clean itself.

So when I hear that a church is worried about Health and Safety I have grown sufficiently sceptical to not believe it has anything to do with either the safety or the health of people.
That bias is further fed in this instance when I observe the complete lack of co-operation by St Paul’s http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/david-allen-green/2011/10/health-safety-cathedral-camp
From the article it appears that the protestors take HS very seriously, in fact so seriously I’m half confused/wonder if they knew people would complain about it. St Paul’s on the other hand appears to have taken advice from random people they dare not name, and doesn’t seem to want to help the camp in becoming more safe (they kept saying they had numerous concerns of liability or fire risk etc, but when asked by the protestors how they could reorganise to help silence was the answer).

Another classic problem was the clerk of works after being consulted on where new porta-loos should go, then decides to go home early on the day of delivery with no clear person from the cathedral designated to oversee what was going on, then a Receptionist being the one to say “we’re not going to help you, put the loo somewhere else” at the last minute. Was and Receptionist making it up – has she been disciplined – or was it that the clergy were too cowardly to send someone of importance to break the news.
This seems to be a classic example of HS being used by priests for non-HS reasons.

But – why did they close? Well firstly the loss of 120k isn’t going to hurt them (you can find financial reports online, and they had very healthy surpluses in 2010 and 2009), so don’t say they wouldn’t dare do it unless it was important.
Some people suggest that they are influenced by bankers – although to be honest I don’t imagine bankers care much about the protest to worry about it being removed.
Some suggest that it is to do with the Cathedral wanting to look nice and pretty – possible, but are they that vain? I don’t think so (or rather I hope not).

I suggest that they realised they didn’t want to become a home to someone else’s protest – and where simply wondering how to remove the protestors and went on the experience of “oh lets use HS as a reason because that’s always worked before”. They may well have been influenced by bankers or by ‘wanting to be pretty’, but tbh we just don’t know.

The trouble is, while one or two troublesome people can be duped by HS reasons face to face(or even the DAC sometimes when you want to remove old furniture), mass media with people reading and then thinking allows people to say “hang on a moment”.
I hope that this may be the beginning of the end for HS being liberally (mis)used in churches, and that then people will actually try and sort out the DAC(s). Sadly I don’t think that’ll happen just yet.

What certainly will happen is that people will see the church as hypocritical and quite childish. Not a good week for Christian witness.

I know I say all this being far removed from the physical reality, but the church needs to remember it is being judged by people around the world right now. The irony of the church dedicated to a tent maker who was often beaten and improsened by authorities having trouble with people in tents protesting against the authorities is plain for all to see.

The Cathedral needs to practice the old art of Christian Repentance (something I see very rarely in Christian organisations) – they should apologise for confusion about how long they thought the protestors would stay, and for the confusion over HS. And be HONEST about wanting them to leave OR be HONEST about being ambivalent about them leaving or not.
Honesty and saying sorry. Something the people have asked the government and the bankers to do for years, but so far they have not managed to do. Can the Christians manage to live out such a great Christian witness or will they succumb to pride?

I know where my (metaphorical) money is, and where my hope is. Sadly the two don’t seem to be aligned.

If 'it' was up to you....

2010-05-10T21:40:00.002+01:00

Imagine, if you will, that you were sat in a nice comfy chair.

Now stretching the imagination further, imagine that the rest of the universe doesn't exist. Infact you are God before the beginning of the beginning of creation, and in front of you is big button marked "press to create the world".

Do you press it?

Now as you're God you have the capacity to think things through, and so you think to yourself "I wonder what would happen if I press this button?"

And you imagine the world as it could be, and as you're God you can foresee what is most likely to happen - war, famine and pestilence. Human rebellion against themselves, countless horrors and unspeakable evils. You also consider the good things (you're not a pessimistic God), you think of Art, mathematics, beauty, joy, love and many other things.

You now have to make a choice, if you don't press the button then the world will never exist, or indeed have existed so no one has lost. If you press the button then you are going to bring people into good, and into suffering.

You think of [insert some of the best things you can think of] and you think of [some of the worst things you can think of, e.g. the holocaust, rape, children dying from hunger]. Is it worth it? Would you be doing a good bringing this world into existence or an evil? (or a neutral?)

To quote D. Adams "In the beginning, God created the world... this has widely been regarded as a bad move".

Let's suppose you decide not to press the button.

Now what? You have the following options:

-do nothing

-consider the button again

-consider creating a different world

If it was up to you, what would you do?

Truth?

2010-04-01T21:39:00.002+01:00

I was reminded recently of a story;

A professor was ill, very ill, (cancer in fact). To cut a long story short, after several treatments he managed to recover.
Whilst he was still less than 100% (but on the road to recovery) he took part in a prestigious conference where he could present some of his latest work.

During the course of the presentation, in the middle suddenly someone stood up and said "no that's wrong"
"no it's right" retorted the Professor,
"no that's wrong" (etc)... .then the man began to explain why he believed a certain theorem was actually false.
[as it happens this stranger was correct]
What does that sounds like?

In many walks of life, one would say that the person who stood up was being rude, how could he have been sure he was right?
Even then surely that was not the right time to talk? He was being insensitive to interrupt in the middle of the talk for starters, and moreover he was being insensitive to a person recovering from cancer.
If you can, put yourself in the place of the professor. I suspect you (or I) would feel it as a personal attack, an embarrassment perhaps; definitely they are trying to score points at 'my' expense.

Put yourself in the shoes of the stranger, what do you feel? What was your motivation after you have noticed a mistake? Perhaps this is a chance to prove your worth? Maybe now you can demonstrate people need to take you seriously?

However the thing is- all of these 'deep' questions that we might use to analyse motives are missing the point.
The 'truth' is what is being discussed (the truth of a mathematical concept). That is what should be at the centre of decision making.
But in the name of the truth people will make point-scoring attacks. Or dismiss a stranger telling them this is the wrong time to talk (to divert any attention from your own failing).

I think that what has really got into the centre of the discussion is "whose truth".
Is the professor upset that the truth is different to what he thought, or is he actually upset that someone else's truth is now believed?
Is the man who stood up acting to try and reveal the truth, or to reveal that he is the one who knows the truth?

[And before you claim that this story isn't realistic, or that I am making up emotions in the characters to prove a point - think back over the past year to any confrontations that took place between two other people, I'd wager you could find one that fits the basic pattern above.]
We only consider the above story an attack, because we allow ourselves to have concepts of 'owning the truth', and to personalise it as 'my theory', 'my idea'.

When you tried to imagine how this might pan out in reality, did you recall the stranger shouting "no you're wrong" rather than as I wrote "no that's wrong"?

[As it happens, it's a true story.
Indeed the Professor involved is Miles Reid, who is one of the best, Algebraic-Geometers alive today. He is a Professor at Warwick.
Some people at the time observing followed the train of thought above, however I am told Miles did not take it as an attack. The stranger was a former student of his, and so he knew that the young boy was more concerned with what is right rather than who is right.

As soon as you loose sight of the 'quest to truth' being more important than 'who gets to the truth', I feel you have slipped down a dangerous road attaching emotion to truth.
And as you become more aware of others attaching emotion to truth, you begin to let that affect your presentation of the truth.
Fair enough, but then when you are aware of others like this, and no longer prioritise finding the truth over all else... then you have gone down the same path as the politician who decides to choose based on what will cause the better emotional reaction amongst people
i.e. 'what do they want to believe is true' is more important to you than 'what is actually true'?
You have gone down the path that says 'I will condemn one man rather than another man, because the public want to vilify this man over the other' and pays little attention to who should be condemned.
This is (if you haven't already noticed) the same path as saying 'I Pilate, will send the innocent Jesus to die, because it is what the Jews want'.

So what are we to do?
If we take the attitude of the former-student above then sooner or later we will meet someone who doesn't like the way you abruptly point out 'truth' without concern for feelings.
We have to worry about how people will hear, no one likes to hear they are wrong, and I don't this is a character weakness. But there are ways of presenting it without seeming rude.

The balance we must strike is somewhere between:
-admitting we can be wrong
-regarding others feelings
-but when all is said and done, making sure that we done more 'making feel comfortable with our presentation of the truth' then 'making the truth more comfortable to peoples feelings'.

i.e. if someone is innocent, then they should not be made a scapegoat.

Jesus died because it is easier sometimes to give the people what they want, than what is good.

He died because when push came to shove Pilate had given up on an absolute definition of truth and had gone for a more post-modern 'everyone can have an interpretation that is equally valid' definition of truth.
It's a lot easier to live with other people when you do what Pilate did.
And let's face it, we're lazy.
That is why we sent him to die.

Back to the Bible...

2010-02-08T00:36:00.002Z

After what seems an age, I am once again in the position of having to study the bible, digest it, and then produce something useful for others...

This time it's harder (or in my head it is), as it's not a sermon but a group discussion.

A sermon you can just talk for 15-20min present your arguments well, and then relate whatever points you are making to the real world. Well ok so it's not that easy/like I described, but in comparison...

With a group discussion you are not 'the expert' and whilst you may wish to guide people down certain avenues, ultimately you need to be able to providing questions that fulfil a number of criteria:

1-people feel able to contribute - don't ask them something 'too technical'

2-they don't feel belittled by contributing - i.e. don't ask something you would only do in a kids-bible-study i.e. in the passage: I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain. [Gal 4:11] don't ask "what did Paul fear?" (annoyingly most internet resources seem to be pitched at this level meaning I can't just copy stuff)

3-something that is relevant to them, there lives/life experience - it helps build community, and will also help people ground this into something that affects their lives.

4-helps move the discussion along to central points you wish to make - well normally you have a point you'd like to leave people with

5-isn't too restrictive and allows people to move onto other areas they would like to talk about if its more relevant to them - well it is a discussion after all, maybe it will lead elsewhere, if it's productive that's still good

6-doesn't allow it to move to unproductive tangents too easily - you'll obviously have some that you need to manage as it happens, but you don't want to make your job any more difficult than it has to be.

7-that with all of this structure you remember it's actually God via the Holy Spirit who's meant to be teaching, so stop trying to impress people with your knowledge of some obscure monk in southern Russia who had something interesting to say about the passage.. stop it [yes I'm talking to myself] just leave it alone.

Instead make sure God has as much room as possible during the prep stage, and at the actual event to mess everything up

hmm

perhaps I should goto sleep rather than try to achieve all this at 1 in the morning..

I probably am over-thinking it, but I haven't had to write one of these things in over 6 months!

And that I got away with by saying "I'm not going to stick to a passage, I'm going to use the question "am I my brothers keeper" asked by Cain. Then I'm just going to keep asking questions about the implications of this question and where that might lead and through in bible verses every so often for people to reflect on along with a little church history and see what happens"

(I might try and put the notes for that online sometime) - That worked surprisingly well, but was a topic I had already been putting much thought into and easily linked with that terms theme of 'community'. This time I have no simple question to hang everything on, and have instead resorted to the 'bible passage' approach (because I know what the theme is for the next month and a bit) and so I need some kind of introduction to it (which also satisfies a number of other requirements for our cell) leaving me with wanting to study being sons/daughters of God.

You know I really have over thought all of this, it won't surprise me at all if by lunch tomorrow I decide actually there is a much simpler way round this...

Never mind,

Night All

I'm awake

2010-01-18T22:30:00.002Z

and so I felt I should probably use this time to blog...

today I have much to be thankful for,
firstly the bins have finally been emptied.
This may not sound like a cause for celebration, but as we've been having quite a lot of snow recently our rubbish has not been collected in well over a month (to be fair the first two weeks it wasn't collected because after we said to each other "oh we should put the bin out tonight as it needs to be collected" we all managed to forget).

Anyway now this calamity is over I am happy.

Secondly I have a rug.
A friend was trying to get rid of a rug (and as it happens a stereo and a lamp also), I have successfully relieved them of these items and made the lounge more livable.

However sadly I have a few more reasons to be less thankful.
I still don't have a proper job :(
and I think I may have managed to move from too patient with people, to being too easily annoyed.

but then again, on the real upside - I shall soon be in bed

well, maybe there's hope for me yet

2010-01-14T19:10:00.002Z

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

-Rudyard Kipling

my room

2009-09-26T12:36:00.003+01:00

About 8 weeks ago I started sorting out my room so it would look tidy, I then stopped because I went to new-wine, and then was planning to move out again so didn't worry too much.
well I haven't moved out, and my room has now got to a whole new level of messyness, (for the physicists out there, entropy is at maximum).

Well I thought I would start trying to tidy it, but I soon get to the conundrum of 'far too much stuff, for the amount of storage in the room'.
And then, do I buy some more storage to make it easier, or wait untill I move into somewhere more permanent? hmmm

I'm going to buy special boxes that file paper away, but can be easily carried.
As you can tell, I'm very excited by this, hence the procrastination :p

A new job

2009-09-19T11:54:00.002+01:00

So I finally got a job,

This was quite annoying as it meant I wouldn't be able to hang around the church office or swoon over certain people mid-day (not that I would ever do that). However money is money and in this capitalist society it gets handy now and again (for example if you want to eat).

So I started yesterday - in the exciting world of Data inputting in X.
However to be fair there have been a lot of ups; firstly I didn't have to pay for parking and was given a parking permit - as its in the middle of a big city this is very useful,
secondly I was only working till 12 - as then the computer broke and I spent the rest of the day effectively wasting time whilst the IT dept failed - so I got to go home early as well but will still be paid for the full day.
Finally I now get to practise being a light and a priestly presence in 'normal life'. Yes it sounds deadly boring but actually it can be quite amusing (to me at least).

I've been outed as a christian (well I was asked what I wanted to do when I was older and I said Vicar, so it was fairly easy to get into conversation). I've got no idea what I'm going to do - try to evangelise people, to get people to think about faith, to befriend them etc etc... but I've found myself already thinking "arr this is a 'gospel oppurtinity' coming up in conversation, I wonder how I should handel it" - and if you have my twisted sense of humour it does help to make life more interesting :P

-hmm so it sounds like I just said people should try to be christian at work in order to make life more interesting. That's not quite what I mean, infact its not what I mean at all.
I think what I mean is given it's something I feel I should do, I choose to try and find it enjoyable - and actually find it can be very enjoyable.
I imagine that will change at some point though, but as it says in Ecclesaistes you should enjoy the good when it happens,because you don't know how long it will last.

On other news, I think I need to brush up on the semi-circle (http://www.lifeshapes.com/shapes.cfm) not just for me, but also so I can help out the rest of the Walsall Community.
[aside - that is just a name I've made up for the sake of a name, there is no name yet.
basically it's made up of a group of people, many of whom live in on Walsall street, who meet up for breakfast and prayer in the morning, and try to do things to bless the locals here (so far this has meant inviting people over for dinner, and doing some gardening in the vicarage).
Anyway we haven't worked out a regular pattern of rest-which it begining to cause problems - and I'm hoping that I can re-learn something which will help us... then again I may just learn how to diagnose the problem but still be no closer to a solution.

Finally on a completely unrelated piece of news: I think I've worked out why my feet have been hurting me more than normal recently. All I need is another sheet on the bed to stop my feet falling out (seriously it does make a difference for my feet, I won't go into the details on why).

and so ends a very long post......

time...

2009-07-26T18:57:00.003+01:00

todays musings.....

Life is too short, and time moves too quickly. But we act as though only the next 5 seconds exist.

As a race, we humans are incapable of grasping the passage of time, we strive for short moments of pleasure without regard for the consequences.

The same reasons that keeps the lazy person in bed 5 minutes longer only to get in trouble with his boss, is the same human instinct that causes global warming and plunder of natural resources. (I mean all of us who believe it is real, but continue to use Computers, cars etc etc even if we think it is causing harm).

If we could really appreciate the simple fact that time relentlessly moves forward
that what we do has genuine implications to our future
then just then, perhaps the world would be very different indeed.

I recall the quote, that Christians "if they really believe in such a God, and an afterlife; then surely they should be acting dramatically differently from the rest of us" [can't recall the author].

...

If you're wondering what is causing these particular ramblings, then it is because I am have just left London as I have finished my years placement. There is much more I would have liked to have done, and much I wish I hadn't.
I would like to say I now know how to be sensible and focus on long-term things and not waste time on distractions... but I'm blogging so probably not

the end of 1 John, and the end of London...

2009-07-19T18:11:00.003+01:00

well not of London, just my job in London.

This was the last sermon I preached during my time in London just before I left.

As normal, ignore the horrible grammer etc. I use things like ';' and '-' to denote pauses to me and help me find my place whilst preaching, regardless of whether that fits the rules of english or not.

...

1 John 5:13-21

support reading: John 20:24-31

Hello and Good morning, I say Hello –

in a way goodbye as I shall soon be leaving.

I have been given the privilege to preach for you,

just before I depart – and so I have this challenge of trying to unpack the end of Johns letter.

This is not particularly easy, as this final section is packed with many points from John –

to miss one out would be to do him, and you

a dis-service, but then to try and fit them all

into 20 minutes is also a challenge

as you could probably do a whole sermon

with some of the points.

For example:

In verse 13 he starts what looks like

a reasonable conclusion

Then he goes of on a tangent talking about us having confidence in prayer,

next he moves on to mention the sin

that leads to death along with the whole

concept of praying for those who sin.

Then out of the blue he makes a statement that looks like impossibility,

that Christians don’t sin –

before going onto what looks again like the beginnings of a conclusion as he talks about the

knowledge of the assurance of our salvation –

and then abruptly ends with

“Dear Children, keep yourselves from idols.”

Still what I hope to do, is to give you an brief-ish outline, so you’ll have a good feel, of what John is saying to us at the end of the letter, and then in the last few minutes to go over in more detail the point that I feel is particularly important for us here at St Paul’s now.

Still let us begin straight away with verse 13.

(13)

John wrote his gospel –

as we learnt from our gospel reading John 20:31 -

so that people would know about Jesus,

that he was the Christ and so by this belief

have eternal life.

His letter was written for a different but related reason.

If you cast your minds back several months you’ll remember when I introduced this series

we learnt from 1:1-4

‘we write this to –make our joy complete…

so that you will also have fellowship

with us and with God’.

He wrote this letter for those who believe

in the Son of God, in Jesus Christ,

to encourage them that they have eternal life,

he wanted them to have that assurance,

so that they would live it out.

There is nothing here about being good enough.

Getting into heaven is not about what you have done, but who you know, and the one person

you have to know is Jesus.

14-15

There are many places that John could go from this statement but he chooses in 14-15 to speak about prayer. He did something similar in chapter 3.

Having reminded them of God’s love for them

he reminds them that they should have

confidence to approach God in prayer.

If we think of it that way we can perhaps see

why John speaks about prayer-

Imagine asking the Queen a question, you might be afraid to do so, or overcome by the moment. But if you knew that she accepted you,

if you were her daughter or son,

then maybe you’d feel more confident.

That is the kind of confidence we are to have, we are accepted children of God, we will be heard.

(16-17)

Now onto 16-17,

these are some of the awkward verses in the bible,

but we can’t ignore it,

and we have to assume that

the original readers understood.

So let us try to make our way through this passage…

First I’m taking ‘brother’ here,

to mean a fellow child of God,

fellow Christian,

as this seems to make most sense out of the context.

Next we need to consider the two categories of sin.

That which doesn’t lead to death and that which does; what is the sin that leads to death?

Now there are a number of views,

but the one that seems most common

looks at death being the opposite of eternal life –

that is, in the context of this passage John is talking about eternal life.

And eternal life to be found in Jesus.

So a sin that leads to death

–being the opposite of this eternal life,

would be a rejection of Jesus as the Son of God – - like the Gnostics – remember we’ve been saying throughout this series that John was combating a heresy that we know would call Gnosticism, and rejected Jesus’ divinity.

So John isn’t saying that there is a sin for which the cross was insufficient

to give you forgiveness. But that it is possible to reject the son, and to reject forgiveness.

So what does this mean in practise? If we see a fellow Christian who is caught up in sin,

some behaviour that is not a rejection of Christ but inappropriate for a Child of God,

selfishness or lust, or speeding, then we should pray for them.

And we know, as it says in verse 13, that they will have eternal life – its not leading to death

And for those who are rejecting Jesus?

I feel perhaps we could compare this to Jerimaih 7:16 – Jerimaih is told not to pray for those who have turned away, and yet this command appears to be temporary

for later in life in chapter 42 he intercedes for them again and receives answer to his prayers.

I feel the thing to take away from this, is NOT have I committed an unforgivable sin that will lead to death,

not that.

but IS to pray for those who are sinning, pray and just watch yourself that you don’t get too emotionally burdened by those who reject Jesus.

(18-20)

We now move onto the home straight,

18-20 John gives us 3 statements of things that we know.

Firstly in 18 John says we know that those born of God do not sin, or continue to sin.

We have in previously looked at 3:1-10 with Paul and noted the difficulty with this idea.

We know we do sin – or maybe its just me,

and of course John also knows this,

as he has just encouraged Christians

to pray for fellow Christians who are caught in sin.

Sadly I don’t have time to re-hash what Paul said then, and I definitely wouldn’t do as good a job,

but what I will say;

is firstly I feel John is trying to underline that if we are born of God,

the idea of sinning should be so alien to us –

we just don’t want to do it.

And second, that we are no longer characterised

by our sin or obedience to God,

this is not relevant to us – on a salvation stand-point,

but the one born of God; Jesus; keeps us safe, and makes us clean so that the Devil has no hold over us.

19 - We not only know that we are born of God but we are the children of God.

Rather worryingly John then says that the whole world is under control of the evil one.

Now for John the ‘world’ is a term to mean humanity opposed to God.

I suspect that John is bringing this up again

to remind them what they have been saved from,

that Jesus was sent to rescue us

from this devil dominated ‘world’.

We will not really understand the love of God

Unless we understand just how much

it has saved us and rescued us. – this is why John is reminding us

But more than that John is encouraging his readers to stay with on God’s side.

Why would you even think about returning to the world? You can either be a privileged

child of God or a slave of the devil.

The choice should be pretty simple.

We need to remember who we are.

This should give us confidence.

(20)

And then 20, we get to this final statement of “we know”.

It is about knowledge of God.

The book started with

this message which Jesus came to bring

And which the apostles witnessed in what

they heard, saw and touched.

It was a message about the nature of God.

John says that this is why Jesus came

to bring us understanding, so that we

would know the true God,

and what is true about him.

John goes on to say that Jesus can do this,

Jesus is able to teach us this,

because he himself is the true God.

Now we can see why it is so important to get Jesus right, because in getting him

wrong we get God wrong.

As John says earlier in the book if you deny the Son, you deny the Father (2:23).

This is the God that Jesus has shown us. This is true information about God.

This is not simply some ones ideas about God. This is not a set of theories, this is why

the Son of God, why Jesus came, so that we could truly know the true God.

And so, nearly there, we come onto verse 21, the last word John had to say

“Dear Children, keep yourselves from idols”.

Its perhaps not as out of place as it first looks,

if the whole book of John is in essence about

the true understanding of God then it makes sense

for him to end by asking us to keep away

from false views of gods,

which ultimately are idols.

I could spend years just talking about idols,

because at the end of the day

idol-worship is idle-worhsip (if you’ll excuse the pun).

Worshiping idols, is what we as humans tend to do when we find God to confusing,

or when it doesn’t seem to work.

Let me give you an example -

I think – so how do I do a spelling check, I know how to do that – I may not be very good at it - but I know how.

How do I help us get to the stage were we are overflowing with the light and love of jesus Christ– emmm.

And I’m just reading from the the vision statement this church has if you’re wondering.

I don’t know how to do that, but checking punctuation on the powerpoint, I know how to do that – that’s what I’ll spend my time on, checking the spelling on these documents yes that’s what I’ll do, Jesus came into this world to set us free of bad spelling and grammer right?

Please don’t mis-understand me, some of you may have been put here by God specifically to do one task similar to the spelling – so its right to do that.

- and I’m not trying to get at anyone – I just picked that example because its easy to describe,

and I say this as an idol-worshipper myself who has to keep reminding myself, is this really God? Is this really glorifying God?

The point is, we can very easily slip into doing what we can do, simply because we can – and then rationalising that it is very important without ever asking is this really what God is asking us as a church to focus on?

and another problem – I said how do ‘I’ bring the Holy Spirit to do whatever… I can’t do that, I’m only human – it should be about what God can do, not me.

So John ends his letter here, with a simple plea, a plea I echo to yourselves and to me

Dear Children, Keep youselves from idols.

Love god, Know you are his children,

Don’t get distracted by what looks good, but isn’t God.

Now I just want to go back onto verses 14-15, because something very important happens here, something that I want to leave you with.

John after telling us we have confidence to pray, tells us that whatever we ask we will receive.

I recall a not long ago I was in HTB listening to Bishop Sandy Millar say “When I was young I had a very simplistic view, and when the bible told me to ask and I would receive, I believed it”.

Let me tell you, briefly, about my legs, I was born with a condition known as bilateral talipes, the muscles around my ankles are severally under-developed, there are times when it is really painful to walk, sometimes when I sleep pain just starts. This is something I have prayed for and seeked prayer for many times, and yet the evidence appears to tell me I have not recieved.

But,

I had a friend who had a disorder from birth that meant one of her legs was shorter than the other which caused her sever back pain. She also asked for prayer, I was standing next to her as a group of us prayed, and I saw her leg grow – no really [hold up hands for distance].

And believe me I checked very carefully.

And so I am living in this world where I see that when you ask you do receive,

and when you ask – you don’t always recieve.

Believe me I would like to explain the theological understanding for why this is. I don’t think there is a theological issue I have studied more than healing – why healing happens sometimes and not others,

And after all of this intensive study I can conclusively say:

I don’t know.

What I get from this, and from other passages like this, is a call to persevere in prayer – not to dismiss reality and pretend it’s not there,

but to pray to God in all circumstances.

Bishop Sandy Millar said that when he was young he used to believe ask and you will receive. He then turned round and said “I still do…. Have the faith to believe you have received what you have asked for.”

Last time we had the spirit in action slot I gave a story of praying for a friend who’d been in hospital with a bad back, and she was healed.

How many stories do you think I have over the years of that not happening? – I’m not going to pretend

But I do know that over the years I am seeing more and more prayers answered.

If you take anything away from today, anything from my time here, let it be this:

I don’t know what you’ve gone through, what you’ve asked God for and not received,

I do know it hurts, not just here [foot] but here [heart].

I know its not easy,

But my friends pray, Pray with confidence, pray as if you expect God to answer, never allow yourself to be discouraged. Pray about anything and everything.

That more you pray the more you will see God move.

Now I’m finding more and more of my prayers answered – I’m not going to try and explain why God does that, why some not others, I still don’t know.

But my friends , if we really want to see Jesus come in this place and move with power, we need to ask.

---

nb: the end actually went different,

I was interuppted around "And so I am living in this world where I see that when you ask you do receive,

and when you ask – you don’t always recieve."

by a lady saying "but God does answer you, just not how you expect".

I responded, "yes, yes he does".

There is a lot I could have said regarding, praying in the will of God, or how God answers in ways that we didn't expect.

But the point I was trying to get across, is the difficulty we face when God does seem to answer in one way (i.e. a healing) sometimes, and not others. Why does God answer us in one way sometimes but not other times?

This is really the crux of the pain I was trying to get across.

I then ommitted the paragraph "That more you pray the more you will see God move.

Now I’m finding more and more of my prayers answered – I’m not going to try and explain why God does that, why some not others, I still don’t know." and did the 'if you take anything away from this sermon' right at the very end... saying "...remember. [pause] pray [pause] always".

as the last words.

Then after putting the stand/lectern away etc, I prayed for the congregation.

back

2009-06-27T22:09:00.002+01:00

Well,
I have just been of to Holy Island for a weeks holiday camping.
I think I learnt a number of useful life lessons.
Mainly if you want people to leave the house at 9am be prepared to drag them kicking and screaming otherwise they won't leave for another 5 hours (ish).

The amount of faffing was quite extreme, and I think if I did it all again, I would literally just drag people.
but hey we enjoyed it.

It has helped put many things into context, not least why on earth do I have such a small car and so much stuff - but also more spiritual things.
I'm looking forward to the end of this job, although what next is still a mystery to me

My plans for blogging

2009-06-13T02:01:00.002+01:00

I saw this .. and had to post it.

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

election madness

2009-06-13T01:27:00.003+01:00

Parties in the streets...
crowds cheering as the results are read out..
these are just some of the things that don't happen at a british election.

I remember however the fuss that was caused when Obama was being elected. Don't get me wrong, I do think that was important, but why don't we care about our own elections?
Even x-factor gets more votes....

Perhaps the most annoying thing to me, is that it doesn't make sense...
When you have a general election, or a council election, or a european election - we seem to produce vastly different results.
Do some people think "I don't trust them with governing my country, but I'll let them try to organise the buses"..
or "I'll let them mess up Europe but not westminster"

I know it looks like a massive swing to conservatives, but if anyone really believes at the next general election lib-dem will be second with labour coming up in third place, they are sadly mistaken.

So yeah I think my main gripes with the british public are
a- why do vote so differently at different elections?
b- why do so many of you not vote?

I heard one friend say he 'spoils' his ballot paper, as a protest against the system. I wonder if anyone who doesn't vote actually believes that will change something?

*sigh

When we have our next general election, I'm sure that it will produce a little bit more excitement than the european election, but still not as many votes as x-factor - because ofcourse in a recession it's much more important to make sure a hopeless singer gets another try rather than to make sure a good government is elected to oversea the economy. [/sarcasm]

ok rant over

With confidence

2009-05-26T23:28:00.000+01:00

One morning I was praying the morning prayer as set out in Common Worship
[link here].
I don't do this often, I prefer to either use no liturgy or Franciscan.
Anyway, that aside; something struck me - (at the very end of the page linked to)

The Lord’s Prayer is said

Being made one by the power of the Spirit,
as our Saviour taught us, so we pray [modern version]

OR

Being made one by the power of the Spirit,
let us pray with confidence as our Saviour has taught us
[traditional Lord's prayer].

I couldn't help but notice the lack of confidence in the modern edition.
Seriously, the traditionalists get to feel confident in what they say, but anyone else is a bit unsure....

I feel a sermon analogy is just waiting to be had.

Perhaps it tells us something about the way the CofE views itself now...

It is at moments like this I sigh gently, and wonder why I am still anglican.
The Christian message is fine - and still true, but the CofE... well... *sigh

money money money money....

2009-05-26T21:58:00.001+01:00

Whilst researching for another post, I came across a comment here saying
"Given all the money that the Church of England controls, they could save children in poverty just as easily" -James Cambridge

This seems to imply that the church is either wasting money on bureaucracy, bishop lining their pockets with it, or basically some form of shady dealings.

Well I don't work in the CofE finance offices, but I can give a fairly comprehensive account on what money they do have based on the fact that all of the financial records are publicly available.

Firstly I think we need to consider a key question
1-how much should clergy,bishops etc get paid?

1-well, I think the fairest system, is to use the one the world adopts of 'what is an equivalent job in another organisation and how much do they get paid?'
Also looking at qualifications, and all of the clergy have degrees, many have phds or higher.
At the top, Rowan is a Chairman of a company- equivalent
so £100k?
Bishops are a cross between regional managers, and directors
so? 80k?
A Parish Priest? erm.. well lets assume the church is around 50people.
Perhaps one could liken it to a manager of a shop that has 50 workers, or maybe a school teacher who has a class to deal with.
But clearly it is more than a school teacher as you have a larger 'class' and you need to teach them to teach others.
40k?
[For reference a starting teacher is on about 20k, this then goes up to circa 35-40k and a head master is anything from 50k upwards (of course private schools pay more, etc etc)]
Well as it happens the stipend (take home) is around 20k.
the get rent free housing on top as well as pension so most people say it averages to 35k for a vicar - maybe 40k, and then bishops go up.. slightly.
Rowan gets 45k for his stipend, given he lives in lambeth palace though we can consider this to be closer to 80-100k so maybe they are payed ok?

But how many clergy need to be payed?
This is harder to find than I expected
Eventually I found this.
The important figures are:
number of Bishops - 103 (including archbishops of york, not Canterbury)
number of Archdeacons - 114
number of Cathedral Deans - 41
number of 'other dignitaries (basically cathedral canons, clergy selectors etc) -99
number of priests (vicars, asst vicars, chaplains etc) -8066
(I got that as being total parochial clergy + total non parochial clergy i.e. chaplains.)

I have arranged those number in descending order of 'seniority'.
Given the bill is around £449 million every year, this means each priest/bishop costs the church on average £53k per year.
(this takes housing, training, council tax, etc into account).

So how much money does 'the church' have?
Well the problem is, the CofE is not a single entity, it parishes have seperate bank accounts to the dioceses which are seperate from the national church etc.
However to help, the church commissioners produced a report summarising finances assuming the church was one big entity (for the period 2000-2006).

Roughly the church has £1 billion to play with, and it is spent:
39.2% salaries, pensions etc
27.3% Costs of services, education (church schools support), community support, outreach etc
1.6% central admin
9.3% cost of generating funds (i.e. setting up costs for a fundraiser such as hall hire for a quiz night, advertising etc)
17.4% - building repair and upgrades etc
5.2% - grants to third parties (i.e. helping save the children etc)

Now James claimed the church could end child poverty-
lets say that all services are cancelled.
all clergy work for nothing.
admin, fund generation and building work would have to continue
thats 28.3%.
So with all this belt tightening (that is frankly not going to happen) you get £820.97 million based on 2006
Well based on this - thats actually just a drop in the ocean.
Selling all assets still wouldn't help.

Now if anyone thinks they can find the Billions needed to help child poverty in this country alone by tightening the church belt, be my guest.
However realistically I think the church is already doing quite a lot with all those clergy 'on the ground'.

Who would Jesus vote for?

2009-05-26T21:09:00.000+01:00

The world has been shocked-
people will remember this day

Yes the day Rowan Williams took a stand about something.

For those of you who don't know...
The Archbishops of York and Canterbury (John Sentamu and Rowan Williams Respectively) have issued a joint statement, asking people to not vote BNP, but to get out and vote- for someone.

As statements go, this isn't that controversial. When they attacked the finance sector in the begining of the recession you would have been forgiven for thinking 'they've picked a winner hear, everyone will agree'- however somehow people still managed to complain.

This time allying yourself against xenophobic racists is a little harder to see as wrong.
Unsurprisingly the BNP have complained. I did a quick google for "archbishops oppose bnp" and found this well argued piece.
I did find a better article here.

There does seem to be some criticism that they told people how to vote, and that they don't represent the public.
In short I think-
1-they just seem to argue that the BNP is not a good choice, (which given the way elections have gone in the past, appears to be the view of the public)- rather than say it is moral to vote labour/tory/lib-dem etc.
2-No they are not representing the public. They are representing the church of England, and it is for them to preach to the church (and public if they will listen).
The argument 'you need to be represenative of the public' doesn't hold water, particularly as the BNP are clearly not the representative of the majority of the public (not being in the top 3 parties that people remember), and so by there own argument should just keep silent.

Anyway they have tried to make a stand, and actually I think they're onto a winner.
However I think they should have said a little more, so here is my addition - mostly influenced from a lecture the Bishop of London Richard Chartres gave a while ago...
[not word for word, but ver close]
"..in this country the three main strands of christianity can be seen -broadly- as being Anglican, Roman Catholic, and free-church - largely represented by Methodists and Baptists.
Each one of them has FAILED to do what they intended to do,
that is they have failed to to achive monopoly of religious adherence in this country. For the reason we are truly blessed.
*mild confusion goes round the room*
Let me contrast for you the situation in Russia-before the revolution the church was the Russian Orthodox church, and the state was the church. To be Russian was to be Orthodox Christian.
But then with the excesses of the Tsars, revolution came into the air - at which point the general populace apposed the state, and by correlation the church.
And so for many years under the communist rule, no christianity was seen as publically acceptable, indeed it was banned - but with also the support of the populace (in the whole at least).

In this country we have not had that situation, our trade unions leaders have been methodist lay-preachers. You have been able to oppose the state without opposing Christ.
And that is a very good thing indeed, for the church is meant to speak prophetically to the state...."

For that reason we do not have a party in this country that can be seen as 'the christian party'. Because actually what government would Jesus vote for?
We can probably work out many of his values, but how would he implement them? He was never into government/politics himself, and so we can only conjecture.
And so one christian conjectures that the Conservatives actually are able to deliver the good moral leadership, whilst another feels that Labour is the fairest government and the conservative party proved its folly in the 90s, and yet another goes for the green party.

And from that- it seems completely right for the CofE leaders to condemn the BNP as fraudulantly claiming to be the 'christian' party, (not to mention that the first few chapters of ACTS show many instances of the Jews (Peter in particular) being shown that they need to be more inclusive of these 'outsiders' i.e. stop being racist and only supporting Jews).
It is also perfectly fine for the ArchBishops to NOT say who we should vote for, but instead encourage us to make up our own minds based on the wisdom we have recieved and the morals we have.

If the BNP thought they could get away with a poster of 'who would Jesus vote for' and not have a large christian organisation complain at them, they really need a reality check...
and a good sermon.

expenses expenses

2009-05-16T14:33:00.000+01:00

Well the media seem to have given up talking about real issues and we are left with discussing MP pay packets, as such I thought I would join in the fun.

Mainly because I don't actually have a strong opinion to one side or the other, and hope to point out it's not as clear cut as it could be.

My own bias is that I claim expenses, roughly £30-100 a month (sometimes a lot more sometimes a lot less).

I always see that as ok because me expenses are such things as:

-second class rail fair to a meeting I need to attend

-tube travel in London

-items of stationary that I bought for the general use of the office

oh and then the big ones

-gas, electricity and phone bills.

I see this as ok because:

firstly I live and work in london, and have a pay of £100 per week full time. (which is technically illegal, unless you do rather special accounting)

So I need any extra help I can get.

The deal with the job was they provide a room for me to live in (effectively as a lodger) and from my share of the gas and electricity bills they would pay 1/4 (any more and tax problems occur).

oh and the phone bill is only used for work use anyway - any personal calls on it I have to pay for and can't claim.

So as someone who is laughably underpaid (it's a long story lets not get into it now), I really need the added bonus of expenses.

With MPs, they earn a lot more than me, in fact I believe someone said they earn around £60k (I'll assume that is the base average for the rest of this article).

Well ok, how much should they get paid? This is actually a tough question but so far in the world the fairest system seems to look at what they could earn in other companies doing roughly equivalent jobs. In which case the cabinet would be like a board of directors and PM like a CEO, and thus you'd expect anything from £150-200k upwards.

'normal' MPs could perhaps be seen as top level management and only would be worth £80k? definitely more than £60k at least.

(Also remember that the directors pay is normally proportional to the size of the company, and the UK is a fairly large country in terms of money, diplomatic standing etc - not the largest obviously but a leading player).

Now the scandel seems to be that MPs are topping up their pay by anything up to £20k annually with expenses that actually should be seen as personal and not benefiting the country.

Well that still means their total income isn't that unreasonable? surely.

From a christian perspective I can't really see the point of expenses, just pay everyone an average £20k (or whatever the average expenses per year claim is) more, and expect that MPs will donate things like staplers to theirs offices if they decided they need to buy one rather than going through the hassle of calling it an expense.

However from the basis that not everyone is going to donate things like that, and people could 'lose out' then make it a £15k pay rise, and the rest of expenses for things which obviously benefit the country/offices of parliment like new printer ink because it was needed suddenly late one night and had to be bought.

So basically that is the view of 'hey guys MPs deserve a lot of money, let them have it, and get rid of all the pen pushing that makes it happen.

----

however there is ofcourse the counter view:

What about working for the good of the country? Sacrifising one self for the common good?

Ok so businesses pay more, but they are trying to make money. The Goverment should be trying to improve everyones lives.

Why can't MPs stay in travel-lodge rather than a second home in london?

Or Just buy a block of flats somewhere and kit it out like student halls (so they have a single or if married double bedded room, and a canteen to buy simple food from... and a kitchen to share between 8 rooms or whatever).

They don't have to live in these places all year long, so surely just a place that they can sleep in and eat is enough?

The house of commons, is meant to be full of 'common' people. Unlike the Lords (which traditionally had the people who owned the land and the businesses) these people should represent the common people, so surely they should get paid a common wage?

Isn't the UK average around £20k? government statistics say that you only need £10k to be happy, so if anything thats generious.

Someone said they work 60 hours a week... why? to make money or to sacrifise themselves for the country?

in business if you do that, it's so that you can be a high-flyer, and become rich (generalisling a lot here)

If they are in it for money, then their motives are not right for governing the country,

if they are sacrifising themselves, then they wouldn't look for legal loop-holes to get more money.

Maybe the work-load of MPs should be reduced. How that would work I don't know, but really if they are to relate with the common folk then their own balance of work and rest, work in the office and activities unrelated should reflect the average person more. perhaps 35-40 hrs a week, (i.e. 9-5 + 5 hours extra) and be encouraged to take up an activity like sport, bird watching, local civic societies, going to the pub, or even church. Bascially anything which makes them more 'common'.

So yeah, either you think they deserve to be paid well, and this is all a lot of noise about nothing.

Or you think they are being paid enough as it is, and should be content with that.

(or even more, they should cut down on pay and work to represent us more).

On balance, I think pragmaticaly if you want to encourage people who might be good, you have to pay a resonable wage - and competative.

So I would go for a pay rise, by however much is the average expenses, and let them have two mortgages if they choose, or let them use travel lodge and pocket the extra.

But as someone who is making sacrifises for my work, as I know the financial situation of this church, I am ok to do it 'if' other people do as well, rather than taking advantage.

When there was talk of hiring another worker for 22k per year I thought "was this person really going to be worth 4 times me?" and was about to have an argument about a pay rise (except they never did hire in the end).

But anyway I make sacrifises because I judge the church to need it in order to survive.

Really 500MPs claiming an extra 20k = 10,000k per year. This saving is eqivalent to 5 people not going to university in the year so the LEA not having to help fund them.

really in terms of the total budget it makes little difference.

So er yeah, that's my thoughts. (most of them contradictory, but hey)

I would assist individual customers with their requirements...

2009-05-10T14:40:00.000+01:00

.. or to anybody else - I was a checkout boy.

I'm currently in the process of re-writing my CV, and I get unbelievably worked up about the amount of jargon I have to put in.

I saw this:

http://www.exacteditions.com/exact/displayPage.do?issue=4926&page=6&term=its+a+spade+not+a+earth+relocation&size=3

and I think I agree entirely.

Why is it that companies think we need to show our skill by re-wording mundane tasks into really exciting things.

I suppose the thing which really annoys me is that I know I'm not that good at it, and people who are really good at spin will produce better CVs but not neccesserily be any better at understanding the stress analysis on a submarine at high pressures.

I guess it should be no surprise that those in the top jobs (i.e. running the country) are good at spin rather than economics, because if they had spent time practising financial skills they would have never got into a place to use them.

Why is this insanity allowed to continue?

In some companies it gets even worse, as with IT (for example) those who make the decisions are increasingly a long way away from those who understand what can and can't be done. And so we get into situations where a certain large aerospace company does its finite element modelling on a system that crashes every few minutes because no one in the 'decision room' has thought to spend a few minutes recompiling the code for the new computers.

hmmm

still its all about playing a game;

GCSEs and A-levels are not about intelligence, they are about jumping hoops, and writing CVs is just the same.

However I don't like these sorts of games, which is possibly going to count against me.

oh well, I guess you just have to grin and bear it.. I'll get of my soap box now.

1 John 1:1-4 sermon

2009-05-10T14:36:00.000+01:00

This is my least favourite... mainly because I had to introduce a book and preach a message but only had 4 verses to work with.

Still....

-------------

Good Morning,

As many of you will know, the [place] festival is happening soon [dates] – for those who don’t know- it’s the [place] carnival that they always hold on the Park opposite the church, only this year they are re-naming it.

Anyway the organisers asked us if we would like to be involved as a church, and it was decided that we would open the church up on the Saturday to let people in for a chat, or a coffee, or a prayer.

Mavis and I then thought we would like to put up a display of the Christian story around the church for people to see.

So of course we need to include all the important parts in the story of Christianity..

Where do you think the story starts?

-what is the start of the Christian story?

-easter? Baptism of Jesus? Christmas? (gradually help them with answers if they don’t respond etc)

Well our passage today provides us the answer, “That which was from the beginning”.

In many ways it echoes the start of Johns’ gospel “In the beginning was the Word”.

Christianity is not a 2000 years old religion, that begun in the desert somewhere. It is the result of a progressive revelation of God to his people;

Through creation we learn something about God- that he is a creative God, he then reveals more to Adam & Eve in the garden, and then more is revealed to Abraham as God makes a covenant with him;

Yet more is revealed to Moses as he has the law given to him,

And so on and so on, until in Matthew 5:17 Jesus says “I have not come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come to fulfil them”.

I often feel this – the antiquity of the Word – is something we miss.

And so over this term we are going to be looking at 1 John, so I thought as this is the first sermon of the series, it would be good to spend some time giving an extended outline of 1 John, to build up a framework to help understand how the next few weeks will fit together.

First John was quoted from very early on in the life of the church, by Papias of Hierapolis who lived between 60-135AD. And also it is quoted in Polycarp’s letter to the Philippians (a different letter to the bible) in the early second century.

Now although we’re not sure when it was written; most scholars seem to put the date as being between 85 and 95AD -after John’s gospel had been written.

Although 1 John lacks explicit reference to a city or region, it is most likely that John is speaking to problems that have arisen in the churches over which he has some jurisdiction. This area was roughly western Asia-Minor, or south west turkey.

The letter was most likely written to counter the threat of Gnosticism – an early form of Christianity which had changed the message of the Bible in several key ways.

John’s purpose, therefore, was to expose false teachers and their utter lack of morality.

He wanted to assure his readers that they had been saved. And because he had seen Christ, known Christ, he wanted to refute the idea that this human saviour was some kind of unreal Spirit being.

As we read 1 John together over the coming weeks, you can experience some real joy and some real ambivalence.

On the one hand, John’s writing style is very simple, with a very limited and basic vocabulary (so much so that I’m told this is usually the first book that students learning Greek are given to read).

On the other hand, you may experience real difficulty trying to follow John’s train of thought. It seems to me that unlike Paul who writes in a very systematic and logical well structured way, John is .. random.

It’s been suggested it may help to think of it more as a musical composition than a Pauline argument.

I have to confess this is actually quite a kin to how my mind works when I try to organise things so I found it very enjoyable.

John gives a prelude to anticipate the first theme, then the next two main themes

Are struck or more accurately hinted at, followed by an interlude and then another prelude this time to the major theme of the false prophets and their denial of the incarnation.

With all the three major themes in place, John works them over two more times each, adding and clarifying as he builds up with powerful crescendo to the finale.

And so moving into today’s passage particularly, a prelude to the first theme.

These first 4 verses can be seen as split into two sections, that on foundation facts (v 1-2) and that for the benefit of our everyday experiences.

Now in the first section – In order to catch his readers’ attention, John begins abruptly. He writes not only from knowledge, but also from his profoundly personal experiences of the "Word of Life."

John recounts that he had heard, seen, looked at, and touched his Subject.

The subject being the ‘word of life’

But what is he talking about? To me it seems there are three possibilities as to the identity of this "Word of Life":

• The gospel message, which conveys new life

• The person of Christ

• Both 1. and 2.

Option 3 is best. It seems likely that John’s readers would have identified the "Word of life" with the "Word made flesh" of Jn. 1:14.

Indeed, eternal life and Jesus were practically synonymous for John ( in 1 Jn. 5:20 he claims Jesus is “the true God, and the eternal life”).

Moreover, Jesus said of himself that he is life eternal (Jn. 11:25; 14:6) and Paul said that Christ is the gospel message (1 Cor. 1:23). Therefore, it seems reasonable to me, and most scholars, to view the "Word of Life" as the message of the gospel incarnated in Jesus the Son of God.

As I said previously, the early stages of a heresy called Gnosticism had begun to surface when John wrote this. So John wanted his readers to know that this teaching was false and that his audible, visible, and tangible witness to the "Word of Life" is conclusive proof that "the Word of Life" was a material, divine reality.

These facts are really crucial, and are why I outlined to you at the beginning that a man named Polycarp had quoted from 1 John. And indeed sat at Johns’ feet learning from him.

Because if this is true then what we have hear is eye-witness testimony.

John is trying to give his readers every reason to sit up and listen to what he has to tell them.

Moving to verse 2,

John states that Christianity is not a human fabrication, nor an elaboration of some other world religion. Rather, Christianity is a revealed religion ("the life appeared").

Were it not for God graciously choosing to reveal himself finally and completely in Christ, we would all be blinded by the darkness of the ruler of this world, we wouldn’t know anything about God.

John’s experience reminds us that Christianity is not a religion for just scholars; it is an intensely "personal" one. Consequently, our faith is based not only to what God has done in history, but to what God has done in us.

Our experience of Christ should be similar to that of John’s:

• we "see" the truth of the gospel

• we "testify" to it (- affirm it to be true)

• and we "proclaim" it to others.

John assures his readers and us that the truth about salvation is both objective and subjective. It is grounded in the personal and historical; the perceiver and the perceived; the experience and the experienced.

However, lest we forget that experiencing and proclaiming Christ is merely a means to an end, John reminds us that God is bringing about his objectives in our salvation.

And so now moving onto the second section –

[Verses 3-4]

John states two intended purposes for proclaiming the Word of life:

The first being "Fellowship", and the second being Joy.

John says that fellowship with him and his apostolic colleagues necessarily depends upon a relationship with God through Christ.

It is impossible to have genuine, biblical fellowship with other believers and not have fellowship with God through his Son Jesus (and vice versa).

Christians are related to one another as a branch is related to a vine. – the true vine – Jesus.

We are a spiritual family.

So what happens when the fellowship become one-sided to either the human or divine elements?

Human fellowship minus divine fellowship is like a tree without roots.

Likewise, divine fellowship minus human fellowship equals false piety.

Remember the what Jesus told us was the greatest commandment, “Love the Lord your God.. and love your neighbour as yourself”

these two must be inextricably linked for our growth as Christians to be complete.

For example Evangelism that does not involve fellowship will leave new disciples with a serious case of biblical malnutrition.

Similarly, fellowship amongst ourselves, in which we constantly pray for one another, but that does not issue forth in evangelism will leave a static and lifeless "holy huddle."

Again for example,

Praying on your own, and reading the bible with no reference to any other Christian author, or to any lesson that history has taught us, will invariably lead to some rather odd beliefs indeed – something that can be seen in many cults.

And fellowship with one another that has no reference to God, is no different really from any other group of friends – it does not set us apart from the world, and if we’re honest, it doesn’t equip us to deal with and grow through the challenges of life in the same way the true vine does.

We need to hold fellowship within our community as very important, but also in creative tension with fellowship with God, and fellowship with those outside.

Finally the second reason John gives for writing is "Joy" (and not a cheap glow that depends upon circumstances).

Rather, biblical "joy" is a quiet, inner confidence that our salvation is secure.

Biblical "joy" is delighting in all the blessings of a relationship with God and his people.

But still, what does John mean in this context about Joy?

I think I think the most likelt answer, is is similar to that of John the Baptist,

who said in Jn 3:29 “The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete.”

Think of it if you will, as a parent – or perhaps a grandparent feels joy when they see a child begin to reach it’s potential.

John is expressing his quiet inner confidence that their salvation and growth is actually secure; as is ours. This should give us a confidence and a joy!

In Summary

What was experienced, seen, heard, felt, and written down is the historical and deeply personal reality John calls the "Word of life."

This "Word of life" is none other than the gospel message incarnated in Jesus.

This "Word of life" is: Revealed to us, so it can be experienced by us and, proclaimed,

the effect of which is this: fellowship with God, and fellowship with God’s people, resulting in the joy and assurance of our salvation.

Let us Pray-

Romans 6:1-14

2009-05-10T14:34:00.000+01:00

This sermon I dislike as I couldn't think of any practical modern day analogy. Still it recieved good feedback at the time.

----------------

Before we get into the text it is probably worthwhile setting it its context with the book of Romans as a whole.

It is believed the letter was written around 57 AD, and authored by Paul whilst he was still at Corinth ministering there. Besides preparing the way for his own visit to Rome, it was designed to present the basic system of salvation to a church that had not received the teaching of an apostle before. This is good for us, as it means it covers such a wide variety of theology compared to some of the other letters that addressed specific needs.

The main subject of the letter is faith: faith in Jesus Christ. Paul contends that salvation comes to us not through what we do, but from whom we put our faith in. It is God’s forgiveness and love that rescues us, not our own efforts. Paul argues that salvation it is not a matter of obeying the Jewish Law – nor even a case of obeying natural laws or morality. It is a gift of God. That is not to say it doesn’t matter what we do. As Christians, we are obliged to live lives of love, hope and sacrifice. But Paul argues, we do this as a response to salvation, not in order to obtain it.

In the section immediately preceding tonight’s passage (3:21-5:21), Paul has been discussing the place of faith in bringing us into a right relationship with God. In chapter 6 verses 1-14 he goes on to explore how God’s grace frees us from a life of sin and gives us new life - now broadly speaking, sin can be thought of choosing to live apart from God. This is easiest to think of in terms of actions – in doing something that God has commanded you don’t, but it also applies to our attitudes.

Anyway, the structure of this passage could be roughly seen as an initial piece of teaching about the work of the Cross and Resurrection 1-10, and then 11-14 how this should impact our daily lives.

Paul begins this passage in a rhetorical way, he is using 2 voices to present the arguments against his teaching, and then counters it gracefully.

In verse 20 of the previous chapter, Paul had said “The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more,” – very true, but it can easily lead to a misinterpretation that it doesn’t matter anymore how much you sin; that somehow grace encourages sin.

This is the question Paul asks in verse 1 “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase?”, and just in case anybody gets confused and thinks this is what Paul is preaching, he instantly answers his own question with “certainly not”.

But really the rest of this passage is trying to answer that question more fully & explain why it is a ‘no’ in the light of verse 20.

I think I want to spend a moment looking at the baptismal imagery in verses 3-5.

Most commentators seem to agree that Paul is referring to baptism in water as the point in time at which people become joined with Christ. The point in time when we were baptised “into” Christ, and hence “into his death”.

Baptism essentially means death to the person I once was, self centred,

unforgiven, and alienated from the life of God.

And just as Christ rose from the chill waters of death on the first Easter Day,

so you and I rose from the waters of baptism to enter into the new life he gives us,

a life that is shared with him, governed by him, a life that will never end.

And to me it it’s really the impact of being united to Christ that Paul uses as a backbone to the rest of his arguments.

Now from verses 3-5 Paul has established the fact that believers participate in Jesus’ death and resurrection thanks to our baptism. So now he elaborates on what that means; the “death” side is dealt with in verses 6-7, and the “new life” side in verses 8-10.

The other thing to note is that in the previous verses he was using words like ‘we’ to empathise the community aspect of being united with Christ, now in verse 6 he has replaced ‘we’ with ‘old self’.

Precisely what the old-self is referring to is not certain, however, much of the weight of opinion seems to be in favour of one suggestion that – and I quote from one commentator - “what was crucified with Christ was not a part of me called my old nature, but the whole of me as I was before I was converted”. Which I think makes a lot of sense, Paul is making reference again to how our whole self was united with Christ in baptism, to Christ’s resurrection, - and this was done so verse 6 “.. the body of sin might be done away with”.

This is God’s purpose – that “we should no longer be slaves to sin.”

But how is it that our former self being crucified with Christ might mean that sin no longer has a hold over us?

Verse 7 supplies the answer, “because anyone who has died has been set free from sin”

.. so what does this mean??

I think I need to pull back to look at a wider context for a moment, and that is to do with sin & death.

Basically whenever the bible talks about sin, you are sure to find the wages of sin being referenced close behind – namely death.

Right from the beginning of the bible in genesis, God tells Adam that if he sins and eats the apple he will die.

What most scholars seem to agree on, is that this death, by which we have died, is symbolic in some sense, and that thanks to us dying with Christ – our wages for our sin were paid in that act of crucifixion of Christ.

But the story doesn’t stop there, because verse 8 “if we died to Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.”

He has been raised to an altogether new plane of living. Verse 9 “death no longer has mastery over him.” .

Now we can live in a state where sin no longer carries this condemnation with it of death, verse 10 “the death he died, he died to sin once for all; BUT the life he lives, he lives to God”.

Now onto the final section of the passage, verses 11-14;

These fit into the passage in a way that reflects a common pattern in Paul: What God has done for us – should be the basis and the motivation for what we do for God.

Verse 11 perhaps suggests an intermediate step working on our self-motivation – only by constantly looking at ourselves as people who really have died to sin and been made alive in Christ will we be able to live out the new status God has given us.

In verses 12-13 Paul moves into the realm of action. He begins with a negative: we must not let sin “reign” in our lives.

Here we are faced with the tension between our ‘being set free from sin’ and our command to ‘not to let sin reign’. And yet Paul claims again in verse 14 that sin is no longer our master.

The relationship between these two ideas is not easy; but what we can say is that putting away our sins is not an automatic process, something that will happen without our cooperation.

Instead a determination of our own will is called for to turn what has happened in principle into actuality.

Verse 13 makes the same point in a different way – Paul, by using words such as “instruments” and “parts of your body”, is bringing to mind all of our capacity and capabilities, and instructing us to bring them no longer to the service of wickedness, but instead to be used for the service of God. So that in everything we do, we are doing it as an act of service or worship to God.

Finally Paul offers a further reason for offering ourselves to God rather than to sin

Because we are “not under law, but under grace”; this is the final key to our freedom from sin.

To be under law is to accept the obligation to keep it and so to come under its curse or condemnation. To be under grace is to acknowledge our dependence on the work of Christ for salvation – Moreover to recognise the power and significance of the Cross and resurrection in lives day to day rather than to be under law and reduce things to simple rule keeping.

Remember I said the opening question in verse 1 was a response to 5v20, that where the law reigned more and more sin also increased. And so ‘does grace encourage sin?’

The answer Paul offers us, is that on the contrary, Grace discourages, and overthrows sin, it was the law that provoked and increased sin; but grace opposes it and lays upon us the responsibility of holiness.

So what then should we take away from this passage tonight?

Perhaps you find this message still a bit new to you, and you want to let your full energy be a work for God, but feel daunted.

Maybe you’ve tried before and found you end up falling into sin again and feeling discouraged.

I think if that’s you, the key thing to take away, is that you do not have to feel any guilt or condemnation from sin – this is the good news of Easter. Focus instead on verse 11, counting yourself dead to sin and alive to Christ.

Perhaps instead you have heard all the recent Celebrate at 7 sermons on ‘newness’, and feel you’ve already made a start - or maybe even more than a start – I want you to consider asking yourself the question “what would it look like if every part of me in every part of my life was lived as an “instrument of righteousness” for God’s work?”

Let’s end with a prayer –

[nb the line spaces are almost entirely unrelated to grammer, and are there to help me follow the printed version]

Good Friday Reflections

2009-05-10T14:30:00.000+01:00

yes I know this is woefully out of date now...

but if anyone is interested in a reflection on the centurion it might be interesting...

[also please forgive the formatting - it has very little to do with grammer, and more to do with making it easier to read out.]

-----------

In this reflection, our focus is the Roman centurion and his confession of who Jesus was.

Mark commences the gospel with his own confession of Christ – in chapter 1, verse 1, he writes ‘The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God’. Halfway through the gospel account, Jesus asks Peter who he thinks he is, and Peter gives his confession that Jesus is the Christ.

Now, at the end of the gospel, in the midst of Good Friday, the centurion makes his own statement on who Jesus was.

To help you picture the event, a centurion was perhaps the equivalent of a captain or lieutenant in today’s army. He commanded directly a centuria of men – which was in those days around 80 men.

This centurion had no doubt seen many deaths, on the battlefield and no doubt in many executions as well. Most likely he was in charge of the guard who performed this act of crucifixion, and so would have been present at the gruesome events recorded earlier in the chapter vs 16-20 – when the soldiers mocked Jesus, gave him the crown of thorns, and beat him, before then leading him out to die on the hill outside the city.

As he marched his men out, the centurion would have quite likely felt as though it was any ordinary crucifixion.

But suddenly and unexpectedly he appears to have been deeply affected by Jesus’ death, When he saw how Jesus died he said “Surely this man was the son of God!”.

Now we don’t know whether the centurion meant this as a question or a statement. Was it a carefully thought out judgement after observing all these things for himself, or was it something he casually blurted out not expecting anyone to take notice? Certainly it wasn’t the sort of thing you'd expect a battle hardened soldier to utter at a typical crucifixion.

Perhaps he had noticed Jesus before when he taught in the temple,

perhaps he had felt humbled by Jesus’ prayer earlier in the day of ‘Father forgive, for they know not what they do’,

perhaps he was moved by the way Jesus had not responded to the way his soldiers had mocked him. Whether or not these things were significant, I think there is something very important in what Jesus cried out -

“Eloi Eloi, lama Sabacthani?”, 'my God my God, why have you forsaken me?'

This is the cry of a love that suddenly feels no longer reciprocated.

The love that granted it its identity and upon which it depended for its being and its world is no longer there.

For Jesus now, the experience of feeling forsaken by his Father was the most awful thing that could happen to him, and far surpassed the pain of the nails.

Maybe it was the evident sincerity and pain poured out in those words from the cross that broke through the callus built up by years of being exposed to death

and pierced the heart of the centurion with these words.

On the cross was someone who loved God much, and had been loved by God,

for only one who genuinely loves much can be hurt this much by separation.

The centurion was moved by the tortured Jesus and saw something in Him that enabled him to recognise Jesus as being more than simply a human being, a good teacher or miracle-worker.

So he cried out publicly, “Surely this man was the Son of God!” His testimony was short. But sometimes only a few words are needed.

The centurion’s judgement on Jesus challenges us to re-assess our own view of God a

nd the place of suffering within the divine economy.

Perhaps it is not the case that God is 'big enough' to be present at the cross,

But instead the cross, with all its terrible darkness, shows us more of what is characteristic of God and his love, than anything else can or ever could.

The death of Jesus impacted the centurion for it jolted him out of self-interested indifference and enabled him to see with striking clarity just who Jesus was.

May our reflection on the events of Good Friday enable us to see with similar clarity just who Jesus is and so come to know and experience the gift of eternal life that he offers to all who come to him.

a first post

2009-05-10T12:09:00.000+01:00

well I'm sure many people agonise over the first post...

not me, as I don't expect anyone will read it - as I shall now post about 3 pre-prepared posts on top.

and it will then not be for a while longer that anyone starts to read...

however just incase someone does read this:

I have decided to blog various musings of my life-

I am a Christian who is trying to live a priestly life but without the trappings of being a vicar: both in the sense of the royal priesthood of all believers, and in the sense of a call to be a Christian leader building and nurturing Christian communities (whilst also trying to re-energise those who where brought up in the church but have not found a way to let christian life affect their normal lives).

Yes saying I have a call like that is reasonably arrogant, sorry but that is what I feel God is very clearly saying to me. For a long time I felt this would be primarily in the shape of being an ordained vicar in the CofE, however it now seems that I should try to begin living out this call in the non-church world of work first.

oh and finally - the title

very catholic - because unlike most evangelicals I meet, I actualy take an interest in church history pre the reformation, and moreover think we can learn much from our catholic brothers and sisters today.

Also I think some of my theology has been shaped by great catholic thinkers (such as Thomas Aquinas and Justin Martyr).

Evangelical - because I am...

I don't consider the bible to be the incarnate Word of God (that's Jesus)- instead I think of it as a sign towards the Word.

I take its teaching very seriously, though I admit some would call me conservative evangelical on certain issues, and others would call me liberal on others.

anyway enough of this post...

time for lunch.