the red pill

There are occasions when I'm not so proud to be British. The way that the establishment rolls out the red carpet to leaders of oppresive regimes sickens me. I really hope that someone, somewhere had chosen the music to accompany the arrival of the Saudi royal at Buckingham Palace as a kind of comment.

It's a strange day. 20 years ago today I had the encounter with an evangelist that would go on to reshape my life completely, and all because of a dear old saint who prayed. Alma was one of those easily-overlooked-on- earth heaven shakers. Alma prayed and things happened. It being Halloween , and Alma being what some would describe as a prayer warrior, intercessor, spiritually attuned (pick your favourite term, or tell me of a better one), she was certainly going to be at the prayer meeting in church that night, to pray for God to touch the lives of young people especially, and to ask his protection for those who might be opening themselves up to less than helpful spiritual experiences on that day when darkness seems just a touch darker still. That early evening, as she waited for her bus, Alma spotted some graffiti  left by a local gang, a list of names and tags. Alma, being Alma, took out a notepad and wrote down the names as best she could, struggling to make out what

This coming Sunday in Cafe Church we'll be thinking about how advertisers seek to entice us into gaining our sense of identity through the consumer choices we make. I like this video on the subject, and may well use it on the night. The text is: I am product. Your senses reel at the sight of my seductive branding. Your feelings of inadequacy heightens without me. I complete you. Arms laden with disposable carrier bags filled with me, you feel a sense of purpose briefly kindled in your lonely soul. I am built in a plastics factory by unhappy people in a land you've never been to. Shipped in bulk, stacked high in warehouses nationwide, I provide you with a sense of individuality you could not otherwise achieve. You are Target Market, my End User Consumer. You need me, feed frenzy, buy me use me break me. Buy another. I am worth the vice grip stress of debt. You are worth what you paid for me. Indulge yourself. Suckle on the post-consumer afterglow. Tell your friends. Key in your

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Seems like I’m forever catching up Well some highlights since last posting, or from about that time but I haven’t had a chance to yet. We had Ruth and Glen Powell come for dinner whilst they were touring the country. They live and work in Sydney, Glen for the Uniting church, encouraging fresh expressions, Ruth for NCLS Research, an organisation that researches church trends in Aus. Glen and I had corresponded through the youthmultimedia group I’m part of, and so it was a good chance for us to meet up properly, to hear about their work, to see if there are ways that we in Bromley might get involved with some of the excellent qualitative as well as quantitative research that Ruth does. Another wonderful online connection. I searched on facebook for some old friends who we’d lost touch with from our days living and studying in Lancaster. They too had experienced fertility problems, and we were overjoyed to discover they had a daughter about the same age as our son, having had treatment in