the red pill

I have taken some time the last few days, following the Christmas activities, to read some of the messages friends and family have sent in their greetings cards. I love the messages we send each other at Christmas. I love too that we remember that we serve and have fellowship with a God who communicates with us. John uses his language carefully as he writes the gospel, “in the beginning was the word, and the word was God…and the word became incarnated and lived amongst us…” God sends a maessage, a word, his word, the word. And that message? Well, it seems to me we’ve gotten a bit confused about it. Some have mistaken it as bad news “You’re in big trouble with God!” or an offer of fire insurance “heading for hell? Depend on Jesus…”. Some think the message is about rules, regulations, committees, structures, abstract concepts and remote ideals. The message was and is more simple. God’s word to us at Christmas was and is “I love you”. I love you. I love you just as you are, but far too m...

Christmas Crackers and cards Reindeer and robins Snowmen and Santa Decorations and duckling Legs of turkey and laden trees Tacky baubles and tinkling bells Dodgy telly and dodgier tummies Cranberry sauce and carol singing Shepherds and stars, angels and animals Incense and innkeepers, myrrh and mangers Gifts of gold and Gabriel’s song, Magi’s worship and Mary’s wonder Joseph’s heart jumps at baby’s first cry, a child has been born and a crowd has been drawn. Then from Bethlem’s crib to a cruel cross, from a virgin womb to a borrowed tomb From babe’s first cry to blood’s last drop, from the child’s laugh to the dying man’s gasp From the wronged to the loved comes the gift of forever The babe is then wrapped in the leftover paper The box is stashed with the tinsel and lights The love of the Father awaits rediscovery In the unexplored package Left in the cupboard Christmas

I am so looking forward to the rerelease of U2’s The Joshua Tree. Like so many people, it was the album that first turned me on to them. It looks like some extra material that wasn’t on the original recording is going to make it into this one, and I came across a short film (8 mins or so) where Bono is talking about one of these songs and its meaning. I'm posting this clip because I found it moving, but more than that because it's a very intimate little film that gives us an insight into the creative process and theological craft of Bono. I hope you enjoy it, and find it as inspirational as I did.

If you haven't clicked on the link in my blogroll to The Ongoing Adventures of ASBO Jesus you really should. I love the simplicity of the message and the medium, this cartoon recently spoke heaps to me. Check it out today.

I saw this poster recently, in fact there were quite a few of them, dotted around, near the exits of our local shopping mall. I had to do a double-take, wondering if I'd really seen what I thought I had. Just in case you can't quite work it out, the poster asks first if a person has a spare room, then informs that this agency gives £380 per child per week. It's in the smaller print that we learn that the agency is a care and foster agency. Isn't the message here a bit off key? When did we, as a community, start seeing foster care primarily as a financial issue? Isn't it odd that the recruitment doesn't mention a caring attitude to children, or a desire to help? Is foster care in our capital city just a business transaction? Isn't this hugely offensive, or am I over-reacting? I'm sure that the agency would do proper training and checking of suitability, but it's just mad that the basis of the appeal for more foster carers is that it's a money-spin...

From time to time I recommend books and magazines, and I’ve come across a new mag I want to encourage you to get hold of. A few years ago, some friends and I started an organisation called Geezers for Jesus, we wanted to do a few things, one was to provide an online resource for guys to talk about the realities of living as both a Christian and a man in today’s world with all the challenges that entails (a quest for an understanding of what might be called a masculine spirituality), the other was to facilitate men’s gatherings around the country to be more relevant in their approach to men’s’ ministry. Well, the first part, the online resource has existed for a quite a while http://www.geezersforjesus.org.uk/ , the second part has been slower coming. With my Geezers for Jesus hat on I was delighted to find that Wesley Owen are stocking the new magazine Sorted, solidly geared towards Christian men, and british men at that! – rather like The Blokes’ Bible, this is real, accessible and r...

Over on his excellent and thought provoking blog Leaving Munster , Graham has been writing about his attitudes and response to the wearing of a red poppy. It's a subject that I have often wrestled with and so I replied to his posting there, but also thought I'd like to hear your points of view. Essentially Graham argues that the wearing of the red poppy, coupled with a nationwide act of remembrance where every soldier who died is lumped together as valiant and noble perpetuates the myth that war solves things, and glorifies the sacrifice of armed service personnel. Here's my response - what do you think? It's a great and powerful post, thanks Graham. And yet, I do feel conflicted. On the one hand I hate that war occurs and I hate that people die. On the other, I live in relative freedom, one that in all truth I doubt I'd live in if certainly the second world war had been lost. I also feel torn that there are people who - whether I like it or not - fight in my name. ...

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...

The Youth Camp that we'd organised for August had to be hastily re-arranged as the field we rent was waterlogged. So last week, instead of taking our young people and youth leaders away for a week, we ended up offering a shorter, MiniCamp, based from Bromley, but with several trips out. The first day was a trip to Thorpe Park, a theme park with very good rides, and very long queues. I hadn't been to a theme park for a very long time (aside from one summer working in one in my student days) and it wasn't until i had safely shepherded the lads i was looking after into their seats, and got strapped in myself that I remembered "Oh yeah, rides, kinda scary..". The second day was at the seaside, based in Whitstable, and included the rather surreal moment of ten of our group in the sea swimming and playing, being watched by ten on the beach huddled under raincoats, towels, umbrellas to keep dry from the rain. Friday we went up into London to do the Big Bus tour, a boat t...

There’s a lot to catch up on, so today will probably be a multiple posting day. Let’s start with the good news, something I’ve been meaning to share for a while. Following fertility treatment, we’re pregnant again (well, I say “we”…). It’s 14 weeks ago today we had a third course of treatment in Northampton – the first course resulted in our son, the second, last summer, was unsuccessful – and that makes my wife 16 weeks pregnant, baby (who is currently referred to as Hope) is due the 2nd week of February, about a month after our son’s 3rd birthday. We’ve had a couple of scans, the first, at 8 weeks, allowed us to see the heart, and even hear it, and then we had another a few weeks ago that enabled us to see all was well again. It’s the strangest thing, catching a glimpse of this person who we’ll not meet for so long. “Surely you knit me together in my mother’s womb”. We’re blown away by the grace that has been extended us, and consider ourselves hugely blessed. We know, after having 1...

I've just started reading Kester Brewin's book "Signs of Emergence". I'm only 30 pages in but already convinced it's brilliant, it has to be, it agrees with many of my own preferences... I wish I could write half as eloquently as he does, he explores so beautifully the situation of the contemporary UK church. One passage I wanted to share with you comes in the middle of the introductory chapter. Brewin has challenged the opinion that the route to the revitalisation of church is the personal holiness of members, arguing that it is because what churches offer is "boring, unchanging, irellevant, says nothing to them (church leavers) about their life, and was completely unconnected to their experience" that church attendances have declined so sharply. (by the way, is there any kind of matrix developed that could chart the pace of change in western society? I have a hunch that if we could compare the stats on church decline with the rate of change in soc...

I'm aware that not all of my readers are people of faith, and that I really ought to do more to try and convince the heathen. So I'm posting this video as an effort to increase my evangelistic impact.

I heard the news today that a second South Korean Christian worker has been killed by the taleban in Afghanistan. May God be gracious to those who remain, who grieve, who question and who continue to work for peace. Pastor Bae Hyung-kyu, 42, the leader of the team was the first team member to be killed by them earlier last week, his body was repatriated to South Korea yesterday. Shim Sung-min was aged 29, and was an IT worker, his body was found beside a road yesterday evening, local time. The taleban are calling for the release of prisoners. I'm glad it's not me that has to make the tough decisions here, and I pray that God would give them grace and wisdom.

I've read a few good books lately having had a holiday, and also hitting a stream of inspiring reads. I read Sex God by Rob Bell, and found it a really helpful book. Both as a pastor and as a frail human this book helped me reflect on a good number of relationships from the past and present. His analysis that we are meant to be human, not angels nor animals is wonderful, worth reading the book just for that insight. I also read Revolution by George Barna, a very good analysis of the growing phenomenon of faith outside church in the US. I wonder if it translates to other cultures well, It didn't fit the UK but could see some useful stuff in it. On holiday i read Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg, a really great, twisty, windy thought provoking and moving murder mystery. This was set in Denmark and Greenland, and being rooted in a culture other than the ones i guess i tend to read about (UK, US, Aus) added a whole other level of involvement. I finished Steve Tay...

Andy Goodliff has kicked of a meme from his blog. I normally give these a wide berth, they do seem a bit self-indulgent, but because (a) Simon Jones completed it then tagged me to do it next and (b) because this one might actually tell you something useful about me, I decided to do it. Andy kicks it off with a quote from David Ford’s book “The Shape of Living” ... be alert for some key passages of the bible to inhabit in a special way. Hans Urs von Balthasar has said that often a saint's whole life can be seen as living out just one verse of scripture. One rich verse or story can be essential to our vocation, as we come back to it year after year, and find further dimensions to it. The great words, verses and passages of scripture and the liturgy are like houses which, as we study, pray, suffer and love, are made habitable with our own furnishings, pictures, meals and children ...' Andy then invites people to “post that verse or story of scripture which is important to you, w...