Listening and Gorillas

Boo!

Lets deal with this head on. My time with YFC is over and I am currently seeking other employment. Boom!

I’m taking some time to think and pray about the next step, but I’ve noticed that in this time when I’m trying to listen to what God wants me to do He seems to be keeping a bit quiet.

Funnily enough, I found an old video that I made for a project when I had only just started at YFC about this very problem. The video feature a great guy called Dom getting up and getting ready for work. As he goes through the normal mundane morning routine the viewer can see lots of messages warning him about a Gorilla. Dom himself seems to either ignore these messages or just doesn’t seem to notice them.

The truth is that God will be speaking to me, but I can’t hear for listening.

I was once in a prayer meeting where a very enthusiastic leader was praying for God to give them a clear message. We al sat in silence and I gazed around the room at all these blank faces who were clearly not getting any messages. Just then, in the space of about a minute, 4 mobile phones either rang or bleeped out a message tone. These noises were ignored, and the phones owners looked suitably embarrassed. This was the first time the thought of ‘can’t hear for listening’ came into my mind. We expect a message from God to come in a way that we would understand, but that won’t always happen.

For my part I’ve decided to stop thinking ‘is God speaking to me’ and instead I’ve just accepted that God will always be speaking to me, I’ve just got to figure out what he is saying.

Cheer!

New challenges, new opportunities, new direction!

Football and Sleep!

Cheers!

Everton knocked Man Utd out of the FA Cup.

lets take a few seconds to let those words sink in.

You see, Man Utd were on course to win everything this year and now they cant. Ha!

Im not just rejoicing in this because I dont really like Man Utd, its more because i dont want any club to just win everything in one season.

In all aspects of life I think we should always be striving for impossible perfection. There is no way we will ever be able to achieve everything that we want to but somehow just the fact that we believe we can keeps us going. what is left for football teams to aim for if Man Utd have a perfect season? nothing!

so this is why, for the sake of football, Everton winning is a good thing. Plus its always fun to upset a grumpy old man like Sir Alex!

Boos!

no matter how much sleep i get it is never enough! any advice?

Toffypops!

Cheers!

I would like to take a few moments to spread the word about Toffypops.

When I was very small I loved going to birthday parties. The details of when and where these parties took place, and even who they were for have begun to fade from my memory, although I do remember going to a pirate themed party with a in a old t-shirt, and a hanky tied to my head and a Thundercats 'Sword of Omens', which by this time was largely held together by sellotape, as my pirates cutlass. Anyway, the first thing I did upon arriving at a party was to go and check out the party food. There was always the usual tiny sausages, Wotsits, Skips and cubes of cheese, but quite often at one end of the table you would find plates of cakes and biscuits. My favourite of these plates would usually consist of Chocolate Fingers, Party Rings and Toffypops! Toffypops are the single greatest biscuit ever created. They are a toffee filled shortbread style biscuit with milk chocolate on the top, and they taste amazing!

By the age of ten I had noticed that the birthday parties I had attended had been noticeably void of my favourite biscuits. I began to look for them in shops and supermarkets but alas they were no where to be found. Toffypops were no longer in production in the UK! For the next 8 years I looked for them every time I was in a supermarket with no joy. the nearest thing that I found to the taste was caramel Rocky bars, but even those weren't as good as Toffypops.

At the age of 15, on a trip to Tesco for a family weekly shop I went over to the shelves that were home to Happy Faces and Party Rings and to my shock saw a packet of Toffypops! i bought 3 packet that day and ate them slowly over the following week. Three weeks later I returned to the same Tesco and they were once again nowhere to be seen. I had to wait another 9 years before I found them again.

For the time being Toffypops are available from all good supermarkets but my fear is that If people don't continue to buy them they may disappear again, and this time forever!

So, if you have never tried them go out and buy a pack today! I promise you will not be disappointed!

Boos!

Just a short one, I've got a tummy bug so I'm not eating much at the moment, I even went to a McDonald's in a service station yesterday and just ordered a large Coke! What's Wrong With ME!?!

Cheer or Boo?

Last night i watch the BBC3 sketch show 'Horne & Corden'. I find some of the material quite crude but on the whole it's quite funny. Last night i got that terrible sinking feeling when i saw that the background image on the set was a large cross. I thought to myself 'oh no, not another Christian-bashing sketch'.
I am quite a fan of stand-up comedy, but always struggle when the humour moves on to insulting what i believe. I was in a comedy club once and saw a comedian ask everyone if there were and Christians in tonight. I, along with a handful of others , put my hand in the air to which he replied 'Grow up will you for (expletive) sake'. This kind of comedy I don't like. Comedy where people attempt to get a cheep laugh from discounting other peoples faith.

A few weeks ago I somehow ended up in the Apple store in London listening to Eddie Izzard being interviewed but Simon Amstell. Eddie talked a lot about God in a very hostile way. His conclusion was that there was a spiritual world but there definitely was no one God. It became apparent in later in the interview that his reason for not believing was that his mother died when he was a small boy so couldn't believe that a loving God would put him through that. I felt very sorry for him and now regularly pray that his anger will cease and he would let God in.

Anyway back to last night. I was already preparing myself to turn over, when the sketch started to really take shape. The sketch feature two 'evangelists' from the 'Young Peoples Church' or YPC (dangerously close in name to the charity I work for!). They both had trendy haircuts and spoke in quite soft but trendy language. One of them even had a clever Christian slogan t-shirt. They spoke about their own and their friends testimony before singing a silly song on a acoustic guitar. The whole sketch was over the top in cheeseyness and attempted coolness and I think that sadly it wasn't too far away from things that I have done in the past.
You see, in this sketch they weren't making fun of God exactly but how we sometimes try to deliver the message. I would love to speak to them and find out how they came up with this sketch because it is so close to reality in places I feel they must have experience a few youth events along the way.

The characters in the sketch are going to be quite regular on the show so no doubt some of the phrases and jokes will catch on and present a natural barrier between us and the people we are trying to reach. The challenge to us is whether we sit back and get angry about it or we use this a the motivation to make-over how we share the gospel with young people.

In some ways maybe this sketch will become a much needed kick up the backside for Christian youth work in this country.