One for the road...

Now this what i call cool (eco)camping...

Check it out!

HT to Johnny

A chance to practice being generous...

Rick Meigs [aka the blind beggar], is a champion of generousity and grace.  The dude really inspires me and not least for his most recent post about another great guy in the blog world, John Smulo.  Rick is so good not least cos he is a practical catalyst to action rather than just talk. As Rick mentions in his post John is struggling financially and we have a chance of being practical and helping him out by:

• praying for him and his family
• being the answer in part to our prayers by giving John a gift of money

I don't know how many people read John's blog and have grown and benefitted from his awesome on-line pastoral presence - i know i have so i am more than happy to give him a gift as my friend and brother in need.

You can give John money via this paypal link on Rick's blog post.

Prostate Cancer awareness week...

This week is prostate cancer awareness week.  My friend is chief exuctive of the prostate cancer charity and this is an issue that we as men need to be increasingly aware of:

• Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK. Every year, 32,000 men are diagnosed with the disease and 10,000 men die of it - that's one man every hour.
• Historically, prostate cancer was neglected and by any dimension - research investment, media interest, political support, public awareness or Government action - it simply didn't register on the 'radar screen'.  Things are changing but slowly.

What you can do:

If you live in the UK then you may like to know that Marks and Spencer have decided to partner The Prostate Cancer Charity throughout the month of March. Information on prostate cancer is being distributed in all the 400+ stores across the UK and blue, Real Man pin badges are on sale also in all those stores.

It would be great if this partnership can be a real success so that it can go from strength to strength. This is a plea from me - could you please go into your local branch of M&S, buy a pin badge and wear it with pride! You'll be demonstrating your support for the thousands of men and their families affected by this disease every year

If you are the praying kind...

...could I ask you to pray on Thursday (21/12) for my three yr old son, Nathan, who is going into hospital to have a routine operation on his tongue - it's only day surgery but they have to knock him out -  hopefully it will help him speak better...

thanks :)

Smulospace... a space worth exploring

John has an amazing powerful/challenging post reflecting on the Beattitudes and Kingdom of God living here.

Got a do-attitude and single? Fancy being involved in a book/blog project on being single then check out his invite of interest here.

Well what are you reading this for still???

Tales of a guest blogger...

Jason Clark is away on holiday this week so there are a few guest posters covering for him.  Picking up on some of the feedback from Jase's post on blogging I have tried to have a good conversational post on Jesus and how we in as postmoderns/emerging church relate to him/follow him... 

Here's a taste....

"Let me ask you a question - is it me or do you think that an emphasis on Jesus is the centre of emerging church conversation/practice/theology/reflection? A focus on what Jesus is doing (rather than would do), an appreciation that he is intentionally incarnational and is the creator, completer, co-habitor and co-missioner of the creation narrative aka the Kingdom of God project?

I am doing some thinking about the emerging church conversation and what our own, dare I say it, emerging meme’s about Jesus are. But to help my wondering I am curious/intrigued/interested to know whether this is just my own perception/view and to hear what your thoughts/views on Jesus are, especially in the context of the emerging church conversation."

From: Your emerging view(s) on Jesus please

So come on over and enjoy/support the other guest bloggers who are there this week as well...

A request for help...

In response to this post on which of the four identified types of God people might believe in (that's if you believe in God), we've received this request for help from Andy:

"We're discussing this over here and I thought I'd ask the residents over here to come and give us a hand. In particular, is there anyone who used to believe in a distant God, who's moved to believing in a more invloved one? If so, how did you make the move?"

What you're still here,  you're missing out on a great conversation...

have yourself a papercraft party!

Exciting times - Deb's craft store website address is now: www.papercraftparty.co.uk

Sutton Vineyard missional trip to Sri Lanka...

Sutton Vineyard, the church I go to, are hoping to send a team in the autumn to Sri Lanka.  Yesterday they had a day of prayer for the country, where violence is flairing again, and for the team itself.  I went along for an hour to pray - its  been a long time since I prayed for an hour and even longer since I've prayed for an hour on one theme.   I confess my mind wandered some of the time and I also prayed for some other people that I'm feeling a lot of compassion for at the mo, the heart doesn't have such rigid walls - but overall it was an awesone time...

One of the things that struck me in reading some of the provided history of Sri Lanka was the legacy of colonialism - Sri Lanka, then Ceylon,  was part of the British Empire and it was us Britains who brought in the minority Tamil's to work on the tea plantations.   After exploiting the country it is not surprising that a few short years after gaining independence the majority people were replicating the sins of colonialism on the minority Tamils.  It might be a post-colonial world for us in the west but how many former colonies around the world are still dealing with the fall out from the mistakes that we made?

One of the things that struck me was that this time, these people from Britain are not going out to lord it over the native population but to be servants to them - I was very much reminded of Jesus ' words:

"You've observed how godless rulers throw their weight around, how quickly a little power goes to their heads. It's not going to be that way with you. Whoever wants to be great must become a servant. Whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave. That is what the Son of Man has done: He came to serve, not be served—and then to give away his life in exchange for the many who are held hostage."

In other words the team is going out to bless and help, to be God's agents, amabasadors of reconciliation, bringers of peace and practical help - not to tell people how to live but to love and live with them for 10 days.

It won't undo by any means the damage caused by our colonial history but I'm praying that the humility, help and healing they can bring as they go will be part of the process that God uses to bring peace...

World Cup predictions...

so i've gone with my heart more than my head... but here's my world cup prediction

As you can see from the reults of the group A games played tonight - what do I know! :)