This afternoon while Beth watched Princess Diaries again, I watched 21 grams in the ‘new room’.

At first I was confused and quite uncertain as the director took us back and forth in history with no apparant logical order. After a while things started to fall into place and I thought the direction was both imaginative and skilfull.

Many great quotes and examples in this film. The deepest:

How many lives do we live?
How many times do we die?
They say we all lose 21 grams… at the exact moment of our death.
Everyone.
And how much fits into 21 grams?
How much is lost?
When do we lose 21 grams?
How much goes with them?
How much is gained?
How much is gained?
Twenty-one grams.
The weight of a stack of five nickels.
The weight of a hummingbird.
A chocolate bar.
How much did 21 grams weigh?

I’ve been at college too long already as I want to say ‘discuss’ at the end of that. Anyone fancy meeting in a pub to do just that? How much fits into 21 grams?

Tonight I’m off to see Munich with Sheena (I just love Orange 241). No doubt the mastery of Spielberg will bring me close to tears and amazement as we watch.

You know the sort of day?! You’ve been working hard. Got stuff on 2 or weekends in a row and so decide to take some time out, a day off and chill with God, tidy up lose ends, etc etc.

Today I had great plans. I was to start at the gym at 730. Then I was going to read for a bit before going for a walk to just mull things over with God. Then I was going to watch a film I had been meaning to watch for a while, get tea ready, do a bit more reading before collecting the children from school.

Today Beth was ill – so the day d not go according to plan. It always seems to happen that way, so while Beth lay on the sofa watching Princess Diaries for the 257th time I thought I’d get some work done. (what is it about children and watching the same film over and over again – she says the lines now before the characters do!)

Then I had a change of heart and thought I could still use the day to chill and read and so on, rather than it just being lost as another work day.

This morning I read ‘Who Moved my Cheese?’ This book is a bit of a mystery. It was in my welcome pack at Staff Conference but not sure how it got there. The book took me less than an hour to read and is pretty cool. It’s a story about 4 characters – a simple parable showing how people deal with change. The back of the book says ‘discover the secret for yourself and learn how to deal with change, so that you suffer less stress and enjoy more success in your work and life.’

A big claim for a little book of 80 written pages or so. I found myself laughing at me in the book, and seeing others. I exclaimed ‘yes’ on a few occasions and ended by wondering who I want to share the book with first – family, friends, YFC or church?

It really is a great little story which has got me thinking throughout the rest of the day. My favourite quote from the book to be applied to any situation:

What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

It’s quite a liberating question.
As you look ahead, as you dream, ask the question of yourself.
What do you come up with?

Despitemy last post – the real momentous occasion of the night was the first away victory of the Gills since March!

With it comes our movement to the top half of the table – now I can’t remember when we could last say that!

There was never any chance of me selling the season ticket!

Tonight we saw a great victory for parliament say some, others will say a great victory for prayer, others a great victory for freedom of speech.

Many who were not sure will have been praying for God’s will to be done. I have friends and colleagues from a left background who sit on both side of the fence. Some saw the bill as important and vital in its entirety, others saw it as a real danger to free speech and the proclamation of the gospel in the particular. Respecting both sets of people as I do, and not able to make my own decision, all I could do was join the people of the ‘your will be done’ brigade. Now I have to trust that God’s will has been done.

It is clear, however, the government, notably Tony Blair, have yet again shown great arrogance in thinking they can ignore thousands of concerned voices, many of those voices from the world of law, in insisting on trying to push through it’s un-altered racial and religious hatred bill.

I find it interesting that Blair decided note to vote in the second vote,resulting in him losing the vote by 1! Who said one person cannot make a difference! One vote made all the difference. Was the difference made my one person making a decision to vote with their conscience, or was the decision made my one person deciding they did not need to vote? That will be the subject of many discussions around tables and over beers!

We will be here again.

There will be an education vote soon – something I do understand (although Ruth Kelly will say I don’t) and I really hope my party, the party I have always voted for since I could vote, the party I always felt I could only ever vote for, the party I used to think Jesus himself would vote for, the party of justice, of freedom, of fairness – I really hope my party will start to listen again.

For me – I feel pushed out,ignored, betrayed, embarrassed and for the first time ever, after nearly 25 years of Labour Party membership I am wondering if I want to continue. People that know me will find that shocking! If it comes to that, however, I have no illusions – one person won’t make difference … or will they?

Yesterday (Sunday) after church I joined Wycombe YFC at a conference it was holding for the leaders of local Christian Unions.

I was amazed!About 30 young people were there, all of them were leaders of ‘soon to be’ leaders of Christian Unions of schools within Wycombe. Each of them had taken a whole day out, starting at 830 am and finishing at 8pm, to share, pray, learn and hear from God what he wanted to share with them.

I was there to talk about mission and to see how we, as YFC, could work with them in their schools. We spoke about mission as lifestyle, we discussed taking time to wait and see what God is doing and then joining in with him, we looked at different interests, music tastes, the distinctiveness of Wycombe and so on.

The maturity, desire and willingness of these young people was amazing. An army of 30 leaders with a passion for mission, but confused with how to go about it because no one had ever shown them, they had not seen it happen, they had no real experience of mission themselves.

Exciting things are happening despite the lack of examples. The setting up of Rock Gigs to invite friends too, the staging of pizza lunches in schools, the desire to pray for friends and ask what to pray for – amazing ideas developed by these young people wrestling with ‘what does the love of Jesus mean to these people I share my school with?’

For me this was a a first. This was a unique Integrate mission consultation and today I have been trying to put their ideas into a mission plan for their area. It’s exciting – and I think it is exciting because it has come straight form the young people, and not just because it was such a novel experience.

30 keen and passionate young people – Wycombe had better get ready for some changes!

is re-newing its mailing lists for 2006 as we all signed up just for the year of 2005.

If you want to stay in touch (or start!) you will need to go here and sign up again.

I think Phil has caught many of our feelings in his post here.

How do we get the church to scratch where we are itching?

Last night Robin the gerbil died.
He has gone to be with Batman the gerbil who died about 18 months ago.
They will be happy together now in Gerbil Heaven.
Joseph was very upset and he helped to bury Robin in the back garden.

The irony is that yeterday in school they were talking about how they had felt when their pets had died.
Joe spoke about Batman.
Then he came home and found Robin.

It’s tough being 7!

Yesterday was a great day until the children came home from school.

I went up to London yesterday to meet up with Richard – it’s great having a boss who encourages you and lets you know when you are doing well!

Walking through Covent Garden at just before 10 was eerie. When I meet Richard there I usually tube to the Embankment then wander up through The Strand to Covent Garden. I enjoy the walk. Today it was eeire as I left the business of The Strand to enter the complete calm of silence of a Covent Garden only just starting to wake up. I stood in the Piazza at for a good couple of minutes the only person there was me and all I could hear was my own breathing! It was strange but also quite refreshing to find unexpected calm in the centre of London.

The advantage of arriving early is that you can grab a table in Starbucks which is near to a powerpoint which means I can then work as long as I like. In the hour I waited for Richard (I was deliberately early and he was on time) I got a fair bit done.

As I was there I was very conscious of other people also conducting business in Starbucks. Two tables away was a young woman who was conducting very efficient 20 minute interviews on her own. Some people left happy, others didn’t.

Next to me were two guys getting fairly heated in agreeing the allocation of budgets between their various departments.

It seems no one goes to Starbucks to drink coffee socially anymore. I can’t talk – I was there to meet Richard and briefly catch up with Sharron.

I think I noticed it’s quite an energising way to work. At home, working on my own as I do a lot of the time, can be a drag. It takes masses of discipline, after all who would know if I did no work and watched DVDs all day! I miss that interaction from people, and I miss that work atmosphere from an office that seems to spur you on, a bit like a pacer I suppose in a race. You just have to be careful that you don’t try to keep up with the pacemakers who are just there to set a speed, look impressive briefly, and move on.

I wonder if this is why Jesus is so hot on community. I wonder why this is why the early church was so hot on the togetherness of believers. I wonder why this is why ‘church’ is so important.

I think there are times when we all need pacemakers. We all need to be able to run off from an atmosphere that is generated, and can only be generated, by people together in community. Yesterday morning in Starbucks in Covent Garden there was a little work community with a common aim – to get as much done in as little time as possible. Seeing the 20 minute disciplined interviews of the young lady across from me, acted as an inspiration to be disciplined in my tasks. To work at her speed though for the whole day (she was only there for 5 interviews) would have resulted in tense nervous headaches!

But it did inspire.
It did encourage.
It set a pace.

Is that why church is so important?
To be inspired, encouraged and paced by others?

I received this today via the LCF:

BIRMINGHAM UNIVERSITY CHRISTIAN UNION BANNED,

AND ACCOUNTS FROZEN

BIRMINGHAM University’s Christian Union has been banned from using Student Union Guild rooms and facilities, and has had its bank accounts frozen by Guild authorities after refusing to make politically-correct changes to their charitable constitution on religious grounds.

The Students Union at Birmingham University wanted to impose one of their own leaders onto the CU executive, open membership to people of all faiths and beliefs and instructed the Christian fellowship to change its constitution from “men and women” to “people” to make it more inclusive for transsexual/transgender persons to become members.

When members of the CU tried to book rooms with the Guild after the summer break for normal CU activities, they were told the Guild couldn’t accommodate them [because the CU was involved in too many evangelistic activities.]

Then, when Christians in Sport (whose high profile supporters include Olympic Gold Medallists Jonathan Edwards) attempted to book a room in the CU’s name, the Guild insisted on checking the CUs constitution. The Guild objected to many clauses, even though the constitution has been consistent for many years, and its polices are not a new issue for the Guild. The CU has been operating at Birmingham University for the past 76 years, and currently has well over a hundred people attending the CU’s meetings.

Andy Weatherley, CU staff worker in Birmingham, said: “The Guild insists our constitution must be amended to include ‘mandatory clauses’, insisting more control and more intrusion by the Guild and open membership to those who would not call themselves Christians.

“As a Christian Union, we restrict membership to only those people who profess faith in Jesus Christ, [and that leadership positions are also restricted to the same criteria and the beliefs outlined in the University and College’s Christian Fellowship Doctrinal Basis]. It is a fundamental right of any organisation to be able to include in its membership only those who abide by the ethos and focus of the organisation. We believe this to be true for all organisations within the Student Union, not just religious or ethnic ones. We are not a special interest group there to attract people with similar interest but a Union of Christians. Whilst our meetings are open to all people, believers and unbelievers when it come to being a voting member or leader of the Christian Union we feel it is perfectly respectable to restrict access to people who call themselves Christians.

The Vice Chancellors report “Extremism and intolerance on Campus”, advises Universities “some clubs of societies to have restricted eligibility, say on religious or nationality grounds. Otherwise, it could be open to a group hostile to the club or society to join and take it over in a way that would be quite wrong. But we urge care in this area.”

Despite the CU agreeing to consider some re-drafting of their constitution and to offer a re-draft to the Guild at their mid-January meeting, the CU were suspended from booking rooms for a week-long Christian Awareness event at the end of January named “Truth”. The Guild has de-recognised the Christian Union and frozen its bank account, including money donated by the public and churches to be used for Christian work in the university. The “Truth” week will only now go ahead because of the good grace offered by the university allowing the CU to place a marquee on a central location on campus.

Birmingham Christian Union has instructed solicitors, who have advised the Guild that unless funds are returned, and a democratic way forward can be found, they have been instructed to issue court proceeds against them.

Birmingham University Christian Union is affiliated to UCCF, which has over 77 years experience of working with Christians at universities and colleges of higher and further education throughout the UK.

Pod Bhogal, its communications director said: “In all our years of working with hundreds of HE establishments, this action by Birmingham’s Guild is unique. We support the Birmingham CU 100 per cent and will back them in standing up for their rights, and the democratic rights of every student grouping in the university to be able to constitute themselves and to peruse any lawful aims and objectives in a free society. We would not dream of telling a Muslim student group how to elect their leaders or who could or could not become a member, that’s entirely a matter to them, based on their own faith principles, the same applies to a CU.”