I am glad the vote was in my mind the correct one.

I shared with my good friend Sheena that this feels odd. I have always supported the Labour Party and I did trust Blair before Iraq, against public opinion. I now find myself disagreeing with Blair, but also again against public opinion as on this issue of 90 days he seems to have the nation with him!

I hope this makes the governmebt look up and listen. I hope the arrogance disappears and the ears start to work again to enable ministers to really hear what is being said.

Tomorrow I am off to Brighton for the Equipping your church in a spiritual age tour. I’m really looking forward to this for a couple of reasons. I am intrigued to hear what Steve says, meet and hear from others.

I’m also pleased to be going to Brighton. It’s been a while and this is a city that I really love. After the conference no doubt I will take a walk along the sea front and the pier – it just has to be done!

I grew up in Weymouth, and in my formative years everything I did revolved around the sea. I grew up with the sea. We became ‘old friends’. It’s really quite strange, but I feel unusually ‘at home’ and ‘at peace’ when I am in front of the sea. Whenever I visit anywhere that is remotely near the sea I have to go and stare and listen to my old friend.

There is nothing at all in the world like the experience of listening and gazing across the vastness of the sea. Somehow it shows my finite-ness and how my troubles and stuff are so insignificant in the wider scheme of things. It’s good to get a realistic outlook sometimes. The sea helps me achieve that.

Today I caught up with Dave, the new director of Aylesbury YFC and Derrick, Director of Wycombe YFC. One guy who has been in post for 7 days, and one who has been in post for 7 years. One starting to make links and discern what God wants him involved in, one with many links and known in schools with a clear idea of where to go next with the centre’s mission. Both creative, dedicated, and committed to reaching young people in their area in new innovative ways. Both collaborative and enabling people who genuinely want others working with them to do better than them, who do not want the work based around who they are. Two great examples of leadership.

I had masses years ago. I kept a little a few months ago, but it has been disappearing for a while now. I think now it has all gone. I have lost respect for Tony Blair.

Blair seems at the moment to have a dogmatic air of arrogance around him. He has a healthy majority and yet even when that majority disappears in votes he refuses to listen to his party, he refuses to listen to human rights groups, in fact he refuses to listen to anybody.

We are a civilised country. Well, actually, after my last post I will change that to ‘we like to think of ourselves as a civilised country’. How can we even be considering holding people without charge for 90 days and, I personally think worse, debating whether evidence obtained during torture is admissible.

These 2 things undermine our identity as a country. They undermine our strong base of human rights. They take away all dignity and respect for human life.

A little while ago we were shocked as a nation at photos of mistreatment of Iraqi people. Now our courts are considering whether evidence obtained from that abuse can be used in courts! This is madness.

The police and government tell us that the Terrorism Act will be used wisely and only those which they have real suspicion over will be detained. The only problem I have with that is that here you can find a picture of the last person I remember to be detained under the act.

Today I went to the annual lecture and agm of NCVYS.

The Keynote speaker was Al Aynsley Green, the new Children’s Commissioner for England. I was impressed by how he spoke, and by the challenge he presented to us.

He was basically asking the question ‘who cares that all this crap is happening to young people?’ and challenged us, as the voluntary sector, to speak out, challenge and stand up for the rights of young people. He drew attention to some horrible facts of inequality:

young people in poverty in the city have a life expectancy of 15 years less than that of their peers outside the city!
40 000 teens are on ant-depressants
only 1% of care leavers go on to higher education.
we still (after a decade of work) have the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe.
Sexually transmitted diseases are on the rapid increase.
Teen suicides are the highest they have ever been in the UK.

We looked at how the media is demonising young people: hoodie horrors, naming and shaming minors, be-littling good exam results. Young people can’t win!

Aynsley Green then went on to outline how no one stands up for young people, no one has been challenging the advertisers, the companies that put inappropriate slogans on t-shirts for girls who are only 5. He drew reference to one, with age 5/6 in the label, with the slogan ‘so may boys … so little time’. What is the point! Where is the justification.

I think we need to open our eyes. Our children are being sacrificed. We are sitting back and letting it happen. I’ve mentioned this before, but I believe this is the spirit of Molech all over again.

One of the marks of Aynsley Green’s job so far has been to go out and talk with young people and children. He outlined an incident at an immigration centre. He wanted to see how young people were treated so did the tour, following the route asylum seekers would follow. He shared how he arrived in reception and saw a 12 year old boy with shiny shoes, school uniform with tie, blazer and badge. He was tearful and looking bewildered.

Aynsley Green asked the boy why he was here. He replied that no one had told him. Next to him stood his tearful mum. He then outlined his morning. Mum had sent him to the shops at 730am to buy some milk. On his return he saw police cars and 2 police vans. He and his mum were put in the van and taken to the centre. He was not allowed to collect belongings. He was not allowed to say goodbye. He was not told what was happening.

I was angry! I was hurt by the sense of injustice! Are these the actions of a civilised country? Is this what we mean by freedom and civil rights? Is this the ‘respect’ that my government talks about? Is this what persecuted people flee their country to come to?

He gave a fourfold challenge today to the voluntary sector:

we need to expose
we need to challenge
we need to examine
we need to inform.

He asked ‘who will do this’ ‘who is speaking out against the victimisation of our young people’ ‘who is exposing the consumerist cut-throat advertising campaigns’.

My immediate response was – ‘we are’. By that I mean the church. I believe that the church has been speaking out on some of this for a while, and we have been ignored. Over 10 years ago there were articles in Youth work magazine warning of the dangers of alco-pops and promiscuous magazines aimed at teen girls. We were ignored – and now the government is seeing the result of that ignoring. These 13 and 14 years old girls and boys that we were concerned about, that we asked for protection for, are now 23 and 24 , involved in binge drinking regularly, sleeping around and contracting STD’s. We allowed their innocence to be sacrificed and look at the mess now!

The nation needs icons. The nation needs people to speak out, to stand up, to cause change. The nation needs the church to explain. The nation needs God.It’s been done before, and it was the church that did it. The time has come for us to make that stand again – we can’t say ‘I told you so’, we need to say ‘lets sort this!’

Today Aynsley Green outlined stuff but he had no explanations or remedies. He could not share any secrets that would turn these behaviours around. There was, there is, something missing. The missing element is a nation that looks to God for guidance. By that I don’t mean a nation of Christians; I have faith but it is not big enough to believe the whole nation will turn to Christ. The nation can, however, turn and follow Christ’s morals. They have forgotten how to – and we need to find ways of helping more than we have ever done before.

God forgive us and help us to change!

If we ignore the football the weekend was a cool one with lots of quality time spent with friends and loads of excuses to eat, drink and be merry – and it’s still weeks until Christmas!

Friday night we did the fireworks thing over at Terry’s. The children loved this and, if I’m honest, so did the adults!

On Saturday we celebrated Sheena’s 30th. At least, I think we did, but the DJ referred to both Serena and Sheila as being 30 too – maybe it was a treble celebration! This was a great time and it was fantastic to celebrate with Sheena and her friends!

Talking of friends it was really cool to meet up with Sam and Laura and their partners, Mark and Rob. When I was a youth worker in Nailsea these 2 great people were people we naturally got on with and enjoyed spending loads of time with. More than 10 years on I find it still such a great privilege to be able to still spend time laughing together. It’s a pity we don’t see more of each other, but last night was really cool. I actually feel quite privileged that, years after being their youth worker, that great people like Laura, Sam and Sheena still speak to us and spend time with us. I suspect they are just humouring us and enjoying the observation of the onset of old age! Friendships like this, though, seem important to me.

Today was a good end to the weekend. We celebrated Becky’s 10th birthday after church in the Noodle Bar. Just as last Sunday in the curry house, there were around 30 of us all together. Experiences like this are really cool for the kids, and I’m seriously starting to think this kind of thing should be compulsory after church! All this getting home for lunch crap is a pain and prevents people from chatting – lets just go out each time; it stops the need for washing up an cooking too!

As I reflect on the weekend I have suddenly realised that my outlook and priorities as I get older seem to be very people based. This is quite a change from the Rob who only a little while ago would have been totally task and target based. Relationships are becoming more and more important – relationships with friends and a desire to take any and every opportunity there is to meet up. I find these time to catch up to be key. Meeting up and catching up is great as it sees so easy to lose touch so quickly. Time flies,as they say … maybe we just need to land sometimes so that we can all get off and take the time for those important things, and people, of life.

So … if you fancy meeting up, get in touch – especially if you are in some warm climate and wnt to pay my air fare to0!

I saw this on Marko’s (amongst others) blog. I know its mindless and daft, but I thought I’d give it a go. The idea is you type your name followed by needs in quotation marks in google (e.g. “Rob Needs”) and copy down the first 10 sentences. Well, some could acually have been written by and/or for me. Here goes:

Rob needs your support and donations
Rob needs a job
Rob needs to realize that although conditions look similar, the laws are not.
Rob needs a refresher as to the meaning of perjury.
Rob needs 1 demonstrator in each room
Rob needs credit for steeping up and fighting the biggest guy on the show
Rob needs replacement
Rob needs to first go public
Rob needs to get serious about living the Bible
Rob needs Net Clued Lawyer, urgently

Last night was a training evening for the volunteers who are involved in Mission in London – our MiL-ers! During the day I had been in Haverhill to meet with an exec member and the director there to discuss strategy an stuff and after a long day, if I am brutally honest, I was not really keen on spending the night in London.Within 10 minutes of being there, however, my attitude had changed.

Rachael delivered some training on Art of Connecting superbly for these great people. Before the session I got talking to some of our volunteers and started to focus in on their enthusiasm and risk taking. I learnt some amazing stories.

Flo was one great young man I got chatting with. He has come over for the year from The Netherlands to work with Kick London. He reckons he is not a risk taker – seems a big risk to take to me – to leave your home country to present the gospel to the young people of London.

Then there was a young girl whose name I won’t share that came from a background of eating disorders and hurts of many kinds. She became a Christian only 18 months ago and is now working with her local centre with the desire to share her new faith with anyone around her.

Another great person I chatted to was Laura, a girl that had left a nice part of Kent to be based for the year in Kingston. Another exciting story of risk taking mixed with passion to share the gospel with the young people of London.

I could mention many others … Adam, Sam, Lisa … the list is endless. The passion for Jesus in the room was not just tangible, it was energising! The young people themselves probably did not notice it as it is part of who they are, it’s natural to their identity. Observing, however, it was very clear. Here, in this hall in Christ Church Southwark, sat Jesus.

A Jesus that had multiplied by filling a number of young enthusiastic young people who had one aim, one desire, one focus – to use their gifts, in their way, to reach people with the gospel.

I am so glad to have had the privilege of being involved last night. I arrived tired and returned energized and buzzing and needed 2 hours to chill before I could even start to sleep!

Thanks – it was a pleasure meeting you all!

It’s Delwyn’s funeral today.

You will be missed:
your laughter
your teasing
your passion
for God
for life
for your loved ones
for Welsh rugby

But this will not be
the last time
we see you

but for now
we are forced to miss you
as you rest
with the other saints

we will meet again
we will laugh again
we will rejoice again

only next time
it will be bigger and better
next time
it will be
alongside
Him!

Hopefully I have just booked into this tour which looks interesting with lots of meat for discussion. The timetable for the day looks great and I’m particularly looking forward to listening to Steve Hollinghurst for his unique insights into connecting with spiritual people in a spiritual age.

On his blog, Steve talks about how he encourages churches to run stalls at Mind, Body and Spirit fairs. At first sight, many will be concerned by this – but why is that the case?

As Christians, we wish to take the gospel to people – so what better place than at a fair where people are searching? Too often I feel we play safe and rather than look to take a risk in presenting Jesus we worry instead about ‘being right’ and worrying what people will think if we do, watch or go to certain things.

A little while ago, for example, I went to an Eminem gig with a friend. It was a great event at which I was able to partake and recognise God. Not many, but a few, people raised eyebrows (one even telling their kids that they had lost respect for me!)and criticised my going as a Christian. More recently, I know people who have been unsure whether it was ok to admit publicly that they watched Little Britain and enjoyed it!

Surely we need to engage with culture. Surely there are no places where Jesus is not on this earth? Surely, we follow a Jesus who mixed with the earthy and real culture of his time?

It’s like we are worried that the Jesus we love so much will rub off of us to be lost from our daily lives. Let’s get out there, rubbing shoulders and praying that the Jesus does rub off! As he does we continually pray for a re-filling and keep going.

Anyway – anyone going to Brighton next Thursday for Equipping your Church?