So they have elected a new pope. There seems to be some surprise at how quick it was done and it seems a lot of people are either very excited or very unhappy at the ‘sameness’ of Pope Benedict XVI to Pope John Paul II. As with everything, you can’t please everyone!

I know that the reporters and advisors are saying that essentially there will be no change from previous policies. I think, though, we should be praying that God will be able to use this man. I have problems with parts of Catholicism, but I acknowledge it is the largest Christian denomination in the world.

I will be praying that this new pope will re-investigate the area of contraception, the role of women, and sexuality generally. He has a great opportunity to do so much good, especially in the AIDS ridden areas of Africa. We believe in a God of miracles, and I can’t see why we have to think that the Catholic church is outside the influence of The God of Miracles.

Its been an odd couple of days where everything I had planned to do has been changed.

Beth has been off school yesterday and today. I was working from home today but had not catered for a sick little girl needing me every 20 minutes or so. Coupled with that the builders started to put the roof on our extension, so it has been a fairly noisy day. Extension looks good to and looking forward to having a bit more space to work and be creative in.

Tomorrow I am supposed to be at the Youth Spirituality Conference. I was looking forward to this conference quite a bit. Somehow the block booking of 15 of ours has slipped through the net – so if anyone is going and takes good notes I would like to have a look please.

I am now going to Coventry instead to meet with some YFC people regarding our thoughts on integrated mission. This will be an exciting day too, as we look at how national YFC can help local centres move their mission on one step appropriately and realisticaly. I’m quite looking forward to meeting up with people and joining in the dialogue which will, with this group, lead to action.

These 2 days, though, have brought all the stuff back about making plans, being flexible and so on and so on. It has reminded me of an old work practice that I have neglected recently … trying to stay ahead on paperwork so that I could prioritise people properly, by that I mean I can happily spend time with people within worrying about how to meet deadlines and realising, too late, that I will have to stay up till the early hours to get things done.

Today I was in Greenwich and managed to catch up with Hugh and then Nick, two good friends who it is always good to spend time with. I enjoy my people days – tomorrow is an admin day … 😦

Weird random thought … I had lunch quickly in Greenwich park where they were taking down marquees and dismantling the toilets from the marathon that Paula Radcliffe didn’t use. What happens to all the toilets … is there a central toilet holding place somewhere in the UK? Does someone have to live near it? Do they ever have break in from desperadoes?

Sorry – maybe its been a hard day after all!

This is a disappointing press release. It shows the importance of keeping up the campaign – so if you still have not registered with Make Poverty History, or emailed your MP and Tony Blair, or voted for Trade Justice please get on and do it now.

I don’t quite know how to describe Friday night/Saturday morning or my emotions and how I felt. I have posted a couple of pictures here and have posted the rest in my Flikr album for those of you who are interested. It was a privilege to be there and as we were there it felt as if we were doing something of substance, all of us were united in our desire to make history.

I have seen various reports. Some say 7000 were there, others say 25/30 000. It’s amazing to think there was such a great discrepency. I only know that I walk home most Saturdays with 8000 fans and we were at least treble that on the march on saturday morning.

The night was a night of queues. ll venues were pcked and hard to get into. Make Poverty History had seriously under-estimated the number of people that would come. We did not mind as a little hardship for us was not out of place as we campaigned for those in dire, unjust and un-necessary circumstances 24/7.

The atmosphere was great. All ages were present and I will remember for a long time the extreme in noise in Whitehall at midnight and at 7.00 am. The shouting and calls for fair trade were unbelievable. I do not think i have heard anything so loud since being at Wembley. At midnight there was a minutes silence. On the twelf chime of Big Ben the thousands became silent. We stood and pondered the fact that thousands were dying. Some weeped silently. After a minute the cry was both powerful and deafening. The cry of normal people with a demand for change.

The conversations and scenes from the night will stay with me for a very long time. The young people we went with were excellent. Some of them danced. soe got involved in art workshops.Thery made up songs and even at one stage started a Mexican wave – that was when they were not singing worship songs to those around them!

Afterwards when I heard the first news report which estimated 30 000 people involved I had a horrible picture. If that was the case then each one of us represented a child that had died that day. 30 000 is a quick number to say, but I can tell you it is a grossly obscene number to die unnecessarily – even if only 15 000 of us were there, the number of people is an unbelievable sight.

I hope our government will take note of the numbers there and continue to push for change. Let’s pray that others, like Bush, can be influenced to change policy too.

Today is the day my life starts.
40 years ago today I entered the world.
a very different world
to the one I know today

Some of those changes have been for the better, and some have not been. Sadly, some things like world poverty are still there, but I hope that well within my next 40 years that we will see that disappear totally.

In my reflections I have remembered some stuff, which produces questions, and I wonder whether some of you remember these things to:

Only having 3 channels on the TV – which was black an white
our first video recorder which was the size of a pool table!
The man on Pot Black saying ‘He’s going for the pink, which for those of you watching in black and white is the ball between the black and the blue’
Beta max video – it was better than VHS but VHS one – how come?
Spectrum zx!
BBC computer with tape cassette programs which took 20 mins to load … and then crash!
space invaders in the arcade!
Mods and rockers second time around!
Why has the 6 million dollar man never been repeated, yet Only Fools and Horses is on it’s 600th re-run?
Telephones with a revolving dial.
Mobiles the size of a brick with a 3 foot aerial!
Platform shoes.
Wasn’t it great when 7 inch vinyl singles only cost 30p!
Evil Knieval … my hero!
Action man with real hair … why did it become moulded plastic?
Live Aid … is it really 20 years!
Raleigh choppers!

Then there were things that were not so good but stick in my mind:
Poll tax riots
Thatcher
miners being beaten by police on picket lines
Thatcher
The Falklands where friends were killed
Thatcher
3 million unemployed
Thatcher
The English football team

But that era was not all bad …
The Jam
The Boomtown Rats
The Specials
Billy Brag
whatever happened to all the gutsy songwriters?

There are so many more memories which are being sparked by these but It would take an age to write and, quite frankly, I can’t be bothered! The memories are enough for me.

The next 40 years loom and I marvel and what we might be able to expect. It is obvious that technology will continue to speed along, my fear is that will result in less and less personal face to face interaction. Will we all become cocooned and just meet virtually all the time? A scary thought!

I will be celebrating my birthday in style sometime in the summer with a joint party with Sarah. We (Sarah and myself) are very lucky as from very lovely friends and from wonderful parents (Sarah’s) we are being sent away for the weekend for our 40th birthdays. So we will have 2 weekends away to chill together. We are really looking forward to that and have been struck, and feel guilty, by the generosity of our friends and family.

Tonight, in all honesty, there are more important things to be concerned with than my 40th. Tonight is the night when thousands will be in Westminster. Tonight we will be showing politicians around the world that something must be done about world poverty. Tonight I pray that world leaders will understand that they are the only people that can change unjust policies and their individual actions can stop world poverty. They do not even need to make lots of new policies – honouring promises made as far back as 1976 would help majorly.

If you can’t be there tonight please pray for good press coverage and that this impacts governments in such a way that they are forced to act. We can eliminate world poverty and it could be started tonight.

That is an exciting thought and one that I am well happy to go into my next 40 years with!

Tonight we met with the cell leaders from Landmark. We have just asked one of the girls, Lucy, to become a cell leader who is dead excited about the opportunity. The enthusiasm of young people is so exciting to see.

I should not be but always am amazed at the energy and commitment of young people. We hear loads of bad press, and yet so much good goes unreported.

Tonight we met to introduce the teaching material for this term which is based on the book of James. Sarah has basically given them nut and bolts, rather than spoon feeding them with activities and ideas with written sessions, and the cell leaders themselves have to decide what to do and how to deliver. Again, they were really excited at this, rather than scared which could have been the reaction.

I think Sarah has developed a great example of enabling here. The basics are there, we are here to support if needed, but we know and believe they have the ability. Our belief in them gives them the encouragement that they need.

It’s a real pleasure working with these guys – a good end to a good day.

Well, I’m off to bed now as theses same enthusiastic people are joining us in London tomorrow for the vigil and I think an old man like me needs to catch up on his sleep!
No nasty comments needed thank you very much!

It’s been an active couple of days.

Yesterday I was in Luton to chat about Integrated mission within YFC. I think we are finally getting to grips with stuff and have a good way forward which we can all understand. I love working with this group as we all come from different backgrounds and myself and one other member, in particular, always see things differently and rarely agree. This is so cool and positive and I think it gives both us and the team an added strength.

Today I had my 6 month review with Richard in London. It seems I have passed my probation so now I can relax and do nothing!!! As if! Until I took on this new role, it had been a long time since I had a major review with anyone of any sort, so it was really refreshing to have to think about achievements and where to go in the next 6 months/years etc. Refreshing and annoying at the same time as there is a certain comfort on the thought of just journeying along and seeing what happens.

So … 6 months and all is well. Thank you to all my supporters who are contributing to my salary – come August I will dip below the 50% so if anyone would like to become a supporter … now where is that paypal button!

I think God laughed at me yesterday. No, actually he laughed with me!

I was travelling to Waltham Forest YFC to meet with the newly appointed team leader, Ruth, to see how things were going and what WFYFC are up to. On my way there I heard the traffic news and is was not good at the Dartford tunnel – ok I thought I know a new short cut which gets me staright to the entrance. That worked.

I then heard that the M11 was solid into London. Just as I was thinking if there was alternative, my GPS routefinder brought me in on A13 instead! I was not even travelling on the M11! For some reason I thought came in last time on M11, this time A13 – and I was getting stressd at the thought of being late – in fact I was early.

I just pictured God sitting there saying ‘Look there he goes again, getting all worried and there really is no need – he’s worrying about stuff that really does not have an affect on him’.

How much of our stress and worry is caused by stuff that really we do not need to be worrying about? It seems to me that a lot of the time we take on responsibility, when really the responsibility lies with God. We worry when there is not even stuff to worry about!

I had a great morning meeting with Ruth. I then went on to Glory House to meet with Pastor Jonathan in the afternoon, regarding how we might work in partnership in Newham. I think some really creative stuff could happen here and I look forward to seeing what God has planned. I think we might see some pretty exciting stuff happen here.

Anyway – I’m not goig to worry about it – because I’m leaving that to God!

I have been using Max DVD to MPEG software today which is excellent. This nifty little tool will convert DVD clips into MPEG so that you can store them on your hard drive so that you don’t have to keep going back to the root directory and finding the right chapter.

This has been great for the planning of the next Reel Questions on Wednesday. W are looking at the meaning of love. We will be exploring what we think love is, and what God thinks love is by looking at, of course, the cross. I shall be taking clips from 4 films and Max DVD has made that task a lot lot easier.

I think it is doing a free trial so why not check it out – and if you decide to buy it, it is only around £13. (and if you need a quick currency convertor go here.