Today I took the day off to spend some time with the children and Sarah before they have to go back to school next week.

We decided to drive to Greenwich and visit the Royal Observatory and the National Maritime Museum. Both of these attractions in London are free and brilliant places to wander around if you like museums, have children, and don’t want to spend loads of money. Our children loved the places; the Maritime Museum in particular had loads of hands on stuff for them to get into.

As an added bonus we love Greenwich Park. When the sun shone today it was fantastic, and its always strange to have squirrels try and bite your ankles and get close to the herd of Red Deer in the park.

Today just showed the diversity of God’s wonderful creation. One minute we are marvelling at the stars and arrangement of the planets in the Royal Observatory and the next we are wandering around the park surprised by the courage and cheekiness of the squirrels! The creation points to the creator.

Last night we ran the first session of Reel Questions.

Jim (curate of St Marks) and myself have written this short course of 5 sessions for people connected to church in some way, who are interested in exploring Christianity further. Actually ‘written’ is a grand term for writing outlines, researching films and using them to illustrate Christian truths to those people interested and asking questions.

Reel Questions aims to use contemporary film to generate dialogue within the group. The whole ‘course’ is set up so that we have minimum input and hear the thoughts of others and discuss and introduce concepts at an appropriate level. We hope that this means we start with people where they are at.

Tonight we looked at the question of Identity. We looked at who we think we are, what distinguishes humanity from the rest of life and why God created human life.

I particularly likes Bill Brysons’s quote which we used to kick things off:

‘To begin with, for you to be here now, trillions of drifting atoms had somehow to assemble in an intricate and curiously obliging manner to create you. Why atoms take this trouble is a bit of a puzzle … Your atoms don’t care about you – indeed they don’t even know that you are there … They are mindless particles…Not even themselves alive…The bad news is that atoms are fickle and their time of devotion is fleeting…Even a long human life adds up to only 650 000 hours. And when that modest milestone flashes into view … Your atoms will close you down, then silently dissemble and go off to other things. And that’s it for you.’

I like the quote because it is well thought out, reasoned and entertaining, although I disagree with the content, I like the tone of how it is written. It makes me smile because in a way Bryson is right, but also very wide of the mark too.

Right? – yes we are made of atoms. We are made up of things that in themselves do not live. Amazing! Yet God breathed life into us – that a miracle!
wide of the mark? The 650 000 hours – as short as that sounds, it is only the start – it’s not it for me!

I’m excited by this for 2 reasons. I’m excited as it gives me a chance to work with Chris and Jim which is a new working partnership excited as this course will give us an extra tool than can be a support in helping people find God in their journey – well we hope it will but only time will tell. I guess if no-one comes back next week then we got it all wrong!

Today has been another packed day.

This morning I planned my talk for Sunday morning when the church is following Making Poverty History Sunday. I am still shocked in talking to church people how many are still unaware of the campaign. I am sure I know more people outside the church (in the world?) who know more than those inside. I’m quite uncomfortable with that situation as I really do believe we should be taking a lead here.

After saying how excellent my job was yesterday I was experiencing the worst of it today as the real hassle for the last few weeks has been chasing hotels for a a series of 4 meetings we are running for our Centre Directors. It’s unbelievable how long it takes – phones, bookings, admin, negotiating prices – its all the stuff I really hate doing. What should have taken 1 day seems to have stretched to 3 weeks and it is still not sorted! I’m taking Thursday off so it will have to wait till Friday now!

A miracle happened today. I saw God in the STS garage I went to. I had my MOT done and wait for this ……. the mechanic found nothing wrong other than a cracked mirror which was quickly replaced! No sharp intake of breath! No extra money to pay! That must be a first!!

Yesterday was a great day, and again I realised how great a job I have.

I managed to meet up with Rich from Oxygen near Waterloo and Pauline from Wandsworth in Putney to catch up, beg favours and hear the exciting things that God is doing. These 2 people are really creative in their methods and think outside the box. They both have such great commitment to their areas without a desire to be ‘seen’or take personal glory. It just sees to me that they focus on God, and then God does the rest through them! There is a lesson there for all of us.!

It really is on days like this that it hits me in the face that working with God is cool, and that God is PHAT as my daughter now informs me!

Due to the generosity of my wonderful friend Sheena with the production of a ticket as an early birthday present I was able to stay in London to watch Gillingham play QPR. Although I thought we were robbed it was a great game of football, and we pulled ourselves out of the relegation zone again. Surely now the only way is up … the table of course!

this really was a Thrilling Tuesday – the thrill of seeing God work in peoples lives, the thrill of meeting with friends and the thrill of seeing my team play well – what more could a man ask for!

Thank you to you lovely friends that made the day possible.

I went on a rant yesterday.
We came out of the cinema yesterday at Bluewater and came across a donut shop which sells donuts for 90p each!

That, though, was not as surprising as the fact that there was actually a long queue of people wanting to buy them!! People queuing to spend nearly a quid on one little glazed ring doughnut. They don’t even have jam for goodness sake!!!!

90p is roughly equivalent to $1.50. 1.5 billion people live on only $1 a day. And here we are in the west paying more on one little thing which must cost a very small amount to produce.

It’s a disgrace and it’s criminal – what are we coming to? It seems that people have become numb and just blindly doing what retailers and others want them to. It’s like ‘ooo there’s a nice clean doughnut shop. We can watch them move on the nice machine as they cook. Look, we can but one – no, lets have 2 and here’s £2! Bargain!!’

Come on people, wake up! It’s a flippin doughnut, and you can but 10 for the same price as the one you are getting in this place in any supermarket.

We need to stop this stupidity – shouldn’t we, as Christians, be a challenging prophetic voice that wakes people up to how ridiculous this is? Shouldn’t we be offering a viable and radical alternative to this level of consumerism?

I took the afternoon off today to do some things with the family. One of those things was go with the boys to see ‘Robots’. The boys enjoyed the film while I wondered how many times can you recycle the same type of story. You all know the story – nice/good character pushed aside by nasty/evil character, only to be saved (along with the whole community/world/creation) by small insignificant character.

The story is repeated in children’s films over and over again. As I sat awaiting the inevitable success of the powerless insignificant idealistic robot I found I started to laugh at myself. Here I was challenging the same old story but hearing God challenge my surprise.

After my challenge I saw God in the film. I saw God in the powerless one making a difference in the world. I saw God in the one who dared to dream of an alternative way of life. I saw God in the one who was not prepared to give up until the injustice had been put right.

Although the story was familiar, I found God there again. I then found myself asking if God was indeed trying to talk to his creation through films generally. The common theme, the predictable outcomes, the stories we love to hear over and over again; could it just be God trying to break through to our world in a way that we can see and hear him?

The Pope has died and it is right to be upholding our Catholic brothers and sisters in our prayers at what will be both an odd time of grief for them, but also one of expectation and excitement as they start to look ahead to what next and who next.

I have been incredibly surprised by the reaction that there has been in the media. The coverage has been massive with the BBC’s main reporters being sent to the Vatican and nearly the whole news program on Friday, Saturday and Sunday devoted to updates.

This situation is the exact opposite of the situation in Dan Brown’s ‘Angels and Demons’ which was, quite frankly, the situation I would have expected. One where we see unknown reporters reporting at the end of programs to a world public genuinley uninterested.

What does this great interest say to us? I think it confirms what many have been saying. People are interested in spirituality. People want to know about God. People feel they are not good enough to believe themselves, but they have great admiration for those that can believe.

It says to me that all is not lost. Although the church is in decline, although 60% of people will not enter a church building for worship, although our world is full of technology and noise – people still see there is a spiritual dimension to life that they wish they could buy in to.

Our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to show God where he is and share the secret with people that they do not have to be good enough, that is the whole point!

This message will now self destruct in …..

having our nephew and niece here for a sleepover with Tom and Beth
drinking coffee with Andrew and Sarah
watching The Day After Tomorrow with Sarah
Gillingham earning another vital point in the relegation battle
leading the service with Sarah
The Ryans finding a new cycle route on Sunday afternoon through the woods
discussing ‘stuff’ with my neighbour in brilliant sunshine
chatting with Jade in church
enjoying a curry with Sarah on Saturday night
arranging a trip to QPR with Sheena on Tuesday night

why do weekends only have 2 days in them? I’m thinking of standing as an independent in the election and campaigning on a 4 day week; imagine th drop in stress levels as we all relax longer and have more fun.

Today is April Fools Day, a time when we trditionally try to play jokes on people.

This morning David, a friend, drew my attention to a report in the local newspaper that we were looking at developing a theme park, Chavsville or Chavorama, in Medway. One of the star attractions would be driving a JCB into a bank window and nicking a cashpoint machine. Dave tells me he knew this was a joke – I’ll just have to believe him as I have no other reason to think otherwise!!

After speaking to Dave I opened today’s copy of Church Times to see on page 3 a proposed biblical style theme park, re-enacting stories like Jonah and the Big Fish and Jesus walking on water with a budget of £144 million. Another April Fools Joke I thought. It must be! Buth then I looked closer. The organisation is called Ark Alive, has a website and is even a registered charity. I hope this is a well planned hoax … or is it a sad reality!

So … Charles does not like Nicholas Witchell of the BBC and was quite undiplomatically rude about him.

Clarence House make the excuse that he was upset by paparazzi the day before and so he seems to be taking it out on Witchell.

Is this any way for someone in public life to talk about others? Is this what we want from a future king? If an MP had said something so insulting we would be asking for, and expecting, an apology. It has not even been said suggested in this case? Why not?

A strong leader apologises when he knows he had made a mistake or been indiscreet – will Prince Charles make such an apology to Nicholas Witchell?