Hallowe'en

I just stumbled across this article while catching up on the world outside the campus boundary.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-11661110

My initial reaction was one of "oh not another on that the media have picked up on" but I think that the BBC may have misquoted the Bishop of Ludlow on this occasion. In Fair Oak, we throw a party every year and we call it The Light Party. I get the feeling that this article has twisted words a little (at least I hope they have) as I don't think the bishop wants us to throw a Hallowe'en party as much as a party for Jesus at Hallowe'en. If that makes sense.

The last line of that article pairs up rather well with a song that I just listen to as well:

"The love of God is stronger than the power of Death."

John Mark McMillan, 'Dress Us Up', from the album Medicine. If you haven't heard that album, I recommend you go and listen to it (it's on Spotify).

I'm off at a tangent now, so that'll be all

~J.R.

A mental letter written whilst in the gym changing room

Dear Sir

Please dress yourself in more than a t-shirt and either lower your voice or leave the room before using your phone. You're in public, for goodness' sake. Yes, it's warm; I myself have just been to a spin class so I am above optimum temperature, however I do not want to listen to your end of a mundane conversation in an echoey room whilst your private parts are on full view.

With much disgust,

x

Oh gosh, I've become that guy who gets irritated and blogs about later. Shocking. I have a point though.

~J.R.

The Church in the news

I watched this short news report just now after it appeared on my iGoogle BBC News plugin:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11561990

Now, at the risk of slipping into a 'why can't we all just get along?' cliché, I want to raise a concern I have (and it hasn't originated with me - I've had this discussion with countless other people) in that every time the Church - be it Anglican, Catholic or any other - makes a news appearance, it's normally about a split/rift that is being caused. The words 'uproar' and 'turmoil' are often used, juxtaposing with the images of a twee English village church building, and in recent years I'd say 9/10 of the cases broadcast are about either women clergy and/or homosexuality. The reporter in this article makes the same observation, in fact.

Surely there are other things we can get het-up about . . . ? Just this evening I was told by a well-meaning but utterly misinformed person that Fairtrade and non-Fairtrade chocolate is all sourced from the same farms. Without going on a little rant, that is wrong. And I know that (despite it being the most common topic on this blog), ethical trading is not the only important issue in the world, I figure that we might be better off educating people in matters like that instead of bickering amongst ourselves about people's sexuality and whether women should be allowed to be in leadership positions (which I personally think is totally subjective to the person in question anyway - I won't go there now). And hey, you never know, some of the good stuff might get picked up by the BBC and the Church might become known as 'the ones who free slaves' rather than 'the ones who are stuck in Victorian times'.

Seeing as we are the Church (I apologise if you're not; kudos for reading this far!), I think it's probably up to us to make it happen. Let's make it happen!

J.R.

As promised earlier

A couple more videos. Both of these have been features on my Facebook page in the past days and months respectively.

The first is a DVD by Rob Bell that you should all watch (or buy - I intend to when I have money). I'm posting it as a link rather than an embedded video as it's on Google Vids and starts loading as soon as it you open the page, and I don't want to waste your bandwidth. It's about an hour and a quarter, and it's worth putting that much time aside (maybe a little more) to watch it in one go:

Rob Bell - Everything Is Spiritual

The second video is a lot shorter (about six minutes runtime) and is about the song How He Loves that featured on a Jesus Culture album, and was hugely popular at the Soul Survivor summer festivals this year, but was written by John Mark McMillan, who is not affiliated with either as far as I'm aware. At the time of the festivals, there was a lot of discussion in our camp (and, unusually, it was a literal camp) as to whether the song was a 'worship' song. I feel that this video sheds a little light on the answer to that question.

How He Loves - A Song Story

I hope you enjoy them both. My journal has a note telling me to re-watch Everything Is Spiritual and take notes on it - apparently I really enjoyed it!

~J.R.

Another Stop The Traffik video (or two)

I just re-discovered a video I saw a few months back and had forgotten about.

CAUTION: This video contains disturbing images. Don't say I didn't warn you.

I found that one while trying to re-find this one. Little bit longer, less explicitly shocking, just as hard-hitting. I haven't re-watched it yet, but I hope it's as good as I remember it:

I've also seen a couple of other videos recently that if you like my blog (and if you don't, why read it?) you might enjoy. They're not related to this post and I'm in a bit of a rush this morning, so I will post them later.

~J.R.

Some spam can be good! Who knew?

So, as a past customer of GAK (guitarampkeyboard.co.uk), a mainly-online music store based in Brighton, I get weekly updates telling me what's going "cheaply" in their store. Most of the time, I delete these emails as their idea of "cheap" does not coincide with my own, however this week I received this:

http://www.guitarampkeyboard.com/rs/misc/192248

I didn't expect you to read all of that - I certainly didn't! But, the second item down on the list at the top (Alesis IO/2 Portable USB Audio Interface - a soundcard basically) is something I've had my eye on for a couple of weeks or so. There have been some delays in my buying it (or its little sister the IO/2 Express) that I won't bore you with, but the crux of it is that I just saved £10 and got a slightly better model.

Isn't God's timing fantastic?

J.R.

Christ Church Manchester are funny people

I discovered the following church flyer for students on this website (via @lucytrew's blog - as she was distributing said flyers on the streets of Manchester). I thought they were rather amusing.

Enjoy.

Click the link above if you can't make out the writing, there are larger versions.

J.R.