A plague on the X-Factor, with its manufactured music and manufactured hype to get the Christmas Number One. (Not that any of these things are new.) So a campaign to usurp it, like the previous one to get Jeff Buckley’s version of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah‘

up the charts, rather than Alexandra Burke’s, is something I would [...]

I thought you’d like this. I was surfing Amazon, looking for Val Doonican CDs for a relative. Well, OK, it was for Debbie. Her taste and mine, well … although she says she wants this in order to introduce such gems as ‘Paddy McGinty’s Goat’

to the children. That’s her line, anyway.
Now I don’t worry too [...]

A new family comedy film called Nativity! about a school nativity play that gains the interest of Hollywood is released in British cinemas on 27th November. For those with long memories of British TV comedy, it may bring back the nativity sketch from ‘Three Of A Kind’.
The movie stars Martin Freeman of ‘The Office‘ fame, [...]

I am not posting a new sermon this weekend. I’m preaching a couple of old ones tomorrow. Blogging also remains light, due to personal circumstances behind the scenes.
However, I have created a simple video of images for a harvest psalm (Psalm 67) and set it to Ian White’s son ‘May the peoples praise you’. Facebook [...]

Radio 1’s loud-mouth breakfast DJ Chris Moyles is not the sort of person you would expect to be extolling the virtues of the church. But, this YouTube clip is doing the rounds of Christian blogs, and understandably so:

(HT David Keenand Phil Ritchie)
I nerver thought I’d type these words: you can only applaud Moyles for his [...]

Via Scot McKnight.
Posted in Children, Television Tagged: Outnumbered, Scot McKnight

Nothing exciting to report today. My recovery continues slowly. I got up to about four to five hours’ sleep last night. I had enough concentration to bring down the inbox considerably. Not there yet, but I did reduce it from 160 to 50, which was satisfying. Thanks, too, for the conversations on the last couple [...]

It’s difficult to know what to report today. With both children off school, interruptions come thick and fast, especially from Rebekah our extreme extravert. She thinks the job description of parent is ‘professional entertainer’. 
Mark, on the other hand, can enjoy company providing he’s offering the entertainment. He has a developing line in cheeky humour, and few things please him more these days than making people laugh. That included the doctor yesterday. However, sustained periods of company drain him (yes, he’s an introvert like me), but the flip side of that is that he can enjoy his own company and occupy himself.
Last night proved rough, with him waking several times. We all slept in today, and I postponed going for my annual fasting blood test at the hospital. Mark was chirpier today when he woke up, but needed more sleep later and also complained of various headaches (which could underline the scarlet fever hypothesis) and other aches and pains. He went to sleep quickly tonight, but has already been awake coughing a couple of times.
So there has been little I could achieve today. The thought of concentrating on some serious reading is out of the question on days like today. Debbie gets behind on tasks she wants to accomplish, too.
We’ve also not heard back yet from the lady with the animal rescue clearing house about the two pairs of cats we’d like to consider.
Probably the main thing I finished today was my batch of Cross Rhythms CD reviews. The last one was not my normal taste in music, but highly commendable if you like hip-hop soul. He’s called Stanley Porter, he used to be a school teacher in the States and I think he deserves a deal with a major label.
Finally, on the music front, a very pleasing arrival in the post today. Lately on the MP3, I’ve been listening to new stuff by the wonderful Irish singer Juliet Turner. She is multi-platinum across the Irish Sea, but barely known here. Perhaps she is best known for her version of Ju

 There’s not a lot to report today on the cat front. Debbie had a long phone conversation with a woman who runs what amounts to a clearing house for people who cannot keep their pets. We’ve expressed an interest in two separate pairs of cats, and now await a call back regarding arrangements to visit them.
In the area of church and sabbatical, there is also little to say today for delicate reasons.
So instead of the usual, I offer you a pot-pourri. (No, not popery, Mr Paisley.)
Here are some interesting links I came across. 
Some Video Fun 
How about Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody played on old school computer equipment?

(Via the weekly Mojo magazine email.) 
Here’s a parody of the Christian worship - ahem - ‘industry’:

 
Jesus Stuff 
Not a link, but a couple of great quotes from an interview with J John in the Summer 2009 issue of New Wine magazine, pages 10 and 11:
If we are all witnesses, does that mean we are all evangelists? 
Not everyone is an evangelist, but everyone is a witness. In a court of law, you have a lawyer who takes the facts and presents them in a convincing manner. As an evangelist, that’s what I do. I take the facts and try to get people to the point where they are convinced that Christianity is true. An evangelist will communicate much more of the substance of Christianity.
But if you are a follower of Jesus, then you are a witness. And a witness in the court stands up and says, ‘Well I don’t know very much, but let me tell you my story.’ Everyone that’s a follower of Jesus has a testimony of what Jesus has done for them. Therefore everyone can answer. It’s not hard at all.
How do you approach people of other faiths? 
I don’t get defensive. Rather, I ask questions such as: in what way does your faith help you in your life, give you confidence for the future or help you face death? I reveal cracks in their philosophy and show them that in Christ, we have a confidence and a hope. But I wouldn’t ever put pe

more about “Damaris Trust Holy Week 2009, Easter …“, posted with vodpod
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! In this final Damaris Trust video for Holy Week, Krish Kandiah and Peter May talk about how Jesus’ resurrection from the dead gives us hope when considering what happens when we die.
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A great service for Easter Day at St Andrew’s this morning. ‘In a packed programme tonight’, as the Two Ronnies used to say, we had the Easter liturgy, renewal of baptismal vows, Holy Communion (of course) and people invited from the community to remember deceased loved ones.
In the middle of all that, there were two highlights for me. Firstly, the worship band shrank at one point to the younger members only. So Emily on vocals , Dan on guitar, Bradley on keys  and the drummer whose name I don’t know - they’re all round about thirteen years old - led us in Tim Hughes‘ ‘Happy Day‘. Here’s a version by the original artist:

Emily is a great singer, Dan a quiet and efficient bandleader, Bradley filled in subtly and the drummer guy is top drawer.
The other highlight was Lee’s sermon. Taking Mark 16:1-8, he made a virtue of the strange and sudden ending to Mark’s Gospel. He said we have to write our own ending to the Easter story in our lives. I thought that was great. 
For all that, it’s been quite a mixed day emotionally. On the one hand, I have entered Easter with a renewed confidence in the truth and importance of the Resurrection. Not that I ever lost my belief in the bodily Resurrection of Christ for one moment, but sometimes when life or circumstances aren’t the most encouraging, it can feel far away. Reading Tim Keller (sorry to mention him again!) and Tom Wright (see this excellent article from The Times yesterday) has done much to fortify my faith.
But other things have been weighing me down. My friend Will says today, in talking about his service this morning, 

Before the prayers of intercession, I reminded our congregat

more about “Damaris Trust Holy Week 2009, Holy Sa…“, posted with vodpod
This is the Damaris Trust video for Holy Saturday (not Easter Saturday, please: we’re not into Easter until tomorrow). Pete Greig talks about where God was on the day that Jesus lay dead in a tomb. He discusses our experiences of feeling in this inbetween state, and the hope that we can cling to.
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One of the themes of John’s Gospel after Jesus dies is that of secret disciples. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus arrange for the burial of Jesus’ body. Joseph follows Jesus secretly for fear of ‘the Jews’ (i.e., the religious leadership); Nicodemus had come to see Jesus in chapter three ‘by night’. I mention that, because this morning I have had forwarded on to me the Premier Radio campaign to get Christians to sign up online to declare they are Christians. I first read about this a week ago on Jason Clark’s blog, where he expressed reservations about the initiative.
Now I have seen it for myself, I share Clark’s concerns. The declaration amounts to an assent to certain doctrines. Yet as the Epistle of James says, ‘Even the devils believe.’ Clark proposes an alternative that includes a strong element of discipleship action, and I don’t see how you can exclude that from any understanding of what a Christian is. I would add that the declaration also woefully omits any sense of faith being about the grace of God. It’s all couched in ‘me, me, me’ language. 
I don’t like saying this about Premier Radio, and especially about their Chief Executive Peter Kerridge. I met him a few times in his previous appointment, when he worked as an avowedly Christian radio professional on a community commercial radio station in Harlow, Essex, called Ten 17 radio. He was training Christian leaders (including me) to create snappy ninety-second ‘thoughts for the day’ that would be broadcast on their breakfast programme, in the midst of Top 40 hit singles. We could be

more about “Sabbatical Day 69, Good Friday: Jesus…“, posted with vodpod
Here is the Damaris Trust video for Good Friday. Andrew White talks about the importance of Jesus’ death on the cross on our behalf. He discusses what this means for his ministry of reconciliation in Iraq.
We went into town this morning for the annual open-air united service in Chelmsford High Street. A band from the church where we are worshipping led the music, and the choir from our children’s school dazzlingly performed a selection of songs from a musical entitled Resurrection Rock.
A nun from a local community spoke. Hers was a serious address where she spoke of Bad Friday and Good Friday. Today is only Good Friday because it is about redemptive suffering. Anything else would be Bad Friday. Suffering isn’t good for its own sake. She spoke passionately as one who had spent years in the Democratic Republic of Congo, serving women and young girls who had been raped by HIV positive men, young boys who had been brutalised into becoming child soldiers and mothers who had watched children die from diseases we find easily preventable in the West.
And from that, she made a connection between Good Friday and Easter Day. For whenever we, who believe in Christ’s redemptive suffering and conquest of death, minister to those in need or work for justice, we are doing Resurrection work. In that sense, she asked, is the Resurrection happening today?
Later, Rebekah - who had understandably described that part of the service as ‘longer than church’ - posed again the question, “Why do we call it ‘Good Friday’ and not ‘Bad Friday’?” I tried to explain how God took the Bad that was done to Jesus and turned it for Good. She found that hard to grasp.
In the back of my mind I was thinking of Tim Keller’s The Reason For God, and his chapter on the Cross. He explains how forgiveness and love inevitably involve both substitution and exchange. When we forgive someone, it always comes a

more about “Sabbatical, Day 68, Maundy Thursday: …“, posted with vodpod
You have just watched video number five from Damaris Trust for Holy Week. Nick Pollard talks about Jesus’ prayer in the garden of Gethsemane on the night of his arrest. He discusses the significance of this, and what the command to the disciples to ‘watch and pray’ might mean for us.
I should add that today is very significant for me, both as 9th April and as Maundy Thursday. For it was on 9th April 1976, which was Maundy Thursday that year too, that I found faith in Christ.
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When I was at theological college, we never got to celebrate Easter together. It always fell in the - guess - Easter vacation. So we celebrated it ‘proleptically’ (along with Holy Week and Good Friday). That is, we celebrated it in advance of it happening. And what follows here is something of a proleptic post. Three days ahead of time, I’m typing a few thoughts here about the Resurrection. It’s part of a synchroblog today suggested by Slipstream, the Evangelical Alliance’s network for ‘younger leaders’. (I ended up in it because I was part of its predecessor, Leaders’ Digest, before anyone gets sarky about my age.)
And the Resurrection is the great proleptic event of all history. Mind you, even the Apostle Paul doesn’t use such a fancy word as ‘proleptic’. Just as Jesus regularly did, he uses an agricultural image. He calls it the ‘firstfruits‘. Ancient Israel celebrated two harvest festivals. One was the great ingathering at the end of the summer, rather like the harvests we still mark in a post-industrial, credit crunch, Web 2.0 world. The other was in the late Spring, when the ‘firstfruits’ appeared, and is the festival that was happening when Pentecost erupted in Jerusalem. The appearance of the first fruits promised what was to come. 
In that sense, Jesus’ resurrection is ‘proleptic’ for us. It promises our resurrection at the end of time, and with it the n

more about “Sabbatical, Day 67: Jesus Is Anointed…“, posted with vodpod
Above you will see the fourth Damaris Trust video for Holy Week. Rob Parsons talks about an anointing in Luke’s Gospel which has parallels with a similar situation that occured in the days leading up to Jesus’ death. He discusses the ideas of love and forgiveness presented in the story.
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Quite separately, here’s another video. Some have suggested that ‘Stand By Me‘ began as a gospel song before co-writer Ben E King popularised it. See what you make of this ‘world’ version of the song. (HT: Gavin Richardson.)
 

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As to the sabbatical, it hasn’t been the most eventful of days. There have been conversations with friends, but they have been of a sensitive nature and I can’t therefore reflect on them here. I’ve read more Tim Keller, added to my Mark Heard collection by plugging some gaps at emusic, and cursed clouds that floated in front of the moon just as I had a nice photo lined up.
The other main thing I’ve done, you’ll see in tomorrow’s post. There is a synchroblog sponsored by Slipstream about the Resurrection, and I’ve typed some thoughts. I’ll put the post up in the morning, and update it later in the day with specific sabbatical news.
 
 
Posted in Books, Music, photography, Religion Tagged: Ben E King, Damaris Trust, emusic, Gavin Richardson, Holy Week, Mark Heard, Playing For Change, Resurrection, Rob Parsons, Slipstream, Song Around The World, Stand By Me, synchroblog, Tim Keller

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Third Damaris Trust video for Holy Week above. Anna Robbins explores some of the issues raised by Jesus’ teaching about the future, which he gave in the temple courts soon before his death. What does it mean that Jesus will return, and how should we live in the meantime?
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Found this today, thanks to following Ruth Gledhill on Twitter: guerrilla flash-mob worship in Liverpool last Sunday. (Ruth Gledhill’s blog post on the subject is here.) Here are Christians putting into practice the principles in Clay Shirky’s ‘Here Comes Everybody‘ to create a public prophetic action. Do watch the video. It’s fascinating.
So is this the way to go? Three years ago Theo Hobson wrote a piece in the Guardian in which he said that Christianity could never avoid a ritual element, but it could avoid the ritual being controlled by authoritarian hierarchies. (HT to Third Way re the Hobson article.) This will be problematic for some in my Methodist tradition, because we appoint ministers (and, occasionally, laypeople) to preside at sacraments to ensure ‘good order’. The New Testament is concerned with good order at the sacraments, as we find when Paul addresses the chaos and injustice at the Lord’s Supper in Corinth (1 Corinthians 11:17-34). However, Paul addresses the problem via teaching rather than the instatement of authorised leaders.
Thoughts, anyone?
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And finally for something completely different. Today, I have mostly been … boiling eggs. Debbie began something in our first Spring here three years ago that has become a little tradition. An Easter party for the children. She started it in order to help our two make friends, and now Easter is not complete without it. Egg rolling competitions, egg and spoon races (including one race for mums), an egg hunt in the garden, Easter bonnet decorating - all are essential parts of a ritual which those arch-traditionalists

Tony Watkins talks about the surprising display of anger shown by Jesus as he cleared the temple courtyards of merchants. He discusses why Jesus took such offence to what he saw, and what that might mean for us.

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Today, I start a new series of videos produced by Damaris Trust for Holy Week. In the first one above, Richard Collins talks about Jesus’ rather unusual entrance into Jerusalem. He discusses the significance of this event in terms of what it tells us about the kind of king that Jesus is, and the kind of kingdom into which he calls us.
Palm Sunday can be taken as a joyful day. We think of the crowds waving their palm branches, welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem. Yet as we know, pain is in the background. ‘Bow thy meek head to mortal pain, then take O Christ, thy power and reign,’ we sing in the hymn ‘Ride on, ride on in majesty’, which is laced with the anticipation of the Passion.
Right now, Debbie and I feel pain for friends. In the last few months, three Christian couples we know have separated. All have children. Sometimes we think we might know a partial truth of what has happened, but we have been careful to keep quiet and definitely not to extrapolate a small amount of data on its own to form conclusions. Our rôle is to be available if wanted, and most of all to pray.
I think each time the two of us talk privately about these tragedies, we give each other a certain look. It says, ‘There but for the grace of God we go.’ Not that God’s grace isn’t available to our friends - of course it is - but the sense that things can start sliding from small things, or something from the past we thought was buried might boomerang back from over the horizon and hit us, or we might make an uncharacteristic slip.
Not that I’m saying this is what happened with any of our friends, because we simply don’t know, and we don’t want to speculate. Rather, it’s that sense that we all need the mercy of God. We also need to keep that fine balance between the sense of security in mutual love and yet not allowing ourselves to take things for granted.
I think that’s all I want to say tonight. Say...

St Andrew’s has become our default church for the sabbatical. The children are happier visiting a church where they know some people, rather than every face being strange or forgotten.
Today, Lee, the curate (our next door neighbour) preached. He took the classic Lenten passage from Mark 8 featuring Jesus’ call to deny ourselves, take up our crosses and follow him. He said that for someone who enjoys preaching about God’s love, such a stern passage seemed difficult, but this was about the love of God, too. For love is a two-way street, and taking up the cross is a way we respond in love to God’s love.
He passed round a cross he keeps at home. He had asked a blacksmith to make it for him before he began training for the ministry. The blacksmith made three nails, and then made the cross from those nails. I couldn’t pass it on quickly when it came to me. I had to examine it and feel it. What a powerful piece of art it was. It reminded me of when I once had nails given out to worshippers at a Good Friday service, and another when I let people know in advance that someone would hammer nails into a cross during the service. Some church members objected. It made me wonder about their faith. I am glad nothing like that happened to Lee today.
He also made a simple, telling point about what it might mean to carry one’s cross. Taking up the cross, he said, can happen when we have to choose between the easy way to do something and the right way. On a day when a pastor has been shot dead in Illinois, I find this poignant. It is of course only too common in many other countries. 
St Andrew’s service begins at 10 am, so even with communion and an after-service coffee it’s possible to arrive home early enough to do something worthwhile as a family for the rest of the day. We headed for the Great Notley Discovery Centre. Sunshine and blue skies beckoned us to take a picnic.
Arriving around 1 pm, we settled straight down for the picnic. It didn’t surprise us to eat