Monthly Archives: October 2009

10/8/09

Where is the love?

This morning I caught the Jeremy Kyle show and they were showing some clips from past show and the first of these was a clip of a show featuring some members of Westboro Baptist Church (also known as ‘god hates fags’), thankfully members of this church have been banned from the UK (link) however these clips really showed the extent of their extremism.

For those who don’t know Westboro Baptist Church are essentially based on hate…although they claim they’re following God. They claim that God hates homosexuals and that the death of soldiers prove God’s wrath…alongside 9/11 being God’s judgement on America.

On arriving at their website my filter warns me that it is a site classified as ‘violence, hate and racism’ and the filter couldn’t sum them up better. It was obvious on their interview that they are a church (or rather cult) motivated by hate rather than love and somehow they have completely missed everything Jesus came to teach us. Perhaps one of their most shocking activities is the picketing of soldiers funerals in America informing the guests that their loved one is going to hell (or in hell)…now I think war is a waste of time but I’d never take it that far…invading a personal family funeral and not allowing people to have peace and grieve is so unacceptable.

I completely fail to see how a so-called Christ following church can be motivated by such hate, yes I’d agree that God isn’t such a fan of certain aspects of human behaviour but I don’t believe for 5 seconds He hates the person who does things that displease Him. If Jesus had took the approach of this church then how would he have ever got alongside the people He did…He went and got alongside prostitutes and all sorts of other people He didn’t yell at them, He showed them love!

Anyway rant over less hate more love in the church I say!

10/1/09

Hunsley Christian Youth Trust

I keep saying I’m going to do a blog-update on my new northern life but never get around to it, but finally (as promised) here it is!

I’ve been in South Cave for over 6 weeks I think and working exactly 1 month tomorrow and it’s been a laid back yet intensive month!

I started off with an induction which became a ‘get my heard around the trust’ day and it’s took up until now to really understand it…it seems that only in explaining to people you’re role do you realise what it is properly!

The three focuses in my first month have been branding, understanding and school.

The Hunsley Christian Youth Trust is new and I am their first and only employee (we’ll have more in a couple of years!!!) and because it’s funded by 4 churches it’s important to brand it and to keep those supporters updated so in the last month a newsletter and website has been produced (you can view the website here and also download the newsletter on it!).

Secondly I’ve been working on understanding what I’m meant to be doing, who’s in charge of what, who’s who and what’s where. This has involved meeting other youth workers in the area, chatting to various people in South Cave church and chatting to those involved from the other churches (my job is half time youth worker at South Cave and half time schools worker).

Finally making contact and meeting with the secondary school has been a massively important part of my first month and other than waiting on a CRB (bringing me up to 9!!!) all is more than good on that front, they’ve been really positive and seem really excited about having me in the school which is a real testimony to God being at work.

Anyway I think that’s a very brief update on the trust, I’m excited about what’s coming up and tonight we had a prayer meeting and about 25 people came along to pray for the trust so it’s always good to be supported!

I’m also at Brough church sunday morning plugging the trust…exciting times!

(Forgot to mention that I’m beginning to learn names and get to know young people!!!)