Monthly Archives: January 2010

01/31/10

Denominations?

As many church-goers reading this blog will be aware it’s not just the high street hit by the ‘recession’ but churches have felt it too. During our last PCC meeting the intent of the diocese to have less clergy in each area was mentioned.

Alongside this 40% of the clergy in the diocese of York are due to retire in the next 10 years and fewer people are coming forth for ordination.

Into the struggle and the potential lack of church leaders you can add into the mix that generally speaking church attendance is dropping, many smaller villages churches barely have a handful of regular attenders…but suggest closing the church and the locals cry ‘What about our Christenings?‘ ‘What about our weddings?‘ but buildings are an expensive business!

Interestingly in the midst of this crises some churches have deemed their building ‘too expensive’ and moved into a local school and others have joined with other churches.

As I sat in the PCC hearing this I couldn’t help but wonder if now is the time to break down the denominational barriers? All Saints’ here in South Cave is part of a partnership between the Anglicans and Methodists who worship together each week and work as one….and it seems to work!

For many older folk in a church denominations are a big thing, I can think of some very ‘baptist’ baptists in Peterborough who would say that like a stick of rock has text running through it they have baptist and there’s many people of other denominations who feel the same but I don’t think this applies as much for younger Christians.

When I was a teenager my parents went to an Anglican church, I did sometimes but I also went to a youth group at a ‘pentecostal-bordering-on-cult church’ and also went to an evening church at a lively church in Norwich…when I was 17 I made the move to attend a Baptist church on Sunday mornings and not once in all of that did I think ‘argh what denomination am I?’ but I called myself a Christian and still do. I work for an Anglican church partnership (with a hint of Methodist) but that doesn’t mean I’m Anglican…nor has my time in Peterborough left me a Baptist.

So as individual churches shrivel and die is it time to hang up the denomination banner, put aside the differences (which if we’re honest are pretty small differences) and come together for worship the trinitarian God that we all worship? I hope so…bring on Church unity!

01/29/10

Fairtrade Kit Kat – Live!

So the Fairtrade Kit Kat has hit the stores and Morrissons in particular have been plugging it with a leaflet at all their checkouts and whilst my initial response wasn’t very positive I thought I’d give Nestle a chance and give their leaflet a read.

The lovely people at Nestle (sarcasm) have decided that when they’re not killing babies they are going to enter a long term commitment to improve the lives of cocoa farming communities, the Fairtrade 4-finger Kit Kat being the beginning of this.

The other ‘long term commitments’ laid out by Nestle include

A £65 million investment over the next 10 years into programmes that address key social, environmental and economic issues affecting cocoa farmers.

Helping farmers to improve their cocoa quality

Nurturing a sustainable future by providing some more cocoa trees

Better social conditions for cocoa farming communities

Now whilst all this is well and good somewhere along the lines Nestle have forgotten the point of their leaflet…this leaflet is aimed at plugging their ‘aren’t we lovely here’s a Fairtrade Kit Kat’ thing however their cocoa plan makes no commitment to making their products Fairtrade which suggests that as I suspected originally this is nothing more than a ‘buy our products’ gimmick and whilst it’s fantastic that some of their farmers are now going to be paid properly I wonder why Nestle won’t do this with all of their chocolate? (I have e-mailed them this question!)

It’s not just me wondering this either, in an article in Christianity Magazine man of many trades Steve Chalke says:

“Though we understand that it is hard to make all products ethical overnight, we want to see that this is more than a token gesture.

“So, we intend to keep the pressure on Nestlé until their commitment is global and product wide, like their competitor Mars.

“No chocolate should have the bitter aftertaste of slavery. Therefore our campaign continues.”

So there’s my thoughts, I won’t be buying any Nestle until they show that they care for their farmers rather than their pockets!

01/27/10

Apple Event – Review – iPad

I’ve just sat for the last hour or so watching the live feed from the Apple  ‘Come see our latest creation’ event coverage and whilst I have a few blogs in the pipeline (which will appear over the next couple of days) I thought I’d do a round-up post with some thoughts on the Apple event.

There’s something about Apple products that oozes beauty, where-as Dell produce a brick and call it a laptop Apple form these wonderfully designed products.

The big item expected from Apple’s event today was the announcement of the ‘Apple Tablet’ and strangely Steve Jobs started off the event by launching it (actually 1 hour on they were still talking about it).

As usual Apple have designed something beautiful, the iPad is slim, has a nice 9 inch screen and seems to have a slimlined version of Mac OSX (including a dock). The other features include WiFi, bluetooth, built in speakers, microphone and headphone jack and a 10 hour battery life plus the ability to connect a projector!

The other main aim for the iPad is to compete with the amazon Kindle as an e-book reader and it looks like it’s going to be hot competition, after-all it does far more beside books…we shall see!

Whilst I think the iPad is something of beauty and can fully see the potential for users I think it’s somewhat of a niche market. I can see it being used by commuters on their way to work and maybe it could just about be used as a bag-sized PDA but it’s too big for a pocket and will probably be too expensive to buy for fun (much to my disappointment).

However for those with money to spend I could quite easily see it as being an alternative to sitting watching TV with a laptop…providing a nice, slim alternative. I wish I had money to spare!

(Since typing this the US price has been announced as $499 so I suspect in the UK we’ll be looking at 300…less than an iPhone…tempting)

Disappointingly the presentation ended after an hour and a half of iPad talk which although talked about e-books, iwork for the iPad and some fantastic looking games for the iPad didn’t talk about a new iLife, iWork or iPhone which is such a shame. iDisappointed!

Can’t wait to play on an iPad in an Apple store though!

01/13/10

The Youth Worker’s Office

Whilst I wait for my printer to print some Safeguarding Leaflets for volunteers I thought seeing as I haven’t blogged for a while and now I’m back working in the office now heating is restored I’d blog a guide to the youth workers office!

A brief guide for what is maybe the dullest blog post ever!

I have my Macbook set up on extended desktop so I have the screen across two monitors giving me a nice large workspace…on the small shelf I have my very beautiful Apple Keyboard and all-singing-all-dancing Apple Magic Mouse.

Also on my desk is my retro e-mac (right hand side), a USB Whack-It game which I got for Christmas and is very amusing, a selection of junk including a gym leaflet, notepad and capo and finally my ‘Joke a day’ calendar which works as a list of things for me to do each day…in case you were interested here is today’s joke:

Two snowmen in a field. One turns to the other and says ‘Can you smell carrots?’

(Suitable joke I feel…serious blog post coming later!)

01/6/10

No heat but lots of warmth…

As those of you who are my friend on Facebook or follow me on Twitter will have noticed the last 2 days tweets/status updates have revolved around heat and my lack of.

I awoke yesterday morning colder than I had hoped to wake up and putting it down to my inability to tweak my heating timers properly I forced myself out of bed only to find cold radiators throughout the house and no hot water.

I checked my boiler and it was on and humming away nicely…so I went to my meeting and when I got back still no hot water or heat so I phoned the heating type people who informed me that they would be able to turn up next on Thursday because the cold weather meant they were in demand and the snow meant they were moving around slower than usual.

So before the real meaning of my post here’s the catch 22 I find myself in…

1 – I figure there must be a frozen pipe between the water tank and the boiler

2 – In order to unfreeze my house must be warm

3 – In order for my house to be warm I must have a working central heating system

4 – In order to have a working central heating system all pipes but be unfrozen

Tricky huh?

Anyway the real meaning of this post is my lack of heat, increase in fan heaters and addition of hot water bottle has meant that although I’ve been moaning a bit about it I’m actually not especially annoyed about it (there are a couple of things annoying me at the moment and heating is not one of them!), infact as a whole I’d say I’m pretty happy and have been the last few days…I’ve had a couple coffees with friends and really enjoyed their company (I’ve done work too!).

This got me thinking…when we have problems we can either moan and be miserable or we can not let it get us down…we can choose to make the best or moan that it isn’t the best and the former has really worked for me!

Secondly in my everyday life to meaning type blog post I’ve experienced a lot of warmth in my coolness. Some good friends have offered me a warm bed, shower, food and even a gas heater (which is due to be dropped off as I type this) and so actually knowing that there’s people around me who will happily do that makes the cold worthwhile…but I’d like my heating fixed tomorrow please!

01/4/10

Worship?

In the last few weeks I’ve been thinking about the church and how trapped the majority of it has become. The format of church hasn’t changed majorly in the last 25 years at least…it certainly hasn’t changed in the 15 years of church I actually remember.

Alongside this I’ve been pondering the topic of worship…I love music but more and more I find myself feeling unsatisfied by ‘worship songs’ that the likes of Tim Hughes, Matt Redman and Stuart Townsend have to offer. In the case of Tim and Matt there’s some nice upbeat stuff but nothing ground breaking when it comes to lyrics and where Townsend makes up for this with lyrics they tend to be pretty traditional and jargon sounding and the tunes sound exactly the same as pretty much every hymn ever written.

The church has adopted a fairly standard pop-rock sound about it’s worship and I’m sure we’re missing something!

Someone said at a day I was on a while ago that ‘when you turn your mind back to God it’s an act of worship‘ yet the church is trapped in this attitude of worship meaning ‘to sing a few jargon filled pop-rock songs’.

Why is it that God has made us all very different yet we all have to fit the same worship mould? When was the last time you were in a church service with ‘different’ sounding sung worship or perhaps even a service with no songs at all?

In my thoughts on worship I’ve been thinking about songs which I find really help me connect with God so I thought I’d post a couple of youtube videos of them for your viewing pleasure.

In the meantime comment this post with your experience of church worship and ways which you connect with God and I shall continue these thoughts soon!

Five Iron Frenzy – Suckerpunch – Lyrics

Paramore – We Are Broken - lyrics

01/1/10

Bye Bye 09

So it’s 2010…a new year and a new decade has begun (although some would argue the decade bit) and it’s also been a week since I blogged last (and even longer since a proper blog).

I had a nice new years eve last night with Jo at Ben and Laura’s lovely new house with some other friends playing some games and having a nice chilled out time.

It’s bizarre to think that we have ended the noughties (as they call them), it only seems yesterday that I was staying up till midnight for the first time in my life waiting for the new millennium and here we are 10 years later!

2009 has been a good year, I’ve driven to Italy, finished uni, graduated, got a job, moved house and perhaps most excitingly got engaged!

2010 is going to be good…this time next year I’ll be a married man…exciting stuff!

As for this blog I hope to continue posting a mix of interesting and mundane things that catch my eye and post lots of new thoughts etc.

I hope all of my readers have a fantastic 2010!