06/24/10

Ministry of Journeys

This topic of this post has becoming very prominent in my thoughts in the last week and a half and whilst I think my thoughts in this blog would be served better with some specific examples it just isn’t appropriate to post them (if you’ve spoke to me recently or live in South Cave you probably have a pretty good idea of what I mean though).

Often we find that church is about a ‘Sunday (Spiritual?) Fix’…thousands of people turn up to church on Sundays because it’s what they’ve always done, because they believe it sorts things out for the week and secures their place in heaven or maybe even because it’s what their family have done for generations however this easily creates a separation between real life and church.

The difference between ‘church’ and ‘real life’ can be just as big for even the most committed Christians because often (sadly) church is very separated. The world provides a fix for our physical or emotional needs and the church deals with the spiritual.

The problem with this is it’s completely different from what Jesus did…the Message paraphrase of John 1:14 puts it like this;

The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.

The word incarnation was thrown around a lot during my time at Oasis and the approach Jesus took was very incarnational. He didn’t set up camp and sort out people’s spiritual needs but dealt with their emotional and physical needs too. Jesus wasn’t a one-trick pony nor a one hit wonder but a bloke who journeyed with people.

Journeying as a ministry is something I’ve always been aware of in my youth work…I’ve always been aware that it’s not just the spiritual aspect of the young people that matter but the physical and emotional aspects too and to do this effectively in youth ministry we need to journey with young people.

The same applies to anyone who’s a Christian and their relationship with others (both Christian and non-Christian), we need to journey with people…we need to cry with them, laugh with them, celebrate with them, mourn with them and truly focus on the whole person not just the spiritual. We were created to be relational beings, Jesus was relational…we need to be relational.

In the last week I’ve found myself on a journey within the community and school that I never expected to be on and it’s really got me thinking about the purpose of our journey’s with others and I encourage you to do the same. Let’s not have a quick fix church but a journeying church.

06/18/10

Isle of Wight Festival

Last weekend myself, Joel, Stuart & Greg headed off to the Isle of Wight Festival…boarding the half 5 ferry at Portsmouth and arrived at the picturesque island (which I haven’t visited for about 15 years) around half 6.

Whilst I have managed a fair few gigs in the last 5/6 years a festival is one experience I’ve never done (other than Soul Survivor which doesn’t really count). The one thing I’ve loved about the gigs I have been to though was the intimacy with the largest gig I’ve ever been to being Angels and Airwaves in the Birmingham Academy which holds probably no more than 500.

The Isle of Wight festival was jam packed with bands to see, strangers to talk to and over-priced drinks & food to be consumed…perhaps the best thing about a festival is the ability to move between several venues and see live music everywhere!

During the weekend we managed to catch Ocean Colour Scene, Pink! (who was awesome!), Reef, N Dubz (who I don’t really like but they had the most amazing drummer and put on a cracking show), The Saturdays and the legend that is Paul McCartney. The one thing I’ve always wondered about larger gigs is how much of the atmosphere you lose but during his set (mostly because he is Paul McCartney) the atmosphere even with Macca less than the size of my little finger it was immense, he blasted out some Beatles tracks and a few others putting together a fantastic set!

All in all I loved my festival experience!

06/7/10

My Casino Experience

On Friday night I had my first Casino experience.

For Lucy’s 21st a group of us headed up to the Hull branch of ‘Napoleons’ to celebrate! The only experiences I’ve ever had of gambling come from 2 very different perspectives.

The first perspective is that of the tacky gamble…I grew up being taken to holiday camps (which I might add I enjoyed) and spent my teenage years near Great Yarmouth and all these places are filled with amusement arcades tempting you in to throw 2p’s down a chute or to pay 20p to attempt to win a child-manufactured teddy bear from a rigged machine (yes the cranes are fixed!).

The second perspective is right at the other end of the scale and come from watching television shows like Hustle when they attempt to con a huge casino where people have more money than sense…dressed in their suits and using their casino jargon the Hustle team would attempt to con casino owners without being caught by the security.

Thankfully Napoleons is far more like the Hustle casino than the Great Yarmouth arcades but it’s a very different world to that I’m used to. My parents have never really had money to throw around and being a Christian I’ve grown up with fairly sensible teaching of money yet a fair amount of those in the casino had evidently not had this upbringing.

There’s something very surreal about watching someone throw £50 (of tokens) on a 1 in 50 chance number on a roulette table and not be remotely phased that they’ve just lost £50….there’s equally something surreal about watching someone win £150 and throw it straight back on.

The nice thing about the whole experience was that we didn’t spend the whole evening losing money but we had a very nice 3 course meal first and a few drinks (good old diet Pepsi!) before exploring the Casino area with the £5 of chips we got with our meal.

I guess the important thing before doing any form of gambling is to limit yourself and think sensibly about things beforehand…whilst many Christians would argue that gambling is wrong I believe the bible merely teaches that the love of money is wrong…so gambling is fine as long as you’re sensible and it doesn’t come before God (or your family…bets vs meals is silly!).

Armed with my £5 of chips I headed to roulette and fairly quickly got the hang of it and equally as quickly lost my ‘free’ chips so I took some time out before spending another £5 and that was it. The roulette was fun but it was far more luck than judgment (as are many of the games in a casino).

So all in all I really enjoyed my Casino trip…I won’t be becoming a regular but it was a great night…certainly more sociable than a night club.

and how did I do with my 2nd £5?

Somehow I managed to win several times and cashed in £25 and walked away with a profit! Good times!

06/5/10

Ipad Review

Ever since back in January when Steve Jobs announced the iPad after many rumors anticipating the tablet device (I blogged on this here) I have been eagerly awaiting the chance to actually try one out.

In my originally blog my initial thoughts of the iPad were mixed…you may remember me blogging:

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!

To an extent I still stand by what I said in my previous post…whilst beautiful the iPad is nothing more than an expensive gadget however having been into the Apple Store in Sheffield today and had a play on one I have a few more thoughts.

Usability

As with all Apple products the interface is absolutely spot on and completely seamless and user-friendly. The best way to describe the operating system is as a larger version of the iPhone software…infact the whole iPad is very much a large iPhone but with extras!

The main screen (like the iPhone) has a series of buttons representing applications, a swipe on the main page and your onto the next page of applications and so on.

The onscreen keyboard is probably the most impressive feature of the iPad which really does make it user-friendly. The size of it is just right and the sensitivity means you can type just as effectively as you could on your laptop….I managed to type a few lines in a document, a twitter status and visit a few websites with about the same amount of typos I usually make!

Games

One of the most impressive things was a racing game on the iPad which allowed you to steer and control speed by tilting and turning the ipad with ease…beautiful!

Working On The Go!

The iPad has scaled down versions of Pages, Numbers and Keynote (the Apple equivalent but much more superior versions of Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint) which allow you to open and edit your documents on the move.

So would I buy one?

Apple have done what they did with the iPhone and have managed to create a gadget that whilst there may not really be a gap in the market for there will be one because Apple have made the iPad!

The iPad starts at £429 for a 16gb wifi model and goes up to £699 for the 3gs 64gb model which means the main reason I won’t be getting one is simply the price…I loved playing with it, I could see myself using it both at home and on the move (especially for meetings and escaping to coffee shops to work) but I just can’t justify the cost…especially if you get a 3g model and take into account the monthly cost of a data plan.

The Verdict

My verdict on the iPad is simple…it’s beautiful in design, stunning to use and is an absolutely fantastic piece of kit but unless you’ve got money to spend on something you don’t really need it’s probably not for you.