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Preaching – borrowed from the Kneeler

‘I can’t find anywhere where Jesus requires me to sing hymns for example, he offers no model for ‘acceptable’ worship – and gave us only one model for prayer. If the Church’s peaching is supposed to be like his, then we should preach in parables and ask more questions than we are prepared to answer, expecting those who are wanting to follow you to discern their own meaning most of the time.’

read the entire post here http://the-kneeler.blogspot.com/

the golden age of video

This is just an amazing feat of video editing. it must have taken ages to put together

Thank God for football!

I was involved in an interesting discussion on a Birmingham City fan site today. Someone on there was asking if football could be considered a religion. That in itself is an interesting question, but it was one of the comments that followed that really grabbed me.

Someone replied with…..’It is more important than Religion and Politics, but could be deemed to be both, and hence talk about such stuff, should, by default be banned from this place.’

Now i found that quite ridiculous. Obviously this bloke had no idea that the club that he supports has its origins firmly in a church.

Holy Trinity in Brodesley, Birmingham, had created a Cricket team with the blessing of their Vicar Dr Oldknow. This cricket team formed part of the churches temperance group activities. In 1875 six members of the club who were also choristers at the church asked if an Association Football club could be set up to help them keep their fitness during the winter months.

These lads realised that their wouldn’t be enough players to draw on purely from the church congregation so Small Heath Association Football Club was born.

But what about other Premier League clubs? should you be giving greater thanks to God for the football you enjoy?

Between 1992 and 2006 12 of the 39 premier league clubs can trace their origins directly back to a church.

 

Aston Villa – Wesleyan Methodist Church, Lozells Rd

Barnsley -  St Peter’s, Central Barnsley

Birmingham City – Holy Trinity, Brodesley

Bolton Wanderers – Christ Church

Everton (and it’s little offspring Liverpool) – St Domingo’s, St Domingo grove

Fulham – St Andrews Church, Fulham fields

Manchester City – St Marks, West Gorton

QPR – St Jude’s, Lancefield St

Southampton – St Mary’s, Southampton

Swindon – Christ Church, ‘The Old Lady on the Hill’

Tottenham Hotspur – All Hallows, Tottenham

 

So those of us who are football fans owe much to the dedicated Christian men and women of years past…..I wonder what they’d make of the game now?

Soap and Glory

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/speeches/stories/yorke_stalbans.shtml

total brilliance!

‘Indeed, any degree of rational analysis soon reveals that the story structure at the root of almost all popular drama – not just in Britain but worldwide – is that of self-sacrifice.

The quality we most like to see and observe in others is the eternal biblical truth: “”Greater love has no-one than this,
that he lay down his life for his friends.’

Words from the plinth

http://www.oneandother.co.uk/participants/Ken

More about communication….

Another fairly high profile ‘misuse of technology’ case yesterday. It seems that the former Aussie opener Phil Hughes let slip about his being dropped from the latest test squad via his twitter feed. Understandably the team manager was not at all pleased. Changes like that are usually kept in house until the last available moment when the teams have to be announced prior to the toss.

Again it raises questions about the instant nature of our communication and what it’s appropriate for us to share.

For Christians this is a massive issue with more and more of our lifestyles being revealed to ‘the public’ through blogs and social networking it’s vital that we remember our call to be the Gospel.

folded Kemps

A light hearted link as i’m still on my hols!

http://kempfolds.blogspot.com/

Very proud of the Methodist Conference

They have today decided that no member of any political party that encourages racism can become a full member of the Methodist church.

Of course this doesn’t bar anyone from attending church services but does recognise that a racist ideology can have no place in the life of a committed church member.

more about what has been decided here 

The Bible

Great review for the holy book over at the daily mash website……

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1884&Itemid=59