ASBO Jesus

Sometimes, we take ourselves too seriously.  We are all guilty of it, but recently I found this site which satirizes excellently some of the views we as Christians hold. In cases like this, we need to laugh at ourselves, and be able to recognise the silliness that we are trying to defend.

So please, have a look, with an open mind, and see how many of the cartoons sort of apply to you, I know I found a few which made me think

As has been pointed out by my reader (thanks Annette) I didn’t include the link.  I have given myself a stern talking to, and now here it is

http://asbojesus.wordpress.com/

Inter faith

I am a great believer that many problems in this world are caused by lack of understanding, and that if we spoke to each other we might actually learn to get along.  It is a great honour for me then to have been asked by one of the local Mosques to go along and give a talk on the Christian faith to a number of their members.  I am hoping that I can portray us as being very similar (ie we don’t really understand each other, but we aren’t all that different in reality).  Both sides get bad press from the more militant sections of the others faith, and both sides share a common heritage.  If you ever take the opportunity to read the Qu’ran you’ll see what I mean.

However for me the most important part of the whole thing is that they want to understand our faith and get rid of the misconceptions, which I think is brilliant.  I would love someone to post here and tell me about a Church inviting an Imam to explain Islam to them, but somehow I doubt I will.

Please, prove me wrong.

Busy times

Well, although I’ve been back online for a while, the blog has suffered owing to a large workload, lack of sleep (my son has discovered the joys of 3am in the morning after 8 months of life) and so blogging is taking a back seat.  However, things are calming down s bit, so let blogging resume

It’s good to be back

After almost a month of computer hell, My switch from Tiscali to O2 has gone through, and finally I have broadband again.  More to come later, right now fot to dash to a service

Brodband problems

Well, off to a good start.  Mybroadband has been down for 5 days, and will be at least another 9 before its working again, so I’m using a dial up connection for essentials.

 More posts when broadband is fixed.

Hebrews 2:18

For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.

Well for Lent I made my normal sacrifices, chocolate, tea & coffee, fast food and swearing.  Now as my wife will tell you, it can sound as though we have the dictionary of Anglo Saxon curses on CD in the car when I’m driving, and I must say I knew this one would be the hardest to keep. However, even in my worst nightmares Ithought I would last more than three days.  I suffer from something called Mortens Metatarsalgia, which basically means my feet hurt, a lot from time to time.  With tablets and a bit of TLC they are ok again, until the next flare up.

 Now imagine my darling 2 year old dropping a can of spaghetti on my foot.

 I’m claiming provocation, ok?  At least I’m doing ok on the others so far though.

A definition of Church holidays

Ok, having listened to the radio, driven past McDonalds, and talked to a few people today, I though it was an idea to offer a religious and a secular definition of certain Christian holidays

Christmas Day - A day to praise God for the gift of his son, Jesus Christ to the world

X-mas Day - Sponsored by major retailers, a day to try to bankrupt yourself and outdo all your relatives on who can buy the biggest, most expensive, tackiest presents.

Shrove Tuesday - The day before Ash Wednesday, a day when we traditionally would feast before 40 days of fasting for Lent

Pancake Day - A day to squeeze loads of lemons, pour sugar all over pancakes, and make idiots of ourselves trying to toss them in the air, and scrape them off the Kitchen ceiling

Ash Wednesday - The start of Lent

Huh, When?

Good Friday - The day Christ was crucified for our sins

Hot cross bun day - Starts in january, and normally stops in December

Easter Sunday - The day when Jesus’s disciples saw him after he had risen from the dead.

Easter - a day to stuff yourself stupid on chocolate eggs, rabbits and anything else you can think of.  Sales start as soon as the Christmas sales end, and finish just in time for the summer holidays sales.

I would like suggestions for other holidays, especially if you can think of secular equivalents.

Ecclesiastes 31

 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven: 
 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,  a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace

Imagine you had a bank that at the stroke of midnight paid £86,400 into your account, to do with as you wish, but at the stroke of midnight that money would be deleted and another £86,400 would be paid in.  No overdraft, no balance carried forward, no borrowing against the next days money. What would you do?  Me, I’d spend every penny of it!!

Well, you do have an account like that, its called time.Every day you get 86,400 seconds to use as you will for the day, but any of them that aren’t used at the end of the day are gone. We can live life to the full, or we can waste our lives and God’s gift of life to us.

Today is Shrove Tuesday, a day when we eat pancakes to mark the older tradition of using up goods in the house to prepare for Lent.  Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, the start of the 40 days of Lent, and most people give something up for it.  Chocolate, alcohol, sweets are all firm favourites.  We go without them for 40 days and think how good we are, and then stuff ourselves on chocolate on Easter Sunday.

This year I’d like to suggest something different. I’d like you to take something up.  I want you all in Blog land to think of ways of living life to the full, doing the things you would regret if you died tomorrow. Maybe its telling Aunty Mabel you love her, even though you only see her twice a year.  Maybe its spending more time with your family, rather than working yourself to exhaustion.  Maybe its visiting your local church, giving spirituality a chance.  If you live in the Black Country, you may even see me in the church.  God would like us to let him in on our lives, before its too late.

Everything has a time, as the bible verse says, the problem is we don’t know when its our time to die.  Lets make sure we do the things that will make our lives fulfilled so that on the final day, when we stand before God, we don’t think “I wish I’d done that, or said this”

Fishing trip

A while ago three church leaders from a local town decided to go fishing together.  There was an Anglican, a Catholic and a Methodist.  They row out into a lake and they fish for a while, when the Anglican says “I need the toilet, back in a minute” jumps out the boat, and walks across the water to the shore.  A few minutes later he returns. The catholic says “I could do with going too”, jumps out of the boat, walks across the water to the shore and returns a few minutes later.  Now the Methodist is amazed, he has just seen a miracle, obviously the faith of these two priests is immense.  He too is a devout believer, so he says “I’ll be back in a minute”, jumps out of the boat and starts splashing around in the water. After pulling him back into the boat, the other two say “I take it you don’t know where the stepping stones are then?”

Now this made me think of two things, firstly how pride can be the downfall of us, and secondly never assume anything, its always better to ask or find out.  And as a third, never go fishing with two wise guys!

Out of the mouths of children

Why me?

Why?

 OK, for those of you who don’t know me, I have a very strong sense of humour, although possibly a bit twisted by my friends over the years.  When I find something funny I laugh, although if it is an inappropriate moment I try to stifle it.

I went to visit a family today, and met with the wife, her children and grandchildren to discuss the funeral for her husband. Now, being a fairly family oriented person, i tried to involve the grandchildren a bit, especially since the presence of this stranger in the house must seem a bit weird.  The conversation goes like this:-

Me:- Hello

Child:- Who are you then?

M:- I’m the vicar who will be doing the service next week

C:- The funeral?

M:- Thats right, yes

C:- What do you do at the funeral?

M:- I help people say goodbye to their loved ones who aren’t here anymore

C:- I’m going to say goodby to my grandad on monday, he’s in a fridge.

Now I’m sorry, but at this point, the proud declaration of the little lad, the look of shock on his mom’s face, and the laughter from the widow, I lost it and laughed as hard as I could.  Mom just said “Well its the best way i could explain it to him”.  I’ve heard of people being in heaven, with the angels, or even becoming a star, but the childs downright blunt honesty was somewhat refreshing, it certainly worked as an ice breaker with the family.

On a more serious not, how do we talk to children about death?  Well, I’m of to visit another family, I have 5 funerals to conduct next week, so I’ll talk about that later.