Hayley vs. Gareth

I’m writing this blog from the wonderful Ben Wale’s computer since his is the only computer I can get on the interweb from since the server is all messed up and virus’d and that at work and so I can’t access my emails or my work and so am reading this morning (I know…reading! Things must be bad!)

Last night due to Paul’s attendance to a gig in Norwich I got his season ticket and so went with Steve Armstrong (brother of Paul and Ruth a.k.a Team Armstrong, if you didn’t know) to watch the Town vs. Colchester game.

I figured out that it was the first time in around seven years that I had sat (or well stood) in the North Stand at Portman Road, I’d forgotten just how great and how needed standing at football really is and forgotten how brilliant singing (well shouting really) in unison with hundreds and hundreds of people is.

The game was wicked too, first half was fairly even and we were both fairly rubbish to be honest but Colchester scored with quite a sweet goal from just the edge of the box and so as me, Steve and Dave (Barker, Armstrong cousin who we sit with) went for our half time beer we was hoping Town would be better in the second half.

And how good were we in the second half??!! Within half an hour, Neil Alexander (who has a wicked chant where instead of “Come and do the conga” it’s “Neil Alexander” which is always fun!”) saved a penalty, and then Jon Walters, Liam Trotter (now called Del-Boy on the stands) and then the always brilliant Danny Haynes (he always seems to score when I go…I need to go more!) scored to make it 3-1 to the Town!

All this lead to lots of great sing songs (including some of my personal favourites’ of “Can we play you every week?” and “Are you Norwich in disguise?”) and was brilliant every time we scored we went absolutely mental and when we scored our second Steve almost went flying into the row in front because of me and Dave’s wild jumping!

I’m also going to the game on Saturday against Wolves and Ruth and Paul are back and coming too (WHOOP! HOORAY!) and so hopefully Town will be on form and run riot!

In the past week or so I have been thinking a lot about one story in the Bible.

It’s a story found in John chapter 8, verses 3 to 11.

Although in my Bible it has no heading it is commonly known as the ‘Women caught in adultery’

I would do a quick run through of the story or a paraphrase of it but you can read it yourself (if you don’t have a Bible then go to a Church, a Library or a Town Pastor or someone with bad hair and they’ll probably have one…just joking about the bad hair line)

I’m assuming you’ve read the story if you are continuing reading and if you haven’t read it and am still reading this blog then shame on you (lol)

Ever since I became a Chrispy (Christian in Rob Marfleet slang) I have always “liked” this story but in the past week I’ve been thinking more and more about it and I have had some new (new to me) thoughts about it…

Before I continue I must say now that my thoughts on this are not the gospel, they are almost or very cynical (depending on your personality) and are more than up for critique (they’re only words after all and words don’t have feelings…I hope)

My thoughts are so…

I think modern Christianity (and by that I mean Christianity as is most often lived out today) is all about this story…

and here is why…

This is what happens, we are all the “women caught in adultery” (no, I’m not insulting people’s genders before you get at that bit) and well we’re crap, we’re all sinners and that and well everyone’s out to get us cos we’re sinners.

Then Jesus comes and comforts us and doesn’t condemn us and is all loving and Jesus basically and so we become Christians…

All good so far huh?

Then what happens is we get up all saved and shiny in our new found Christianity and what do we do…

We go and pick up a rock and join the mob and wait for the next sinner to judge and stone!

That was the conclusion I’ve come to and before you think I’m just throwing stones at people, I’m mostly talking about me, I’m as bad as everyone else at this.

But for me the end of my thinking on this story has been this…we should after being the “women caught in adultery” not become part of the mob of judgers and we also shouldn’t go off and be adulterers either…but in the non-blasphemous way we should become like Jesus…

So that means putting down our rocks and comforting and loving people…yes, I think we should be convicting people of sin and urging them to be holy but we shouldn’t be doing it like the mob in the story were but like Jesus did.

Thoughts done…feel free to diss (critique) it all in the comments thingy but try to not just through rocks at me…cos they hurt

As I sit in my office all on my billy no mates own and trying to concentrate and write a journal, I thought I may as well write a blog as I’m here

I’m not sure really what to blog about to be honest so I thought there is something I would like to ask…
Where have all the bloggers gone?

• Neil Fox left his blog all alone without anyone to love it months ago
• Phil Brown hasn’t blogged in quite a while either
• Tom Wade hasn’t blogged much really since his very good blog about Christians and movie violence
• And I think Hayley gave up on this website and us a long while ago!
• Luckily that wonderful Team Armstrong and the Super Mark Walley continue to blog, do especially watch Paul’s hilarious videos (they might only be funny if you know Paul or have a similar sense of humour-but luckily I tick both of those boxes!)

As most of you who are reading this will have a Facebook or at least will be familiar with it, I won’t take time to explain as I’m going what some things mean…and be prepared, I’m going to rant!

On Facebook, there is a new group called ‘Lets get Tim Hughes to number one’ and their aim is to all buy a Tim Hughes song off iTunes and get him to Christmas number one. Now before I go any further in my rant, I would like to say now that I have nothing against Tim Hughes personally and consider him a good musician and good singer and he has written good songs…however, let’s not get him to number one.

Why? Because this is their reasoning for the group “It’s about time some Christian music was all powerful in the charts and therefore on our national airwaves. So the plan is for as many people as possible to download one song two weeks before Christmas and get Tim Hughes into the charts on downloads alone!! The song we thought is most suited for was Happy Day on the Holding Nothing Back album. Please please please support us on this mission all it will cost you is 79p on iTunes!! If Chris Moyles can get Billie Piper Honey to the bee and Peter Andre Mysterious Girl back in the charts this is not beyond us!!”

I struggle not to swear and be very angry when reading this…Christian music shouldn’t be all powerful, God is all powerful not Christians and certainly not music, deal with it!

Secondly, it is not a mission, I see what you’re doing there, you are using the term mission to try and stir Christians up into thinking this is a holy quest or something…and do you know what, in the grand scheme of things it really isn’t that holy!

Thirdly, what will getting him to number one do? Do you stupidly think that if people hear ‘Beautiful One’ or whatever on the radio that suddenly they’ll get down on their news and pray? Now, everything is possible to God and I am not doubting that, however to think that this will absolutely happen is naive to say the least and idiotic if you’re really asking me

Fourthly, this is one of my biggest problems with Christians (and that includes me - yes I am a self-hater!) that they just don’t get it at all! Bringing in the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven is not done by buying a song that sounds like a Embrace or Athlete cover off iTunes, bringing in the Kingdom is done by giving a crap about people, not just the cool, hip, rich, clever, good looking ones, but the people that no-one else is, the smelly, ugly, boring, poor, homeless, broken, hurting, lonely people. It’s about offering you’re lives to God in humble worship, not just singing that with you’re dam hand in the air waving it around (yes, like you just don’t care) but actually offering it to him, now that is blooming hard work but that’s what it’s about, do you really think spending 75p (times however many thousand) on a rubbish song will change the world, do you really think it’s the best place to stick your cash? Or do you think that changing the world will mean actually living for God and doing what he would want for you?

Got a massive surprise when I came back to the office this morning to find that Hayley had blogged! And I had thought she had forgotten about us! ha ha!

But anyway had a wicked two days at college, was really cool. Tom managed to convince me to watch ‘The Princess Bride‘ on Monday night, which sounded rubbish so I didn’t really want to but everyone else was watching it so I thought I may as well, and it’s brilliant, it’s so funny and stupid and hilarious! I advise you all to check it out and if you take Tom’s advice, its the perfect film to watch on a date!

Then we decided to watch ‘Grosse Point Blank‘ which Crug will tell you is amazing and if you haven’t seen it then I’m sorry for you and if you don’t think John Cusack is so cool then you have issues!

Also, whilst we’re talking about films I advise you all to read a blog by Tom about Christians and films and stuff which is to do with a discussion/argument that someone at college had with me and Tom, even you disagree with him it’s worth a read (read it here)

Talking of reading, I’ve started reading a book called ‘The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical‘ by a guy called Shane Claiborne and it’s worth a read too, I’m only three or four chapters in but so far it’s really cool, he seems really “holy” whilst not making sure you know that he’s holy if that makes sense, basically he seems actually humble and holy and yet not unlikeable which is pretty good