So here we are 2007, Christmas is over and soon all the decorations will be put away and everywhere will look bare again. I just can’t help wondering if every year we (as in the whole church) misses an opportunity. It seems to me that every year many people get Jesus out of the box along with the other decorations, they do the Church thing over Christmas because it’s a nice traditional Christmas story (even if the traditionally story is possibly largely based on bad interpretation, see my post from last Christmas). The problem comes about now, when Jesus goes back in the box with the decorations, and back in the loft to be forgotten about until next year. The question then comes as to what we can do during this brief period when people are actually thinking about the person of Jesus and wanting to remember him, whether out of quaint family tradition or a deeper desire to find more meaning to life and the Christmas season. Somehow during this period we need to challenge people to think about what the Christmas message is, taking it from ‘nice traditional story’ to a life changing historical event, we need to move them from leaving saying “wasn’t it nice to sing those carols” to saying “there was something about that, something there and I don’t know what it was but I want to find out”. I sometimes wonder if we have got so bogged down in the tradition ourselves that we have almost forgotten the Gospel. I remember Mike Yaconelly at Greenbelt talking about the church being full of the people it’s not meant for, Jesus himself said ‘it’s not the healthy who need a doctor’. Are we missing an opportunity so keen to offer the nice traditional Christmas services that we focus on this baby being born and we forget to tell people that he was born with a purpose. If you look at the web address above you will see the domain name ‘notashamed’ coming from Romans 1:16 ‘I am not ashamed of the Gospel for it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes’. Is this true for our services over Christmas if like Paul we are not ashamed then we need to show it, we need to tell people the gospel and Christmas is a major opportunity to do so, yes lets talk about the nice story of the first Christmas but lets put it in the context of salvation and the worlds need for it!

End of rant, hope you did have a good Christmas and pray that you might find peace and grace through the knowledge of salvation this year. God bless

written by Simo

Well this will probably now be the last post this side of Christmas, in fact quite possibly this year so thought I would update you briefly on the thinking about the blog and where it will be etc. Having played around with Wordpress there are some features I really like and on the whole I think it probably has the potential to be slightly better than the new blogger, that said though, so far I have only worked with wordpress.com the hosted version which is quite restricting in what you can do and I have to say from having looked at that I think out of the two blogger wins hands down if you need a hosted blog (or at least the software as I host the blog myself but use blogger’s engine to write it). I hope in the new year to have a little play around with a self hosted copy of wordpress which I think is probably going to be better for me in the long run as this gives all the advantages of the wordpress engine with none of the restrictions of the hosted version. To give brief comment on other options voxtropolis appears to be the new kid on the block, I’ve had a brief look wasn’t all that impressed to be honest, doesn’t appear to have the power or ease of use of blogger. Typepad and SquareSpace both look very good, very similar in some respects to wordpress in terms of power and format, although remotely hosted I think you get away without having the restrictions that you get with wordpress.com the thing that stopped me looking too closely was the fact that you have to pay, I would suggest if you want power, hassle free and you don’t mind paying give these two a look, if you want almost as much power but not complete freedom but for free and easy to run blogger is the place to be, however if you want it all and you want it free wordpress look like filling that gap but you have to know a bit more about what you are doing with servers etc (or find someone to help who does). I’ll let you know how I get on soon.

For now though have a great Christmas and New Year, take it easy and I’ll see you here soon.

God bless

written by Simo

Yesterday was our 9^th wedding anniversary, wow 9 years, and pretty good ones at that I have to say, so to celebrate we went out and saw the new Bond film last night, I had heard quite a lot about it some good and some bad but I have to say most of it quite accurate. On the whole I liked it, a good story, good acting etc but I did miss some of the humour of more recent Bond films. On the whole definitely worth seeing, and probably worth seeing on the big screen but I wouldn’t get too upset if you miss it I think it’ll be ok on DVD. If I were to be buying bond films would I include this one, not sure probably but it wouldn’t be a priority.

To make up fir the lack of humour in the film here’s a great game found via youthblog (and he found via Gim D)

Thinking of fun games for Christmas, here’s a couple of others:-

Baseball (just press the left mouse button you’ll soon get the hang of it!)

Bowling (this one you have to download but there are now three versions and there all free.)

I may update you on the whole blog hosting front soon (but then Gill said that was boring and she didn’t want to read it)

PS. as I logged on I noticed that the new blogger is no longer in beta so if you’ve not upgraded yet it’s about time you did!

written by Simo

Yesterday as our last group before Christmas we had mince pies and drinks and I set my group on the task of telling as much of the Christmas story as possible in a txt message format so 160 characters. I think they did quite well and it has given me some other ideas as well but that’s for another post!

I thought I would share the winning entry with you hear:-

“d bby Jsus wz brn in a stbl n mry n jo wr wid im d wis mn came n ofrd gfts n d shprds came n ofrd shp. d angls wr singin”

This entry coming in at just 120 characters so room to spare.

An honourable mention must go to my 2 assistant leaders yesterday, 1 for her grasp of txt language and the others for managing in 140 characters to get the story using proper words.

written by Simo

I am currently sitting in my office with a big cushion up my jumper and dressed as FC (although I have just pulled the beard down as it was causing my glasses to steam up!) yes it’s the playgroup Christmas party again and I have been drafted in for the second year, I suppose this is one of the problems with being married to the chair person of the playgroup that meets in the building where I have my office! Anyway I was just finishing getting dressed when was asked if I could come 10 minutes later hence now typing dressed like this.

On a more serious not I have just got myself invited into the secondary school carol services (they have to do it in two sittings) to do the prayers, prayers and carols will be the only Christian content so I am wondering if I should ask if I can say a few words before the prayers just to get something of a challenge in there, I think I’ll drop them an email.

Ho Ho Ho.

PS. if you promise to be good boys and girls I might see if I can add a picture latter.

Update: 2 things that came out of being Father Christmas:-

1. Jonah was a little better this year than last, he came up to me after the handing out of gifts and said “look Father Christmas what you gave me, your not the real Father Christmas your daddy.”
2. One mother who insisted on telling me three times that she had been a good girl and could she therefore sit on my knee.

written by Simo