I always plan these great theological treatises to post here: great discussions of the faults of the church, or of our entire world order. Then I get distracted by the simplest of things. A few days ago I was watching two collar doves flirting. It was the funniest and most beautiful thing I’d seen in ages. The two of them were sitting on the garden fence a couple of meters apart. One would sidle up to the other and start pushing her: just gentle nudges at first, then head butting her under the chin (if birds have chins). When I left the window they were flapping about, jumping over and on top of each other. I thought they’d like the privacy.

This afternoon I took a walk down to Knole, wanting to appreciate the green in Sevenoaks before I leave it all behind again. Half way up Blackhall Lane I met a blackbird foraging in the leaves on the grassy roadside bank. Sticking his head under the leaves, picking a few up, throwing them about then moving on; there didn’t seem much method to his search. We continued walking up the hill together. He never came closer to me than about a meter, and I never tried to make him. We parted company by the turning for the park. I was going in, hoping to get a good view of the sunset. He was going back down the hill.

As it turned out the sunset was obscured by clouds.

“Have you ever given orders to the morning,

or shown the dawn its place,

that it might take the earth by the edges

and shake the wicked out of it?”

Job 38 (NIV)

As a result of being given Matthew 6:25-27 today I was inspired to re read some chunks of my prayer diary. Reading my prayers from this time last year it was incredible how many either have been answered or are in the process of being answered. Just at the moment, the question of whether to re-stand is weighing somewhat heavy on my mind. I should probably be spending a little more time in prayer over it. From last year it was amazing how every time I considered anything else for this year God would raise Union Exec. I hope I haven’t wasted it.

Belle & Sebastian. I got Dear Catastrophe Waitress for Christmas (along with World Service by Delirious and () by Sigur Rós). I never quite understand where they stand, theologically speaking. I’ve had some interesting discussions recently around the subject of music, and the power it has over the human mind. I understand that Belle and Sebastian have in the past done something at Greenbelt. I’m not altogether sure what. From what I understand it certainly wasn’t a whole-band performance.

Now, playing at Greenbelt (in whatever manner you do so) doesn’t in any way make you a Christian, but it could be argued that lyrics like If you find yourself caught in love, Say a prayer to the man above, You should thank him for every day you pass do. The thing is that I can never help the feeling that Belle and Sebastian are in some way being ironic. I never feel that they are singing words like that with a genuine heart for the Lord. So the question is: are they singing what they mean, and if not, should I be listening?

I was just testing the links I was going to use for this post, and visited the Greenbelt website. I discovered that Mike Yaconelli was killed in a car accedent back in October. I know I’m somewhat late with this news, but it’s no less a tragedy for the delay.

OK, so I went to visit the venue for 24-7 on Tuesday. I confess I had difficulty visualising it at first, but we could not have hoped for a better location. We’ll be using a vast early 20th century mission hall on North Wing. The painted facade and the barbed wire on the roof rather give it the look of a dilapidated warehouse, but once you step inside the hints of church building are everywhere. It’s being converted into some kind of Christian education/arts project. I’m not sure I really understood, but I’m sure there’ll be plenty of opportunity to find out about that once the praying gets underway.

The view over the city is amazing. It’s only from one small window, away from the main room but there will be some kind of signage as to how to get there. I’m having ideas for a walkway made of draped fabric, but I probably won’t be there for the setting up on Monday. I was also planning to put on line a list of churches that are covering time, so people would know who to contact to book a slot, but I’ve done something really stupid and I don’t know if the details have been e-mailed to me.

Having told everyone to contact me on my address at this domain rather than my work address over the holiday, I'd come home leaving Outlook running on the house server. Now all my personal e-mail is being downloaded every five minutes to a location 250 miles away, whilst I can access my work account just fine over the web. I downloaded the Remote Desktop Client for my parents’ computer but it seems that, in some rare moment of security consciousness, I disabled the facility to connect to the server.

One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike.

Romans 14

Merry Christmas

I’ve decided I don’t want to be a Christian any more. I want to be a follower of the Way. I know the Bible makes no real distinction, but the difference between what we now call Christianity and the model of what it meant to be church in the time Acts was written seems quite phenomenal. I was clearing out a backlog of old e-mail yesterday and came across a link to emergingchurch.info. Following a variety of links, and by way of an interesting article about Revive, I eventually came across 15 Theses by someone named Wolfgang Simson. I’d never heard of him before, but apparently he’s written a book called Houses That Change the World, which I’m now planning to read at the first opportunity.

The basic pretext for this article seems to be that the structure around which all modern church is based is fundamentally flawed. We rely on a system modeled on Old Testament or Pagan religions, not on the system of New Testament Christianity. We need a new reformation, bringing the church back to it's roots as a network of small communities, meeting in houses where real people go. We should be talking about the priesthood of all believers as a real thing. The job of a Pastor should not be to sit between man and God, that’s what Jesus is for; instead a Pastor should work together with Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists and Teachers to grow and network the whole church. And (I particularly like this bit) the Lord’s Supper should be a real supper with real food. Eating together is such a powerful act of community, and one which we are losing in modern society. And it’s the true, biblical way to take communion.

The only problem is, I’m a sucker for tradition—especially at this time of year. All the candlelit services, and the carols. At Christmas I even love the pews and the organ. And the church is full of people like me. We enjoy our regular Sunday praise and worship slot. We like the bring a friend events when it doesn't really matter if you don’t, ’cause someone else will. But the fact is, Jesus came and died for us. He showed us a better way to live, and then he died so that we might enjoy it. And if we know that, and we still keep ignoring it, something’s very wrong indeed.

Way back in the summer, when Jeffery John was all over the news, there was a lengthy debate on the d-fans mailing list about the rights and wrongs of allowing openly gay men to become bishops. Because of a whole bundle of circumstances (Glastonbury, moving house, starting a new job) I never found the time to participate in the discussion and, indeed, fell rather behind with all my correspondence.

In mid-August I went on holiday for the best part of two weeks. Ignoring for the moment the sense of utter panic I felt when I discovered my mobile phone wasn’t working, I made a determined effort to cut myself off from my usual world. Whilst there, however, I did take the time to write a fairly lengthy piece outlining my thoughts on human sexuality. I had intended to post the complete document both here and on the mailing list, but I never quite managed to work up the courage. Though I stayed well away from the actual issue of the morality of homosexuality, I did feel that, in certain things I said, I was rather putting myself on the line. After moving it from computer to computer and never actually doing anything with it, I finally deleted the last copy a few weeks ago. You can probably tell from the fact I’m writing this now that I wish I hadn’t.

The basic premise of what I wrote came from Matthew 5—Jesus talk on adultery during the Sermon on the Mount. I argued that there are actually three major human sexual orientations, not two as usually assumed. For the purposes of my argument I ignored bi, and the various Ts, citing instead heterosexuality, homosexuality and celibacy. Following on from much discussion on the d-fans list as to whether it was OK to be homosexual if one wasn’t practicing I argued that sexuality is characterised only by practice; it is our definition of practice that is at fault. Matthew 5:27 tells us that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. For a man to look at a woman lustfully would be sexual practice, characterising heterosexuality. For a woman to look at another woman lustfully would also be sexual practice, characterising homosexuality. Both would be equally wrong.

It would be impossible to be a non practising homosexual, just as it would be impossible to be a non practicing heterosexual. The only sexual orientation characterised by inaction is celibacy.

I went on to argue that humans are not born either heterosexual or homosexual, as is often supposed. We are born celibate; anything else is only temptation. And we have no place giving in to that, only submission to the Lord’s will at a time of his choosing.

So, basically, until we entirely rethink both the teaching of the church and the whole of our modern culture we have no place condemning anyone. At the time I wrote this I resolutely believed that to fancy girls was wrong, and that holy relationships could only grow from a mutual love for God. I still do.

Though I sometimes wish I didn’t.

OK, so after yesterday I did eventually go back to that playlist. I’d forgotten I’d put it together intending it to be encouraging, so it turned out to be a pleasant surprise. I’m now listening to Angel of Harlem by U2. I’m not sure if it was meant to be a Christmas song, but to me it’ll always be one of the best around. I was going to stick on the 24-7 Vision Mix CD after this, but for some reason I seem to have Anyone Can Play Guitar stuck in my head all of a sudden. Maybe I'll listen to that first.

I’m sure I had other things to say, but I’ve no idea what they were. They were probably to do with 24-7, but I went to CJ’s with Adam after church, and I’ve not had time to do anything about it. Adam’s got some pretty cool ideas for a prayer installation on homelessness though.

I was too slow swapping discs and All I Want Is You just started. I can’t skip that.

You say you’ll give me a highway with no one on it

Treasure just to look upon it

All the riches in the night

You say you’ll give me eyes on a moon of blindness

A river in a time of dryness

A harbour in the tempest

All the promises we make

From the cradle to the grave

When all I want is you

It’s dark. It’s wet. It’s windy. Everyone else’s gone home, the Union bars are all closed, and someone’s beating out a blues from the basement of the pub on the corner.

God is great. I was contemplating going back to my iTunes playlist from the other week, but instead I’m listening to the first disc of Access:d (I don’t have World Service yet). There is now a venue for the Bradford-wide week of 24-7 Prayer. It’ll be at the North Wing Building off Otley Road. I don’t know it, but apparently it has a fantastic view—perfect for praying over the city. I’m going to take a look on Tuesday. There will be continuous prayer from 11pm on the 31^st until midnight on the 7^th. The plan is to set up on the 29^th. I don’t know yet whether I’ll be back in Bradford that early, but I’ll most likely be here for the start. It’s going to be incredible.

P.S. That was an example of a blues track, not what they were actually playing

A friend recently introduced me to a strangely addictive game called Fly The Copter. Fancying a game while at work the other day, but unable to remember the address, I typed fly the copter into Google and was presented with a “genuine” weblog called South Coast Diaries. It’s all about two years old, so I’m somewhat behind the times, but it’s somewhat freaky. The blog only runs for a few months so it’s easy to read the whole thing. Suffice to say, that by the end I was somewhat freaked out, and the game doesn’t seem quite as fun once one learns what it was meant to be all about.

I’m not usually one to harp on about the “true meaning of Christmas”, largely because as far as I can make out it’s all about pagan rituals and capitulating to effigies of Coca-Cola personified, however this article from 24-7 Prayer, “Anyone for an ‘Advert’ Calendar?”, is well worth a read.