Mark preached at church this morning on Ephesians 5:18-33. For a passage that causes great confusion and is often miss-quoted, he gave probably the most illuminating exposition I've ever heard. He began by stressing the link between verses 18-21 and 22-33, which are broken up by a heading in most Bibles. When you actually pause to think about verse 21 the link is quite obvious, but I've never heard it mentioned in a sermon before. He then explained the concept of being filled with the Holy Spirit, drawing comparisons with a room filled with people or a wall filled with pictures. In each case it is that which fills which becomes the most obvious thing, i.e. the most obvious thing about the room is the people. A drunk, as in verse 18, is instantly recognisable through not only their behaviour but also their look, sound, even their smell. And it is their drunkenness which is their most obvious characteristic.

In talking about verses 22-33 he pointed out that 22-24 are addressed "Wives" and 25 to the end of the chapter "Husbands". There is really no need for husbands to read the first part or vice-versa. The responsibility for fulfilling each part of this passage lies with those to whom they are addressed, and they need be of no concern to the rest of us. The most important part for us all lies in being filled with the Holy Spirit. Looking at it this way one gets rather more of an insight into just what a royal priesthood should look like.

I've seen on a few blogs. Dan blogged it today, so I've checked it out and added myself. If it's fun I'll add it to the sidebar when I get round to doing some proper design.

Bruce Almighty (spoilers!) is a film with theology that I agree with, which surprised me quite a bit. It was recommended to me by a friend who told me that it wasn't as dodgy as it looked. I didn't believe him, and I've never really been a fan of Jim Carrey anyway, but after enjoying Hulk I was up for going to the cinema again. Cinematically I couldn't say it was great, though I guess if you liked Liar Liar then this is probably your thing. The plot is predictable, and a lot of the characters and jokes extremely obvious. Where the film shines, though, is in it's portrayal of a man coming to know God and the realisation that his will is not the most important in his life. The ChildCare Action Project still manages to find things to slate, but the moments when Carrey's character surrenders himself to the Lord and says his first prayer are genuinely touching.

A friend of Dan's has commented on a documentary called Did Jesus Die? The part of the show that I saw contended that Jesus was actually a Buddhist monk, taught by the wise men from east during the time between his presentation in the temple and his baptism. It seems to me that the BBC devotes an inordinate amount of time to trying to discredit Christianity.

I've just seen Hulk. It seems to be getting quite a bit of bad press, but I'm going to stick with my initial reaction and say that I'll be surprised if we see a better summer blockbuster this year. The plot was somewhat confused, but next to The Matrix Reloaded it seems to make perfect sense. Ang Lee demonstrates that he has 1000 times more style than McG could ever dream of, and, well, I'll believe the good press about Terminator 3 when I see it.

It's not what we've come to expect from a comic book adaptation, and neither is what we might expect from Ang Lee, but I'm not sure it was ever going to be, and I'm not sure that's necessarily a bad thing. The CG character is, for the most part, convincing; the performances are great, and draw out the comic style in all the right places. And the use of split screens, framing and fast zooms to imitate the pages of a comic book succeeds in a way I've never seen before.

Chris had started a web site where he's publishing some film reviews that he's written. He didn't like Hulk, but he doesn't seem to have said that on there yet.

I've been off-line for ages again, so I just took a look at my Nationstate. Apparently my economy has imploded. I guess that means I've successfully killed off business. Go me!

While I've been away Dan and Paul have been abusing me again. I don't want to get personal, but come on Paul, show us your efforts. Also, Richard has put a link to my blog in his side bar. I should probably do something similar, but I don't have enough friends with blogs. Paul, get yourself a web site. I guess he does have half a point though. I'd sort of like to have a go at playing with the CSS Zen Garden but I should probably sort out this site first. Some people pad out their side bar with links to the A-list, but I don't really want to look like some kind of wannabe. Actually, what I wanna do is say insightful things about prayer movements in Bradford; but I'm not doing terribly well there, am I?

At my graduation ceremony on Friday Brian Blessed was made an Honorary Doctor of Letters. I'm not entirely sure what that means, but he seemed genuinely excited by it, even saying it was the best thing that ever happened to him. Better still, he said Gordon's Alive! and did that lip-shaking noise thing from The Phantom Menace.

I finally gave in to temptation and bought Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. As a result I've not read much for the Baku-Ceyhan campaign, but I'm really going to now as I finished it this morning. It was all very good apart from the huge continuity error I'm sure I noticed fairly close to the end. I'll have to go back later and check that I didn't just miss something, which I guess is quite likely. Sometime maybe I'll write about why I don't think Harry Potter is Satanic, but I can't really be bothered now.

I've got far to much going on write on everything just at the moment, but the man from Telewest finally came and set up our cable, so now I'll be able to update a bit more regularly. I've spent today at the Granada Studios in Manchester watching the filming of University Challenge. They didn't ask us to keep the results secret, so I think it's safe to say that it wasn't Bradford's finest performance. It's the first time we've had a team for years and years, and it was great fun though, so congratulations to them all. The job's been fun so far, but I think I'm wearing myself out. Last night I failed to finish my curry and then had to come home about half midnight! I've also had a look at the new union web site. I think there's probably quite a lot of work to do. It's not at a permanent address yet, so I'll link to it once it is.

While I was at Glastonbury I committed to reading some of a huge BP document an behalf of the Baku-Ceyhan campaign. BP are trying to build a pipeline across Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey 70% funded by tax-payers money. Now I have an Internet connection again I'll be able to download parts of the document and look for the holes in it. I'm not really sure what I'm looking for, but I'm hoping that someone'll be able to give me a little guidance.

I'm now at home in Sevenoaks. On my way home from Glastonbury the other day I got a call from Andrew, who told me that Jon had asked him to invite people to his wedding. Jon used to run a great web site about Renegade, but I'm pretty sure it's long gone now, so I don't have anything of his to link to. The wedding was lovely, so congratulations to Jon and Tessa Senior. It's a little weird, as Jon is the first of my school friends to get married, but provided they don't go off and spawn a peculiar Danish pop family I guess we'll be OK.

I've spent the last few days on a training residential in an extremely remote village outside of Skipton. I'll be back in Bradford tomorrow, though Telewest still haven't sorted out the transfer of our phone and Internet connections, so it'll probably be a few days before I'm back to doing this every day.

I realised that I didn't post a link to any information about Sigur Ros the other day, so if you've never heard them visit the official Sigur Ros web site and download some tracks.

Oh, and I got a 2/1 for my degree. I was pleased. Very, in fact. I'd use exclamation marks, were I not so tired.

OK, I've been back from Glastonbury for three days, but Telewest haven't yet called me back to say when they're going to install the Internet conection in our new house, so updates could be sparse for a while. I also started my job yesterday and we're off on a three day training residential starting today.

Glastonbury musical highlight is Sigur Ros, who were stunning. Comedy highlight is the moment God answered Tim's prayer that he would meet festival organisers Michael and Emily Eavis. He and I were standing in the queue for Oxfam's free candy floss when a girl approached us and asked us to sign the Make Trade Fair pettition. Tim explained that we'd already signed it, and we didn't realise until we spotted the the camera crew as she was leaving that it was Emily Eavis. God is great, but we are stupid.

I'm back in Sevenoaks, and this really will be the last update before Glastonbury. Last night I got to meet a few friends for a pint in The Farmers before moving on to Tonbridge. We went to a small pub, which was friendly and sold good beer, but then we left and went to Wetherspoon's where the staff are rude and the chances of a lock in are much lower. Walking back through Tonbridge park Richard got scared and refused to walk down a path, saying he'd heard tales of drug abuse and other unpleasant things that went on in the area. Now to me this sounds unlikely, but a good way to see the needy side of my home, which I normally ignore to an even greater extent than that in Bradford. We did see a group of youths with a light, but as Declan pointed out that is not in itself a reason to be scared, and certainly shouldn't discourage others from enjoying public parks and footpaths.

This afternoon Sam and I went to check out what actually lay down the path. We found a few abandoned concrete bunkers, full of litter and covered in graffiti; signs of a couple of small fires; open fields and a network of pleasant riverside paths. The paths bought us back into town on the other side of the park, and by the time we'd walked for about an hour we'd found signs of nothing more sinister than under-age drinking. We'd also managed to thoroughly exhaust Sam's dog.

On a totally different note, I see that A List Apart is up and running again. They've not yet covered anything of more than a passing interest to me, but at least they're back.

My computer is now the only thing left in my room. I'm sat on the floor with my keyboard on my lap. We don't have a car, so we've been carrying stuff down the road to the new house since about four o'clock this-afternoon. We're just waiting for a taxi to shift all the computers.

I'm leaving for Glastonbury at 7:30 tomorrow morning. There's a plan to work out a prayer chain to back us up while where there. If you'd like to be involved contact SPEAK and mention Emma Cowen, as I think she's loosely organising it.

They've found a director for the Hitchhiker movie. It's blatantly going to suck, not so much because of the unknown director, but because Adams won't be involved. The man was a genius.

All my housemates are obsessed with Celebdaq. My first attempt at doing anything with it is rather half-hearted, but I've been going a little longer with NationStates.

We're moving house tomorrow, and I've still barely started with packing. I'm off home of Saturday morning, then to Glastonbury on Monday so updates over the next week and a half could be scarce. I'll try and get at least one update in over the weekend, but after that I won't be back until the 30^th and I start work on the 1^st. I got an e-mail today telling me that my business cards are ready. How weird's that?

This is quite amusing. It does really well, right up until the end, when the closing line causes it to fall into the "another cheesy Christian ad" category. I'm moderately impressed with their site though, it seems surprisingly genuine for something like this. I'm somewhat inclined to agree with the posts saying they shouldn't post hate mail from other Christians though. It brings them rather close to the kind of territory normally occupied by the likes of capalert and Corrupt Christian Music.

I saw Donnie Darko last night. It's very good, and I highly recommend it. I'm not entirely sold on its theology, but I think it's pretty much agnostic so I'll let it pass. Richard Kelly seems to say in the DVD commentaries that it's got no hidden meaning, but I don't believe him. If I'd just spent so much effort making a film as mysterious as Donnie Darko I wouldn't be just telling everyone what it meant. To me it seems to be an interesting exploration of the themes of predestination, but my housemates disagree.

It suddenly hit me today that I will have to go home this weekend in order to get down to Glastonbury on the Tuesday. That means it's been almost a year since I started trying to take on board God's challenge to leave my comfort zones and really make a difference. I'm looking forward to Glastonbury, as it means that we'll finally get to go there with all our ideas about faith in action and taking on the whole of SPEAK's vision in one weekend. And there are some good bands on. Beyond that I'm facing the prospect of coming back to Bradford and starting my job on 1^st July. It's easy to think that over the year nothing has changed, but I know that to be a lie. The most phenomenal things have happened, so many just in the last couple of weeks. We've seen the CU and the churches take on and complete weeks and days of 24-7 Prayer; we've seen the church united in prayer for the city; we've been on prayer walks and seen the results. I personally have learnt a great deal about the city, and am following through on the call to stay here at least for the year. And as a result of Friday's crazy prayer I'm already noticing a greater trust in God's will.

There's still an unbelievable amount to do, but looking at the small things we have planned I can see how mountains really can be moved. We're looking at a week of 24-7 by not just a church, but the Church in Bradford; we're planning a guided prayer walk, which Richard Kirkcaldy has blogged about; the CU has some exciting plans for the beginning of the next academic year. I'm looking for contacts with an interest in community, and ways in which we can build radical Christianity into city life. I have total confidence that God will enable serious change in Bradford if only we let him.

Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules. Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide. Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials. The advertisers cannot mould them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.

The Vision (The Vision MP3)

Let's "make demons scream in shopping centres."

So, I'm fiddling with the style sheets and I can't work out why nothing's changing. It turns out I've forgotten to link to them in my template. It's fixed now, and as a result you should see the navigation links now appearing on the right side of the screen. According to Jakob Nielsen in Homepage Usability it's standard (and therefore better) to place navigation bars on the left hand side. A quick survey of a few blogs I read reveals that most of them have their navigation on the right. I think it's mainly down to fashion, and I've decided I like the right better.

James Preece runs a blog which Dan recommended to me. Today he has blogged a news story about compulsory Belgian euthanasia which seems to me to rather defeat the point of having a faith based hospital. Obviously the NHS means that this situation could not really currently occur in this country, but I went to a Catholic school of which Catholic values were an integral part. Or, at least, at which RE GCSE was compulsory. If I choose to send my kids to faith based school it will be because I want them in a Christ-centred environment, if I didn't want that I'd send them elsewhere. I don't pretend to be an expert on the Belgian heath-care system, but it does seem rather odd.

OK, this'll be exciting. I've just been fiddling with the blogger template, and I've changed a whole load of stuff that I didn't really understand. If all goes to plan then when I publish this entry the links to the amd faq pages should be back, linking to a more recent version of the faq (though possibly not the most recent version I've posted to the newsgroup, I'll deal with that later); all style should be gone from the site, with just h2 headers dividing up the content and navigation; the menu systems should be consistently imported across the site via SSI and the entire site should validate as XHTML 1.0 Strict. This way I can write some style sheets later and play with the design of the site forever without touching the content again. Or at least until I get board with this and move to another blogging platform.

In other news today Dan Barnett says that Andrew and the Andrews is an early version of me. Perhaps that's like James version 1.0. Or looking at the site it's probably nearer 3.2. More likely it's an old web site that I made years ago, and not actually me at all.

Also, I went into town with a friend this-afternoon with the vague intention of telling her a little about the fantastic things that have been happening over the last few days and some of the ideas I have about praying for Bradford. She ended up praying for me on a bench outside the law court, and the Holy Spirit was there in a way that I've not really experienced before. Being on your knees before God right in the middle of town is quite an unusual feeling, but it's totally amazing in ways I can't even begin to explain, and won't try to here and now.

I’ve got all kinds of exciting plans for this site. The idea is that I use it as a kind of on-line prayer diary and post prayers and prayer requests for the city of Bradford and life therein. I’m not really organised enough to have thought this through properly though, so today all I have is a prayer request for the SPEAK stall at Glastonbury. We need electricity, and this means finding a generator from somewhere with solar panels or a wind turbine or something.

I’ve completely failed to make any update to the SSI, the broken links or the style of this site. This is because of the many other things I mentioned having to do, including looking into electricity for SPEAK. The main event of today was the final year do down in the student union Basement. I wish that I was a poet so that maybe I could describe this properly. Or at least that I could write vaguely lucid prose. It was a great event, and all those who organised it deserve much credit.

So, thanks to God for probably the most productive day I’ve had in a long while. Senate was even interesting, possibly exciting. There's a peculiar thrill to knowing that you've just been told something no-one else knows. I think I’m going to struggle when it comes to being tactful with information.

I had dinner, I played GTA3, I went to the pub. Then I went to Pop Sox down in Escape, and now it's rather later than I intended. Thus everything I'd planned to do when I came in is going to have to wait. I've lots to do tomorrow, but the most of relevance is restoring all the old content to this site and beginning to play around with some of the templates and SSI. I figure content is king, so maybe if I type enough rubbish I'll be motivated to work on the style.

Meanwhile, here’s the update I posted the other day, between the old site and this one:

Well, I finally decided to go ahead and sign up for Blogger. Somehow this seems like cheating, so maybe once I'm getting paid I'll invest in some hosting I can run Moveable Type off. For the moment this will do. I've been meaning to do this for ages, so I have lots I want to say, but for the moment I just want to get some dinner, play GTA3 and go to the pub. I'll finish this later.