New Church

Captains log star date 15012017; we have been travelling through the wilderness of space for several months only to arrive at something completely new.......or is it?

Forgive my somewhat odd opening to this blog but saying 'I was in church two weeks ago' is boring and completely out of character for me. Anyway, there I was, in church. It was the same old church, with the same old songs (some not old enough for my liking), prayers, sermon (excellent one Chris), people, noisy babies and kids, yet it felt like a new church! Everything seemed so much more alive, so fresh, so engaging, so spiritual! Was I in a new church? Then I realised, it wasn't the church that had change it was me, God had brought me back to a place where there was joy in my heart in worship, fervour in my prayers, hunger for his word, and love for his people. He hasn't finished with me yet but I really appreciated this stage in my journey. I'll leave you with the words of Job that I find personally appropriate at this time:

let their flesh be renewed like a child’s;

    let them be restored as in the days of their youth’—

      then that person can pray to God and find favor with him,

    they will see God’s face and shout for joy;

    he will restore them to full well-being.

Job 33:25-26

It is finished!

A couple of Sunday's ago at church we began a journey through the gospel of Mark and I was particularly struck by a phrase that I often ponder. It is when John the Baptist appears to refuse to baptise Jesus because he is not even worth to 'carry his sandles.' Jesus responds that this must be done to "fulfil all righteousness" and that is the phrase that I always struggle to understand. That Sunday I sat with my eyes upon the Bible and read and re-read the words that were written there, and then it came to me!! The baptism of Jesus was as much about John the Baptist and his mission as it was about Jesus and I was then bathed in the vision and words of Jesus at the end of his mission, if not his time, on earth as he hung on the cross and murmured "It is finished" (John 19:30b) and died. The act of the Baptism of Jesus marked the end of the ministry of John as he had finally been able to point the way towards Jesus, a way that he had been preparing, and by fulfilling his obligation was right with God and subject to the salvic righteousness of God.

This epiphany got me to thinking about my own situation, my brief ministry at Station Hill Baptist and my current situation; I am not sure of my future and how I might serve God. And all of these revelations served to bring be to conclusion: It is finished, my ministry at SHBC is done and I must accept that and move on. It is God's will. By doing this, by accepting God's will in my life I can move forward in my ministry, whatever that may be. As I do that and as I rest in the relief of closure of that chapter in my life I hear ringing in my ears my favourite passage from Proverbs 3:5-6:

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
    and do not lean on your own understanding.
 In all your ways acknowledge him,
    and he will make straight your paths."

A message for both for me and for the church that I served.

Is there life on Mars?

Who gives a sh*t! All the while there are people in the world starving TO DEATH, or 500,000 children dying EACH DAY because they don't have access to clean drinking water,  or the infant mortality rate in Angola, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan is over 15%, or the Amazon rainforest is destroyed at a rate of 6,000 sq. km a year, or at least 10,000 species go extinct on the planet every -  I am not interested if there is life on Mars, or if a particular planet is made of metal, or if we have pinpointed a "mystery cosmic radio burst", or how much Dark Matter there is in the universe. Any money spent on any of these projects is completely unnecessary until we address the basic problems of a majority of the humanity we share this planet with. 

Apparently it cost $13.5 billon using the Large Hadron Collider to discover the Higgs Boson, which itself costs $23.4 million per year in electricity alone! 'We need to advance science' and there are 'a lot of spin-off benefits to these projects' I hear the science community shout, but tell that to the 1.5 million children who are orphaned because of HIV/Aids in Africa, or the mothers whose children have died because of dirty drinking water, or the countless parents of countless babies that die each day because of no access to proper healthcare or enough food. How many meals has discovery of the Higgs Boson put in the bellies of starving children? Has the discovery of a cosmic radio burst help advance the search for a cure for Aids? Don't get me wrong, all these scientific experiments and discoveries are fascinating, but until this world and those with enough money and resources to make a difference to 80% of the worlds population actually collaborate to do so, then they are a folly, unethical and in the words of Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" about any of them.

Am I in hell?

I originally posted this back in October on another of my blogs. I have since closed that blog but thought the content of this post suited The Angry Haddok.

Having recently finished watching the series "Glitch" on Netflix I was struck by the question that the second episode of the series posed whilst reading the news today: "Am I in Hell?" It is a question we can justifiably pose ourselves on a regular basis. We read in the news of Putin authorising the development of "Satan", an intercontinental ballistic killer, and see the pictures of dead children in Syria, alongside adverts of holidays in idyllic locations. The election in the USA: one of the most powerful nations in the world soon go to the polls to choose between the pathologically corrupt and the clinically insane. The before and after pictures of Pete Burns surely pose their own ironic question was he "Dead or Alive" when he destroyed his beautiful face with surgery? Itself a nod to the bizarre culture that is the West; its all about image! Nations that spend billions on pointless projects (such as getting to Mars), yet rely on their citizens to raise money for air ambulances and cancer research. People with an almost rabid desire to get to Britain living in squalid conditions, in danger of exploitation only a stones throw from others privileged to have a roof over their house,  plenty of food on the table, and access to luxuries most of the worlds population would dream of. Read the news and you may really begin to believe that you are in Hell!

Sexuality defines one's suitability for work?

At the moment I am trying to find suitable employment and have applied for quite a few jobs online over the past few months, so many that I have lost track. However one application yesterday was quite memorable in that it asked me for my sexual orientation and my race. I am not sure what element of sexuality qualifies me for a role as Business Development Manager at a Housing Association, and if my race (White British) disqualifies me from carrying out any specific task?Whilst I am sure that the reason they ask these questions is for statistical purposes, I am disappointed that organisations, even pre-employment, are using these questions to demonstrate to the world that they are an "Equal Opportunities Employer." Why? Because as always, operating within the letter of the law can be vastly different from operating within the spirit of the law, which demonstrates ones motives for doing something. I am a firm believer in positive action to redress a gender or race balance within an organisation, but this is so that an organisation correctly represents the society in which it operates. Its not about targets, or what can one demonstrate to the world, it is how the people we interact with are treated, and ensuring that people are treated equitably.

Further, if I am a suitably qualified ethnic minority candidate or someone from the LGBT community (I apologise if it is offensive to call it a community) wouldn't I be offended to think that someone   employed me because of my race or gender and not because of my skills, qualifications and experience? By doing this am I not guilty of patronising those minorities society is trying to help? I can't answer this because as a WMCHM (White, Middle-class, Heterosexual Male), particularly one in middle-age, I am definitely not suitably qualified to do so.

Jesus taught us to, 'love our neighbour as ourselves' (Mark 12:31 et al) echoing the commandment given by God on Mount Sinai. Paul elaborated on this when he taught in Galatians 3:28 that, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Whilst redressing the inequality in society we also need to set our gender and race clocks to neutral, in the (edited) words of Morgan Freeman the answer to ending racism is, "I'm going to stop calling you white, and I'm going to ask you to stop calling me black."

Just send £3........

Over the past few weeks I have had the opportunity to work at different levels with some of the biggest charities in the UK and I must say it has made me quite cynical about those charities and angered at the means they use to raise money. Not all charities fall under this banner but my recent experience shows me that most do. They very existence of these charities demonstrates the reluctance of successes governments to focus on the needs of its citizens and in a sense gets them off the hook. Charities need our money to be able to function and to be able to provide the benefit to those whom they represent, but is this the correct way to provide benefit? Cancer or medical charities, such as Cancer Research and MacMillan do amazing work but why isn't our government investing what is needed, after all it can afford £369m to refurbish Buck Palace, indeed it seems that London, having been able to afford a £1.8m firework display, also has plenty of spare cash that it could be using to help research and care. As for the charities themselves these have become money making machines, not just filling the coffers of the charities but also the companies who run their campaigns (most charities sub-contract their raffles and fund-raising activities to other non-charity organisations who are better equipped) and the highly paid executives who work for them - being an experienced fund raiser puts one inline for some very lucrative employment. Having read dozens if not hundreds of responses to fund-raising campaigns it is easy to develop a mental profile of the the regular contributors; elderly females who live on their own. The techniques many of these charities use, perhaps unintentionally (he wrote with raised eyebrows), create a sense of guilt in some 'I am sorry I couldn't afford to send more' or anger in others 'I am a pensioner and cannot afford to keep sending you money.' Many of my self-profiled donators seem to be plagued by charities 'I already support seven charities so cannot afford to support any more.' This points to another problem well known of and analysed by the professional fund-raisers in the charity sector: 'Donor Fatigue.' There are just so many charities, often several different charities representing one specific cause such as blindness, that existing donor's may begin to unsubscribe to the charities they support. However, some charities have yet another card to play; extreme photograph's and video's. This drives wavering donors back into  the fold, although there is some backlash with a few donors threatening to stop donating if the charity keeps sending such explicit and "upsetting" material. 

There are some exceptions out there and they tend to be among the faith-based charities, World Vision for example, the UK based Christian Charity focused on raising sponsorship for underprivileged children around the work, states that 85p of the money raised goes to the charitable projects it runs for the sponsored children, this compared to Cancer Research UK spending 67p in the £1 on "Charitable activities." To put this into context, in 2015 Cancer Research spent £103m to raise £430m.

I think the Charity Commission has a lot to answer for here, it ensures that charities operate within the letter of the law, but what about the spirit of the law? What about the moral and ethical imperative that drove many of these charities into existence anyway (and governs most faith-based charities)? In my own perhaps underdeveloped opinion the love of money, the root of all evil according to Paul (1 Timothy 6:10), has created a shadow over the primary objective of many charities and that continues to cloud my own opinion of many charities in the UK.