women bishops, homosexuals and harems

I am deeply concerned by the recent bad press the Church of England has been receiving with respect to women bishops and homosexuals (see Mark Russell's blog). Personally speaking, I am unsure of my position on women in leadership roles within the church. There are explicit verses in 1 Cor 14:33-36 and 1 Tim 2:11-12 that forbid women from teaching men in church, however it is sanctioned for women to pray and prophesy with their head covered in 1 Cor 11:5. In today's society, feminism has made the Gospel seem sexist. I think rather that the roles described for men and women in the New Testament suit the natural order of creation and that it should not be considered that hospitality, mercy, teaching and helps are lesser positions that pastorship and preaching. Click here to read more.

The other issue in the CoE is ordination and the sanctioning of marriage of homosexuals. I am often wary of positioning myself on either side of sensitive issues such as this one, so what I do say, I say with love, an open mind and I hope without discrimination. I find it hard to accept how the act of homosexuality can ever be described as not sinful. The bible makes this clear in both the old and new testament e.g. Lev 18:22, 1 Cor 6:9. However in a world that is obsessed with sex, Christians often fall into the trap of making this sin bigger than the rest. God will punish liars for their sins in the same way he will punish sexual sin. There will not be one Bishop in this world who can say he (or she lol!) has never lied. Everybody has a sin that is a "thorn in their side"; for some that will be lies, others lust, and some homosexual temptation. I say temptation because one has not sinned by being tempted by homosexual tendancies in the same way another has not sinned by being tempted to lie. The sin only occurs when the temptation has been been acted upon. Therefore i think that people who struggle with homosexuality can of course be in ministry as long as they do not act upon their temptations (which is the same for everybody!)

The problem with all of this is not everyone in the Church of England agrees on what is right on these matters, and it has caused threats of a split in the Anglican church, which is utterly ridiculous! This should never be a reason for splitting a church, I would like to think I wouldn't leave a church if it contradicted what I have stated above. It's not like these issues are fundamental to our salvation, and all this in-fighting and bitterness makes Christians seem old-fashioned and irrelavant to the rest of the world. Not only is it a terrible witness, but the church is already multi-denominational and it flies in the face of one of Jesus last requests to His Father - that His church would be united!

We need to show the world that Christ can unite us no matter what. I mean if Ian Paisley and Martin Maguiness can do it, why can't Christian men! Shane Claiborne wrote a funny and very appropriate line in his book Irresistable Revolution, "Jesus is returning, and we need to unite as one body because Jesus is coming back for a bride - not a harem!" Boy have we made a mess of God's amazing story! Praise God for his promise that I will build my church and gates of hades will not prevail against it.

A change of the guard? - Wimbledon 2008

I must admit I have usually cringed at this statement this year as Roger Federer has had an incredibly difficult year battling with mononucleus (aka Glandular fever). People started writing him off months ago when Novak Djokovic beat him in the Australian open semi's, and after which having some shock losses. I couldn't believe this because this is Roger Federer, who has been (and still is for that matter) world no.1 since January 2004! Yes his year has not been up to his usual impeccable standards but even after that, the rest of the pack still haven't caught up.

This is reflected in the fact the Rafael Nadal won Wimbledon yesterday, and now owns 2 of the 4 grand slams in comparison to Federer's one, and is still behind him in the rankings! However, after Nadal beating Federer at Wimbledon (Federer's favourite surface where he had a 64 match unbeaten run), it would be difficult to argue now that Rafa is indeed the best player in the world at the moment. It leaves Federer needing to retain his US Open title in September, and have a great end-of-season run to have any hope of holding on to his no.1 spot, and perhaps more importantly for him, a chance of equalling Pete Sampras' record of 14 career grand slams to be considered the best player ever (Federer is on 12).

Yesterdays final was amazing, probably one of the best tennis matches I've watched ever, and I watch a lot of tennis! I am traditionally a Nadal fan, but I was won over by Federer's incredible heart to come back from 2 sets down, and facing championship points. Two of the best points you will ever see was Nadal's pass to get championship point in the 4th set tiebreak from an almost perfect approach shot from federer. Then only to have Federer save it with an equally as amazing pass from practically in the spectator stands (see video below). It was heart breaking to see him lose after such a fightback, and I felt so sorry for him when I saw his face at the prize-giving. I do hope he doesn't lose motivation like Borg did after such a demoralising defeat.



I think the match was more lost by Federer than won by Nadal, that is no disrespect to Nadal for he too played extremely well. Coming into the net is grass court tennis 101 and as the kind of grass, Federer should know that only too well, but he seemed reluctant to do this. In fact the whole first two sets he seemed scared to play his best shots. This is because Nadal is in his head and has been ever since that 5 set comeback in Rome 2006. Perhaps this rivalry would have a completely different look if Federer had won that. I said before the beginning of the match that Federer's serve would be key and I was proved right, for when he served well, Nadal could not get close to his service games, but in each of the 1st, 2nd and 5th set Federer lost his focus and played some mindless points which cost him the sets. What did work for Federer was playing the dangerous yet if done right, successful tactic of playing wide to Nadals's forehand to open up a show at the backhand wing. Perhaps this will be a feature in a future Federer comeback?

I myself had the luxury of going to wimbledon this year for the second and third round. I got to see Federer, Nadal, Serena play Mauresmo, David Ferrer and Mario Ancic, Chris Eaton and Maria Sharapova. Speaking of Sharapova, she played absolutely rubbish, practically every point was an error, and it was terrible to watch. In fact (without trying to sound sexist) I found most of the womens matches error-strewn this year. The best match I saw was Ferrer vs Ancic. It was high quality tennis throughout with long rallies and by the end the crowd were really into it.

The new brit - Chris Eaton was a surprise package. He serves and volleys very well and is a bit like Tim Henman in that respect. I don't think he will quite reach the heights of Henman/Murray but I do think he can beat the rest of the british men into the top 50. Which is good news for all round for British tennis as the women are coming on much stronger now with outstanding perfomances from Anne Keothvathong and the Junior champion, Laura Robson.

I would recommend Wimbledon to anyone, it's worth trying at least once as it's great fun (even the queuing overnight!) and the quality of tennis can only be appreciated fully watched live. In saying that next year I think I will be up for something different and head the the dirt of Roland Garros! Check out my photo's on bebo

Jericho

I wanted to recommend an under-rated, relatively-unheard of tv show called Jericho. It is about a small town in Kansas, USA supposedly 200 miles away from Denver. The main plot is that a nuclear acttack has occurred in Denver and the people of Jericho can see the mushroom cloud. Panic ensues as to what happened, and their worst fears were realised when they discover that this attack is much larger than first thought

The whole first series captures your imagination not only as they unfold the mystery behind the attacks but more so the way they work out each of the new roles and relationships between the characters as they learn to rebuild in the strange new world with power, fuel and food shortages.
I will not give any spoilers but you should definitely try this show. This is up there with my favourite shows such as Prison break, 24 and heroes.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jericho-Season-1-Skeet-Ulrich/dp/B000RHUERU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1214777087&sr=1-2

Animal Rescue

I love it when your day doesn't go at all how you expected it to. Yesterday, I went to dungannon to spend some quality time with my girlfriend Mel. She had just picked me up from the bus station and were off doing our usual random things when we spotted a dog at the side of the road.

This poor creature looked miserable. It was camped in the busheds at the side of a country road, soaked through to the bone from the torrential rain we had just had. We couldn't just leave it there so we stopped the car and tried to coax him over, but it was too nervous and wouldn't come near us.

After several failed attempts, Mel went to the shop and came back with tesco value ham, and that seemed to do the trick. However, the dog had a limp, a bleeding mouth and just generally looked confused so we decided we should take him (yes we estblished at this stage that he was indeed a him!) to the vet and tried to get him into the car. But the dog wasn't having any of it, so we call Mel's mum over for help.

Sure enough Dr dolittle herself got him into the car, and we got him to the vet for a little TLC. There was no way though we were gonna allow the vet hand him over to the dog warden just to be put down, he was a gorgeous black lab! So in the morning we came back and collected him in order to find him a home. Praise God, his owners had contacted the dog warden about their missing black lab, and they put the 2 together.

Turned out his name was giggsy. It was sad to part with him after our ordeal, and it got me thinking that if we put all this effort in just for a stray dog, how much more should I be doing this for our homeless people. Despite failed attempts to lure the dog over, despite failed attempts getting him in the car, despite not knowing where to bring him after the vets, we still did something, I mean where does our responsibility end?

Ireland says NO!

Wouldn't have Ian Paisley been proud? Thank God Ireland said no to the Lisbon treaty. It may be the case that it is inevitable the EU will take over everywhere, but at least it has been stalled for now. There are too many "hidden shadows" with this bill, and way too much that the general public don't know what they're signing on to.

I have several issues with this bill. We would be handing over federal power to unelected officials in brussels, with no real accountability being handed back to local government, and by local they actually mean national. It would be much harder to pass laws appropriate to our situation. There are way too many diverse cultures in Europe to have them all generically governed in one place. If the President of a European superstate wanted to abuse his power, he could achieve hitler-like ambitions without the wars.

Apart from all that, the Irish fought for centuries for home-rule from Britain; why would they hand it all away to Europe now? At least the Irish have had some sense and shown an example to the rest of Europe that hopefully the UK will follow. If not, I would suggest that perhaps then would be the perfect time to unite Ireland, and stay away from the EU. Also isn't there something apocalyptic about the rise of a nation in the scriptures?

Matthew 7: 21-23

I was reading this passage the other day, and as that happens with many who read the Bible, this was not the first time I have this scripture but this time I learnt something new from it.

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' 23Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'"

I thought to myself I try to do things in Jesus name, just as that verse describes, and I worried that one day Jesus would say to me 'I never knew you'. I think what this passage means is that if you do things (in the name of Jesus) but you are not really doing them for His will and glory, then you must be doing them for yourself and you will never get to truly know Jesus

I tried to apply to this to where I am at in my own life at the moment. I am trying to make big decisions now that I have finished Queen's in what to do next, and my big fear is that I will make a decision based on what I would like to do and not God's will for my life. For example I have had some ideas of things I would like to do in the future, and then I have prayed about them. I wish I had of prayed first, and then came up with those ideas, so that I could know they were from God! I don't want to pray about something because it is what I want. I would hate to wake up some morning and realise I've really been doing things for my enjoyment and not for God's pleasure and have Jesus say to me 'I don't know you'.

So please pray for me so that I can make decisions without being blinded by my own human ambition and that God would reveal His will to me and also that I would know Jesus more everyday.

city centre 24-7 prayer

I was hugely encouraged by the sight of a prayer room in the main shopping area of the city centre of the capital of northern ireland...that's right Belfast!! In the old accessorise shop, the methodist church in Ireland had set up a temporary 24 hour, 7 day a week prayer room. It was amazing to see open doors and windows and being able to watch people pray from the busiest street in northern ireland. Curious people who maybe had no faith were able to get their first possible taste of their maker.

It's a shame it's only temporary, but wouldn't it be great if we could encourage a more permanent one in such an amazing location? Thank you Lord though, for what you have given us! For more check out this