"The next step"
Over the last six months I've been trying to work out where it is that God is leading me once my degree is over. I have pushed a number of doors, aware that I want to learn more about starting, and leading communities of faith in order that one day I might do it myself.

About a month ago I heard God say something fairly concise, but which was to be unravelled as the weeks went on. He said "be patient," to which I responded "no, You clearly don't understand - I need an answer" (or something along those lines!) When I got to the Leaders' Conference two weeks ago I received that word once again from someone I had only just met.

I initially assumed that He meant "just you wait and I'll tell you where I want you." It turns out he was actually (or was also) saying that I wasn't to look on the next year as an end in itself, that He's willing to take his time with me!

So I looked at the guidance I already had on this issue and recognised that, of all the doors that had opened, only one seemed to be for now. So to cut a long story short(er)...next year I'll be interning with Andrew Wallis (aka Grommit) over at Bristol Vineyard.

This is one of the reasons I've been pretty quiet on here over the last few weeks - just trying to sort out some stuff before I commit it to web! Thanks for all of you who've been praying as this whole thing has been going on. I've already found somewhere to live, so now I just need to raise finances, wind down my involvement at CV, and pass those exams before I move over the Severn Bridge in September.

Hmmm...maybe I answered wrong?

You are Woodstock!
Which Peanuts Character are You?

Here's an interesting article on Marriage. [found thanks to instapundit]

Help my friend
Chris is one of my oldest friends. His girlfriend, Charlotte is a student in Bournemouth and has found a way of getting free rent next year. click here and vote for 'pixie' (Charlotte's housemate next year) and you'll give her a better chance of winning.

We returned yesterday from our week in Bournemouth at the UK Vineyard National Leaders' Conference. It was a great time. I've come away with a much clearer idea of my future direction. I'll blog some more soon, but for now something Andrew Jones said in this months Next Wave magazine that really struck me. It's on the issue of how 'established' Churches approach alternative ways of doing church:

"You should keep your church intact, but allow new structures to arise. Preserve the old wineskins, since they are keeping the old wine mature and that pleases God. If your people like church the way it is, let them have it. You can never catch up to emerging culture, and trying to transition all the way will spill too much wine. So why bother? Much better to allow the next generation to create new structures that make sense to them. You want life and growth, and they want freedom to spend their energy on the things of God. So send them out with your blessing to chase the Kingdom and support it. They understand the new scene more than you, so bless them and cover their backs." [read more]

I'm off to the Vineyard UK National Leaders' Conference tomorrow. It should be a good week. I'm hoping to hear some more from God regarding my activities on leaving Uni (June onwards). Speaking at the Conference will be Gordon Fee, David Pitches, Debbie Wright and Rick Williams, to name but a few.

Tonight I spoke at one of our gatherings on the subject of 'Giving' [read the transcript here]. It's the second time I've given a solo-talk in this context. It seemed to go ok - I used notes with the full script instead of just bullet points and I found that I was able to stick to a) my time limit and b) my subject more accurately, although my one struggle was giving plenty of eye contact and interaction. Any tips, leave a comment, or email me on jonathan[at] cardiffvineyard [dot] org.

Tongues
Eric Keck is talking about the oft unspoken subject of speaking in tongues over on his blog. Good stories.

Faking It
I was watching Faking It last night - a programme in which someone who does one job is taught to do another and then put on trial to see how well they have done in their new occupation.

This week there was a lady who worked in a newsagents and she was being trained to be a tv presenter. Her task at the end of the show was to interview the Appleton sisters. She was advised that when she interviewed them she should call them "girls" and NOT "ladies."

This struck me as funny considering the rather vicious tyrade of emotion that has been thrown at Andrew Jones after his referring to teenage girls as...can you guess? Yep "girls." Read some good thoughts on this from Nomes.

Things are ticking over here. Went to the library for my longest time so far this year - a 3 hour stint this morning! It's so cold here, but there are some great light effects from the sun in the clear-ish sky.

Ok...after the interesting discussion of language it's time for some regular news. The last few weeks have been pretty interesting. God's been speaking to me in many ways - some direct, some indirect. One of the latter was The Last Samuri, which I went to see on Wednesday night.

While it is a film blatantly designed to make Tom Cruise look good and which once again portrays America (or an American) as a saviour of yet another nation, my overall opinion is positive. It's the story of a westernised man falling in love with an ancient lifestyle, a lifestyle of simplicity and discipline. I was struck by the connection that existed between the people and the land in which they live and also the spirit of true adventure.

I'm becoming convinced that our western consumer way of life offers little in the way of true adventure. Reading 'The Way of the Heart' has only helped to make this feeling stronger - while the book is greatly emotive and does not take into account much of the moral philosophy of the last century, there is a great deal of wisdom contained in its pages. To be honest I think that it's nature, as an emotive reflection on the lives of males in the early twenty first century, is effective - far more so than a book on philosophy would be. It is also more widely read!

Yesterday I had a call from my friend Krys, from Krakow, Poland. He's been living in London but this week decided to move to Cardiff! He stayed at ours last night and today I've been helping him find some accommodation.

"The trouble with arguments against the use of a familiar and time-honoured vocabulary is that they are expected to be phrased in that very vocabulary. They are expected to show that central elements in that vocabulary are "inconsistent in their own terms" or that they "deconstruct themselves." But that can never be shown. Any argument to the effect that our familiar use of a familiar term is incoherent, or empty, or confused, or vague, or "merely metaphorical" is bound to be inconclusive and question-begging. For such use is, after all, the paradigm of coherent, meaningful, literal, speech. Such arguments are always parasitic upon, and abbreviations for, claims that a better vocabulary is available. Usually it is, implicitly or explicitly, a contest between an entrenched vocabulary which has become a nuisance and a half-formed new vocabulary which vaguely promises great things..."
- Richard Rorty, Contingency, irony and solidarity (p8)

I was chatting with Andrew yesterday regarding the post below (dissing church). It's strange because language is important in some ways, but not in others. In reality it's more important that we are being kingdom people than that we have a name, however there are some practicalities in having a name: for example people who wish to connect with us are able to identify us.

At the same time we are living in an era in which language has lost its value. Relativism dictates that all "truths" are equal, and, when it comes to arguments all truths are equal - we are placing one verbal proposition against another. Following from this, in the "marketplace of ideas" language becomes meaningless.

I don't think our generation is unique in this - much of the ancient world, the world to which Jesus and his first disciples were called, was a great marketplace of ideas. How did Jesus and these early followers demonstrate the validity of their 'truth'? They demonstrated what they talked about. They said "the kingdom of God is here" and then healed. "Show and tell" as Wimber used to call it.

So there are two issues:
1) we shouldn't use language that is exclusive (filled with jargon), or has lost it's meaning, and
2) we shouldn't assume that language says it all.

We need to find language that explains who we are, but we also need to actually be that thing.

Dissing "Church"
I've spoken about the helpfulness of the term "church" here before (click here to read), but today I was reminded of the questions which surround it...

I was in the pub with my friend John and we were talking about the future. On Wednesdays we have a two hour gap between trusts lectures, so we often end up having good discussions, or shooting some pool. (John - if your read this and I get anything that you say wrong just let me know).

Anyhow, Lindsey asked me if I had any idea what I want to do after uni and I replied that I know it will involve (jargon alert) "Church planting," and that as such it'd be good to find a job that would pay enough that I could work part time.

So John pipes up "I thought you were kind of anti-organized-religion, I'm surprised you use the term 'church' to describe what you do...surely that's misleading and gives people the wrong impression?"

I realised that he's absolutely right. I've fallen into the trap of using a phrase that, to my listener describes something other than what I mean. The result is that the only people who end up understanding what I mean are the ones who I've known for a while and who've had a chance to watch (like John).

I explained that in the Bible the word for 'Church' is actually 'Ecclesia' meaning 'those called out', whereas the word we use (Church) is actually derived from the German word for cathedral (and we wonder why 'Church' is a place!) and then asked John what he would call what we do?

Things like 'forum' and sharing of ideas and values came up, but in the end he said "why don't you just be - why do you need a name?" To be honest I completely agree.

What we're doing, whatever you call it, is a living thing - perhaps we shouldn't imprison it with language.

Turban Day
I had two lectures today, for two different subjects, totalling three hours, and both ended up talking about Seikh's wearing turbans!

The first was a law lecture, for Comparative Law of Religion, and was to do with employment rights - that Seikhs working on a building site can wear turbans on their head instead of a hard hat (with the concession that if they get injured their employers are only liable for damage that would have occurred if they had been wearing a helmet).
The other lecture was politics, Contemporary Political Theory, and was to do with multiculturalism and the question of how you have many cultures living together and following different customs without enforcing a single overriding state culture?

Smoking – the roundup
I thought I’d just summarise some of the points raised to the question: should smokers receive free treatment on the NHS when there is plenty of need for such resources elsewhere?

Jon argued that: “the hallmark of civilisation is found in whether we show mercy to idiots” - an argument that has been used by egalitarians with regard to the least in society (as oppose to “idiots”). While this is debatable, his second point reveals further issues with such an approach:

“Do you deny heart surgery or anti cholesterol medication to people who have eaten chips and lard all their lives? It's the same question really.”

If one rule applies to smokers, then surely the same argument could be applied to anyone who puts a priority on something other than health. For example, would someone who does extreme sports also be asked to pay for NHS treatment? The list could go on. What it demonstrates is that such issues are too complex to be taken effectively into consideration by a single economic policy.

Taking a different perspective, the most straight forward response to this question comes from Tom, who said:
“don't smokers more or less pay for the NHS in the tax they pay on fags? is it a bit much to ask them to pay more for treatment specifically for smoking related ailments?”

In other words – smokers already do pay to use the NHS. The taxes they pay could be regarded as a kind of health insurance payment. ASH, the anti-smoking campaigners have themselves stated that “tobacco taxation amounts to £10.5bn per year” – almost 10 times the cost of smoking on the health services.

I wonder if the rest of the money covers those people affected by passive smoking?

On a final note, those who do extreme sports are forced to take out insurance against injury in a similar way, but those who (as Jon argues) “have eaten chips and lard all their lives” are not – is there some injustice here?!

Smoking - what do you think?
This may sound harsh - coming from someone whose grandmother died of lung cancer (after smoking from the age of 13) and whose grandfather has to take 30 tablets a day and is still in agony with various smoking related illnesses - but should smokers be treated free of charge by the NHS?

According to the BBC (who perhaps given the current circumstances, we should be slow to believe!) smoking costs the NHS £1.14Bn pounds per year. Many of these individuals may have lived through the era in which tobacco advertising was rampant, holding a cigarette was considered chic, and the effects of doing so considered harmless. By the time they knew they were damaging themselves they were already addicts. Perhaps some concessions should be made for these individuals.

The majority of people who smoke today, however, have had available to them the information that would enable them to make a reasoned decision as to whether to take up such a habit. The question is, should such people be entitled to drain the resources of our country, which could be used to better education, cut waiting lists and fight child poverty?

Click here to read an extract from Jonathan Aitken's new book, Psalms for People Under Pressure, in The Guardian. It tells how he discovered the discipline of praying the psalms while in prison. There's also this interview in which a stereotypically cynical journalist in a paper that is normally anti-Christian, appears convinced that Aitken is genuine.

Check out this post by Eddie on singleness.

4 inch nail and a speedy answer to prayer
Yesterday morning I went mountain biking, for the first time in a while. I've been commuting to uni to keep fit through the winter, but haven't ventured much further afield for a while.

I was heading for the Garth, just beyond Tongwynlais and had been riding for maybe 10 minuted when I noticed my bike becoming sluggish. I looked down to find that my rear tyre was completely flat - this was no slow puncture. It turned out that I had a 4 inch (10cm) nail that went through the tread of the tyre, through the innertube, and out of the side.

I prayed a quick one, "God, this is crap," and turned my bike along to walk home. Before I could even start walking this guy rode up and gave me his spare innertube!! He even gave me some advice of where the riding was good (if you're reading this - thanks for the tube man, you made my day). So I got my ride and an answer to prayer.

Riding buddies
While I'm on the subject of mountain biking, I'm sick of riding on my own. So I'm looking for mountainbikers in Cardiff who would be up for going for the occasional ride. (for a greater chance at google search success, that was: mountain biking in cardiff, mountainbiking in cardiff, mountain bikers in cardiff, or even mountain bike club in cardiff). If you're up for it, just give me a call on 029 2040 8365, or email me at jonathan[at]cardiffvineyard[dot]org (just change the words in brackets for an @ and a . respectively).

Where have I been?
I've been to all the countries marked in Red on the map below...


create your own visited country map