Who would like to go for a night out with these two what a laugh
So now we cant sing the hokey cokey.The latest in the stupid serious of attempts to control what people sing at football matches.
After being banned for singing bad songs some Rangers fans said we should all sing the hokey cokey but NO!! its anti catholic apparently.

This is the story in the red top Daily record


http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2008/12/22/singing-the-hokey-cokey-could-land-football-fans-in-sectarian-bother-86908-20989183/

Tonight it will be on the BBC.

So what does this say about our country.We are small minded and stupid.Nobody has been offended because nobody has even sung the song .So now people are getting ready just in case they are offended.


Peter Kearney, a spokesman for the Catholic church in Scotland, said: "This song does have quite disturbing origins. It was devised as an attack on, and a parody of, the Mass. If there are moves to restore its more malevolent meaning then consideration should perhaps be given to its wider use."


SNP MSP Michael Matheson urged police to "take the appropriate action" against those using it to taunt Catholics.


Both these men are more stupid than I care to mention one is a press officer.Maybe he should re train so that he knows what a quite news day is and he can learn the phrase "no comment".The other is a MSP well I guess there only a few jobs he could get with that on his c.v.


I hope both of them are suitably offended if they ever read this .Which they might as I have emailed both of them to tell them how dumb they are.


I had no idea the hokey cokey was an anti catholic song until these two piped up.Oh okey hokey cokey come on boys join in.Or get a life.

I don't often mention my church here (Bridgeton community church) but after the last few weeks I wanted to say a big Thank You to everybody in the church and especially to the leadership team.
Its a great pleasure to be part of such a church a safe place a warm place and above all a place where we can find God together.Over the last few weeks we have been working our way through advent in no particular order and I found myself blessed by the faith of the people around me encouraged by there vision and uplifted by there response to what God had to say.It so good to be in such a warm loving place and I know that God has not finished with us yet, and as we thought about the hope of Christmas this morning we could all hear the quite whisper of God telling us again that with him all things are possible.

I spoke about this in an earlier post.

It is my desire to try and have a forum for small urban church's that are struggling to keep going.Glasgow like many of our cities has largely been abandoned and we are having to deal with the fallout of that.
What i would like to do is to create a forum where those church's can come together in a safe place and talk through the issues that they face and to try and find better ways of partnering with bigger suburban church's.This is already being done in Manchester http://www.urbanpresence.org.uk/ and my hope is we can do something along the same lines for Glasgow and other cities.If you are interested or know a church that might be get in touch and I will keep you posted with the plans.

I love gigs.I get a buzz from being with so many people waiting in anticipation to hear songs that we all have different memories of.
Going to see Coldplay I was a bit worried that they might not cut it.I like my music loud and bouncy.But from the first song all the way through they cut it.Songs like Yellow are such great sing alongs and some of the songs from there new album sounded so much better live.I may even listen to the album now.

My favourite song was 42 fantastic boys keep up the good work.

On Monday night Brian Mc spoke about his book a new kind of Christian.I have no problem with his challenge for us to find new ways to express the kingdom.Although I think he may have been stretching it a bit with one or two of his examples.

Whatever expression of the kingdom we come up with it must have Jesus at its centre.It is in him and through him we see and hear and feel what the kingdom is.Jesus used all that was around him at the time to explain the kingdom .And I feel that in order to communicate with this culture we must seek to do the same.As we long as we seek to make sure we are not diluting the kingdom Jesus gave us.
We also have to remember that the kingdom that Jesus gave us cannot be fully grasped and in some ways will always be a mystery to us.I like that about Jesus and his kingdom.

During the question time chaired by Kieth Short I felt we got a glimpse of the heart of the man again.He is not asking us to throw the baby out with the bath water.
New forms of Church are here and more are coming what we must do is look forward and not seek to be always looking back and blaming those behind us.After 2000 years its only to be expected that there is a bit of a mess.Our job is to pick our way through that and find the way forward holding all that was good dear to hearts and gently rejecting all that failed because the one thing that is certain is that we ourselves will make mistakes.

Let me begin by saying my time in Perth was a real blessing as I was able to catch up with a few friends and try to make some new ones.Alistair and Pat Macindoe were a real blessing to me as always and it was great to spend some time with Dave Beck again.

Let me start by being honest.Since I have no background in theology much of what was being said was difficult for me to grasp.But it was good to be stretched and to think about my faith.

What challenged me the most was the talk of our narratives.Brian tried to explain where he stood on biblical narrative.I don't want to try and explain his stand point as he is in enough trouble without me adding to it.



But it made me think of how I look at the bible story.This is not the same as not believing the story but its about the lens through which we see it. One example of this is how in many ways we have removed the Hebrew story from our minds and filled it with the Greek world view.I don't believe we can grasp the fullness of the story if we forget that Jesus was being proclaimed the king of the Jews.



This make the story of salvation much greater than a short prayer we might ask people to say in order that they experience salvation.To the Jews salvation was much more than just going to heaven even if it was about that at all.It went much deeper than being forgiven for sin (although that is great).There saviour was going to do much more than that.For me that puts the kingdom of God back at the centre of the story.



Watching Brian worship and listening to him share I felt a man who loves God and his word a man who wants to encourage us to see the whole picture that God is giving to us and to avoid being to narrow in or approach.This does not mean he is right in everything he says and people much smarter that me challenged him all weekend.His response was not always perfect but always gracious.Making sure that we knew that he is not advocating we have to give up all we hold dear but that we should at least be brave enough to make a safe space to talk about the things that really matter.



I do not agree completely with his new narrative but he made sure we understood that at the centre of his narrative was Jesus and that makes him ok by me.

Hey just been shown this great toy .Go on give it a go.

http://www.wordle.net/

This is what my Wordle turned out like.

Some people look upon Dr Yunus as the King of Micro finance .It was great to see him in Glasgow and giving a lecture .It was even more encouraging to see him get some national TV coverage.As some of you may remember I have been trying to do my course on micro-finance through the http://www.chalmers.org/.So all of this stuff is fresh in my head.

Read the story here

http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/features/display.var.2472452.0.Has_this_man_got_the_solution_to_the_worlds_financial_woes.php

Inner city church.
We all know that the inner city has been largely abandoned by the church.The congregations are growing old and moving out this has been the case for many years.I have lived in Glasgow all my life and I can see it with my own eyes.
What we have left now is a situation where nearly all large,strong congregations are in the suburbs.These Church's are led (in my experience)mostly by middle class qualified pastors or ministers depending on there flavour.I cannot think of many working class people who lead large growing church's I hope you can prove me wrong.As a result of this more and more people bypass smaller church's to attend a church that meets there needs and thus the problem is increased.What we are left with is a smaller amount of church's (which may not be a bad thing) who have most of the resources.None of this is a criticism of people or church's.I have many great friends in church's all over Glasgow and Scotland.Rather this is just a statement of how it is.
So what should be done about this if anything?
I would like to see the small inner city church's get together and have a place to talk and pray about what there struggles are and to find a way to support each other in addressing these issues.This would not be a bashing club for big church's but rather a place where we can think about how and if we address these issues.It may be that people are just to busy surviving.
I know that large church's already do a great amount to bless the city but It would be good to try and look at ways that practical support could be offered to small struggling church's so that we don't have to reinvent the wheel in parts of our city.It would be great to be able to challenge the model of church that tells us we are there to be blessed and have our needs looked after and together to try and see the value of the body as a whole .It is my firm belief that the church in the inner city can and should grow and prosper.That local leaders can be raised up to inspire there peers and show the way forward for a new generation.If not then we will simply write of a whole generation of people who are our neighbours.
Paul wrote to church's based in cities and the Angels delivered letters to them.Jesus wept over his city and I think we should try and help each other to see Gods heart for the lost in ours.



I want to finish with a story form the other night.



I was at a meeting when I heard plans for a group which might be classed as para church but are definitely middle class.They spoke about there plan to raise £250k to buy a bus /trailer that would go around a certain developing country and minister in a holistic way to the people.There is nothing wrong with that plan.

Except we were next told that there sister group in the same country has way more resources than they do and in fact employ nearly 500 people and have a budget that it10 times the size.

I then realised that I was in the room with lots of people from small struggling inner city church's and I felt saddened that there was no plan that included them.