petrol

Just looked at my mate neil fox's blog and found http://www.petrolprices.com/ a really useful site for finding cheap petrol!

cheers mate!

Ten Pounds of Change

I have just finished my first week with the Northern Ireland Youth Forum (NIYF). I actually just got back from one of their Executive residential which was really refreshing. The reason why it was refreshing is that NIFM is youth lead so it is young people fighting for the needs of young people.
One of the projects i will be working with is called ten pounds worth of change. The background to the project is to try and get young people to think about how they would change their community if they had a spare ten pounds.

( http://tenpoundsworthofchange.org/elgg/content/About )

Have a check out and see what its about!

In less than 36 hour i am heading home to Belfast to work with the Northern Ireland Youth Forum for the next month. I'm looking forward to getting to grips with northern Irish culture again.
http://www.niyf.org/

Film i just watched

Thanks to some lovely people i am now on Tesco dvd.
My latest film arrived the Constant Gardener arrived on Friday but i was only able to sit down and watch it last night and well i finished it this morning.
I must admit that i was unsure what to expect. To be honest i got it mixed up with Garden State when i selected it and yeah i know two completely different movies. But i must admit my mistake was a good one.
It was one of those movies that moves you to think.
Although it was a story the cross references to real life are very true i believe. The main thing that i felt was coming through was our continued abuse of Africa.
Yes the days of colonialism have passed but in many ways we in the west were still controlling many countries through our misuse of power. The film highlighted the use of a drug trial for the treatment of TB as a way we in the west were making money out of our supposed good nature. But The drug was killing as many as it was curing due to the uncharted side effects.Side effects which could have been fixed if not for the millions of pound the multination companies did not want to spend.
And then yesterday I watched a film called the mission which was set around the time when we the west carved up south america. And the church instead of taking care of the indigenous peoples turned their back on them.
I guess what i have been challenged with in the past few days is what am i doing?
I am finding more and more that visual media is challenging and inspiring me to think. And in particular causing me to think and reflect theologically!
The other question i am challenged with is how do i take this challenge back into my work or even more my Youth ministry.
Maybe thoughts will come to me but i know to start with is that i want to work for an organisation which helps the poor, the marginalised and the weak. But i think maybe my thinking will grow more on this one! lets hope so

Revival

This is just a thought i have been working through. We sing we pray and hope that revival will come or maybe that one day the church will become revived. But i have been thinking about is by searching from revival are we trying to restore christendom.
But can christendom be restored and if should it. The church was more dynamic before it was taken over by Constantine.
But with this in mind the 'established' church has seen population numbers drop but as numbers drop within the church and it feels like the established church is dying. There is an increased desire in spirituality outside the church.
So is it possible that we are experiencing post christendom revival but we just don't recognise how its unfolding?

What is it all about?

When you are a kid you can play for hours and hours with everything from fairy liquid bottles to left over newspaper. And from these simply beginnings complex and imaginary items can be created, formed and evolved.

But how come the news paper that once made up part of the boat that sailed the seven seas suddenly becomes a news paper. Or the Washing up bottle that took action man to the moon just becomes a washing up bottle. 

Why must we loose our imagination? 

Surely we must be able to dream and we must be allowed to a let those dreams become reality? And for me my dream is to see young people empowered and released to follow their dreams! Every way is different but every way starts with the same thing a dream!