BlackPhi Webitorial Ramblings

News & Comment From A Christian's Perspective

How To Treble The Price Of Oil - Posted 24th July, 2008

Back in 2005 a group of experts set up a simulation to see what would happen if oil supplies were interrupted. They came up with some plausible scenarios which between them reduced oil supplies by about 3.5 million barrels a day (out of total world production of around 87 million barrels a day). This, combined with a cold winter, would have led to a near trebling of oil prices from the then price of $58/barrel up to $161/barrel. You might be able to read about this on the New Scientist website, depending on how much of the article it shows to non-subscribers.

Since 2005 the price of oil has already more than doubled to around $125/barrel (down from a recent high of $147, as the US economy struggles). In principle a significant disruption to supply could still push prices up beyond the £300/barrel mark. Actually, I don't think this would happen quickly, as western economies would suffer serious recession first, reducing demand, not least because our transport infrastructure depends so heavily on oil products. It seems that the Chinese and Indian economies, being less specialised, are less dependent on oil; paradoxically this would probably mean that their demand for oil would remain higher, keeping prices raised.

So how do you disrupt oil supplies by enough to make a serious difference? Easy. The picture above is of the Strait of Hormuz. At its narrowest point this is just 33 kilometers wide (about 21 miles), through which tankers carry around 16 million barrels a day. To the north lies Iran. So all it would take would be for Israel, with implicit US blessing, to carry out an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. Iran blames the US (not unreasonable, since the Israeli defence forces are totally dependent on US military aid) and retailiates by closing the Strait. Given time a few million barrels a day could be transferred through pipelines, and the US navy could protect maybe half of the shipping through the Strait. That still leaves a shortfall more than enough to either treble oil prices or to force the west into major recession ... or both.

Actually, this raises an interesting question: where does Israel get its oil from?

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Chain of Command - Posted 13th July, 2008

I'm really not feeling so bright at the moment, so here's one of Dave Walker's excellent cartoons to cheer things up.

This CartoonChurch.com cartoon originally appeared in the Church Times and is taken from ‘The Dave Walker Guide to the Church’, published by Canterbury Press.

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When A Friend Goes Too Far - Posted 1st July, 2008

How do you tell a friend when they are far out of order? And what do you do if they won't listen?

South African president, Thabo Mbeki, is the man who could have done something about Robert Mugabe's destruction of Zimbabwe, but he hasn't. He has tried some quiet advice, but when it comes to action that is it. How much of that is Mbeki's weakness, and how much his reluctance to take a stand against an old friend?

In UK politics the Liberal Democrats came in for a lot of criticism after they forced out Charles Kennedy as leader, back in 2006. He was an alcoholic and his drinking was causing problems, but he was also popular and for a long time nobody would do more than "have a quiet word". In the end a news organisation said it was going public, which forced the Lib-Dems into making the hard choice.

Mugabe is clearly addicted to power, and his addiction is destroying Zimbabwe and destabilising Southern Africa, but so far his cronies are avoiding hard choices. Old liberation leaders, who used to look up to Mugabe, now cannot bring themselves to act against him. He is an embarrassment, but that's not enough. Maybe they should consider what 'liberation' is about. Is it just the replacement of white tyranny by black? Or is it about allowing Africans to live at peace in their own countries? Is the violence and devastation in today's Zimbabwe really what they fought and suffered for, in their own liberation struggles?

How do you tell a friend they're out of order? How do you protect those around them?

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Sex - Posted 28th June, 2008

From the One Minute Mystic by Simon Parke

Sex is release, sex is union, sex is passion, sex is desire,
sex is empty, sex is creation, sex is struggle, sex is
disappointment, sex is dangerous, sex is longing,
sex is belonging, sex is distance, sex is penetration,
sex is receiving, sex is failure, sex is bad,
sex is domination, sex is love, sex is submission,
sex is not rational, sex is self-hate, sex is good.

Sex and mysticism are very similar.

 

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What's The Anglican Problem? - Posted 27th June, 2008

It is a testament to the skill of Archbishop Rowan Williams that it hasn't fallen apart already, but the next few weeks are crunch time for the worldwide Anglican Communion, which includes, for the time being, the US Episcopal Church. Next month, Lambeth 2008 is the conference at which a solution must be found.

Meanwhile, many conservative church leaders are in Jerusalem this week, for rival conference GAFCON. This was billed as a spoiler for Lambeth, but now, according to Time Magazine, looks a bit of a damp squib. But what is the cause of the potential split? Is it really just pro- and anti-gay prejudices?

To understand the problem, you have to understand the nature of the Anglican Communion. This is often described as if it were like the Roman Catholic Church, with Rowan Williams as a kind of pope, but that is a completely false picture. It is really much more like the Commonwealth. Although the structure of the Commonwealth is hard to describe too: it's basically a group of nations who share a set of common values and who acknowledge the Queen as the head of the Commonwealth. There is no hierarchy, the Queen has no authority over the heads of state, they are just nations working together to encourage democracy and the common good.

Similarly the Anglican Communion is basically a set of national churches who share a set of common values and who acknowledge the Archbishop of Canterbury as the head of the Communion. Again, Rowan Williams has no authority over the heads of the national churches: they are just church groupings working together for the common good. One crucial difference, though, is what happens when a nation, or national church, departs from the common values. The Commonwealth can, and does, suspend the membership of nations when, for example, they adopt a non-democratic government. The Anglican Communion has no such sanction.

A key common value shared by churches in the Anglican Communion is that they are episcopal: the basic unit of the church is a bishop and his/her diocese. This is different from the Roman Catholic Church, where the starting point is the pope, and the rest of the hierarchy hangs off him; it is also different from most other Protestant churches, where the basic unit is the individual local church. In the Anglican churches, archbishops and primates and the like are essentially support structures for bishops, and all individual local churches are part of a geographically defined diocese, under a bishop's authority. Thus, although the Anglican Communion in practice functions in terms of archbishops and national churches, the underlying concept is of many bishops who all recognise one another's validity and authority and who consider themselves, and their dioceses, to share membership of the Body of Christ. Because of this, who any one bishop is and what s/he says and does affects the whole Anglican Communion, not just their own diocese or their local church grouping.

Key aspects of a bishop's role are: teaching the basic Christian truths, modelling a Christian life, particularly within his/her own household, and maintaining the unity of the church. Given human fallibility and the diversity of opinion about what constitute 'basic Christian truths' and 'a Christian life', bishops within the Anglican Communion have long recognised that they have to give one another some leeway. So the Communion has coped with significantly off-centre teachings and public pronouncements from, for example, John Robinson, John Spong and Peter Jensen; and it has coped with dubious financial dealings and lack of accountability from some African bishops.

In different ways though, some bishops and dioceses have recently been pushing these boundaries beyond where others are willing to go: Peter Akinola, with his apparent support of violence against Moslems and homosexuals; Gene Robinson, as a divorcee and as someone in a homosexual relationship; and Katharine Jefferts Schori, as a woman and as the first female Primate in the Communion. Whether these positions are right or wrong isn't really the issue: the issue is that they threaten the unity of the Communion, yet they have been taken unilaterally and without consideration of differing views. They are seen as breaking the 'common good', and so undermining the very foundation of the Anglican Communion. They are not seen as issues that can be waited out, but as issues that need to be dealt with.

The other fundamental problem is the assumption that dioceses are geographically defined. As the North American Episcopal church groupings break apart, other parts of the Communion are taking oversight of dissident churches, or even dioceses. It is not surprising that this causes a great deal of resentment, but it also deeply undermines the Anglican Community itself, as geographic diocese are seen by most as one of their shared values, at least implicitly.

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GAFCON Fails Its ABC - Posted 27th June, 2008

I was going to write about GAFCON (Global Anglican Future Conference, currently taking place in Jerusalem) in the context of the Anglican Communion's struggle over the next month to avoid being torn apart, but then I read this.

Uganda had been a success story in the struggle against AIDS. Estimated infection rates fell from around 15% in the early 1990's to less than 5% in 2003; although figures since then apparently show infection rates rising again, to around 7%. The fall was due to a nationwide focus on ABC: 'Abstain, Be faithful, and/or use a Condom', at its simplest. This focus was promoted strongly by government and by most churches, and had the three-pronged target of: increasing the age at which people become sexually active, reducing the number of partners people have, and reducing the risk of transmission when intercourse does take place. In recent years, though, religious groups have become more conservative and funding, particularly from the US, has become restrictive, with the result that the focus has moved from ABC to just A - abstinence - which simply doesn't work well. Meanwhile other NGOs have been promoting just C - condoms - which also doesn't work well. So infection rates are on the rise again, and people are dying because of empty ideologies. Nothing new there.

And some pratt stands up at GAFCON and claims: "Uganda achieved this significant decrease by focusing on supporting abstinence". No it didn't, it achieved it by everyone working together in a three pronged approach, which recognised the reality that different people need to change their behaviour in different ways, to achieve a common good.

There is an excellent summary of how ABC works here, ironically on the USAID website.

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And A Child Shall Lead Them - Posted 22nd June, 2008

From the very first song you could tell this morning's service was different. Everyone joined in ... loudly. Corporate worship was actually corporate!

We had a youth-led service at Caversham Baptist Church today - 'youth' meaning secondary-school age: 11-18 (I know, the Isaiah reference is a bit forced, but you try finding 'yoof' in your Bible). It was excellent - why can't we have them leading every week?

Our church has been having a summer sermon series supposedly focussing on the 'real world', the world outside the church's boundaries. This morning's service didn't really have a sermon as such, just a series of short talks by young people about things in the news recently - knife crime, the way news about young people is reported, and the earthquake in China. To be honest, this is the first time in the series that I have felt that the talk(s) really managed to both engage with reality and to provide a Christian perspective on that reality.

So why can't we have young people leading every week? For a start, I know that they have been working on this for over a month - that's hard to do if you are doing it every week. Also, it is difficult to come up with fresh ideas week in and week out. Most of the preaching in our church is done by the pastor - I reckon he probably averages around three sermons a fortnight (between morning and evening services). That doesn't leave much opportunity for really engaging with ... well, anything much really. Not when he also has a full-time pastoring job to do. He does slightly less worship leading - maybe twice a fortnight on average - but that's still enough to make it hard to be fresh.

There are other preachers and other worship leaders who do their bit less frequently, with varying levels of confidence and competence, but the basic problem remains - how can you be fresh and inspired, time after time?

I don't have an answer, but if you live in Caversham watch out for posters about the next youth-led service at Caversham Baptist Church (probably in the autumn, I would guess) - they are good!

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Foolish BT Webwise - Posted 19th June, 2008

BT Broadband customers have had their data intercepted in secret trials of Phorm's Webwise scam. So why won't the UK's data protection watchdogs do their job?

BT ran trials in 2006 and again in 2007 in which a selection of their customers had their internet communications diverted to Phorm's servers for analysis, without the customers being informed. This has to be illegal. To make matters worse, Phorm's previous incarnation was as spyware creator 121Media, responsible for the PeopleOnPage and Apropos spyware products which used to give me major headaches when trying to disinfect crippled customer PCs. I have seen a report that the CTO of BT Retail at the time of the 2006 covert trials then moved to become CTO of Phorm, which sounds like a conflict of interest to me.

Yet, according to The Register, the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), who are responsible for policing such things, "told Stephen Mainwaring, whose web browsing was tapped and profiled during the 2007 trial, that it would not pursue BT over alleged breaches of the European Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR)." The Register reckons that the European Commission might get involved, as the ICO appear to have failed to enforce EU data protection law.

BT have been spreading a great deal of misinformation about Phorm's Webwise. For example, BT Broadband subscribers are said to be able to opt-out. In actual fact, the current BT model diverts all user data to Phorm's servers, which are then supposed to discard the data for opted out users. Yeah, sure! BT also say that no personally identifiable data is involved. This is a really stupid statement if you think about it: all internet data is transferred - how many times do you type your name into a website, or have a website greet you by name? Not to mention passwords and credit card numbers. Again, BT claim that using Webwise will protect customers against phishing sites, by checking website addresses against a database of known fakes. Except Internet Explorer 7 already does this, as do many Internet Security packages.

I don't use BT Broadband myself; if I did, I wouldn't continue to do so. I do use Virgin Media, who have also been in talks with Phorm, although they haven't sent any data to them yet. If they do then I shall be looking for a new broadband supplier, one that doesn't sell its customers to purveyors of scumware.

Incidentally, although this is mostly an issue in the UK at the moment, I understand that Phorm, along with an apparently similar company called NebuAd, is busily hawking its wares around the US, looking for ISPs whose integrity won't get in the way of a quick buck.

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Politics - Posted 19th June, 2008

In UK politics it was a strange week last week (okay, I actually wrote this post last weekend when it was a tad more topical, but forgot to publish it). First the government forces through a bill to allow them to detain people without trial for up to six weeks. It's only passed through the House of Commons so far, and that only by outright bribery of one of the Northern Irish parties; the hope is that the Lords will block it. This is like the last days of Thatcher, when the unelected Lords were often the only balance against the abuse of power by the elected government, resulting from the MPs in the Commons not doing their job. To add drama to this, the shadow home secretary, David Davis, then resigned to force a by-election on the issue. The government has been claiming that a big majority of the electorate are in favour of locking people up without trial, so this is clearly a risky thing for him to do. If the government are telling the truth.

The response of the media was interesting and/or depressing. The Murdoch papers all promptly lined up to pour scorn on Davis and accuse him of attempting to undermine David Cameron, the leader of the opposition. Murdoch, of course, is all in favour of locking people up - as long as it's only foreigners, or foreign-looking people, presumably excluding Australians. But the really surprising reports were by the BBC political correspondent Nick Robinson. I was watching the BBC as Davis made his resignation speech, and Robinson's immediate response was not to talk about the issue, but to raise the spectre of Conservative splits. I assume Nick Robinson has been doing a lot of talking with Murdoch's men - is he thinking of changing employer, I wonder?

European politics was equally depressing last week: the Irish held a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon: a hugely complex series of changes to the way the EU work, to allow it to cope with its recent increases in size. Ireland has been a massive winner from the EU - in 1973 when it joined it was the poorest country in the community, now, largely thanks to the EU, it is the second richest per capita, according to the Telegraph. Still they voted 'No' - apparently for a whole mix of reasons, few to do with the Treaty itself. The trouble with this sort of referendum is that it doesn't carry any responsibility. The people who vote 'No' didn't need to have any better solutions, they didn't even have consistent reason for their votes: some thought ties in the EU were too close, others not close enough. A lot apparently took the view that if they voted 'No' then the EU would sweeten the pot for Eire to encourage them to try again. The EU needs to change its procedures to survive, so I think the Irish should be given another referendum with a starker choice: either sign up to the treaty or withdraw from the EU. They have gained massively from the EU in the past, now they want to pull up the ladder to stop it helping newer members do likewise.

I've just watched the film Hotel Rwanda: a strange film about an ordinary hotel manager, Paul Rusesabagina (played by Don Cheadle) trying to cope in extraordinary circumstances. In the process he managed to save over a thousand people from the Hutu militias during the Rwandan genocide. It's a good film, but the whole situation in Rwanda at the time was so horrific that it is difficult to make sense of it. This film does the best it can by focussing on the one hotel. It pulls in the helplessness of the UN commander, shackled by orders from UN headquarters; the mindless hatred and brutality of the militias; the corruption of the army; and the reinforcement (possibly even the creation) of ethnic divisions by the earlier Belgian colonial regime, to the extent that everyone carried an identity card stamped with their ethnic classification. These identity cards made it much easier for the murderers to identify their victims.

Which brings us back to UK politics, where our 'freedom-loving' government are intent on bringing in identity cards for all UK citizens - any bets as to whether these will include ethnic background? We already have a situation whereby anyone using government services is asked that question, supposedly to avoid racial discrimination.

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Million Dollar Baby - Posted 10th June, 2008

* SPOILER ALERT *
If you haven't seen this film yet, don't read this review. Instead go straight to your nearest video store and rent or buy it, and watch it as soon as possible. Then read on and see if you agree with my take.
* SPOILER ALERT *

I watched this film earlier this evening, and I'm still in emotional shock. It's an amazing film: brilliantly acted, brilliantly directed and brilliantly written. But it is painful to watch.

At its heart this is a religious film, or at least a film about a religious question. But it is so many other things as well. It starts off as your traditional American feel-good female-Rocky nonsense, as feisty no-hoper Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) takes on the world and wins, but it's so well done that even the clichés are interesting. Although there are odd undercurrents, including strange confrontations between trainer Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood) and his parish priest, somehow relating to Frankie's daughter, Katie.

Then, with a sucker punch about two-thirds of the way through, the whole thing gets subverted and starts to look like an issue movie, arguing for euthanasia. Except that the scenario is too manipulative, too forced for a film of this quality. Then it is a film about families and love, and hate. And it's a film about winning and losing, and not even taking part, and the prices that have to be paid. And it's a film about knowing when to fight on and when to throw in the towel. And a film about guilt and the past and about finding redemption and release. But where it all comes together, where all the different parts of the film come to a focus, is on one question: what does it take to make a religious man choose to give up his soul?

Frankie makes his choice and walks away. Then, once we are down, Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris (Morgan Freeman), who has been providing a running narrative throughout the film, stomps our kidneys as he tells us what the narrative is for.

Yet, through all this it remains a positive, affirming film. I'm not even sure just what it affirms, but at the end there is a sense of release and a sense of hope. And just maybe, for a religious man carrying such a heavy burden, giving up his soul for another was the only way to find it again.

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Apology - Posted 27th May, 2008

Apologies to anyone who has tried to get to these ramblings this weekend - my domain hosting went haywire. Hopefully it'll be sorted soon.

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Without A Prayer? - Posted 31st May, 2008

Surely no-one else but Nick Cave would start a love song with a lyric like: "I don't believe in an interventionist God".

Some time ago, I came across the rather strange results of a survey about people's religious practice. I can't remember the exact figures, nor enough to look them up, but it included something like: around 80% of people prayed, at least occasionally; something like 70% believed in God; and something like 30% believed in a God who actively intervened in the world. That's the sort of result that leaves me wishing they would ask follow-up questions.

Inside the church, though, things are not necessarily much clearer. Out on the liberal wing many people share Nick Cave's disbelief in an interventionist God. For them prayer is more about being in tune with the universe, or focussing their compassion ready to go out and actually do something about a situation they are praying for. Fair enough, I do believe in an interventionist God, but I would still like to see a much more activist approach among Christians to prayer: it is fine asking God to do something about a situation, but we should also be asking Him to help us to do what we can as part of that.

Out on the Calvinist wing there is a different approach: God is so holy and so sovereign that there is no way He is going to change anything just because some fallen human asks Him to. For many of them prayer is obedience: we are told to pray so they do. There is a bit of a valid point here: surely God does know what is best, so why would He only do it because we asked Him to, rather than because it was the right thing to do? Nevertheless, to me this whole approach seems a bit of a cop-out, an abdication of responsibility. To me, we are here to make a difference, to do what good we can for others, and prayer is a part of that. If God is so sovereign that nothing we do changes anything, then what's the point of anything?

Then there is the charismatic wing. For many there prayer is always answered, so long as it is done right. You just have to be clear and firm and positive about what you want - rather like training a dog, with reversed spelling - and make sure you do it "in the name of Jesus". If that doesn't work, you didn't have enough faith. There's actually a fair point buried in here too: part of having faith is trusting God to listen, and trusting that He has put us here for a purpose. But the mechanistic, vending-machine image of prayer - put in the right coin and you get the product - has more to do with magic than with worship; and anyway you soon end up hearing too many excuses about why the prayer didn't work.

Which leaves those of us in the confused centre: we have seen things happen which certainly looked like answered prayer, and we have seen too many times when it looked like our prayers made no difference. So what's it all about?

Rob Bell, who is rather good at taking difficult issues seriously, recently produced a DVD on prayer which asked these sorts of questions. He sets prayer in the context of Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, when he's waiting to be betrayed, and then talks about prayer as tapping into the divine creative energy that made everything. For Bell, prayer is about being honest with God, about being open to Him as He is at work here and now, and about taking responsibility for our part in the creation we are all part of: "Don't ask God to feed someone who's hungry if you have plenty of food."

Royal Navy destroyers weigh over 3,000 tonnes, yet someone who'd been in the Navy once told me that one seaman can push a destroyer away from the dock wall with one long, steady push. I suppose you could say that's the equivalent of praying for peace in Northern Ireland, or the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, or the end of apartheid in South Africa. With all three of these a whole generation (or more) passed before prayers were answered. But I would guess that the destroyer won't move if the wind is blowing the wrong way, because one seaman can't push against the wind.

There's a saying about the "straw that broke the camel's back" and another about "the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil causing a tornado in Texas" (see Wikipedia). The point of these sayings is that something as small as a straw doesn't normally hurt a camel, and something as minor as a flapped butterfly wing doesn't normally have any impact outside its immediate environment, but just occasionally they do. Sometimes a situation is so sensitive, so delicately poised that even the smallest event can make a huge difference.

I'm no 'prayer warrior'. I do pray, but I generally feel that my prayers are like a butterfly's flaps in a turbulent world. But maybe a part of praying "in Jesus' name" is to be open enough to God to respond in prayer to those occasions when a butterfly wing is just what it takes to make a difference. I don't know - to me prayer is a mystery. So I pray, in words and thoughts and feelings and actions, and I hope that God can use that prayer.

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Reading Football Club & The British Labour Party - Posted 27th May, 2008

Reading FC were relegated from the Premiership earlier this month; a sad contrast to last year, when they finished eighth after a storming first Premiership season. The team was easily talented enough to stay up, and in the final month of the season their fate was in their own hands, but they just didn't perform. Steve Coppell, their manager, reckoned that a large part of the problem was that they weren't used to losing. Their final season in the championship they had overrun everybody; and the first season in the premiership they rose to the challenge and gave even the best teams a good run for their money. When they were winning they played well above expectations. But this season was different. It started off with difficult matches against Manchester United and Chelsea, both of which were creditable performances, but after that they never really got into their stride. Even after their challenging season, by the end of March they just needed to hold steady and to play to their strengths; instead they fell apart under the pressure.

The British Conservative Party gained their first by-election seat from another party since 1982 on Thursday, with a sweeping victory in the previously Labour-held Crewe and Nantwich constituency. The media, inevitably, were all over it, hyping it up as if the government was about to fall. The reality is that the Conservative Party has only gained one seat at a by-election in the last quarter-century. It might be the beginning of a serious election fight, but it certainly isn't the end. The campaign for Crewe was notable locally for the extreme negative campaigning of the local Labour party; nationally it coincided with savage infighting in the government led by the hard-right Labour MP Frank Field.

Labour won the 1997 election by a landslide partly because the Conservatives fell apart, but mostly because they were extremely disciplined: they maintained unity and they played to their strengths. For most of their first ten years they had an easy ride: the Conservatives were frankly hopeless; Labour were able to deliver a good economy and therefore more investment in the country's neglected infrastructure, particularly health and education; and they remained more or less united - Frank Field was a problem even then, but he was known to be in a huff after not getting promoted, so nobody took much notice.

Now things are different: the delayed handover from Tony Blair to Gordon Brown led to acrimony in the Labour Party; the Conservatives are again plausible as a party of government; people are forgetting the mess of the early nineties; and Labour backbenchers are grumbling. Nevertheless, I think Labour will only lose the next election if they throw it away. Like Reading FC at the beginning of April, their fate is in their own hands. If they focus on unity and on good steady governance they can win: in spite of all David Cameron's good work, the Conservatives are just not hungry enough for government - the ideological sharks are still circling, waiting for their chance to go back to their 'glory days' of the eighties. But I'm not sure the Labour Party can do it. They have got too used to winning, I don't know if they can handle fighting back from defeat. From now on they are going to have to fight hard and fight together; their recent headless-chicken approach isn't encouraging.

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Not Just Sundays - Posted 18th May, 2008

People often get the impression that churches are only about religious matters: walking our spiritual walk and worshipping together as a church – what you might call “Sunday issues”. Spiritual issues are important, of course, but there is a lot more to life: home & family, work & social life – issues for the whole week. All of our life matters to God, so at Caversham Baptist Church we will be doing a preaching series over the summer looking especially at such “whole life” issues:-

What Are We Worth? - The Value of Each Person	George	4th May
Surplus To Requirements? – Redundancy & Insecurity	Paul	11th May
I Can’t Do That!	Robert	18th May
The Best Worst Job In The World – Being A Parent	Paul	25th May
Who Cares? God Knows!	Sue A	1st June
Being There – Supporting Spouse/Family/Friends	Paul	8th June
When It All Goes Pete Tong!	Steve B	15th June
Youth-led Service – Theme TBA		22nd June
Trouble & Strife – Developing Marriage	Paul	29th June
“Thy Kingdom Come” – Where?	Jean	6th July
Changing the World - Prayer Action	Paul	13th July
Living & Dying	Phil	20th July
Ability & Disability	Paul	27th July
Questions, Questions	Norman N	3rd August
Mind The Gap – Closing the Sacred/Secular Divide	Paul	10th August
On The Treadmill - Long Hours & Overwork	Clive	17th August
Any Answers? The Team Respond to Your Questions	Team	24th August

Obviously these are such big issues that we can only skim the surface on a Sunday morning, so our housegroups will be looking at the same topic in more depth during the following week. If you are not currently in one of these housegroups, but would be interested in taking part, have a word with the pastor, Paul Rhodes.

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