Smart-phones or Dumb-phones?

I can't find the report and I wasn't completely listening, but this morning whilst listening to Radio 4 Today, some new study was reported on mobile phone behaviour patterns which kind of made my ears prick up. The headline went something like "people would be happy to lose many things, but their smartphone would be their most treasurer possession!" If I find the report, or if you find, we'll let each other know (send me a text!!).
Of course, there are no real surprises here, the last 25 years has seen a technological revolution akin to the industrial revolution, but what is perhaps something to reflect upon is that we as a human race have/are arguably not adapted well to this. The headline stories that have dripped out over the last 10 years of people's lives falling apart at the loss of their phone - "man drowns in road drain as he head first searches for his phone that dropped down into it" have got to bring us up sharp to question whether we are getting our priorities right.

But let me confess (of course you will know this if you know me well) that I am part of the problem, but I would like to think that I could be a part of the solution? I love my smartphone too. I love everything that it does for me. I take a monthly mag to read up on the latest developments, & this week I tried to upgrade a year early, but no way! As an Android user I like what my phone does for me, and yes it really does work for me. My phone keeps my diary & contacts that syncs to my office PC, it keeps track of ten of my email accounts (I have others), allows me to store important data, make use of dropbox, social network to my 3 Facebook accounts, and 2 Twitter accounts, as well as update my blog, GPS navigate, browse the net, read the Times newspaper, listen to the radio and podcast, play music, scan barcodes, watch auction items on ebay, play games, take photo's and videos, watch iplayer, read books, .......oh and yes, of course, how stupid, text and make phone calls! Truth is, my smartphone kind of runs my life.
But let me make a 2nd confession to you: more and more now, particulary at the end of the day I'm getting borred of my smartphone, and actually have had enough of the way in which it dominates my life! In essence I find myself feeling that there must be more to life than this blessed clever lump of plastic, which seems to dominate my life. And whenever the different ring tones go off for each inbox, or text, why do I feel that I need to respond to it? Actually, far from improving my life and making life better, easier(?)  it's made it worse. I actually don't want to be available 24-7. (Ah, but there's an app to sort that you know!).

But let me widen this away from personification to some observations. So much has the mobile impacted upon our culture, that now we often see people communicating with each other via text or social media, than having a face to face conversation. Think nothing of 2 friends chatting, whilst one of the friends is texting away to another friend somwhere else. Couples can now be seen to argue or sort out their relationships and or divorce or seperation by text. Bosses and companies seem to make workers redundant by text or email! And seemingly the camera life of the mobile has now been twisted and perverted so that it has become a tool of child abuse and sexual perversion. Of course it cuts both ways, probably the fall of middle east countries would not have happened without social media! But it seems our culture is so infected, that we even see people coming to church now and texting or surfing during the service, and children playing DS and Ipod games!
All in all, the archetypal image in the UK is of the person walking down the street with childen in tow, not enjoying the world, and chatting and playing with the kids, but on the phone to someone. The person rushing down the street - and in their hands will be keys and phone in hand. And the example we are setting to our children is that all of this is just fine - "go and do likewise, don't actually talk to people or play anymore, but pick up a console and use it! Don't talk to your parents and friends face to face about your fears and concerns and the day you've had, but go on your phone, ipod or games console!" So if our society and culture is falling apart because our children no longer have the social skills or ability to chat, debate, listen, forgive, cry, negotiate and emphasise, then don't blame them, but look to the example we are setting them.

I cannot but reflect upon the time we are wasting, the life we are losing, the skills we are forgetting, the relationships we are killing. Consider: if you spend 1 hour a day social networking, or 3 hours a day attached to your mobile, thats 7 hours and 21 hours respectively. It's also 364 hours a 156 hours a year respectively. Thats 29,120 hours and 12,480 hours in a typical lifetime of 80 years. Think what else we could be doing, the places we could go. And all of that is just on the phone, it doesn't include people going on to laptops, ipads and PC's, which might add a further 4 + hours a week. Think about these daft apps - both on phones and Facebook, games such as Farmville and the like that you are invited to play in your own little protected cyber world, that keep making you want to go back for more and more and more. Think about how overweight the population is growing as we sit in zero physical activity. Think about the number of workers who might today whilst at work on the works time, sit in front of their Facebook page! If we agree that our communities, families and relationships are falling apart, then look no further than these issues for the root of the problems.

As a Christian I hear the words of Jesus "I have come that you might have life, and have it abundantly" ringing in my ears, and I reflect that what is killing this full life, is our own lack of discipline and focus.

So I want to suggest that it's only our own personal decision to manage our lives IN DISCIPLINE that can save us from this creeping disease. It's something that I need to do more, and you do too. Let's not "throw the baby out with the bathwater" mind, but lets choose to live differently! Here are some sugegstions that I too am taking up:

• Switch the phone off at 7pm and on again at 7am, and definitely put it away at meal times.
• Ration your social networking hours - see it as credit to be used, like a calories that must not be exceeded.
• Work hard at having face to face conversations, not text ones.
• Have periods of fasting from all of these powerful forces, espec Facebook and Twitter.
• Never let it control you, but you control it!
• Re-discover the joys of talking to your spouse and children.
• Instead of going on the phone or computer, go walk, swim, cycle or kick, or even read a book!

All in all, SWITCH IT OFF!

Routine - oh how I love thee ....mostly!

I'm adjusting to a new routine, and to be honest it's a bit of a challenge. Now I love routine, and I've predominantly been in the same one for around 9 years. It's all to do with school you see - all that drop off and pick up stuff. But two of our family have now changed school and that's in the nearby main town - a 15 minute drive, and now two out of the three can get to school at 8am. So for the first time in about 9 years all children and mum are out of the house on the school run by 7.50am. This means the two of my feet hitting the floor at 6.01am - having listened to Radio 4 headlines, and not returning to a horizontal position to somewhere about 7.30am! Gone are our days of sitting in bed with a cup of tea listening to the news and everntually stirring - oh no! And all of this leaves all of us, and me, suddenly, with a new routine! And it's a shock to the system.

Now I love routine. I love knowing where I need to be when and kind of getting into the groove with it. I'm not sure where if at all I learnt routine, or whether I was divinely programmed for it. Was it at boarding school when as a 10year old the bell would always go to wake us, and we were drilled in doing exactly the same each day? Don't know! Or was it when I first took up gainful employment as an Apprentice Engineer at Wellworthy's Weymouth, and needed to cycle everyday the 7 miles or so, leaving the house at 6.30am (we began work at 7.30am), and thus drilling myself to be up at the same time everyday, fed, watered, red my bible and out the door, come whatever the weather through at me down the Weymouth beach road? Don't know! Or was it, as I probably guess can also be the case, the routine of my mum passed to baby in womb? Or was it years and years of hearing my parents teasmade go off at 6.30am with a kind of machine gun alarm - which I'm sure dad appreciated from an army tradition point of view! Don't know!

But I do remember in the first few years of ministry in my first church going to a conference by Christian Research, entitled "Priorities, Planning and Paperwork" led by Peter Brierely, and finding the self awareness and skill personality tests a total revelation, and finding for the first time in my entire life that I had discovered the real me. This was my personality type, and it was ok. This was how I fitted into team and these were my skills, and it was ok. And most freeing of all - this was how God had made me, and that was ok too! That then fast turned to be cross and wondering why we hadn't done such awareness courses at Spurgeon's and thinking - "if only"!

So I love routine, and to be honest there are time when I think I would be at home in a monastery with the regular times around the clock to pray and read the offices of that hour. In fact I prefer routine as a good basis for my prayer life, and really appreciate the Northumbrian Community Offices. I'd enjoy the routines of the work pattern I'm sure. But I'd be very lonely in  a Munkery and soon find that that it didn't fit my outlook to be a techy as well as my love of home and family life.
And Ministry I find is more often than not the complete antithesis of routine - it is so often completely varied, one day being totally different with unique challenges. One day I might be preping a talk or the like, another day leading a funeral, another -a pastoral visit, another - prepping a meeting, another - repairing and doing maintenance, and another - maintaining the church office computer network or the like, as well as updatng the website. I could go on! I could mention strategy, vision, worship, prayer etc.

But the personality profiles remind us that actually no one of us is the same. And I love the verse that says in the scriptures that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. We are truly rainbow in variety (of personality and character) and as a Christian I see entirely the handiwork of the creator behind all of this who "knit us together in our mother's womb" and which reminds us that we are not accidents, but wonderfully made for purpose in love by Yahweh our creator. And all that means that whilst I love routine, others don't. Others are more creative and adventurous and love the unplanned and the new experience etc etc.
And there are downsides to the routine and mundane of course, just as there are downsides to the creative. The Popular Sanguine type who organises, needs to cheer up the Perfect Melancholy type, who needs to tone down the Powerful Choleric type, whilst the Peaceful Phlegmatic type needs motivating! (see Personality Plus - how to undestand others by understanding yourself, by Florence Littauer).
And truly, it is only when we understand who we are in Christ, that can ever hope to understand anyone else, let alone listen or minister to them.

So, its back to my routine, and like John Cleese in the film "Clockwork", as its now 9.32am, I need to be drinking my coffee! Enjoy discovering who you are.

After the age of 35 ....

....It all goes down hill! No, no, I'm only joking. That's the age of .....oh sorry, I can't remember.

I recollect that at the age of 22years, the Spurgeon's College Council of that time, - wherein I trained for the Christian Ministry and obtained my degree in theology, only just agreed to allow me to train, because they thought I was lacking in experience. If it wasn't for the then Student Chair and Secretary (who have a place on the Council) who fought my corner, + one or two other worthys, then everything could have been oh so different. But that was back in 1987, and now 25years later I am now .....well, quite experienced. But what does that mean?

Seven years later on when in my first church, a particular couple decided to make an issue of the fact that their young minister wasn't very experienced (still!) and it drew out of me then I quite defensive reaction, and led me to preach on where experience came from, and whether that was a mark of maturity or not. I think looking back I hashed up the preach somewhat.

It is true to say that the youthful days (under 35?!) gives to all an outlook on life with views that are often black and white, and yes hasty in response. And every "youth" seems to be the same - ask them a question and there is always only one answer and it's got to be NOW! Don't be stupid Dad, this IS the answer, how can you hold such archaic views? Truth is, as you get older, life is not quite as clear cut, and our answers become less hasty, and more measured and considered. From what? Why? From experience of course!

25 years later (in ministry, that is) I can honestly say that the majority of experience has come from learning lessons, and in all honesty quite a bit of that has been uncomfortable, if not at times painful. The experience I have gained has come at a price, but it has been the making of me, and yes the maturing of me. Seemingly experiences likes these only come from one means - growing in and through the difficulties. Well that's on the plus side, but on the negative being a Baptist Pastor has come at a huge cost - emotionally and practically, as well yes as spiritually, to my family and I, and being now in the middle age (the period of the pondering) I often ponder as I look back whether it had to be this way.

Stepping aside from ministry for a moment, to me as a person and the 46years on this earth, the truth is that life (and in no way do I see this as different to any one else) has in no way been plain sailing. I certainly never envisaged being a Minister of the Gospel for the first 20years of my life, and "if I knew then what I knew now" would I have taken such a road? Was that the right decision? I could have been an Engineer! I could have .....well anyway!

Christians believe in the scriptures talking of the "call" of God, and that individuals respond to such a call - like Abraham and Sarah, to leave to follow the call without knowing where they were to go, but leave they had to do! Christians don't believe that our lives are simply our own to do with as we please, but to follow God's call, wherever that may be and whatever that may mean.

And then I remember Billy Graham's strap line in his passionate evangelistic preaching - "God has a plan for your life" - and at the time, that felt like a neat concept, and one that appealed to that black and white youthful outlook. But 30 years on I would argue that the word "plan" suggests it is all worked out, and the word I would use now is "blueprint" - that God knows the structure in and around which freedom of choice is exercised. Of course some Christians believe that absolutely every tiny detail of every moment for, and every choice we make, is God made. This is the age old tussle of predestination verus freewill, and for some thats what they want and are comfortable with. But this blog is not going to do predestination - but you knew that anyway, didn't you?!

And this is all of course about knowing what decision to make about this or that, and how we know guidance and wisdom. It's also about "perspective" - this is another key word. I remember an illustration by my Theology Tutor (yes, Nigel, I listened) who gave the example of an incident in a street that is witnessed by a number of different people from different angles (or perspective), and each when reported to a journalist or policeman, gives a slightly different perspective on what took place. So, which was the right perspective? Which was the truth? Perspectives can shape and change decisions, but be warned the perspective of consumer comfort wonders around like a devouring lion: We all want an easy life, easy decisions and lots of comfort, with little challenge. For some, decision making seems reduced to this level - a kind of Homer Simpson theology: if something in life is too hard, then its not worth doing!

And in our lives there are lots of perspectives to consider. We might use another word "viewpoint(s)", and seek to obtain the perspectives of people around us on what they think about a situation in our lives. For the Christian, the "God-perspective" is vital - how does God see it all? Trouble is that post-modernism has blurred these perspectives somewhat and kind of stated that all perspectives might be true, rather than just one or another, and that can leave us bewildered, particularly if we start thinking "what if?"

But snap my figers and snap out of it; this middle age pondering does no one any good, even if it be a part of what all middle aged people do. Life is as it is now. And we must live life with the consequences of our decisions, even if they were taken early in life, and in haste and somehow regretted or even applauded. And for the Christian, there is a framework in which we do this. The decisions, promises, and following of calls that have been made - whether in hindsight right or wrong, must be honoured because life is not just now, this second. These might be broken, but not for the Christian, ours is a higher calling. Many are secondary promises with not huge consequences maybe and can be modified, adapted or changed, but some are major covenantal decisions and are lifetime decisions. These matter and as Christians we will be judged for the decisions we made and those that we broke. There is journey - and it is the whole of life, not just in the here and now. The God who first called is the one who is a part of the covenants that we make and is the maker not the breaker. In the blueprint sense, he leads us on in the journey from now and into the future, and is faithful, and we too are required to be faithful.

But the one question I will have for God will be why we cannot have experience and youthful energy? We all know that with age comes experience, but with age comes the bad back and flagging energy. But why God?

But this I know: with God in our lives, no experience - however painful or uncomfortable is ever wasted, especially when we turn it to God's glory and let it be used. Romans 8: 28 reminds us of this.

OMG

I've been reflecting on a tweet from someone, showing a piece of Argos Jewellery - a necklace, which merely has the letters "OMG" to hang around someone's neck. The tweet suggested the total pointlessness of either the manufacturer or Argos themselves, and I agree.
Of course "OMG" is the new abbreviated form (seems to have entered our language in this decade) of the old swearing statement "Oh my God", which I find as I listen - seems to come out now from even 4 year olds.
There are several points to make here: First, for the Christian, God's name is precious and the scriptures leave no room for argument that taking God's name and misusing it is not right, and especially so for the Christian.
Secondly, I find myself puzzled, bemused even, as to why there is this fascination with an abbreviation of "Oh my God." I suppose the virus of abbreviations is arguably bound to hit everything eventually, and it was only a matter of time. Perhaps three words are, for some, just too much and saying "OMG" is somehow a lot less hassle? Or is it that the message of not misuing God's name has now got out into people's minds, and someone has suggested that saying "OMG" is somehow less offensive? Well, it isn't!

For me, whenever I hear someone say this I always want to feel that I should turn to them and say "ah, but who is your god then? - as if to make the point. But the long and the short of it is that I find it offensive. And I find the celebrity trend of somehow saying it live on TV, or singing about it, ...or whatever else, is horrible, and I don't like the example that that sets or suggest to such a mass following.

To widen this out - I hear, as we all do, an enormous amount of swearing - and when I get very stressed or angry, I have found myself sadly doing so. But when I hear someone saying "Jesus" or "Oh my God", then that makes me cross. Is that hypocrisy I wonder?
Of course, the anguish behind what makes us (all?) swear is an interesting study: that surge of stress or anger that frustrated us and makes us scream out aloud. Isn't that a little like what the psalms do in the scriptures? But they're not full of bad language - anger sometimes - yes. I've often mused at the story of the old Chistian man banging his head on the same shelf and saying "Praise the Lord!"

Is swearing then just about poor vocabulary? I have in my 46 years heard that said by a good few people - was it my English teacher? Certainly, families that are brought up in an environment where swearing is the norm, then often the children see this as what they should do too.

Then of course, we might argue that there is swearing, and then then swearing - ie, plain rudeness and then those words that dishonour the name of God. Does that make the former acceptable and the latter not then? I know the some have studied the root of each swear word and discovered that actually the truth behind each is quite alarming - eg "Blimey" was apparently originally "Blind-me".

So where does this end? Better education? Better example? Christians standing up and being counted? Probably all - though I also have cringed sometimes when Christians have been so "in someones face" as they have cut into them about their bad langauge and wanted to run a mile from such hypocrisy. How do we win such folk for Jesus when someone has already ploughed in and mucked up the playing field? Certainly Paul reminds us that the peope of the Holy Spirit will want to live by the Spirit.


Moving onto a entirely different subject ...my Android Mobile and O/S upgrade.
Ice cream sandwhich - thought I'd note this for anyone who has to travel this road. My Samsung Galaxy S2 finally brought me to a point where the SD card was malfunctioing and internal memory as a result was crashing out. Vodafone said all these problems I had would be sorted with the ICS update.The word of the street for months has been about this O/S upgrade from gingerbread to ICS, Ice Cream Sandwich!

So for me the phone was becoming a struggle and not an effective tool. A visit to the vodafone shop last week said "Sure, we can do the upgrade, but havr you backed up?" So back home to backup to Samsung Kies. This I managed, eventually.
Back to the shop - "Oh, it says we can't do it afterall, but we can send if off!" No, I didn't want that as I couldn't be without my diary. So then I phoned Vodafone only to be told that they weren't responsible for O/S upgrades, but Samsung are. A classic moment in techy life - finally the open source nature of Google and Android catches up with me. This is its strength and its weakness.
An upgrade I was told would sort my original problems, but the £40 quid paid to vodafone every month doesn't cover that scenario then?! Kind of leaves you "naffed off" (ooh is that ok given my words above?) and running the argument that this would never happen with Apple or HTC!
So, to conclude I finally get through to Samsung who ........wait for it .......tell me I can't upgrade ......yet!


So, this week is the calm before the storm (or is it the other way around as parents look forward to days of peace?), as we try to gather some last few days of rest before schools go back and routine kicks in.

We haven't had much of a holiday this year.One week, and it was stressful! As we spend money on new uniforms and equipment, the economic news is not imporoving for the UK, and the financial pressure continues to target the middle and lower income families of the UK. We are one of them, and there are many. The light at the end of the tunnel is not showing up, and despite the Jubilee and the Olympics, the nation is in general rudderless an lacking any good economic news. Unless something changes, then I see a General Election in the pipe line!

Sports in Schools - the real problem

Okay, so I'm going to throw my 5 quid into the arena on this, and I think I can do this with some credibility. Here's my argument - the measley 2 lessons (practically its 1) of PE a week in each primary school shows up where our values and priorities have drifted. Numerous governments have played with the national curriculum arguing that their electorate has demanded change for so called failing schools. Such schools if they are deemed to not be reaching the required standard, are set targets, and the entire Ofsted nightmare of every school seemingly being measured by whether it has had a good one or not. This either shames or applauds a local school in a community and presumably provides informed decision making freedom for parents. But here's the problem - all that is based on academic prowess, not on sport. Did they achieve in maths and english - for example.
When I was growing up in school, every morning was set for lessons and every afternoon was for compulsory sport. Summer or winter, good weather or bad - we would be either running or playing rugby or hockey in winter, and atheletic and tennis or cricket in the summer. For me, the sport was survival. The academic side was a real struggle, but the Sport kept me alive and gave me value. Goodness knows what would have happened if I hadn't had that. In the mornings we thought and worked better, and in the afternon we burnt off our energy and played sport to high standards.
But now we have a virtually sportless school culture in the state school system. The sport has been tossed into the court of after school clubs.
If the Olympics is to change our sporting future, we have to kill the notion that the value of a person or a school is based on how well they achieve academically, and return to the days where a whole person approach is seen as a good thing, not a disability.

To home school or not to home school

I haven't blogged for ages and ages - excuses being lack of time and too busy and also that they decded to put me on the Baptist Times website which made me feel kinda vulnerable ....anyway, the real truth was I just haven't felt in the right state of mind to "spill my thoughts out!"
Okay, excuses done, here's some thoughts that have been on my mind for a while that I thought would be provocative for blogging on. We don't home school, and to be honest I don't think that Claire and I would feel that its the ever the right thing to do, given our Christian principles! That said, if we were missionaries overseas where there was no english speaking schools then we might, but its certainly not something that we would find easy. Some people home-school because they can - and choose to do so. Parents are trained teachers and maybe they feel they can do a better job than their local school. But some Christian parents choose to do so because they fear their children being infected by other religious traditions, secularism, and multi-culturalism. Taking the Old Testament principles of teaching your own children up in the law of Yahweh and ensuring that the principles of God are held dear to the heart and taught with a clarity and fundamentalism of there being no doubt or room to ponder, alongside teaching maths, english, science and history etc, this is often the style of many (but perhaps not all) home schoolers within the Christian setting. The advantages of this are all too obvious. All of this happens within the Christian Community - often Christian home schoolers will share skills across several families within that community. This is ironic and arguably where home-schooling ceases to be home-schooling and more akin to creating your own Christian school. The settings are safe, and the curriculum set and sealed. Creationism taught and assumed in subject areas. Common to all home-schooling - whether Christian or not is that children with specific gifting and skills areas can be focussed upon in a strong contrast to the more general teaching of a school, and of course, the teacher to student ration is exceptionally and desirably win-win!
The disadvantages however are more than obvious. The lack of connection with other children from all kinds of backgrounds and experiences, religious groupings and cultures, colours and creeds, would almost certaintly lead to an extremely insular life, in fact protected. Because of this, the freedom to think and decide for yourself - and be given licence to do so and not feel that this was wrong or shameful are generally not present in the home school setting. Interestingly enough, this is where my Christian baptistic thinking finds good soil. As Christians of a baptist flavour, we see in the scriptures the principle not to christen, but to baptise in believers baptism. Unpacking this, we choose not to say over a baby "we believe on your behalf", but that, growing up within the love of God and the love of parents, and of the Christian community, that child should decide for him or herself as to whether they should want to follow Jesus and become a Christian. When they do, only then does Believers Baptism take place. And that is not age dependent in any way. That means to say that our children need to be given the freedom to know and experience the love of God in regular Sunday worship and any other mid week setting, but that they also be fully open to the sights, smells and sounds (so to speak) of what is going on around them in a state school where their friends think and act differently. We think that giving them freedom to decide for themselves, is the biblical pattern, rather than it be forced upon them. Which creates the stronger more considered and throught through faith? I'lll leave you to decide that for yourself. But that is in essence why I/we don't home school, apart from the truth that we'd be rubbish at it too.
There is a middle ground to be pondered here though. Why then, does it feel right for some parents to ensure that their children go to a Christian school? Isn't that merely the half way compromise that is there for parents like us who can't home school to save our lives, but want the safety of the Christian culture and setting? Well certainly in the UK the Christian schools that provide that kind of setting are seemingly mostly private fee paying types. And in any case, I wonder sometimes what is so specific about such places? Is it that the staff are all Christians? Clearly not - in many cases merely signed up very distant members of the CofE. But they get to have a daily act of worship! Oh yes .... and mostly sing traditonal hymns from the 1940's....ugh! So probably, the difference is not huge, except that you get to part with your money and feel that you are investing into your children's lives. That may salve your concsience of course.
So, to home school or not? Isn't this me just finding a set of doctrines to match what we want to do? Perhaps - as I said, we couldn't home school to save our lives.But we both have some very free thinking discussions with all our children along the lines of "it's not quite as black and white as that actually ..." We do so because we want our kids to think and decide for themselves, within the love of God. I think ...no I hope that they will one day thank us for that. Or is that just a hoped for dream!!

Flooding

"A weathered boat
once with sail and go-fast stripe,
at one time considered the latest
must-have model, now
cast adrift,
left to float with every tidal
ebb and flow.
Cut free by intentional sharp blade:
misunderstood; manipulated; misinterpreted,
allowed to twist and turn, to twist in the tidal
stream,
away from it's intended purpose of
holding, transporting, carrying.
Originally shaped for significance,
moulded and manufactured for a higher calling,
of service and serving,
now discarded, unwanted, bruised;
alive but dead,
rotted in places, scratched and
chaffed.
Floating until captured, retained, rescued or
sunk,
never to be remembered or held, or fulfilled
again."