Tag: friends

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Sore throats, Soaring Spirits and SeeSaw Weather – BCDO Part 2

As the God channel are broadcasting the event this weekend, it seems a fairly good time to finish off my two part Big Church Day Out Diary! The first part was on last night and the 2nd part is on tonight at 9pm. Sky+ it, record it, wheel out the old VHS if you have to – and if you don’t get the God channel quickly get to know someone who does and get them to record it for you – you will not regret it. Anyway, on with the blog…

Heavily laden with chairs, food, drink and more, we set out from our tent on each of the two days to go and pick a decent spot and enjoy what was on offer at the Big Church Day Out 2011. The walk from the campsite to the main stage was not particularly far, but it was across some pretty funky terrain (the campsite had 2″ wide troughs in parallel lines every 6 feet which someone always managed to trip in) and the hill was deceptively steep. The weather didn’t know what it wanted to do, and the winds were especially unkind – with many people ending up with damaged tents, and even one of the main stage banners having come down.

With our territory claimed and marked, we settled in – with each of us wandering off every now and then with the kids, or on our own, just to explore the marketplace and the other activities on offer. Whilst people were still turning up the organisers showcased some of the acts who would be on the UCB Stage or the Tea Tent, with each act getting to perform a song and introduce themselves a bit. This was a great way to drum up interest in the smaller venues and I’ve no doubt that it will have been an effective tool in introducing people to some of the less mainstream artists.

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We’re going on a Big Day Out… Part 1

For those who were there, either this year or last, the above title will probably have you humming an annoyingly catchy little ditty written by the one-and-only Graham Kendrick as the “un”official theme song for the Big Church Day Out.

Yes I know it’s been a few weeks but life has been really crazy since we got back from our exodus down sarf and I’ve only really started to catch up on all my thoughts – but sit back and let me tell you of miracles, divine intervention, mini-reunions and some of the best Christian music that is out there right now.

For those that don’t know, the Big Church Day Out has just had it’s 2nd annual event in the grounds of Wiston Hall. It’s a family orientated affair featuring a main stage full of the biggest names on the music scene, a second stage featuring lesser known (but not lesser talented!) artists and then a load of activities, stalls, charities and more to ensure that there is no way you can possibly get bored (unless you’re a tired 9 year old boy but that’s a different matter really)

We’d decided, after going to the midlands event last year, that we would take advantage of the free camping offer (due to there NOT being a midlands event this year) and head down for the two day event – figuring that it would be fun camping for the first time as a family and that doing both days would allow us all to enjoy the main artists at least once, making it less of a stress if the kids didn’t want to sit through your favourite artist. My brother was immediately up for it, and we made a last-minute decision to invite one of our daughters best friends (2 teenage girls – was that *really* wise??? read on…)

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More than one man can take

It was 24 hours that would make a day in the life of Jack Bauer seem like a cuddly fuzzy teddy bear.

It started with a dinner party with the closest friends a man could have, followed by a sing-song and a walk in a garden, then some deep soul-searching. This was then rounded off with the cruellest of betrayals along with the desertion of friends and even being denied by the closest of them all, a farcical pretence of justice, a beating to within an inch of his life, humiliation, one of the most tortuous deaths known to man, rejection by a father and a descent to hell that no man can begin to comprehend.And that was just the first 24 hours – the story wasn’t over there. Continue reading “More than one man can take”

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2010 – A year in review

faith

faithWhen Mrs H and I both felt God saying to us that 2010 would be a year of change, and where we would be shaken up, we never fully anticipated what that would come to mean or how that would change us but looking back now it’s fair to say that we’ve both changed quite a bit this year and that we’ve grown as a result of all that’s happened.

The year started out with me being ill on New Years Eve, so not the best start – but I was in a job I loved, working with people who were more friends that colleagues, and with plans for the company that had the potential to take us on to big things. We were looking forward to our first family holiday for 3 years and also the celebration of 10 years of wedded bliss. Church life was good, with me especially getting quite heavily involved in some areas and we were planning on pushing that forward more and more as God opened doors for us.

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Fast Food Friendship

There I was, idly browsing facebook and twitter – enjoying reading about friends lives, or getting nuggets of creativity, pearls of wisdom, motor sports news/humour and tech headlines – when a tweet popped up from Tony Stewart, a “Husband & Father – Student at Fuller Theological Seminary – Creative Projects & Consulting – Online Community Pastor at LifeChurch.tv” to quote his Twitter Bio. The tweet simply said:

“Theory: It is more valuable to have someone’s Facebook home page then their email. Thoughts?”

Theory: It is more valuable to have someone's Facebook home page then their email. Thoughts?

I started pondering. My initial reaction was that it’s probably an accurate theory. Facebook allows you to keep up with peoples everyday lives and thoughts. It allows you to play games with them, to interact and to share life in a way that email doesn’t allow. The downside of facebook is that people don’t always use it to communicate – we feed off the information that’s there but don’t necessarily spend time talking to each other in the same way that we would in an email (or as we would in that ancient of mediums – the letter)

We absorb peoples status updates, browse their photo galleries, challenge them to games of word twist and share goodies in Farmville (of that’s your thing) and that can become the friendship. We don’t necessarily use it to converse with people. Communication is a two-way thing of sharing and responding and how many of us actually spend time doing that on facebook?

Throw Twitter into the mix and you get even more down the route of snacking on friendships – those 140 character updates become irresistible as you find out who’s doing what, where and what they are wearing or what the weather is like or what’s on their plates.

Our friendships can easily become a fast food activity – we rush in, grab our bit, rush out again and think that’s friendship.

Now you may read this and think “He’s missing the point” or come to the conclusion I’m against social networking etc, you may even be sitting there screaming that you don’t do that so allow me to present the other side of the coin. Continue reading “Fast Food Friendship”