The Holy Pasty?

Today the entertainment world mourns two huge surprising losses to their number. Farah Fawcett, the sex symbol of the 1970’s passed away yesterday after losing her fight with cancer. She was one of Charlies angels and starred in a number of movies as well as numerous commercials for toothpaste and other items she modelled at the beginning of her career. However the news of her death was swiftly overtaken just a few hours later with the news that Michael Jackson had been rushed to hospital and doctors were battling to resuscitate him. News emerged later that Michael Jackson, named the King Of Pop, was dead.

As news spread fans gathered outside the hospital, they gathered in other areas too. Not willing to believe that their childhood hero could be taken so suddenly and swiftly. Michael Jackson was someone who had been in the spotlight for 40+ years. The Jackson 5 were massive and then he stepped out from that group as a solo artist. The “Off The Wall” album came first, followed by one of the best albums of all time, “Thriller”, “Bad” made up his trilogy of incredibly successful albums. Michael had been haunted by a number of things through his life, not least his need to change his appearance with plastic surgery and of course the accusations of child molestation that wouldn’t leave him.

However with these deaths we have been reminded of our frailness and mortality. Some thought Jackson would live forever, publicity stunts in his hey-day saw him being very health conscious, even rumours that he slept in an oxygen tent. Micheal Jackson’s life story, everyone thought, had many more pages yet. However God has a time and a season for everyone.

I don’t know if Michael Jackson had a faith, he was certainly brought up with some belief, whether this ever transferred to a personal living faith with Jesus God only knows. Of course if it can happen to the “King Of Pop” then it can happen to us. We never know what is around the corner. The adulation that the crowds of people give Michael will make no difference when it comes to the judgement. The sole question will be “Did you accept my only son, who I sent to save sinners?” We don’t know Michael’s answer to that question, but it’s one we’re all going to face. As we face a very public reminder of our own mortality today, and celebrate Michael Jackson’s life, let’s consider our answer to the same question!

Well it was all going so well! I was getting on with Soteria work, rebuilding the church website etc. Then my parents went away to Ireland for a few days and my older Sister was left with the zoo. Unfortunately she has ended up in Treliske after a diabetic related incident and the only person to look after the aforementioned animals is me!

5 Dogs and 5 Cats is a nightmare and I don’t even particularly like Dogs or Cats! Four of the dogs aren’t actually too much trouble, but one is a young labrador puppy who is always excitable and attacking (in order to play) the other dogs. She’s licky and jumps up, and I’m sorry if you are a dog lover and this is your idea of heaven, but I really don’t like these traits at all!

Not having any pets after a day here my nose is beginning to run and my throat feels clogged from the dog hair and cat hair in the environment of the bungalow – and I’m not even allergic to them! Shouting at ‘Poppy’ is getting tiresome and making me hoarse…so no! I’m not enjoying this experience!

OK so I haven’t updated this blog since I got home from Bracknell. Needless to say this is because I have partly been catching up on work that needed doing and partly because I have been creating new work for myself. D’oh!

It was exceptionally hot on moving day to bring my Sister’s stuff from Bracknell back to Cornwall, and I’m still not quite sure how we managed to get everything done in time – there was mountains of boxes, at least that’s what it seemed like to me. Between the four of us we managed to load the lorry with the furniture and boxes and all the other stuff that needed removing and left just about lunchtime, although we had been for an early lunch at the local KFC! I came down with dad in the lorry, leaving Mum and Sis to clean and then follow us down a bit later. We made good time, it was very hot and the window was down all the way, meaning I got Van passenger’s arm. Windburn and Sunburn and now that is peeling, not an attractive look!

Since then I have had shows to go to, another trip to organise and I have managed to redesign the Soteria website (www.soteriamag.co.uk), and also had meetings about redesigning the Redruth Baptist Church website (www.redruthbaptist.org.uk). I spent Monday helping Dad and trying to catch up on some review and then until Thursday I had the time to work on Soteria.

Thursday the 4th June was Royal Cornwall Show, a huge show in Wadebridge which Greg and I attended. It was very nice, with lunch provided in the press office by Royal Mail for members of the fourth estate! We went around many of the stalls looking at ideas for youth lifestyle for future issues of the magazine or website features. With this year being the celebration of 200 years of Darwin it was unsurprising that both the Seventh Day Adventists and a group of organisations both had displays on Creation and Evolution, promoting the idea of a literal creation. While I agree with the Biblical understanding of Creation in six literal days, I have to confess that more often than not, it’s a red herring for most people. However I couldn’t complain because when it came to Murdoch Day on Saturday our church was running a stall promoting exactly the same thing.

I think all the stalls, including our own, missed the obvious links with todays culture as well! If I were planning a stall I would want to get to the idea of “why does it matter to me?” The question is are you a random chance or are you a being planned by God with a purpose? If you are the first one then nothing I say will matter, but if God created you then what is the purpose of humans, what is the purpose of me. My way in of choice at the moment would be something like Wolverine and the X-Men, mutants, the next stage of evolution – or actually characters created by Stan Lee and others with a specific purpose?

I have to admit that our stall at Redruth’s Murdoch day was considerably better than those I saw up at Royal Cornwall! However it’s not a competition and each were being faithful to God using the gifts that they were given and should be commended. The other

stalls that represented Christianity at Royal Cornwall was a glorified Tea Tent for Churches Together and the Christian Surfers were also out talking to people and promoting the Creation Festival which will be held at Royal Cornwall Showground (7-13th August for further details see www.creationfest.org.uk)

Murdoch Day was very busy with the stall in town, which was well manned, and selling coffee, tea, cakes and patchwork fabrics in the church. I naturally gravitated towards the food and drink, but I was not there to eat, instead I chatted with people as they came and had their tea and coffee, making sure people felt welcome, and where possible sharing the message of Jesus with them!

So yeah it’s been a little on the busy side. I need to get some pictures up on the website of all this stuff, so hopefully that will be part of my job tomorrow, as long as I get some peace from Saul, my youngest boy, who is currently teething!

Tags: Creation, Darwin, Evolution, God, Gospel, Jesus, Journal, Magazine, Murdoch Day, Website

As Susan Boyle goes home from BGT as runner-up my time in Bracknell is nearly over. Diversity was the name of the game for the Pentecost Festival in London too! All around London today were various free concerts, events and walks all celebrating the birth of the church over 2000 years ago. If you had a conception that the church is all bells and smells then Leicester Square stage should have dispelled that myth. Urban Gospel was taking place in that area with acts including 29th Chapter, Ekklesia and Jahaziel.

In the embankment gardens there was a more worship based set of sessions with familiar and new tunes floating across the park area. Siku, the artist / author of the Manga Bible, was in Orbital Comics giving a talk about manga and anime as an art form. There were also lectures on the big questions such as creation/ evolution and many other issues. There were film screenings including the new Veggietales movie “The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything” (available now on DVD and a review coming soon on Soteria)Then in the evening there were concerts, comedy performances, and more films. I managed to catch Philippa Hanna tuning up and grabbed an interview with author and comic Adrian Plass.

It has been a hot and diverse day indeed, but I can’t rest yet as I will be moving my Sister’s stuff from Bracknell down to Cornwall. My dad is hoping to get here by 8am and then we have to get everything sorted and get home by tomorrow evening. So busy, busy, busy. Of course when we get to the other end I have to help unpack on Monday, so no rest yet!

Tags: Adrian Plass, Pentecost Festival, Siku, Veggietales

I’m meant to be helping my sister pack boxes ready to move house at the weekend, and we have been making fair progress until today. Helen has gone back to bed and I have somehow strained my back, so I am hardly able to move. I need to rest my back before the weekend because I am going to have to help Dad move boxes and also I am intending to go into London for the Pentecost Festival on Saturday. So while I am incapacitated I thought I would gather my thoughts about the Big Church Day Out, which Helen and I attended on Sunday.

After all the hassle of the Saturday it was nice to be going to something that we hoped would be much better organised. Unfortunately through no fault of the organisers our car and many others got directed the wrong way by the Tom Tom website. Unfortunately where we should have turned right, our directions said turn left. We did, and ended up going about 12 miles in the wrong direction whilst eagerly looking for signs to the venue. Coming back again after stopping for help we started to see signs and we eventually found the place!

It really was a beautifully sunny day on the South Downs and Wiston House and the surrounding grounds were the venue for the day out. On the list of artists for the day were YFriday, Delirious?, Michael W. Smith, Lou Fellingham, Israel Houghton and Graham Kendrick. The mainstage programme kicked off 2 minutes early, and people were still trying to get into the grounds, due to others being sent the wrong way, and a local accident. Apparently over 5000 people were turned away on the day because all the tickets had been pre-sold, this only added to the traffic issues!

There were some issues concerning the press facilities provided for us esteemed members of the fourth estate, but overall the organisation was pretty good. YFriday sounded great, but I didn’t get much time to hear them as I had to make my way up to the house for the press conferences with other artists. So I left my sister to bake in the sun whilst I headed to the cooler shade of the house. I took the tractor from the main field up to the house and managed to catch a little of Lou Fellingham’s performance in the Tea Tent. She was sounding excellent but I had to pull myself away to go to the Press Conference.

The press conferences were being hosted by Mike Rimmer, radio presenter and Christian music journalist. So it was a good chance to ask him why he had refused my friend request on Facebook. He told me he normally denies people who look like stalkers!

I enjoyed the press conferences, I am not really used to them as I prefer to do 1on1 interviews, but that wasn’t going to happen! So I made the best of it. I was quiet through Israel’s conference, but asked questions in later ones as I got used to the format, and realised that my questions were no different to other people’s. I was really looking forward to Michael W. Smith’s conference as he is an artist I have enjoyed listening too for many years.

After the press conference I headed back to the mainstage area to catch the end of Israel Houghton’s set. There was a bit of a talk in between from Steve Chalke about the Stop The Traffick campaign as well as prayers shared for Europe and the UK government as well as prayer requests from people in the crowd who had texted them in over the afternoon.

Michael W. Smith’s set was fantastic, starting with tracks from A New Hallelujah and moving onto some classics including Friends, before moving onto more worship songs from his 3 worship albums. This reflective and worshipful set was well received with people joining in and lifting their voices to God. Before we knew it the set was over, even though it was over an hour long!

Delirious? were due on stage next, but unfortunately Helen was beginning to feel that she wanted to get moving. She had been sitting out in the sun all afternoon and was doing a bit of a lobster impression, so we decided to leave at this point. I had no choice really as she is the driver, and I merely the passenger!

We got lost on the way home a little bit, but by this stage we really didn’t care. We were exhausted, we stopped near home for a burger and kebab got home to eat. I tried to watch the Grand Prix and kept falling asleep, and eventually saw Button over the line and went to bed!

So a much better day than the Saturday, but I’ve got to do some of it all over again this Saturday as I head into London for the Pentecost Festival. My press pass has arrived and as long as my back has recovered I shall be there!

Tags: BCDO, Christian Music, Event, Jenson Button, Michael W Smith, Pentecost Festival