still christmas

Leading a service on Christmas day is very weird. When I woke up instead of instantly thinking 'hooray its christmas!' i thought 'oh no I've got to lead the service arghh its all going to go wrong!' and was therefore a little bit grumpy for a while, spending quite some time grumbling to myself about why I'd agreed to do this in the first place and the fact Christmas would be way better and more relaxing if I hadn't (to be fair, the Christmas day service at my home church is usually a bit of a pantomine, where anything can (and usually does) happen) However it didn't take me long to realise how stupid and sinful my fear and grumpiness were. After all, what could be better to do on Christmas morning than to proclaim Christ and his amazing gospel to people who don't know him? Through God's grace the service went well (with surprisingly few surprises!) man i don't get His whole delighting in using the weak and the foolish but for some reaosn he does choose to use me, even though I grump about it rather than delighting in it - what a fool I am, how incredible He is!

Is it wrong to be sick of christmas carols??

Is it?! Is it?! I still have 3 carol services to go to... not sure i can cope!! (I'm leading one on christmas day... maybe I'll have no carols in it!!)

7 things

Ok well its a friday nite in and i'm bored so I'll bow to general demand

Things to do before I die
1. Gallop a horse along a beach at sunset
2. Climb some more mountains (they don't have to be as big as Kilimanjaro!)
3. Become a Blue Peter presenter (or UCCF staff worker.. or both!)
4. Finish reading 'Desiring God' (its been on the go for a year and a bit now!)
5. Lead a friend to Christ
6. Understand boys
7. Get to know God better

Things I cannot do
1. Make God love me more, or less than He does
2. Cut in a straight line
3. Knit
4. Assemble 'Happy Street' without becoming annoyed at it (or any small child who trashes it as soon as I've finished)
5. Go into a CD shop and not pretend to read the backs of CDs
6. Juggle
7. Scooby-doos

Things I say most often
1. how weird/cool is that?
2. like
3. random
4. whats the deal?
5. That's interesting... (annoyingly due to Al's influence!)
6. annoyingly
7. Rubbish

Books I love
1. What's so amazing about grace? - Philip Yancey
2. The Single Issue - Al Hsu
3. Finding Joy - Marcus Honeysett
4. The Lion, the Witch and the Wandrobe - CS Lewis
5. Mere Christainity - CS Lewis
6. Round Ireland with a Fridge - Tony Hawkes
7. Facing Up - Bear Grylls

Films I could watch again and again
1. Forrest Gump
2. Chicago
3. Bring It On
4. Man in the Iron Mask
5. Bridget Jones
6. The Little Mermaid
7. Dangerous Minds

Christmas ramblings

I met a one day old baby the other week. He was the 'Little Rocker Ever' at our mums and toddlers group. Seeing newborn babies just completely blows me away - they are so tiny, so fragile, so vunerable - and thats what Jesus was like. Jesus - the eternal Word, the Wonderful Consellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace was a tiny defenceless baby. God made himself totally weak and completely vunerable. Jesus knows exactly what we're going through becasue he's been there. He's been a weak human being, who was tempted in every way yet did not sin. And because of his sinles life and incredbile sacrifice on the cross we can come to God without fear of rejection, because Jesus has dealt with our sin - how amazing! thats what Christmas is about, lets not let the busyness and commericalism get in the way of worshipping our amazing Saviour.
And if you happen to care about what the local residencts of the Cherry Hinton Road area of Cambridge think the meaning of Christmas is check out this video (that me and Al spent hours in the cold making!)
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/marshall.ntl/RockChristmas2005final.wmv

pretty pictures

Well, I haven't posted for ages - sorry about that, been offline for about 3 weeks with internet issues (which have done my head in!!) but now i'm back wohoooo!! Here are some pretty pictures to make up for my absence (obviously they were taken when i returned to brighton for a fab weekend of fun (sadly cambridge has not maanged to acquire a sea and a old falling down pier yet :-( ))