Understanding the Bible

Oxford academic John Wycliffe was enthusiastic that people should not have to rely on priests for a reading of a text but could access it for themselves. Good man.

Thing is, and excuse me if I first throw a brick through the spell-checker, what he actually said was, 'Christ seith that the gospel shold be prechid in al the wrold ... Holi writ is the scripture of pupilis for it is maad that alle pupilis shulden knowe it.' (I quote Karen Armstrong quoting A. Hudson.)

Isn't it amazing, and I refer you all to this post a few days ago about the language of the Skate comp., how English moves on.

Walk Around the Lake

There comes a point in a busy life, with lots of things one could do, many people one could see and many projects on which one could make some progress when the wisest thing to do is walk round the lake.

Working from home, all the things you could do look at you. Worse; they stare. All the books you could read sit unopened and demand to be handled. 'Me, me, me' they say like hungry children wanting lunch. And who could possibly decide which of your kids to feed if you only had enough food for one? The emails you wanted to think about before sending a reply; 'Have you thought enough yet?' they apparently enquire.

Around the lake it's more cut throat than that. Birds do decide which of their hungry chicks to feed. It is probably survival of the loudest down there. No thinking time for the residents. Just action.

Wandering round with a bottle of water and ten minutes in the fresh air somehow the dancing tasks land gracefully in order. A sense of perspective returns. It's a feng shui approach to problems; if they sit awkwardly next to you then move somewhere else.

I do sometimes have to get away from the idea that all the world is against me, nobody really likes my jokes and I'm not really very good at anything. Round the lake is a good place to do that. I come back better. Anyway it's a bit unfair because most of the world hasn't met me yet.

One day a pilgrim reached the culmination of many days journey into the mountains where he stood at the cave of the great prophet of one word answers. Many wished to consult this prophet but strangely, many also found that after half the journey they had resolved their problems in their own mind. This is why wise prophets live remotely or in places no-one wishes to visit. Wolverhampton is probably full of prophets.

This particular pilgrim was struggling with forgiveness. He knew that it was not earned but offered freely and mercifully, yet he still didn't get it. He stopped and entered the cave where he saw the dim outline of the great prophet of one word answers. 'Great prophet' he said, failing to realise that great prophets of one word answers are not easily impressed by words of flattery, 'What must I do to be forgiven?'

The great prophet of one word answers turned and looked at him, beckoned him over and whispered one word in his ear.'

'Sin.'

The God who is bigger than all this doesn't mind that much if I work slowly and modestly and don't finish everything. He thinks I'm OK however far down the things-to-do list I've got and sometimes, get this, puts it in my mind do do things not on the list, first. Such as this post.

Cafe Create Set List

One or two people occasionally show an interest in the tunes at Cafe Create so here is last Friday's playlist:

Raphael Saadiq - Sure Hope You Mean It
Raphael Saadiq - 100 Yard Dash
Raphael Saadiq - Keep Marchin'
Raphael Saadiq - Big Easy
Faithless - Flyin Hi
Faithless - Love is My Condition
Faithless - Feelin Good
Faithless - North Star
Faithless - Sun To Me
Faithless - Scandalous
Delphic - Doubt
Delphic - This Momentary
Delphic - Red Lights
Everything but the Girl - Wrong (Todd Terry remix)
Black Kids - Look at Me (When I Rock Wichoo)
Toad the Wet Sprocket - Fall Down
Four Tet - Slow Jam
Tower of Power - Don't Change Horses (in the Middle of a Stream)
Radiodread - Karma Police
Geezers of Nazareth - Day In Day Out
Foals - Miami
The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy - Television, The Drug of the Nation
Dr John - Feel Good Music

Medical Update

Thanks to everyone who has been concerned about my dodgy knee. I know using my blog for a medical update is really tedious, especially for casual visitors, but it will save me repeating the same story over and over so here goes:

Back in February, whilst undertaking that well known dangerous activity turning left in a corridor, my knee clicked. After a bit it started to hurt if I used it, so I rested up. Next day it was massively swollen so I rested up some more. Day three and the swelling went down, stiffness eased and it started to get better. Over the next few weeks it got loads better but never completely. Then, for reasons that I don't understand, it started to get worse again.

I hoped that a holiday might be a chance to rest it, with lots of swimming as therapy. I did that but it didn't work.

We divert to my chest for a paragraph. A grandfather of mine died of a heart attack aged 55 (21 years before I was born) so, although healthy, I am flagged up as one to watch if I get a chest pain. I got a chest pain. I am 55. Saw doctor. ECG was fine but I was sent to some alarmingly titled clinic in Bristol to do a treadmill ECG. This too was fine but, in demonstrating my ability to get my heart rate up and down again, I knacked my knee good and proper. Over competitive ECG use.

I had an X-ray. This has eliminated anything to do with arthritis, floating matter and, as far as they can tell, cartilage damage, so it looks like it is a ligament problem. Next stop is a musculo-skeletal clinic in Clevedon.

In going through this array of tests I have discovered that the reason I get dizzy sometimes when I stand up suddenly is because I have very low blood pressure, apparently a good thing. The chest pain was nothing - maybe acid, maybe a muscle. I have some of those but they are hard to spot.

Thank you for caring. If you didn't how come you read this far?

Dr English

Dr English pops in to update us all, post-Skate competition, on the language of the day. 'How's it hanging Dr Man?'

'Well old bean, as far as I can recall, these are the words you need in order to conduct a lively commentary on a few people on wheels trying to kill themselves:

Sick = good
Rude = good
Bad = good
Well = very
Wicked = good
Home = good
Pants = bad
Awesome = awesome
Dubtastic = good
Unreal = unbelievably good
Tidy = pleasant or good
Savage = good and possibly difficult
Relentless = good for a long time
Mental = good and risky
Book = cool
Grats = congratulations
Rents = parents
Dude = someone else
Unlucky = rubbish
Stoked = happy
Made up = happy

'I'm still working on one or two others,' says Dr E, but we're sure he'll be back.

A Record?

Trendlewood is a relatively small church. There were just over sixty of us this morning including many visitors, although some regulars were away.

It was an act of worship led by our young people, the first in a series of six all-age services for the summer. They did brilliantly but it meant that I was simply a member of the congregation apart from popping up to do some notices at the end.

Our curate, on maternity leave, joined us with her son. A newly ordained deacon from another church joined us to 'put his face round the door' and say hello. The vicar from the parish next door, between posts, joined us with his family. There were two ordinands in training in the congregation and a third almost on the road to that.

Seven people, at various stages of ministry leadership, all there doing nothing but joining in while young people led us. How cool is that?

Hymn to Newport

Absolutely love this video. Thanks Richard for the link.

Pet Shop Boys

Although I wouldn't put myself up there with the real fans I am aware that over the last twenty-five years the Pet Shop Boys have been the soundtrack, to some extent, of my life as a Dad. In the 80s, as West End Girls caught my attention (they played it last night in Cardiff as a second encore), they were the sort of band who were the guests on children's TV shows. I think their first album was the first album my oldest ever bought, or got as a present.

When the format of the band is a guy who sings (and if the truth be told, I find Neil Tennant's voice good for one or two tunes but begins to fade on me after half an hour) and Chris Lowe who plays simple keyboards and presses lots of buttons, a live show needs some work. Boy, do they work it.

Four outstandingly talented individuals, performing anonymously with coloured boxes on their heads for the first half of the show, dance, sing, mime, body-pop and re-arrange the set. The 'set' is a selection of white coloured boxes which are projected on, stood on and flung at each other. Stage hands in lab coats and hard hats add to the mix. Towards the end of the show a second wall of boxes, seemingly fixed up to that point, is animated by wires and the strobe-like projection onto a 3D wall creates an altogether remarkable effect.

They did have some new tunes to me but most of the time it was 'Oh I remember this one' time. Had some difficulty during 'Go West' deciding whether to sing 'Go West (Bromwich Albion)' or 'Stand up if you hate the Wolves.' Great tunes become football chants.

Earlier Sophie Ellis-Bextor had warmed us up. She is tall and elegant and chose the sort of black dress the lasses in River Dance wear. Not sure she quite had the moves or personality to fill an arena though. She trundled through a dance/pop set aided by a fantastic session band who didn't seem that excited. But it was perfectly acceptable support and it was good to re-encounter Murder on the Dance Floor and the old Spiller song Groovejet (If This ain't Love).

Mental Arithmetic

Yesterday we were trying to calculate the salary to offer to someone who was going to work 25 hours or 62.5%.

Person Y
I've got a calculator on my phone.

St's head
That's five eighths.

Person Y
Now where did I put it? I turned it off for the interview. What was the number again?

St's head
Divide by 8, divide by 2, move decimal point.

Person X
It's going to be about £guess.

St
(After scribbling on the back of an envelope) The answer is... ( a precise number a little less than the guess)

Person X
How did you do that? Did you divide by 100 and multiply by 65 that quickly?

Person Z
62.5.

St
It's five eighths.

Person X
Oh, I was doing 65.

Person Y
The answer is... ( a precise number a little less than the guess, same as the previous one)

Does anyone know how to do mental arithmetic anymore? I wonder if some of the brain power that was once utilised doing number work is now side-tracked to dealing with the question, 'Which of my portable devices has a calculator app and where did I put it?'

I realise I am sounding a bit old. I'll be complaining that young people mumble next.

Social Media and Language

A few weeks ago I discovered, as I googled applicants for a job to see what the internet knew about them, that one of the candidates and I had a mutual friend. Since that friend was the teenage son of one of my oldest and closest buddies, someone who probably thought of me more as an uncle than anything else, I was intrigued and called for a chat. I wasn't seeking for any dirt to be dished, just interested in how they knew each other. In the course of the conversation I learned this line, 'He's not a friend; he's just a Facebook friend.' Ah. So in the teenage mind there is a difference.

His sister has been known to say 'Lol' when something is amusing. LOL, a text-speak abbreviation for Laughing Out Loud, has been with us for some years now but it was strange to hear it pass into the language as something a person might actually say. Either that or his sister (who may read this) is simply weird. It's a possibility.

These two examples should put us all on our toes when someone lifts a quote or idea from a social networking site. A quote, lifted out of context, as ever, is in danger of being twisted.

So when David Cameron, a man who said specifically during the General Election campaign that he didn't do social media, he didn't get it and that he thought too many tweets made a twat, condemned the thousands of people who had joined the RIP Raoul Moat site he fell foul of the changing language rule.

The Facebook site which suggested Moat was a legend has been taken down by its author but, as several callers to yesterday's Any Answers pointed out, it was only the title of a discussion group. If you wanted to contribute to the discussion you had to 'join.' It didn't mean you agreed with the title; it meant you wanted to say something. Apparently, by a matter of 10 to 1 or more, the comments were not offering approval to Moat.

It's the same with the word 'like.' Someone makes a smart comment and on Facebook you tick a box to say you like it. If someone says 'Sometimes there is no alternative but to drink a whole bottle of wine and eat two boxes of chocolates while watching Die Hard' I may 'like' the sentiment whilst not advocating the habit. There is no 'like but dim' button.

If you hear someone from the out-of-touch party quoting Twitter or Facebook, before you get in touch with your inner Daily Mail, have a ponder. Could its meaning have been nuanced on the journey?

Right. Top Gear, wine and chocolates. Good night.

Foul-Mouthed Crooning

Rock music, Graham Cray used to teach, engages with the soul and the emotions before the brain. So we tend to hear a piece of rock/pop (I won't bore you by listing all the sub-genres) and say, 'This feels good,' before we notice that the lyrics are inappropriate. Anyone out there tapped their feet to Sympathy for the Devil?

Of course the Christian watch-dogs can jump on the 'ban it' bandwagon a little early. Banning things always gives them publicity. Back in the mid sixties there was a outcry about the Animals doing a version of House of the Rising Sun because of its glamorisation of alcohol, overlooking the fact that it was a warning against it, 'Oh mothers, tell your children, not to do what I have done.'

Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood had a complex message about delayed orgasm, by a group with a gay sex agenda. It was blocked by Mike Reid and banned by the BBC and has enjoyed huge commercial success ever since. It seemed to fall foul of the 'there are certain things you just don't talk about' rule.

Which brings us to Plan B, the performance name of Ben Drew. I saw him live a few years ago supporting Roots Manuva. He was clearly a gifted lyricist, singer, song-writer and guitarist but the content of his ditties was drugs, under-age sex and other unseemly stuff. I wasn't sure if he was being ironic, a story-teller or giving us an insight into what it was like to be him. What is beyond doubt is that I wouldn't play his songs to my mother (that's what PG means by the way).

At the moment I am playing Plan B's latest, The Defamation of Strickland Banks. He has only gone and reinvented himself as a soul crooner in the Raphael Saadiq mould with an occasional outbreak of rapping. No lyric sheet and you can't get everything at first listen but the web-site makes it clear that the issues he dealt with when I first saw him are still bubbling under. A title such as Love Goes Down doesn't over-stretch the imagination but we also discover that Stay Too Long is about post drinking violence. The final track What You Gonna Do? seems to me to invite me to react to his work. The next album will be urban again. Will I buy it? Listen to it? Does that change because of the style? By the way the song is actually about whether the police will release or charge a man they have arrested.

Song-writers are story tellers and we don't criticise novelists for covering brave issues. Nor do we assume they condone the behaviour they write about.

So I'll listen and enjoy Plan B without switching off all my critical faculties. And I bet my Mum would say, 'This is nice.' Cos in a funny sort of way, it is.

What am I?

I seem to find myself:

On the liberal end of evangelicalism.
Supportive of women's ministry, headship and episcopacy.
Not preoccupied with preaching about sex but very preoccupied with preaching about Jesus.
Largely hating organ music.
Not a member of any Christian organisation except the Church of England.

Shall I turn the light off or get my coat?

Big Blogger

St
BB. How are you? And why the rabbit costume?

BB
I've been watching Donnie Darko again. There's a precedent.

St
Hang on. Wasn't that about a deluded kid with an imaginary friend?

(Beat)

I forgot. You don't answer that sort of question do you?

BB
So what's the state of your faith?

St
Can't you ask about my health or work or reading or filing or something gentle first?

(beat)

OK, OK. My faith is as strong as ever.

BB
So why has it always been like that?

St
I've been asking myself that. Once upon a time I analysed all the things I believed and rationalised as to why they were, on balance, more likely than not. I proved to myself that being a Christian was the right thing to do and followed Jesus as a result.

BB
Once upon a time?

St
Yeah.

BB
So what changed?

St
I worked out (rationally) that that wasn't faith. It was logic. Having very little faith (Mustard Seed Shavings anyone?) and yet acting as if everything is proved, is having great faith.

BB
I like your reasoning. But isn't it still reasoning? Can't you ever let go of reasoning?

(Beat)

Well?

St
You don't like it when I do it to you do you?

(Beat)

(Beat)

(Beat)

(Beat)

BB
You know who will crack first?

St
I don't really know how to let go of reasoning completely. Cogito ergo sum and all that. I think there are meaningful beliefs that are not based on my experience but I don't know how to access them apart from reasoning.

BB
Wow.

St
Why?

BB
That was really good thinking that. Top drawer pants.

St
But still pants?

BB
Glass darkly and all that.

St
I'm going to pray now.

BB
Wow.

St
Why?

BB
No way is that logical. Keep this up and for a nominal service charge you'll achieve Nirvana tonight.

St
Wrong faith; but good Zappa quote.

BB
By the way did you hear about the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit talking about their holiday plans?

St
No.

BB
They all decide to holiday in England. God the Father says he's going to the Eden Project as it reminds him of a lovely garden he made once when the beauty was unspoiled. Jesus the Son says he's going to the Northumberland Moors where there is a vast wilderness for prayer and solitude. They ask the Holy Spirit where he's going and he says to New Wine at Shepton Mallet.

'Why there?' ask Father and Son.

'Oh' he says, 'I like to go to places I've never been before.'

St
Thank you, good night.

Big Blogger is St's friend.

Paul the Octopus and Bad Statistics

Are you wearing your lucky pants?

Some years ago, in an ill-fated, England European campaign, I remarked to some friends that my pants had become uncomfortable. They were good and close friends (so were the people) and we had some light-hearted banter about how a treasured garment could, apparently, succumb to the strains of one-wash-too-many and become obsolete.

Trouble is England only went and beat Germany 1-0 with a Shearer goal and I was asked about the state of my underwear every England game from then on. OK one further game. England didn't get beyond the group stage.

This World Cup campaign (well done Spain, good work) there has been fun at the expense of the German staff who were required (by peer pressure?) to wear the same 'lucky' blue jumpers all tournament. Until, that is, they lost in the semis and then clothes were changed for the third-fourth place match.

Which brings us to this question? How many people did a lucky something to keep their team going but only went on a streak of one or two wins before their luck changed and the ritual was discarded like ill-fitting pants?

And that moves us on to the question of Paul the Octopus. Paul, an English octopus now residing in a German marine-life centre of some sort, has successfully predicted the outcome of every German World Cup game by choosing a mussel from one of two boxes before each game. In other words he has correctly guessed the outcome of a 50/50 seven times in a row. The odds of this are 1 in 128. If, as I think he did, he also called the final correctly, it is 1 in 256. Unlikely but you can imagine it happening. For every Paul there were 255 unreported duds.

It was a good bit of fun but statistically it doesn't mean anything.

Bad Vestments

Bad Vestments is a blog new-to-me discovered via The Ugley Vicar. Thanks. The site is dedicated to subjecting particularly awful Christian liturgical vestments to the ridicule they so richly deserve. Contributions are welcome and can be e-mailed. Hooray again for being a church without robes.

RIP Nicolas Hayek

Who? Well you'd be excused. I didn't know the name until I read the obituary but it was one of those cases where I knew I loved the guy without knowing who he was.

Back in the day watches worked like (excuse this) clockwork. You wound up a spring which powered the device as it uncoiled. They were a bit tick a tick a Timex tra la la dull and unless you had a many-jewelled one they were much of a muchness. The Swiss had a reputation for being the finest watch and clock makers in the world and their time-pieces were associated with leaving gifts or twenty-five years in the buying department acknowledgements. On a 21st birthday you might expect a good watch as a pressie.

Then along came LCD displays, cheap, long-life batteries and Japanese labour and the Swiss looked as if they would have to go back to chocolate making or harbouring war criminals for a living again.

Plans were actually made to wind-up (there I go again, sorry) the Swiss watch industry. Enter Nicolas Hayek. A brainwave here, a buy out there and a sense of fashion everywhere and the Swatch was born. The wonderful Swatch. Cheap but fashionable. Only one needed but collectible. Durable, efficient and cool.

Hayek understood that everything you wear, however functional, can be jewellery. Apart from a couple of gift watches I have received I have used nothing else to tell the time since the mid 1980s. He died last month aged 82. RIP.

Ten reasons not to be married to a retail area manager

Well I showed her the post and she issued a threat, 'Go on; do it then.' So, with all the caveats about how love can overcome an overwhelming set of obstacles, here goes. This list is peculiar to those whose partners are female and employed by the homeware sector:

1. Life is materialistic enough without your partner constantly talking about sales figures.
2. Normal hours of work are 7.00 a.m. - 7.00 p.m. and 8.00 p.m - 10.00 p.m. Monday to Friday, 4 p.m. - 7 p.m Sunday with occasional weekend duty and nights away from home to enable an early start the next day.
3. You will have to sit on the sofa next to someone doing their emails on a laptop.
4. If you get up from the sofa to get your partner a drink, when you return there will be papers where you were sitting.
5. Pay rises don't exist when a recession is expected, happening or being recovered from. Ever?
6. 42,000 miles a year loses us a lot of credibility with the green lobby.
7. Meal times will be fixed by an order being placed from the motorway.
8. Your house will be full of possible candidates for the 'Next year's worst possible Christmas stock item' competition. Some of these will occasionally need to be test-consumed.
9. There are only so many times you can talk about a shop as a lifestyle destination and keep a straight face.
10. Interesting discussions about current affairs can be timetabled by training as a beautician so you can do nails, hair or waxings.

Ten reasons not to be married to a priest

Following episode two of Rev a number of posts have appeared (google them; I can't be bothered to link) about the disadvantages of being married to a priest. Given that in the latest episode Mrs priest shared her fantasy that she wanted to dress as a prostitute and be role-play-picked-up and then have sex in a lift (possibly a man wrote that? I only ask) I'd like to offer ten reasons why you should be married to a priest:

1. We'll pray for you a lot
2. Done properly, black is cool
3. Christians make better lovers
4. We are generous and hospitable
5. We live in better houses than we could otherwise afford
6. We can do the school run
7. People tend to default to being nice to you. Strangers are friendly
8. We're very happy about the whole ho-lift thing if you are
9. We are articulate and good at conversation thingies like
10. We're in it for the long-haul

Tomorrow. Ten reasons not to be married to a retail area manager.

(Love you Lizzy)

Clay Shirky

Who? Internet, social-media guru, interviewed in the Guardian G2 by Decca Aitkenhead on Monday.

Read the interview here.

Read a post by Jonny Baker on the matter (and my comment) here. As Jonny points out, Shirky's own blog and various sites have not been updated recently. It seems you can have quite a presence simply hanging out on other people's pages. An inter-squatter? Sofa-surfer?

His genius, if such it is, is to observe how our developing use of social networks reflects the way cultural life develops in every other way. As an example, this quote:

Teenagers waste a lot of time trying to flirt with each other or crack each other up. To whom was this a mystery prior to the launch of Facebook?

Great name too.

Parable of the Sower - Luke 8

I noticed for the first time today that Luke's account of the sower is placed after a short introduction to some women who looked after Jesus, out of their own means, on his journey. One was probably an ex prostitute, one from Herod's household and one formerly possessed by a demon.

Mark launches into the parable at the beginning of a chapter, with Jesus teaching it from a boat as the context.

Why does Luke do this differently? How about this? Some seed falls on the path, the rocks and amongst weeds. This farmer is rubbish. Can't he aim his seed straight?

Well no. Because this farmer is not a real farmer at all but someone doing a work with the word of God. Scattering it randomly and not worrying over much about the results. The sower is sowing the possibility that God will speak and reveal himself to those amongst whom he sows. And he is generous. The word of God is always good and will bear much fruit in the right place. But dens of iniquity, evil leaders' households and demoniac gatherings were probably not the places you would describe as 'good soil.' Yet it sprouted there.

That's the grace of God for you. It is not for the preacher to worry about the seed. It is always good. It will feel pretty depressing, by and large, as again and again your best work bears no apparent fruit. But God is up to stuff. And things take a while to germinate.

It may feel as if people are ever hearing but not perceiving. It may feel as if you have, as Isaiah did, to proclaim a message that will be ignored until all the people have been carried away into exile. But the parable is simply, as Bob Clucas puts it, 'Gearing people up for disappointment.'

Go again.

Careforce

My friends at Careforce, a wonderful organisation which places Christian young adults in churches and projects for a year's 'hands-on' experience, need sixteen more volunteers this coming year. One of the current volunteers, who has just finished a year, says this:

'My year has been one of the most challenging but exciting times of my life. It has met every expectation I had but in a different way to how I imagined and added others! I have been stretched out of my comfort zone beyond belief but grown because of it in so many ways. I have made friends, gained a family and have learnt so much about God this year. If you want to learn more about God and strengthen you relationship with him, this is the gap-year for you! It has also given me a flavour of church work, which I hope at some point God might call me back to!'

Whilst I shall have a word about over-enthusiastic exclamation mark use (if the words aren't exclaiming what are they doing on the page?), I think you get the point.

If interested, contact:

Ian Prior
Director - Careforce
35 Elm Road, New Malden, Surrey, KT3 3HB
T: 020 8942 3331
E: ian@careforce.co.uk
W: www.careforce.co.uk

Looking Up

Not balloon fest yet (that's August I think) but one or two are getting some preparatory air miles in.

New Header

On a walk with some chums over Nailsea last week I was able to take the above shot from the same hill as the previous header but, being high June, the wheat field was a great foreground. I'm hoping, eventually, to have a good picture for each season.

You'll see the new text too. My book on Christian lifestyle for beginners, due to be published by BRF next Easter, is going to use the title of the blog and so will be called Mustard Seed Shavings.

I think, as it will be eight years old then, that will be the time to rename the blog and have a bit of a new angle.

Rude Vegetables

Forgive me going all Esther Rantzen on you but is this, and I really don't want to start a competition, the rudest carrot you have ever seen?

Stat of the Day

In researching oil spills I discovered that the combined corporation and income tax paid by BP and its employees is enough to fund the UK's Department for International Development every year.

They lose; we lose.

Oil Spills

I do an article once a month or so for the Urban Saints (formerly Crusaders if you haven't been keeping up).

Their on-line Energize material for teaching the Bible to young people is rapidly becoming the most thorough curriculum in the Christian world for supporting its youth-work.

I did a lot of sessions for them when I was working as a freelance and it was interesting work. I read the Bible, got to grips with it, tried to produce helpful teaching aids for others and got paid; what's not to like?

Part of the Energize site is Energize in the News. You will see various links to it. A few of us are on stand-by to write articles linking an event in the news to the Bible and a youth-group. We try and pump them out quite quickly. Latest two are on the World Cup and, talking of pumping out quite quickly, oil spills. I did the latter one. If you want to take an opportunity, in your week by week youth work, to have a discussion about what Christian faith has to say about a newsworthy event, I commend a subscription. There is a monthly fee but a three month free sample opportunity.