Euro 08

Right so this year we cannot support our own country in the upcoming football tournament, so I think we all need a team to support to make it a little more interesting. I am going for Portugal. Who will your team be?

When I say church, you say quiz.......

On Saturday I went to a church quiz. It was run by Littleover Churches Together, and so there were people there from many different churches. On my team there was me, two 16 year olds, a 13 year old and two people in there 40's. We were the youngest team there by a long long way, the rest of the room was fairly dominated by white haired type people. The quiz master was 20 minutes late, as the advertising in his church said it started half an hour later than it did. The first round was bible stuff - fair enough you think for a church quiz. He gave us the answer to the first question, not even by accident, he did it on purpose. The first question was, ‘what was the name of Isaiah’s horse?’ The answer to this was ‘Isme, because Isaiah said ‘Woe is me.’ It turned out the rest of round had answers like that. Another question was ‘what vegetable did Noah not want on the ark?’ Answer: a leek. At this point we wondered if we had come to a quiz or a guess the corny punchline evening. It unsurprisingly turned out that no-one got more than about 3 points out of ten in that round.

The quiz did pick up slightly from there. There were some good questions, many of which we could answer. We played our joker on a round that we got full marks on, so that was pleasing.

Round 8 was due to be a music round. We were unsure how we would do with this round as with this kind of round it often depends on who has put it together as to how easy it is. Had the quiz master have put it together it would have all been music from before when we were born. It turned out that someone else had put the round together. It also turned out that when they gave the quiz master the tape, they didn’t give them the answers. This was realised at about round 6, so the score person went off to see if they could get the answers. They couldn’t

Between each round they kept trying to get hold of the person who had put the music round together, to no avail. We did round 9 and round 10, in the hope that the answers to the music round (round 8) may come available. It was getting a little bit late by now, and some people wanted to go home. We were asked if we wanted to do the music round. Many people didn’t, but we thought it would be quite fun, and as the most vocal team, our voices were heard and the music round began.

The first song was All Saints, Pure Shores – I had half a thought that it was All Saints, but didn’t remember the song. Someone else on my team thought it was Kiss Me by Six Pence None the Richer, so that is what we gave as our answer. We had a few more bits of songs, most of which we knew the title to, and some of which we knew the artist to.

The sixth song was Sex on the Beach by The Venga Boys. It was a part of the song were they sung ‘sex on the beach’ several times. Now bear in mind for one moment the demograph of the people at the quiz (elderly Christians). We found the looks on their faces rather amusing. The quiz master clearly had no idea that song was on the tape either. The next song was Good Vibrations by The Beach Boys. Normally this would not be amusing, but considering the song it followed it turned out to be rather amusing.

When we got to the end of the round, the tape was played again in case we had missed any. That meant that we got to see the interesting looks on peoples faces again. By the time we had listened to it a second time, they had managed to get on the phone the person who had put the round together. She didn’t have a list of the answers in front of her, so for her to give the answers the tape had to be played a third time so she could listen to the songs and try and remember what they were.

I done a good answer to another of the songs. It was Octpus’s Garden, which is a song originally done by The Beatles. This version sounded quite Beatlesish, but I didn’t think it was them. Thought the person singing sounded a bit like Ringo Starr, so we put that as our answer and it turned out is was right! Another answer I knew and I was quite proud of (I think this was in the geography round) was ‘where does Postman Pat live?’
Anyway the main thing really that is actually important from the whole evening is that my team won – by a clear two and a half points. That was good. Our prize was 8 bags of left over crisps – whoop! (oh and btw it raised about £100 for Christian Aid)

Grace

At church tonight we were thinking about grace, different aspects and all that. Sometimes I hear stuff in church and think 'yes, but how do I now apply that to my life'. This evening I had no trouble applying it to my life, I was sat between someone who really could not sing but still sang at a reasonable volume and someone with dog muck on their shoe. Undeserved kindness was definitely needed to be shown to both those people.

Forgotten

I just thought of something to blog. It took me six clicks and 35 key taps to be able to blog. In the time that took I have forgotten what it was I was going to say. I will be back if I remember.

I have forgotten to go on here a bit. I don't really have anything to say (part of the reason I have forgotten), but part of the reason is also that the Hayley Gareth type blog has been down, and that is the main way I access this little bit of space. So really I place any blame to be apportioned on Mark. I will try and think of something to say one day.

Dream land

Last night I had a really strange dream. I was at some kind of largish Christian type event. It was no specific one I have ever been to, but did have parts of different ones I have been to. There were people there from different parts of my life who have never been in the same place a the same time. That is not so unusual for dream world I guess, but I can remember thinking in the dream that it was weird that these people were all in one place, but put it down to being at a largish Christian type event and the Christian world being small meaning that sometimes you see people where you would not expect, or find out that that someone you know knows someone else that you know but you never knew they knew each other.

One of the people in the dream was Hayley. I had gone on a long walk as all the food we were being served was either very expensive or had cheese and/or chocolate in. For some reason this meant I should go on a long walk. I then met Hayley, who was staying with some of her uni friends in some caravans (the nice kind) near a railway station (it was unclear whether it was disused or not).

They were staying in the caravans as it was the cheapest way to go to the largish Christian type event. Anyway, it turned out that they had been robbed because they had left a little window open. Two of Hayely’s friends had had everything stolen (undies and all). Hayley wasn’t too worried because she had only had a couple of things taken, and they were things she didn’t really like anyway. Right so none of this is the interesting part, I shall start a new paragraph and get onto it now.

Right we were at the largish worship gathering, there were lots of CYM (of the Ipswich variety) staff and hangers on there. We reached the ‘ministry’ part of the worship gathering. There were lots of people praying for other people. These parts of a worship gathering always make me feel uncomfortable and God has to poke me a lot if he wants me to pray for someone or be prayed for. We were being told to get into two’s and pray for each other. The people around me had all paired up and there was no-one left for me to pair up with in the immediate vicinity. Because of this and my general uncomfortableness at these parts of worship gatherings I sat down, with my knees up and my forehead resting on my knees so that I could peek out and see what was happening.

There were lots of people praying for each other and that was great for them. There was someone else sitting down next to me, and someone else sitting down next to her. I don’t know of they were praying for each other or not. From my peeking out position I could see Dave Pepper was going round praying for people. I thought that this was not a right thing to do because we had been asked by the important man at the front to pray in pairs and he was not doing this, and also he was not on the ‘ministry team’ and so had no right to go round praying for people. I thought to myself, ‘he better not come and pray for me coz he’s not following the instructions right and he’s not meant to be doing that!’

Anyway he prayed for the person sitting next to the person sitting next to me. She stood up as he prayed. He prayed for the person sat next to me, she stood up as he prayed. As the woman sat next to me stood up while Dave Pepper prayed for her I found myself standing up as well. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t stop myself from doing so. As soon as I stood up Dave came and prayed for me, putting his hand on the top of my head. I kept feeling like I was going to fall over, and thought I must have stood up too quickly and that had made me dizzy. Then I fell right over in one big collapse. I realised I had been ‘slain in the Spirit*’. Now this has never happened to me in real life, so for it happen in a dream was incredibly strange. I was shaking, was tingly, was warm in a glowing kind of way, and it felt like there was a huge sheet wafting over me, and like someone was giving me an all embracing hug. Dave stayed with me and kept praying for me until the experience had ended.



* this is not a phrase I am particularly comfortable using, I think it is because it makes it sound like a bad thing, slaying happens with dragons and knights and all that, but I looked it up on wikipedia and it told me this –‘when a person enters a state with loss of all motor control over their body and falls to the floor during an event perceived as a personal encounter with God's glory and power, usually associated with occasions of public prayer ministry when the laying on of hands is practiced.’ This description I feel comfortable with.

Nowt going on round here

Paul's internet is not very working so you won't find him on here at the mo. I have nothing to say that anyone would particularly want to read so you won't find me on here at the mo. If Paul's internet gets fixed, or my brain gets fixed you may find something or interest here, but until then you just won't.