If you could change one thing…
Originally uploaded by bobweasel.
Kirsty and I spent the weekend in Cornwall, exploring the beaches and countryside and staying in a tiny tent. It was great! Part of our trip was spent at The Eden Project where we looked around the biomes, wandered the gardens and learned about the importance of plants within our world. It’s a fascinating and brilliant place that everyone should visit (although I found it a little too humanistic with its emphasis on the potential and greatness of people).
Eden currently has an interactive exhibition called ‘towards the edge’ which included lots of great creative ideas (click here for the full Flickr set).
Part of the display included thousands of tags with various questions printed on them. People were invited to write their own answers and hang them up with others on a clothes line. As I stood looking at the display, this particular tag caught my eye. Among thousands of others, it really captured my own thoughts and reminded me that God is doing His work in the unlikeliest of places.
If you could change one thing in the world what would it be?
Yesterday as I was walking to my car, I bumped into a group of teenagers that I hadn’t seen for a few months. After the initial greetings of “alriiig?” one of the group, Jason, told me he was learning to be an extreme skater. Now this surprised me quite a lot as Jason has always been downtrodden, demotivated and generally not sporty at all. As it turns out, it seems that Jason’s long-dead Great Grandfather spoke to him during a seance telling him to stop being lazy as he would later start to earn around £30k a year doing sports. Jason decided it should be extreme sports and his friends were keen to encourage him.
As we stood there chatting, the guys asked if I believed in spirits and paranormal activity. I explained that as a Christian I believed in God and knew there was a spiritual dimension (although not everything was helpful or healthy). This seemed to excite them a lot and they asked if I wanted to come to the next seance - it was only £3 a time and you get tea and biscuits.
It suddenly struck me that in their minds there was no conflict in being a Christian and attending a seance, in fact they were both ’spiritual’ activities so we actually had a lot in common. Despite the inherent confusion and spiritual danger in mixing these beliefs, I was left wondering if their enthusiasm for spiritual development was something worth celebrating and nurturing? Maybe this is the beginning of their journey to meeting Christ. I just hope I can play a small part in that.
A few weeks back I got a comment on this post about the Christian Blog Awards encouraging me to enter. Now not knowing much about the awards, I went to the website and followed the instructions half expecting to discover a scam! Then yesterday, I got an email saying:
Congratulations!
Your blog has gone through to the last judging stage of the Christian Web and Blog Awards.
To be honest I’m a bit stunned as there are some really excellent Christian blogs out there that are far more relevant than this rambling page. I can only imagine no-one else entered themselves. 
Has anyone else out there received a similar email or know any more about the Christian Blog Awards? If so, get in touch please. I’ll let you know the outcome.
I had a really great time last week. The weather was terrible and rarely did the sun shine as the photo shows, but I got to hang out with around 30 fantastic young people without having any agenda to achieve or promote - just enjoying their company. It was a good chance for me to put into practice the act of ‘presence’ or ‘being with’ people which Mark Yaconelli promotes in Contemplative Youth Ministry.
The other thing I really enjoyed about Soul Survivor was the way in which Mike Pilavachi and team hosted the main meetings. With nearly 10,000 people on site it must be very easy to get caught up in the hype and atmosphere that a crowd of that size creates. Instead I found the exact opposite, a patient, gentle and above all, humble approach that gave glory to God rather than revolving around a figurehead on the stage. There’s something I could learn from that…
Our good friends Ryan and Anna have finally given birth to their first child, whom they’ve named Bethany Hope. I’m really looking forward to meeting her soon. Congratulations guys!
Oh and I’ve just made a great chocolate cake with real chocolatey chunks in! Kirsty’s very happy. 
Soul survivor, day 2
Originally uploaded by bobweasel.
The weather here has been pretty bad with heavy wind and rain all night. Although everyone here’s in good spirits, Sam (pictured) is exhausted from evacuating his tent at 5am after it became a swimming pool! What with his brother Dan opening the emergency exit on the coach yesterday as we were driving through Salisbury, it’s been a lot of fun so far…
I’m sitting in the office today catching up with various bits of paperwork before heading off the Shepton Mallett on Monday. We’re taking around 25 young people along to Soul Survivor A and I’m quite excited about going because the last time I went was waaaay back in 1999.
Our group is joining together with St Margaret’s (another local church) and sharing our camp, food and friendship so I really hope to encourage much inter-church shennanigans.
While there, I also plan to catch up with various friends and youthy-types so if you’re going to be on site, drop me an email on “mail [at] jonjolly.com” and we’ll try to hook up.
Meanwhile here is some extreme camping: it’s in-tents!
It’s been a busy few weeks around here what with various weddings, kids playschemes and things. I’ve not really had much time to post here so apologies to regular readers!
Luckily we got Sky+ a few weeks back (due to not being able to get Freeview in this area) and even though we’ve not been in much, I’ve still been able to catch up with Grand Designs and Heroes. In fact pausing live TV and recording a series with 1-click has really changed my viewing habits. I’ve even been able to get into some great kids TV like Ben 10 on Cartoon Network which I class as “research” for my job.
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