funkypancake

passing place being a place for passing being a place to die ? there are worse final views.

ice cream van and a church - there's a fantastic title in this picture somewhere - but i can't think of it !

the talk at church yesterday was about the 'p word' (prayer) and how we need help. made me think of this picture which i was about to post. funny old world.

i spoke to the chap who wrote this sign and he told me he'd raised £700 for the hospital which was quite fantastic.

i asked him if his answers related to geographic or spiritual lost-ness. he said it was solely geographic lost-ness. rather than soul-y lost-ness i assume.

dave had a bookstall at church yesterday which was good. he had some top bargains. he did the talk as well meaning he was a busy chap.

but it got me thinking - perhaps we need to think of more ways of monetising congregations. i don't mean that. i just liked the sound of the phrase.

half of rupert, clive, mini-patricia, dave, david and peter

mmm. sausages

'extreme' care ? that's pushing care to the limit, and then some. that's almost spiritual in its message

touch here for instant cure. it's rather like an item from the weekly world news (which i used to read regularly half my life ago)

(pixie title shoe-horned in here)

i can't decide if this is spiritual or cosmic (like so many things in life). Is it a message for visiting aliens put there by interplanetary pacifists or a fight back by the eco-refuseniks ?

all these photos are by kezia using this setup:

happy easter !

in the days before neon they used nice gold wire to make their eye catching signage

saturday we went to prism of praise with musical people from church. it's good to go to conferences which are nothing to do with work. this one was about how to make church music cool.

it was also Richard Drummer's birthday so we sang and caked him over lunch

he was very pleased. i think.

esther got baptised yesterday. what a fantastic thing it was !

and afterwards we had a big party cake

the thing about christmas is that, from a christian's point of view, it points to easter which is when the no-longer-baby jesus died (but he obviously had to be born first).

anyroadup, cadbury's are obviously in agreement as i bought (and ate) my first easter egg yesterday. and here it is/was.

our vicar used an excellent set of visual aids for the christmas morning service. they were made by one of our friends who turns out is a secret fantastic maker of such things.

it's worth clicking on for a big version as it looked very South Park !

Meth church goes against abstinance principles, although these aren't quite so strict these days

despite all the upbeatness, death is a fairly common thread on the blog. sorry about that. it's something we have to think about whilst we can though int it ?

anyway, i like the idea of this funeral directors sign, which is obviously targetted at the impulse purchaser.

you can't quite see it, but the building next door is called 'wendover'. which is a nice death pun too kinda.

i went to a church thing at a church in the next town last night, which was all about churches working together and sharing and supporting each other rather than being competitive (good plan).

afterwards they had some people wandering around with aprons on and cups of tea/coffee and cake. what a brilliant plan. there should be much more cake and people in aprons at churches.

there's a jesus lizard in this picture. can you see it ?

so, here's the band this week. it's x-factor-7. but joke (if there is one) is that there are only 6 of us.

and here's me with my guitar

and you can hear what we sound like here (30 second clip): Download file

we're now half way through our church kids holiday club and much fun is being had. and it's a good excuse to post this picture which i took ages ago, but have been waiting until a good excuse to post it !

it was our church (goers) barbeque yesterday and a good, warm, time was had by all.

here are some people

and here is our church 'in action'

what's the point in changing your priorities if you don't signal them to people ?

this photo might sum up the christian life. christians are to be reflection a christ for the world to see (note the surveilance camera top left).

my reflection is pretty rusty - most of the time you wouldn't know me from adam.

this sign works on so many levels !

i was kindly sent a copy of Worship God Live by Bob Kauflin to review. here's me holding the CD in the car (jane was driving):

jane leads worship at our church and agreed to do the review, so here it is !

i don't think i've mentioned it here before in much detail, but not many whiles ago (within the life of this blog) i suffered from chronic pain. I posted about my last trip to the pain clinic here (note the unfortunate URL !). I threw all my old tablets away today as i no longer need them and i thought you might be interested in my personal story (or is that the story of my personals?)

death hey. funny old thing. i assume this cigarette packet says "smoke these and you'll croak" in polish or something. i don't smoke, but i think i'll still die sometime.

2 cigarette related posts in one day. what are the chances of that ? perhaps it's to do with this

i was part of a live Songs of Praise on Easter Morning. did you see us ?

it was part of Spring Harvest which we were at last week. and so were the BBC

and here is Steve Chalke who said hello to me.

today's good friday, the day when we 'celebrate' the fact that Jesus died to act as a link between people and God. So that all the bad stuff we do can be forgotten and we can approach a perfect God. what an amazing thing.

how far apart from the helpless baby jesus we celebrate at christmas, and seen here on this statue.

after yesterday's set up shot, here's some actual spontaneous church cleaning

there's probably something spiritual here about going to church and cleansing yourself, or maybe getting rid of the rubbish in your life. i'm sure there's a good pun i'm missing here though.

sunlight reflected through mottled glass on the toilet walll at church. heavenly.

after sitting silently for 350 years, i think we can safely that the reason they are so quiet is because they have passed away. but i could be wrong.

there's no right way - that's relativism isn't it ? i absolutely don't believe that.

isn't this a classic bit of british understated local advertising ? it was in a car park in a nice oxfordshire village.

i played bass yesterday morning for the first time in about 2 months and i think we rocked a little as we also had richard drummer and jane on her strat.

anyway, big eye tony used to complain about the drums being too loud, but he's in a different place now. specifically that place is behind the drums having a sneaky go after the service !

during the talk about vicar suggested that the word 'praise' in the Bible is a bit like the modern equivalent of 'advertise'. i thought that was very interesting and it's made me think. Both about God and advertising !

a new year thought - what's the point to anything ?

yeah, it's christmas day which is a day to celebrate, especially if you are a christian ! christians believe that jesus was actually born as a human in to the world. that's quite mad when you think about it. if it were true what would that really mean ?

i believe it. and today i celebrate !

jane and i went to Oxford last night for the Returning Home The Prodigals (a quick skim of the front page of this website explains what it's about). It was very good.

rob parsons of Care for the Family was the main speaker. he let me take his photo for funkypancake (though i think he was a bit confused when i explained what it is)

Rob Parson wrote all those excellent "The Sixty Minute" books which offer encouragement to dads, mums, spouses, are really easy reads and full of great fun ideas (and can be read in an hour!)

the sermon at church yesterday was about what our attitude to sunday should be. you can read what was said here.

we're studying genesis at the moment - the Bible book, not the band, although 'genesis the early years' would be quite a cool sermon series, or how about Genesis BC (Before Collins).

but we've been learning lots on how God created the world as a cool place. hopefully you catch a bit of that excitement here on funkypancake.

anyway, sunday at mcdonalds is 'funday' apparently. so much fun in fact that they dressed one of their people up as a bear with a wonky face.

i went to a meeting last week next to Bunhill Fields cemetry. Apart from being a really quiet place away from the bustle of the main street nearby, it's also 'home' to a number of notable characters, including:

john bunyan (writter of Pilgrim's Progress)

poet William Blake

Daniel De-Foe (writter of Robinson Crusoe)