Christians are great. Fantastic people. Really. (I find it immensely frustrating that, even when I'm trying desperately hard to be sincere, I still sound sarcastic.) I genuinely love the church and the people in it. But, they aren't half weird sometimes. Take the church service I went to last Sunday night. An act of worship involving writing down sins and problems in our lives, taking the paper to the front of the hall, and jumping on it. (Apparently to symbolise our having faith to move mountains.) Wandering around the hall while singing, to symbolise 'taking ground'. And a middle-aged woman, who clearly thought she was blessed with a gift for prophetic dancing, and seemed to be miming milking a giant cow, and walking like a velociraptor.

Now, I freely admit that I sometimes have a problem with cynicism. I chose to go along with all of the above, precisely because it's exactly the sort of thing I usually raise a satirical eyebrow at, and that usually helps nobody at all. But my goodness, it's hard not to make snide comments. These people practically take the piss out of themselves; how am I supposed to resist giving them a helping hand in the process? Picture a recovering alcoholic, wandering into a pub, and being surrounded by people chugging down every conceivable alcoholic drink. How easy would it be for this recovering alcoholic to stay dry? Perhaps I'm being melodramatic, but I consider myself a kind of recovering cynic. Middle-aged women dancing like velociraptors are likely to send me off the deep end. I know I need to stay in the metaphorical pub. After all, what's the alternative? But I know I'll need God's help to stay on the wagon.

Whether or not I've gained a reputation for being a cynic, never let it be said that I'm oblivious to God speaking to me. If you haven't read The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning, you really should. People seem to think that the idea that God loves us is cheesy - almost a truism. We just don't get it. What the book brings across is just how deeply, irrationally and unconditionally God loves us. I'm not even going to attempt to explain it. Just read the book!

Anyway, I was reading The Ragamuffin Gospel over Easter. It was certainly thought-provoking, but I s'pose it didn't really sink in. But on Easter Sunday, some rather strange things happened to me. I was at Spring Harvest, and, in the same evening, the following three events befell me:
1. A guy who I didn't recognise, having already spent the whole day being inexplicably nice to me, insisted on buying me a coffee. It was only when he physically handed the coffee over that I recognised him from my small group in the 11-14s venue at Spring Harvest 4 years ago.
2. A group of girls who I'd spoken to once (maybe twice?) before, gave me a chocolate bar for no accountable reason.
3. A friend of mine came and found me, and gave me a tube of Jaffa Cakes. (Truly the food of the righteous. If there are no Jaffa Cakes in heaven, I'm not going.)

Certainly an unusual chain of events. It was only when I got to bed that night that I realised that through each of these people, God had been clearly illustrating the lessons He'd been teaching me through the book. He just loves me. He wants to bless me and give me great stuff. I've done nothing to deserve that, but He wants to do it anyway. In practical, down-to-earth ways, He'd shown me that. It might sound stupid, but I'm taking great comfort in the knowledge that God knows that I like coffee and Jaffa Cakes.

So America want to tighten their border controls (or more specifically, their border with Mexico,) to prevent a continuing influx of illegal immigrants. Not surprisingly, a lot of people are unhappy about this. Even less surprisingly, a large number of them are Mexican. Read more on today's demonstrations on the BBC website.

What are we to make of this? Are the new border controls a perfectly reasonable measure, to protect America against a large number of people who, let's face it, are trying to take advantage of them? Or is this yet another symptom of America's insularity and suspicion of anything remotely foreign? (I still can't believe that the overwhelming majority of Americans don't even own a passport.) Probably a combination of the two.

It was a schoolboy error. There's no other way of putting it. I arranged a couple of weeks ago to take a trip to Oldham, in order to meet a contact, with a view to organising a 'Funday' event in the summer. We arranged to meet yesterday, and, not realising exactly how far it is from London to Oldham, I cheerily agreed to meet at 10.30am, and took it for granted that I'd be able to drive there and back in a day. Oh dear. I consulted the oracle over the weekend (AA Routefinder), and was confronted with a 446 mile round trip. That's further than the distance between London and Glasgow.

I was left with a dilemma. Cancelling was out of the question. Getting a train was now also out of the question, as at this notice I'd have had to take out a second mortgage on my flat to buy a ticket. So, I just had to bite the bullet and drive. But, should I phone this contact of mine and ask to meet later, thus eliminating the need to leave home at 5.30am? Or should I save face, and just go ahead as planned? For me, sleep outweighs personal pride anytime. So I managed to negotiate myself an extra hour. Makes all the difference, and makes me look not-too-stupid. Unfortunately, I was still presented with the prospect of ten hours in the car. Incredibly bad for my posture. Still, at least I had plenty of time to listen to Radio 1, immerse myself in youth culture, and surprise myself with how much of the current chart music I actually like. Old fogey? Moi?

OK, this is getting shameful now. Several people have remarked on how slack I've been in keeping my blog even remotely up to date. My excuse is that I've been doing so much writing for work recently, that it's been really hard to motivate myself to blog as well.

But I'm feeling suitably chastened now, particularly after an evening with some friends on Friday, who poured scorn on my blogging credentials. So, here's a quick run down on what I've been doing recently. I've been writing new material for Rock Solid and RS2. By the end of this week, I should have written 12 meeting outlines. Check out the YFC website for more on exactly what Rock Solid and RS2 are. Suffice to say here that I reckon they're about the best resources available to help churches reach 11-14 year-olds. (But then, I s'pose I would say that...)

I've also been writing some meandering thoughts for YPs, the Bible reading notes for younger teenagers. Click here and find 'Insite', to see my online ramblings, but I'm afraid my hard copy material won't be available until September. (This is one of the quirks of my job. Because of the time needed to get material edited, designed, printed and distributed, I have to work months in advance. Last week, I found myself writing an RS2 meeting about Christmas. Weird.)