Gareth Bezett

I have been the recipient of a generous gift of an HTC Apache. I have spent a little bit buying an miniSD card a couple of good Bible translations for Pocket e-Sword. I'm now super organised and I have to do lists and my calendar working. I have about 300MB of music loaded and about the same of the talks from Changing World - Changing Church (I'm listening to Mike Frost currently).

I have been able to get the thing so set up that I'm less worried about having my laptop handy as I can do the bulk of urgent support on my Apache. This also means that my next laptop could be a big chunky powerful affair rather than a small portable one with great battery life.

Labels: tech

I've have taken the time to read what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says about what we call The Church. Clauses 817 to 819 deal with the fact that there is division in the Body of Christ. The treatment (post Vatican II) of this topic seems very fair and even generous. This is vastly different from what many Catholics, clergy and laity, have to say on the matter.

Some of the significant points are:

• "Men on both sides were to blame" for many of the divisions
• The sin of separation does not rest with the current members of Christian communities outside the Catholic Church
• "All who have been justified in faith and baptism are incorporated into Christ"
• "Christ's Spirit uses these Churches and ecclesial communities as means [sic] of salvation"
• The Catholic Church accepts us "with respect and affection as brothers"

Note that this is the official English language version of the Catholic Church's faith. The Catechism is meant to be used by local churches to create their own catechisms for instruction of the faithful.

I essentially agree with most of what the catechism has to say on the nature of The Church. Clearly, I have trouble with the doctrine of Petrine precedence (Rome is the senior church because Peter was the senior apostle and he founded the church in Rome and the Popes are his successors), but the Marian points are less troublesome for me.

Labels: theology

My wife has had results from her two honours papers. She got a B+ for each of them. The grades themselves are good, but they are significant in that they indicate that, with similar results next year, Tracey should be looking at at least upper second class honours, which is what she needs for easy entry to the masters programmes that interest her. I expect her to do even better next year as whe will hopefully be back in the swing of uni after this year's effort.

I am now the proud owner-to-be of a 3 burner barbeque.

Also, my blog is now on Blogger beta.

http://www.kencollins.com/pray-34.htm

This is a new one to me.

Labels: theology

Notes from yesterday's sermon are now published. The opening paragraph is included below. You can download the entire sermon from here. This was week 5 of the Old Testment Challenge 2.

Our prayer life is a fundamental part of our ongoing walk with God. It is impossible to grow to spiritual maturity without a healthy prayer life. So what does a healthy prayer life look like? What lessons can we learn from Samuel’s birth and ministry?

Labels: sermon, theology

In the intercession requests that come my way, prayer for guidance is second only to health issues.

Is this how it's supposed to be? Is the path supposed so obscure or do we just make it harder than needs to be?

The conventional wisdom seem to be that God doesn't let us know much beyond the next step so that it takes faith to be obedient and so that we aren't scared off by stuff that we can't currently imagine ourselves doing, but we will be prepared for when the time comes; but why do we have such a hard time figuring out what the next step is?

Labels: theology

I have been given a telling off by some of my more dedicated fans and I am under instructions to get back into posting regularly with some pith and vinegar. So be warned.

I bought some important shed supplies today:

- Linseed Oil (for staining wood)

- Turps (to thin the above)

- CRC 5.56

- Drill bits

- Small Chisel

- Padlock latch (for the door)

- 3 "antique" coat hooks to make a coat rack for behind the door

I also got Her Indoors some sparkly hot glue gun sticks she wouldn't complain about all the money I spent.

In my day (roll your eyes now) we played with Double Happies in the lead up to Guy Faulkes. These have long since been banned so now kids have to play with bigger, more dangerous fireworks, buring recycle bins and stuff. In retrospect, I think it was a mistake to ban Double Happies, it actually made thing less safe.