Christmas is amazing! There is just so much I love about it, the chance to spend time with friends and family, fantastic food, especially mince pies, singing carols, Christmas trees and the classic Christmas movies we watch again and again, but most of all I love what it means for me as a Christian.

The idea that Jesus loves us so much, that he leaves heaven to come down to first century Palestine, to live and die and then be raised to life again as a man in order that we might be reconciled to God is just mind blowing! Christmas is the story of God getting his hands dirty, serving the people he created and bringing with him the Kingdom of God as he heals the sick, gives sight to the blind, teaches incredible, life changing truth and raises the dead.

Christmas is about the God who created the universe stretching out his hand and offering it us, offering us life and salvation, offering us the chance to start over without the guilt of our wrongdoing hanging over us. But it is even bigger than that, bigger than you or me. Jesus birth is the beginning of the end for death, suffering and pain- it is God starting to restore all the things we have messed up. This is the hope of Christmas.

About 600 years before Jesus’ birth the prophet Isaiah declared that hope was coming, a promise of hope, of peace, of mercy and grace for all of us- I think it might be my favourite Christmas passage…

“The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
a light has dawned.

You have enlarged the nation
and increased their joy;
they rejoice before you
as people rejoice at the harvest,
as soldiers rejoice
when dividing the plunder.

Every warrior’s boot used in battle
and every garment rolled in blood
will be destined for burning,
will be fuel for the fire.

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the LORD Almighty
will accomplish this.”

Have an amazing, hope-filled Christmas

This is the 100th post on intheroom, which is awesome! My past two blogs lasted about 4 months each, so to get this far is something of a milestone. That works out about a post every 4 days I think, and adds up to a lot of writing!

Overall there have been 1,695 views of the site, the busiest day was Wednesday 6th May 2009 (coinciding with the Camp Quest post I think) and an average of 7 views per day. Not stunning statistics I realise, but there has been a steady increase over the last year or so. Most people I know with successful blogs always say you need to stay focused on one key topic to develop a big following, but I’m not disciplined enough (or know enough about a single subject!) to do that, so intheroom is a scatter shot of ideas and thoughts, reviews and views, and I can’t imagine that changing any time soon. As if to back that up, there are 43 categories of posts, and 84 different tags and 107 comments on a whole range of things.

The top 3 most read posts are the following:

1. Camping it up- Dawkins style: some thoughts on Camp Quest, an atheist  summer camp for kids

2. I love you Lord (Jesus is my boyfriend): a controversial little post about a style of modern worship songs (more interesting than it sounds!)

3. Reading the Bible and Creation: Ken Ham really pissed me off, thats all I can say…..

I suppose the thread running through all of these posts is that they are about things that raise strong emotions and that people like to debate, and I think engaging with that is no bad thing at all. My favourite post is one that fits in with that theme, and is entitled Rapture Ready, a spleen venting after a particularly frustrating conversation with a devotee of the Left Behind Series. I have no idea how many people read it, as it was posted on the blogger incarnation of intheroom, but sometime next week I’ll repost it properly and see what everyone thinks.

So, here’s to another 100 posts (hopefully some of them will be slightly less self-serving than this one!) and thanks to everyone who reads this, especially those of you who comment (!) and come back time and time again to have a look!

Brilliant! RATM reach #1 ahead of X Factor starlet Joe, and yes, they are on the same label, and yes Sony will make a huge amount of money out of this, and yes, maybe it has been a bit overhyped, but who cares! It’s great! (and Shelter take home a good pot of cash from this too!) Charlie Brooker in the Guardian has posted an excellent article on the race for the 2009 top spot….

“Dot-eyed CGI judge and omnipresent hair product spokeswoman Cheryl Cole recently complained that the campaign against McElderry’s single was “mean”, adding “If that song – or should I say campaign – by an American group is our Christmas No 1, I’ll be gutted for him and our charts.”

She’s missing the point. It’s not mean: it’s funny. If the Christmas No 1 turns out to be an angry, confrontational rock track that concludes with an explosion of f-words, it’ll be precisely the shot in the arm the charts have been sorely lacking the last few years: something that puts a genuine smile on the face of millions of people; sensitive people, thoughtful people; people alienated by the stifling cloud of grinning mechanical pap farted into their faces on a weekly basis by cocky, clattering, calculating talent shows such as X Factor. It would give these people hope. Maybe only in a very small and silly way, but still: a tiny spoonful of hope. And what could be more Christmassy than that?”

Charlie Brooker ‘Rage Against the Machine? Raging with the Machine will do for now‘

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/21/charlie-brooker-rage-against-the-machine

Indeed!

I recently started a new module in my LST distance learning certificate, Evangelicalism. If I’m honest the title didn’t inspire me or fill me with joy at the prospect of 3 months of study, however it has turned out to be fascinating, and really encouraging. Previous to looking at this topic more in-depth I would always have said I was an Evangelical, but not get especially excited about it. That has changed. The more I look at the values evangelicalism stands for, and it’s rich history, the more I get enthusiastic about being part of that incredible heritage.

The theologian and historian DW Bebbington has established 4 key features of evangelical faith, that have been constant since it developed in the 1700s. For me, they are the cornerstones of my faith, and a set of values that I am more than willing to pin my flag to (I have listed them alphabetically, not necessarily in order of importance!).

Activism- When someone chooses to follow Christ, evangelicals believe that thier life is then devoted to living for him, sharing their faith, doing good works, giving to charity and so on.

Biblicalism- Evangelicals place huge emphasis of the study of the bible, believing it to be God’s Word, and the final authority on all matters of faith.

Conversionism- the belief that people need to make a positive, personal acceptance of Christ.

Crucicentrism- this is the conviction that the death of Jesus is the central fulcrum of the Christian faith. All aspects of Christian worship ultimately return to what happened on the cross. This doesn’t mean that Jesus life or teaching gets ignored or sidelined, but simply acknowledging that the cross is the central glory of Christ.

One of the problems with labelling any group within Christianity, is that the label can end up meaning all kinds of different things to different people. Currently I find if you say to someone who isnt a Christian that you are an evangelical, their mind immediately turns to Neo-Cons and the religious right in the USA, which is not a comparision I enjoy. If anything you could describe them as fundamentalists (another label, I know), a movement which arose around 1910, and shares many things with evangelicalism, but adds a few extras which I cannot sympathise with or endorse as part of being an evangelical in the UK.

John Stott outlined the differences in a helpful way, and I’ve reproduced it below

In the past evangelicalism has been an incredible force for good, reformers such as William Wilberforce and Lord Shaftesbury that transformed society motivated by their faith, great theologians expounding God’s word, and individual lives transformed by the power of Jesus, and it is really sad that it has become confused with a movement that doesn’t seem to do very much of that at all!

I suspect there will be more posts coming on this subject in the next few months, but for the meantime I’m  just delighted to be an Evangelical!

Those lovely folk at Worship Central are giving away a free acoustic album to download!

The tracks are as follows:

1 // God of All // Ben Cantelon

2 // On Christ the Solid Rock // Tim Hughes

3 // Remember // Nikki Fletcher

4 // I Love the King // Tim Hughes

5 // Glory in the Highest // Al Gordon

6 // Amazing Love // Tim Hughes

You can download it here

* you can read a professionally edited version of this post at Sportingo (and give me a nice thumbs up!) *

“It is the beginning of a new season for us now, I hope,” Another Liverpool defeat, another promise of this being the start of the recovery from Rafa Benitez.

I’m sorry, I just dont buy it. There have been too many false dawns this season at Anfield, and I think it is time for Rafa to concede this team isn’t up to the job and start planning for next season. Holding on to hope the Alberto Aquilani is going to be the silver bullet to solve all the problems is just too little, too late.

After the 2-0 defeat of Manchester United in later October it really did seem like the corner might have been turned, but between that game and the next victory Liverpool lost to Fulham, drew with Birmingham, Manchester City, and Lyon. None of them glorious performances by any stretch of the imagination. In fact they deserved to lose both of the other Premiership games, and defeating an incredibly poor Debrecen side 1-0 is nothing to write home about

Then an encouraging win over the blue half of Merseyside prompted Rafa to announce..”A derby is always very difficult and also very important so the win could set us up for the rest of the season.” after the win over Everton- since then we have drawn with Blackburn and lost to an average Serie A side

I dont think its time for Rafa to leave, but I do think there are some things that need to change if Liverpool are to salvage anything from this car-crash of a season (Europa League anyone? hmm…).

1. Stop using zonal marking- it doesn’t work. Liverpool concede too many goals. It has undermined the team all season.  Last night was a case in point- who was picking up Gilardino in the last minute of the game. 3 late goals have cost the reds their Champions League progress, all of them coming from people not being picked up properly in the box. If you listen to the ex-pro pundits, to a man, they all say zonal marking doesn’t really work that well. It means there is always a chance that opposition players slip through the defensive net as no-one knows who they are supposed to be picking up. At least with man-to-man there is clarity, and the added accountability of knowing it is no-ones fault but yours if the man you are supposed to be marking is able to slip from your grasp and score.

2. Take the handbrake off. The best football Liverpool played under the Spaniard was at the end of last season, starting with the 4-0 defeat of Real Madrid at Anfield, and then the charge for the championship run-in, including the 4-1 defeat of Manchester United. By nature Benitez is a cautious manager, and that is how he won his title in Spain with Valencia, a solid defence, holding midfielders and rpaid counter-attacking. But this Liverpool side has so much more attacking potency than that. With the rear guard playing so poorly this season (what has happened to Jamie Carragher?), surely attack is the best form of defence? With Gerrard, Torres, Kuyt, Babel and Benayoun all rampaging forward Liverpool can be unplayable.

3. Buy a decent striker. Fernando Torres is amazing, he is world class and would walk into any other club side in the world, but behind him in the pecking order, the squad at Anfield in painfully thin. An inconsistant Dirk Kuyt, the inexperienced (and not all that great) David N’Gog and the woeful Andriy Voronin are not a pack of stikers to strike fear into the heart of Liverpool’s championship rivals.

4. Stop wasting money on players who patently aren’t good enough. I know every manager buys a few duff players over the course of a career, but Rafa seems to have a particular talent for it. Let’s take a roll call from the current squad; Philip Degen, Andrea Dossena, Sotirios Kyrgiakos and Levia Lucas, none of them worthy of a place in the squad of a team supposedly aiming for the Premier League title. I wont waste words on players no longer at the club that he has bought and sold on, but we all know how poor some of this purchases have been. This situation is made worse by the fact that he is always complaining at the lack of money from the owners (which is a problem), which means purchases are at a premuim, so to waste £7 million on a player like Dosenna, an Italian left back who cannot tackle for goodness sake, seems criminal.

Yes, there are other problems too, not least the constant unrest and politcal rumblings behind the scenes at Anfield caused by the cowboys that own the club, but there are things that Rafa Benitez has the power to change, and needs to soon otherwise the whole 2009/10 season will become a write off and Liverpool will be condemned to the Europa League next season as well….

I have just finished reading the brilliant trilogy of five parts, The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy for the second time (the first was when I was 13!) and to celebrate I thought I would post this great message from the second most intelligent creatures on the earth…!

Sorry for the inconvience….

Today is Worlds AIDS day 2009. Twitter has turned (red), Starbucks is giving money from every coffee to the cause and Annie Lennox was on BBC Breakfast talking about it. For many of us in the UK this is as much as we are likely to hear about it this year, despite the fact that the number of people living in the UK with HIV has trebled in the past decade. In many ways HIV/AIDS is a hidden disease, associated primarily with the panic surrounding it in the 80s. Thankfully, in the UK most people who are HIV positive have access to drugs and treatment, but sadly this is not for the majority of people with the disease across the world today. According to UNAIDS there are 33.4 million people living with HIV worldwide , including 2.1 million children under 15, and there were 2 million deaths last year from AIDS, mostly in Sub Saharan Africa.

UNAIDS director Michel Sidibe outlined the aims of the day in a speech this morning… “The theme of this year’s World AIDS Day is Universal Access and Human Rights. For me, that means doing everything we can to support countries to reach their universal access goals for HIV prevention, treatment, care and support – all the while protecting and promoting human rights.”

This is something I really believe we should get on board with, especially if we are Christians. Because of our faith we  are called to love our neighbour as ourselves, to stand up for the poor, needy and the weak, to care for orphans and widows. We need to act. Not just post blogs, drink a coffee that gives 5p to a charity and say a prayer. We need to get our hands dirty, at the very least look to support agencies who are trying to support those with HIV/AIDS.

James 2:14-17 puts it clearly for us ^“What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”

To that end, if you have time, take a look at this video from Hope HIV. They are an amazing charity that do a lot of good. They support children and young people in sub-Saharan Africa affected by HIV/AIDS through emotional and social support, education, economic empowerment and child rights.

This week, somewhat predictably, NME released a list of their top 100 albums of the decade. Clearly designed to shift magazines and start some controversy (I join with Zane Lowe in asking ‘What about Daft Punk?!) it makes for interesting reading. Their top 5 is as follows;

5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs- Forever to Tell
4. Arctic Monkeys- Whatever people say I am, that’s what I’m not
3.Primal Scream- XTRMNTR
2. The Libertines- Up the Bracket
1. The Strokes- Is This It

I do own most of these albums, but (the Strokes aside) they aren’t in my top 5 from the past 10 years. That honour goes to the records below!

5. The Strokes- Is This It. Sharp, exciting, witty and different- a great break from the post britpop rock durge that possessed the end of the 90s.

4. The Arcade Fire- Funeral. Perfect mix of melodic melancholy and razor sharp observation. Beautiful

3. Queens of the Stone Age- Songs for the Deaf. Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri + Dave Grohl (on drums!!) = rocking your face off!

2. Muse- Black Holes and Revelations. Space age theatrics that warrants 2nd place on Supermassive Black Hole alone! Every track a classic.

1. Radiohead- Kid A. Deliberately perverse, introspective and anal or pure unadulterated genuis? You decide. I have…

Question is; what do you think? What are your top 5?

Some people definitely have too much spare time, apparently this video took 440 man hours to make! However it is very cool!