St Silas vs Burnside

Good news for all St Silas supporters: The game on Saturday 3rd March finished 3-2 to St Silas and the match report is only a day late!!!

The game was played on a dodgy astro turf pitch in Easterhouse, Glasgow. St Silas took an early lead through John Wood. Quickly afterwards Frank Brodie finished superbly after a trade mark Alan Dock cross, giving Silas a second. Much to Burnside's credit they started to come back into the game more and more with good passing and moving from the defence through to the strikers which St Silas couldn't deal with. Their good pressure should have been rewarded when a header crossed the line but the woeful ref didn't give it.

The second half started like the first ended, with St Silas on the back foot to Burnside's good passing play. Slightly against the run of play John escaped from the ref's strange offside decision to slot the third past the goal keeper. Burnside kept the pressure up forcing MOM Derick to pull off an number of fantastic saves! Frank then got himself sent off for two yellow cards which gave Burnside even more chance to test Derick. Towards the end of the game the ref gave a penalty which was rather ludicrous: 3-1. Then a Burnside cross found the head of an attacker: 3-2, which was no less than Burnside deserved for their performance.

Over all it Silas where lucky to go away with all three points, all credit to Burnside. In the last two weeks we have been shown up defensibly (as a team) when playing against teams who can keep the ball well. Though, to steal an over used football saying, "Its the sign of champions when you win when you don't play well"......Next week Silas take on CEC2 in the first round of the Cup!

St Silas vs Dumbarton

Sorry again for not getting a match report on my blog! For those who don't look regularly: St Silas Church has a football team (soccer if your from the US) and we play in the Churches league (link can be found on the left hand tab) and since I play in the team I like to write reports! Sadly it seems they haven't updated the league etc. for this weeks results! So onto the, short, report!

Top of the league St Silas were put under pressure early in the first half with Dumbarton's ability to keep the ball.
The first three goals though where scored by Silas, slightly against the run of play. More surprising was that they where quite "ugly": two long throw in which where flicked on by Ali Morrow for Gordon Comrie to head home. I cannot for life of me remember who scored the 3rd (sorry to that person).

At 3-0 St Silas started to play a little bit better though Dumbartons quick passing and moving gave them a well earned goal towards the end of the half. The number 10 (who started move) was left in space by the centre midfielders near the edge of the box took full advantage and finished brilliantly into the top corner!

As second half progressed St Silas started to play better football and after a lot of huffing and puffing got a forth. Then came my moment of glory: as my shot from about 20 yards rolled towards the keeper he must have taken his eye off the ball and it went through his legs and across the line, 5-1!!!

The end is nigh

It's in the news all the time and my lectures keep telling me that we are all going to die!! If it's not global warming it's Bird flu or another disease or a lack of water or lack of food or insects or a meteor or the old favourite of nuclear war. Looking at the evidence it's all rather damning: the end is nigh; life as we know it is coming to an end....

The other day I was talking to my mate about a program which was looking at a Religions response (or the lack of it) to global warming. Although I didn't see it he mentioned his surprise, and that of the program makers, that "Religion" hasn't jumped on the Global Warming bandwagon saying " Look the earth is coming to an end, repent and be saved". I agreed with him, it seems strange that the more outspoken people, both Christians and those from other religions, haven't mentioned anything about it; seems to go against the stereotype.

Its a subject which I haven't really thought about before: are all these problems pointing towards Jesus second coming? After thinking about it I have to conclude that, since God controls the weather and is all powerful, then, this must be part of his plan. Therefore, yes, if the world is going to change as dramatically as scientists suggest then all these environmental problems could very much tie into Jesus' return! We do though need to remember that through history people have been claiming Jesus is coming "soon" yet God says that we won't know until it happens! Thankfully it's not something which I worry about :) Anyone got any views?


On a different note, I think the fact people haven't mentioned global warming as a sign of the end is a clear indication that Christianity is now so scared to mention what we believe (that those who don't follow have Jesus as there saviour will live eternity without him, hell). Whereas in past centuries an answer was found from the bible and published for the whole world to see! In the 21st century it's politically incorrect to say such things and it seems religion is too worried to mention "Maybe this is God" let alone "Jesus is coming", it breaks my heart and while of course I don't mean people should go about scare mongering about Global Warming and start breaking the law this is just one example of a general trend not to stand up for things.

When the Life of Brian came out 30-40 years ago there was a massive fuss kicked up. That was over a film (which personally I have no problem with) yet now when it comes to much more important issues; like religious freedoms, gay rights and blasphemy (lyrics in songs, for examples) we seem scared even to use our right of free speech to oppose such things!

I've just started reading Acts (a book from the bible) and the difference between the Church then and now is amazing. While of course there any many fearless men and woman in the Christian Church today people like Stephen, John and Peter (just for starters) really show many of us up. I'm just as bad as anyone else and I think that it's because I'm too worried about what other people think. This feeling, though, isn't something which I alone suffer from; do we worry that that if we annoy people God's message won't get through? or is that just an excuse not to talk about our faith? If we take a look at almost all biblical character then we would see how it should be done: Do what God says and not to worry if what you do annoys people because we are here to please God, not others (That doesn't mean going out of our way to annoy others because we are called to love others as ourselves yet).

Christianity needs people to start standing up and proclaiming God "in the temple" like the early church or else we will fall!



On a lighter note I hope you'll enjoy this clip from Mock The Week (episode 2 series 4). A couple of the things this blog is about are loosely related to some of their jokes. BE WARNED this show is on after the watershed; there is a little bit of none politically correct jokes and language:

Mock The Week is fast becoming one of my favourite shows on TV. Please follow this let alone link to see the rest of the episode

Weekend

St Silas won 8-4 against CEC2 with five goals from Frankie , two from Ali Morrow with Davy Lawler getting one too!! Although Silas ran away comfortable winners in the end we had to come back from behind twice.

This trend of only starting to play when we are loosing seems to be happening an awful lot since the turn of the year which is a little worrying. At the end of the match the team seemed so discontent about the loss of four goals, its was as if we had lost!!

Two F.A. Cup matches where televised over the weekend: Chelsea vs Nottingham Forest and Man Utd vs Portsmouth; both good games. It was quite a lot of football over load.

On the Saturday afternoon Scottish Crusaders changed their name to Urban Saints with 75% in favor, thank God for a clear majority! Some less urban groups will now be called “Rural Sinners”! (Sadly can’t take credit for that)

Saturday evening I finally went to my best friend Eilidh's flat, staying the night. It's rather strange that despite us being best friends we struggled so much to stay in contact before she came to Uni. Now she lives in Glasgow we see each other a lot more but it was the first time I'd been round to her flat!! Spending time with her is fantastic so it was of course very lovely. We watched Pay It Forward on DVD. It is a book which I started to read a few years ago though gave up as it was rather rubbish; thankfully the film was much better!


Sunday morning was All-Age at Church (all the children stay in the service rather than going to their own activities). We started the new series, faith, with the story of Noah a fantastic example of faith (Genesis 6:9 onwards). What an amazing guy he was. In Genesis when it talks about Noah and his Granddad Enoch it says "they walked with God". I can think of little else which could be such a powerful statement of there lives and I am filled with a desire to be like them. There is also a new theme song for the series called "faith" which Jenny and the band did a particularly good version of. It is lyrically brilliant too; straight out the bible.

All in all a very tiring weekend but it was good.

Weekend

This weekend a large number (12) St Silasers and members of the St Silas Football team are heading to Bradford for a Conference. It is an all men's conference and funnily enough I have little-no idea what I signed up for. We will be leaving on Friday during the day and spending the weekend done there.Please look at my friend Darren Darlows blog for some information!

6 of the 12 are non-Christians so could you pray for them. The Church and conference is large, thousands. Also it is evangelical (that word so doesn't mean what it used to) aka charismatic which they (and I) may find a little intimidating! This is such an amazing opportunity to share with them the gospel and show them Christan love. So please pray that the holy spirit would work in them and us as we witness to them! Also on a personal note I pray that I might learn much from the weekend and god would just blow away all the difficulties I've been struggling with.

Darren says he will keep his blog updated over the weekend so check there in the next couple of days if your interested.

The last few weeks I've sadly been to busy to blog bout a lot of things so here is a short little bit of each! (Sorry if there are too many moans and "I", it is witten quickly!)


Are you man enough?

Burger King have launched the "double" and "triple" whopper meals. (see an advert here, for triple) I love to eat and normally I can finish most things and still be hungry but after this monster there wasn't much room left!

The Triple whooper has according to this site 1260 cals, excluding drink and chips! The Recommend Daily Allowance for a fully grown man is around 2200 cals! and today (Wednesday) I had the pleasure of eating one. Now this is a proper meal!!

I also LOVE the double advert (which I cannot find of the Internet anywhere)

DR GOOGLE!

As many of you will know google has been buying everything online! Absolutely everything! (Just follow this link to see the REAMS of thing which the massive company now owns.) There reach now stretches so much that to use the latest version of blogger (the blog site I use) I was forced to sign up for a google account! This a CLEAR sign that google is in fact going to take over the world! Mark my words!

Borat:

Also on Wednesday one went to see Borat. From all the reviews I was expecting the most amazing film ever, I was sadly disappointed!

Although the film had many funny parts I cannot help but suspect large portions where scripted. Also it seemed quite empty I can't make out quite why. It was fantastic to see someone not scared to be non PC though and had a number of things which I thought "you can't get away with that"

Borat is a good film and I advise you to see it!

Football, Glasgow CU vs Strathclyde CU

On Wednesday night the great rivals took to a very wet football pitch to play the glorious game. Glasgow where clearly a stronger team and it took Strathclyde a while to get more organised. I'm told Glasgow train and play regularly which showed in the scoreline, 5-0. St Silas' own Darren Jackson played for Glasgow and put in a good shift for his team!!! Thank god there where no injuries!

The evening didn't improve for me as all the trains where cancelled when I arrived at the station. Praise the Lord because my mum was able to come pick me up at almost midnight. Thanks to her!!!

Mission:

This evening (Thursday) the Strathclyde CU had UCCF people talking about "Short Term Mission". This is basically going for a short time and helping out in a massive variety of different ways around Scotland and the world. My parents recently suggested going to help in the mission which St Silas church is helping to sponsor. (I sadly cannot remember the county and cannot find GadgetVicars Blog on it.) Which got me thinking and after this talk feel I need to spend time prayerfully considering doing something along these lines.

Stressed

The past few weeks I have been extremely stressed with various university essays, exams and tutorials and a number of commitments (almost all christian related) bearing down on me. Much of this is my own fault for taking on too much and also I'm very aware of how much more work others do that I. Yet it is proving very difficult to make time for my non-Christan friends which is such a shame on many levels. Also finding alone time to spend with God is becoming increasingly difficult. This is a problem because its even harder to try to "listen" to where god is guiding me. The above mini blog about the mission is just one of a couple longer term things which need to have decisions made about them.

So if your the praying type could you pray that God would continue to teach me discernment and therefore I could make more time to do the things which matter to me and him. Also that God would give me mind space and concentration for him and studies. And finally that he would give me rest bite from the work load! (and a few others but I feel like I'm saying "I" too much and also moaning too much!)


Radiohead:

As many of you undoubtly know Radiohead are one of the greatest bands on earth! The album "OK Computer" has been voted no.1 ablum on poll after poll and after a 6month break a passion for there music has reimerged from my soul.

The music seems to stike a chord with many people. Oh how I wish I could write music like that!

(wants to write more but needs to go)