Pita chips in bulk

Ho hum, I'm in the USA. Food comes in larger quantities than I'm used to!

Last night I felt peckish, not hungry enough for a full meal, I just wanted a light snack. The hotel offers these in an area with comfortable seating and low tables around the TV between the dining room and the lobby. I ordered pita chips with houmous and olive paste - just a light snack.

I was served a very nicely presented dish containing enough pita chips for four people (I kid you not!) and as much houmous as you'd expect to put on the table back home for six. It was delicious but it was not a snack, not in my terms at least! Nor was it healthy eating, too much salt in the chip coating and too much deep-fry oil - but very tasty. I didn't finish my 'snack' although I made a pretty good attempt.

I'm still not hungry this morning.

Grand to be in Dallas, though. I'll take a stroll in the morning semi-cool and spend the day relaxing and getting organised for this evening's pre-conference session. I didn't take a photo of the pita chips, so I've included one of the Dallas sunrise instead.

Israel's New Disciples

This is the title of Julia Fisher's latest book, the subtitle is 'Why are so many Jews turning to Jesus?'.

It's a very good question! Julia provides some intriguing answers in the book by publishing edited interviews with a number of key people living and working in Israel.

Although I haven't yet finished the book I want to draw attention to a couple of brief mentions that struck me as particularly significant.

First, as someone interested and involved in networking small groups of believers in Eastern England, I was fascinated to read about the same sorts of things happening in Israel too. On page 56 Julia quotes one of her interviewees,

I see, alongside the traditional congregational structure, a growing number of smaller groups of believers with a greater focus on community living.

And secondly, on page 79 she refers to Islamic Indonesian followers of Isa actually praying for Israel and a real need for believers in the West to get more involved in prayer and interaction with Messianic Jews.

These two factors mesh amazingly well with things I've been watching elsewhere. Namely the growing trend in the West to meet at home informally and become more involved in practical ways of real community living, and the trend reported by Wolfgang Simson of rapid growth of small, close-knit groups of new believers in Asia.

We live in very exciting days!

By the way, I strongly recommend anyone interested in events in Israel to read Julia Fisher's other books, 'Israel - the Mystery of Peace' and 'A Future for Israel?'.

NEWS - Changing times

This blog is changing its direction slightly.

In the past it concentrated on notes and reports of meetings at homes in and around western Cambridgeshire, north-east Bedfordshire, and southern Northants. When there was just one meeting that worked well, but now there are three and a network is developing with a number of other groups too. So in the future this blog will not attempt to cover everything, but just my thoughts about getting together as church - wherever that may be.

You may have noticed that the site hasn't been updated with meeting notes recently. This is not because there were no meetings (they've been thriving) but because it's been hard to keep up.

At the same time, I've been involved in more activities that don't always fit the meeting concept. I'd like to cover those too.

From now on I'll be reporting on meetings I'm involved in, other events, and every part of my life that involves focusing on the King. All the existing notes will remain here, nothing will be lost, and the Great Doddington folk may take a copy of this blog and continue to publish notes of their own journey - if so I'll provide a link to that new blog. (This has now happened so you can visit the Great Doddington blog.)

In the next few days I plan to head out to the USA to join the House2House annual Conference in Dallas. I'll try to post a few notes here from time to time while I'm away.

I hope you'll check the blog to keep in touch, sign up for email updates, or use the RSS feed to follow progress. More here soon!

The electric car - but better?

Shai Agassi through his company, Better Place, has developed a system for building and operating electric vehicles - and it might just work. He claims that the car would cost less to buy and be more convenient to use than a normal petrol powered car. And the cost per mile would be similar to current fuel costs.

Shai has thought this through in great detail and has persuaded companies (Renault and Nissan) and governments (Israel, Denmark, Australia for example) to make a start on building the necessary infrastructure and the new vehicles. He is a visionary but he also has business acumen, drive, enthusiasm, and good persuasive speaking ability.

Very, very interesting, and well worth watching the video (no longer available). You will have to watch the sponsor video first (amusingly enough it's for an oil company) but then you can choose individual segments for yourself.

Note added in 2024 - Better Place was a great idea that failed. It had potential though, and you can read about it in the WIkipedia article.

Co incidents

Prayeramedic just posted an item to his blog about a 'coincidence'. Everyone will draw their own conclusions of course, but whatever that conclusion may be - it's an amusing story.

Here's another one to go with it.

Back in 1984, the Archbishop of York made the controversial appointment of David Jenkins as the new Bishop of Durham. Three days later York Minster (the seat of the Archbishop) caught fire and was seriously damaged.

David Jenkin's notoriety was based on his widely reported views, particularly denial of both the virgin birth and the resurrection.

What do I think? I think that both these events are much more than mere coincidence. But the question is, 'What do you think?'.

Here are some photos of the fire and the repair work.

A stark choice

I think this is worth a read, Milt Rodriguez gets my vote for what he writes here. He has it spot on.

But before you read it, spend a moment or two pondering Gal 6:14 which he quotes at the outset.

What did Paul really mean when he wrote these words?

But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

It's so easy to read without really thinking, without applying the thought to myself. How about you?

To Paul, the world and everything in it was dead, empty and devoid of life. And to the world, Paul was dead, empty and devoid of life. The new life that is in us makes no sense to the world, and the world should make no sense to us. This is radical in the extreme! 'For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain' (Phil 1:21).

Can I say that for myself? No, not completely. But I feel it's closer to being true now than at any earlier time in my life. I still need to come to the place where Christ alone matters and everything else in life is secondary/dead. (Delete as appropriate. Question - which will you choose to strike out? Will it be 'secondary' or 'dead'?)

That is a hard question. If I am truly his follower I will follow him, not my hopes, wishes, or choices. He does not want to be merely central in my life, he wants to be all.