Chris Kidd - applied youth ministry

A quote from Epictetus that I’ve heard many times:

We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.

It leads to something interesting questions:

Here are some more funny stories from around the world:

Aussie straps in beer, not child : A car driver in Australia has been fined for strapping down his beer rather than his young child.  Police said they were “shocked and appalled” when they pulled over the car south of Alice Springs in Australia’s Northern Territory.  They said the 30-can pack of beer was strapped down between two adults in the back, with the five-year-old child unrestrained on the floor.

Pupils sent home after turfing the common room : The entire sixth year of a school was sent home on their last day after pupils turfed over the floor of their common room.

Man cuts up car in clamp protest : A man has sawn his car in half with an angle-grinder in protest at it being clamped outside his home.  Ian Taylor said the untaxed Ford Fiesta was parked on his drive with only part of a rear wheel poking out on to the pavement.  He said the vehicle was going to be scrapped anyway, but he wanted to make a point.  A spokesman for NCP Services said half of the car was parked on the road and should therefore have been taxed.

Pelican ‘bombs’ bather in Florida : A woman required 20 stitches to her face after a pelican crashed into her in the sea off Florida, apparently diving for fish.

US and Russia in sandwich battle : Sailors from the US and Russian navies have tested their culinary skills in a sandwich-making competition.

SA infidelities plastered on car : A South African woman divorcing her husband has tried to publicly shame him into paying her maintenance.  She has plastered posters on her car detailing his infidelities.

Bad Guy Caught With a Mac: This is a great story. A girl’s Apple laptop gets stolen but she uses a remote access program to control it and takes a picture of the thief as the doofus sits in front of the stolen computer. “Smile! You’re getting your mug shot taken!” Using the picture, the police nab the bad guy. Moral of the story? Don’t mess with a high-tech girl’s Mac.

The BBC are reporting that the Pope’s chief astronomer says that life on Mars cannot be ruled out:

Writing in the Vatican newspaper, the astronomer, Father Gabriel Funes, said intelligent beings created by God could exist in outer space.

Father Funes, director of the Vatican Observatory near Rome, is a respected scientist who collaborates with universities around the world.

The search for forms of extraterrestrial life, he says, does not contradict belief in God.

The official Vatican newspaper headlines his article ‘Aliens Are My Brother’.

A man jumps out of a plane with a rocket-propelled hang-glider on his back

David highlighted this Rocketman captured on news video from the BBC of a 48-year-old Swiss man has successfully jumped out of a plane over the Alps using a new improved version of his jet propelled hang-glider.  Yves Rossy has spent five years training for the event and was helped by four jet engines.

The news today has been full of the scenes of riot police and bottle-throwing fans at the UEFA Cup final in Manchester between Rangers and Zenit St Petersburg, and the news that a Russian fan was stabbed.  It seems to have wrecked what was looking to be a great final.

While police have said it was only a small minority of supporters causing trouble, it is incredibly bad timing to see British fans making the headlines for the wrong reasons – less than a week before tens of thousands of Chelsea and Manchester United followers head to Moscow for the Champions League Final.  Is there likely to be a repetition of this behaviour next week?

Hopefully not given that the violence seems to have been blamed on the breakdown of one of the big screens in a fan park.  Also because of the problems of obtaining a visa to travel, and the expense of getting there, there are unlikely to be as many ticketless fans out on the streets in Moscow as there were in Manchester.  But then again mix Russian vodka with those few trouble-seeking fans and things could turn nasty.

What do you think?

Manchester United and Chelsea have unveiled their kits for the Champions League final:

I have to ask the question: do fans actually pay for a one-off, special edition commemorative shirt?  If I was a Chelsea or Man Utd fan, I’m not sure I would spend near on £40 for a shirt that is either the same as this season, or next season’s design released early just because it has some tiny writing about the final and a Champions League logo, but maybe that’s my Northern roots speaking!

Interestingly the Chelsea kit is actually not based on this season’s kit but next season.  To me that seems even more bizarre, to basically wear a kit that hasn’t even been released yet.

In a rare display of generosity from a footballer, Birmingham City midfielder Olivier Kapo gifted his £30,000 Mercedes to his teenage boot boy. James McPike (pictured), a 17-year-old trainee on City’s books, was reportedly stunned when Kapo threw him the keys.  Boot boys can usually expect an old pair of boots from the professional to whom they have been assigned throughout the season.

When McPike said he couldn’t even pay the insurance, Kapo drove him home, handed him the spare keys and log book, and said he’d pay for a year’s insurance - what a guy!  The fact that Kapo also owns a Porsche and a Hummer means he isn’t short of cars, but it’s still one of the most impressive things a footballer has done all season.

On hearing the news, City manager Alex McLeish said:

It was a magnificent gesture and one that’s entirely in keeping with Kapo’s character … As he was in such a generous mood, I asked him what he had done with the house he had left behind in Turin. Unfortunately, he smiled and said he wanted to keep hold of that.

From the: Daily Mail

I have been thinking about some church visits we will be having from 120 pupils from our local primary school in a month’s time, and was reminded of this fantastic quote from Martin Luther:

Now the church is not wood and stone, but the company of people who believe in Christ.

This is such an important issue.  So often we spend much of our time and resources ensuring that our building is up to scratch, and that is important, it can play a real part in the community, for example we have 12 badminton groups and 5 bridge groups, 2 dance schools, a pre-school, U3A (University for the 3rd Agre), mums and tots groups, a music appreciation group and so on.  So our building allows us to meet with at least 1000 people a week from our community.  But at the same time we can be in danger sometimes of being so focussed on resourcing the building that we forget we need to invest in each other, in the relationships, in pushing each others faith on.  Let us take to heart what Martin Luther wisely said.

I was encouraged recently to read some books by Edward de Bono - of Six Thinking Hats fame.  So I went to the library and picked up How to have creative ideas .  The book takes the premise that creativity isn’t just something you have or don’t have but that it is something you can develop.  As someone who wouldn’t count myself as being particularly creative this is a helpful and reassuring concept. 

The book contains 62 different games and exercises, built around random words chosen from a list, to help encourage creativity and lateral thinking.  For example, Game 3: Odd Man Out, where you take four random words.  You then show how one of the words is the ‘odd man out’, define why that is.  So the four random words could be: fur; ransom; chimpanzee; worry.  Your immediate thoughts might be that ‘worry’ is the only human emotion amongst the words; or that ‘chimpanzee’ is the only creature.  You could develop that and say that ‘ransom’ is the only word that implies criminal action; ‘fur’, ‘ransom’ and ‘worry’ are all unpleasant (for some people), ‘chimpanzee’ is not.

All the exercises are simple, practical and fun, and can be done by anyone, and they are also the kind of thing I could imagine small groups could do to increase creativity, certainly they could be used for those long journeys!