An unusual place to practise my caving

In moments of vanity, I'm sure we have all googled our name at some point. Searching mine found an article and photo of me hanging around inside a church bell tower in Galmpton, South Devon. It's taken from sometime in my first year at University, judging from the bad glasses and bad hair...

Read the original article (and why I'm doing it!) here (you'll need to scroll down a little bit).

N.B. It talks about going up and down the rope in safety. Well, I managed to forget all my knot tying methods as I was setting the gear up, so I did an unsuitable knot lots of times. I'm sure it was safe. Honest.

The beauty of lives changed by Jesus, changing other lives

Here's another link to Kaleo Church. It's the account of how God changed the life of a woman and is now using her to share the love of Jesus with others. Go and read it.

This is why I want to be ordained and serve as a minister/vicar/elder (pick your favourite jargon!). To see changed lives changing the lives of others. This woman (no name is given) was a keen Christian but needed to rediscover what grace meant. Her description of the change in her life is a joy to read:

About a year ago I lived in a really amazing place. I loved it there! Life was good... and then one day I found this random door, this strange door that I had never noticed. I opened it up and was astonished at what I saw. That whole time I had been living in a tiny bathroom and on the other side of that door was a huge house... the rest of God's house. Since then I have been running from room to room, jumping on the beds, sliding down the banister and exploring every nook and cranny, fumbling around as I try to take it all in. I know that I will never get to every room, but I am so blessed by what I have seen. God used Kaleo to open that door for me... a door to show me just how much I didn't know or understand and how much there was to discover in Christ.

N.B. You don't have to be ordained to see lives changed - but I get paid for the privilege of sharing Jesus with others!

Kaleo San Diego: A Church that knows why it exists

I'm a big fan of goodmanson.com and enjoy the occasional visit to the website of the church in which he is a pastor: Kaleo San Diego Church. They have recently updated their website - go take a look!

Central to the page are four tabs: 'Blog', 'Message', 'Motivation' and 'Mission'. You should read the last three because:

• It shows a clearly thought out reason for the church's existence;
• The theology is great!
• I want to use these myself one day.

Many churches blunder along, never sure of what they are doing and (more importantly) why they are doing what they are doing. Go and take a look and get excited about what God is calling you to do.

Keep the children amused during summer

The excellent Lifehacker website is generally most useful when it comes to using computers, internet etc to actually make life easier. But they are not limited to all things geekery. These two links may give some ideas for keeping the kids amused during the long summer weeks.

10 Cheap things to do with young children

Make your own Flubber (or follow the links for play dough, silly putty and more!)

Do you know any other good resources?