Men's conference, Abundant Life Chruch, Bradford

I recently attended the Excel men’s conference at the Abundant Life Church in Bradford. Not the normal destination for a delegation of Anglicans!

Well, you need to see beyond the commercialism – each worship song preceded by an announcement that it is on the new DVD in the church shop, each sermon preceded by the announcement that it is in the preacher’s new book, which (you’ve guessed it) is for sale in the church shop, should you wish to read it all again.

Underneath all that, there was some really good stuff. The theme was “I am not my father”. Many men have had poor experiences of parenting by their Dads, but we were exhorted to break the cycle of generations and live as sons of God, and if we are parents ourselves to not repeat the errors of our forefathers. Great for those that need it, but actually my dad was very good, and my sons don’t seem to have any real complaints about me. Well OK, number 3 does, but we recognise it and are working on it.

Another theme was risk: be bold and all that stuff, don’t just follow the rut, but be prepared to make mistakes as you stretch beyond the rut.

Another theme was that of remaining masculine in a feminised church. It was suggested that one main reason many men ignore the faith is because the church is simply not manly enough. I know where they are coming from and they have a point, but also much of becoming a manly Christian is actually about taking on a metaphorically female role in relation to Christ – submissive, loving, etc. So I would treat their teaching with caution.

There were also a lot of frankly sexist jokes. Eg showing photos of a car breaker’s yard and suggesting it was the car park during the previous women’s conference. Fair enough, they were trying to be ‘blokey’, but I think this was out of order.

There was a lot of effort to ‘masculinise’ the church. There was a Ferrari on the stage. (for sale at £86,000). In the warm up to the evening sessions there were hairy chest competitions, a thai boxing demonstration, weightlifting, etc. In the adjacent building were scalectrix, Wii, strength tests, sumo wrestling, a laser shooting range, ropes to climb, etc. And of course shops. Again, much good, some probably crossed a line.

At one point while walking around in the dimmed rooms I nearly collided with a good looking young man coming the other way. We apologised simultaneously, dodged simultaneously, laughed together, and I found myself really liking him. It was of course, my own reflection in a mirror wall, much to the amusement of people that saw me!

Overall verdict – a good conference but with reservations, and in the end I personally didn’t feel I learned anything that I wasn’t already doing. Not sure I’ll feel the need to go next year.

What is the speed limit?

This post is relevant only to UK residents.

When I first learned to drive in the 80s, there was a rule that if the street lights in a 'national speed limit' zone are more than x yards apart, the limit was 60mph, but if the spacing was less than x the limit was 40mph. i always thought this was daft because I would never be able to judge that distance.

Fortunately, soon after i passed my test, they revised the highway code and removed that rule.

That left it as:

Urban areas 30mph
Single carriageways 60mph
Dual carraigeways 70mph.

There is no longer a 40mph National Speed Limit.

Yeehaa....zooooooom.....laugh mockingly at fuddy-duddies crawling along at 40mph every time they see a street light.

BUT

I looked at the highway code today, and it says in the small print for the asterisk note that if there are street lights it is 30mph unless signs show otherwise.

"* The 30 mph limit applies to all traffic on all roads in England and Wales (only Class C and unclassified roads in Scotland) with street lighting unless signs show otherwise)"

This means that those fuddy-duddies are [shock horror] SPEEDING! And they thought they were such good drivers!

But lets sit back and think about this for a minute. Many motorways have street lights. There are only National Speed Limits signs, nothing showing a different limit, so does this mean that you have to do 30mph on the motorway? likewise on a dual carriageway, does it become 30mph at the first hint of a street light? I don't think so. So on a normal road, say an A road, does this rule apply? And if not there, does it apply to the more countryfied roads that I am thinking of? What I understand this rule to mean seems to be totally impractical and in fact dangerous if people do suddenly slam the brakes on to meet the 'limit'.

So - I am very confused. Can anybody clarify this for me please?

Faith and the Environment

Hmmm

One of the environmental Professional Institutions of which I am a member is supporting an event promoted by AntiApathy (they're good) in partnership with elements of the sex industry to promote awareness of climate change.

Whilst I welcome every effort to communicate this message to everybody, I wrote to the Institution suggesting that the event would also promote casual attitudes to sex and relationships. I illustrated a domino effect of how this attitude contributes to family breakdown, which has incresased the number of single parent families, which according to the BBC correspondent is a factor in the current housing crisis in this country. This means developers are building more houses, which means more roads, more quarries, more central heating boilers churning out carbon, and of course more climate change. I suggested if the Institution supports the event it is shooting itself in the foot.

They liked my ideas and wrote back asking me to write an article on the contribution of social changes to climate change for the institution's professional magazine.

Help!

It's OK to have a rant in an email, and to tenuously link together loads of effects with little substantiation in that context, but to do so to the standard required for the magazine is a tougher call.