Faith Journey

A piece I wrote on the Faith Journeys website.

It's the early 60s. The Beatles were the new kids on the Merseysound block, I had just started an engineering apprenticeship and had met my first Christian. Of course, I didn't know he was a Christian. As far as I was concerned he was a religious nut who blathered on and on about God and Jesus. However, although I didn't realise it at the time, meeting him put my feet firmly on the faith path, and my first destination was just over the horizon.

Two years later he had nagged me into submission and I went along with him, and a whole coachload of young people, to hear Billy Graham at Earls Court, London. It is 1966, and reluctantly I find myself standing in front of the charismatic American saying the sinner's prayer. The Holy Spirit had fished another one from the waves.

Going to the small Brethren hall for the first time was a cultural shock. I managed a few weeks, but I didn't own a suit, and I felt uncomfortable in this weird environment. I left and joined the young conservatives (not such a cultural shock!) learned guitar, formed a folk duo and managed to avoid God stuff for a year. But the Holy Spirit still had his fish-hook in me and began reeling me in. The folk duo split and the attraction of the Young Conservatives faded. So after a year of invites to a young people Bible study, I RSVP'd a, yes, and got back on the faith-track.

It was at that Bible study I began to learn what being a Christian was about. It was also the place where I met my future wife,Jan. At the time of writing (2010) we have been married 38 years! Nice one God!

The next few years saw me involved in a coffee-bar evangelistic team, a couple of local churches, getting engaged, an outreach rock band, getting married, buying a house and then.....

..... all our furniture is stacked around us. We're sleeping on the floor of an old house in Birmingham. Our house is sold, the bridge is burnt and we're at Bible College. How did we get here? Another destination along the path, and this path is straight up a really steep learning curve. The journey along this bit of the path was, and remains, 30 years later, a priceless spiritual experience at the feet of men and women of God who led us to places we would never have visited in a local church situation.

Faith in God is easier when things are going well. Real faith grows when you have nowhere to turn, except toward God. Many times at College we find ourselves praying that our Father will meet our different needs. Money to buy food; we never go hungry, healings, guidance, spiritual insight, courage.

The water of a number of different jobs and different churches flows under the bridges over the next few years. We now have a Son, Joel. We work together at a Christian outdoor centre and then we move to the North-West, to the Wirral, and I work for a few different Christian charities. In the local church we belong to, we are involved in home-group leadership, diaconate, worship group, worship leading, preaching, teaching, sunday school. The steep learning curve in Birmingham pays dividends.

Then the local church falls on hard times. There are three huge leadership splits and traumas. We wonder should we stay. God says stay. We stay, but often find ourselves caught in the middle as people take sides. But from the middle, sometimes, the view is clearer. We are able to see things others don't, but it doesn't prevent the traumas, but God does reveal some of the spiritual truth behind what is happening. At the end of it all God says it is time to go. We join with the ex-Pastor building a new fellowship; a fellowship which will do things differently. The difference lasts a few months. It isn't working. We leave.

But now our pathway starts to lead in a strange direction. For the first time in decades we realise our path is leading away from the institutionalised church we have been used to, have been an integral part of, and could never imagine being outside of. And this is where we find ourselves now, still continuing along the path of faith, still following Jesus, still fellowshipping with other Christians, but not aligned to a building, denomination or institution. We are openly involved with the body of Christ - which is what 'Church' really is - but not behind brick walls, not under some man-made idea of 'church'.

The journey continues. Already there have been new and interesting destinations, but the ultimate destination is still over the horizon. But in the dark sky of this fallen world, its glow is now brighter as each day passes, and we keep our eyes fixed in that one direction. End of the path? The New Jerusalem!

Of Course It Isn't!

Having been made redundant three times in the last 22 years, and had fairly long periods out of work as a result, I have a reasonable knowledge of the disagreeable experience that is known as 'signing on'.

However, I don't want to dwell on the debilitating and humiliating nature of this experience. I want to look at one aspect of the mechanism which kicks in to action once you do sign on; the mechanism of re-training.

The subject came up whilst talking to a friend who is currently out of work and being processed through this re-training mechanism, and we both thought it would be a useful insight into the current policies of dealing with the unemployed, through the eyes of someone who is immersed in it. So here, in his own words, is his experience.

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I have found most government courses a complete waste of time. Each time I have to attend one I think to myself "Is this going to be another one of those useless government schemes" and then I think, "Be positive, this one could be a good one and hopefully I will get permanent employment through it". But no surprise it ends up the same as the majority.

One thing that annoys me is when you first register with these schemes you are told that there will be work placements available and the possibility of employment at the end of the course. But in reality they don’t have enough work placements for everyone and the employers who use these schemes very rarely offer employment as it suits them financially to take on another placement. This inevitably leads to the majority of the unemployed having to spend several months going to the organisations offices where they have to spend the day from 9 am till 4 pm Monday to Friday job searching. This consists of searching through the internet and the local freebies. Occasionally they buy the Liverpool Echo on Thursdays.

Now with the unemployment situation the way it is, there are very few vacancies and sometimes they are repeated on more than one occasion so as to make the job situation look better than it is. This occurs mostly on job centre sites.

As this to me is a complete waste of time as I already job search on my own initiative I do not see the point of going to a special building to do the same but to also spend the rest of the day bored stiff as there is nothing more to do. The atmosphere in these government scheme offices is very depressing and it is obvious that a portion of these people are not interested in finding work as it suits them to be supported by the government and to spend the day doing whatever they please.

The government thinks up these schemes so they look as if they are doing something positive to reduce unemployment by keeping the numbers down as when one is on one of these schemes they are not classed as unemployed. But in reality these schemes are a sham as they are run by incompetents who are only interested in getting sufficient numbers to fill their quotas and keep themselves in a job.

Of the several courses I have been on I have only been on two good ones. One was working in a council library helping customers with any problems they may have while using the computers. At the end of the course there was no vacancy as the local council decided to use another government scheme and as that particular scheme did not have enough people to supply this service throughout the borough I volunteered to carry on for over a year till the council sorted itself out but it had no intentions of offering employment as it was financially better for them to keep using the government schemes I enjoyed the work and only offered to work on a voluntary basis because the staff in the library were really nice people.

The other good course I was on was working for the NHS as a clinic clerk. They were very happy with my work and the Section Head suggested I apply for a vacancy that had arisen. I did so and the interview went very well but unfortunately I was in competition with two very qualified applicants. My section head told me that for all they were more qualified the interviewers preferred me but the management would question their choice.

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There really isn't much to add. That training courses are used to remove people from the unemployment figures is well known. It is also true that these training courses do sometimes lead to people gaining useful employment. However, over-riding this all, it would seem that in many situations, it is more about massaging figures and ticking target boxes rather than any real attempts to get people back to work.

But, of course, training courses don't create jobs. Ticking boxes doesn't create jobs. Only a growing economy creates jobs, and that isn't happening at the moment, nor does it look likely to happen in the near future.

The Government would like to apologise but 1984 is running a little late.

In the UK, we now live in the most comprehensively surveilled society ever. It is something even George Orwell didn't fully foresee. In his book, The Road To Southend Pier, Ross Clark sets himself the challenge to travel from his home in East Anglia to the end of the eponymous pier, avoiding, if possible, the all-seeing cameras which now pervade our lives; a journey of about 50 miles.

He fails, quite comprehensively. And he fails because it is now almost impossible to go about out daily lives, our innocent daily lives, with being caught on CCTV many times.

Of course, we are told that crime is being prevented, and criminals are being caught as a result of this increased intrusion into our private lives. Whenever questions are raised as to the efficacy of the burgoning CCTV culture, the grainy, low quality footage of Jamie Bulger's kidnap is rolled out and paraded as a trophy to assure us all. But unfortunately, it is not reassuring. If the only piece of evidence of the effectiveness of increased CCTV is video footage from February 1993, then we are in deep trouble.

The very fact the whole TV programs are now being produced, for our delight and delectation, from CCTV footage, is proof, surely, that CCTV is not reducing crime. Rather it has made thugs, vandals, and the anti-social into TV stars, albeit anonymous ones because they are rarely caught.

So, what then is the point of all this expensive hi-tech equipment? Well, it is proving its worth, but not in catching thugs and criminals, but in reaping large financial rewards for local councils who are using it to catch motorists parking illegally. Yes, you will be pleased to know that while many of our city centres have become virtual no-go zones at certain times, the forces of law and order and catching errant car parkers. It makes it all worth while! Doesn't it? Well, no it doesn't.

Why doesn't it? As a society we are being routinely spied upon by our government, and its various agencies. Those who were traditionally there to protect us, are now those who are watching our every move, not for our good, but because we are all now regarded as potential criminals, and worse, as potential and possible terrorists.

Section 44 of the Anti-Terrorism Act is now, routinely and on a daily basis being evoked against the innocent citizens of the UK for all manner of minor things. For instance, point a camera at a building in London, and there is a very good chance that you will be approached by the forces of law and order and challenged under Section 44. This is happening regularly. Watch this video from the BBC and wonder what is happening to this country. You will note in the video that the Police Officer states that they had stopped lots of people.

So, next time you are snapping a few photos for the family album, be aware that your government, and the forces of law and order, will now be regarding you as a possible terrorist.

The final irony in all this is that anyone planning a terrorist attack has no need to wander the streets with a camera. They have only to go online and all the major cities can be viewed in excellent detail, with photo-quality images and in some cases, stunning 3D, on the internet.

Expect the government to announce very soon that, because anyone using the Internet could be a potential terrorist, it will be monitoring Internet usage on a daily basis.

Oh, wait a minute, they already do that.

Football, Beer and Health Equality

A few years ago I had a conversation, at a local healthy living exhibition, about how to get the health message across to men. The person I was chatting with, apart from being a friend, was also a trained nurse and a health promotion professional.

She had come to the conclusion that holding events, such as the one we were at, was simply not working; men didn’t, by and large, attend and were showing no real interest in their health. The conclusion was that, almost evangelically, the message had to be taken out into the ‘market place’. The market place was broadly defined as football grounds and pubs. In other words, places that the target demographic were likely to be, in large numbers, on a regular basis.

Now, to put this in a geographic context, the demographic in question is situated in the North-West of England where, for a majority of men, football and beer are two of their most important life-aspects. Conversations around healthy eating, the benefits of vegetables, the danger of excessive cholesterol and a regime of regular exercise are fairly rare, and often viewed as deeply un-manly and possible even somewhat feminine.

Imagine my surprise when, having reached that certain dangerous age of such previously unmentionable subjects as furring arteries, expanding waistlines and heart-attacks, that upon enquiring of my GP whether I could have a Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) blood test I was refused.

Now, here was a presenting bloke actually interested in health prevention. I was questioned as to whether there was a reason for asking for the test; had I any symptoms that were worrying me? I hadn’t. Did I know the test was not conclusive? I did. So could I have the test? No.

Over the next 2 years I broached the subject two more times, and the answer was always the same. If you have no symptoms, you can’t have a PSA blood test. In other words, unless the medical profession thought there was a good chance that you might already have Prostate Cancer, you were not going to get a test.

So much for preventive medicine in the male population.

Compare this to health prevention in the female population. Breast screening is now an almost universally accepted option as are cervical smears and even, in young girls, cervical cancer inoculations (but that is a whole other issue). All these measures are now an integral part of female health prevention.

But for men?

So eventually it came to the point where, nearly 3 years after that first conversation with my Doctor, I was discussing another health issue with my GP Nurse, and the PSA subject came up again. I was asked the same questions and gave the same answers. I then asked the nurse whether that, If I was a woman, and I asked you for a cervical smear, would I get one? She thought for a few seconds, and admitted that, yes, I would. She immediately wrote me in for a PSA test. The results were negative, and all is fine.

However, the point of this is not my health. It is to do with the reluctance to offer equal preventative health options to men as to women. Simple as that. As far as I can tell, this inequality still broadly exists. It is not good enough to say that men are just not interested in their own health. It is the job of the health service to be far more pro-active in reaching out to the male population, especially where it is more difficult to connect to that population, with preventative care.

We cannot really talk about equality and diversity, etc., and ignore such an outrageous situation. Men’s health and Women’s health are equally important, other equality means nothing.