Here goes...

Went to the Carling Cup Final at Wembley today. United were the deserved winners, even though Vidic was a tad lucky not to be sent off early on. Rooney is sheer class - even with a bad knee and a stomach bug he was still the best player on the pitch. He is the complete player - scores goals, a great passer of the ball, reads the game so well. Carrick and Fletcher were in control in midfield and Valencia was always a threat.  This came after leading a good Communion Service at college this morning (not good because I led it, but it had a great sermon from Simon Downham and some good prayer ministry too). It's not often these two big bits of my life - God and football - come together quite so adjacent to each other. I feel like I ought to come up with some deep thought to connect the two, but I'm not sure I can. Both make me feel more alive. Faith does so in deeper ways, with less danger of aggression and resentment. but football does still stir deep things. I'm just gratefu

Tom Wright was at our School of Theology this morning. He did his usual 'New Creation' thing, but then spoke about his new book, ' Virtue Reborn '. Its interesting that a focus on eschatology leads to thinking about virtue. Once you start thinking about our future and the future of the planet, you have to think about the kind of people we are and will be. Its a link that was very much in my mind when writing my Spiritual Fitness , which also looked at virtue. The language of virtue is a fairly universal one and connects to both religious and secular contexts today. You don't have to be a Christian to realise you need to learn patience, courage and generosity. It's also language the NT uses quite a bit too, with the lists of virtues that comes towards the end of virtually ever NT letter. Virtue is the language that speaks most powerfully about discipleship today, adn Tom's book will do a great job at highlighting it.

Just spent a very good week in the USA. I love being in America and Americans, but they do perplex me sometimes. Browsing through the bookshop in Charleston airport this week, I found all the Christian books (Rick Warren, Joel Osteen etc.) under the ‘Self-Help’ section. No trace of irony of course. It’s telling though: American Christianity has a fair amount of the ‘self-help’ variety: ‘Seven keys to improving your life every day”, ‘Six steps to build a healthy marriage’ and so on. I guess a lot of it can be explained by American origins – a land where everyone came to seek fortune and prosperity. The ancestors were the ones with the initiative to get up and leave their home countries to look for a better life (unless, that is, they were slaves and didn’t have much choice). Built into the American psyche therefore is a self-made, you-can-do-it attitude, which explains why it has been such a phenomenally successful nation. It also explains the quick-fix make-it-simple approach: if you

I'm writing this in Washington Dulles Airport, waiting for a delayed plane to Charleston (already 2 and 1/2 hours late), surrounded by lots of frustrated passengers. It's snowing outside, which, added to the 3 feet of snow they've already had, is the problem. In airports life seems suspended for a while. Everyone is waiting, in transit, nothing is permanent. No-one wants to stay. It's a preparation for something else to come. Relationships and conversations are temporary. It has a superficial attraction to begin with - the delights of independence, but after a while it just gets very boring. We need to know we are rooted, we belong, that this world is not just a waiting room for something else.

What is the biggest obstacle to the growth of the church in Britain today? Creeping secularisation? Richard Dawkins? Infighting over women bishops or gay clergy? Let me make another suggestion: how about the continued existence of pews? For the first 1500 years of the church’s life, pews were extremely rare. In most medieval churches people stood or sat on the floor, with only a narrow bench around the edge of the building for seating. Eastern Orthodox churches never got around to having pews – still today in Russia and Greece, worshippers stand. When they did gradually get introduced, pews were a mixed blessing. They were intimately connected with social division and hierarchy, with pews ranked according to social standing. The rich would have large grand stalls at the front and woe betide anyone who sat in the wrong one. They were exclusive then, and they are exclusive now. Pews today effectively exclude the 90% of people who are not regular attenders of services. The problem i