Things to be thankful for in 2008

1. My beautiful wife and daughter: your support, humour, inspiration and downright general ability to put up with me are more than I could ask for (all cheesy but all true...)
2. For "The Dark Knight". Three further viewings in the past fortnight have only fortified its richness... Top film of the year? Oh yeah...
   
3. For the great success of our Coffee and Chaos toddler group: all down to Jennie's hard work, our rota'd recruits from Beacon and God's rich blessing...
4. For the mighty returns of Extreme and Metallica after years lost in the wilderness. Extreme's "Saudades de Rock" isn't quite up to the dizzy heights of "Waiting for the Punchline", but Nuno's licks and grooves will always make my day; as for Metallica's "Death Magnetic", it's a massive classic already. Can't get enough of it... Track 9 gets played over and over and over and over again in the car (much to Jennie's chagrin) ;-)
5. For Graham and Sue Hall (Gateway Church, Ashford) and Tom and Josie Shaw (City Church, Canterbury): their joint support as we find our feet within the Beacon family has been fantastic, and their vision, wisdom and prophetic insight are a total gift from God. Love you guys...
   

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How NOT to save your marriage

Just recently, I'd been researching facts and figures about the UK as a whole, and the Herne Bay area specifically, in order to develop a final "Cell Group Training" session at Beacon Church. This particular evening was intended to help us understand our culture a little more and seek God's guidance in how to engage with the people who live around us. Amongst the myriad of astonishing revelations (and there's plenty), there was one article I came across that really got to me...

... you see, there's a website called "Illicit Encounters" (*), where over 220,000 MARRIED members have signed up to meet like-minded others for sex. And 200 more are joining each day. The idea is, apparently - as 71% of said individuals stated when questioned - that they'd rather have an affair than divorce. So... "walking" is out of the question but so is "talking", eh? It just saddens me to hear people say that. I'm not commenting on the state of their marriages or on the difficulties they may have from their spouse's attitude or behaviour. I don't know their circumstances. But what I DO know is this... that God's blueprint for human sexuality - heterosexual intimacy within the sanctity of exclusive marriage - is pure, perfect, and right flipping brilliant. It's hard sometimes - Jen and I love each other to bits but we're both flawed and born in sin, in case you hadn't noticed - and I guess that's why so many couples find it easier to split, or even easier to have an affair. I dread to think where we might be now (or not) if it wasn't for God's transforming work in our lives, instead of celebrating nearly 15 years of marriage and still touchy-feely and loved up...

The Biblical "cord of three strands" (Ecclesiastes 4:12) adage is often used as a picture for Christian marriage, and it rings so true. Sure, we have a 3rd party involved in our marriage - like so many others these days, it seems - but ours is different. It's me, Jen and God. God's involvement in and intention for our marriage, our family, our sex life - God's way is old-fashioned and uncool. But it's also the best way; it brings mutual security, support, encouragement, exclusive intimacy, appropriate male and female input into a child's upbringing and the best expression of God's intention for mankind. In an age when this blueprint is continually under attack (check out the latest venom being flung at Rick Warren over Barrack Obama and the same-sex marriage debate: Al Mohler's blog), then we as Christians need to stand firm in our views, despite the criticism hurled our way, and know we honour Him as we do. It's hard, and we must never judge or patronise those that oppose us - we need to love them and let our lifestyles be our witness - but letting God's view of marriage - male/female in exclusive and committed union - be the light that shines. For His glory.

(*click here for an Illicit Encounters article - and there seems to be a whole lot more similar sites appearing in my google hits when I was searching for the latest figures on the subject...)

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What I want for Christmas...

1. for the "Mamma Mia!" cinematic experience to have just been a horrible dream after all (baaaaaaaaaaadly made film)
2. for "Watchmen" to live up to my hopes in cinemas in March
3. for an extra 3 hours in each day and an extra day in each week
4. for my latest novel to [actually get finished and] be taken on by an agent & publisher this time around
5. for God to continue to bless us at Beacon Church in numbers (15% extra new folks in the past 6 months!), and to help us grow in our relationships, our worship and our boldness in sharing the Gospel
   
6. above all, for the three of us to excel as a Christ-centred family throughout 2009
   

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My Top 100 Movies

As inspired by the recent(-ish) top 500 movies poll in Empire magazine, I thought I'd have a bash at my personal top 100... and it ain't as easy as it sounds... Remember this is a PERSONAL list based on what I like to watch, just as much as what I consider to be classics and rate in terms of quality and ingenuity (e.g. "Fievel Goes West" higher than "Pulp Fiction", eh? You know what? Fievel is an unsung work of genius - just watch it for the details - and Pulp Fiction is great, but it's not Quent's best). Suffice to say, the first 25 are films I would consider "stunning" and nigh-on perfect...

This is something I'd probably want to tweak every time I look at it - there's usually something I've forgotten, or rewatched recently and reappraised. Plus, of course, there's movies I aim to finally catch up with in the near future - M, Third Man (STILL not seen it), Holes - and I'm sure "Watchmen" will go straight in to the number 1 spot next Easter...!

So... come on all you Browncoats, Blade Runner fans, Kubrick-ites, gorehounds, Tarantino-phobes, and Fincher-philes, if you don't agree with your favourite movie's position or absence, let me know!

1. Aliens
2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
3. Fellowship of the Ring
4. Jaws
5. The Dark Knight
6. Raiders of the Lost Ark
7. Star Wars IV: A New Hope
8. Kill Bill 1 & 2 (just can't split 'em, no matter how hard I try...)
9. Fight Club
10. Cold Mountain
11. John Carpenter's The Thing
12. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
13. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
14. Godfather 2
15. Heat
16. The Matrix
17. Alien
18. Pan's Labyrinth
19. Reservoir Dogs
20. Leon
21. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
22. Atonement
23. Monty Python's Life of Brian
24. Night Watch (Nochnoy Dozor)
25. Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back
26. 2001: A Space Odyssey
27. The Breakfast Club
28. Moulin Rouge
29. An American Tail: Fievel Goes West
30. Sunshine
31. Pulp Fiction
32. Die Hard
33. Hero
34. This is Spinal Tap
35. Unbreakable
36. The Big Sleep
37. Finding Neverland
38. Labyrinth
39. Death Proof
40. E.T.
41. Goodfellas
42. Transformers
43. Double Indemnity
44. Taxi Driver
45. The Abyss
46. Pride and Prejudice (2005)
47. Chinatown
48. Blade Runner
49. Godfather
50. Gone Baby Gone
51. Lawrence of Arabia
52. Ghostbusters
53. The Two Towers
54. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
55. Das Boot
56. Batman Begins
57. Hot Fuzz
58. Cloverfield
59. The Usual Suspects
60. La Vita e Bella
61. Apocalypse Now
62. Schindler's List
63. Road to Perdition
64. Seven
65. Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi
66. Shaun of the Dead
67. Memento
68. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
69. V For Vendetta
70. Anchorman
71. Trainspotting
72. Delicatessen
73. Sin City
74. Pitch Black
75. Braveheart
76. The Lady From Shanghai
77. Back to the Future
78. The Shining
79. Hellboy II: The Golden Army
80. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
81. Cyrano de Bergerac (1990)
82. Zodiac
83. Hellboy
84. Predator
85. X-Men 2
86. True Romance
87. Once
88. The Kingdom
89. The Sixth Sense
90. American Beauty
91. Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones
92. Iron Man
93. Garden State
94. Dances With Wolves
95. Enchanted
96. Be Kind Rewind
97. Brief Encounter
98. Natural Born Killers
99. Jurassic Park
100. Alien 3

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25 things I learned in Kentucky and Tennessee

1. there's a Walmart on every corner
2. there's 20 times the amount of churches than Walmarts
3. you have to love country (Nashville), blues (Memphis), rock n roll (Memphis) or contemporary Christian music (everywhere): it's your choice...
4. your Baptist minister can't buy alcohol within 50 miles of his church, but he can smoke or chew tobacco
5. you can drive for over 2 hours on the interstate without touching a pedal (good ol' cruise control)
6. watching High School Musical 3 at the drive-in is marred only by the steamy windscreen
7. Graceland isn't a cheesy experience in the slightest, it's really rather tasteful (unlike Elvis's choice of decor)
8. the Newsboys sound better live than in the studio
9. playing $3000 Gibson Les Paul's leaves one rather weak at the knees
10. the homeless in Memphis rather fancy themselves as tour guides
11. we could buy a 4-bed house with 25+ acres outright and have spending money left over... :-S
12. baseball is much more fun than American football
13. only in America could a grocery store chain be called "Piggly Wiggly"
14. the US aren't interested in being green in the slightest, they'll just do anything to avoid relying on Arabs for fuel
15. you never have to leave your car for anything: drive-thru ATM's, drive-thru pharmacies, drive-thru libraries...
16. grits aren't worth all the fuss
17. WHOEVER wins a government election, they can't save a country. God's in charge.
18. speedboats, handguns, samurai swords and throwing stars are all readily available in your local mall
19. shooting shotguns and rifles in the back yard is not only legal, it's really great FUN
20. if the Shakers thought we were already living in the post-Second Coming Millenium, then their expectations of heaven must have been WELL below par...
21. Christian Halloween parties are theologically a bit weird, but do feature great chilli
22. the Amish are pretty cool neighbours
23. Kentucky Baptists party just as well as Kent Charismatics
24. a red-neck's last words = "Hey y'all, watch this!"
25. if we ever moved to the States, we have a ready-made family in place... love y'all...
    

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