The question is......

Does God allow this.....??? (world war, tsunami, suffering etc.)

This question came out of the context of us talking about things that had happened to us and Craig telling us about when he went to Auschwitz concentration camp as part of his peer mentoring scheme. We talked about what it had been like to visit a place where such atrocities had taken place and a question was raised as to whether God allows these things to happen.

When i was in year 10 on a German exchange we went to visit the camp at Dachau and i will remember the feeling of being in that place forever. It was such a place where you feel that if you talk loudly you are disturbing something very profound, so you talk in hushed voices and walk around very softly. while i was there i just felt really sad and it lasted for ages after i left the place. it was so peaceful but so utterly heartbreaking to realise what happened there. Did God let it happen?

Yesterday in theology we were talking about Does God Suffer?
There's so many questions going on in my head over this at the moment that i don't know what to think......so if you'd let me in on you're opinions that would be helpful....
I'd love to know what you think.

Does God allow suffering?
Can God suffer?
If Jesus was fully human, did he suffer?
if Jesus was fully God, could he suffer?
If God cant suffer and Jesus was fully God then what was the point of Jesus going to the cross?

......

think about it.....
can you see why my head hurts? that's just a starting point......

This is all of us beautiful ladies from 14 CCC on our way out to battle of the halls 2006.

We came 2nd.....Bring on the final!!

CCC! CCC!

CU Weekend away!

This weekend just gone I went on a weekend away with the Christian Union (as the title suggests) I had a fantastic time, there was great teaching, worship and prayer times but the most important thing of the weekend was the people who went. it was amazing to get to know so many lovely people and so begin to build solid friendships over a game of Mafia and a cup of tea.

The best thing that I found about the weekend was the way that everyone supported each other. The teaching itself was given on the topic of community and that is most definatly what the CU here is, a community of people who look out for each other during the good and bad times. I hope that I can be a real part of this and really build up the others by being an encourager.

I've been struggling a bit with my faith and other things that have been going on in my life and what was amazing was how i was listened to and taken seriously for what i had to say. also the way that people just pray for each other as a natural response. this was something i hadnt experienced before and i am so thankful for the prayers of the weekend and for the things that found i could talk about for the first time, strangely with people i had only known for a couple of days. You guys have been such an amazing encouragement to me...thank you!

anyway....i'm rambling away now and i need to do a bit of theological reflection on the big question that Dot posed to us today....sounds painful right.....well....

Seminar Recordings!

As of popular request I have uploaded the seminar recordings from our group tutorials in theology but as I was thinking about it I realised that if I am to post them on here I need permission from everyone in the group...as these could be picked up from anyone...so I thought if you want to have them if you email me at griffin_laura@hotmail.co.uk and let me know your prefered format (windows media player or itunes) i'll email you the upload links. Just because I dont want to offend anyone by putting them online and also...we wouldnt want any of those theology students finding out how smart all us youth workers are now would we!

So let me know!

Also NEWEST THEOLOGY LECTURE UPLOADED in the theology lectures post!

Two really cool things in one REALLY cold evening!

Just for dramatic effect I'm going to use blue text...It really was soo cold tonight!

Sorry for the epic post but I wanted to write this stuff down even if you don't read it all!


Well I suppose I could really tell you about the things I did tonight. As it is Thursday I went to chapel (which is like a different church service every week), this week it was 'High Mass', which to me being used to 'Mass' in the Roman Catholic sense I was expecting something very 'High' and I was quite nervous about going but when I got there everything was all familiar to me... Men in robes.... Strange smelly smoke coming out of a metal swinging thing....Lots of stand up sit down stuff....(some people might think I'm being irreverent here. I'm not, this kind of church is what I've been brought up in, I love it!) I felt so at home to be able to say the prayers without struggling around the funny unfamiliar wording (sorry Anglicans!) and to just know and really understand the meaning of what I was saying...It was so good! Hmm...... After all that running away from my church background I finally find some solace in familiarity...God's a strange one! :-)

After chapel I practically ran over to Hoole Baptist Church (slight change of denomination-those from home will understand what I'm like!). I've volunteered to help out with a youth group called DBiz run by the Light Project in Chester. But you see the thing was that I didn't exactly know how to get there and it was dark and it was cold and every so slightly scary.....So....While I was in chapel I prayed that I would find the church, not freeze, be scared of the dark, drunk people or crazy old men (worried now mum??)....And God totally did that for me, it was fine, I got there safe and it didn't take me long to defrost. It was an incredible night, first they have a 'brief' thing where they pray before the youth arrive, then the actual group, then the tidy up/round up/debrief thing where there is more prayer. This way of doing youth work isn't a new concept to me of course but I just found it so encouraging that people could do that as part of the normal youth night...Since back home we'd be lucky if we could say hi to the team before they were going home again....Never mind praying for each other. It was so good to be back in a setting with young people again, I've missed their bad language...Attitude...Arrogance and disregard for rules! And is was amazing to be in such a God centered place. Even though I don't think I had one conversation about God all night....He was there...Big time...Covering the place.....In the smiles of the kids.....The patience of the leaders.....Just everywhere!

Tonight has reminded me of why I want to do what I do.....Because of God's love....For those young people and for me too (since I'll always be His little Teenager!)