Yesterday Monica and I spent a day at the Greenbelt Christian Arts festival, our first visit for some 20 years. It was interesting and challenging, but all for the wrong reasons. For me it vindicated my choice of subjects to write about, but for the 20,000 or so Christians - particularly the young and vulnerable - I fear for them, for the teaching and propaganda they received over the 4 day event. Firstly, propaganda. Greenbelt has decided to target Israel, a decision made around 3 years ago, and to highlight the plight of the Palestinians living in Gaza. That's fair enough, if a balanced view is given and their views are presented sensitively in Christian love. They decided instead to go all-out, all-guns-blazing, with a sustained attack on Israel through every way possible - talks, exhibition displays, visual aids even drama. The following little drama greeted everyone entering the field on Sunday morning for a communion service ...



The person protesting was Monica. We saw no evidence of any other protests during our time there. Incidently, the communion service itself featured a short film - without any spiritual content - of testimonies inside Gaza. Politics in a communion service!

New book back from the printers and review copies have been sent out. Got following response from David Pawson (one of my heroes), a lot better than his response from my first draft, sent many moons ago.

This time he said: “I really enjoyed reading it. You are the master of epigrams, full of Jewish wit and humour, which I love. These keep you reading and make the whole interesting. It’s so important to add gravy to the meat and you are a good chef. I hope this book will reach those who need it most though I fear they will be irritated, if not infuriated, by your dismissal of so many of their heroes!”

Epigrams eh? Now where's my dictionary??!!!

At last I'm now free to wrap my mind around the next book - How The Church Lost The Life ... and how it can find it again. This is the book I've always wanted to write, but I'm having trouble getting started. The general theme is this:

"To understand the Hebraic mindset of Jesus and the first Apostles and to live your Christian life accordingly"

In this book, one thing I want to address is a list of things that, I think, are wrong with the modern church e.g. why so many denominations? Then I'm going to try and systematise them and pass them through a "Hebraic" filter. That's the general idea, anyway ... how I'm going to do this is going to have to be the result of much prayer!

Feedback would be apprecaited here ... what are your bugbears about today's Church? What are the main problems, do you think? Could do with some help here ...

Well the second book (How the Church lost The Truth) is with the printers now and I'm planning for a series of book launches on the following dates:

Friday September 10th : Tree of Life Fellowship, Ilford, Essex UK - 8pm
Sunday September 19th: Clayhall Baptist Church (as above) - 11am
Saturday September 24th: Reshet meeting, Leicester

More details will follow. Do you want me to speak at your Church / fellowship? I'm looking at planning an Autumn schedule and will even "cross the pond" to the good ol' USA if there's interest. Contact me at steve@saltshakers.com if this tickles you.

Watch this space in August for a series of short video blogs on the new book.

Just saw the movie Agora with wifey. Very interesting and provocative, particularly in its depiction of Christians in the 4th Century AD. Before we start crying, "typical Hollywood negative portrayals!", the fact is that, once "Christianity" had power in the Western World, it sunk to the level of the pagans. So the scenes of "Christians" slaughtering pagans and Jews were probably accurate, as were their general demeanour and attitudes to those around them. For me it was a reminder that The Church HAD DEFINITELY LOST THE WAY!

Almost done with the new book - it's being proof-read at the moment and I'm starting to get feedback from folk who had read early manuscripts. If you think the last book stirred things up, you ain't seen nuffink yet!

HOW THE CHURCH LOST THE TRUTH ... mmm!

Two speaking engagements for any of you who may be interested.

Tomorrow (Sunday) I'll be speaking to a Russian messianic fellowship at Finchley Methodist Church, N3 1NB, London. I'll be speaking through an interpreter (oy, that's a new experience!) and will be speaking on "How the Church Lost the Way".

Next Friday (9th April) I'll be speaking at the Tree of Life Fellowship (my usual haunt) at 62 Harewood Drive, Ilford, Essex IG5 0PH at 8pm. Subject: "Greek versus Hebrew world views".

It's all go here!

Another long gap since the last entry just shows you how busy I've been - in fact too busy to even write about how busy I've been and what is the nature of this busyness. I'd prefer this to the reverse situation - too much time on my hands doing nothing at all!

Anyway, just back from Nottingham. Spoke at a meeting on Friday with the "Shofar" group in Southwell. It's so warming to find these pockets of folk, many of them not in traditional "churches", who are hungry for the Truth and willing to travel many miles to get it. Well I hope that I was able to fulfil this, despite a dodgy microphone. I spoke on my pet subject, "Hebrew vs Greek", with a lot of material from my next book and even the book that is to follow it and is swimming around in my mind.

Sorry folks for the lack of updates lately, I just don't have the time at present though I will endeavour to make sure normal service returns next Monday, including the next installment of the Bible Study.

Shalom friends,

It's been a long time since my last entry here - 50 days in fact. The last seven days have been a complete dream - a jam-packed visit to the USA followed by two days zombie-like recovery. In my absence the only folk interested in the site have been those pesky spammers, who have run amok. Oh, only if true believers could have their zeal!

It's been an age since I was last here in this blog. It's just been a mad busy time, but, as I have a few minutes free, here's the story so far.

First, apologies to those in the Oxford area who may have been planning to hear me speak at Witney last Friday. The organisers had to postpone this until the Spring, too much snow! Wifey and I made good use of the unexpected gap in the schedule and went to Pilgrim's Hatch for a short retreat. It was real quality time and the poor girl had to put up with me reading out aloud four chapters of my latest manuscript. I'm almost at first draft stage, the book itself - How the Church lost The Truth - should be published around May, I think.

Planning my visit to the USA next month. Will be visiting my new publisher, the wonderful and marvellous Steve Spillman (www.tppress.com) to plan the launch of my books in the States and there will also be two appearances on the Jewish Voice TV programme, in Phoenix AZ.

So it's go, go, go. Please pray for me.