I’m seriously impressed by UCCF’s Free campaign to get the gospel out amongst universities in Britain. There was nothing like this when I was at university, five years ago now! They have beautifully presented Mark’s gospel with 8 different cover designs for people to read and encounter the Word of God. I would love a resource like this to get our youth reading their Bibles more.
I was recently told of a story about some Japanese orphans who prayed that God would move a mountain. It is such a beautiful witness to God owning situations and delighting in answering our requests. After some searching I found that the account has been told in a book called 100 Amazing Answers to Prayer by W.J. and Randy Petersen and thought I would share it here.
It was called “Sunrise Home”, which might have been appropriate if it weren’t for a mountain that blocked the sun for much of the day. It was a place of new opportunity for orphaned Japanese girls.
One day a mother came with her four children, the youngest a baby very sick. Her husband had been killed in an earthquake, which had also destroyed their home and all their possessions. “Sunrise Home” wasn’t really designed for families, but the missionary who ran the place, made an exception, taking in this needy bunch. It was obvious however, that the baby needed medical attention, so he was taken away to a hospital.
Over the following weeks, the baby seemed to get weaker and weaker. The doctor at the hospital wanted to reunite the child with the mother. Besides, the fresh air at the Sunrise Home would be good for the baby– but the baby also needed sunlight, and the mountain was in the way. The missionary wondered if there was any way she could get rid of that mountain.
Back at Sunrise Home, she told the other children the problem, and they wanted to help. “I know what we can do”, one said. “We can take away the mountain ourselves, one shovelful of dirt at a time.” So everyone pitched in. But their little shovels hardly dented the mountain. It seemed as huge as ever.
One day the missionary was asked to travel to another city to meet with the head of the mission. The children said they would continue shoveling in her absence. Almost as an afterthought, the missionary suggested they pray about the mountain before she left. Some of the prayer were discouraging, and then one girl prayed, “Lord Jesus, last Sunday we heard in Sunday school that if we had faith as a grain of mustard seed, we could remove mountains. Lord, help us remove our mountain.” Another prayed, “Dear Lord, you said we could move a mountain into the sea. Here the sea is just across the road. Will you please take our mountain and put it into the sea?”
When the missionary returned, they said “We have a wonderful surprise for you.” They led her in the back way and told her to close her eyes. Then they brought her to the front yard and said, “Look!” She looked. The mountain was gone; it was nowhere in sight. She couldn’t believe it. “What happened?” she asked.
The children were so excited that their word tumbled on top of one another. The preceding week, a truck filled with workers had come up the hill. Without a word, the workers swarmed over the mountain with pickaxes and shovels, loading the dirt onto the truck. Truckload after truckload was carted away. Finally one of the assistant at Sunrise Home asked what was going on, and the supervisor explained that they need to fill in some land to make a children’s playground where the sea had receded, so this “mountain” was being used for fill.
“The Lord really did answer our prayers”, explained one little girl to her teacher. As so often happens, God provided even more. Not only did the Lord move the mountain, as the girls requested, but he also provided them with a playground. And the following week, the little baby was reunited with his mother in the sunbathed Sunrise Home.
This last week I been in Huddersfield to do some design research with good mate & graphic designer Viv to produce a logo and promotional material for the Newfrontiers Huddersfield Church plant (The Ark) that will stepping up a gear in the coming months.
We felt as well as getting a tour of the place our research needed to included interviewing the multi ethnic population about what they felt about the town, the wider area and the general sense of community. We endeavoured to talk to as much a wide mix of people as we could including students, graduates, market workers, pub frequenters, council staff, families and even tourists.
Huddersfield is a unique blend of rural and urban due to the industrial revolution of the late 18th and 19th centuries. Large cotton mill architecture is still very prominent along with towering chimneys. Today shops and the up and coming university are the main magnets. The cities Leeds and Manchester are easily accessible from the town making Huddersfield an ideal place to live if you like the Yorkshire country side and are willing to commute to work.
The older people desire to hold on to past history which frequently comes into conflict with seeing something new come out of the area. Although the university does keep old mill architecture, there does to appear to be a struggle for visual identity in Huddersfield. Despite some valuing the cosmopolitan vibe the community is divided down ethnic lines. A Church that gathers the various ethnicity’s and ages together in Huddersfield will be so vital in bringing visible transformation to the area.
The favourite place of most people we asked was the landmark “Castle Hill”, a tower built on an old iron age fort situated just outside Huddersfield Town overlooking the area. This tower was constructed to mark Queen Victoria’s 60th Jubilee Year and in its opening attracted thousands of people.
A big thank you to the friendly Pape and Bunce families for showing us round, we couldn’t have done it without you! Thinking of joining this loverly bunch? Ill let Steve Hurd have the final word.
Steve Hurd. Huddersfield from Box-head* on Vimeo.
Personally I’m not keen on a lot of Christian/worship/gospel music, much of this is down to my own taste. Sometimes its just a language barrier, so singing in old english becomes an academic exercise and ruins my freedom in praising God. People leading worship have a tough job especially if they are in a good church group that is made up of different cultures, ages and lingo. They have my respect, and if your a song writer I take my hat of to you. Despite worshiping differences there seems to be two commonalities. Firstly – the person we worship, Jesus. Secondly – our attitude in praising him.
The Psalms are all about, personal “on my heart” prayers of repentance, thankfulness and seeking. Singing songs about God is great but it can put him at an arms length in peoples minds. Looking at the songs that bring me closer and experience joy in God they tend to have lyrics that speak to Jesus personally. It’s been suggested we need a good diet of “About” and “To” songs.
Recently I was put on to a song sung by Whitney Houston called “I Look to You” written by R. Kelly. Though published through popular culture I can just imagine King David singing it, the lyrics are just so honest and can be used to honor God.
Back in Oct 2009, I mentioned that I was considering building a website that supports & promotes Grill a Christian events. Grill a Christian is an event mainly run in the UK that gives the opportunity for anyone to ask a panel of Christians questions in a relaxed public setting, like a pub or club. Over the past months I have been working in my spare time on Phase 1 (see the Road Map below) which now needs some willing volunteers to test it out. If your up for that then contact me.
Phase 1 – Event Info & Top 20 Questions. A decent site explaining what the event is all about and which collects the top 20 questions, which will then be answered by a panel, filmed and published for Phase 2.
Phase 2 – Guide & Directory. Will be a guide on setting up a Grill a Christian events as well as a public directory of events where you can go and ask your questions.
Phase 3 – Social Questioning. Ideally we want people to be able to send their questions in over the web in advance or via their mobile phone at the actual event. People can join their event group ask questions directly and see what everyone else is asking.
It’s been a while since I update people about my months doing a Frontiers Project with my home church in Northumberland. Recently all those on FP in the UK had some training at Center Parc in Norfolk where top bananna friendship was enjoyed and God met with us in amazing ways. Even those not healed or set free from spiritual oppression of varying kinds will be able to testify to the powerful tangible presence of God and his amazing love for us. It was like Jesus came and gave us all a great big fatherly hug.
The highlight was Simon Holley giving us an education in delivering people from spiritual oppression. I hadn’t seen God deal with it on this scale before. I was struck by the fact that we look at salvation as a decision made once. Rather, God wants us to keep taking steps of faith to relieve us from past baggage and provide us with the knowledge/weapons that he is indeed a loving Dad. As Wendy Man shared we often give the enemy a foothold when we call into question the character of God or how he thinks of us. God is good 100% of the time both in fatherly character and passionate loving action towards us.
On the last training day we focused on knowing Joy in God and Mission. Those who felt called to go to another country shared where they felt called to, one lad said New Zealand (I lived their for a year). Finding him afterward he turned out to be a Kiwi I had met once in Wellington, when on a flat hunt. He had given his heart to Jesus in the last year, journeyed to the UK and had decided to do FP in a London Church! Amazing and hugely encouraging. So in summary God is Love and is full of surprises!
Newfrontiers, The family of Churches I’m apart of has decided to put on a conference that talks about engaging with our culture call the Everything Conference. Site designed by We Are Boxhead. If you know me you will know that web, design and impacting culture is one of my BIG passions. Keen on coming? Let me know. Cost is only £12.00.
The Everything conference aims to equip Christians to make a difference and to transform culture. With seminar tracks on work, community, the mind and the arts, this will be an exciting event not to be missed.
I just want to say a BIG thank you to all who provided feedback on how to run Grill a Christian events. The advice and tips are really helpful as we look to putting on this type of shindig in the future, and there is still loads of time to send me your own experiences If you have not done so already. At some stage I will compile a guide to running this kind of event and publish it over at grillachristian.com, but first I would like to put one on. With that end in mind I have started building a website with a feature set that will compliment question asking at these events. Watch THIS space.
Am I the only one that thinks Bible commentaries can take the joy out of reading the Bible? I have only recently been introduced to using them and I’m starting to click that there is a right way and a wrong way to read them. I don’t wish to offend, I know others take great joy from reading commentaries and they certainly can be insightful when you just don’t get that little scripture.
The sad fact is I can imagine people pouring line by line in their Bibles and chapter by chapter in their commentaries because that is just the way. We have to guard ourselves from becoming educated fools and use what we learn wisely. So many of us have the aim of widening their christian vocabularies as to inflate themselves and forget their mission is to inflate Jesus and experience him.
I’m amazed sometimes how one simple word when truly understood can catapult you to experiencing how great God’s love is for us. Ephesians 3:14-19 is Paul’s prayer about grasping (understanding) how awesome Jesus’ love is for the church is, and “which surpasses all knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God”.
“Most believers stop short of a divine encounter because of their satisfaction with theology. Theology is meant to be that which invites us to a divine encounter.” – Bill Johnson
Recently been inspired to set up a regular Grill a Christian event for our older church youth group (15-18). In a nut shell these events are an opportunity for people to ask tough questions to a panel of Christians and are stepping stone to events like Alpha.
So Im on a hunt to find out what works best and need the following questions answered.
Also considering setting up a website where guests can ask questions in advance. There is a possibility that the feature set could be useful for other groups and become a resource base on how to conduct these events. So in anticipation I have just registerd grillachristian.com. I invite you to answer the above questions and watch this space. Any help would be fab.
This is the site of web enthusiast Dan Lee. He is pretty normal most of the time and likes smoothies, drumming, movie making, designing, being Church and knowing Jesus.
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