we be church

God Gives Great Hugs

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!

Everything Conference

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.

Grill a Christian Feedback Followup

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.

Newday Youth Conference 09

This weekend I had the opportunity to go to the Newday Youth Conference in Sherwood Forrest, yes that’s right, the realm of robin-hood. I didn’t really know what to expect, but thankfully I was in experienced company, thanks Larry!

Looking at my notes the theme which leaps out is that God wants us to be equipped by the understanding that we are His People and to stick to the Guns of his Gospel! You would expect that to be a given but it is very easy to get bogged down or distracted from the fact as your focus. This is how we can run with the youth we are responsible for and see change in their lives.

The Talks?

(The talks will be up on the new newday website soon)

Luke preached on 1 Peter 5:5 about being humble, what true humility is and what it isn’t. Sometimes we can put ourselves above what God is doing and have that arrogant attitude and sometimes we can place our selves below what he wants to do not living up to the responsibility and gifting we are given.

Julian Adams preached on John 14:12-21, the pursuit in God is about his heart which then brings power. Also that we are Children of God, not orphans. We have an identity, an inheritance, a home, and a FATHER!

At this point we chose a seminar. We decided to go to one run by Pete Benton who heads up the Glo Youth in New Life Church East Grinstead. He showed us the need for a strong inspired vision from God and the need for a firm but adaptable structure.

Nearing the end of the conference Joel Virgo preached on Standing Before God from 1 Kings 17,18 using Elijah as an example. Standing before God in resolve, obscurity, responsibility, in truth and even in courage.

Finally Stuart Gibbs helped us look through passages that communicated what Jesus had achieved for us as to be the foundation and core of everything we do. A funny example he made was that we shouldn’t preach a mix bag but a pure bag (using cocaine as the metaphor). We should only preach to peoples hearts. Legalistic manipulation doesn’t work and doesn’t create change in people only the gospel. And yes like pure cocaine it should kill us for any alternative, the word needs to pierce hearts.

There is No Game Over with Jesus

Sometimes to switch off I design, its a way I can be in my element without pressure or demands. Over the past months on and off I have been designing three t-shirts for our youth group level-x. I thought I would post them here and get some feedback. Eventually the plan is that they will be made into stencils and the youth can bring their own coloured tees and print off their favorite design.

Around the World: March for Jesus in Paris

March for Jesus (034) – 24May08, Paris (France)

Originally uploaded by philippe leroyer

I wonder if you can remember March for Jesus? It used to be an annual event which first started in London in 1987. When I was just a wee toddler my parents used to take me as we lived in London. I can remembering being carried on the top of my dad’s shoulders and riding in the cab of one of the truck floats he drove once. It was great fun. Singing, colours, noise and people wondering “what on earth is going on?” “who are all these people and why are they so happy?”

In 1994 the first Global March for Jesus covered every time zone and united over ten million Christians from over 170 nations. It is estimated that, by the final Global March for Jesus on 10 June 2000, over 60 million people in 180 nations had marched for Jesus.

Although the founding organisation disbanded after the 2000 march, March for Jesus continues in many countries in multiple and varied initiatives. Including France, here is a March for Jesus that happened last May in Paris.

Remembering Newday 08

At Newday 08 this year around 6000 young people attended to let their hair down and have fun. The event gave them the opportunity to listen to some relevant talks from Newfrontiers leaders, attend outreach sessions in the city and get jumping to great worship music and gigs. Here is a short documentary our church’s youth group filmed of the event so people could know what it was all about. Good times…

Newday 08 from pixeljuggler on Vimeo.

You can download any of the talks from the event, I would especially recommend Stef Liston’s and P-J Smyth’s morning and evening talks. Get the talks on your iPod!
Also an official Newday facebook page has been recently set up, so you can catch up with the all the monkery people got up to. If you went what was your favourite memory of the event?