Discipling

Whilst we were on holiday Ian and Ben went walking all the way up a mountain to a glazier. Not as easy as that sentence was to write. Ian has had experience of this and so when the going got tough he would hold out a walking pole to Ben so he could cross a waterfall without fear. Ian said afterwards that there were times when he was scared but he didn't tell Ben as that wouldn't have been a help.
What a wonderful opportunity to be able to disciple Ben in things he knows!
Ian has also noticed that when he took a friend climbing Ben was telling Peter the things that he, Ben, had learned from Ian. Again a wonderful example of discipling.
But this discipling was a long slow process, not at the time getting much reward. But even though Ian has done this, when I complimented him on doing something so rare he replied that he had had this happen at school. Though in the end it transpired that this had been in a group setting not one on one.
I think we so often see doing anything with anyone as something that we do in groups, at times the larger the better, transmitting information and hoping that some of it goes somewhere, which at times it does. But actually doing groups is much more rewarding than one on one discipling because, for one people notice when you are 'leading a group', but see it as either just 'hanging out' or something else not so rewarding.
How can we take the Great Commision and either reduce it to a group thing or even say 'its not my calling' when it is one of the commands Jesus left us with. In fact most of what Jesus gave us was lifestyle but this was a command! But how come we have missed the point, or said it is too hard?
I cannot remember who it was, but I think it was Henri Nouwen who said if we all discipled one person for one year, then they discipled one person for a year, and they discipled one person for a year, and during this multiplication everyone is discipling for a year in next to no time we could win a whole nation to Jesus, not just as converts but as radical followers of Jesus.

The World Isn't All It Seems

Life in our modern world seems to be a mass of illusions! Tabi is on board with a modelling agency and we keep finding out from their info that even those happy kids you see at Legoland, etc are all Models Direct, paid to look happy and it will take a whole day to do the shots!
Then I discovered last week that someone who writes articles for a teenage girl's Christian magazine is not a Christian and most of the girls interview aren't either, she just sticks in that they go to church if they do but the articles are not written around their faith. Oh so what do our Christian girls need??
I wonder now how much of the world is just a series of falseness. Perhaps we all need to get in touch with Him who is Truth and get The Truth out to the world!

Kamran and Suzy Yaraei

Had a great evening last night at Bath City church being part of what Suzi and Kamran were doing. The worship was awesome, though Suzi does seem to be a bit calmer not being with the Morning Star band, but still wild in The Spirit.
Kamran's message was just so awesome and made so much sense. It was like that key that I feel I have been looking for for a long time and have touched on but not thought I had got it as no one else seemed to be really saying it.
It was about knowing the desire of God's heart - and the number one desire of God’s heart is that we just love Him. And it really expanded into how if we spend time with ourselves working out why we love God so much and then letting Him this, then we will just flow with that love of God and people will not call us Christians but lovers of Jesus and will come to us then to ask about the one we love to much and why we love Him. To me that just is so so simple.
I don’t want to be a Christian just doing good deeds but I want people to know about this awesome person who I just want to hang out with. Though I did get to noticing as we discussed it after that for some they do want to be doing for God and want to show Him as someone we can do good things for or even with. And yes that is so very true and He does have amazing plans for us to work out on this earth, but the first and greatest commandement it this – to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, strength, everything you have in fact – and only after that can we love others, and that will be as ourselves because we will just be buzzing with that total love of God.
Awesome!

Nancy

Whilst we were away on holiday my friend Nancy lost her fight with cancer. It has been a few days now since we found out and I have had long chats with God about it all.
I found it so hard though that He didn't work a miracle. Hundreds of people were praying for her and she had so much faith, often sending out emails and blogging about how God would heal her, quoting Bible verses, etc. She very much kept a lot of the rest of us going through this and now she's gone.
Why does God not heal everyone?
Tabi said that we serve a jealous God and that He really wants us to be with Him in heaven. Oh you can see why Jesus said that we had to enter heaven like a child. I know Tabi is 15 now and has some of the cynicism that teenagers have but she still has that honest innocent trust in God that we all should have. Basically He is God and He decides how long our life span is and when He is going to take us.
The great thing to know is that Nancy did seize the day and did speak into many people's lives, sometimes to the point of being infuriating but she was always loving and giving to others. And very much she was in a place to go meet with God.
For me I want to now do all He has planned for me, to live life in His fullness totally knowing what He wants for me to do and then doing it. But also being prepared to go to live with Him whenever He calls time!
So even now she's gone Nancy still hassles me and gets me to that place of prayer with Him.

A Will Self Quote

Will Self (journalist) wrote this in an article in last week's Big Issue after trying to do a satirical act to get based around who runs the newspapers -

".....For them, news is a kind of manna shed by the heavenly screen, while opinion is merely the margarine spread on this unleavened daily bread. Who the god or gods responsible for disseminating this stuff is of little interest to the majority - because after all, if you don't like/believe what one website is putting out, you can simply click to the next."

But it made me think that actually we could substitute a lot of other words for "news", like 'church', 'marriage', etc and rewrite it a wee bit. We seem to live in a culture now where we let things just happen and if we don't like them, well we just switch over, change relationships, move to something that "speaks our language" better. Gone seem to be the days when we push and challenge, keep our leaders accountable, keep each other accountable.

He goes on to say that we have all become consumers which I think is often what we expect to happen in every aspect of our lives!

He does say some other things that I very much disagree with, but this did speak to me.

Also check out Stuff Christians Like blog about Grumbling and Let's Put The Kettle On blog about Famine and Michael. Well worth a read.

Blaze

Last Sunday I did my last Blaze group. This is helping with the 11-14 year olds at the congregation we will be leaving in a month to do more in our local town. Going to a place 8 miles away was great, in fact fantastic at times, for a while, till God started pulling on the strings to tug us to our town.
Ian has been living here for 10 years. Ben, Tabi and I have only been here just over 2, since we got married and moved over. Ian felt the pull to be more involved in the Christian scene here just before we started dating, and we just felt that for a while we needed to be somewhere bigger to get ourselves sorted as a family, which is what, with God's help we have done.
We have made some great friends and some, hopefully that will continue. In fact because I struggled find a small group that God was letting me settle in, most of our friends from this congregation are people we have met outside of the whole meetings set up, which is cool.
It has been an interesting year helping with Blaze and has come with its good times and its challenges, as everything does. But it felt on Sunday like I had stayed too long, that maybe I should've moved on at the end of last term. Because it was my last time, but still 3 weeks till the end of term, it got forgotten too that I was going.
But really I think for me my feelings were that sometimes we do things to honour others, like giving a whole term's notice, when God was really saying that we should follow Him quicker. Again though with this it is hard to sometimes do this and obey God and also honour our leaders and not hurt them.
So it was a bit of a sad, poignant time.
Our last Sunday is 2nd Aug, which will be a strange time. We have picked that as it is the day when all of us finish on the rotas we are on. We feel that we will step into the new place for us slowly in Aug, but officially in Sept!
And with all the changes, from Ben working and no longer at college, Tabi stopping home school and going to college, me getting a job, it is all a time of gradual change into some major things!

Work!

Today I am off for a trial for a job I have been offered. It is not quite what I expected but I can see God's hand all over it.
Firstly I wasn't expecting to get something until the end of Aug when Tabi starts college, but also I wanted something world changing. What I am doing today is working in a cafe! But the way it came about can only be God.
When our new Avon Cosmetics lady started calling I felt I had to buy things regularly so that I could get to know her. Then last time we got chatting about things and I mentioned about Tabi going to college and about looking for a job. She works part time in this cafe and said that there was a job possibly going but it hadn't been advertised but she would chat with the owners when she next saw them. Anyway she pops in to say they want to see me for an informal chat and see what we think of each other. The conversation was amazing! We talked about home school and they liked my stance, even though they were teachers. Then asked what Ben and Tabi were going to be doing and when I said about Tabi wanting to be a lawyer it turned out their son was a really high flying one, but they were impressed that I knew about which exams she should be doing. It was like I passed the interview by not really talking about the job.
So its like I know its God, and another friend has said she feels excited for me, but really what I was expecting was something in the caring professions. I feel a bit flat, as well as nervous about this morning.
I suppose this is what happens when you put God in charge!!

Education?

I have just been reading "Living at the Crossroads" by Goheen and Batholomew and as a home schooler just love this quote from a book called 'The End of Education' by Postman -

"if we no longer agree on the end(the goal or purpose) for education, it may be that we have reached the end (the termination) of education.....education cannot proceed without serving some god.......Without meaning learning has no purpose. Without purpose schools are houses of detention not attention."

Goheen and Bartholomew go on to say, "the lack of conscious reflection on the goal or purpose of education leads us to accept by default those purposes, those 'gods' that have been shaped by a culture in crisis."