A brief history of the last 3 years

Honeymooning in Switzerland!

Living in Brilliant Beverley! This is what i have grown up with but never appreciated until i moved back and got my Digital SLR!

We had our first child Isaac Joel! Born 8th October 2007 with a very large bump on his head!

And now he's 18 months old! Isnt that a pip! (you see if your a young childs parent you will know the in humour i speak of!) otherwise go to www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies to find out

Where have i been?

Welcome back again and im not sure if thats to me or to you (if anyone actually reads this!) Since my wife is out and im bored of facebook nearly, im not cool enough to have enough followers on "twitter" so im not bothering and ive been reminising i've decided to go back to my good old blog! Its been a while you say and i was quite suprised myself. It feels like when i last wrote this i was alot younger and had alot more hair but at least the first parts right!
Last time i was on here i was resident in York having a gap year with the wonderful UCCF! Enjoying life as a "free" man! Since then i've got married to my lovely wife Sarah, had a lovely baby called Isaac Joel whos now 18 months old and currently fast asleep in bed, worked as an assistant estimator, setting out engineer and finally a Contracts Manager (in that order and for the same company) for the last 3 years!
I guess alot has happened and alot has changed but why start this blog up again? Why go back to the days when i had time to post? Well i've been listening to a talk today from a guy called Mark Greene of Oak Hill college about being a Christian in the workplace and its made me think! How can i be a benefit to others? In what ways can i share and challenge others to live more for Christ in their everday lives, at work, with friends, family, at Church etc etc etc and thats what i hope to do by going back and starting again! I hope and pray that as i put my thoughts on paper digitally it will help me and you get a better perspective for the Great God that i serve and his design for all our lives!

Worship rant!

Ive just got back from an event at my uni i work at which was meant to be a evangelistic look at worship music and it struck me just how people are being taught to worship with their feelings. The second worship group were more like a performance and the music was used to whip people up into a "worshipful mood". Ive seen this more and more in CU's and i find it distressing. Were moving away from worshipping in spirit and TRUTH! And we can only worship because of the truth. The truth that we are sinful and need a saviour. The truth that God sent Jesus to be that rescuer, to die on the cross and bear our shame. The truth that if we have trusted in Christ we are a new creation. The truth that because of Christ we will one day sing his praises in heaven.
Worship isnt a feeling its an obligation for any Christian which is a joyful obligation. Our lives are worship and a sacrifice. Not just whipping ourselves to worship in song. Worship is more than just a meeting and a guitar.
What also frustrates me is man focussed worship. Where has the holiness and wonder of God gone in our worship. Why do we always sing about us coming to God when the only way we can come is through Christ. Jesus isnt our homeboy!!! Hes our saviour, Lord and Judge! If we bring him down to our level all the time and start comparing him to one of our mates from uni then who are we saying God is! If we realise who God is, what he has done for us and what our response should be to him then we can only praise him!

"My sin oh the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin not in part but the whole
was nailed to the cross and i bear it no more
Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Oh my soul!!!"

I apologise for this rant but i had to get it out of my head as it really frustrates me and gets me annoyed! If ive said anything which is unbiblical then please correct me. I pray that God will teach us what true worship is and how we should worship Him in spirit and in truth.

RELAY:3:DAY:5

So Here we are at the end of the relay conference and nearly (apart from another 3 weeks of students) the end of relay. It seems abit strange and for me anti climaxial on the 5th day of the conference. It will be sad to say goodbye to good friendships that build up but its also amazing to see how people havew grown over the year. Watching the 3 minute presentations over the week was amazing to see how everybody had gone through different things. Come good, some bad, some just plain ugly but at the end they all proclaimed how the Gospel was more true to them and they understood more of grace. Praise God for this as it shows again that this is what is needed! GRACE GRACE GRACE!!!

The Church that looks like Heaven (1 Corinthians 13)
Our last talk of the week went back to what we had missed out in chapter 13 looking at the "Love" passage. I have always loved this passage and said that i would probably have it at my wedding but after this talk it shone a new light on it. We can see first of all in the passage what the church shouldnt be to reflect heaven. So it is not the miraculous, knowledge or life living that distinguishes us as Christians. "Five gifts minus one love equals nothing". So what does love mean? Love is not a feeling but an attitude, Love puts up and endures all things. Paul is pointing out to them where they continually fall down not exactly what love is. So this is only a small picture of what love is not the definition. So why does love show heaven? in the ESV we see that it says "Love never ends". When heaven comes the church will be finished and we will know God perfectly. The spiritual gifts are a sign of our imperfection not our perfection. Love is the greatest gift which shows heaven. Because God is love we must grow up adn learn to love other christians.
We should know how hard this is in churches. When people dont really talk to us. When people ignore our ideas or throw them back in our faces. When we see gossiping or back biting. When we simply sit away from everyone else.
We need to show love above all things so that the church may be built up!

So there was the end of Relay 3 and almost the end of relay. Ill blog more generally about how ive found relay soon but Relay 3 was brilliant. Sitting having great conversations with people. Running around and getting exercise. Challenging talks and the presentations. GRACE GRACE GRACE. and so much more love.

Frisbee memories

Frisbee - The beautiful game! Well football is too! But ive come to love frisbee over these past few years and its a game thats enjoyable and good for fellowship as you can talk whilst playing. Many memories could return when thinking about frisbee but theres too many (Post CU asda car park game - a dream come true!, Bridge beating Christ "the frisbee" church! Brilliant! Getting engaged and then going to the beach and playing frisbee with friends but not being able to tell them etc etc etc) Has anyone else had any frisbee memories? Oh and if your wondering about the picture i've always tried to egt people to do this but never thought that catching a frisbee in the mouth could actually be done!

RELAY:3:DAY:4

Once again Day 4 started with glorious weather and after the last few days i was wary of getting eevn more burnt before breakfast!! But it didnt happen and we again sat down for breakfast. If you have never heard of relay conferences never go without warning people of one thing. Dont get your mum to send soppy letters! Tradition has it that the relay co-ordinator reads out your post in front of everyone. This means that no matter what letters you get on relay they get read out and since this is a tradition people do send some embarrasing things in!! Be warned

The Church that shows God (1 Cor 14:20-40)
Our next session on these passages looked at the last part of chapter 14, again some more contreversial things but again Maurice dealt with them brilliantly. Maurice began with a quote from Dave Bish which said "Being spiritual is about being gospel". We saw how the passage states that what we do in church, including gifts should help people to see the gospel. The passage implies that there will be non-christians in the meeting and therefore they must look at what they do and evaluate it according to Gods word. Its a challenge to think how many non-christians we see in our meetings and so many times when we have an "evangelistic" service we change the way its done. Should it be like that all the time?
Then we saw also how all things should be done in order and how there is a self control to using the gifts. Confusion and chaos is not a sign of God. It was interesting to apply the bit where it says "29Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said. 30And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop" This shows how we should use our gifts BUT they are not the most important thing to be used. Its about building up the church and encouraging them to live in love. And also church shows the trinity - Spirit brings variety, Jesus is shown in the body and the father is shown in order.

Final Challenges
During the afternoon we did alot of finishing relay type stuff. Questionaires, feedback forms and the like but we also had a visit from Richard Cunningham (Director of UCCF). Richard is a great guy and has a real passion for the gospel even if he does have a very posh accent!!! He talked to us about perseverence again and it was encouraging to me to hear a similar challenge to what we've heard before about encouragement and who God is. We were challenged to hold onto the gospel and continue to hear and live the word. A great challenge as we were leaving relay. Then we were whisked away for a posh nosh served by the Staffworkers in full waiter/waitress dress! It was a great time of fun and our table even nearly set Quinta on fire during one of the thankyou speeches. Ask me for more details! After we had a bonfire and sang some terrible pop songs and i managed to burn my hand on the bonfire so missed most of it!!! Not good!

RELAY:3:DAY:3

Again Day 3 started with a glorious morning outside. I always find it so much easier to learn from God in a place such as that as the surroundings just speak who God is so clearly. It was the same when i was in America and doing Bible School in the middle of the Colorado Rockies. How could you not believe that God really existed when all creation cries out!

The Church that works (1 Cor 14:1-19)
Supposedly Maurice was telling us that alot of people were very shocked when he was telling them that he was going to speak on these passages. And looking at this section you wouldn't disagree in a CU context but Maurice tackled it by simply preaching what the passage said. He remarked "We shouldn't come to the passages asking questions which it simply doesnt answer". A challenge to me when im preparing talks and bible studies. But we saw as we looked at this passage is that the biggest principle of all gifts is to pursue love for the building up of the church. So the reason that the passages says prophecy is better than tongues is because it builds up the church. Tongues is only for one person and God whereas Prophecy should edify the whole church. Unless we can hear and understand what is being said whats the good. So when were praying out loud we shouldn't pray in tongues as some cant understand. PURSUE LOVE=BUILD THE CHURCH. Practically this means alot of things - Dont go to 2 churches, one for worship and one for teaching! We must pray intelligebly so that people can say "AMEN" at the end of it! And again we must pursue love which sometimes may mean that we dont use our gifts! More on this tommorow.

On the evening we have a prayer and praise session. It is something which in some ways i dread as i sometimes find them abit funny. Usually because people come to the front and say soemthing like "were going to do a deal with God" Not sure about that. But this prayer and praise was great and encouraging and challenging too. We prayed for our 121's which was cool. We prayed for those on Homestart (Jools, Chris O and Alison going to Chile/Argentina, Japan and Brussels respectively) It was great to do this and see their heart for their countries. Especially encouraging as always was Chris Oldfield as he has such a passion for Gods word that its infectious! He sets a big example to me about being passionate about God. We also prayed for Thailand and the desperate state there and then i think for UCCF. It was a good night this time and people really prayed and cried out to God for his mercy and grace not for a "bargain deal"!

Fellowship Group 4

Passing on the Relay Baton's in our fellowship group

The Classic UCCF Photo opportunity

TIP: Never take an arty photo when your looking directly at the sun!

Sunsets! I do love em

Heres a break from the relay ramblings! On Sunday night me and sarah went to Bempton Cliffs after church as the weather was awesome and we wanted to see the Sunset and the Puffins. Stupidly i didnt nick my dads camera whilst mine is still broken but i did capture some of it on camera. It was an amazing night and the sunset looked awesome setting over the cliffs! These pictures cant even capture a quarter of how good it was! And here i am the next morning so Christs love for me is more certain again!!

RELAY:3:DAY:2

Day two started early with a dribble under the shower but the most amazing thing for me was sitting outside each morning to do my quiet time. At 7.20 i would sit on the lawn and just look out over shropshire as the day woke up and the birds woke up! It was amazingly hot at that point in the morning but really quiet too and was a great chance to hear what was happening in the world.

The Church that shows Jesus (1 Cor 12:12-30)
For me this was one of the most challenging talks as we looked at the body of Christ. In Church we all aim at the same thing but as we saw yesterday we can aim at it in slightly different ways. The passage starts off with the statement that Christ is the church and the church is the body of Christ. So as a church we are meant to be reflecting who Christ is. But we then moved on to look at how we can act like we are inferior or superior. We saw how no part of the church is weaker and we need each part of the church to survive. When it says i cannot survive as an ear by ourselves it is eactly that. We cannot survive as Christians unless we are part of a church. Therefore we should rejoice again in the variety of church and how we are all different. But the challenge for me came to think about how i can sometimes act like im superior and above people. We are all important in the church and therefore each gift id just as valid as any other. This is vital to a church and being part of the church and living as a church! This is only a brief overview so do ask me if you want any more info!

Work- See Sean Clokeys Blog

Keeping Spiritually Alive
For our final session of the day we looked at how as men we should keep alive as christians. It reminded me of a set of books ive read and found very challenging by a guy called Stu Weber and especially a book called "All the kings men". This session reflected alot of what was in this book and the need to be encouragers of one another as men to live the Christian Life. Some practical tips and verses were given shown below.

Strive for Godliness (Titus 2:11-14), Church (Hebrews 10:24-25), Bible (1 Thess 5:17, 1 Pet 2:2), Evangelism (Col 4:1-6, 1 Pet 3:15, Philemon 6), Christian Worldview (Romans 12:1-2), Gospel (2 Pt 1:12, 3:1), Accountability (2 Pt 3:10)