Thursday, 18 June 2009 | Weekend Reflections
This weekend was a gloriously busy one.
Still Time Band on Saturday evening. It was a great evening with around 150 people gathering together for some Gershwin and some gospel music.
A big thank you to goes out to Mike and the team, I personally received lots of very positive feedback.
The strawberries and cream at the interval and the abundance of flowers from the wedding the day before gave the whole evening a wonderful summer feel.
On Sunday we were joined by Cristi Murgu for both our morning and evening services. Cristi is originally from Romania but currently working as a Pastor in Carnforth.
Cristi used the film Sliding Doors as an way of illustrating the importance of the decisions that we make. He then looked at the decisions that Blind Bartimaeus and the Samaritan Woman made.
How many choices do we each face every day?
How many of them are truly significant to our future?
It’s a very interesting thought.
As I look back at my own life some of the really significant decisions stand out loud and clear – job, marriage, house, etc. In some of these decisions the leading from God was clear.
Before we lived in the house we live in now we lived in a smaller house not far from here. We had a growing family and knew that we needed something bigger.
We spent some time looking around at the options and couldn’t find anything we could afford, or something we liked. We were looking for an older house with character, and didn’t really want a newer house.
One day we were nosing around the houses on the new estate they were building up the road from us. We looked at one particular house and wondered. We even spoke to the sales person to find out how much it would cost, but neither of us were convinced. It wasn’t an issue because we couldn’t afford it anyway.
One day while Sue was praying she felt a clear prompting from God to go for it, later on she was reading her Bible and again got a clear prompting.
To cut a long story short we went to the sales people and offered them significantly less than they were asking. They smiled politely and said that they would have to speak to Head Office and would get back to us in the next 24 hours. Not expecting any reply, as it was early evening and Head Office would be closed, we went home. Before we could even get home we had received the confirmation we were looking for via the mobile phone and we were moving.
There have been other times when I have wondered whether I have missed out on something wonderful because I wasn’t willing to step out and go for it.
I can be too timid and Bartimaeus stands as a shining example of dogged determination not to miss an opportunity even in the face of opposition. The Samaritan Woman is another example of someone who encountered Jesus in such an amazing way that she wasn’t willing to carry on being the outsider. And that is the fundamental difference, these people met Jesus and He changed everything for them – Bartimaeus no longer blind; the Samaritan Woman no longer an outcast. They took their opportunity.
I was particularly touched by Cristi’s description of the evens of the Romania revolution and his involvement in it. He had choices that day – life and death choices.
What choices are you facing today? Will they be Jesus choices or just choices?
Thursday, 11 June 2009 | Weekend Reflections
The theme of Fear to Faith seems to have been a bit of a reoccurring theme for us over the last few weeks.
Both Andrew and Allan touched on it again this weekend.
Andrew in particular encouraged us to think of ourselves as sons (and daughters) not as slaves.
Romans 8:15 and 16 says this:
For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.
NIV
This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!
The Message
God’s Spirit doesn’t make us slaves who are afraid of him. Instead, we become his children and call him our Father. God’s Spirit makes us sure that we are his children.
CEV
I’ve posted a few different versions to try and help us to get the full meaning of what is being said here.
Our position is quite clear – we are not fearful slaves we are children by faith.
Sometimes it’s best just to let the Bible speak for itself and that’s what I’m going to do this week. So that is where I am going to finish other than to leave you with a few questions:
- What is it that you are fearful of?
- What are you going to do about that fear because fearful isn’t where God wants you to be living?
- How can we help you to move from fear to faith?
- How can you celebrate being a child?
Wednesday, 3 June 2009 | Weekend Reflections
I’m writing this week’s Weekend Reflections sat in a Premier Inn in Aldershot, it’s evening and I left home at 4:00am this morning so my body and mind are somewhat jaded, exhausted even. But when I think back to last weekend my spirits are lifted. What a great weekend.
It was Pentecost Sunday so we were thinking about the Holy Spirit.
Ian and Andrew both did a great job:
My notes from Ian’s talk:
- Pentecost is an early morning prayer meeting and then they party.
- They met to celebrate one kind of fruit and they get another.
- Pentecost happened in a house – the Holy Spirit can meet us anywhere.
- Everyone of them were declaring the glory of God.
- They must have spilled out into the streets. This seems to happen naturally and certainly didn’t require any planning.
- If God does touch your life – don’t stay in the room – get out there onto the streets.
- The Holy Spirit wants to do through me – not just in me.
- Peter stood up to explain not to preach. He was giving witness to what he had experienced – it wasn’t a debate of logic and reason.
- It was the explanation that broke through into people’s hearts and lives.
- Being cut to the heart was a violent thing. It wasn’t a paper-cut – it was a stab.
- People were told what they needed to do and they did it.
- The message – turn from your sins, turn to God, be baptised and receive the Holy Spirit. A simple yet profoundly eternal message.
- What would you do if you weren’t afraid – what would I do if resources weren’t an issue?
- God gives good gifts.
- It’s rude to leave a box unopened.
The last two points come as an addendum to Ian’s prepared message after he was challenged by God the day before. God is challenging us to open the gifts that He has given us. What gifts have I left unopened? What gifts have you left unopened?
In many ways Andrew’s message was, again, a follow on from Ian’s message. Andrew’s encouragement was to think of the book of Acts as a series of Pentecost stories rather than Pentecost being limited to the events in Acts 2:
- Stories of Purity – Acts 8: Philip preaches the gospel in Samaria and Simon the sorcerer is
humbled. Titus 3:5 “He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit”. - Stories of Presence – Acts 10: Peter at Cornelius’s house. Peter tells a gentile the good news. The Holy Spirit came. God looks at you and sees His Spirit.
- Stories of Power – Acts 9: Paul was a rebel. Ananias lays hands on Saul – brother Saul. It’s about His power. 1 Corinthians 2:4: “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power”.
- Stories of Praise – Acts 10: They were astonished at the praise of God by these gentiles: “For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God.” The Holy Spirit lead naturally to praise.
But that wasn’t everything. Sunday was also the Global Day of Prayer and we took our part. It was great to see people praying throughout the afternoon lifting people and issues to God. I don’t believe that it’s a coincidence that people responded in the evening service afterwards. Personally I was really challenged about how much I love – how much I love my friends, how much I love Preston, how much I love England. It was a challenge that first struck me in David Smith’s sessions a few weeks ago; Sunday afternoon took that challenge deeper.
I know that I don’t have enough love for all of these things but I know that God does.
Finally, a big thank you for the kind comments about these posts and a special thank you to those of you have commented. I’d love to hear more of your own reflections.
Tuesday, 26 May 2009 | Weekend Reflections
God speaks!
For some people I’m sure that a statement like that sounds like complete lunacy, but it’s the truth.
This weekend we have seen another example of God using ordinary people to speak to other ordinary people in extraordinary ways.
We are in the middle of a series titled What would Jesus say… it’s really a non-series where we have asked people to bring a message that they believe God has given them for us.
That doesn’t mean that we are going to get completely different messages in each service because our experience tells us that God has a remarkable way of creating a common theme. This weekend was another example of that; both Mark Sleet and Chris Drury brought messages that encouraged us and challenged us to move into a journey of faith.
Mark Sleet spoke to us about the experience that Peter had when he went walking on the water with Jesus. Chris Drury spoke to us about the example of Abraham.
Both of them were talking about moving out of a place of comfort into a place of adventure – an adventure of faith.
Some of my thoughts from both of them:
- Am I comfortable with living with a fear?
- Where am I in a comfort zone? Am I willing to risk it?
- It isn’t enough to just speak faith. If Peter had just said “tell me to come to you on the water” and not gone when told to “come” he would have been a failure.
- If it’s already within your ability to do it – it’s not faith.
- Abraham didn’t know where God was taking him when he set of – and neither did Peter.
- Peter’s faith was revealed instantaneously – Abraham’s was revealed over decades.
- If Jesus says come – there is nothing to fear, we can step out in faith.
- God is big enough.
- Jesus was there when Peter reached out his hand.
- Faith is an adventure.
- The correct response for both Peter and Abraham was worship.
What thoughts struck you?
Tuesday, 19 May 2009 | Weekend Reflections
It’s taken me a little longer to get the podcasts uploaded from this weekend, but they are there now.
We are continuing in our What would Jesus say… series where we are asking people to bring a message to us that they believe God has told them to bring, something from their heart.
Chris and Andrew both bought real heart messages this week.
After looking at Isaiah 58 Chris left us with two thought provoking questions:
- What sort of people are we?
- What does it mean to be the people of God?
In many ways Andrew went on to expand upon these questions by thinking about these words from Galatians 5:16:
So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.
The other thought that occurred to me as I read through Galatians 5 was the word “fruit”. I’ve always read this passage as saying “fruits” plural, but that’s not what it says:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Galatians 5:22-23
We aren’t meant to split them up with each having a different one – they come as a package.
I don’t believe that God gives people random messages, we are there as a people and He wants to speak to us as a people. It’s certainly worth listening to both of these messages.
The message to me personally this weekend was – “Graham live out your peace and stop striving for everything”.
What did God say to you through these messages.
If you struggle to understand what Andrew is trying to do at the end of the service with the pieces of paper a handy guide can be fund here.
We had friends visiting for the weekend and they loved being with us, it was great to see. It can be very enlightening seeing your own church through the eyes of a close friend. It’s easy to take for granted what God has done among you – “thank you Lord”.
Monday, 11 May 2009 | Weekend Reflections
This weekend was a busy one at Fulwood Free Methodist Church.
As our name suggests we are a part of a movement called the Free Methodist Church. There are a number of church across the UK and each year we get together to hear from God and to consider the way ahead for the coming year. It’s also the place where pastors are appointed to the different churches. It’s a great gathering.
We started the weekend on Friday night with a time of praise, worship and celebration. The building was full of people who had come together from across the country. David Roller (our Bishop) was the speaker; his message to us was an encouragement to move on and move out (available on the podcast).
On Saturday we had a special guest speaker from KingsGate Community Church in Peterborough, David Smith; again the focus was on growth and movement.
From a personal perspective it was great to hear David’s heart coming through, his heart for the church to reach the local community and on to the nations. Rather than giving us a set of methods David gave us a set of principles. From my perspective principles are always more useful that methods, it’s a bit like the difference between giving someone a fish and teaching them to fish.
David spoke in two sessions How to Start a (Thriving) Church from Nothing and Principles for Church Growth. If you are in a leadership role of any kind you should listen along.
Our speaker for Sunday, following on from Annual Conference, was Richard Taylor; speaking both morning and evening. I can’t really comment on the morning service because we had some technical issue that I was busy sorting out. In the evening Richard told his story and it was a blessing to see people responding. Both services are available on the podcast.
Richard has a wonderful testimony, a story of God’s transforming power. If you are ever in a position where you doubt whether God can really change lives listening to Richards story will make you realise that God can and does.
We are just starting out on this series of posts on Weekend Reflections and we’d love to hear your stories so please leave your comments.
One day we were nosing around the houses on the new estate they were building up the road from us. We looked at one particular house and wondered. We even spoke to the sales person to find out how much it would cost, but neither of us were convinced. It wasn’t an issue because we couldn’t afford it anyway.
