Tuesday, 17 November 2009 | Uncategorized
Did you know that Christmas is coming – of course you did. You’ve seen the Coca Cola advert on the telly – “Holidays are coming, Holidays are coming” – so we must be nearly there?
But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, there are still plenty of things to enjoy before we actually get there.
On the weekend of the 5th and 6th of December we have some great events for you.
We start the weekend with Greg Downes joining us for a Men’s Breakfast looking at the subject of “Failure and Hope”:
Mark Ritchie is joining us once again on the Saturday evening for “Are you feeling Christmassy yet?”
Mark is a wonderful story teller and sure to make us laugh and cry. The tickets are free, but you will need to get one from the church office beforehand. I have it on good authority that we’ll have the Christmas Tree up by then, something that definitely marks the start of Christmas for me.
Then on Sunday we are joined by Greg Downes from the Watford School of Leadership. Greg is a gifted speaker and not to be missed.
On the 9th of December rather than serving their usual Soup the Lunch Break team are laying on a special Christmas Dinner – with all the trimmings. They’ll be joined by the students from Capernwray Bible School who will be presenting “The Greatest Gift”. Please make sure that you reserve your place beforehand.
We continue the Christmas theme on Saturday 12th December with the Saltmine Theatre company who are joining us with their show “Robin Hood: Merry Christmas, Merry Men”. If you like pantomime then this is the event for you. The tickets are £2.50 available from the church office.
Wednesday 16th December is a special Christmas night just for the ladies with the Revive team laying on a special night. It should be lots of fun with a pamper zone, Christmas treats and live music.
The highlight for many people and the definitive start of Christmas at Fulwood is the Carols by Candlelight service, this year being help on the 20th December at 6:30pm.
Then on Christmas Day join us for a short 45 minute service – don’t forget to bring a present.
For those of you who have been eagerly waiting for the podcasts from the last two weekends please accept my apologies. I’m hoping to get them up there before the end of the week.
Friday, 18 September 2009 | Uncategorized
I’m still chewing over this question of how we communicate. . In fact, one of my friends told me in no uncertain terms:</p><blockquote><p align=)
I’m not letting you be my on-line friend, there’s stuff on there I don’t want my pastor to see!
Have we really replaced real friendships with cyber ones? Do we now live in different realities?
If this is where people’s social networking is leading, what’s the communication challenge for a church that wants to be relevant to its culture with a message of transforming hope found through relationship? How relevant is what we sing on a Sunday, what we preach from our pulpit to real lives, real issues, competing realities? How loud does our message speak when competing with the flashing lights and instant access of multi-media Britain? In a world of email, web access, social networking, Freeview and DVD’s, do we really communicate effectively? Or do we lose the body language, the eye contact and meaning that taking the time to sit and chat speaks?
Someone challenged me recently with how I communicate, the way I say things, and how who I am and what I really think can get lost in my choice of words. How often do our heart and motives get lost because of the way we say something?
You never get a second chance to make a first impression.
So I have got to thinking about what we say and how we say it. And this has left me pondering how story plays such a large part in communicating effectively. Story seems to have played such a place through history in preserving heritage, truth, community – from the aborigine round the fire to the grandfather with his grandkids. Even the Bible uses narrative to tell the story of God with man. How many of us can remember what was said in the training session or business meeting last week, or the sermon on Sunday? Yet how many of us can remember the story our friend told us over a brew six-months ago?
So I tried something different last Sunday, and used story to communicate the message of the prodigal son. With Back to Church Sunday looming on 27th September, I wanted to communicate how our feelings and perspectives affect us all over the question of “coming back”, finding a “second chance”. So I told 3 stories from 3 perspectives, and posed one question – who do you identify with? And all in 15 minutes!!! And so far, the feedback has been really encouraging, much greater than I normally get when I preach “normally”.
If we want to communicate effectively, maybe we need to experiment with different forms, and not be afraid to carry a tool belt with us, selecting the right tool for the right situation rather than persevering with the same old-same old single method of communication. Perhaps if we are willing to take risks, and break through cyber friendships to making time for real life then this amazing message of hope, love and second chances might shout louder and more clearly?
Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved. Matthew 9:17
Wednesday, 29 July 2009 | Uncategorized
OK, so I admit it. I’m lousy at writing my blog…it has been 10-months since I last blogged and so much has happened in that time!
A happy heart makes the face cheerful!
Proverbs 15:13
Tuesday, 30 September 2008 | Uncategorized
Forgive me Father, it’s been six months since my last blog…!
There is something confessional in sitting and writing a blog, and for me something personal and liberating in doing so, even though I never expect anyone to be interested in my musings, thoughts or soul searching.
Tomorrow is the anniversary of Linda’s death. Wow, a whole year has gone by and at such a pace. Huge amounts have happened that were just not even imagined a year ago – Street Pastors in Preston’s red light district; people responding to Christ at TO3J in the Charter Theatre; incredibly exciting things as this message of real hope begins to be communicated and offered to people.
But it’s a very strange feeling sitting here and looking back over the last few years, and recently I have been doing a LOT of personal reflection. 12-months on, I have discovered a number of things about myself, my life, my feelings, my priorities, my choices. Such as?
Well if you’re interested, for example, I don’t do dates! There is a huge part of me that just wants dates to go past without anyone saying anything. Be that tomorrow, or what would have been our 16th wedding anniversary a couple of weeks ago. I don’t do dates – I’d rather just ignore them and get on with living. That doesn’t mean I don’t care, but sometimes it’s easier to stick your head in the sand, let the past rest in the past ‘cos there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
Yet at the same time I can’t escape dates. Linda’s brother contacted me last week and is donating some money to our old church as a memorial to Linda – great. But that’s not me; my memorial to Linda is to live again, and let her life count for something through what I do, say and share with others. If others can find peace with God through me talking about, and leaning upon, our experiences then I’m being true to Linda and her legacy.
I shared my story at a local Parish church’s men’s group a few weeks ago. The first time I had publicly told my story and invited people to respond to God. Most of the people who were there were already Christians, but at the end of it I found myself being approached by a number of them, relating to different parts of my story. One man had lost his wife to cancer shortly before their Golden Wedding Anniversary and wanted to talk about the loneliness. Another wanted to talk about his wife, who having lost several close people to cancer had turned her back on God.
And then yesterday I visited someone I’ve been walking with for the last 3-years. On Friday he goes for a second MRI scan on what looks horribly like it could be a cancer – and he has no-one. In my mind I sat in that consultant’s room again like I did 6 years ago, and felt again the feelings of helplessness, of fear, of the walls closing in and the terror of the unknown. “I’ll walk that journey with you” I promised him – if there’s one thing I’ve learnt it’s that we’re not meant do it alone. I then prayed God would heal him – ‘cos I still believe in a miracle working God.
But there’s also another good reason for not doing dates – we as a family are all moving on with our life, as Linda asked us to. Dragging up the dates again and making a big thing of the anniversary of Lindbut a’s death is not going to help the kids, who are extremely happy. There are times they talk about mummy, and are very respectful, but they are also embracing life, growing up and changing rapidly.
Life moves on. Very fast. But I have also had to accept that what we have been through over the last 6-years is something that will always be with us. It’s part of who I am now. It shapes me, and influences how I approach people; it makes me realise how short life is and makes me want to live life again – yes at a hundred miles an hour, but I don’t want to waste a minute!
OK, I still cry – I just don’t let anyone see. Reliving the feelings will always hurt – when you love someone and lose them, well, it just hurts. Healing is not the absence of pain – it’s being prepared to look into those dark areas of life and know God has given you a second chance.
And that’s something else that I have learnt. Just how amazing God’s grace is, that gives us what we don’t deserve. To start to live again and experience God using what you have been through to help others is great; but to experience Father’s embrace to me personally as his child as he pours amazing things into my lap, my cup running over, it’s just beyond words.
I’ve also found that the logicality of Christian faith, based upon good trustworthy evidence means that we don’t have to base what we believe on feelings. It’s really true, and if that’s the case then God can be trusted even when things don’t go as we want.
And I guess that’s the legacy I want to share with others 12-months on – the God of second chances who gives us what we don’t deserve, who is real and can be trusted no matter how we feel.
Monday, 8 September 2008 | Uncategorized
I have just spent time in a very wet English Lake District with folk from St Stephen’s Church Preston on their weekend away. A great mix of people from almost 0-90+ – just what church is meant to be. There is no theology of ageist, niche-marketing Christianity in the bible. Anyone, any age, any sex, from any social strata can join.
A weekend in the Lakes is always great. Being with a church, with people who love Jesus and are doing their best to walk with each other in Him is a taste of heaven.
We have been led to believe that heaven is getting away from it all; a turquoise sea with an empty white beach and no people. God’s picture of heaven is quite different! It is a community of His people, from every tribe and language and people and nation in a city so huge it is well over a thousand miles cubed! It is a bright, brilliant, bejewelled, radiant with the glory of the presence of God city, full of His people.
Being with a bunch of people struggling pupa from cocoon like, to become a beautiful butterfly or bride…well it was just a taste of heaven.
PAG
Tuesday, 26 August 2008 | Uncategorized
I had my last summer Sunday off over the weekend so I went to a different church.
The vicar – Brian McConkey only preached for ten minutes. He was deep, thought provoking, simple and profound. He preached from Luke 17 about the Ten Lepers being healed by Jesus. Ten were healed, only one returned to give thanks. Maybe, Brian said, nine were healed, but only one – the Samaritan, the odd one out was made whole. We don’t just need healing. We need to be made whole and to be truly thankful to God for the wholeness of salvation he gives us in Christ!
And it only took ten minutes. I have heard it said that a ten minute sermon produces ten minute Christians! That’s usually an excuse to go on and on and take forty minutes to say what you could say in twenty.
I’ve just read an excellent book on preaching. 360 Degree Preaching by Michael Quicke. My model and method is very similar to his – a stream of development of a sermon from start to finish in which we are all, preacher and listener alike, in the flow of the communication of the Holy Spirit. It got me all excited about the privilege and power of preaching again.
But I am stuck. I’d like to preach shorter, I am not sure how.
A minister once got up to preach and apologized for the nicks on his face. He said, “I was thinking about preaching and cut myself shaving,” A crumpled note in the offering box offered this advice, “Next time, why don’t you think about shaving and cut your preaching!”
But, I’m a preacher! Why use twenty words when two hundred will do?
PAG
I’m not letting you be my on-line friend, there’s stuff on there I don’t want my pastor to see!
