A Man on a God Inspired Mission

I'm currently sitting on train going from Birmingham to Aberyswyth in Wales for a family wedding. For those of you who know me you know me, you will know that travelling is no big thing to me but today has been something different, we've been delayed at every stop, we've now been travelling over 10 hours and surprise surprise I'm starting to get tired and grumpy. Of course it's in the midst of these types of days just when your feeling fed up and ready to just say forget it I wanna go home, even though I know the end goal will be worth it. That seems to be the time when God shows up. So far this trip has produced several ideas for a blog and know doubt I will get round to blogging about them over the next few weeks. As we've been going through the Welsh countryside (which seems to go on forever, Northern Ireland is so small) I've been looking out talking to God and listening to podcasts. One of the talks I was listening to was about things mens s...

This year I really felt God speaking to me about but Christ back in CHRISTmas. So in church we ran an event called Christmas Stripped where we had some acoustic worship and just focused on Jesus and what he calls us to do and what his coming into the world meant for us all. I had the pleasure of speaking at this event and now as we enter the post christmas period as the trees and the lights start to disappear can we be challenged to continue the Christmas message beyond the 6th January?  Christmas is a time of HOPE for so many people. For children the hope of what santa is going to bring, for others its about the hope of catching up with friends and family. For some its just the hope of getting some time out from the daily grind. But what exactly does the word Hope mean for us and what can we do with that Hope we have been given and how can we share it with others? I a bit of a statistics geek at times and I love to google things to see what more I can learn. What shocked...

Doing Life together seems to be the latest craze in churches and ministries across the world at the minute. Everywhere we go churches are talking about Doing Life, Life Groups, Life Together, Doing Life with Each other, but, is it just a phase or have churches finally grasped what Jesus is all about? Ever since I started out in ministry I was far more interested in getting down and dirty with people, serving, helping being where the action is. However I liked nothing more than chatting with the other leaders, volunteers and people God was bringing across my path and just meeting them where they were at and seeing where things went from there. As much as I understood the importance of attending meetings and doing admin being on the ground with people was were I felt happiest. I love preaching and one of my biggest regrets is I don't do it enough, however the reason I love preaching so much is the conversations afterwards. I love being able to chat with people about the message God...

Fabula Est Vestri - The Story is Yours. We all have a story, every single one of us has a story to tell. The thing is that s ometimes we get more concerned with knowing what our neighbours stories and sometimes we don't really care as long as we are ok. At times we get  so wrapped up in our own stories that we think no one cares or wants to help us. That we are incapable of help and that no one would really care but how we are feeling. But that's not true. For the past few weeks i've been preparing for the Christmas Season at church. Always a very busy time for anyone that works in a church with Nativity Plays, endless parties to "show up at", plus the added pressure of trying to keep the focus off the man in the big red suit and keeping it on the baby in the manger. It was when I was preparing for one of these services that God clearly spoke this message to me. It was all very strange how it happened, I recently found an old worship DVD I hadn't watched ...

I'm involved in some local outreach work in one of the estates near where I live. Lately a lot of people have been asking me why I do it, why do I go along each week to be sworn at, shouted at, ignored and all out not appreciated. One thing I've noticed though is that this attitude isn't solely about this sometimes in our churches we have this attitude of wanting to do "perfect" outreach. Outreach where we go out meet the kids on the streets, bring them into the church and the week after they are great and by our standards perfect christians. The reality is much so different, these kids are living in a world where loving your neighbour has gone out the window. Where it's one for all and everyone against those who don't fit in. Kids are exposed to Alcohol and drugs at younger ages and their sexual awareness from such a young age is shocking. But instead of ignoring it and looking the other way, we as the church need to take a stand against this attitude and...

So I started writing this blog just after I came back from Summer Madness but never actually got round to writing more than the title so here goes. I've been involved in youth work now for about 10 years and over those years I have met some fantastic young people and planted many seeds, some of which I got the pleasure of watching grow and  in turn begin to plant seeds elsewhere and help others to grow just as they had. However up until recently I had always felt guilty about some of the young people in my last church who I had been working with and who were really starting to go places with God and then I left. For me I always felt like I had planted the seed but didn't hang around to help water it and watch it grow. Therefore in some respects letting them and God down. For the past few months this had been eating away at me and I was really feeling bad about walking away and leaving them and felt that I had wasted what God had called me to do with them. Don't get me...

So whenever I wrote my last post I really felt I needed to find a word of encouragement I had written for the Youth Blog on our Church Website back in 2008 when I had just started out as their Youth Worker. Any way it took me a few days but I've finally found it. Happy Reading :-)  BATH TIME WITH GOD Ok Guys, so it’s me again, here to inspire you and if not just to take up a few minutes of your time. Everyone has that special place they go where God really ministers to them and talks to them about things that are going on or the people around them. For me it’s the bath (which does freak people out). So Saturday I came home from work after having one of those days that you really just want to take out of your diary and pretend it didn’t happen in which David had come into work to ask me to write this and I had told him in the most polite way there was no hope. Anyway we all have one of those days you know the sort, bad day at work, nothings going right, your ti...