Shoutlouder

onward to the land of IKEA

// August 27th, 2008 // No Comments » // General

I’ll be spending the next couple of days in Sweden thanks to an opportunity to attend Scott Wilson’s Eurolead.net conference with keynote speaker Paul Scanlon.

It’s a conference specifically aimed at senior pastors and leaders so it will be interesting to see how much time is taken up discussing the events of the past few weeks in the Christian World!

Anyhow – as I’ve decided to leave the trusty laptop at home – it’ll be good to be away from it – you can follow my trip on Twitter. I’ll be sure to post some of the best thoughts when I’m back!

How do we deal with this!

// August 21st, 2008 // 4 Comments » // Leadership

I’ve really wondered how to write this blog post as since yesterday the blogosphere has been fast building up with a million comments on what has happened in Australia with Mike Gugglielmucci. If you’re not aware then confirmed reports are coming out that Mike has admitted to making up his entire illness – for what gain or why no-one yet knows.

I found out yesterday and to be honest my brain didn’t believe it for about half an hour as the whole thing just seems so unreal. But the truth is out and we have to deal with it as leaders and people who have been moved and challenged by the ‘testimony’ of Mike. I was even inspired by his song and the ‘testimony’ recorded on the Hillsong DVD to preach on healing the other week in church – showing a 3min clip of Mike talking about his ordeal. It all just seems unreal…

So how do we deal with this? I found this article from Mal Fletcher really helpful because I know Mal as a senior global leader who also knows Mike personally and his family.

Mal writes:

I have known Michael since he was a little boy and have always loved him – I still do. Our hearts, of course, go out to those closest to him.

Though Michael’s is not a household name, his music gift and speaking talent, along with his very charismatic personality, have made a major impact on many young lives, in a number of nations.

I write about this here, with some discomfort, because some regular readers of this editorial will know Michael and will be trying to understand the situation.

I write also because the issues here are bigger than this individual case. From time to time, Christian ministers and leaders will fall. People of faith must be able to face the inevitable question: ‘How can this happen – and how should we respond?’

I think Mal’s comments and direction are the best comments I can find at this time because here is someone who carries the respect of tried and tested leadership mixed with the emotion of personal involvement.

Read the full article here – in the meantime – let’s be praying for Mike and his family – that God’s grace will move and turn all things for good and the Glory of His name!

everyone is writing a book these days

// August 20th, 2008 // No Comments » // Thoughts

I’m sat writing this as my wife sits with a couple of friends of ours who’ve written a book on dealing with being middle-aged or above. Next week on my list of ‘jobs to get done’ is the formatting of 2 books from Pastor Dave which he’ll be getting published sometime in the next month or so. Plus it seems most of the pastors whose blogs I follow have some new book in the pipeline, being released which is going to be the next best read in your life.

So it seems everyone is writing a book these days… I wonder if I have one in me? There’s so much happening in my life I’m not sure if I can bear thinking about writing something other than the odd blog post right now but I wonder – if I did make time to write – what would I write about?

Tell me what you think – what should I write? Or what would you write about if you could be bothered to!

davegilpin.com is online

// August 19th, 2008 // No Comments » // Announcement, Blogging

After too much time spent in CSS and on Photoshop the brand new davegilpin.com is now ONLINE!

There are a whole host of articles that we’ve carried forward from the old S4 Leadership days – but Dave has some awesome new stuff to release including the full online E-book ‘Manboobs’. ‘What is that’ I hear you cry – well you’ll just have to go look!

I’m certainly looking forward to more of Dave’s little video blogs – I just hope he doesn’t put us serious blog readers down everytime he records one… (Dave’s problem is that he is a Nerd in Denial!! lol)

Anyhow – seriously good stuff on there so make sure you check it out and Subscribe to the RSS feed! The Podcasts should also be on iTunes soon as soon as I can work out why iTunes won’t read the feed! In the meantime you can get them on the site itself!

big Sundays at Hope City continued

// August 18th, 2008 // No Comments » // Sunday

It was another great Sunday in Leeds this week with more new faces and a great atmosphere of faith and expectation as we move into an exciting season within the church. There’s growth and increase taking place, lives being changed and of course in a couple of months we’ll be moving into our new building. Here’s some highlights from day:

• Congratulations to Josh and Beth who are now expecting their 1st child
• Awesome to have Joyce & Henri join us who have been our missionaries in Gabon for a couple of years and now spending time in Leeds ahead of the birth of their 2nd child and for Henri to do some studies.
• Our worship team have been doing so well over the Summer as it’s effectively a bit of a skeleton crew with people away. Yet the power and presence of God in worship has never been more evident! Keep it up guys!
• Great to see loads of new people joining us and enjoying themselves. A big hi to the new Taiwanise couple George and Joan (I know – I thought it really funny that they had such English names until they told me their Taiwanise name and I was so glad they had English versions…). Hope you enjoy yourselves whilst here for the next year!
• Dale preached a great message on how to do the journey between weakness and strength in God using the story of Gideon in Judges 6 as his text. The key thought for me was that in every breakthrough and moment of transition you need to have an ENCOUNTER with God – it takes REVELATION not will power to move you forward on this journey. Watch out for the podcast to listen to it in full!
• 1 person made a decision to be a Christ-follower which is the most amazing part of the day. We had a really long season in the first half of this year when we saw no-one making decisions on Sundays. But for the last few weeks we seen people EVERY Sunday which is a real breakthrough!
• Summer Picnic – it was our annual trip to Roundhay Park for the bif family picnic. It almost looked like we might be rained off, but the sun came out and we had a great time. Everyone was really social and sat around in the park for nearly 4 hours chatting, eating, playing footie and then we also kicked off the 1st ever Big Family Walk round the lake which is a good way of dealing with all the junk food you just ate!

Such a great day! Can’t wait for next week!

the perfect curry night out

// August 15th, 2008 // No Comments » // Book Review, Inspiration

So I’m feeling almost as happy as Team Sprint GB thanks to blogging friend Scott Rodgers who decided that my bribe to take him out on the ‘perfect curry night out in Leeds’ was worthy of the Gold Medal – or in his case a copy if ‘IT‘ which I will duly read and review for all of you who have no idea what I am talking about!

I love his comment on the blog though saying that he has ‘no idea what a perfect curry night out means’ so he’ll have to give it a try – which made me realise HOW FORTUNATE I am to live in the amazing Great Britain!

Our athletes right now are competing in probably their best games for as long as I can remember. There’s a sense of victory in the air that seems to be compelling the athletes on. I’ve found myself watching snippets of the olympics this week and seeing a country that seems to have lost its boring quiet optimism and graceful sportsmanship and instead got back a Lion’s roar – and it shows – we’ve started winning things!

I love the fact they were interviewing the Cycling guys this morning and it wasn’t “Well, let’s hope for the best…” instead it was “We can do this – we’ve never been better, never been more on form…”

It took us 7 days in the Athens Games to get our first Medal – after 7 days in Beijing we have EIGHT and we still have one of our best weekends for winning medals to come with more cycling, rowing and athletics to come.

Brits for years have been known as ‘plucky’ – the underdogs who seem to keep on coming back and trying and trying again. And yet our heritage is that we are a nation that conquered and led most of the known world.

I guess its time for the Lion to start roaring again.

You were never born to be ‘plucky’ – you were born to be a Kingdom builder, more than a conqueror – you were born a winner from the very first moment that you won the race to the egg!

Which randomly brings me back to the best curry night out in Leeds – because that’s something else we can be proud of. After all – the Brits invented curry – it’s true (in a way) – and if you’ve never been out late on a Friday night in the middle of leeds and took in a late night Tikka Makhani at my favourite Akbars Restaurant then you’ve missed out on something. You can guarantee that most of Team GB will be sitting around supping their energy drinks and chomping on a protein bar with dreams of Olympic glory interupted every now and then as their minds wander back to the first thing they’ll do when they get home to a much greater Great Britain… go out for a curry!