Shoutlouder

return to normal

// September 11th, 2008 // 4 Comments » // General, Self-Development

The last few weeks seem to have been absolutely rammed with work so huge apologises for not blogging. I am just about getting back into the swing of things as deadline after deadline begins to pass by – having been finally accomplished. This is indeed the life of a Pastor / Graphic Designer!

My youth pastor asked me the other day “how on earth do I manage everything?” after I’d made some comment about being run off my feet but still going. It’s an interesting thought – but I guess the answer is I don’t really think about it. Thinking about it would lead to such dead end cul-de-sacs of stupid questions (or whinges) such as “am I really coping?” – “should so much be expected of me?” – “my senior pastor doesn’t care enough for me and my family?” – “I don’t think I’m being paid enough to work so hard…?” – etc. after stupid etc.

The real answer I’ve found is to stop asking questions and get on with what you’ve been called to do! My passion is to build God’s church and so that will require me to do whatever it takes. The great thing is I have a God who cares about my family, who cares about my health, who cares about how I am doing and who cares about how much I get back from what I do… so why not leave those things in His very capable hands. That doesn’t mean I leave my brain at the door when planning my time… but it does mean that I know that for everything there is a season. Right now we’re in that pioneering and launching season till you drop… and my wife appreciates it and releases me to it – but October will soon swing round and we’ll start riding the wave of momentum that we created during the last season!

So – if you’re wondering how to cope with everything – stop wondering, stop wasting thinking time on it and just get on with it!

(If you’re married – pop into the Co-op on the way home, buy your wife some flowers, have dinner and then make sure you switch the channel to a good chick flick before you make your excuses and disappear into your office for a late night!)

Anyhow – back to work… I can’t spend all night blogging… (not just yet anyhow!)

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!

i've just been 'outed' on national TV – as a 'reverend'

// July 21st, 2008 // 2 Comments » // General, TV

Just been catching up with stuff since I got back from 3 weeks in a hospital waiting for them to complete their administration – and this morning I got a random text message from a friend that just simply said, “Reverend”… I was thinking – ‘what on earth is that about’ until I sat down this morning to watch the recording of ITV’s ‘A Match Made in Heaven’, featuring one of our congregation – and this week – according to the text titles – the Reverend Chris Denham! ha ha!

I have to say a sigh of relief is in order as the pre-edit version that we saw had a quick cut shot of me during the preach – but it caught me at a totally out-of-context moment. I’d been talking about James and John asking Jesus to sit at the Right and Left… they literally come up to Jesus and say, “Jesus, we want you to do whatever we ask!”… and that’s the statement that was all I said in the cut shot… beautiful… looks like I was preaching how to demand stuff from God!

Anyhow – sigh of relief as it was cut from the broadcast version and some other less controversial statements were heard… in fact I think the whole thing looked pretty awesome. We’ll have to get it stuck on You Tube so you can all share in our national launch!

So guess I’m now going to get a lot of ‘hello, reverend…’ for the next couple of weeks….

inbetween…

// July 6th, 2008 // No Comments » // General

So it’s 3:40pm on a Sunday afternoon – just had a great morning in our Leeds congregation. Ryan Gilpin wrote a new song the other week and it really has a touch of God about it. As soon as the guys this morning started singing you feel a thick sense of the presence of God in the place. I love it when its like that because you know the Holy Spirit is at work changing people’s lives!

Anyhow – I’m inbetween at present as I’m now home with just enough time for a change of shirt and a quick mouthful of pizza and then I’m off to our Newcastle congregation to preach there. Sundays can be really hectic and I have to say the trip back from Newcastle is the hardest part as you start wishing you could be Trekky transported direct to your bed – but the anticipation of seeing God move in Newcastle beats all that into the background. Plus I’m taking my little boy – Joel – on our first “Go-with-Dad-whilst-he’s-ministering-somewhere” trip… so looking forward to a great night.

If you’re in Newcastle – might see you there!

it all begins…

// July 4th, 2008 // No Comments » // General

Sometime last year I forayed into the realm of blogging with great fervour and passion. But as usual after a couple of months the daily foray turned into a daily trudge and eventually a bi-monthly bother.. and so I stopped. But – with new vision and a better understanding of why and what it really means to be a blogger I’m starting a fresh. Welcome then to the new blog of me…

The truth is no-one will probably read this first post – in fact it’s probably more likely that you will discover you’re actually the next in line to the throne of England. Which seems to lead me to wonder how much time to spend writing here. Maybe I’ll just leave it at that and try and get a few random posts down before I even tell people this blog is in existence.

So to the great nothing that is listening – thank you and wish me well on my blogging adventure…

ylg

// June 1st, 2008 // No Comments » // General

Hey Dave

Here’s some visuals of the new design for the home page – I really hope you like it cause I do!

To view the images – click on one of the images below – then click on the slighter bigger version that appears – then click on the almost full size version which should give you a full size version on your screen.

These are flat drawings so no interaction – the first image is the same as the third except I’ve made it look like you’ve selected one of the navigation options so you can see how I intend it to look.

The scroll bar at the base of the header is meant to look like the one on this website. www.thelifechurch.com

So ads / buttons for things like bLink / Night of honour / Academy etc… can all appear in here.

Anyhow let me know what you think!

Image1 = HOME  /  Image2 = Article  / Image3 = Home with Selection