Shoutlouder

Counting the days

// January 20th, 2010 // No Comments » // Inspiration, Thoughts

It seems 2010 has started with a lot of counting of days!

Last week I was counting the days as we fasted and prayed for breakthrough across Hope City. Then this week I’m conscious that we’re now already at Day #11 of our ‘70 Days of You’ theme. It’s certainly making me think a lot about time and how much every day is such a big deal! It’s also making me think how fast time seems to flow past if we don’t give it enough thought!

This year I turn 34 years of age. My son turns 6. My daughter will turn 2. In September it will have been 5 full years since we took on our role pastoring the Leeds congregation of Hope City Church, 6 years since the congregation started out in the Radisson Hotel. It will also be 14 years that I’ve been married and 15 years that I’ve known the beautiful woman that I ended up marrying.

Time really does fly!

It feels like only yesterday that I was walking into school. It was just the other day that I was discovering a new and exciting church that was then called the Hope of Sheffield Christian Church. It seems just a blink of the eye since I first sat behind the wheel of a car and I could swear it was just the other week when I was saying goodbye to my parents as I left the family home for college – never to return to live there in full again.

Time doesn’t just fly – it zooms!

I can remember sitting at the top of a 600ft cliff enjoying a packed lunch whilst hiking in the Polish mountains with my wife. I can remember missing her dearly whilst on the other side of the world, riding at high speed across Darling Harbour in Sydney on a midnight speed cruise. There’s the memory of drinking iced coffee at the foot of the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpa and the moment that I walked out of the middle of nowhere to share the Gospel in a small village somewhere deep in the countryside of Zambia.

Time doesn’t stop for anything.

As time passes by in the next few months I’ll be tasting the sights of New York, walking the streets of Warsaw and celebrating more birthdays and anniversaries that I can remember. I’ll see the completion of yet more of our vision for the Megacentre in Leeds, be part of the fast expanding work of our multi-congregations and be privileged to see God do even more incredible things in the lives of those around me.

Time is on the move.

The only question is what are you doing with yours? Is timing passing by unnoticed or unheeded? Is time running away from you? Is time running out? Or is time your friend? Are you making the most of it? Are you counting the days and making every single one of them count? Today is Day#11 of ‘70 Days of You’ – that means I’ve got 59 more days to look firmly in the mirror and make the changes that need to be made. Then when that’s done – there will be time for something new!

new years renovation

// January 6th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Family, Inspiration

It’s the start of a brand new year so Merry Christmas and a Happy 2010 to you!

My year kicked off to a fairly unusual start with a day spent in my bathroom. Thankfully it was not due to any need to deposit the contents of my stomach due to some new years swine bird bug. It was more happily due to the need to renovate my bathroom after putting up with a room that had last seen some care and attention before time began.

It felt quite therapeutic to be honest. Ripping out the old taps and ceramic furniture that had persistently screamed of some previous pre-Ikea life. (Check out the Twitpics down the sidebar). Although the fun soon ended as I found myself faced with 30 years of collective grime hidden under taps and down pipes. But soon that was all gone and in went the brand spanking new bathroom ware that brought an air of hygenic cleanliness that was almost next to godliness.

And so we start the new year with an almost-finished bathroom. Well… there’s still a few things I didn’t quite get done before the holidays ended and the usual work load reappeared. But… I’m determined to get things done by the end of the month.

The whole thing just sums up my year to be honest! I’m not too interested in Resolutions and more interested in a New Years Renovation! Time to rip out the old stuff and the old ways and build something fresh and new! It’s time to make some radical changes and really lift the lid on all that’s gone before. Time to live the best life yet!

hijacked?

// July 15th, 2009 // No Comments » // Inspiration, Thoughts

So I’m just coming to the end of a day off a long day working on my cellar renovations (trying to create some office and ‘cave’ space for me in the house) when I get a call to say someone’s broken into our Leeds Megacentre. So off I trudge down to Mega in my dust covered clothes with bits of plaster still hanging out my hair to discover that someone’s broken in and nicked a TV off Reception. Three hours later I’m heading home to find an email notifying me of a difficult pastoral situation that needs my attention. So after some prayer and a much needed cup of tea – I finally hit the sack just before 1am to rise at the crack of dawn to another message to say the burglars have been back for the other 2 TVs… so off I head once more to Mega – with much need for a coffee – to await a team from CSI:Yorkshire and spend the day liasing with builders and security firms trying to sort out the gaping hole that needs filling….

(whew)

There are sometimes days in our lives when everything that happens is completely beyond our control. It’s impossible to predict when Mr Thrifty will visit your place next… or when other people’s lives spiral out of control because of unforseen or consequential circumstances… or when disease or ill health will strike…

But I’ve learnt there are always things that you can control whatever comes your way and that is your mind, your heart, your focus, your spirit, your relationship with God… . I could have got stressed out and got frustrated so many times over the last 24 hours – but I chose to see most of it for what it is – skirmishes – and realise that God is still very much in control!

See it’s no coincidence that over the last few weeks we’ve launched a schools project, a food hamper project and we’re in the middle of launching a huge family support project that has God’s favour written all over it! We’ve also seen some great fruit in church and I believe we’re heading towards one of the most exciting and fruitful seasons ever in Hope City Church.

So – guess what – someone doesn’t like that! There’s a prowling lion who is circling and waiting to pick off and exploit any weakness that he might find to stop us from fulfilling what God has called us to. What’s important to remember is – as long as you stay in the heart of God and seek to do His will and follow His call – that lion will remain toothless. The most that he can hope to do is pick off a few LCD TVs….

As for me and my house – we’re serving God and getting ready – cause all the signs are pointing towards an amazing season of God’s growth and increase!

tough stuff

// March 28th, 2009 // No Comments » // Inspiration

One of those annoying ‘facts of life’ is simply that at times things get really tough! One minute you’re having a whale of a time and then next it feels like the whale just landed on you! One minute you were driving along quite happily, enjoying the fresh breeze of the ministry and good friendships and then all of sudden you’re stuck in a traffic jam with no possible exit for miles.

The point is that at some point or other you’re going to hit a wall called ‘hard’ or ‘impossible’ and you’ll be faced with two decisions: 1) stop and camp at it’s base deciding to spend the rest of your life at that level or 2) work out how to grow a few feet taller so you can climb over it!

It might seem a bit of a no-brainer to some but the truth is we often hit these walls and it doesn’t matter what we do or how much stretching we undergo the wall remains impassable!

I’ve found myself looking up at all kinds of walls. We had it as a family when my son was born and we discovered he would need a series of operations. I had it as a Pastor when suddenly I was faced with two families at war thanks to an adulterous affair. I’ve had it as a business owner when faced with the need for new clients and a stable income and I’ve had it as the head of a household when faced with balancing the budget and working out how on earth we are going to get through the next few months without resorting to eating cardboard.

What I’ve discovered through it all is that there are some walls which are only really called ‘difficult’ and ‘need-to-try-a-bit-harder’ and can easily be climbed over if you just get off your lazy backside and put in a little effort. But there are some walls which are just simply too big to deal with and it’s our mistake to try and tackle these on our own.

Too many people try to be Spiderman but they always end up being swatted back down by the scale of the task. Instead if you want to deal with the really hard things of life then the only way to become big enough to climb the wall is to let God get bigger instead!

Whatever we face in life we don’t face it alone and too often we limit God by bringing him down to our level. You’re doing life with the Creator of the Universe and yet when we hit a hard wall of ‘provision’ or ‘insecurity’ we get so fixated on dealing with the tough that we forget that his middle name is ‘tough’.

So next time you hit a wall that’s too high to scale – instead of trying to work out how YOU can climb it why not try looking to the one who’s already perched on the top waiting for you to reach up and ask for some help. We need to keep allowing God to become bigger in our world. After all He’s able to do ‘immeasureably more’ than all we can ask or imagine… so let’s give Him some place to grow!

(If you’ve got a Tall Wall Story then let me know and share how God grew in your understanding to enable you to get over it!)

passionate sundays

// November 17th, 2008 // No Comments » // Inspiration, Sunday

We had a great morning in our Leeds congregation yesterday. There’s just something absolutely brilliant about our meetings at the moment. It seems that everyone is so passionate about pursuing God that it fills the place with a great sense of praise, faith and expectation for God to move!

It makes such a difference when the church comes together in this kind of unity – for God responds to those who chase after him, who choose to stand on his promises and grasp hold of the inheritance he has for them.

And it’s not stopping on Sunday as I’m hearing more and more of the God-stories that are taking place during the week. The group who are so excited about the Word of God that they are now meeting together regularly to study the Bible more; the new Christian who found himself in a difficult situation at work and having found a place to cry out to God in prayer saw the whole thing turn around for good; the new opportunities for people to speak to their friends about God; new people in church every week and more importantly more people making decisions to follow Jesus than ever before!

Right now I’m doing a series from Paul’s letter to the EPHESIANS. I’m really loving just spending time in one book, slowly picking through the banquet of goodness that God has provided in his word. I could spend literally years on EPHESIANS – (I won’t – so if you’re in our Leeds congregation you don’t need to worry) – but I love how much it says about WHO WE ARE in Christ and WHAT HE HAS GIVEN us through Christ.

The greatest thing you can do in life is to discover WHO God created you to be. What has he done for you and what does that mean for you today? To discover you are created by God’s hands himself and not off some production line, to find out that you’ve been adopted to be one of his children, given the same inheritance rights as Jesus himself, seated in heavenly places, called a co-heir with the King of Kings and Lord of Lords… to know the FULL extent of God’s grace, mercy and redemption… I could go on…. but every piece of the puzzle starts to build an incredible picture of God’s love for each one of us and the incredible power and blessing he has put on our lives.

So why not try living today as the person God has created and saved you to be… start living as his child today. Imagine what you would do if you’re Dad had all the resources of heaven available at your disposal? Just imagine… then go and do!

it’s time to stop trying to SAVE people

// October 11th, 2008 // No Comments » // Evangelism, Inspiration, Missions

The last week has certainly been an interesting one. My dear wife Gosia has been having a few breast feeding issues over the last few weeks that eventually led us to turning up to A&E on Tuesday morning to try and get some final resolution to the problem. Turned out she’d developed an abcess (not nice but quite common from the sounds of it) and so needed a small op to sort things out. Well a small op on the NHS usually means waiting until a theatre is available on a long list and so finally on Friday morning after 3 nights waiting (mostly in a hospital room) she finally got sorted.

I’m writing this from the Hospital cafe (which is frustratingly shut cause I need a decent coffee) on a Saturday morning with the hope that at some point today she may be able to come home. The odd benefit of the week however has been some quality time spent with my daughter who now finally knows who I am after spending the last few months busily working too hard. Even Gosia joked this week – “So this is what I have to do to finally get some time with you…”! Bit extreme…

The other benefit of the week has been interacting with a whole host of different people and the few conversations that have taken place that will hopefully see them move one step closer to God!

One step closer?

One step closer – that’s an odd thing in this day and age as it seems the world has locked itself into the mentality of a junk food, fast food, want it now or not at all type of thinking. It’s even worked its way into our churches and our understanding of Christian living. Christians find themselves all over the world being given the unrealistic fast food challenge to ’save’ people every week, to ‘get’ people to church in any way possible. Churches think that by posting a billboard, handing out a few flyers and starting church with a ‘contemporary item’ that people are going to fall over themselves to get saved and ‘hey presto’ we have revival.

The problem with that kind of thinking is the misconception of our role on planet earth! The key determining factors that make it possible for eternity to invade the broken heart of a person is completly beyond any of our control! After all wasn’t it God who said “I build the church – you just grow and water it“? We can encourage it, we can engage in the journey, we can add salt and seasoning to the taste of it – but for us to be able to ’save’ someone infers that we hold some divine ability to personally reconnect the eternal power supply to a broken and sin ridden life. If that was the case then wouldn’t we be doing it every week, every day, every conversation…

The truth is that we’re not called to SAVE we’re simply called to RECONCILE and they are two incredibly different things! Jesus saves – we simply set up the appointment! (2 Corinthians 5:17-20) Father God’s role for His people was never to get worked up trying to do the work of the divine – that’s all done and dusted… the chasm has been crossed, the bridge has been built, the path paved and grace lined up for every person! All that He’s waiting for now is for His people to point others towards the gate… that’s where we come in!

We’re the signpost, the appointment maker, the introducer, the match-maker, the salesman at the door, the Big-issue worker standing on corner, the announcer over the tanoy, the lighthouse pointing to safe-harbour… all we can do is attempt to connect and engage with people in our world so that THEY can make a decision to walk towards the bridge emblazoned with the word Eternity.

I’ll expand on this thought in some posts over the next couple of weeks! I hope you’ll join me in discussing what it really means to be His witnesses to the end of the earth!