Shoutlouder

bye bye mac book pro… hello mac book pro

// April 17th, 2009 // No Comments » // General

So a really annoying thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago – my mac book pro got nicked! I won’t call it my ‘laptop’ as mac’s are WAY above such a common designation as ‘laptops’ but nonetheless it dissapeared thanks to the coinciding of a passing thief and a moment of opportunity.

Hence the reason I’ve been quiet on the blogging for the last couple of weeks. Plus on top of all that we’ve had Easter, the Big Getaway and plenty of design work to keep me busy as usual.

Thankfully, (as I force myself to write this on the PC) tomorrow (hopefully) a courier will drop a brand new Mac Book Pro off at my house and the journey may continue. It’s at this moment in this post I also have to Praise Almighty God and probably show some appreciation to Steve Jobs as well for Time Machine (the clever Mac backup facility) which has a complete record of my hard drive just waiting to be reinstalled onto the new Mac Book.

So my dear wife is looking forward to seeing her husband dissapear into the office as I endeavour to work out how to reinstall all the rubbish I’d put on the last mac back onto the new one. Which means hopefully I’ll be typing the next post out on something that doesn’t resemble a spare part from the tardis or makes a sound like an aeroplane landing whilst it attempts to keep itself cool.

sunday revisited

// April 6th, 2009 // No Comments » // Sunday

So the best thing about Sunday – to be really honest – was the dedication of my little girl Ania. I know… I love church and we saw some people make decisions to follow Christ – which is REALLY REALLY AWESOME – but I have to say my real highlight was the dedication and a chance to place my little girl’s future into the hands of her amazing God.

Some people might think a dedication is just a nice ceremony that people do when they have kids – for some it might be a christening… but I believe EVERYTHING we do in the sight of God is significant. Whether you’re stood in an altar call, reading out marriage vows, going under the water in Baptism and the other many ceremonial practices we have around church… you can either take them as just something you do – or you can see that behind the natural there is a supernatural world at work and what we do and declare over our lives are not just words but powerful statements that resound across eternity! That might sound deep… but it’s the truth….. tha’s what Paul was trying to get across to the Ephesians when he said:

¹⁰Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. ¹¹Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. ¹²For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. ¹³Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.

We get so lost in the imaginary world of movies and fiction that we forget that there is a very real, SUPERreal world at work around us and what we say, do, believe is a key to seeing the power of God at work in our lives. I fully believe that what took place over Ania’s life on Sunday morning was a powerful declaration of intent and has set her life on a collision course with the plans and purposes God has for.

Exciting stuff…!

feeling impossibly stupid!

// April 3rd, 2009 // No Comments » // General

I just did one of the most stupidest things in the world… allowed my laptop to get stolen! Somewhere now wandering round the city of Leeds is a very happy thief who is enjoying being in possession of my beloved Mac Book Pro whilst I’m resigned to rebooting my old tower PC which sounds like Heathrow airport!

It’s also given me a real insight into the threat of Identity Theft with the thought that somewhere someone has access to all my emails etc. Thankfully I’ve been able to change passwords for most things online so that any active cookies etc will be useless but having something stolen still gives you a certain feeling of being violated in someway!

Thankfully it’s only a laptop! They missed the car keys sat next to it and the wallet in my bag as they were too focused on a grab and run… so it could have been worse! But I guess from now on I’ll be a lot more careful. Also thankfully I have a good old Mac Time Machine backup which will restore pretty much everything except for the last couple of days to a new Mac Book Pro which I am hoping the insurance company will be kind enough to supply me with. Till then… it’s the old PC! Blurgh….

sunday revisited

// March 30th, 2009 // No Comments » // Sunday

It was the week when the Clocks went forward so always fun to see who forgets. The funniest thing had to be a number of iPhone friends who all use it as an alarm clock and changed the time before going to bed – not realising that the iPhone automatically accounts for daylight saving and so they ended up waking 2 hours earlier instead of 1!!!

Anyhow – great Sunday morning in Leeds. This was our 5th Sunday in the building and only my 3rd time preaching on the new stage. I have to say I’m still getting used to it. It feels like the lights are only 2 feet away which makes you feel like you’re preaching in the Sahara – and we still need to work on some of the lighting and sound to make it work best for the entire room. But the experience of being in a new building has been amazing! We’ve had a few people over the weeks arrive simply because they pass the building on the bus or on the way to work in a morning… talk about location, location, location.

Been preaching for the last couple of week on ‘Keeping it Burning’. We’ve entered a great season in the life of the church. Last week one of the girls got healed right in the middle of the service without any special laying on of hands. Plus we’re seeing a couple of decisions to follow Christ every week. But one thing I want to see on everyone’s agenda is the need for us to actually REACH the people in our world and not just have a happy club on a Sunday.

Leviticus 24:1-4 is one of those little nuggets of Old Testament Gold. It talks of the instructions given to Aaron to keep the lamps burning that it up the place where God’s presence resided amongst the Israelites. God’s instructions were that the lamps must be kept burning ‘continually!’ The people of Israel were to know where their God was night and day!

Jesus passed these instructions onto us when he said “you are the light of the world…” It’s our responsibility now to ’shine’ and make known the presence of God on planet earth! And this is not some day job or hobby… but we need to keep on shining continually!

We need to tend the LIGHT OF LIFE that is within us and ensure that we are shining at all times!

the iPhone really has changed my life

// March 28th, 2009 // No Comments » // Self-Development

For all you religious types don’t worry… Jesus is still the biggest agent of change in me… But I have to say having an iPhone has made a huge difference in the way I work and communicate with others. Here’s a few thoughts how:

1 Personal study: when I study the Bible and prepare for preaching I love to search through the Bible to find similar instances of words and themes. BiP (Before iPhone) I would have to do this at home on a computer using something like Bible Gateway. But now.. AiP (After iPhone) I can access and search the Bible anywhere using the YouVersion app. Which means I can now sit out in coffee shops to prepare…. (which is where I am right now!)

2 Twitter: I love to twitter. BiP again i could only do this on the computer.. But now AiP I can keep uptodate any time of the day.

3 Social Networking: I love it that I can connect with people all day and share thoughts and photos whenever! (as long as I don’t forget my family)

4 Time Management: everything is now synced so i’m not keeping multiple calendars… Which hopefully means I’m never late! Plus our media team are now using Task2Gather.com for keeping track of all the jobs we have on the table… and of course there is a nice little Task2Gather app for the iPhone!

5 iPod: I never had an iPod BiP but now AiP I have one combined in my phone which means my commuting to Sheffield every week is never short of great podcasts to listen to…

6 Blogging: I’m actually writing this blog on my iPhone thanks to a Wordpress app…

7 Looking Cool: an iPhone certainly helps the image!!!!

So there is just a few ways in which this phone is really helping make me more productive and more connected to what God is doing in my world. I just need to stay off the games (all deleted!!) and make sure when I’m home I actually talk to my kids and don’t communicate with my wife via facebook!

Make technology your slave… And not the other way around!

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!)