Shoutlouder

He that is in me is greater than he that is in my gullet!

// October 13th, 2008 // 8 Comments » // Family, Sunday

So about 3pm on Saturday I was making my way home from looking after Gosia following her 4 day hospital stay thinking “I never want to see this place again”…. little did I know that 24 hours later I’d be in the back of an ambulance myself on the way back!

I’d just been enjoying a nice meal with our guest speaker – Pastor Tim Hall – following one of the most amazing Sunday mornings we have ever had in Leeds.

(The place was rammed and rammed with lots of new people and invited visitors too. By the end of the service we’d seen around 6 people make a decision to become a Christ-follower for the first time and the altar call was littered with people who’d fallen down under the power of the Spirit as Pastor Tim ministered healing. People we’re even getting saved during the coffee break after the service as Tim wandered around the crowds chatting with people! In the last 3 weeks we’ve seen nearly 20 decisions which is more than we’ve seen in the last 2 years put together! this is breakthrough time!)

Anyhow – I’d ordered a Sirloin steak medium rare – as all good men should order in a restaurant. The apertif’s had been enjoyable and stirred the appetite for something more. So by the time the steak arrived I was really looking forward to it, I even chomped on a few chips to let the steak sit there just beckoning to be eaten… and then finaly that moment arrived… I sliced into a piece of steak, popped it in my mouth and then…

Well.. then instead of it slithering, beautifully down my throat to be digested in good time in my stomach it decided to stop just below my voice box at the head of my gullet. In a move that was quicker than Uriah Bolt I dashed for the nearest toliet where I spent the next 15 mins trying to throw up the piece of steak that was admantly trying to stay put at all cost. And we tried everything – Colin Blois enjoyed a few minutes thumoing my back until my Youth Pastor took the opportunity to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre on me which I know he secretly enjoyed! But all to no avail!

The following couple of hours involved a Paramedic on a bike who could do nothing… as you’d expect from any emergency response that arrives by pedal power. Then an ambulance (first time for everything). then I found myself in the same waiting room as last week waiting the for the same doctors to tell me I had something stuck in my throat! They even X-Ray’d me to make sure I could still breathe after which I was very relieved to be told I could – even though by this time I’d been in the hospital 2 hours so I figured out myself that either I’m David Blane or I can actually breathe!

Finally off to Ward 91 and the lovely doctors and nurses who were able to care for me and do nothing else about the piece of steak stuck in my throat other than to inject some drug into my arm 3 times and say, “It’ll work it’s way down eventually”. And it did… sometime around 3am I guess – but I was asleep and woke to the lovely feeling of a ragged gullet and a sore throat soothed only by a good cup of English Tea!

So here I am back home thinking that was the week that was and just very glad that God is bigger than a piece of steak stuck in my throat!

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!