Life & Hope, Faith & Reality
Normal service has kind of been resumed.
Last week was week 1 of ACC’s Funhouse and I thought I may show you a treat. Here’s one of the intro videos that we made.
Also, for those of you who wonder what exactly is involved in a Sunday morning setup at ACC then check out the video below which was shot by Thai Blogger, ACC member and all round good guy Adrian Oliver.
A couple of weeks ago I co-wrote some teaching notes for Arun Community Church’s Ignite and Fuel. I think now is the right time to post them.
Aim:
To learn about Christians who are persecuted for their faith and understand how God encourages and inspires us in difficult situations.
Activity: Survivor!
Give everyone a pen and paper, then ask them to write down (or draw) their three most important possessions. Once everyone has decided, explain that there has been an huge earthquake and their houses have been destroyed. They have a few minutes to grab ONE of their items to carry with them. Which one would they take and why?
When everyone has shared, tell the group about the underground churches in places like China and North Korea. In these places, God’s word is their most treasured possession with people risking their lives to smuggle Bibles and share the good news with others.
How does this make them feel? Did anyone think of taking their Bible with them?
Background:
Following Peter and John’s healing of the crippled man at the Temple (Acts 3:1-10) they were arrested for preaching about the good news of Jesus. The Jewish leaders believed that the disciples were committing blasphemy (speaking untrue things about God) and they were thrown in prison overnight. Even though the believers were scared of what might happen to them, their numbers grew from 3,000 to around 5,000 men (Acts 4:4)!
Reading: Acts 4
Your group should have read the chapter in advance. Take a few minutes to recap on its content for those who haven’t.
Illustration: Brother Yun
Take a few minutes to look at the life of Brother Yun (author of The Heavenly Man) whose story represents an example of the persecuted Christians in China
Seen as a rebel among some Chinese for not joining the ‘official’ government-controlled Christian organization, Brother Yun was imprisoned and tortured by the government authorities. He was finally arrested and sentenced to many years in prison. However, Yun continued his ministry while in prison, with miraculous results. As a result, many prisoners and even some prison officials became born-again.
Apparently, while he gained increasing favor from some officials, he also became a target of increased persecutions by others. He was repeatedly beaten and became severely malnourished. After many years, he escaped from Zhengzhou Maximum Security prison. He described how he heard the voice of the Hoy Spirit, telling him to simply walk out the heavily guarded prison gate. Risking being shot to death on the spot, he wrote later that he obeyed the voice, and walked straight through several prison doors that were somehow left open in front of many prison guards, across the prison yard and finally out of the main gate. Yun stated that it was as if he had become invisible to the guards who stared straight through him. Although many expressed doubts that such a thing could happen, some prison guards had apparently lost their jobs for this ‘embarrassing mishap.’ It is reported that the official investigation by the Chinese Government concluded that “Yun received no human help in his escape.” It is claimed that these reports have been also confirmed by numerous prisoners who occupied the same prison cell as Yun. Apparently, he remains the only person to have escaped from this notorious maximum security prison!
Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Yun
You can watch a 10 minute testimony by Brother Yun on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDpDRTvRYZ0
Discussion:
Prayer:
Challenge:
This week, you should try to overcome your own fears and share the good news of Jesus with some friends! Ask God to give you boldness even when people are rude to you because of your faith. Remember, if people laugh at you because of Jesus, you are in great company!
Further Reading: Genesis 39:20-23
Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined. But while Joseph was there in the prison, the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.
Thanks to Joe Gisbey from Links International providing a link to this great article from Todd Bentley regarding some of the things happening in Lakeland.
If there’s one recurring subject that I’ve been thinking about since my interview at HTB 6 weeks ago is personal development. Specifically: “Where, on earth, am I heading?”
In some ways the discussion at HTB threw me off guards, if you’re slightly confused let me just remind you:
I foolishly mentioned that I’m a TEFL teacher who enjoys Youth Work and, occaisionally, preaching. And was asked “Have you thought about ordination?” Again, not perhaps something you expect at an interview.
You really don’t take ordination lightly. I’d like to say that when they mentioned it too me it would have been a total surprise, but in truth I had thought about it. Perhaps not the Church of England, though I do have certain sympathy to there traditions and liturgies, but certainly some formal Theological training. Being completely honest, and a little vunerable, here when I got back from the HTB interview I was a little down about things. If people asked about the interview I tended to respond:
I’m not sure that HTB is the right place but I’m not sure ACC is either.
There’s no point denying that, that was how I felt. Luckily I have some great friends to talk things through with and for the most part I don’t feel like that now. For me the bigger question is now:
How can some of the things that were talked about with HTB be transferred to ACC?
I’m sure that that’s not the only way that I can be challenged and developed. In my youth work at Ignite I’ve been trying hard to step up; Some things have thrown me in at the deep end and forced me to develop myself and skill set. While with other things I’ve used my own initiative; whether that’s just sitting with someone who doesn’t want to join in, or whether it’s empowering the young people to help tidy up! Personally I feel much more part of the team and actually useful! Which is a bit different to April when I wrote:
I say to my surprise as I’m not one of the popular leaders
This stepping up continues at work too. While I still struggle with the politics and day to day workings involved with Multi-Agency working I’m finally getting the hang of it and I certainly feel that if we, as Christians are to work towards the great commission we actually need to get uncomfortable in these kind of situations.
Of course some development requires we go back to our past. Certainly this is true when I look at the IT work that I now do. Some of it has been a learning curve, some of it has revisited things from when I was younger and some of it has been exactly as I expected! I really have to thank my parents for suggesting (and sometimes paying for me) that I keep some skills up my sleeve in case the music thing didn’t work out.
Which brings me nearly to the end. As I was reading the current issue of Youth Work magazine Jill Rowe’s words from her column, The Back Rowe kinda hit me they go as follows;
When we are sad and disappointed with nowhere else to go, Jesus simply presences himself in the middle of our ’stuff’ and is ‘deeply moved’.
Since Saturday night I’ve been thinking (perhaps, a little too much) about self esteem; mainly mine. For the most part I’m an emotionally stable member of society, but even I have areas where I struggle.
For me it’s my own musical ability and it’s something that I’ve struggled with since I was a lot younger. Even upto A-Level I tried to avoid solo performance, always preferring group performaces. This, perhaps was a tiny problem as if you’re familiar with the A-Level syllabus it requires a solo performance that’s about equivilent of Grade 8.
And I still suffer with that today. So, I was thrown into a sense of both panic and joy when on Saturday night Si Parkin (who write’s the Chewing Pixels blog) rang asking if I could play keys for him on the Sunday. I would experience a similar ambivalence if I was asked by Andy or Martin. Why? I respect them as musicians and worship leaders. They do a great job of leading people into the presence of God and I always admire the way they get the best from the musicians with little practice.
Whilst I’m sure I have the skills I instantly put myself down and ask “why me? are there not others who are better?”
So, I turned up, set the keys up and prepared. Si had prepped a great set of worship songs, he particularly likes using old hymns in a modern context and had picked “Here Is Love, vast as the ocean” as one of his (I also have great admiration for the Traditional Hymns, see here). We practiced and worked through arrangements. Si, amongst other things is a producer so I’m guessing has a pretty good idea of how he wants things to sound and can articulate clearly with his musicians where subtle changes are needed.
Whilst I was largely happy with my playing it was nice to recieve some positive feedback. So I’ll keep struggling and fighting my self esteem.
I’m guessing you’ve probably read my previous post, here, where I asked people to post replies to the question “Can you give 10 examples of how you’d protect a light switch?” Well, after considering some of these comments these are the best ones;
Well, unfortunately in 10 days only two people left there thoughts, so unless more people leave their thoughts I’m calling it a draw between Rich and Ben.
Ben’s suggestion was “24 hour prayer coverage to protect the light switch from spiritual attack.”
While, Rich suggested “10 elite guards armed with lightsabers.”
Both are good, but I’d hoped for some more unique ideas. So please get back to the original post http://www.allthesethingsivedone.com/2008/04/15/interview/and give your most random comments!
As you may have read from this post here I came home from Skegness via London to go for an interview at Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB). Here are my thoughts and a kind of prayer request;
My interview had been arranged while I was at Spring Harvest, I’d originally put my CV in but not expected to hear anything. So, was a little shocked when I got a call in the first place with the final details been confirmed while I was away.
For, those of you who don’t know HTB is a large (2000 congregation) Church in central London with a sister church St. Paul’s in Onslow Square and I’d applied for a job in the Technology department. So no surprises there.
When I got there I found out that one interview was actually two. Round 1 was with the head of the technology department, and was exactly as I expected it, apart from the slightly more random question “Can you give ten examples of ways you’d protect a light switch?” Most creative answer to this in the comments will get a mention in a future post!
Round 2 was with someone from HR (Human Resources) and was a lot more random. Yes! That is possible. It seems that it’s very easy to be typecast in your own Church, but HTB were seeing me with fresh eyes. So things got quite random. I foolishly mentioned that I’m a TEFL teacher who enjoys youth work and, occasionally, preaching. And was asked “Have you thought about ordination?” Again, not perhaps something you expect at an interview.
So, where do things go from here? Well there is a a third round, that as I type now, I haven’t heard if I’m through to that. If I should get it, would I take it? Well, that entirely depends. It would be an amazing opportunity but in my heart I know there is much more I could do at Arun. This however could be a call, that perhaps I’m trying to ignore, from God. And perhaps I should be obedient to that.
So, there’s the update.
In the last week I’ve spent the best part of 12 hours on trains (click here and you’ll understand more) which has given me an enormous amount of time to think, and watch Bill Bailey!
So, what have I been thinking about? Well, moving. And by saying that, I don’t necessarily mean spending 12 hours thinking that I should take more train journeys. Instead I’ve been thinking about the future. Some of you may know that before I went away I’d had a phone call from HTB in London, this managed to totally wrong foot me and left me slightly freaked out. Well, in Skegness a received a second phone confirming my interview for 10 April at 14:30.
It’s now a few days later and the interview has come and gone, I honestly don’t know if I’m through to the next round and I’m still thinking and dreaming and praying that actually it’s God will that’s done and not mine.
I will post more about the interview at a suitable time, though I’m aiming to send out an email soon.
Regular readers here will know that I’ve been away at Spring Harvest in Skegness. So, I thought I’d post some thoughts on the week.
I was again working with the 5 - 7 team, Powerpack, and it was nice to see some familiar faces. Again I was in the Blue team though I can’t give the weeks results but more on that later! Along with Praise all Powerpackers get shown dramas in the the “Story Machine” slot. My favorite part of the day has to be small group and activity time. Four activities are done during the course of the week (Bob the Builder, Games, Craft/Indoor Play and Dance) and I’m very happy to say I managed to avoid dance.
Of course the real beauty of being on the 5 - 7 team is that you get some you time as there are no evening meetings. So in the evenings I’ve been splitting myself (though not literally) between The Big Top, where Sue Rinaldi was leading, and The Alternative Celebration, where Stuart Barbour and Psalm Drumming Friends were leading. Although the styles were different both were fantastic in leading us into the presence of God. I must admit I had a slight preference for the style of the Psalm Drummers.
One of the big features of Spring Harvest is the evening entertainment. And somehow I ended up on stage with comedian and entertainer Joe Fisher helping with with a feature called “Name That Kendrick”. It was very amusing, especially the worship leader who couldn’t recognise “I Could Sing Of Your Love Forever” and it wasn’t Martin Smith, maybe we could re-create it at Arun!
Last Tuesday, April 2, I had some time between dropping Rosie off for work and getting to Wickbourne to setup for Dr. Meric , who had come to speak about the environment, and can be heard if you’re interested on both the “Arun Community Church: Special Events” and also, with permission, here on “AllTheseThingsIveDone.com“. Anyway, I’ve gone off on one.
I chose to sit on the beach for a little while and then to drive to Littlehampton’s swimming centre and walk back to the East Beach Cafe. It was great just being out in the Spring Sun. I slowly wandered between the two taking some pictures and just enjoying the lighter evening.
On the way back I saw a few of the young people from Ignite and to my surprise they recognised me. A say to my surprise as I’m not one of the popular leaders. I’m not like Nick and Jim who constantly amuse the boys. And I’m not like Jon who has enough charisma for two people (probably Americans at that!). Nor am I really like Rosie who will talk with the girls for hours about there problems.
All I do is turn up every week and plod along, occaisionally sharing my passions in the “God Slot”. Maybe this is it: Young People of today want consistency, to know that the same leaders that turned up last week will turn up this week, and next week.
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