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A road worth travelling
The first autobiographical book I ever read was Corrie Ten Boom’s ‘The Hiding Place’. I was about 15, and I got a lot more than I had bargained for. Corrie Ten Boom and her family were Jews living in Holland during the Second World War. They spent several years living in a cramped hideout in their home, helping many other Jews to hide and escape. Eventually, in 1944, they were discovered, and sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp, where both Corrie’s father and her sister Betsie died. Corrie’s faith in God remained strong; when she was eventually released, she became an evangelist, and travelled extensively, talking about God’s love and his forgiveness. Probably the most well known part of Corrie’s story is one of forgiveness on an almost unimaginable level, when Corrie came face to face with a former concentration camp guard; one who had not only witnessed, but been part of, the pain and humiliation she and her sister had suffered. I’ll let Corrie tell the story.
Tags: Faith, Life, Made me think, Pain, Suffering
my life is a constant transition…..
my life is in constant transition and i've been told that it will never stop. every once in awhile you feel like you've 'arrived'. but you haven't. don't be fooled. you're just on to the next thing. i've been back in Belfast for about a month now. i had the best time being home in Canada, which i find shocking because i honestly didn't expect it to be. but it was awesome, so awesome that i almost didn't come back, but a lack of purpose and God's direction brought me back, oh and all you lovely people! (i really wish everyone i loved would be in one place, or that flights would be cheaper so i could go home more often) the first few days back were great, except that a few key people in my Belfast life were in Spain, or Africa or just away, so i was a bit lonely for a while there. thankfully some people that i am still getting to know really came through and it made transitioning back easier. i naively didn't think that i would have to transition back to life here, but everything and nothing changed while i as gone. now that i've accepted all this transitioning and have a support system of people when i need it i'm 'on to the next thing'. ........
Tags: Christianity, Faith, Finances, Life
The Doctrine of Chubbhander
It feels like something is happening within Christianity right now. A groundswell of the dissatisfied within the Church is rising during our generation, a gathering of Christians eager to question and stretch our faith in order to save it and breathe life back into it. (Phyllis Tickle and others have labelled this “The Great Emergence” - It’s too early to tell if this name will catch on but, if it does, you heard it here first!) The most refreshing thing about this movement is that it feels ok to voice concerns about some aspects of Christianity which have been handed down to us but which don’t feel in sync with Jesus, who He was and what His priorities were. Where in previous generations questioners or doubters may have been labelled troublemakers or heretics, now there is room in many churches for people to be able to say,”I have problems with this. I don’t understand where this has come from. Does anyone else have problems with this? Let’s talk it through.”
Tags: Christianity, Faith, Life, Made me think
The times, they are a-changin’
I like Friday afternoons in work. My colleagues are a little more disciplined than I am through the week, and come in early every day, building up enough hours to let them take a half day on Friday. I am not so good at doing that, so inevitably I end up spending Friday afternoon in the office by myself, putting in the time. We have been listening to Cool FM (local radio station and thorn in my flesh) all week, and my head is mashed with the sounds of Basshunter, Cheryl Cole, and other such non-musical geniuses. But my colleagues have just left, I made coffee, switched off the radio, and pressed play on the CD player. I am now listening to the graceful, never-gets-old sound of the master himself, Bob Dylan. The first track on my disc is ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’; there is something about his voice, the questioning of the lyrics, the quiet rhythm of the guitar, that just instantly makes me feel calm, relaxed, happy. Bob Dylan makes me smile.
Tags: Church, Faith, Music, Relationship
We are nothing unless We are everything
It's the way it all goes down in Luke part 2. The acts the Apostles do see a dynamic community established. The new followers first response is to be an everything people. Everything for everyone, in no small amount. You need it and I’ve got it? Then you can have it. You are poor and I am less poor? Then I will choose to become poorer so you can become richer. My home is your home, your home is my home, lets share a meal of bread and wine.
Tags: Bible, Christianity, Church, Church planting, Community, Faith
To infinity and beyond
I was loosing some hours on youtube.com last night when I came across a series of video's from Louie Giglio - his name rang a bell. I remember a few people mentioning his name but couldn't remember why so thought I'd sceptically start watching 'Indescribeable'. For the past few weeks I've found it hard to concentrate on things but I couldn't stop watching this - it caught the whole of my attention.
Tags: Faith, Glory, Made me think
The everything
Why do we have such hang-ups about talking money? One thing is certain – Jesus didn’t! Jesus talks about money more times than anything else – except the Kingdom of God. There are more references to money in Jesus’ teaching than there is to Heaven and hell combined. Over half the parables Jesus tells are actually about money and stewardship. There are 2350 verses on money in the Scriptures: 1 in every 6 verses in the Gospels has to do with stewardship.
Spiritual bandaids
I generally consider myself to be quite a laidback, fairly contented kind of person. But sometimes, I get a little frustrated with where I am at in life. This kind of feeling usually comes about as a result of some work-related issue or incident. You know those days, when work just feels like it is going on forever, and you cannot remember what on earth possessed you to select this career, and you feel like you are just treading water, waiting for something dramatic and exciting to happen, but secretly worrying that it never will. Days like that, all my positive, laidback feelings fly out the window and I can find myself having a little moan. I realise it is not a very mature response. But sometimes it is as much as I can manage. And I can guarantee you that as soon as I start to moan, some nice well-meaning Christian (often my mother) will chirp up with those over-quoted words from Jeremiah 29: “God has good plans for you, Emma, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future”. Yes, I know. I read that verse too. And it is ruining my moan.
Tags: Faith, Finances, Life, Made me think, Suffering
Grace in dangerous places
On Monday night I went out for a drink with some friends, one of whom happens to be gay. Brought up in the church and a follower of Christ, albeit in ‘another’ place on his journey at the moment we had some fascinating and revealing discussions about how the church (not just our church) can converse with those in the gay community.
Tags: Christianity, Church, Faith, Hope, Identity, Life, Made me think
A touch from God
Last summer life seemed to be like living in two differents worlds at the same time. We were experiencing such an outbreak of God’s Kingdom, heaven touching earth every day, seeing healings and people set free, lives transformed and people coming to search for and then know God. It was a truly wonderful time walking in anticipation of what God was going to do next and then being even more surprised as He far exceeded our expectations. At the same time we were having difficulty in a few relationships with friends, two of our parents were ill and then in one day we lost a much wanted baby and my brother was rushed to hospital with a suspected heart attack.
Put your hands in the air stand up sit down sing a song say hello turn around
Some time ago I was invited to go and watch the Belfast Giants play ice hockey. For an ice hockey virgin stepping into the home of the Giants, the Odyssey arena, was to say the least, otherworldly. I only have two ice rink sports based memories the first is of Torville and Dean in theatrical dress dancing and throwing each other around and getting all upset. The other is of the Slovak professional ice hockey player Miroslav Satan at the 1994 Winter Olympic Games. As young geeky evangelical pastors kids we had endless minutes of fun with this (a geek of course being a word derived from 18th century circus performers who bit heads off chickens, but that's another story) the thought of Satan playing ice hockey in hell was soon put to bed by the obvious temperature disadvantage that exists there. Although, as I was fast learning, watching the game, for some, may of course be used as a very successful form of eternal punishment.
The dependency of a child
Recently some friends of mine gave birth to a beautiful baby boy and it is so amazing to see how close he is to his parents. He cries and he is tended to, he is hungry and is fed. Even when he lies still in his slumber, his family looks on adoringly, waiting until he stirs and they can step back in to the roles they were given. In contrast, when we look to the ‘animal kingdom’ we see that most mammals after being born are up onto shaky legs and searching for their food. Insects, reptiles and the like, are almost fully self sufficient as soon as they are born. Looking back nostalgically to primary school and learning about the food chain and which animals eat which, to gain position. We learnt that human beings are at the top and every animal is below us. Thus making mankind the dominant species on Earth.
Tags: Christianity, Faith, Life