Bradford and Leeds week - Bradford Holmewood Salvation Army

Having spent Sunday morning relaxing (I'd had a whole week of Bible talks so I gave myself the morning off!), I spent an enjoyable time at Bradford Holmewood Salvation Army, which my aunt Caroline heads up, supported by my uncle Craig and 18-month year old cousin Edie, amongst others! It comes under the banner of NEO (New Expressions Of...) Salvation Army, which you can find out more about here.

Nice and chilled out on sofas, Caroline gave a talk about how we respond to Jesus in our everyday lives - are we like those praising Him on Palm Sunday, or like those denying Him later in the week or condemning Him on Good Friday? We also sung a few songs and watched a short video clip, in addition to creating a palm leaf, writing our praise on it and sticking it to the cross. It was really great to be there.

There's a lot of good stuff going on during the week at 'The Sally Bash', as it's known to the locals. Lots of youth clubs, kids clubs, and activities for the over-60s, despite having quite a small membership it is having a great impact on the community.  When they arrived there was only a small gathering on a Thursday night, in addition to a reasonable community programme. In the three years since arriving they've seen the community programme expand and many different ministries are currently in place, plus the main meeting has moved to a Sunday afternoon, with Bible studies and many other things coming through. It's my prayer that their ministry will be blessed, that it'll be guided by God and be everything that he wishes it to be, that the community will be amazingly impacted by them and the other Churches nearby, to the glory of God.

Bradford and Leeds week - looking to next year

Straight from New Word Alive (see my other, ongoing posts), I arrived in Bradford late on Saturday and am here until Easter Sunday thinking and praying about what I'll be doing next year. One option I have is to do a course called Transform. This is run by a group of Christians, originally based in Leeds but since expanding to include Bradford. It consists of training on Mondays (theology and practical guidance such as time management), a 5-hour placement, a 15-hour placement and a part-time job.

My interview for it is on Thursday and in addition during this week I'm taking the chance to look at different places I could do some of my placements if I do the year.

I'm also looking into an organisation called Christians Against Poverty (CAP). CAP are a debt counselling service that also offer money management courses, and whilst centrally run from their offices in Bradford most of their direct work with the people in need is done in centres around the UK that are run by and partnered with local churches. They are an explicitly Christian group, partly given their name but also through the offering of prayer on their first meeting. There's no hidden agenda, nor any need for the service users to be Christian, it's just, well, if you have faith in Christ then it'd be a bit harsh to just help someone with their earthly debts and not tell them how they can sort out their spiritual debts and be set free!

CAP offer their own internship scheme, called Reach, which sees you working Monday to Thursday with on-the-job training, and then Fridays are set aside for management-based training. There are five streams (Client, Communications, Evangelism and Discipleship, IT, and Partnership) and each offers a different challenge and opportunity to help make a difference to many people's lives. Whatever happens, it's just great to find out more about the work they do.

I'll give some updates throughout the week about how things are getting on.

Those wacky Christian Unions....

Found my way onto Michael Ots' website today and had a look at what he had to say (he spoke at the Bath University Christian Union (CU) 'iDentity' week of talks in November 2008). The Lancaster University CU got a feature on their university campus TV channel, with Michael Ots getting an interview on it, alongside a clip of him giving one of the talks in their FREE week. Was great to see them doing a plug for their CU and also that the TV channel let them.

Still not sure how it looks when Christians use the word 'wacky' though. Especially considering they were referring to a film night! Oh well, at least they weren't wearing strange hats.

Great to see the work of other CUs around the country, and the commitment of people like Michael who spend their lives telling others of the good news of Jesus Christ.

New Word Alive 2009 - Serving the Church, Reaching the World

It’s been a really good week at New Word Alive (NWA), in a far-off corner of Wales, with hundreds of other Christians hearing from God’s word and being challenged about the need to put it into practice.

The Bible studies focused on 1 Corinthians 1-7, looking at how we live our lives both as churches and as individuals: putting the gospel first, not lifting up leaders instead of Christ, seeking holiness in our lives as temples of God (in particular having the best approach to relationships), and understanding the effect of personal ungodliness on the wider church and the implications for dealing with it.

Meanwhile, in the evenings, in addition to sung worship lead by Stuart Townend and Phatfish (see above), we looked at some key parables from Luke’s gospel: the sower; the good Samaritan; the banquet; the lost son; the rich man and Lazarus; and the ten minas. In my view there seemed to be a strong emphasis on the outworking of our faith (sometimes labelled 'social action'), particularly directed to 'the poor', which perhaps isn't expected of a 'conservative evangelical' conference, but it was handled Biblically and challenged a lot of people.

There was also a great variety of seminars with something for everyone, and also a very excitable Roger Carswell! Adrian Warnock led a session about blogging so I thought I'd go along, and there were some useful tips, plus it was good to hear about other people's approaches to forming and maintaining a blog (see Adrian's blog for more thoughts on NWA).

The speaking was overall very powerful and challenging and definitely worth the trip, plus I was greatly enthused by the sense that evangelicals were seeking to unite and to focus on the cross rather than surrounding issues. It was also great to spend time with friends (including some stupidly late nights) and I even found some time to do a little bit of work!

Over the next few weeks I'll write up a few things I've learnt from the week, so stay tuned if you want to find out more.

Daylight robbery! (OK, that's the wrong phrase...)

I've just found out that the clocks go forward tonight - not happy!

Is it the case that to know these things you have to watch TV or listen to the radio? Maybe our clocks should automatically correct so when we wake up no-one realises what's happened, think everything's gone on as normal, and then spend the next few days wondering why we all feel so tired. Maybe whoever's in charge could mix it about a bit and there'd be a sweepstake on when it's going to happen? If they just announced that we're no longer changing the clocks and went for this new secretive method I think it could work. Then one day someone would find out (although who is really awake at 1 in the morning who wouldn't be able to shrug it off as a drunken lapse - "I could have swarn it was 5-to-1 a minute ago. Oh well....").

Seriously though, can't we get a letter from the Met Office or Gordon Brown or someone just to let us know in case it slips past. I could have been late for Church (well - later...). Maybe in this day and age we could get a note from Twitter (I don't really know what this is to be honest) or a message on Facebook, just to let us know. One day...

This week I'm off to New Word Alive in Wales (hence the need for sleep) which should prove to be a refreshing, challenging and strengthening week. I'll aim to feed back some thoughts on my return. I'm straight off to Bradford from Wales to sort out things for next year, including an interview for Transform and hopefully a meeting with someone from Christians Against Poverty, and then back home to Worthing to see the family.

Hope you all have a great and meaningful Easter.

Someone with something interesting to say

After the Revelators gig (and hence why I got back so late) I chatted with a guy, Antun, who really had passion as he spoke, something really invigorating. He started off chatting to Marstin, telling him how distinct his sound was, how he should be pushing forward and trying to get on to bigger things, convinced of his talent. I carried on talking to Antun once Marstin had gone, and as we chatted, it became one of those conversations I wished I could record as he would reveal interesting insights one after another. He's a Croatian Chemistry PhD student, but his intelligence and interests expanded beyond this. With Marstin having pointed to God in their conversation as his source of musical uniqueness (his 'fingerprint', as Antun put it), faith was then brought up in our conversation too. We spoke at length about faith and religion, and whilst I got the impression he wasn't a Christian, and that he'd got the wrong (but understandable) picture about Christianity, some of the things he said really got me thinking.

He spoke of how you might be driving along following the GPS and knowing where you are supposed to go, following the directions you are told. But then sometimes you have to stop and think, "Is this right? Is this where I want to go?". Sometimes you have to question. Perhaps we go through life following the pattern of this world, doing what is expected of us and never thinking we might 'swim against the stream' (as Marstin might say!). Then we have to reconsider, is this where I want to be going, is it getting me where I really want to be, do I even know where I want to be, and how would I get there?

He spoke to about how many people try to be like God, and how this is what Christianity is about. I thought this sounded like trying to earn your way into heaven, and so was keen to refute this, but as I thought about it, it struck me that, yes, I do want to be like God, to be like Christ. He's my example, the one person we should measure ourselves against, as much as we'll never measure up. He elaborated, saying how we're all going at different angles, some going directly down, far from God towards the evil one, others apathetic and just going along flat. Others still go at a slight angle, trying lamely to get to God, whilst others try harder and harder still, until, perhaps, one day we're going straight up, to be just like Him. Of course, we'll never achieve that, but I want to keep trying.

Finally, he spoke about how when comparing Islam and Christianity, he felt that one was about finding power, whilst the other about finding hope. Whilst I won't comment on Islam, it struck me that he had hit the nail on the head with Christianity. You see often we struggle through life, trying to find some new way of getting by, but everything falters and our hopes are left dashed. Christ however offers us that true, everlasting hope, that we can and will be saved, if we just put our faith in Him. I'm so thankful that I can know for certain that "my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness" - and what a solid foundation that is.

Revelated

I've just got back from Student Battle of the Bands at Moles tonight, and in particular I went to see my friends play, guys who go by the name of 'Marstin and the Revelators'. Marstin is from the Faroe Islands, and came to my Church in October, and after going out for lunch that day we kept in touch and, finding out they were going to play at Revs in an acoustic Battle of the Bands, I went along. You're kind of in that place where you think "What if they actually really aren't that good?". It's bad enough when you're friends, but when you've just met them it makes it ten times worse - "what will I say to them when they come off and they've completely bombed?"

That evening however, I was greatly relieved when they started performing, and, well, performing is the key word. Marstin is pretty quiet when one to one but on stage he lights up, almost taking on a different persona, making gestures, taking on very dangerous pitches, and generally just having a whale (which coincidentally is a Faroese delicacy...) of a time. This is very high-risk. Do this half-heartedly and it falls flat on its face, but put all your energy into it and you end up with a sound that makes you distinct, a cut above in a world of 'good but not that different' indie/rock/acoustic bands. The crowd went with it, singing along and even participating (oh yes, there is much crowd participation in a Revelators set), and in the end the judges did too. Indeed, they went with it too a few weeks later, when they won the final.

Tonight they won their heat hands down too, and with the final in two weeks time (25th March) I encourage you to get down there and check them out. In the meantime, have a look around their MySpace and Facebook pages, and soon you'll be whistling the amazingly addictive riff from 'The Salmon Song', singing such classic lines as "I killed the lion and the bear", and screeching the soon-to-be-famous exclamation "pumpkin pie!".