Pause

Pause

Originally uploaded by col4man

Love days like today when I can step back from the race of life and simply spend some to pause, reflect and enjoy chilling out with God. Doesn’t happen nearly as often as it should, but really feel the benefit of it when it does. Haven’t blogged in a while, been busy with the various stuff i’m involved in, and work has been somewhat hectic. Days, weeks and months pass me by and too often I fail to hit the button, step back, pause and reflect on life.
So todays one of those days, spending abit of time planning some youthwork stuff, but realising increasingly it’s out of the fullness (or at times emptiness) of my relationship with God that my witness is borne. So todays an attempt to slow down, pause, reflect and re-connect with a loving father who yearns for me to do just that.

Come to Me

Off work for a couple of days which will be bliss, has been a manic few weeks and it’s lovely to step away from the busyness for a couple of days and just chill and spend some time with Helen. These were the words I was meditating on this morning, a timely reminder from God’s word:

Matthew 11:28 (ESV)

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”

A timely reminder from God to look to Jesus and COME to Him for rest, learning from Christs example.  Often we read that amidst the noise and busyness, Jesus went to that quiet and solitary place to spend time resting in His father, listening to his voice and meditating on His word.

It’s intentional, we have to choose to step back from the busyness and the whirlwind pace of life, and simply come to Him who can give us rest.  I pray this next few days I simply come to Him for rest……

MAD

Just getting round to penning a few thoughts on the MAD weekend, organised by PCI hosted in Coleraine university.  This was the ninth year that MAD has ran, but the first year our church has taken a group of young people to it.  Things take a while to filter out to the sticks obviously, but it was worth the wait, weekends are tremendous relationship builders and memory makers, and our young people loved it.  Worship was by Andy Flannaghan, and speaking led by Mark Oestriecher, both gifted at communicating gospel truth in culturally relevant, biblically based methods.

Definately a beneficial weekend, something that God willing will be built on, not alot of sleep, but plenty of conversations, memories and challenges that will last a lifetime.

Living by the List

I’m abit of a to-do list freak, and often find myself living life by the ever increasing to-do list. The main reason for this is my inability to remember things, hence a to-do list helps me in this manner. If i’m honest, alot of the things on it never get done, and each week flies by with not alot getting ticked off and some more added onto the bottom.

Thats why I struggle with grace: theres nothing I can do that can attain my salvation, and that doesn’t quite fit in my to-do driven lifestyle. Surely God can’t simply forgive my past, some of the awful things i’ve done and continue to do, some of the despicable sins i’m too ashamed to share with anyone. Surely i’ve gotta do something to pay him back and earn his favour, serve him better, be more committed, do more stuff.

And thats the scandal of grace - theres nothing I can do, all my good works are as filthy rags in his sight.

Ephesians 2:8-9

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”

Phillip Yancey - Whats So Amazing About Grace

“Theres nothing you can do to make him love you more, and nothing you can do to make him love you less”

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These are the words I read after writing this post in Mike Yaconelli’s book Core Realities of Youth Ministry:

“Too many of us choose discipleship (doing) over friendship (being) and, as a result, lose ourselves in activity instead of intimacy”

Think I need to listen to this message, focus on being His, rather than getting so caught in the doing stuff.  Its out of the being that the doing will truly bear fruit

Mission 2008

On Tuesday night i’ll be meeting with others on a outreach committee in church to consider running a mission this time next year in our local community.  We had a brief meeting with Paul Hoey, a ministry consultant with CPAS who will so-ordinate with us and advise us on tunning an evangelistic mission and follow up activities next year.  Quite excited about the opportunities that will arise as we consider how we can re-connect with a community that is largely disconnected and indifferent to the Gospel of Christ and it’s relevance to their lives.  Since coming to faith this has been a burden on my heart, and something that drives me in the youthwork I seek to do, so i’m quite excited about what God can do over the coming months in preperation for the mission.

Alot of the time I find myself frustrated by church and it’s lack of vision and purpose, the attitude of keep doing what we have been doing, so i’m praying that God will use this mission opportunity to re-focus our attentions on our call to be a salt-and-light difference in society and adopting a missional approach to ministry.

Watch this space, further posts will follow

The Gospel in Tech Speak - My random thoughts

All techie geeks will be familiar with this shortcut key, Ctrl+Z - the saving grace of undo.  It’s a godsend if you’ve just changed something that totally screws up what you’ve been working on, and with a quick combination of keys you can get back to where you were.

Often in life it would be great if we could undo some of the things we’ve done, take back those hurtful words, rollback those shameful sins, rewind your past failings.  And thats the scandal of the gospel in a few quick keystrokes, Jesus has provided the solution to our problem of sin that has corrupted and messed up God’s handiwork in creation.  By trusting in him he can undo (Ctrl+Z) the consequences of our sin : past, present and future, and give us the second chance we don’t deserve : complete with a re-formated hard-drive to live a new life in Him.

He cuts’s (Ctrl+X) our sin from our lives and pastes (Ctrl+V) it on himself at Calvary, and then calls us to Copy (Ctrl+C) him in how to live our newly re-formatted life. If we allow Him to control (Ctrl) our lives he gives us the power, by his Spirit at work in us, to follow him and leave the sins of our past behind.

Just need to work at putting this into practice in my life, giving him complete control  (Ctrl) of my life.

All quiet on the blogfront

Realise it’s become abit of a barren place again on the old blog, have been snowed under abit of late, but trying to get ontop of things again.  Have been working abit on setting up a blog for Reachout, the summer outreach programme i’ve been involved in.  Hope to use the site as a portal for keeping them informed of whats happening, have had 30+ teens interested in a bible study following this summer which is real excitring.  Call by and check it out, pretty basic yet, but will hopefully add to it in the coming weeks

Distractions

It’s so easy to loose your focus and get distracted, and before you notice hours slip you by and your no further on.  I intended to spend tonight getting some stuff prepared for youth club and bible class, sat down and checked a few things online, and a couple of hours later I find myself still searching for upcoming bands on myspace and reading through feeds in google reader.  With the world at your fingertips, you can find yourself being overwhelmed by the information overload and get lost in the process.  So i’ve eventually found my way back here after much distracting surfing and nothing profitable done with my evening (in relation to youthwork prep anyway).

So note to self - Focus Focus Focus !!

The Tides of Life

I have been using the book Enjoy the Silence for my quiet times of late, following on from a more contemplative approach introduced to me at the Youth Ministry Summer School I attended this summer (see previous post here).  My meditation this morning took me to Jeremiah 23:16-24, and focused on verse 23: “Am I only a God nearby, and not a God far away”.  It got me thinking about the tides of life, and how at times we can feel God’s presence close with us, and at other times He may be distant and separated.  The thing is though that God is constant, like the waves of the ocean, and it’s me who moves from being close to him or far away.  As I allow selfish desires and sins of the flesh to creep into my life, allowing the Devil to take a hold, and pushing God out, I allow Him to become distant from me.  But despite my constant failings and selfishness, God in His mercy surrounds me in the waves of his grace and forgiveness and draws me back to His side.  Lord I am humbled, and indeed overwhelmed by your grace, thank you for your faithfulness despite my failings………

Organised Chaos

So as another term of youthwork stuff begins again this weekend, seems in a way never to have stopped with taking football and doing a couple of outreach teams over the summer, but normal service resumes from Friday night.  The moderator is opening our refurbished hall this weekend as well which i’m guessing must be a big deal judging by all the fuss, a major bun and sandwich delegation is underway.  If we were more passionate about reaching the lost perhaps, but maybe thats just me being cynical again, have to watch what I say sometimes.

Anyway I think i’m more dis-organised than ever this year, or at least it feels that way, but have the assurance that God will be at work despite my failings, and have to trust in Him and try and be abit more organised to serve him better.  Anyway my beauty sleep is calling, and boy do i need that!!  Adios to all who drop by, till I blog again………..