I went to the OPM day a few weeks ago at Lambeth Palace. I’ve just seen that the Fresh Expressions website is podcasting the Archbishops talk of that day here.
OPM Day podcast
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mission speak
Yesterday I spent the day chatting Berni from Camberley YFC and then moved onto Portsmouth to meet with Simon and Joe who are trustees of Solent YFC.
Listening to Berni’s stories of innovative work was exciting. Hearing of things like ‘Giggles’ which is a comedy club held as an outreach to young people in the 18-30 age group just amazes me at the creativity of some of our workers. Berni has also developed a great pack to make an impact on the funding of his centre which I shall be sharing with others.
IN the evening I met up with Simon and Joe. People like them are the hidden part of YFC, but the important backbone upon which much of the local scene of YFC is based. They have full time jobs but volunteer as trustees to run the centre and be responsible for how it runs. Currently they are looking to be innovative in increasing their funding as they have a new director starting in January. If you are in the area and wish to be involved in supporting Solent YFC as it relaunches please get in touch.
Whether I’m chatting to the front line workers, or the people behind the scenes the story is the same – sacrifice for God, listening to God, stepping out with God, and I think in that order.
Saints Alive
I’ve just got back from preaching at Rochester Cathedral at tonight’s Saints Alive Celebration. I was really nervous about this, and don’t think I have been this nervous about talking for a long time. What I said seemed to go down OK – although one illustration may have raised a few eyebrows – lets just say I don’t think anyone else has used the word willy in the cathedral before! I did use it to illustrate misunderstandings rather than to shock – honest! I spoke around the subject of Hope and how can help others experience hope in our community.
The most exciting part of the evening was seeing our friend Lucy talk about Love Gillingham to 300 people in the cathedral. She was simply fantastic and when she finished there was spontaneous applause for her words. At the end a youth group leader asked her to go and speak to their youth group about Love Gillingham. This is really excellent – and seeing Lucy grow in confidence over the last few years has been a sheer joy as well as exciting to see.
After the service I went of with two great friends – the 2 Becky’s – for a drink at Wetherspoons. We came up with a plan to transform Medway … so watch this space!
personal support day
This is a funding request post!
Today is personal support day for all national YFC workers.
This is a day when we do no other work than pray for, contact and write to our supporters and potential . That’s what I should be doing – but the ideas and content of my letters are currently on my melting laptop.
You may feel sorry for me – but you could cheer me up by emailing me and saying you’d like to contribute to my personal support … if you are interested I have a range of fantastic people who donate from £5 per month to £185 per month to YFC for my salary. I always have vacancies for more personal supporters … could you be the next one to join my splendidly wonderful supporters!?
By praying and by supporting with regular gifts you will …
* Be giving thousands of young people the chance to encounter Jesus!
* Enable YFC youth workers to bring God’s love to young people who have no contact with Christians and the Church.
* Receive Intoview – our exclusive partner magazine: packed with the latest information, testimonies and stories from around Britain.
* Receive personal letters thanking you for your support &keeping you up to date.
* Have the satisfaction of knowing you are helping to transform young lives.
* Gain priority access to any breaking news about YFC’s pioneering projects.
* Help to train young people in mission.
* Empower YFC to develop brand new youth resources for churches & schools.
* Be taking God’s love to young offenders & socially excluded youth.
* Enable young adults to serve Jesus using sport, theatre, music & dance.
* Be establishing new YFC local centres – which impact whole communities.
If you email me I can chat more about this with you and/or send/bring you a supporters form. I’m more than happy, too, to meet in a coffee bar, bar, wherever to meet and chat about the ministry of YFC and how you can support us.
Thanks for listening … err I mean reading!!
laptop meltdown
Ok – my laptop is not looking as bad as the pic – but it has stopped working. It decided to walk out and leave me on saturday afternoon, just after I had the odd thought to back up my assignments on my pen drive.
The shell is there, it looks the same, the noises are the same … but she has gone and left me! I push the power button and she talks of hard drive failure. I try to boot form the windows disc and she sighs at my stupidity. There is no more windows, no more outlook, no more work!
At the moment we are attempting to repair the hard drive – so we will see what happens, but its a very slow process … 3 and a half hours in and we are 58% complete. That’s an interesting thought.
It just seems that my forces slowing down to reflect is going to continue.
London, coffee, golf, hooker, hope ….
Yesterday was a great but long day and varied in London.
I met Barry and Duncan in the cafe of the British Library to talk about Duncan’s vision for using golf as a mission tool with young people. The idea sounds great and I will be watching with interest to see how things progress. I hope they do as it could reach a whole new group of young people.
I spent a large part the rest of the day in the British Library and became a reader (a surprisingly quick and easy operation)so that I can do a bit off research now and again (‘ark at me ..LOL!). I wanted to take the opportunity to look at some original Richard Hooker stuff, but I had not realised that I needed to be a bit more organised. It’s a library – I thought I could just pop in and take it off the shelf … but the books are more protected than that. So I will plan my next visit better and pre-request my books. I’ve heard a few people talk about theoir views on Hooker recently, and I thought it would be good to see what he actually wrote before considering others views on him.
I spent my time in the library, instead, tussling with my thoughts on Hope for tonight’s talk. I kind of got somewhere but was more able to bring them together this morning. I hope I’m able to inspire and challenge – actually I’m weirdly quite nervous about speaking at Rochester cathedral.
Last night was also the start of our next module. So I have 2 essays out of the way, and now have two more lists of titles to consider … life must go on!
Love becomes Hope
last night was excellent and this morning was quite exciting too.
A group of us involved in Love Gillingham for the last few years got together to chat about what went well and not so well before we started to think in more detail about how Love Gillingham happens through 2008 with the opportunity Hope08 presents.
Well … Love has become Hope and you need to watch this space to see what happens!
Basingstoke YFC
Last night was an excellent evening.
I drove to Basingstoke to join around 300 people from the local churches to worship and take part in the commissioning of Luella Moody as the director.
It was particularly excellent for two reasons.
One was the diversity of the turnout. There were young people approaching their early teens squashed together fighting to get to the front where the action was and their grandparents sitting further back.
The second was Luella’s story. She told how she has been changed by responding to God’s call on her life and how when asked what her dream job would be that she responded with ‘to set up a YFC centre in somewhere like Basingstoke.’ The person asking apparently sat ‘mouth open’ as she was aware of the talks YFC had been having with the Basingstoke churches and how we were just about to advertise for the role.
It’s incredibly exciting when you see how things are knitting together as part of God’s plan.
Please pray for Luella as she starts this exciting ministry.
Crouch (-ed) with a grudge!
I read this today and was surprised to see that Crouch is still bearing a grudge, some 7 years later!
I was at the match, and yes we did should out names, and yes it was just normal football banter in an effort to be the teams 12th man and put off the opposition. It looks like it may have worked a little too well.
I’m a Liverpool fan as they were the first team I ever watched from the terraces with my scouser step dad – but I wouldn’t like to see the reception that Crouch gets at Priestfield if we are drawn in the FA Cup this year.
6.7 million since 1967
Today is the anniversary of the Abortion Law of 1967.
Since that time there have been 6.7 million abortions.
Now there are 200 000 abortions per year in the UK.
That’s more than 500 lives per day.
The Shiny Headed Prophet 