Blogger tells me I have used this title before – but there you go, the cost of having such great children.

I have been amazingly impressed by my children recently.

Today I heard that Tom has been working a little campaign for Aung San Suu Kyi. He thought he should speak about her at Pathfinders after they looked at Joseph in prison in the Bible on Sunday. The Pathfinder group are all going to send birthday cards. Today at school he shared it with his class and teacher, they are going to make and send cards and speak to the headteacher about giving the opportunity to the whole school.

It’s great to have campaigning son! I feel proud that he wants to do something to make a difference, and is trying to get others to.

We have hit a landmark week with Beth. For the first time in nearly 18 months she is sleeping in her bedroom. Around that long ago my lovely brother an sister in law were burgled and Beth and her nana were first in the house to discover this. Since then she has been scared to sleep alone and at times this has been distressing to see. On She still comes down now and again, but she has slept in her room for 6 out of the last 8 days. Last week her and I had a chat about why she wanted to sleep back in her room. I was surprised at the logical and mature thoughts coming from her. This is a massive improvement – if you have a spare moment remember her in your prayers!

Again, I am proud to think of her maturity and bravery at such a young age.

Joe – what can I say, the boy of God spaces and deep thought! His conversations always amaze me. How can 6 year old have such a spiritual grasp on life, and see God everywhere?

I’m proud to be living with the obvious next Archbishop of Canterbury!!!

My good friend Johnny sent this and said it reminded him of me. I feel special now, although I don’t think I feel so much personal growth as the man in the cartoon. I just thought – I hope he is not making reference to the hair here!!!

This is an excellent resource to be using for 14-18’s from YFC.

Ok, I may be biased as a YFC guy, but you need to grab hold of Mettle if you work with this age group because it really is very very good, right from the content and down to the presentation.

Mettle works through 3 key activity areas:

1. Core Sessions – these teach the basics of Christianity and address the gaps in Christian knowledge and experience of many young people. Selection of at least two of the Core Sessions are mandatory and should form the central part of the programme giving plenty of time and space for discussion and developing biblical understanding.

2.Hot Potato Sessions – these offer a choice of challenging and stimulating sessions to get your young people talking openly and responding positively to the peer pressures and hard-hitting issues they face today.

3.Wildcard Sessions – these suggest ways to vary the programme by either socialising as a group or organising a practical activity that could impact the local church and community.

There is also a supporting website.

A sample pack costs £12, but for a limited time you can get them for £6 by contacting YFC head office on 0121 550 8055, the online catalogue, or if I’m near to you I have a few copies to sell too. Go have a look as I am sure you will not be disappointed as this is the best youth resource I have seen in a very long time.

This is excellent news.

Move over Tony and let Gordon in to do it properly!

That was my subject to speak on tonight at St Mark’s.

The service was informal, planned and led by the youth group who asked me to speak. Tonight they decided to set the church up as a cafe at the front and people were sat around tables drinking and eating as the service began.

As I looked around I thought that this was more of what church should look like. The seating arrangement said ‘we are here to interact, to contribute, to learn from each other’. I feel it looked healthier that rows looking to the front at the ‘above reproach specialist’.

I also thought how very fortunate we are as a church with a vicar who encourages experimentation like this for the young people and others. He has his own set preferences, and yet he allows others to play and find theirs. I think that is such a great example of encouraging and enabling leadership. It certainly contrast with a situation I heard the other day of a Pathfinder leader waiting for over 2 weeks to hear if the group could contribute to a service as they had requested.

Tonight I am glad I am in a church like St Marks.

On to the subject? Well of course, it is a non-sensical title. God is always there. He also promises never to leave or forsake us. He left Jesus (Father, Father why have you forsaken me?)so that he would never have to leave us.

I shared basically that in circumstances it does feel like God has left and is ignoring us. I think n these situations, and looking at Psalm 13, we need to remember that God is there and we need to ‘hang in there’ by being honest with God, others and ourselves. BY this I mean if we are angry we shout at God and tell him, not pretend we are all right when we are struggling.

This is not amazingly comforting, Jesus never said it would be easy but he did promise to stay with us, and when it comes to this it can be useful to remember that it say ‘and it came to pass’ 396 times in the Bible.

WE all have dark valley experiences, and they will ‘come to pass’.

… and I’m afraid.

All my childhood memories flooded back again tonight but I could not hide behind the sofa because all the kids were there and I had to be a responsible father.

Dr Who was fantastic tonight, but we all thought the daleks were destroyed, but they are back, they are going to invade the earth, and, even worse, they have Rose.

C’mon Doctor, you can do it!

Friday was a day of meetings.

First I met with Alan le Grys, the principal of SEITE. This was an interesting conversation and now I need to decide whether I feel able to take on the demands of the course. To be honest, I am not sure I have too many options to go with. The course is interesting, and will be demanding with weekly evening lectures, 7 residential weekends and an 8 day residential school at Easter – and all that for 3 years! Maybe I should be seeking therapy for even considering such a course!

Next I traveled to Bluewater for a much less scary experience to meet up with Gordon. We had a coffee and shared stuff that is currently happening in our worlds. It’s events like this that make me really glad I started to blog. Having a new friend to share and talk with can only be good thing. I hope we will be able to do this again soon.

Sharing and bouncing ideas can, I think, only result in more rounded and holistic people. Interestingly both Gordon and myself have been toying with a film club idea. I have a great love of film but for the last few years I have not been able to watch a film without thinking two things: ‘What is God saying in this?’ and ‘How can I use this to illustrate something of God?’

What I would love to do now is move this on a bit. To meet with a group of people, watch a film and then have a chat afterwards along the lines of what can we hear about God/society/etc in this film. I fear such an idea in Gillingham just would not take off. Maybe that’s just an excuse for my laziness!

My final meet of the day was with Mark Thirkell, the local Salem minister. I am in great need of an accountability person/mentor/spiritual director. We are meeting to see if this works. Mark knows me, but is far enough removed as to speak what he says. He is also one of the few people that I will take a telling off from if I need one. I hope this works and I hope Mark’s eye will pull me up short where I need to be pulled up.

A great day in all – but now I need to finish my talk for Sunday night … ‘When God’s not there’ – why do I get all the difficult titles?

It full team meeting for YFC today. This means all national staff gather to pray, worship, share what is happening, be involved in training etc etc. It’s nearly the summer so this one ended with a BBQ at Roy Crowne’s house where we said goodbye to a few people.

I was struck and challenged in our worship time today as we looked at what a disciple was. I won’t go into massive detail but just give you an idea.

I learned that Rabbi’s only chose the best of the best to be their disciples. Disciples are more than followers, they are imitators. They do not want to just follow their rabbi, they actually want to be like him.

When a rabbi was selecting his disciples, he would have one consideration: ‘Has this kid got what it takes to do what I do?’ If so, he would ask him to ‘Come and follow me’
The rabbi was saying, I think you have what it takes to be like me, to continue what I do. In other words … I believe in you.

Jesus chose his disciples because he thought they could do what he did. His simple ‘Come follow me’ to them was saying ‘I believe in you’.

His simple ‘come follow me’ to me says

‘I believe in you’.

Today I have been massively challenged and humbled.

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