Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37v4.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
And the Truth...
Yeh so as you will remember we took our yp to a weekend away at the Barcaple Abernethy adventure centre back in February... As part of the weekend we had a morning service where the yp took part in workshops in order to effectively create their own service.
the workshops were: Music Art Prayer 'sermon' and drama
Myself and a couple of the other leaders were in charge of the art workshop, and we figured that we could make a freeze of sorts for the yp to add to. Here is the background for our freeze which i made =)
We spent some time looking at scriptures which talked about Jesus and the Truth and obviously John 8:32 inspired these discussions greatly. Perhaps i'll manage at some point to get a pic of the freeze finished so that you can see the yp's additions to it =)
So... for the past 4 years we've been taking our youth from Kenmure on a youth weekend every year in February... we go to an adventure centre somewhere in scotland. The last 3 years we've been at the Compass Christian Centre in Glenshee, this year for a change we've opted to got to the Abernethy Trust Centre in Barcaple. It's not been without it's challenges so far, but i'm really looking forward to getting there and getting into it all =)
Our theme for the weekend is 'This is our God'. The idea behind this is that we have such a huge diversity amongst the young people (both age - P7-S6 and spiritual maturity - no Christian understanding to passionate for living for God) and so we've gone for this theme as it will hopefully allow us to really enable all groups to engage with God... either for the first time, or deepen a relationship they already have with God =)... The plan is to have 5 teaching sessions, each looking at who God is. Friday night - God is Love Saturday morning - God is a Stronghold Saturday evening - God is a Redeemer Sunday morning - God is Truth Sunday afternoon - God is unending The intention is to start each session with a big sheet of paper with the characteristic on it i.e. 'Love' and get the yp all to tell us what they think this means and write that onto it... Then we'll unpack what it means for God. So really looking forward to that =)
Aside from the sessions we have activities too =) so we'll be doing various team challenges, abseiling, zip wire... it's going to be lots of fun... yes we'll all be knackered by the time we get home, but it only happens once a year =)
Yeh... so this past weekend has been the most crazy weekend in a while. I haven't feel this exhausted and achy... (although i'm feeling a lot better than i was by the end of Saturday and yesterday i'm still feeling it today)...
So Saturday saw me bag packing for going to LUWERO the whole at the Tesco in St Rollox... It was long, but gd. Time actually passed surprisingly quickly if i'm honest... but at the same time, my legs were dead by the end of it. For some reason these days standing still for long periods of time exhausts me, which is ridiculous considering I used to have to stand for 4-6 hours at a time (easy, sometimes more) when I worked at Alldays.
but anyway... the silver lining here? We raised £864 :-O nice one eh?!
but anyway then had to make pudding for the meeting i was going to at 7pm heh... it was an ok meeting but i think i can safely safe that folks were tired, so it probably wasn't as productive as it should have been. Then I had to come home and finish off something for the Bible Class the next morning... i gave up on that rather quickly though and just went to bed completely exhausted.
Then Sunday... woke up, got to church for 9:30am and got things set up for Bible Class... had folk tell me i looked exhausted (thanks! i thought) finished there, came home and took abbie a walk (i love my pooch but that walk hurt, a lot) and came back to lunch and finishing off prep for the service in the evening, which annoyingly ended up taking up pretty much all of the afternoon, which meant no break ARGH! So was back to the church by 4:30pm to make sure things were sorted before yp started arriving the back of 5pm... only they didn't. the deal was, we were there, set up and ready to play for 5:15pm... we didn't even start practicing until nearer 5:50pm... can u sense my frustration?!
But we got there... the service went really well - twas nice.
afterwards tho a couple of things happened which just blew me away...
I dunno if i've explained this on here, but bottom line is that I'm hoping to go to LUWERO in Uganda with the young people... only the church have declined to pay anything towards it, which unfortunately put doubt into whether i was going to get to go.. I can't afford to save for something as huge as that, so it was kinda a big deal...
but my mum reminded me that if i was meant to be there, then i would be and that I should just pay my deposit (which i already had from my CHristmas money, so thanks everyone who gave me money for Christmas) and that the rest would come... So that night I stepped out in faith and paid the deposit hoping that the rest would come... which is kinda funny coz i'd spent the whole of the Deep Impact weekend 'n beyond praying for more faith...
but yeh... last night... a very gd friend of mine came up to me after the service with a n envelope which i thought was odd, and she gave it to me with a huge grin on her face... i asked if i was meant to open it there and then, and got the vibe that i should lol, only to find a wee card in it (which was very sweet) at which point she said 'there's something else in there too' and i found a cheque for quite a substantial amount of money... i was quite in shock... 'a little something to get you started on your walk of faith' said the card.... its overwhelming thinking of it even now....
anyway - so then we had Anathallo... which was great. their video project is REALLY coming on, am lovin' it... and I love how some of them come out with the most profound ideas and don't even realise it... its just soooo COOL! After that we spent some time looking at Prayer and that was really cool too... another example of me trying to push the boat out a bit... I don't want these kids to be too comfy, if we don't have challenge then we don't grow....
but anyway afterwards I was clearing up and I was about to put my laptop (which was sitting on the stage) into my bag and when i picked it up i found an envelop and on it was my name... inside was an A4 piece of paper with a large image of the Ugandan flag and a heap of cash. I don't know who it was from... I could try and guess but they didn't leave a message or a note so i can only assume that they want to remain anonymous...
I love it tho. it was such a hard weekend, emotionally, mentally and physically, but spiritually? i was built up hugely, right at the end =) LOVE it! =)
When i was younger there was this thing call 'Magic Eye' which was really really popular... do you remember that?
Well as part of the session i'm organising for our discipleship group tomorrow night I'm using some Magic Eye images... i forgot how incredibly cool they are!!! And tbh for some odd reason I totally didn't expect it to work over a computer screen.. i dunno what my logic was... i just didn't think it would work - but it TOTALLY does!!!!!!!!
What do you see?????
See thing is that some people just don't see the shape.... they're adamant there's nothing there coz they don't see. Funny how belief in God can be like that...
Well tomorrow at around 12:30pm I shall be getting folks together to go down to Troon in South Aryshire to do a 9 day long mission down there... I'm not completely organised... well in that i've not actually packed yet. And there seems to be a lot of things falling apart at their end. But hopefully, just hopefully once we're there and settled it'll all calm down and we can just get on with it.
that said, prayers would be nice. Please. Apart from the fact that I can't believe it starts tomorrow i'm feeling relatively at ease... i'm not sure that could be said for everyone though.
In some ways it seems like a mountain. But, and I'll say this only once, my God is BIGGER than this mountain which appears before me, and i'm gonna believe that he can 'take it' no problem *grins*
I had been looking for a Shaun the Sheep flash to put on my profile page, and found the opening credits on YouTube and was very excited by this only to find that for some reason it doesn't actually work on bebo... so i went into my favourites to change it back to the 'get a mac' advert (you all should btw!!!) and was reminded of the 'Awesome God' flash that I had come across a while ago... I watched it through, and something kept coming back to me the whole way through... it's something that's been coming back to me a lot through different things recently...
Where, is the passion for spreading God's Word? Where is the passion for seeking to save souls? Do we walk along thinking that 'ok, so we're saved, now we can just chill out knowing that God is with us whatever happens and will forgive all the pants stuff we do'? Do we forget that Jesus sent the disciples out to bring the nations to him? Why do we always assume that it's someone else's job? How often do we actually bother to invite a non-christian friend to an event or even talk to them about God? It's all very well praying for them to become a Christian, but if we're not giving them the opportunity to come into a Christian fellowship, if we're not even opening our ears for God to tell us to grasp opportunities then are we failing them? Don't misunderstand me, i'm not attempting to limit God here, but surely, as Christians we all admit that we have been given the greatest gift... So why do we always shy away? or keep to our own priorities rather than God's? Being a Christian isn't about being the perfect model to your non-Christian friends, it's about sharing with them that we get it wrong too, but that we trust in God who is higher than us and has control over all for the good of us...
Why do we persist in keeping God to ourselves? God's Grace is for all. Why are we so selfish so as not to share it? Why is it that when someone reminds us about how we should share the gospel with our friends... we feel bad... wish we could help them understand God... pray for them... and then perhaps forget about it... or at least we may continue to pray for them, but just not actively do anything about it outside the comfort of our own bedroom, or i suppose mind. Why?
I've said this before... and I'll say it again... Christianity is not something that you 'tag on'. Christianity does not work around our habits, our lifestyles... its not something which is ok to just 'add-on' in later life... later life may be too late... Following Christ IS a lifestyle. And as much as we like to bury our heads in the sand on this, there IS a sense of urgency here... We don't know how long we are here for. No one does. Yes, ultimately it is everyone's own personal decision whether they follow Christ or not... and yes, you can take a horse to water, but you can't make it drink - BUT have you actually even tried to take the horse to the water? Or are you so comfortable at the river with your Christian friends that you see no need to venture out to take others there too?
People tend to come to Christ through those they trust... not because of a minister... although of course God can work through all... so take that on board... is God asking you to encourage someone? do you need to wait until an evangelism event comes along to invite a friend into Christian fellowship? i don't think so...
Name: TLT Home: Glasgow, United Kingdom About Me: I'm a youthworker with a church in the North of Glasgow... I enjoy watching films 'n surfing the net 'n hanging out with friends... See my complete profile
