Tuesday, 26 February 2008
Tuesday, 4 December 2007
1st Trimester - Trying to live distinctive lives
In this first trimester at “Something Else” we looked at three main aspects of living a Christian life: firstly, how to live out our Christian faith in a post-modern, hedonistic and materialistic society; secondly, how we can present Christianity to those people who are seldom at church… in other words how to reach a missional generation; and thirdly, how then should we as a church engage with the culture around us?
In order to do that, we had a look at a book called “Distinctives”, written by Vaughan Roberts. It brings issues that challenge us as Christians to live out our faith. “We should
be different from the world around us – Christian distinctives should set us apart in how we live, think, act and speak.” The book targets difficult areas in our attitudes towards such things as: money; possessions; sexuality; contentment; relativism; and service.
The challenge is here…… “Something Else” crew – Will you dare to be different?
We then moved onto the life of Moses, the people of Israel and God’s attempt to catch their attention in making them, the people of Israel, a chosen nation that would bring glory to His name. In the life of Moses we have learnt that God doesn’t always call people who are excellent in everything they do. God does, however, call people who have difficulties in their lives, in their character; He calls those who have some sort of impediment. In Moses’ case it was his speech, in your case what is yours?
The study of the life of Moses and the journey of the people of Israel demonstrated to us that obedience is the first call in our lives. Also, we realised that we needed to get rid of the ‘Billy Graham syndrome.’ Do we all have to be great evangelists… full of amazing and apparent gifts??? NO! NO! NO! However, we MUST indeed obey God’s call and we MUST learn to be a community of believers who love God and live for God in our daily lives.
So, Something Else crew – Are you ready to obey God and be used by him? What are the impediments?
In order to do that, we had a look at a book called “Distinctives”, written by Vaughan Roberts. It brings issues that challenge us as Christians to live out our faith. “We should
be different from the world around us – Christian distinctives should set us apart in how we live, think, act and speak.” The book targets difficult areas in our attitudes towards such things as: money; possessions; sexuality; contentment; relativism; and service.
The challenge is here…… “Something Else” crew – Will you dare to be different?
We then moved onto the life of Moses, the people of Israel and God’s attempt to catch their attention in making them, the people of Israel, a chosen nation that would bring glory to His name. In the life of Moses we have learnt that God doesn’t always call people who are excellent in everything they do. God does, however, call people who have difficulties in their lives, in their character; He calls those who have some sort of impediment. In Moses’ case it was his speech, in your case what is yours?
The study of the life of Moses and the journey of the people of Israel demonstrated to us that obedience is the first call in our lives. Also, we realised that we needed to get rid of the ‘Billy Graham syndrome.’ Do we all have to be great evangelists… full of amazing and apparent gifts??? NO! NO! NO! However, we MUST indeed obey God’s call and we MUST learn to be a community of believers who love God and live for God in our daily lives.
So, Something Else crew – Are you ready to obey God and be used by him? What are the impediments?
Wednesday, 21 November 2007
Watch out.. I am back and even stronger
Hello everyone!
My computer media life has been rubbish. I am sorry that I haven't been able to post anything on my blog lately.
The thing is... I have been ill with kidney stones and there were so many other things happening in my life. To make things even worse my laptop died and for nearly three weeks I couldn't do anything. Life just stopped because there was no computer. However, my boss, Simon Cansdale, has kindly let me use the church laptop for the time being... please do pray that I can buy a new laptop soon.
Anyway, I will be updating my blog this week!
God bless you
My computer media life has been rubbish. I am sorry that I haven't been able to post anything on my blog lately.
The thing is... I have been ill with kidney stones and there were so many other things happening in my life. To make things even worse my laptop died and for nearly three weeks I couldn't do anything. Life just stopped because there was no computer. However, my boss, Simon Cansdale, has kindly let me use the church laptop for the time being... please do pray that I can buy a new laptop soon.
Anyway, I will be updating my blog this week!
God bless you
Tuesday, 9 October 2007
Something Else - The Dream and the vision
Hello there...
I will soon be explaining to you in detail about my placement here at St Giles' where I work as an evangelist.
The reason being for that is that I still need to be here to oversee and administrate the work and the growth of the service called Something Else. When I started my job here two years ago, I was asked to create a space for the Generation Y (i.e. 15's 25's) to hear the gospel.
This initiative started over two years ago and at the time we had only 4 young people... today we have between 45- 60. The ages of people attending Something Else has also broadened too, now attracting lots of young professionals over the age of 30.
What was originally supposed be a service has now become a brand. What I mean by this is, we are not people who want to be fed at church on a weekly basis but we want to be fed and be able to feed others.
Something Else now helps outreach programmes around the area. Every year we hold four different mission events, one of them being "The Gathering" which you will know more about very soon.
Why is Something Else called "Something Else?" The reason is very simple, we wanted to attract non-Christians to this new initiative. I soon realised that lots of non-Christians feel embarrassed to tell people about their journey of faith, never mind tell people that they're going to church. As a result of that they end up lying to people about what they're doing. Therefore, by calling the service "Something Else" they just have to tell their friends, peers, colleagues or relatives if they invite them to go out on Sunday evening, "I am sorry but I am a little busy tonight because I either have 'Something Else' to do or I have 'Something Else' on!"
The sucess of "Something Else" is one of the reasons for the growth that we are experiencing here at St Giles.
I know some people say that people don't want to go to church for various reasons... or people are bored with the traditions of the church. Of course there is some truth in that but this hasn't been our experience here.
Anyway, I am posting you now the first article that I wrote about 'Something Else', please do feel free to browse. This article was written in December 2005.
This is the link
The vision - 2005
This the power point that we use as people come in on Sunday evenings
I will soon be explaining to you in detail about my placement here at St Giles' where I work as an evangelist.
The reason being for that is that I still need to be here to oversee and administrate the work and the growth of the service called Something Else. When I started my job here two years ago, I was asked to create a space for the Generation Y (i.e. 15's 25's) to hear the gospel.
This initiative started over two years ago and at the time we had only 4 young people... today we have between 45- 60. The ages of people attending Something Else has also broadened too, now attracting lots of young professionals over the age of 30.
What was originally supposed be a service has now become a brand. What I mean by this is, we are not people who want to be fed at church on a weekly basis but we want to be fed and be able to feed others.
Something Else now helps outreach programmes around the area. Every year we hold four different mission events, one of them being "The Gathering" which you will know more about very soon.
Why is Something Else called "Something Else?" The reason is very simple, we wanted to attract non-Christians to this new initiative. I soon realised that lots of non-Christians feel embarrassed to tell people about their journey of faith, never mind tell people that they're going to church. As a result of that they end up lying to people about what they're doing. Therefore, by calling the service "Something Else" they just have to tell their friends, peers, colleagues or relatives if they invite them to go out on Sunday evening, "I am sorry but I am a little busy tonight because I either have 'Something Else' to do or I have 'Something Else' on!"
The sucess of "Something Else" is one of the reasons for the growth that we are experiencing here at St Giles.
I know some people say that people don't want to go to church for various reasons... or people are bored with the traditions of the church. Of course there is some truth in that but this hasn't been our experience here.
Anyway, I am posting you now the first article that I wrote about 'Something Else', please do feel free to browse. This article was written in December 2005.
This is the link
The vision - 2005
This the power point that we use as people come in on Sunday evenings
Saturday, 6 October 2007
Hey I can't believe I've done this.... I have a BLOG!!
This my first blog and I will be updating it every week. It will be a very cool blog and extremely interactive! Watch out!
I am working on it in order to keep my tutor at Cliff College updated about my placement at St Giles Church in West Bridgford.
More news soon...... This is going to be great!
Tchau tchau or bye bye
P.S. If you want to know a little bit more about me just check out my own website
I am working on it in order to keep my tutor at Cliff College updated about my placement at St Giles Church in West Bridgford.
More news soon...... This is going to be great!
Tchau tchau or bye bye
P.S. If you want to know a little bit more about me just check out my own website
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