Predicitve Text - St Mary's 6th December 2009

Predictive Text - Isaiah 9: 2-7

Good evening. For those of you who don't know me I'm Karen, I'm a youth worker at St Hugh's and a member here at St Mary's. I have to admit right now that I'm not a biblical scholar. I didn't study theology at University. But please don't hold that against me as we begin to explore the Old Testament, what it said about Jesus and how the New Testament looks different in light of Jesus. Also as we approach Christmas how do the biblical text's inform our waiting and anticipation of Jesus coming again.

As I said I'm not a biblical scholar, however that doesn't stop me having a passion for the living word of God and trying to understand our historical context as Christians. I love the Old Testament, about 4 years ago there was some light shed on it for me, I lived in a dark world where I just read the New Testament. I think once it is put into a little bit of context we might start to look at it as a more relevant book to us than once imagined. It is often sold as the book of the Jews, text which has some lovely stories and poems, as well as the record of the judges and kings who ruled over the Jewish nation. If we start from this premise, we miss the point of the Old Testament and we won't get to the heart of what God is saying through the stories, poems and records.

So as with every good story lets start at the beginning. God creates the universe, the earth and Man, and He says “It's good”, then Man messes up big time and gets thrown out of the place where he can be in God's presence constantly. Of course, God is not going to give up that quickly on something he has created, there are various things that happen throughout the Old Testament which show us God's plan for restoring the relationship between God and Us. I'm just going to pick on a few, because if I could show you every one we'd probably be here all night.

The first one we'll look at is the story of Abraham and Isaac. This can be found in Genesis 22. God tests Abraham, who is very old, and asks him to sacrifice his only son. They travel for three days to a place where God had told them to go. Isaac is not stupid, he has a very wise father, recognises the set up for a sacrificial offering and quite rightly asks “where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” to which Abraham replies, somewhat cryptically “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son”. At this point, Abraham ties up Isaac and places him on the altar. This is how we often misinterpret the text, there's no elaboration and emotion. You can't imagine for a second that this wasn't done without some sort of a struggle, tears and utter pain on Abraham's part. He had given God years of faithful service and been so obedient, and this is how God repays him? At the very last moment God saves Isaac and a ram is provided to sacrifice instead. And Abraham's fear and obedience are rewarded by a promise from God, his descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky and sand on the beach.

The parallels between this story and Jesus dying on the cross are plain to see, especially when they are laid side by side. We often teach Old Testament as just a story to interest young children, or as a story for the Jewish people, but the meaning for us today is clear. John 3:16 reflects this: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son”. Isaac was given out of choice and obedience. Jesus was given out of choice and love for us that we might live and have eternal life. We begin to see God's salvation plan unfolding before our eyes with massive hints towards what will happen.

Another person who's life can be seen as a parallel for the life of Jesus is David, the shepherd boy born in Bethlehem and chosen as King even though he's the runt of the family. David defeated giants and won many wars and for all intents and purposes was a good king. The Jewish people expected their Messiah to resemble David. Well, we know now that he didn't, at least not in the way they expected. Jesus quoted David's Psalms several times throughout his ministry, Jesus knew his scriptures so well, they were woven into everyday speech. Again, when stories from the Old Testament and New Testament are laid side by side, we see things we may never have seen reading the stories separately.

In Jesus birth, life, death and resurrection he fulfils over 300 Old Testament prophecies. I choose one Isaiah passage because it's one of the verses used during advent. Verses 6-7 are used during this time of advent to show that Jesus is King over all and that for hundreds of years the Jews were waiting for someone to come and sit on the throne in Jerusalem and rule as a proper king should. This is one prediction they missed the point about. It's almost like when you get a text message from some one who has used predictive text, but they've forgotten to switch the word. I'm sure we each have a little bug bears with predictive text on a mobile phone. For me it's the shortening of “I have” I get “H've” every single time and it drive me up the wall. And believe me I've tried to teach my phone the right letters. If you know how to use predictive text it makes life easier and faster, if you don't it can be the most confusing and frustrating thing you've ever come across!

We find the same problem with the Bible, if we know how to use it and can begin to link all the pieces together we start to see with clarity and understanding of the wider picture, but if we miss a verse, or spell something wrong then we will struggle greatly and can change the meaning of the passage. A great way to do this is to grab a bible overview book that's really easy to read. I'm currently reading BOOK!

Back to the Isaiah passage, the Jews went down the line of the great kings and saw their Messiah as someone who would fit into their picture, but we know that's not the case. Jesus flipped the world on it's head, just by being born. There was nothing majestic about his birth, the first people to see him were the shepherds who spent their time away from any other human beings, they may well have been viewed as outcasts, not the kind of people you'd expect to be in the presence of a King.

This is not the only prophecy declaring the majesty of Jesus Daniel 7:13-14 and Zechariah 9:9, and there are the other prophets who told about the kind of king and person Jesus would be. So as the Jewish people miss the arrival of the coming King, everything for then on is a struggle. They've painted a wrong picture.

So here we see all the Old Testament points towards the coming of Jesus and the New Testament charts the life of Jesus, his death and resurrection, the restoring of God and Man into relationship again, and we have to live in the light.

Still today we get the interpretation of the text wrong. We take things said and done out of context and place them into our context where they can be more harmful than helpful. I'm just as guilty of this as anyone else. I was teaching the other day on 1 Timothy 4:12, which says “don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example to other believers in speech, in love, in life, in faith and in purity”. This verse has been underlined in my Bible for ages, but I'd only learnt the first part! How different does this whole verse sound, when you know that the example you set comes from Jesus, but also has wider implications for all the believers you come across. It's important for us to look at a verse in it's context, looking at who wrote it and who it was written for, and even the most basic knowledge can begin to help you see a bigger and clearer picture.

So I urge you to look deeper into the Bible this advent, as we await Jesus coming, we need to keep the main thing the main thing. We go back to John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him will not die but have eternal life” If we start from that point, we can't go far wrong. We need to take the bible as a whole book, as we apply it to our lives. We do love predicting stuff, whether it's Strictly, Xfactor or the Christmas number one. Lets not let our love of predicting things cloud our view of the Bible.

We know for certain that Jesus is coming! If we spend all our time trying to predict his return, we might miss it, just like some of the Jews did the first time around!

Back To Church Sunday - Genesis 2 v4-25

Hello everyone, my name is Karen and I'm the youth worker here at St Hugh's. We've just started our series right at the beginning of the bible, in the book of Genesis. This morning I will be talking about what it means for us as God's people to be part of a community and how we are called to be a part of God's plan. Before I delve into this, would you join me in praying?

PRAY

When I began to look at this passage, I thought, “why have we got two accounts of creation?” We have the 6 days spelled out before it and a day of rest, and then the picture begins to be filled in a bit more with some more details. It's almost as if the writer of Genesis realises that we need a little bit extra to really get to grips on how God created the earth.

Today we are going to focus on one verse, verse 18 Then the Lord God said “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him”. I believe this verse speaks of a God who recognises the importance of humans being in some sort of community. If we look back at Chapter 1 v27 we find that God has made male and female in his image. Here we see more detail and a hint of the reasons behind God creating male and female, not just one, but two, designed to work as one in partnership.

Lets have a quick look at the rest of creation, and what we have created this morning.

So here we have a magnificent tree. And now comes you doing some work again. Can you think of some of the things trees offer us or other animals?
Fruit/food
Shelter
Shade
pretty colours in autumn
conversion of co2 to o2
resin
place for animals to nest
wood for fire/carpentry
entertainment, something to hang your swing from
Self-sustaining community in itself

Fantastic! It in itself is a community too, the different parts of a tree benefit the entire tree. Can you feel your science lessons flooding back in?! The roots go down into the ground to stabilise the tree and get water, which is sucked up the trunk, to the leaves who spread out to catch the sunlight, to bring the nutrients from the sun, to the branches and roots so they can grow bigger, to find more water.

Earlier on we had the animals who came to be named by Adam. We could have a pride of Lions, or a herd of elephants or a colony of ants or a host of sparrow, or a flock of sheep and a pack of wolves. Each of the animals that God created works in a community to get food, find water, to protect themselves and the young of their own kind.

I think as humans we are also designed to be in a community. Focussing on the phrase God uses “It is not good for the man to be alone” God recognises the importance of giving man a helper. He created us to be His friends, as well as friends with each other. A man who is alone cannot achieve much, but a man who is in community and has the support of that community can do much more. I've noticed over the last three years as I've studied and continued to grow in a community that I certainly cannot live alone, outside of a community. I have come to realise the value of the church community and how individuals often do better when they are part of a community and doing what God wants them to do.

I believe that we are taking up this calling less and less, it's sadly getting more common that we do not know our neighbours. I've lived in my house for three years and I know my neighbours well enough that we can talk for hours over the fence and if I see them in town I'll offer them a lift home. I only know the ones either side of me well, and the people further down the road will wave hi to me. But it's better than being isolated totally. The neighbours cut my grass and will offer to fix broken things me and my house mate can't fix, we'll ask their advice and they'll ask us to look out for their houses when they go away. I am still getting to know them, but they are really good, and it's good to be known too.

One person who was called from a life of possible loneliness back into community was Zacchaeus. His story can be found in the New Testament in Luke 19. Zach was a tax collector, and in Jesus' time they weren't very popular, thought of as swindlers and liars, they were typically quite rich and not many people befriended them. In this story, every one grumbles about him being a “sinner”. Zach is called down from a tree, which he has climbed in order to see Jesus better, and Jesus invites himself for dinner! How cheeky of Jesus?! But by his invite, he brings Zach back in to the community and Zach promises to give away half his possessions and return all the money he's taken four times over. Jesus invites us into community too. Wherever we are there is a church community we can be part of, so I wanted us to think for a bit what is God calling us to do in that community, whether it is church or not.

So what are the consequences of living in community and responding to God's calling for that community? I think we develop better as people, individuals, but as we do that we also have a stronger sense of community identity. Your response might be like Zach's, to give away what you own, or it might be more like Adam's, to work at the earth and look after creation, or it could really be anywhere in between. Maybe you need to hear from God what you are called to be doing, or you need some one else to identify your strengths and abilities. The community performs better when every one is playing to their strengths and not focussing on their weaknesses.

We leave this story in a good place, there is a lot to be done in the Garden of Eden, lots to be worked on, and plenty of getting to know each other from God, Adam and Eve. For a while Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden doing God's work. The man was not alone and he was pretty happy, creation was happy. Everyone was doing exactly as God had asked them to do.

In conclusion I believe that creation can teach us that God wants us to be in community and we can do better! This might mean living and working in a community and rather than seeing it as a burden, we should be seeing it as a way of helping others to grow and develop, to identify strengths and work towards being a stronger community. So get thinking and doing, how can we become more like the community God calls us to be?

Discipline of Watching - 14th June 2009

Discipline of Watching
1 Corinthians 10 v 11-13
Sunday 14th June

When we learn together on a Monday night, there is always room for discussion and questions. And whilst I do not pretend to be an expert I think it is really important for us to be able to discuss what we are learning. That's why I also think it is important to have a memory verse. Even if just one part of it sticks, it can become the beginning of something much bigger. The young people have been learning about the gifts of the spirit. We are learning of Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-control. And our memory verse today picks up on the last one. With the help of the Holy Spirit, discipline becomes more achieveable. Matthew 26 v 41 Jesus says,“Watch and pray so that you do not fall into temptation. For the spirit is willing but the body is weak.”

So lets start as we mean to go on: PRAY

We are coming very close to the end of our series on the Discipline of Grace and as always Jesus has the ultimate say on how we should be living our lives. I think as a church we have become more aware that when Jesus talks, not only should we be listening, but we should also take action. It seems that Jesus rarely speaks words of passivity and more of activity. We have the Living Word Of God and an active faith. Bridges picks up on this activeness when it comes to the discipline of watching.

Imagine with me for a moment sitting in a coffee shop, or a canteen, what are you watching? Are you watching the staff, the customers, the passers by out of the window? On Friday I was doing this exact thing. I was watching, taking in lots of different things happening around me. I learnt that if you work in town you get 10% off at Costa! Watching teaches us so much about the world around us. If you've made eye contact with a small child recently you might remember the intensity of their stare, they are taking everything in through their eyes. But Jesus' call is not just to watch the world, but to also 'watch yourself'.

Bridges shares a personal story of late night TV watching to show a way of how we can know our weaknesses and know how the devil might tempt us. So what I would like you to do, is take a few moments, write temptations in the middle of your bit of paper and get down some ideas. We'll have some music playing in the background whilst you do it. Sharing

Gather Sharing on flip chart

These verses in 1 Corinthians remind us that God is with us through all the temptations, and the best thing to do to counteract it is to know where you are strong. The Discipline of watching is about knowing yourself well enough to be wary of temptation and not become comfortable with sin, whilst being free enough to live as God created you to be. 1 Corinthians 10 v 23 sums this up perfectly “Everything is permissible – but not everything is beneficial”. It's up to us to know what is beneficial to us.

We are told not to worry, we could spend our whole lives worrying about falling to temptation that we miss out on some great opportunities. This is where the grace bit comes in, that though God will not test us beyond what we can bear, He will welcome us with open arms when we do fall and say sorry. Because after all we are only human. His grace is sufficient.

We Died to Sin

Our latest sermon series at St Hugh's is based on "The Discipline of Grace" by Jerry Bridges - Here's my input, delivered on 8th March 2009

Well, we spent last week preaching the good news to ourselves, so I hope you've been living in the good news and not the bad news for the past week. I also hope we've been sharing the good news with other people, it's a bit rude to keep good news to yourself!

As Bridges says in his book, the good news doesn't stop there. We know Jesus died on the cross, took on all the sin ever, and we are declared perfect and righteous in God's eyes. Jesus restored our relationship with God and not only we should be eternally grateful for that, but this news should also have a massive effect on the way in which we behave.

The extra great news is that we are free from sin AND free from the dominion of sin. This simply means that we are free from the power that sin has had over us since the day we were born. I don't think I can move on from that point... I'd be a liar if I said I lived with a permanent feeling of freedom from sin. Sometimes I feel like sin is still very much in control of the way I act and behave. It might be much the same for you. To hear and know that you are forgiven and free might be a real struggle, but it's a truth we need to tell ourselves each day, each time we start to doubt who we really are and who we really belong to, we need to be reminded of this amazing gift of grace.

This morning I want to pick up on two really significant things from this: We died to sin and we are alive to God. Pretty simple on the face of it all, but if you will wander with me for a few moments I hope you might find something that will inspire/challenge/remind you of who God is and what He has done for us.

“We died to sin”

The first part of our sentence is a concept I don't have a deep understanding of. There are plenty of phrases out there that wash over me and I don't really grasp what they mean, until you have to sit down with them and tackle them full on. So here goes...

Let's start at the beginning, what is sin? Sin is when we go against God's will for us and the laws he has set.

We need to expand our passage a little bit to understand where Paul is coming from when explaining dying to sin. Verse 5-10 of Romans 6 goes on to talk about how we are united with Christ in life, death and resurrection (coming back to life). This union isn't to be taken lightly. It's like super gluing your fingers to together or attempting to distinguish my right hand from my mobile phone, or as Jesus puts it, like the Vine and the Branches. You cannot see where one begins and the other ends and if you pull them apart it'll hurt (even to the point of death). We are joined with Jesus in everything he has done. When he died on the cross, death and sin were defeated. Jesus died to break the reign of sin. Let's ponder on that a moment. Though we are still sinners, we have a Saviour who was not only able to free us from sin's penalty (death) but also from its dominion. And that's what's so amazing about Grace. The Message version puts it this way: “When it's sin vs grace, grace wins hands down”.

My cousin moved to Milton Keynes from his mum's home in Hadleigh, Essex about 2 years ago. We were chatting about where he thought home was in the early part of his move, he started off with Hadleigh. We talked about how he'd brought his house in MK, worked hard on it, and worked just down the road, yet he still saw home as his Mum's house. I think we can use this as a great illustration to show that in actual fact we often live in a place, but it is not 'home' to us, the same is true with sin. If we live in a place of grace and but still call sin 'home', then we are not truly accepting that we have died to sin. In my own context, I have effectively died to Essex, and now live in Luton. There is no practical way I can live at my parents house, I have to make a home here. We cannot make a home in Sin if we truly believe in all that Jesus has done for us, and the grace we have received because of his actions.

So, in acknowledging our dying to sin, what does this mean for us?

“Alive to God”
We are alive to God. We have been brought out of the darkness, into God's glorious light. We are rescued from death, and like the person who has been 'given a second chance' we should be living as though sin is a threat to our lives, not a death sentence.

Bridges highlights the Vine and Branches example when talking about how our relationship with Jesus can be. You can't tell where one ends and the other begins, closer than friends. Being in Christ and having Christ in you are intertwined, spiritual and alive. The Holy Spirit dwells within us, takes every step with us and knows all that we do. To be alive to God is to live in assurance and hope. To be free to be in relationship with God, and know that HE wants to be in relationship and communication with you.

We can only die once, and in this passage that death is in the past we died to sin, we have been raised into new life with Christ. God sees us in the light of what Jesus has done, alive and well.

“So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep forgiving?”

I recently had a conversation with a young person who was describing how her friends responded when she mentioned that we are forgiven of all the wrong things we do. Her friends said “well, I'll just keep on sinning then, and keep saying sorry”. The friend had the no idea of all the love and grace it takes to forgive someone and not remember their sin. It's almost as though we respond in a selfish way... we don't fully comprehend grace, or unconditional love, and so are irresponsible and reckless with these gifts. Or we treat our forgiveness so lightly that it is diluted beyond being able to grasp the reality of it?

We all still sin, in action at least, though we are not under the reign of sin. We don't come from a place of sin. We have to live in a place which grace allows. And with this overwhelming grace, I don't know about you, but I am compelled to respond. God's unconditional love for each of us doesn't demand a response, but even if we hold on to a little glimpse the Holy Spirit can change us, we will not go on sinning if we understand a small part of God's grace for us.

I grew up in Essex, I have an affinity with people from Essex, but I no longer live there. Essex is not my home, Luton is my home. I'm the same Karen. I have died to what was before and embrace what is new, in doing so I have not lost any part of who I am. And it's the same with Sin and grace. Do we find ourselves answering to something which has no authority over us? Or are we responding to the gift of grace, living in Christ, with Christ in us, freely?

Bridges ends his chapter on this subject with these words: page 77

Epiphany 4/1/09

Revealing Jesus as King

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a really good Christmas and New Year celebrations. As you may or may not know today is the day where we traditionally celebrate Epiphany. We are already two Sunday's away from Christmas, and I'm not wishing the year away just yet. Epiphany helps us to remember the arrival of the Wise Men, or the Magi, to the house where Joseph, Mary and Jesus now live.

Matthew doesn't tell us where the family were staying, but we know that they were well settled in a little house and that the star had followed them there. Mary and Joseph probably had a few friendly neighbours who had helped them out and Jesus was growing up like any normal child. Theologians and historians believe that Jesus could have been about two by the time the wise men arrived at Joseph's house. I wonder what kind of two year old Jesus might have been? Just a thought...

More and more we are throwing out the idea of the nativity scene where all the figures arrive on or just after Christmas night, in favour of a more accurate representation of the story. However we need to remember the significance of the different characters in the story.

If you were here on Christmas Eve for the Crib service you would have heard the story from the shepherds point of view. Those poor lowly shepherds, who spent their lives in the fields, with only each other, sheep, goats and wolves for company. Joseph was eventually noble, but his first thought was one of splitting up with Mary so there would be no disgrace for either of them. And Mary herself, just a girl. Nothing special about her, but God look at the heart and He saw Mary to be beautiful. Each character plays a significant part in the story, and each character reveals a different aspect of who Jesus is to the people of the world.

So what was the significance of the Wise Men in this story? If you have a quick flick through the first four books of the New Testament you'll notice that the Wise Men only appear in Matthew's version. Mark and John are full on action, and Luke is writing to an audience which could well have been made up of people who thought Jesus would never go anywhere near them, hence the Shepherds in his account.

Matthew was writing to the Jewish people from a Jewish perspective. And he certainly has a grasp on Jewish history. Do you know anyone who can recite Jesus' family tree from beginning to end? Matthew can, all 42 generations, that's 1680 years give or take a few. And in Jesus family tree there are plenty of kings and other people of note which the Jewish people would have been able to reminisce about. Some pretty impressive stories too! Matthew is almost certainly trying to convince the Jewish people that Jesus isn't just some guy to listen too, he is, in fact, the King they have been looking for, the one which has be prophesied about for years. If you had read the openers for the other gospels you'd have plenty of ideas of who Jesus is, but the King aspect comes across most clearly in this one I think.

The Wise Men were no doubt important people. They probably had a large entourage following them across the countries and entering the cities. It's unclear why they started their journey, and where “the East” really is. But they are wise, they knew what they were doing. They had read the prophecies and seen the star, everything was falling into place, so they went.

On the way they met Herod and though he was a king, there is no record of the wise men bowing to him. Herod tried to trick them, but they are wise... they didn't fall for Herod's thin veiled attempts to wipe his competition off the face of the earth. When they eventually made their way back home they completely avoided Herod's palace, and once Herod had caught on to this fact Joseph and Mary were well on their way to Egypt and the toddler Jesus was safe from harm.

As I said before Jesus is clearly revealed as king through this passage. The wise men had travelled miles and miles to see a baby whom they treated as a king first and foremost, bringing him the finest gifts they could muster. I wonder how we treat Jesus. Do we bow to him and show him the respect He deserves? We have been talking about God's glory all Christmas and will continue to talk about over the next few weeks. But will we recognise God's glory in the things which we do. Even the wise men recognised God's glory and they only met him in his infant years.

So as we start 2009, have you made any resolutions? Or maybe you don't believe in resolutions... so what about receiving a revelation, as the wise men did.

Disney's Enchanted/Love/1 John 4:7-12 - 14th December 2008, St Mary's Luton

Disney's Enchanted is billed as a modern day fairy tale. We meet Giselle in her homeland of Andalasia, she's your typical Disney princess-to-be waiting for her Prince to come. The only problem is her prince has an evil step-mother called Queen Narissa, who has been distracting him with Troll capturing duties for the last few years. Finally they meet, Giselle falls, having been inches from the trolls grasp, into Prince Edwards lap. And he declares “We shall be married in the morning!”. Of course Queen Narissa has something up her sleeve to stop that, and pushes Giselle, in full wedding attire, down a well. When Giselle lands she finds herself in Times Square, New York. There she falls on Robert and his daughter Morgan. In this clip we see Robert and Giselle talking about their opposite realities.

CLIP 41:25-50:10

Now I know I'm exactly two months early for St Valentines day, but tonight I wanted to talk about Love. Disney knows a lot about love, the corporation seems to have a monopoly on the romanticised version of Love. Pretty much every Disney character you come across is in love, whether its with someone who loves them back, or something unrequited, or just in love with themselves. They all manage to find themselves in Love. Fortunately for us tonight, Enchanted, as modern day as it seems to be, still has a hint of the classic love story, from the days of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. Boy meets girl, boy helps girl, boy and girl fall in love and live happily ever after.

Love in this sense is lovely, it's nice, its possibly a little bit sacrificial, one of the themes in this movie tells us, True Love's Kiss will conquer all. Nothing can take away from the power of True Love's Kiss, not even a last minute ploy by evil. According to legend “True Love's Kiss” only needs to happen once and then we've found our true love, the one.

Before we go too far into all this lovey-dovey stuff, I feel I have to mention the fact that Enchanted has it's own cynical character. Robert doesn't believe in romantic love, he's not at all spontaneous and is quite seriously dismisses Giselle at the beginning of our clip when he thinks her approach has lost him a massive amount of money. Love, of course, isn't just for girlie girls and it's not for the faint at heart either. If you are cynical about Love, I pray that God will start to show you something of what He knows of Love.

How do we know that He loves Us? We're going to hear our Bible reading now.

Bible Passage: 1 John 4:7-12

To echo a brilliant song, how do I know He loves me? This passage says that “God sent his only Son into the world that we might live through him”. That's the good news, that's the gospel. How do I know that God loves me? He sent his son, to die on a cross to save my life, but not just my life, my family's and my friends. Lillie talked last week about how we personalise our gospel, but we have to remember that God sent his only son so that “whoever believes in him will not die, but have eternal life”. Maybe the cross is your True Love's Kiss when it comes to God, maybe you have found your one.

That's great and all, but I think there's more. Look around at creation, God created a fairytale to begin with, and he asked who is going to appreciate my creation? So he created man, someone in his own image. Don't you think it's funny that we create something and then invite some one similar to us to enjoy our creation too! He had created perfection in the Garden of Eden, a fairytale land. We have to have got this idea of perfection from some where, what about the ultimate perfectionist God? Everything in the garden of Eden worked in balance, just like a fairytale. I was travelling home from the Youthwork Conference with Gill and we were talking about the sunset, something that still happens every single day. It was beautiful. I think we can see God's love through creation. The gospel is a show of God's love for us, it's one symbol. But we are constantly reminded of everything he's done for us in creating earth. We should be looking for God's love in the places which we least expect it. Is that your True Love's Kiss, this are just two examples, there are many more. How does your God show that he loves you? As the song says “He'll find his own way to tell you with the little things he'll do”. That's how you'll know, he's your love.

If you are cynical about Love, I pray that God will show you His love in the little ways. You have to allow God to show you his love.

Another line in the song is “don't treat her like a mind reader”. I think we can do this to God some times, though for our own benefit I think we need to tell God how much we love him and to show our love as well. We often come before God knowing that he knows our inmost being, but by speaking those feelings out we can start to have a conversation with God about how we are doing and how we are being.

So how do we show God that we love him? An author called Gary Chapman writes about the way in which humans show love to one another. These are known as our Love Languages. And there are five. There is Words of Affirmation, Gifts, Acts of Service, Quality Time and Physical Touch. The idea of Chapman's book is that you identify your own love language and the ones of those around you. We can experience love in each of the ways, but we all have a primary love language. At the Youthwork Conference retreat day we used the image of a tree to help us reflect. We, of course, began with the roots. As we were sitting at dinner one person said 'I don't really understand the roots thing, it wasn't explained very well' We had been asked what nourishes us. I rephrased it as, 'what are the things in your week which you cannot go with out?' This helped him a little bit, and then he got out his knitting. How do you answer this question? If you are having a bad week, what have you missed out on? This should give you a hint as to what your love language is.

These love languages translate when talking about our relationship with God. Jesus says in Matthew 25 “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me” The doing in this passage is all acts of service. Feeding the hungry and looking after the sick. I think this would apply to all of the love languages, we show our love for God in the way we treat others. We speak our own love language a lot, but we don't speak other's naturally. To help others feel loved we need to show them love in the way they need to be loved. This is how we show our love for God.

So there are now only 11 days till Christmas. So how do we show our love to others because God love us. Do we take time writing our Christmas cards and letter with full of encouraging words to the recipient, rather than just telling them about our year. Do we send a little gift to every one on our street, or do we buy an ethical gift. Do we open up our home, or work over Christmas without grumbling. Do we just demand people time, time for them to get away, have a cup of tea. What can we do to best show our love over Christmas?

If you are cynical about love, maybe you haven't discovered how you give and receive love.

How do we know that God loves us? Creation, the Cross, the bible. God shows us his love in many ways. He'll show you in the little ways. And he loves us each in a unique way, tailored just for us.
My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love!

How do we share our love at Christmas? We do the things which God has asked us to do, we don't hide away, we share the story of the greatest love of all. And we let our light shine.

Love Beyond Reason - John Ortberg

"Love Beyond Reason" is well written and with some very clear thought processes Ortberg puts across the point that though we are 'rag dolls' he has many reasons to love us for all we are and will be.

Ortberg paints a picture very well, he is a story teller. He weaves in Bible passages and illustrations from day-to-day things to help us to explore a God who loves us in the midst of our humanness. He is an encourager, allowing you to discover a loving God for yourself and to enjoy the dicovery with him.

Ultimately we see the love of God in the cross, and to be content and feeling safe in that love, not hiding away or moaning.

I think the last chapter ended quite abruptly, but on a great note about God's glory. God definitely had his hand in me reading this book, our theme this christmas is glory, i'm talking about Love soon and Zaccheaus' story popped up twice in one day. Lots to reflect and contemplate on.

words

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Well Trained - 1 Tim 4:7-8

Hi everybody, how are we feeling now that we are half way through the week? We've learnt quite a lot already. We know for sure that we are running, but not aimlessly, we have our reward in Jesus and what he has done for us on the cross.

These verses in the letter to a lovely young man called Timothy are based around the idea that Tim is in leadership and he has come up against some opposition. The guy who is writing to him is called Paul, he refers to Tim as a 'true son', so we can guess that Paul was getting on a bit and we know that he has had a lot of experience when it comes to dealing with people who are against him, in fact in Paul's earlier life he was known as the bad guy, the one causing trouble for the Christian's, his story is in Acts chapter 9.

So back to tonight's theme, the idea of being 'well trained'. Let have a look at these two verses again.

1 Tim 4v7-8 reads something like this:

Stay clear of silly stories that get dressed up as religion. Exercise daily in God—no spiritual flabbiness, please! Workouts in the gym are useful, but a disciplined life in God is far more so, making you fit both today and forever. (The Message)

I think that the perspective the Message puts on these verses helps us to understand a little bit more, but there are still some things I'm not too happy about. The German version of this uses the word TWADDLE to describe the silly stories. I think twaddle is a much better word, 'avoid the twaddle that goes around'. We can pretty much see when some one is talking utter rubbish, or lying, or making stuff up. You just have to use your head, or someone else's head. You, like me, might be really gullible, you'd fall for anything. If the people around you are constantly trying to trick you they probably aren't very good friends, and it might be a good idea to start avoiding them.

You might be sitting there thinking, Karen that is so easy for you to say! What do I do? How do I do that? I think we all have to make mistakes. Like the first time you are told they've removed gullible from the dictionary and replaced it with a picture of you! We need to quickly learn what is right and what is wrong.

This is where the training part comes in, the second part of verse 7 says

“rather train yourself to be godly”

again, I don't think this is really what Paul meant. Like the athletes who have trained to take part in the Olympics, they did not do their training alone. Here I think 'train yourself' does not mean that we should discard everyone else and be alone, I think our training might look something like this clip from Cars (from 40mins33sec – 43:40).

In this clip we've seen the main character Lightning McQueen taking on a challenge set by Doc Hudson. Later on Doc gives some advice on how to make the corner “if you're going hard enough left, you'll find yourself turning right” We see Lightning test out this advice while he's still in Radiator Springs, and then this happens (clip 1hr37mins – 1:38)

Lightning has learnt so much more than how to drift on dirt, he went from being a one man team to team player in the space of a week. One of the best things about Doc's coaching was that it was in context, it was relevant to Lightning's life.

When I look back at my life I can see some key coaching moments where people and situations have helped my Christian life in leaps and bounds. One of those moments was when I was with a couple friends called Jude and Jeff, sitting in the car outside another friends house and Jeff just started praying out loud. Sadly this was a bit of a revelation to me, and praying had come out of church and the bedtime routine and sprung into life. I don't remember at all what Jeff said, but it was a definite coaching moment.

We all need these kinds of people in our lives. The ones who coach us, encourage us and help us to be more like Jesus. We cannot constantly be by ourselves all the time and expect to be well trained and more godly. This is something we can do daily, we can be surrounded by people who are godly, and it's not necessarily older people who are more godly. So think for a second who are the coaches in your life? Who are the people which give you advice and encourage you, this might be in something formal like mentoring, or something less formal, like a Christian teacher at school, a youth worker, or your Christian friends. They don't have to know they are coaching you, but you might take their advice a little more seriously than other's.

Also we have someone who has been with us from day one. Our own personal trainer who knows what is good for us, what will keep us trim and which parts of our spiritual lives are flabby! This is the Holy Spirit. If you've never heard of the Holy Spirit before that's fine, he/she/it is what we know as one of the three with God and Jesus. It has been around since the beginning of time, and during the Old Testament the Holy Spirit helped a select few people to be better. When Jesus left earth, the Holy Spirit became available to all of us, even here and now. We need to allow the Holy Spirit to train us, there is absolutely no point in having a personal trainer and ignoring the advice they give or trying to make our own way through all the equipment in the gym. This personal trainer is with us wherever we go and what ever situation we are in. However it does take a while to get into a way of thinking like an athlete does. You have to want to be trained, making alive decisions about your life (picture of fishes going against the flow), not just going with the flow. But without the Holy Spirit we run the risk of running a pointless race.

So what do we train in? I know that naturally I am not a musician, it would take a lot of time an effort for me to play an instrument, but naturally I'm quite good with words, and speaking in public. I know that these are the things that I need to train in to become better, taking on challenges and broadening my skills in talking, like I'm doing now. What are you naturally good at? Are you good at sports, or music, or drawing? Where does your talent lie? There is a video clip of Tiger Woods playing golf at aged 2, he continued to train at age 8 he was winning amateur tournaments, and at 21 he was world no 1! That's a pretty extreme example. But do you catch my drift? When we are all naturally talented at something, we can train in that and be doing it for God all the time. That doesn't mean you have to work for church when you grow up, but you can with the Holy Spirit's help, work every thing you do for God. Please believe people when they tell you that you are good at something. Let's be encouraging each other this week in the good things.

TIM AND VERITY STORY

Let's head back to the passage for a minute, we've talked about avoiding the old wives' tales and myths, but what stories can we believe and what is the measuring stick for them? It's something that we all own, but rarely use, it's a gift that we have been given which sits on the shelf at home. It is of course the bible. It's a shame that we have all the resources in the world of the word of God, yet we read those rather than the actual Bible. It has some really good things which can inform us on life,

how about Proverbs 16: 18 Pride will destroy a man, a proud attitude leads to ruin.

or

1 Samuel 4:18 When he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell backwards on his chair by the side of the gate. His neck was broken and he died, for he was an old man and heavy. Don't lean back on your chair!

Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart

Pretty much the word of God is very important, but we tend to ignore it thinking that the stories are old and irrelevant. If we continue to do this, we will have nothing to stand with when we come up against the old wives tales and myths.

So how do we get the word of God in to our lives more than it is at this exact moment? A fun thing about the bible is that it has been around for years and people are always writing songs about it, so even before you know the bible, you might know some of the songs. FIND SONGS AND VERSES TO MATCH. Then you just have to add the reference at the end...

If you learn easier with pictures, there are some really good videos and story books which can help. Make sure though, that you always go back to the bible to check your facts.

But there is no one way to get the Bible into your head and etched on to your heart. We all have our own ways. You might be a morning person, up at the first sign of sunshine reading your bible and praising God for all the glories of creation. You might hit your peak around midday, so take a bible into school and have a read over lunch time. Or you might be a night owl, and reading the bible before you sleep is the only way to get it in to your brain. Ask the leaders in your group, or your youth leader what they do to get the bible into their lives. They will be able to give you some pointers. But again don't worry if you are not a bible scholar, or if it takes a while for you to get going. God made you, he knows all about you and knows the plans he has for you.

These verses finish by saying about the promise godly training has for the present and the future, however you might not get to the future if you don't do the thing which is of some value, and that's the physical training. Now I am definitely not the fittest person in this room, and I'm not about to find out how unfit I really am, but there were times in the bible where physical training was key to the continuation of the story. If you think of all the things Joseph went through to become the Pharaoh's right hand man. He wasn't the fittest amongst his brothers, but after they chucked him in a pit, you can imagine he'd wished he'd done a bit more training. Then once he's in Egypt, he finds himself in a situation where he has to literally run away. If he wasn't physical fit he wouldn't have been able to run away, and instead of being accused of adultery with Potiphar's wife he might have been caught in the action, and killed. End of story!

Another fine example of physical training is the disciples and early Christians, they wondered from place to place, granted that they did walk every where anyway, but if they hadn't have then the story of Jesus may never have spread.

Today our physical training is of some value, we need to be fit to run away from situations of temptation, or to stand and fight for what is right. I think Paul's warning us against vanity, if you spend all your days on yourself, how are you helping other people? If we are lazy in our physical lives, how will that reflect on our spiritual lives? You don't have to be an Olympian, but you do need to be able to race.

So lets start the training, keep going with the training, allowing others to coach us, and trying out the things which we are challenged about. Verses 9-12 say this “You can count on this. Take it to heart. This is why we've thrown ourselves into this venture so totally. We're banking on the living God, Saviour of all men and women, especially believers. Get the word out. Teach all these things. And don't let anyone put you down because you're young. Teach believers with your life: by word, by love, by faith, by integrity”. Having the bible and the Holy Spirit to be part of our lives so that our spiritual training stays on track.

Boy anointed to be king - 20th July 2008

1 Samuel 16:1-13

Good morning and welcome to the very beginning of our summer series about a guy called David.

You join us right at the start of the story of David's amazing life as someone who's heart was exactly in time with God's. This is quite a long story and there are lots of event's in David's life which we will cover over the summer, some you will know well, other's might surprise you a little bit.

So lets set the scene a little, you are not getting off lightly this morning, I want you to take part in scene setting.

The people of Israel – that's you guys – had asked God for a King, they had had enough of the Judges that came before, so they insisted “We want a king, We want a king”. There was a man called Samuel who was in toucch with God and he said that if the people of Israel choose a king they would regret it, but they ignored Samuel and said “we want a king, we want a king”.

Eventually Saul was placed as King over Israel. He was actually a good king, and defeated a people called the Ammonites in a brilliant military manoeuvre.

Saul's disobedience didn't make God very happy, much like when you refuse to tidy your room, and your mum makes that face, you know you're in trouble then! God is in the process of chucking Saul out and sends Samuel on a journey to find the next king of Israel.

There is a man named Jesse who lives in the little town of Bethlehem. Which you may have heard of before... some one called Jesus was born there on Christmas day! Anyway, one day Samuel came to see Jesse, and they took part in some of the Jewish rituals of the day and then began the procession of Jesse's son's to Samuel to see which one would be the next king.

First we had Eliab, the bible says that Eliab was tall and handsome. Do we have any tall and handsome men around this morning? Brilliant, very tall very handsome... what do we think are Eliab's chances of becoming King? In the bible it says that Samuel thought that Eliab was perfect for the job, he certainly looked it.

God had a different plan, he tells Samuel that he shouldn't look at the outside, but that God looks at the heart. That's what is key to this part of the bible. This story is always picked up on because of the phrase “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart”.

Even with the latest technology we can only look at the physical heart, the one which pumps blood around our bodies, but the heart which we are talking about is how we feel and who we are at our innermost being, who we are when no one is looking.

The story continues and we meet Abinadab and Shammah, there is not description of these two, but they are not the right either. Jesse is so sure of his son's that he sends the next four in front of Samuel. They are not even named in the bible. Samuel has seen seven boys and he hasn't got the go ahead from God yet. He asks Jesse if there are any more, because God isn't the kind of person to send an old man all the way to the little town of Bethlehem to come away with nothing.

Jesse remembers that his youngest is out in the fields looking after the sheep. Samuel says that they will not sit at the dinner table until the youngest has arrived, (get Jordan up) and when he eventually does God says to Samuel

“Up on your feet! Anoint him! This is the one.”

Samuel obliges, pours olive oil over him, and the boy David is anointed to become king in front of his seven older brothers. Anointing simply means “to be dedicated to the service of God”, nothing too huge then.

That is the end of the first part of the story. Can you imagine going from Shepherd boy to king in one day? David probably thought he was being called in to tidy his room, or to have dinner, but nope! He finished the day as the next king of Israel.

I want to go back to the bit about our hearts. We are here today to thank God for Phoebe and Kyle, we remember that God looks into our hearts, he sees who we are, past our words, clothes and actions, right into the very heart of us. And even when He does He loves us. I'm going to come back and talk about that in a minute, now we are going to do the thanksgiving.

SHORT BREAK

We believe that the old stories are still relevant to us today and will have an impact on us wherever we are, whatever we are doing. This story of David helps us to understand the way that God looks at us today.

We live in a world full of first impressions, and people who listen to what we say and wear, more than what we do or how we really act. We put people who have done seemingly nothing in the lime light and praise them, we also put intellectual power at the top of the hierarchy and think that the 'experts of the world' will be able to answer all our questions, in which case our own intelligence is belittled.

This is not the whole truth. Here is a story that proves it, God chose the least of the least. A person who was 'just' a shepherd boy. Nothing of importance, his father actually had to be prompted to call him in from the fields.

God regularly calls the people who's hearts are in the right place. And the jobs which they do are very important to the church.

You should never think you are 'just' a person, and that God would never choose you... that's not how it works. The bible says that we are equal in the eyes of God.

Church around us is a great way of seeing this. We have the littlest of children healing people, seeing pictures and speaking God's words without so much of a blink of the eye. Then we have an amazing set of young people who are supporting each other through tough times and enjoying the good times together. And lots of things for adults to support each other, families getting together to have BBQ's and hang out, and an amazing set of grandparents who are such a blessing to the wider church!

Everyone can be used by God, and David's story will encourage us as we hear it over the summer. He's not perfect, but God still knows him and wanted him to be king even though he was just a shepherd boy.

Five Love Languages - Gary Chapman

I decided to turn my hand to reviewing books - alongside everything else I seem to be doing (or maybe I just want to rant about this one book, we'll see how long it lasts).


Dr Chapman had some success with the predecessor to this particular book, it was called "The Five Love Languages. How to express heartfelt commitment to your mate", it has since expanded to a few different streams including, children, teenagers, singles and a mens edition.

I fall into just one of these categories, at the moment I am single.

Chapman does a fantastic job of identifying the different kinds of single adults there are, including divorced and widowed. He also is quite convinced by the five love languages he has identified;
Words of Affirmation
Gifts
Acts of Service
Quality Time
Physical Touch

The book itself is written in an 'easy to read' way with stories to highlight each point he feels needs to be addressed. This is great if you are drawn in by personal stories and can cope with the same structure of chapter at least five times.

The point that this book makes time and time again is "identify your own love language and that of those around you", if "we begin to speak each others love language" life will be easier. Fantastic, if only it was that simple.

I'm not saying that he's got a bad point, but I am saying that he comes across as a bit of a know-it-all. A man who has a solution to every relational problem you will ever come across, whether its with a new spouse, a room mate, or parents you just don't get. That solution, "go away and read my book".

I know if he relayed, in detail, every conversation he had the book would be ten times longer, but we don't get a little disclaimer that says 'oh, by the way I cut some of the conversations to get to the point I am trying to make', so he comes across as a know-it-all.

He also doesn't draw many conclusions, and leaves with a set of questions and a discover your love language quiz. By the way it's not a scientific quiz at all and the questions are pretty obvious, it just helps to clarify your love language (if you didn't guess it by the fifth question!). If you can't be bothered to buy the book, google "five love languages", find the website and take the painfully obvious test.

I'm happy to buy into the love languages thing, but at the end of the day once you know a person quite well you'd speak their love language naturally. Yes it's that obvious! Good on Gary Chapman for helping us put words to the way we want to be loved.

Wrestling in Prayer - 10th Feb 2008

Based on 1 Kings 18 v 41-46 and James 5 v 13-18


Good morning… how is every one this morning?
This morning we are looking at ‘wrestling in prayer’ - a title that assumes from the outset that we are already praying. Whether you are praying all the time or not, or that you just pray when you feel you need it the most, I am almost certain that something happens when we pray.

As James is writing his letter, he leaves behind a lot of instructions, guidance points, and ties it in with an example of a story that the Jewish people in the congregation would understand. He uses Elijah as a reference point, almost telling the story as if it were legend or fairy tale. But he knows that the people who are hearing this letter either know the story or will lean to a person near them and ask ‘what’s he talking about’.

So what was he talking about?? James’ instructions answer three questions I think we all have about prayer. When should we pray? How should we pray? And Why should we pray?

With James’ help I’m going to try and answer these questions and put them into a language we’ll understand.

When should we pray?

Pray in all circumstances. It’s not only James’ that says this in verses 13-14, but it happens that there are 365 mentions of prayer or prayed in the bible (NIV). 1 Thessalonians 5 v 17 say’s ’pray all the time’. Throughout history people are praying, keep it up!

How should we pray?

James is speaking to church as he knows it, he’s suggesting the ideal way to pray in the context of church. If you are in trouble or happy it seems that you are on your own! But if you are sick, you can tag-team it. Which reminds me of WWF wrestling when I was about ten, if a wrestler was hurt they could tag their team mates to take over. Good tag teaming creates a winning situation.

It’s all there, but I want to pick up on one thing I think that is important. Tag teaming involves strategic planning, talking to each other. Find a group you can team with and “confess your sins to one another”. As much as the Holy Spirit can give us hints as to what to pray, there’s nothing like good old fashion talking it out to help clear up any issues.

Elijah petitioned with God about the rain, he kept praying. We live in an instant society where we have phones we can carry and wireless internet. There is no patience for God. We are supposed to be different to society, requesting, petitioning and staying on God’s case isn’t a bad thing. We have to expect the unexpected when dealing with God, and in today’s society patience is unexpected.

Why should we pray?

Simply because things happen when we do. We have to be willing to fight to see the results. Wrestling is an active word, there is nothing passive about prayer. We have to enter into prayer, an attitude, we are called to pray. References to prayer include doing words, adjectives.

Prayer is powerful, Elijah knows that. And that power is available to us wherever we are.

One question James didn’t answer how can I stop sounding like a Muppet when I pray out loud?
I think this is something I can help with. Use words you know how to use, there is nothing worse than a person who shows off in prayer, Jesus, Matthew 6. Also don’t be afraid to keep your eyes open to see what’s going on, or keep you more focussed. I know I’m not the only one in the room who falls asleep during prayer.

So that is what we are going to do…
Can you please get into small groups, and if you have children and young people around you make sure that they get to pray.

Gather round those who aren’t well, pray for the things you need prayer for. Make sure you share before you pray.

And when we come back together we are going to pray how Jesus taught us.

parable of the persistent friend - luke 11 v 1-10

Good morning everybody. My name is Karen and I’m the Youth worker at St Hugh’s up by the L&D. Some out there may know me from a few years ago when I was a volunteer with the Youth team… I’ve come a long way since then.

What things do you wish you were better at? Feel free to shout at me - I’m used to it.

I could come up with a whole list of things. I wish I was better at going to bed on time, I wish I was better at keeping my room tidy, I wish I was better at switching off the TV. When we think about our spiritual lives we often have one thing that we all wish we could be better at. Prayer…

I don’t know about you, but I regularly think ‘if only I could pray better’ or ‘if only I didn’t sound so silly when I prayed’. Well actually this passage gives us the basis for prayer. It means that we will never sound silly or not know what to pray. I’d like to think that if I only ever prayed one prayer the ‘Lord’s prayer’, as it has become known, would be a good prayer to pray.

I’ve known this prayer for as long as I can remember. I was going to say that everyone who comes to church regularly should know this prayer, but maybe that’s a wrong assumption. We shut our eyes tight to pray, but recently I’ve taken up keeping my eyes open and actually spending a moment to read the words that Jesus taught us.

There are many different translations of the bible, but one that really helps is Rob Lacey’s word on the street, he writes it this way:


Is that easier to understand? So often we say the words that we don’t mean, or that we don’t understand, but because everyone around us is saying them we join in. We say them because it’s the ‘right’ thing to say? I’ve known this prayer for as long as I can remember, but my earliest memory is racing my sister to see who could say it fastest! Possibly quite irreverent, but at least I was saying it!

I don’t want to teach you how to pray, Jesus has already done that. But I do want to encourage you this morning. Don’t worry about the things that you say, God loves to hear your voice. Let me just point a few things out. Jesus knew it was important to recognise God for who He is, “Father”. Jesus wants us to have respect for God - that’s what hallowed means. God can provide for all we need - our “daily bread”. But this is different to what we want. And we do need to be lead away from the greatest temptation, doing things in our own power. We are nothing without God and what Jesus has done for us on the cross. I’m going to stop there and leave you with that thought, and children I want you to keep your eyes open for a game we will play very soon.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Not so long ago I was in Chelmsford cathedral watching my Dad be licensed as a reader in the church. Sitting with my brother and sister, we were joining in at all the right parts, when it came to saying the Lord’s prayer I took the opportunity to let my eyes wonder around the Cathedral. As soon as the prayer had finished Michael said “a chocolate bar for you both because you said the prayer without looking” It came to light that my dad had rewarded my brother for being able to recite the prayer with a chocolate bar! I went and asked him if he’d done this for all of us. It turns out that he had and that Michael had really persevered with learning the prayer, he really wanted the chocolate!

Obviously the reward for saying the prayer meant a lot to him! I’d like to think that this isn’t the way God deals with prayer. When we pray and ask sincerely, God will answer. But it won’t necessarily be with something to reward us in such a trivial way. I don’t dispute that it is a good thing to using prayer to ask of God but I do want us not to look at God as a sweet shop keeper.

God is available to everybody, through the death and rising of Jesus. Now some where in church I have hidden some chocolate. It might be high it might be low, but children, are you paying attention. Go and find the chocolate. (at which point I pulled out a big tub of chocolate and sat on the steps at the front of the church - one child said "this is the easiest hide and seek ever!")

God is not there to give out treats and all the things we want, just because we ask. In this passage, the friend knows WHERE to go to get a response. We do too, the cross! But he has to get the host to rise form the dead of night, disturbing his entire family, just for a few loaves of bread. Are we beginning to see the connection between the parable and the story of the cross?

One possible interpretation of this parable comes from a book called “Parables of Grace” . God is the host, he is our last and only hope, but we have to recognise this first. God is not hidden from us, he is there plain for all to see, but we have to acknowledge the fact that we are dead before we can even consider asking Jesus to rise from the dead to answer the knock at the door.

This isn’t something that is for a later date. What Jesus says is for now.

So I no longer want us to be worried about the prayers that we pray. I don’t want us to wish that we were better at praying, because by default we are good, we are God’s children. We can boldly approach the throne, because it is a throne of grace, not of judgement.

While I was thinking about this I was reminded of a song that I used to sing when I was little. You may know it, it’s called “Prayer is like a telephone”. The lyrics are self explanatory, but the great thing about God is you never have to talk to the answer machine and you never have to speak to someone who doesn’t understand you, there is no queue and it always works in an emergency!

Over the next week I want you to have a go at writing your own version of the Lord’s Prayer. I had a go and here’s what it sounds like:

Daddy in heaven,
Your name is fantastic, and holy beyond anything else.
May all that is good in heaven, take place here on earth.
All the things that I want, be the things that you want.
Help me today and give me things I need to make through.
Forgive me when I do things wrong and help me to treat others the same way you treat me.
Guide me to you always.
May it be this way forever.
I love you
Karen

So the challenge is this, write your own lord's prayer. Use this prayer, just because we use it as a corporate prayer, shouldn't and doesn't take away from its awesomeness as a prayer. And as I said before if you only ever pray one prayer, this would be a good one to pray.

The Parable of the Weeds

The Parable of the Weeds
Matthew 13 v 24-30, 36-40

When I first read this passage I thought I had such a task on my hands. Jesus had already explained it all. But let’s put it into some context…

As we know Jesus has just told the parable of the sower to the crowd who are listening ask he speaks from a boat. The previous parable is long and repetitive, but it would have hit the right note with the crowd. There may have been farmers in the crowd nudging their mates saying “That really happens, you know”. Then he explains that story … while they are processing that he hits them with a shorter story, but one which had just as much relevance.

I think Jesus might have paused for a second to let the crowd catch their breath and maybe do that “I need to get into a more comfortable position” shuffle.
So go ahead, shuffle as much as you like.

Are we all sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin…

When I was little there was this person who always used to follow me around. She used to be wherever I went; some times she copied me and dressed the same as me. When we were really little we looked so similar that my mum had to tell us apart by writing our names on our birthday cakes and putting us in different shoes. In one picture they can only tell us apart because I’m being held by a lady called Karen. ‘She’ is of course my twin, Liz.

When we were growing up, we had our own personalities, but because we looked so similar my mum and dad had to resort to dressing us differently to tell us apart. Now that we are older and hopefully wiser, my parents know us inside-out and can tell the difference 99% of the time.

The identical twin analogy is much like this story. There isn’t a lot in it when distinguishing between wheat and weeds in the early stages of life. They look very similar, as did I and my sister. You may be aware that we now look completely different, even though we say the same things and hold the same posture. Growing up people always used to joke about who the ‘evil’ twin was. I can never imagine my dad casting one of us into the fire just because we’d been an extra be naughty that week. It’s not for him to decide. We’ll both have our moments, but I hope that we’ll be wheat at the end of the day.

We’re lucky in this one we get the story and the explanation to the story, the real insider information. We get to go into ‘the house’ and hear what Jesus says to the disciples about this story. However, even when we have all the information we can still hear what we want to hear. Many times this story has been told as though directed to the Church. We are the field, the wheat and the weeds. I’m not about to disagree with Jesus, who says in his explanation ‘the field is the world’. He never mentions anything about the Church.

Here we have this great communicator, someone who has all the knowledge of the world, yet we disagree, have our own take, and spread it around like it’s something to rejoice in. We talk all the time about the Jesus who came down to earth as a vulnerable baby, but what about Jesus as a grown man showing us a glimpse of the end of time, the kingdom of God and the final works that he will do? How can someone so right be taken so wrongly?

I think that it is mostly down to our humanness on a large scale… here Jesus has painted this wonderful picture AND explained it, but we still misinterpret it. I wonder if you have ever had a moment where you are half in a conversation on a really busy afternoon and as a consequence have forgotten what you are supposed to be doing, or managed to double book your self? Yeah, good, me too!

Even in our silliest and dumbest moments God still speaks to us. Here Jesus has given such a clear story, but the disciples still say ‘can you explain it to us please?’ Later on Jesus says to them ‘do you still not get it?’ I’m not saying that the disciples were stupid, but that Jesus has the skill to explain all the stories we’ll ever come across. Let’s give Jesus the opportunity to explain this and the other parables we’ll hear this summer, not just in the generic way, but in our own hearts and minds.

Pentecost opener

I need one volunteer, just one! We missed out someone when we were singing happy birthday earlier, now I’m sure you know that Pentecost is also known as the birthday of the Church. So you know what’s coming. We’re going to sing happy birthday to each other, as we are the Church! And……… is going to blow out the candles on the cake.

Ok. Now I need all the children… Play musical bumps. There’s a Prize for the winner. Children can stay sitting down.

What else is there at a birthday party? Balloons, food, party poopers etc…

And how long before your birthday happens do you start talking about it, weeks, months? Something very special happens in the run up to the Church’s birthday. A small festival known as Easter, can you believe it Easter was 50(ish) whole days ago! That’s right, you’ve had 50 days since that day where you got all that chocolate, does any one have any chocolate left?

Now the funny thing about Easter is it coincides with a Jewish festival called Passover, and Pentecost coincides with another Jewish Festival called Shavuot. This festival is timed for 7 weeks after Passover, and celebrates the first harvest of spring.

The disciples would have come together to celebrate the festival with Jesus’ words ringing fresh in their ears. Someone must have written it down otherwise we wouldn’t know it today, but you can imagine them chatting about it amongst themselves… or maybe they’d forgotten it totally and had spent the previous ten days just glaring into the sky wondering where Jesus may have gone and why he went there on a cloud.

11th February 2007 Fasting

What have we learned? Context…

Before we start I want you to pair up with a child or young person and tell them what you learned about last week when Ruth talked about Salt and Light. Children and young people you have to listen, because I’m going to be asking you what the adults learnt.

Ok, so we’ve had a bit about how we have to be salt and light where we are, through our actions and attitudes. We skip forward a bit in Jesus’ sermon and we find him telling us to do things in secret, a bit of a contradiction perhaps?

All around Jesus ears would have been pricking up. For years the ‘normal’ people had been subjected to the teachers of the Law making a song and dance about what they were doing to please God. These ‘acts’ included giving to the needy, praying and fasting. Today, we are going to focus on the act of fasting.

What is true fasting?

Before we even delve into it, first I think we should look at how we spend our time. I want you to think for a moment… in the last week, which is 168 hours, how much time have you…

… been at work/school? 40 hours/30hours
… been asleep? 49 hours
… spent eating? 17.5 hours
… spent in front of the TV? 14 hours
… spent on the phone?
… spent doing house work?
… spent on yourself?

Now for a tough question, how long have you spent giving to the needy, praying and fasting? How long have you spent worrying?

Ponder that thought for a bit, we will be heading back there soon.

Compare your times to the time that Jesus and his disciples spent doing things like watching the TV… or the time they spent on the phone. As Christians in the 21st century we face a lot more distractions than the people who were sitting around Jesus as he spoke about these things.

Consequently fasting is something that falls to the bottom of the pile when we talk about priorities and spiritual disciplines. The thought of giving up something barely crosses our minds when we think of getting closer to God. In a few weeks we’ll be in Lent, current Christian culture has developed the idea of ‘I’m going to take something up for Lent, not give something up’. That’s brilliant, but can I ask, what exactly have you gained? Have we missed the point of Lent when we say that? Yes, Jesus did take something up, a fight with the devil!

Often what we don’t realise is that fasting and praying come hand in hand throughout the Bible. The Old Testament tells us the most stories about fasting and praying. We have Daniel, Shadrack, Meshach and Abednego, Esther and Moses (the first recorded fast in the Bible). In the New Testament we have Jesus, Paul, and Barnabas. These people, who are our history, fasted and prayed as part of life. For them it was not something to be ‘acted’ out, like the Pharisees, but it was there in order to make decisions and to have the time to pray about life.

Earlier I asked you how long you spent eating; shout some numbers at me…
Ok. During Biblical times eating took up a large amount of the day. When I say eating, I mean preparing as well, has any body’s time gone up a significant amount? Hold on actually, I mean cleaning away as well. Ok so even in modern day Britain where we suffer at the hands of microwave meals and Pot Noodle, eating can take up a huge amount of time. In Jesus time you couldn’t just go out and ‘do lunch’ there was a massive amount of preparation. No Supermarkets, no restaurants. If you gave up eating it would definitely be a significant chunk of your day.

Ok, so how many hours do you think you spend in front of the Telly, that’s including when it’s on in the background, while you are pottering etc. The average Britain will watch 23 hours of TV a week, that’s nearly a whole day! To be honest I could quite happily spend 6 hours in front of the TV in an evening, though that is excessive! Its quarter of my day, just imagine what would happen if I gave up TV for Lent and focussed on my relationship with God.

What is our true motivation?

Jesus is talking about loving God and wanting to be in relationship with him through giving, praying and fasting and NOT wanting anything back from it. The secret part was aimed at the Pharisees who make a song and dance about these things are abusing their generosity, their God given ability to talk and their discipline to abstain from eating.

Paul and Barnabas were praying in Acts in order to choose leaders for the churches. In the Message it says ‘Their prayers were intensified by fasting’. They were praying with a good and positive motivation, not one of ‘look at me, look what I’m doing’, but coming humbly to God to ask His advice. They entrusted the leaders they picked with their lives!

This weekend we have mirrored the Jewish tradition of taking part in a public fast. Everyone took part and we’ve been raising money too. I would have to say I’m very proud of them all, however ‘fasting’ isn’t a race. Like anything that Jesus asks us to do, we do it at our pace, within our capabilities.

Most importantly when we fast, we need to replace what we WERE doing with God. There is no use in fasting, if you spend that time filling it with other things.

28th Oct 2006 Youth Alpha Dinner

So I back tracked slightly and finally found time to post all my other talks that I've done this term... enjoy!


Firstly I would like to thank all of the young people who have spoken to us tonight. It has taken a lot of courage to stand in front of their friends and guests. I admire them and am very proud of them.

Secondly I’d like to thank everyone who made Youth Alpha happen and especially Carol and Jackie who have really stuck with it throughout.

The young people have already been set one challenge today, and they did amazingly well. There is one final challenge to everyone who is in this room today. Blow out the candles on you tables!

Of course that wasn’t the full challenge. As the clocks go back tonight, we will experience the darkness drawing in dramatically. This happens every year, yet we still take notice of it. How then do we respond? We switch on a light (Light own candle). The Young people heard earlier today how we are the light of the world, an inheritance from Jesus. The challenge to each of us is this, do we keep the light to our selves, effectively turning our back on the world. Or do we spread the light, giving each person we come into contact with the opportunity to have a light in their lives?

Thank you again for coming.

28th Oct 2006 Youth Alpha 2

We’ve already heard about the darkness that Halloween can bring to the world and some people this time of year. And we know that it isn’t all fun and games. I remember being really disappointed when I was little because my parents wouldn’t let me join in with dressing up. But when I look back I realise that there is some thing so much better than the evil that is around.

During Alpha we have been looking straight into the face of the thing that is so much better… Jesus! We have learnt about how Jesus saved you and me by dying on the cross and taking away all of our sins. We have learnt about how we will no longer die, but share eternal life with Jesus in heaven. And we have pondered on why and how we should share our faith. Basically we have covered an awful lot of things about the faith that we find ourselves in day to day.

If you haven’t been practicing sharing what you have learned, now would be a great time to start. In the bible Jesus is referred to as the ‘Light of the world’. While Jesus was on the earth he told us that we are the light of the world too! We need to shine into the darkness, all the bad stuff that happens, which surrounds us. You are not alone, take a look around! There are older people and younger people to help you. If you have any questions we will try to answer them – and by the way, you’ll never stop asking questions.

We hope that you have had a fun day, and just as we light the candles for tonight we will be praying that you can share your faith with your friends, not just on Halloween night, but throughout the year. Tonight we’ll hear some people’s experiences and what they have learnt throughout Alpha, hopefully that will encourage you to go and do the same.

NOW for the challenge!!! Between now and dinner you have the opportunity to compliment, or add to your outfit for tonight. You will each be given 10 glo sticks, with attachers. It is your task to create something, anything with them. They will be judged as you arrive at 6.30pm. Remember its smart casual tonight!! See you at 6.30pm with your guest!!

28th Oct 2006 Youth Alpha Intro

Good afternoon and welcome to the Alpha Light Party. To start off with I want to do a quick quiz with you. So you all need to listen carefully and stand up. We are going to play a quick game of true or false, so listen carefully.

1. The name ‘Halloween’ means ‘Half-Night’, meaning the night when boundaries between the physical and spiritual worlds are lowered. FALSE –actually ‘All Hallows Eve’ 1st November is actually All Saints Day. Hallow means to make Holy.

2. Halloween was originally an ancient Pagan celebration known as “Samhain” (pronounced ‘Sah-ween’) TRUE

3. In parts of Yorkshire, a similar festival to Halloween occurs on November 4th and it is known locally as “Mischief Night” TRUE

4. The purpose of Halloween Lanterns carved from pumpkins and originally turnips is to aid casting magic spells FALSE – they are supposed to scare away evil spirits

5. There is nothing dangerous about Halloween; it’s all just a bit of fun. DEBATABLE

That is part of why we are here. Halloween can be a bit of fun for some but for others it is a very serious festival or a very scary experience.

On Halloween night, people traditionally dress up in costumes, light lanterns and call on people to try and scare them with trick or treating. You don’t need to tell me how popular it is, just take a look in all the supermarkets. From September onwards, the shops are full of broomsticks, pumpkins and witches costumes. Most people don’t think whether it relates to anything real. However, there are others who regard this time of year very seriously.
The Bible claims the devil is real, and that he is powerful. He wants people to be afraid, especially of death. But we as Christians believe that although the devil is powerful, he isn’t anything as powerful as God. The devil was defeated by Jesus’ death, and as a result, the grip he had over people has been shaken off.

The book of Hebrews says this about why Jesus came.

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death- that is, the devil- and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

The Bible tells us that God sent Jesus to release people from fear and offer them freedom.
On All Hallows Day, or All Saints Day, Christians remember all the saints who had faith in God to help them over come their fears to help others. This Halloween, rather than frightening others, you might consider some of the things that frighten you. With God’s help we can conquer fear. If we could all live free from fear, imagine what a different world it would be.

Christmas Talk

Think of Christmas from Joseph and Mary’s point of view. An unmarried couple, Mary is 14 and Joseph is a lot older. He works as a carpenter; they are struggling to survive. When Joseph hears the news of his fiancée being pregnant he nearly splits up with Mary. But God intervenes.

Then Caesar Augustus, the roman emperor, tells everyone to head back to their home town. This isn’t just a road trip. Joseph has to pay taxes. Christmas has always been expensive, even the first Christmas. They travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem, probably on a borrowed donkey, though no where in the Bible does it say donkey. It wouldn’t have been a smooth 60 mile journey. Over hills and on tiny trails, 60 miles would have felt much longer.

Jesus, hope of the nations, LORD, the King, was born in a pig sty (not your bedroom), or possibly a hole in the wall (not the kind you get money from), a cave.

The shepherds left their sheep on the hillside; the cutesy animals were added by a guy call Francis of Assisi, about 1200 years later.

The Wise Men, whoever they were, were a bit late in arriving. There were more than 3 and they weren’t kings. Jesus could have been two by the time they got there. Joseph, Mary and Jesus were living in a house.

The real Christmas story is a complex one. It’s God with us in a tiny baby, fighting the kings of the world from the day he was born.

If Jesus had never been born we wouldn’t understand ultimate love, hope and reconciliation. Without Jesus, Christmas would be about praising the gods of the S-U-N and calling the light to come back. But because of Jesus we celebrate family, giving and joy.