Mad Derbyshire Christian

Thought it was time I came back to this bit of web space of mine after what has been a bit of an eventful year this year….

My father finally left this world on July 26th, we had a wonderful celebration of his life in August and interred him at St Mike’s Budbrooke this last weekend

As you can imagine its been hard to keep up with things while it was all going on with Father, but I did manage to get to the CVM Gathering, 500 men in a field near Swindon and also a week at New Wine NE, even though joining in was harder than it might have been… Done an Alpha course, sorted out restarting the Journey in Faith course again in October.

So watch this space for what happens next as life gets back to normal and I step out again to see where my own journey of faith may take me…. and a bit more blogging as well

Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »

“Jesus Christ is in every book of the Bible.

In Genesis, Jesus is the Seed of the Woman.
In Exodus, He is the Passover Lamb.
In Leviticus, He is the Priest, the Altar, and the Lamb of Sacrifice.
In Numbers, He is a Pillar of Cloud by day and the Pillar of Fire by Night.
In Deuteronomy, Jesus is the Prophet, like Moses.
Come and kneel before Him now.

In Joshua, Jesus is the Captain of Our Salvation.
In Judges, He is our Judge and Lawgiver.
In Ruth, He is our Kinsman and Redeemer.
In 1 and 2 Samuel, He is our Trusted Prophet.
In Kings and Chronicles, He is our Reigning King.
In Ezra, He is the rebuilder of the broken down walls of human life.
Come and kneel before Him now.
In Nehemiah, Jesus is our Restorer.
In Tobit, He is the Messenger of New Life.
In Judith, He is Weakness Turned into Victory.
In Esther, He is our Advocate.
In 1 and 2 Maccabees, He is the Leader who dies for God’s law.
Come and kneel before Him now.

In Job, Jesus is our Everliving Redeemer.
In Psalms, He is our Shepherd.
In Proverbs, He is our Wisdom.
In Ecclesiastes, He is our Hope of Resurrection.
In the Song of Songs, He is our Loving Bridegroom.
In Wisdom, He is the emanation of God’s thought.
In Ecclesiasticus (Sirach), Jesus is our security.
Come and kneel before Him now.

In Isaiah, Jesus is the Suffering Servant.
In Jeremiah, He is the Righteous Branch.
In Lamentations, He is our Weeping Prophet.
In Baruch, He is the Mercy from the Eternal One.
In Ezekiel, He is the One with the Right to Rule.
In Daniel, Jesus is the Fourth Man in the fiery furnace.
Come and kneel before Him now.

In Hosea, Jesus is the Faithful Husband forever married to the sinner.
In Joel, He is the One who Baptizes with the Holy Spirit of Fire.
In Amos, He is the Restorer of Justice.
In Obadiah, He is Mighty to Save.
In Jonah, He is our great foreign missionary.
In Micah, He is the feet of one who brings Good News.
Come and kneel before Him now.

In Nahum, Jesus is our stronghold in the day of trouble.
In Habakkuk, He is God my Savior.
In Zephaniah, He is the King of Israel.
In Haggai, He is the signet ring.
In Zechariah, He is our Humble King riding on a colt.
In Malachi, Jesus is the Son of Righteousness.
Come and kneel before Him now.

In Matthew, Jesus is God with us.
In Mark, He is the Son of God.
In Luke, He is the Son of Mary, feeling what you feel.
In John, He is the Bread of Life.
In Acts, Jesus is the Savior of the World.
Come and kneel before Him now.

In Romans, Jesus is the Righteousness of God.
In 1 Corinthians, He is the Resurrection.
In 2 Corinthians, He is the God of all comfort.
In Galatians, He is your liberty. He sets you free.
In Ephesians, Jesus is the Head of the Church.
Come and kneel before Him now.

In Philippians, Jesus is your Joy.
In Colossians, He is your Completeness.
In 1 and 2 Thessalonians, He is your Hope.
In 1 Timothy, He is your Faith.
In 2 Timothy, Jesus is your Stability.
Come and kneel before Him now.

In Titus, Jesus is Truth.
In Philemon, He is your Benefactor.
In Hebrews, He is your Perfection.
In James, He is the Power behind your Faith.
In 1 Peter, He is your Example.
In 2 Peter, Jesus is your Purity.
Come and kneel before Him now.

In 1 John, Jesus is your Life.
In 2 John, He is your Pattern.
In 3 John, He is your Motivation.
In Jude, He is the Foundation of your Faith.

In Revelation, Jesus is your Coming King.

He is:
The First and the Last.
The Beginning and the End.
He is the Keeper of Creation and the Creator of All.
He is the Architect of the Universe and the Manager of All Time.
He Always Was, He Always Is, and He Always Will Be Unmoved, Unchanged, Undefeated, and Never Undone.

He was bruised and brought healing.
He was pierced and eased pain.
He was persecuted and brought freedom.
He was dead and brought life.
He is risen and brings power.
He reigns and brings peace.

The world can’t understand Him.
The armys can’t defeat Him.
Schools can’t explain Him and the leaders can’t ignore Him.
Herod couldn’t kill Him.
The Pharisees couldn’t confuse Him.
The people couldn’t hold him. [This is where the clapping begins]
Nero couldn’t crush Him.
Hitler couldn’t silence Him.
The New Age can’t replace Him.
And Oprah can’t explain Him away.

He is Life, Love, Longevity, and Lord.
He is Goodness, Kindness, Gentleness and God.
He is Holy, Righteous, Mighty, Powerful, [missing word]
His Ways our Right, His Words Eternal, His Rules Unchanging, and His
Might [missing phrase]
He is My Redeemer, He is My Savior, He is My God, He is My Priest, He is My Joy, He is My Comfort, He is My Lord, and He rules my life.”

Tags: Bible, Jesus, Our God, Prayer
Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Any person who only sticks with Christianity as long as things are going his or her way, is a stranger to the cross

Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »

You missed hearing about it?? Well I saw, I read, I laughed and thought to myself….. NEXT!!

Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »

The scary thing is I have become a convert to Common Worship:Daily Prayer!!

Scary is probaly the wrong word, perhaps surprising is a better word to use to be honest, mind you the thought that I may now be an Anglican rather than a good non-conformist is equally surprising to me as well. In reality though, it is trying to follow the Lord that matters and in my case trying is probably the operative word!

So how come I’m now a confirmed CW Daily Prayer user. Well, I will be honest, my prayer life was poor on a good day. I could lack inspiration of what to ‘say’. So looking on the dear old Internet I came across the daily prayer section on the C of E website and started to use Night Prayer at the end of the day from the web. It was good to be using some kind of structure as prompts to offer free prayer as well as those within the liturgy of Compline

Then later on I discovered the pdf text files on the site as well and that there were other ‘services’ in there that werent on the web site… Prayer During the Day being one of them. Why that isn’t on the website as a feed I will never know! But in also reading the front stuff of the book online I saw plenty of advice on how CW Daily Prayer could be used and the one that caught my eye was:-

“Whether Common Worship: Daily Prayer is used by an individual,
a small group, a parish at prayer or a religious community, the first
decision to make is what the regular pattern of worship is to be.
What is chosen will depend on a number of circumstances, including
the time available. One of the following patterns may be worth
considering:
¶ Simply using Prayer During the Day, perhaps balancing
this with Night Prayer.”

Now seeing as Prayer During the Day isnt on the website, it was how to get it. So doing a hunt found me a small book from Church House Publishing called Time to Pray but thought that the price was a touch steep (in my opinion) for what it was, especially once I’d found a copy to look at… so had been managing with printed copies from the pdf files on the website, which inevitably fall apart and get tatty after a bit. But being an Amazon customer eventually I had a look at what they had available and found that the full volume of CW:Daily Prayer on there was about the same price as Time to Pray…. and once you look at something on  Amazon, if you are a good customer like me, then eventually it keeps nagging you in emails about what they think you might like. And it seemed that every other recommendation email was one that started with CW:Daily Prayer (Now even I don’t believe that the Almighty was nagging me to buy that via Amazon’s marketing tools….. but I could be wrong??) so eventually I pressed buy and I have to say I am the proud owner of a copy of the full book.

And there is just so much in there!! I do use Prayer During the Day in the morning, using the lectionary readings from Reflections for Daily Prayer and Night Prayer at the end of the day most days (I wont say everyday, as sometimes there is stuff going on and I don’t feel right at times to pay lip service to doing it when I know my heart isn’t really in it, I would rather ask forgiveness for not doing it, but hopefully for a right reason…. if that makes sense).

But now while my prayer life is still in many way far from perfect, I do have a structure to spending time in some sort of prayer and also following the reading pattern in the Lectionary, which does open your eyes to some parts of the bible that maybe you wouldn’t look at normally. And as John Irving, Dean of Coventry Cathedral said on Easter Sunday Night, the bible is the book that is all about Jesus, from cover to cover, go read it, question it, reflect on it and discover from it…. and I’m now finding that using both books that my eyes are being opened further to what it is all about, and certainly feeling in many ways another step closer to walking alongside our Lord. Maybe not in step yet, but at least a little closer!!

While using a book such as CW:Daily Prayer may not be for everybody, I have certainly found it a big help with spending focused quiet time with God myself!!

Tags: Bible, Jesus, Journey In Faith, Our God, Prayer, Ramble, Thoughts, Worship
Filed under: Bible, Devotion, Prayer, Random Ramblings | No Comments »

I was going to go to the Changing The Landscape conference that Fresh Expressions held on 6th May, but unfortunately work got in the way….

But thankfully there is always the internet and most of the key addresses are on there for either listen to or watch so at least I can do some catching up with the events that happened there. So far I have only listened to Rowan Williams address while in the car, but I certainly connected with a lot of what he said on a first listening.

The bits that struck me were:-

There is no one size fits all for the ‘path of conversion’ for want of a better expression. One persons thought of the ‘right way’ could be way different to another’s experience. For example I know of people who think Alpha is the way to conversion. It is for many, but I know that when I did it, and I was a christian at the time, I found it hard to connect with. CVM when talking about men coming to Jesus talk about men having to hear the gospel 30 times and can take up to 5 years from their experience. I for one don’t believe that ‘one size fits all’. Like I say I did Alpha, but I am sure for many of today’s soundbite society, listening to an hours talk, would just fail to connect with it and switch off.

Also Rowan’s thoughts that while traditional church isn’t as dead and buried as some commentators would have us believe, the Church will certainly have to embrace other models of gatherings, many of which will be specific to specific groups of communities. He certainly talks of cell groups amongst other things.

I have certainly found his talk enlightening and hope that many leaders will embrace some of what he says, and the whole ethos of what Fresh Expressions seems to be about…. and lets have communities, big or small, in traditional church and in the homes, workplaces, community venues, with communities of people who just love the Lord and want to meet to worship, learn, pray and all the other things that church comprises in whatever way works for them. As always some wont agree with Rowan, or me for that matter, but what matters is that people do come to know what God’s plan is, in that he wants each and every one of us come to a personal relationship with Him through his son, Jesus.

Remember, the Church as we know it, started outside the boundaries of the ‘Church’ as it was then in Israel, the synagogues, and then those of the Jewish faith didn’t accept the Church of the followers of Jesus’s teachings did they. Yet the Church has survived some 2000 years since then and isn’t showing signs for giving up the ghost just yet. So lets embrace all forms of Church and celebrate that God is being worshiped in all his glory in many ways and forms!! Long may it continue!!

Tags: Church, CVM, Evangalism, Jesus, Learning, Our God, Thoughts, Worship
Filed under: News, Random Ramblings | No Comments »

“The Church is about what God wanted before the beginning of the world – not some decorative religious luxury”

Rowan Williams at the Fresh Expresions Conference, Oxford, May 6th 2011

Here Here!!

Tags: Church, Quote
Filed under: Random Ramblings | No Comments »

1 Peter 1:3-9 (The Message)

A New Life

^3-5What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven—and the future starts now! God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you’ll have it all—life healed and whole.

^6-7I know how great this makes you feel, even though you have to put up with every kind of aggravation in the meantime. Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine. When Jesus wraps this all up, it’s your faith, not your gold, that God will have on display as evidence of his victory.

^8-9You never saw him, yet you love him. You still don’t see him, yet you trust him—with laughter and singing. Because you kept on believing, you’ll get what you’re looking forward to: total salvation.

(From The Message on www.biblegateway.com)

Top stuff…… is all I can say to that!!

Tags: Bible, Jesus, Our God, Praise, Thoughts
Filed under: Bible, Random Ramblings | No Comments »

Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ. – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Silence in the face of evil is evil itself” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Tags: Disciple, Jesus, Our God, Prayer, Quote, Serve, Thoughts
Filed under: Random Ramblings | No Comments »

Found this space yesterday, in Birmingham Cathedral, and it was great to spend a few moments in this mad world just to sit and refelect….

One of two churches visited yesterday, the other was St Martins in the Bullring in the middle of the Bullring shoping metropolis and just by the market (Yes a thriving traditional market, the likes I’ve not seen for a long time. It was good just to walk through and take in the sights, sounds & smells!!). It was a shame that I couldnt stay for the Saturday afternoon ‘shoppers’ service, just to see what it was about & how many went in to it. One for another day I feel.

Makes you think though about service times in this 24/7 world. Yes I know we mainly celbrate on the first day of the week, that being the day of the resurection. But that, I feel, only has meaning to those of us who are active churchgoers and grew up with that knowledge. What about all those out there in the great un-churched?? Will the know the signifcance?? Can we convince them to get up on a Sunday morning and join us in worship? Or should we open doors and worship at other times, and see what happens??

Tags: Church, Praise, Prayer, Worship
Filed under: Random Ramblings | No Comments »