A yr of Youthwork…

In April last year I’d just got back from Kathmandu, it’d been a rough adventure but a great one, I’d learnt so much about people and places and myself too. One thing that had me thinking on the plane home was.. what was I going to do next? I’ve never been a planner really… some people, you ask them what they want to do with their life and they reel off their 10 yr plan in detail.

I’ve never been that person. I’ve always just kind of gone where the wind took me, wherever God shoved me really.

Sometime between getting home and my first week back I began praying about what happened next. Familiar territory. Alright God, what’s next… a couple of days later I got a phonecall from Dave Gregory, I already knew that he was leaving and that someone would need to take on some of the youth work but I was still surprised when he asked me.

I could go to Brazil and work with street kids and churches, I could go to Kathmandu and check out schools and hospitals and cope with electricity shortages, strikes and trying to keep out of harms way… but.. could I take on our teenagers back at LBC.

The thought of taking the Upperword Group, working with the Chill team, working with the Life group, organising Synergy and being immersed in all things Youth related was a little bit intimidating to be honest.

But God is faithful, all of the things that he’s ever called me to do that I’ve felt ill equipped to do he’s provided the things I’ve needed and he’s let me learn so much along the way! It’s been such a privilege to get to know our teenagers and young people, if you take the time out to talk to some of them you’ll realise how gifted they all are… they’re not just gifted musicians, actors, actresses, singers, readers, writers, good with technology and so many other things.

They’re also great teachers. What I love most about my job is the refreshing honesty that I’m faced with everytime our teens get together.

They’re are not afraid to ask the questions that no one else thinks to ask

How do I know when God is speaking to me?

Does prayer actually work?

Is God actually real?

What about the Holy Spirit… is he still relevant today?

They’re all about trying new things and figuring out what they believe too:

Why does God do that?

Is there more to worship than singing?

Can we change this?

Can we talk about this topic?

We want something that speaks to us…

Through prepping Sunday school and the life group I’ve had to think about a lot of different angles and questions that they might ask me and in doing so I’ve learnt so much.

This year my catchphrase has been ‘It’s all good, Gods got it covered.’

Out of all the jobs I’ve ever had being a youthworker has been the most challenging. I’ve had a fair few exhausted Elijah moments, I’ve jumped into a few situations that God has had to rescue me from.

But the high points have been amazing.

Being around when someone experiences the power of the HS for the first time,

when someone else realises that prayer works,

seeing someone baptised,

seeing young Christians evolve and grow before your eyes,

being challenged in your own faith because one of ur teenagers has been challenged too,

being present when the only thing left to do is pray for someone and seeing four or five teens jump up to pray.

I found that God linked things together perfectly, as I was challenging our young people to take on synergy and witness to their peer group back in November, I was being challenged to get up the front and speak to you guys about God. My first kids talk I don’t think I’ve ever shaken so much! Those who’ve seen me grow through Loughton know that when I was younger being up the front of the church was NOT on my agenda at all!

I’ve also been blessed to be a part of other activities too, being a part of the Family Fun day has been great, I seem to be the one in a corner with paint and paper! It’s great to be in charge of the messy stuff!

Mission rescue has been fun too! Discovering that we have a talented team of leaders and helpers who are willing to be a little bit silly in order to get a story across has been great to experience!

So what happens next?

When it was coming to the end of my contract this year I got asked by JP if I wanted to stay on for another year, I got so excited by the thought I couldn’t say no!

If I’d stopped YW in May I have the feeling It’d be like leaving the story unfinished … the decision had to go through the members meeting and as I was banished to the Kitchen whilst they made their decision I was sooooo nervous!

I realised then how much I wanted to stay and carry on working with the teens!

In a couple of weeks I’ll be heading out to Brasil and that’s exciting, but what’s even more exciting ….

Coming home and starting something new with our YP, continuing the fun we’re having at Chill, starting our Youth worship services and getting stuck into the Bible with these guys, we’ve got another Synergy coming up in February and loads of things happening in between.

One thing that I have learnt is this.. when you set out to teach teenagers, be prepared to leave knowing more than you knew before. Expect to learn things too, God is constantly reminding me that with him all things are possible, with Him the preparations get finished, the seeds get sown, the hearts get changed, the difference is made.

My job has been to try and inspire, equip and encourage these guys in their walk with God but they’ve inspired, encouraged and equipped me to do what I’m doing.

I’m convinced I have the best job in the world, and that’s all because of God … and these guys

Parking ticket – Kids Talk

Who Knows what this is?

That’s right, it’s a parking ticket. On Friday I went up the city, parked the car paid and displayed and when I got back I had this big yellow ticket on my windscreen. What had happened? Well whilst I had been hanging out in Costa working on some planning and other youth work stuff, sipping my lovely iced tea and writing down ideas. My naughty pay and display ticket had slipped off the dashboard.

The ticket man came along after my pay and display ticket had fallen off the dashboard and looked into my car to check the ticket. He couldn’t see it. He thought I hadn’t paid to park, he thought I had broken the rules. So he wrote me a special ticket of his own for £25.

I got taught a big lesson on Friday, when you break the rules, even when you don’t mean to, sometimes there are big consequences.There are some rules in the Bible that God gives us called the 10 commandments. They are in the second book of the Bible called Exodus.

You know how I love quizzes!Well We’re going to see this morning (just for fun) how many of these commandments you can remember.

First of all I need two lovely volunteers to hold up this no expense spared washing line for me so that we can peg the correct answers on the line.

- 10 commandments – And so I asked the congregation to fill in the 10 commandments for me..-

Did you know something, it says in the Bible that there is only one way to heaven, in fact I have discovered there are two. Now we all know the first way – we get to heaven through Jesus whose sacrifice on the cross paid for all of our sins.But wait a minute, what if we didn’t sin!

Let’s have a look at these commandments, some of them seem a lot easier to keep than others don’t they. I mean I’m not about to go out and kill someone, that’s one commandment kept yes? I don’t think I’ve ever stolen anything, that’s two hmm wait a minute, I’ve lied before, and I’ve not been a very good daughter sometimes.

You know something, if we kept faithfully each and every single one of the commandments that God gives us right from birth until we went to heaven then we could go to heaven. We’d be perfect, blameless, without sin.But you know something else, keeping every single one of these commandments has only ever been done by one person.

That’s Jesus.Sometimes we don’t think when we’re breaking these commandments, sometimes we don’t even realise we’ve broken one. What happens when we break a commandment, well just like me getting that parking ticket our sin has a consequence.If we lived the perfect life and kept all of these commandments our tie, this washing line that connects us to God would remain un broken. But what happens when we break one of these rules.

The sin that we create cuts off our connection with God. But you know what, the story doesn’t end there. What’s the solution, once the tie is broken we can’t fit it back together again, we cant restore our connection with God on our own.

That’s where Jesus comes in. It says in the Bible that the punishment for sin is death. Jesus did something amazing on the cross. Instead of us having to die for the sins that we commit. Jesus stepped into our place and washed our sins away.

He picked up the pieces and held them together so that we could still be connected to God.

So for us, it’s true, there is only one way to God and that’s through Jesus.

JOIN THE #LOVEMONDAY REVOLUTION

I must admit I’ve never blogged about Twitter before. When it first hit the tinterweb waves I thought it was a bit of a random site. I mean, why would anyone use Twitter when Facebook seemed to do exactly what Twitter does with all the extra bells and whistles…

Twittwe vs Facebook

Despite this I joined  – under the influence of positive peer pressure -  and since then it’s grown on me.

I’ve gradually got the hang of re-tweeting, replying, #followfridays and the clever little world of the #hashtag – I seem to be in a never ending catch up with everyone else who seems to know all this good stuff already.

So last week when a new initiative called #LoveMonday started up I was super excited to be going along with something new.

What’s #LoveMonday?

The idea is simple:  Send 3 people (or more!) a quick word of encouragement – on a Monday =)

On reading the tweeted idea I thought it was great! Three tweets later and I’d #lovedmonday good and proper. Off I went into the day feeling a little bit happy that I’d shared some encouragement with others.

Getting back to my computer later I logged in to find that I’d been #LoveMonday-ed too!

#LoveMonday

I Felt the love! It was awesome.. I’m joining in next week to share the love with other people, in the hope that I can encourage them, make them smile and get them to pay the love forward.

JOIN THE LOVE MONDAY REVOLUTION!

Want to know more?

Check out this  guy’s website,

What are you worth?

I am back! I can’t promise that it’s for good but I can post a little post here for you to look at.

Today I had a kids talk to deliver, it’s a time old classic called what are you worth. Here’s how it went in my head… technology fail had other ideas at the event but here’s the way I’d love you to see it  =)

 

Last time I did a children’s talk I got a bit sciency, (I cracked open a bottle of photo fixing solution and used it to demo how Jesus washed away our sins =)  )

Well this time I’ve been thinking about the body and what we are all made up of. In the first book of the Bible – Genesis it says that God made man from the dust of the earth. So we were made from all of the things that can be found on the planet.

How cool is that.. we contain some of the same things that can be found in some very normal household items.

You know you get a label on the back of packets saying what ingredients are in a product, well some scientists were checking out the human body and they reckon if we had a label it’d be something like this:

We have enough carbon in us to make the middles of 9000 pencils!

We contain enough phosphorus – the red bit on a match- to make 2,200 match heads

Enough fat to make 7 bars of soap – some of us could make a little more soap:P

Enough water f0r 22.5 bottles of water, that’s the equivalent of 90 cans of coke.

And enough Iron to make just 1 2 inch nail.

So how much does all this stuff cost? How much are we really worth?

I was working all this out yesterday, trying to figure out the grand total..

How much do you think you’re worth?

Family fun and messy play!

Today was a pretty great day! It was one of our church’s family fun afternoons that are slowly becoming more frequent, I am becoming the person that gets put in the corner with a pot/bucket of paint and some paper and we see what happens. Although many would hate this super messy play I seriously have to admit I love it!

There’s no better way to interact with a young child than providing them with a fun outlet to express themselves whilst doing something they wouldn’t generally get to do at home.

Today was Welly painting! Take one pair of wellies – apply to child.  Add several buckets of different coloured paints a giant 5ft cardboard cross  and a massive sheet of plastic to protect the floor and watch whilst a Picasso style master piece is created with little feet!

The fun afternoon theme today was journey’s and our painting was connected with our journey with Jesus (that’s why we were painting a big cross). I’ve since gone back to church laminated it and put it in the hallway as a feature in the entrance way, it’ll be a nice surprise for Sunday morning.

It was adorable to see one little girl just stand in the middle of the cross and giggle as she began to make footprints on the paper. ‘Let the little children come to me,’ says Jesus, and here they were, stomping, dancing, giggling and slip sliding across the paper.. I’m tempted to say slip sliding into Jesus’ heart, but I know that they’re already there

There was so much more than painting going on at church today, we had lego car making, pingpong ball racing, playdough creating, packed lunch making, remote control car racing, mario karting, air hockey gaming, car cake creations, treasure island, facepainting…. and so much more.

It was great that the family fun day was a two fold thing, firstly it brought families into the church to have fun. Secondly it gave the church as a family a chance to work together into making a really special day.

The greatest thing, God was in it all =)

ANDREW JONES: A BLOGGERS PRAYER

Our Father who lives above and beyond the dimension of the internet

Give us this day a life worth blogging,

The access to words and images that express our journey with passion and integrity,

And a secure connection to publish your daily mercies.

Your Kingdom come into new spaces today,

As we make known your mysteries, Posting by posting,

Blog by blog. Give this day,

The same ability to those less privileged,

Whose lives speak louder than ours,

Whose sacrifice is greater,

Whose stories will last longer.

Forgive us our sins,

For blog-rolling strangers and pretending they are friends,

For counting unique visitors but not noticing unique people,

For delighting in the thousands of hits but ignoring the ONE who returns,

For luring viewers but sending them away empty handed,

For updating daily but repenting weekly.

As we forgive those who trespass on our sites to appropriate our thoughts without reference,

Our images without approval,

Our ideas without linking back to us.

Lead us not into the temptation to sell out our congregation,

To see people as links and not as lives,

To make our blogs look better than our actual story.

But deliver us from the evil of pimping ourselves instead of pointing to you,

From turning our guests into consumers of someone else’s products,

From infatuation over the toys of technology,

From idolatry over techology

From fame before our time has come.

For Yours is the power to guide the destinies behind the web logs,

To bring hurting people into the sanctuaries of our sites,

To give us the stickiness to follow you, no matter who is watching or reading.

Yours is the glory that makes people second look our sites and our lives,

Yours is the heavy ambience,

For ever and ever,

Amen

Mary…

Thirteen years old and pregnant.. sound like a Jeremy Kyle episode? In fact it’s the story of a mother, who brought the most precious child into this world. A child that became a man, a child who was already a saviour, a Lord who left an indellible mark in the hearts of creation…

Here’s Mary’s Story – Written by Lauren Sugden.

Hi,

I guess by now you already know most of my story; the angel, the stable, the shepherds, the wise men it all happened, I know it happened yet there are still times when I can’t believe it happened to me!

I was 13 the year my life changed. I’d been an adult for just a year and was engaged to Joseph. He’s the kindest most discerning loving man I’ve ever met and he was working hard to build a house for us at the time, one that not only I would like but also one that my father would approve of, little did he know we wouldn’t be returning.

Both Joseph and I had been brought up in the Jewish faith, we knew of the scriptures, we knew that the Messiah would be coming, admittedly I was thinking along the lines of rolls of thunder and chariots of gold but we knew that one day He would come. I

 just didn’t expect Him to come during my life time or for Him to come as a baby and I definitely didn’t expect to find myself involved. I’ll never forget that night, the night the Angel came and told me what God’s plan for my life was, the joy in my heart as I chose to follow it, the feeling of life exploding inside of me; like I could feel the baby starting to grow the instant I agreed.

The emotions that followed were over whelming, the first coherent thought I remember having was ‘How do I tell Joseph?!’ Needless to say he was more than a little shocked, yet he seemed immediately more concerned that the divorce be carried out quietly so as to save me than he did about the fact that I was carrying a child and it obviously wasn’t his.

I guess he’s always been that kind of man. God however had different ideas and let Joseph know what was happening, he agreed to stand by me, that we would face this together as man and wife. Seeing the sacrifice he’d made, I felt bad about the need to go and visit my cousin Elizabeth, but the gossiping in town had got worse and she was the only other person in the world who had even a vague idea of how I was feeling.

God had, by his grace allowed her and Zacharias to conceive. When I arrived Elizabeth was glowing, even in her old age pregnancy suited her, I spent a wonderful three months with her and was sad to leave, but I was missing Joseph and knew that the time had come to return home. As it was I wasn’t back long before I had to leave again, this time with Joseph as a census had been called and we had to go to Bethlehem. It was there in a town where I knew no one, in a stable at the back of an inn that Jesus was born. It sounds idyllic I know, and as soon as I held him I guess I forgot about my surroundings but it looking back it wasn’t the ideal way to deliver a child.

Sitting there with Joseph watching Jesus sleep I started looking forward to settling down to life in the house Joseph had built for us, surrounded by friends and family, but then the visitors started arriving. It was the shepherds who first reminded me of just how special this little boy was, they had been told by angels that he was here and came from their fields to worship him.

Then after a few months the Maji came, they had travelled hundreds of miles just to see Jesus, they’d brought gifts and wisdom and through an Angel a warning. I thought that we’d been anonymous here that no one knew of what had happened but I was wrong, Herod had not only heard but he planned to kill my son, to kill God’s son! As we started life in exile I started to realise that this path I’d chosen to follow wasn’t going to be easy, as I write this we are in Egypt, I don’t know when or even if we’ll ever get to go home, I don’t know what difficulties are to come, I don’t know the rest of the plan but I do know that the life of this child is more important than anything.

 Yours Mary

Fixing things…

I came across a song  recently via this purple friend, It’s called ‘Fixing things’ by Jacob and the sound The song came at a great moment! It’s reminded me that it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks of me, what matters is what God thinks of me.

Why do I pretend that I’m okay, clearly when you see that I’m not

I fell for you, I didn’t mean to, and you did it without your touch

Fixing, broken hearts, It’s never been as easy since I realised you’re here

Re-inventing, broken dreams and all the little things, love can tear us apart

I am to you what I wanted to be, Just tell the truth what I wanted to see, it’s not just me

And whenever there’s a thought, that you’re not good enough at being yourself

I’ll sit with you, and i’ll  have a brew, ‘cos i, i’m here for you

Thinking what would we do without the love of God and the spirit of truth

Don’t  be neglecting your chosen right, as the son or daughter of the most high.

I am to him, what I wanted to be, Just tell the truth, what I wanted to see.

(Check out Jacob and the sound, and get the album here)

A weekend or so ago I transformed from someone extremely happy into this confused, snotty, crying mess and I couldn’t understand why at all!

When you’re feeling down and out, useless and trodden on the devil takes the opportunity to put the boot in and tell you how useless you are, he loves to tell us that we’re failures and that we’re not good enough.

Suddenly everything seemed hopeless. Like someone had pencilled in a big cartoon styley black cloud above my head and I just couldn’t seem to shake off the feeling of despair. Not understanding the feeling at all kind of panicked me, I’ve always been someone who had generally good control over my emotions.

I make a point of NEVER crying in front of anyone and in the space of a weekend a fair few people had witnessed my puffy red eyes and attempts to hide behind a fair few tissues! One of my main aims in life has always been to make people smile, I hate feeling anything other than happy! I guess I maintained the appearance that I never had any problems pretty well!

It made me realise that nobody ever seems to get taught the lesson ‘it’s okay not to be okay.’

It’s a very British thing to cover up our problems and paint on a face that says ‘I’m okay, I don’t need help, I am strong, confident and independant.’ In my opinion we do it far too much!

‘Tally ho chaps lets see that stiff upper lip!’

A Brasilian friend of mine called Helio said to me when I was talking to him once ‘You know, its okay to cry. Don’t hold it in, there’s a reason that we feel like crying. It’s not good to hold it all in.’

Are we afraid as people to show our vulnerability, totally! Should we be? No! Fair enough we may freak a few people out if we end up bawling on their shoulders but you know something, by doing it yes you’ve felt vulnerable. But you’ve also said to that person, you know what – ‘It’s okay!’

A great friend of mine taught me something last week, she said, ‘You know Claire, the devil wants us to think we’re failures, he wants to stop us from doing God’s work. You need to stand up and tell him that he’s failed already! We so often talk of a battle with the devil that’s ongoing and we forget one key thing, God’s already won!’ There’s a guy in the Bible called Job who suffered at the hands of the devil. He was such a devoted follower of God, Satan saw this and said to God, ‘What reason does he have not to love you, you’ve blessed everything he has. Take it all away from him, make him suffer and he’ll curse you to your face.’ (paraphrased)

God gave Satan permission to inflict suffering on Job, providing that he did not harm him. Job lost everything, his wealth, his children, his health. Even Job’s wife turned around and told him to ‘Curse God and die.’ But Job didn’t. He loved God above anything and lived to the limit the phrase ‘God gives and takes away, but my heart will choose to say, blessed be your name.’

I didn’t go through anything like Job, not nearly! but you know something, in the face of his suffering he held fast to God.

Guest Blogger – Hazel ~ Finding my momentum

What´s love? Is it that warm fuzzy feeling that comes so easily to you when you meet someone you like, someone who likes all of the same things that you do? I used to think so. I realised that love is pain, graft, toil, heartbreak and joy! Without the pain, love becomes just sentiment. That´s something I learnt at Soul Survivor this year.

The ultimate love: ~Man has no greater love than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. ~ Toil, hardship, hard work – LOVE.

Today´s post is a message from the heart, something that God spoke to Hazel, a good friend of mine.

I´ll sit quietly and let her tell you how God used Christian events Soul Survivor and Momentum to speak to her heart.

Well I suppose it’s about time I filled you all in. Firstly I would like to say a thank you to those at soul survivor for the amazing worship, the message you brought and the time you all put in to help encourage the church and help it to grow, keep going

I went to Soul Survivor and momentum as an escape, I had a year feeling very alone at church, my friends had all gone and I was left very much alone.

I didn’t fit in and was starting to feel very resentful towards my church. This doesn’t mean I hated the people in it, although I had my moments, my petty please don’t talk to me I’m really not interested.

I felt invisible, and almost grateful that I was, I was never the sort of person who goes up to other people, they had to come to me, being quite shy normally means I get almost a little star-stuck (for lack of a better word) when people I don’t know talk to me, or if I dare to talk to them.

Then it’s full of awkward silences, anyway I’m digressing a bit.

Going to soul survivor was my chance to love god with my friends, people my own age who I could connect to, they used examples I could relate too, to explain bits about the bible or God, or any of the other things we learnt about.

But as the week progressed I knew God wanted me to change, a couple of weeks before soul survivor I was asked to help with the prayer of intersession at church and I turned it down, I didn’t want to be up in front of people, everyone watching me, what if I got it wrong, what if my words came out all messed up.

I couldn’t handle the fear.

God showed me that it didn’t matter that I was afraid, I had to see past the fear, to see that he was there holding me up, I can’t do it in my own strength, me fears were crippling my life, everything from a fear of butterflies to escalators to microphones to being in front of people. With the help of the prayer of those around me I came back with a new confidence in Christ.

Momentum was just as amazing but in a much more subtle way, they were still going on about the wow, woe and go, but I’m somebody who’s never had a wow! But it didn’t bother me, I hadn’t needed one.

We had a talk one evening from Ellie Mumford, who is an older lady, with a proper Queen’s English style of speaking, so I was sat thinking oh no, I’m not gonna understand this, she’ll use some example I won’t understand. But she didn’t, she connected really well and I remember mentally slapping my wrist for judging her, just because she was old.

Then I thought if I could judge her like that is that what I’ve being doing at church. Then I realised I needed to stop, I needed to change, to become an encouragement to my church even when it was tough, even when I didn’t want to be, even when I don’t feel like I fit in, because only when I love God’s church as it is, with it’s many imperfections would I then be able to see its wonder, it’s goodness and feel like I’m truly apart of it.

So since I’ve got back what’s changed? Well I am trying to do the bible in a year, and so far I think I’ve read more in 11 days than I have in any year previously despite going to church almost every Sunday of my life. I have also volunteered too try teaching in Sunday school, a big step from being a teaching assistant for 4 years.

I’m also trying to attend the evening service at church more often, as an encouragement to my church, as well as being more open to helping in church whether that’s by reading the bible, saying a prayer or evening just welcoming people as they come in. I’ve picked my guitar up for the first time in about 8 years, and I’m singing more.

But most of all I’m living despite my fear, one of the songs at Dave’s induction service summed it up nicely for me, the change God was asking me to make:

Will you love the ‘you’ you hide If I but call your name?

Will you quell the fear inside And never be the same?

Will you use the faith you’ve found To reshape the world around,

Through my sight and touch and sound In you and you in me?

From now on this is how I’m going to try and live, it doesn’t say I won’t have fear but that I’ll act anyway, that I’ll love the me inside (that for me is a big ask, I’m somebody who’s never felt good enough), that I’ll use what I’ve found this year for him in everything I do, so please keep me in your prayers.

A great exchange rate..

 As you probably know I’ve recently become the Youth Assistant at my church. This means I have lots of things to be planning and organising etc etc. One thing that I was asked to do in my new role last Sunday was to get up and give a solo children’s talk.

Piece of cake I thought! I’ve done that before.

NEVER have I got up in front of my church and shaken so much, completely involuntarily! It was quite bizar.

When planning my little talk I sat down with God after much deliberation and prayed about what I should say. I am fast learning that if I do this first I save a lot of time!

The story of the lost coin came to mind (find it here) mixed with an illustration that i’d heard from a preacher whilst  I was in Nepal – with my own little twist of course.

I stood in front of my church and the looked back at me in expectation, an expextation that quickly turned to confusion and then finally disbelief. It was brilliant!

It went a little bit like this:

Now, who’s heard of a programme called Antiques roadshow? Anyone? Well I bet your parents or even Grandparents have. It’s a programme where people take very old things to be valued by an expert. Now before you all start asking your Mums and Dads to take you to the show with your grandparents I’d better explain what I mean.

Antiques are things that are collected from the past, some are worth a lot of money and people take these things to be valued and to see whether the experts will pay anything for them.

You know what? I’ve got an antique, I think it’s quite valuable.. would you like to see it?

[nods of agreement and interest]

Well I did something genius this morning, I thought my antique was so valuable that I decided to hide it so I didn’t lose it. I found the greatest hiding place too! The only thing is, it was that good I’ve forgotten where I put it.

[ask the congregation to rummage around under their chairs to find said antique and bring it to me]

What is it?