Category Archives: Blogs

Collection of Webs: April

Here is a monthly collection of webs where I share with you what I have been reading on blogs, articles, books and what I have been watching or listening to. If you have missed any collection of webs this year you can find them all on this page.

Blogs Posts from friends:

Bryony writes about her Church Youth Weekend away: If you have Jesus, then you have everything you need for life. Not just today, not just in this moment, but for your whole life. (Amen to that!)

I am currently studying 2 Timothy with Bish at the moment, so it’s always great to see him blog about it. Here is a cracking post about maturity: “Wisdom is chewy.
Wisdom is slow-cooker.”

Emily unpacks the story of Elijah when he stops to rest under the broom tree. Its a great little post to encourage you!: “I know the journey is too great for you. Here, eat this, and drink a little of this water.’

Mike Shaw writes about students and their final year exams, an encouraging post in a season of exams and anxieties for students: “So as many students enter their final year, their priority has to be cross shaped, not exam shaped.”

Tanya wrote an amazing and challenging post on Disability living allowance in the UK. This is certainly worth a read: “It is plain misleading, and the truth of what is happening is being buried under debates about Wizard of Oz songs in the charts.”

Blog Posts Out There:

An article about the Archbishop of Canterbury’s daughter and her battle with depression: “Christians who suffer from depression find themselves “suffering quietly and in fear of what their friends would say”, she said.”

What happens when you really disconnect? “By the end of nine days, I felt empowered and enriched. With my brain quieter, I was able to take back control of my attention.”

Pam writes about Naming the Top: “I’m sure Jesus mentioned something about arguing who is the greatest”

David Murray writes I’d rather be a godly administrator than an ungodly minister: “You spend your week filing papers, printing reports, chasing up bad debts, putting stamps on envelopes. Then you go to church on Sunday and you see a man leading hundreds in worship and prayer, and preaching inspiring sermons. It’s pretty obvious who’s pleasing God most isn’t it?”

Books:

I finished reading Life of Pi! Which I really enjoyed, I haven’t seen the film yet but I really want to! I think its such a clever book and lots of themes can be drawn out from it!

I’m now reading Cloud Atlas which is a fun and really different book. I am only a quarter of the way through but I think all the lives of different people will link together throughout the book!

I’m also reading Serving without Sinking by John Hindley which has been an encouraging read. Its been focusing me back onto Christ which is certainly what I need!

In the Garden:

We have started gardening this year. Already planted: Carrots, potatoes, garlic, broccoli and leeks in the raised beds. In the green house we have Aubergines, Peppers and Tomatoes! Already some of the potatoes and garlic are showing leaves above ground which is very exciting!! I hope to give you updates on these as the year goes by.

Posts on my blog:

Stewarding, Strife and Smiles: My account of the challenges of stewarding at a conference.

Two Years of Marriage: What I have learnt in my marriage so far.

Introverts at a Conference: How an introvert can survive going to a conference!

Collection of Webs: March

Here is a monthly collection of webs where I share with you what I have been reading on blogs, articles, books and what I have been watching or listening to.

Blogs Posts from friends:

My friend Ali has started blogging again over at Redeeming Clouds. It’s a great read and worth having in your bookmarks.

My friend Emily has been writing a series about how she isn’t a morning person. A really good little series to read.

Tanya writes a cracking post on penguins and parenting. It’s heart-wrenching and you may cry at the end!!

Blog Posts Out There:

Creative People Say No: Saying “no” has more creative power than ideas, insights and talent combined. No guards time, the thread from which we weave our creations. The math of time is simple: you have less than you think and need more than you know.

10 Time management Rules you are breaking: A helpful list of being more productive.

God will find you in your dark place: When you’re in a dark place, God crawls into the darkness with you, tells you He’s with you, and then he holds you till hope begins stirring in your soul.

Books:

Finished Miranda: Is it just me? Which was delightful, funny and full of good little stories. Certainly a feel good book.

I finished Reading Dangerous Calling by Paul Tripp – one of the best books on pastoral ministry that I have read so far. Challenging, insightful and helpful!

Also finished reading Real Marriage: by the Driscolls which was an interesting and also helpful read in places.

Now I am reading Life of Pi, which is a fantastic read so far.

I am also on Good Reads if you want to find out more about what I am reading or what I am going to read etc.

Posts on my blog:

Do Check out my Black Mirror Series that I wrote last month.

6 Questions for Christian Leaders

Jesus or Cheesus?

Collection of Webs: February

Here is a monthly collection of webs where I share with you what I have been reading on blogs, articles, books and what I have been watching or listening to.

Blogs Posts from friends:

Elli posts on Defining Terms and she remarks: “So, here’s the deal. I’m giving myself a new label, one that to some is going to sound the epitome of oxymoronic, but I don’t care. I’m a Complementarian Feminist.”

The Importance of Adam written by Glen: “You might ask, “What on earth should we say to our scientifically minded friends who laugh at an historic Adam?”  Well I’d simply ask them about their belief in Christ. With 1 Corinthians 15 open I’ll say, “Here’s the bible’s logic: if Christ rose, Adam fell. Let’s ask whether Christ rose…”

Matt Herring has posted some fantastic photo’s up from the street. He is a really good photographer, so please do check the rest of his blog out!

Tanya writes about how she became a feminist: “A feminist is someone who believes in the equal worth of women and men and also sees a world where women aren’t valued equally. I have always been the former; now I am becoming the latter.”

Blog Posts Out There:

3 reasons I’ll be reading Rob Bell’s new book: A rather interesting article from the Gospel Coalition:” I expect Rob’s book will prod me toward better and more beautiful ways of presenting the truth.”

Are you worshipping the idol of open options?: As I stood in line, I actually started to think, Maybe I want 140-degree coffee too. Maybe, I thought to myself, my choice of milk temperature up to this point has been catastrophically naive. Suddenly, his choices made me unhappier about my own. I began to covet. I wasn’t sure what I wanted anymore. I became anxious and indecisive. I wasn’t sure I was ready to commit—either to my kind of coffee or to his. Was this really freedom of choice, or slavery to it?

Books:

I finished reading Game of Thrones book 3 part 1, which was very enjoyable. I am now reading Miranda’s book: Is It just me? I love it. It’s so funny and so Miranda!

I have also read a booklet on how to deliver a TED talk to help me shape my own talks and ministry. It’s a good little book with helpful ideas. Bish wrote a review here.

Watching:

Been watching a bit of Black Mirror on channel 4. It’s quite Sci-fi and dark, but very interesting to watch. I hope to write some reviews of that soon.

Watching TED talks has been a lot of fun, some inspiring stuff on there.

Posts on my blog:

1. Out of the Heart and onto the blog

2. The Glory of God

3. Guest Post on God and Suffering

4. The Spirit of Sonship

Well that’s me. What have you enjoyed this month?

Guest Post: God and Suffering

Please do check out my guest post on God and Suffering over at Tanya’s blog. Tanya very kindly asked me to write something on God and suffering and so I decided to write a poem called “Through my eyes”. I would love to know your thoughts on it.

Out of the Heart and Onto the Blog

affectionsBlogging is rather an interesting platform. Anyone can start a blog and put up their ideas and it’s very appealing not having to go through publishers and editors to put up your own thoughts and ideas. It is also very revealing, on blogs and also twitter little storms can be created which will either build up a person or destroy a person. They are powerful mediums and they need to be treated with care.

I have been thinking a lot about what Jesus says in Luke 6:45:

“The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”

Out of the abundance of the heart the person blogs or tweets. It made me think about the topics I blog and the state of my heart. I’m not naturally a good person, but Christ has changed my heart, he has filled me with his spirit and so out of my mouth should speak a different heart. It made me think about how I use this blog and what I write about. Am I encouraging? Am I proclaiming Christ? Am I loving? Am I thankful? Or do I prefer to rant and complain? Do I prefer to crush someone?

If my words on a blog post or on twitter are discouraging, grumbling, complaining, unforgiving, going out their way to belittle someone or making sure I crush someone under the weight of my words and expectations then it is quite evident what my heart is like because Jesus says in Matthew 15:18:

“But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.”

 

If I am like this and its evident that my words are saying something about my heart that is not good nor Christ like, then I need to come back to Christ. Perhaps the temptation is to masquerade what I think on the blog, but people know me in real life and can judge whether my words are true or not. Instead I need to come back to Christ. Come to sweet Jesus and be reminded of who I am in Christ – a new creation with a new heart and adopted into His family. Totally forgiven.

When it comes to what we say on the internet we have to be careful. We have to be accountable to people, to be slow to speak and quick to listen. We need to test our hearts and the words from our mouths. What we say can really hurt and affect people more than we realise and often it comes from a bitterness rooted in our own hearts that causes this.

Come to Christ again. Repent. Forgive. Think about what your writing about – will it lift a person up? Will it encourage them? Does it edify?

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. (Ephesians 4:29 ESV)

Collection of Webs: January

So I saw this idea of doing a blog round-up through Tanya and I thought it was such a fun way of doing Collection of Webs. But this time it will be monthly and include lots of other little things like books being read and films watched etc. Hopefully this will be a bit of fun.

Blogs Posts from friends:

Bryony chats about the Gospel in the Job center – some great reading here: “I have really noticed that the job centre communicate a clear ‘gospel’ story (or worldview) that is completely in a realm of its own.”

Dan Hames shares a quote on: What to do when you just can’t pray.

Bish shares some reflections on the early Christian Unions: The story is the same today – there’s a legacy to inherit, but the Christian Unions are built on Christian freshers turning up in halls and standing together. We stand on the foundation of home churches and youth work, we stand on the work of God in people.

Ellie shares her thoughts on Purity.

A poem written by my husband about taking communion.

Blog Posts Out There:

An article on how men see women and sports. This was really insightful and interesting: The way we consume iconic national events like the Super Bowl better depicts what we really believe about women than does anything else. For in the invisibility of normality, there we find our idolatry.

Mike Reeves writes about why not having Adam and Eve is actually bad news for the Gospel.

A good post on Luther and his way with colourful words…

Books:

I have set myself a mini project this year which is to read War and Peace. I have just finished book 1 out of 15. Its going well and I hope to finish it before the year is up. But there some people in the world that read War and Peace more than once!

Also reading:

Game of Thrones book 3 and

Where is God when it hurts by Philip Yancy.

Music:

Currently enjoying some songs by Bethel and Boy and His kite.

As well as Rend Collective Experiment

Watching:

Extremely loud and incredibly close

Also loving Miranda, Call the Midwife and Ripper Street.

What are you enjoying at the moment?

Favourite Posts on my Blog:

1.Can we know God?

2.The Heat of Love

3.No Airbrush Please

4.The biggest problem in Church

Feasting on the Bible Part 2

In the last post we looked at why we don’t read the bible and hopefully you saw that some of the ways we view the bible are not helpful. But once we realise that we are not at the center of the bible and we read it because we want to know more of Christ, how then do we go about reading the bible?

May I share with you some ideas that have helped me? Remember this is in a realm of no guilt, we read for the pleasure of feasting on the word because it points to our beautiful saviour, not because we feel like we are reading it to please God.

Firstly I would start reading this wonderful article that turned my bible reading on its head.

There are two things that astounded me:

1. You can just read the bible, like a novel.

2. You can read in community

When I first heard that this guy read the bible like a novel I did ask myself – “Are you allowed to do that?” I mean this is scripture, holy words – can I just read it like Lord of the Rings? Shouldn’t I be studying every sentence and its context and implications on my life? I think this is where the guilt seeps in – I know of a scripture meditation technique where they would take a couple of verses and just meditate on it and wait for the Holy Spirit tell you what it means in your life. So I was in a group doing this and I waited… and I waited… and I waited… and well when it came to my turn to share my thoughts, I found that this just wasn’t working because I didn’t have anything. (Actually just made something up… which I wouldn’t recommend). But again I find this founded on the idea of scripture is all about *me*… and it’s not. So when I started just reading scripture, reading through the chapters from Genesis to Revelation like a novel,  I found that I was enjoying the story, things were starting to piece together, I learnt more about who Jesus was and I felt no pressure to try and draw something out of it. And there is nothing that says we can’t read the bible like a novel, we arn’t being dis-respectful at all. That doesn’t mean we don’t do bible studies, because we do and its good to do – there are times when I get to a point in my bible reading where I don’t understand something and I will stop and dig deeper. But for our “quiet time”, for our enjoyment to know more of Christ we can just sit and read about him and how he interacts with his people.

The second thing is that you can read the bible in community. There is an idea that our bible reading is private and “my time” with God. But what if we could share what we are reading with some other people and encourage them and be encouraged by them. In the article it describes how Ron does this – he chooses reading partners, they go away and read through a book in the bible and come back and chat about what they have been reading. Reading in community means accountability, sharing what we are learning, encouragement and also sharing our struggles and questions! I am sold on this idea. So myself and the lovely Emily are reading the bible together. We have date for when we are going to Skype each other and chat through what we have been reading. I am looking forward to it. I am looking forward to sharing Jesus with her and for her to share Jesus with me… it’s going to be good.

So why don’t you give it a go?

Start in Genesis and read as many chapters as you want a day… its not a race, there is not set amount of chapters you should read. Just read what you can and what you want to read and underline what you have noticed, what you find interesting, what you find difficult, what you have found exciting!

Then find a friend or two and ask them to do the same and set a date for when you meet/Skype together and share what you have been learning, underlining, struggling with. Pray together and then set a date for the next time you will do this again. It doesn’t matter if one of you is in the middle of Genesis and the other is ahead in Numbers… it doesn’t matter. It all about knowing Jesus more.

I have to say that I have done this read through a couple of times and each time I see something new and see something more of the big picture. The reason why I want to share these things with you is because I really struggled with reading my bible and there are hundreds of techniques but the most simplest technique of “just read it” really helped me understand who the bible is about, why I would want to read it and why I have no need to feel rubbish when I don’t.

I hope this helps and encourages you too.

Collection of Webs (24)

So what has caught my eye on the web over the last couple of weeks? Well let’s have a look:

“You can’t have a child” – facing the consequences of infertility or singleness – a great blog post over at Woman in London. A real heart-rending issue and she writes really well about it.

Preaching in a Vacuum - a Post by Mike Shaw about how Preachers are preaching to a certain culture and group of people.

The God who Gives to Give – Dave Bish posts about “the Father who gives authority to his Son, and the Father gives people to his Son, and then the Son gives Eternal Life to people.”

Evangelism: It ain’t Rocket Surgery – Written by Glen Scrivener on why Evangelism isn’t actually that hard.

And for the last link, I found this video on the Power of the Pentatonic scale – its is truly brilliant:

 

A New Name Review

I finally got my hands on Emma Scrivener’s new book – “A new name – Grace and Healing for anorexia”. This is such a good book that I read it in a day and just found myself very moved and challenged by Emma’s story. When you pick up this book you may thinking that it isn’t for you because you don’t have anorexia, but as my friend Emily wrote on her blog - “So why read A New Name? Because we are all sick, and we are all sinners. And Jesus is the one who has come, like light into a dark, cold place, to bring life and freedom by giving us Himself.”

This is a story that all of us could read and on different levels identify with whats going on. I think Emma is a fantastic writer, her words grip you on every page and she carries you along her story that can make you laugh or move you to tears. She is honest and open and that’s what I like about it, she connects with the audience and isn’t afraid to paint the real picture of anorexia and the real picture of having idols.

The part that captured me most was when Emma met Jesus and saw the Lion and the Lamb. As I read her experience it seemed truly breath-taking. It reminded me of who Jesus really is – a husband sacrificing himself for us and inviting us  to be with his Father who has his arms wide open for us. Emma found her identity in Christ. This is a wonderfully testimony to read and she is honest in saying it’s not all over, she isn’t riding off into the sunset with a Happy Ever After Flag…she is still fighting and from her blog she is not hiding her battles but she is reminding us who she is in Christ.

This is why all Christians and non christians should read it. We are all broken and all running after idols that never satisfy us. Emma is really honest about this, yet often we aren’t. Often I am not – I want to hide away my sin and idols. But what Emma has taught me is that my identity isn’t in them but in Christ and those idols don’t own me because I am free in Christ, therefore I don’t need to hide or prove myself to anyone and neither do you. She shows us that there is always hope and that Jesus will never leave us.

Buy this book. Read her blog. Encourage her and be encouraged that Jesus loves you and your identity is in him.

A New Name

I can’t wait for this book by Emma Scrivener.

Her husband Glen says this about the book:

This book is not just for sufferers and those who care for them – although it will be vitally helpful for them.  It’s a testimony to Jesus.  It’s a meditation on the gospel and how it addresses a deadly mental illness, so emblematic of our culture’s struggles with food, body, performance and identity.  It’s one of the most compelling and vivid accounts you’ll ever read of the lies that can enslave a person and how the truth sets them free.

Here is the excellent promo: