Stirling…

So I’ve just booked flights to go see Stirling University in September… ah scary biscuits!! So begins the crazyness of UCAS forms, more dull university lectures, and pressure from parents and teachers alike… I don’t know what I want to do, thats not a crime ok!!

I will most likely end up doing a joint maths & computers degree… purely because I enjoy the subjects, but i’ve no idea where that will lead to. I’ve also been looking into some gap year options, but its crazy money. But then so is uni… so i’d never notice another £4000 debt!

Heres one of my crazy ideas…

Servanthood…

Friday night past was our Exodus recommissioning service – sending us out again, but this time into our homes, schools and workplaces, to be Jesus hands and feet here at home, not just on a two-week summer missions trip. The guy that spoke, Jeremy Gardner (youth pastor at High Kirk, Ally’s church) spoke on servanthood, and I really connected with something he said for the first time…

Is servanthood the best way to live?

A ‘successful’ life, as defined by the culture we live in, is one that is self-focused, all-about-me, and insular. It’s one where your world gets smaller and smaller.
A life of servanthood, by contrast, is one where you give yourself away. A little here, a little there, all over Ballymena, Northern Ireland and the world. It’s one where your world gets bigger and bigger.

Is servanthood the best way to live? Of course!! It’s logical – your world increases in time, not decreases.

So there you have it… something I’ve been thinking about over the weekend.

Lightbulb ministry…

Image hosted by Photobucket.com

When we were in Holland the main thing we were involved in was an outreach with the church called Lightbulb ministry. (Just realised I’ve never said what the church was called! It’s Living Water. You can check it out an www.levendwater.nl) This was basically us going around the doors of a local area called Tanthof, giving out free lightbulbs.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com

The neighbourhood of Tanthof has a population of 60,000 people – roughly 10% of Delfts population – and there is no church there at all! We were not necessarily going out to get long , God conversations with people, but simply to touch them with the love of God. Over two days we gave out about 1100 lightbulbs, and had some awesome conversations. One lady even came to church!

Image hosted by Photobucket.com

We got to keep our funky tee-shirts too – Ist er licht in uw huis?

Holland…

Holland was amazing! I’m still kinda taking it all in, reflecting on it and working out what it really meant to me. There are so many bikes everywhere, like seriously!! I know I expected it to be flat and there to be lots of bikes, but I guess the full extent didn’t really hit me till we got there… this is the view from Leiden train station, where we had to change trains to get to Delft.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com

Man, I miss Delft. I had got used to cycling my wee bike around – one gear, peddle backwards to brake – and kinda gotten to know my way around too. The church gave us bikes to get around on while we were there, and i’d guess we cycled about 5 miles a day on average. We had gotten so used to cycling into the centre to have pancakes or whatever… the picture below shows the cathedral in Delft, it was so beautiful. We climbed up to the top one day and took a whole pile of pictures, I’m hoping to put together a panoramic one when I get the time.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com

It’s been too long…

…i’ve missed blogging!!

just got back from my Exodus team last night, flew into Belfast at 5.45. Ah where would I start with it, the guys on my team are fantastic, like family, I made a lot of new mates and got closer to old ones, and God did a might work- both in our lives and in the lives of the people we touched. Many seeds were planted. The picture below was taken one day when we went to Antwerp (in Belguim) and did some street worship and dramas, just talking to people. Its our whole team plus people that joined us for the day. I shall post more as time goes on, but God has indeed done a lot in my life and taught me soo much, I couldnt possibly post it all at once. So that’ll do for a start.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com

I’ve also been hearing great stories about Deep Fish, an outreach programme running from the Wash Basin at the minute, today is the last day, and so far I hear there have been about 70 people become Christians! I had to ask them to repeat it a few times, I thought I was hearing them wrong! How awesome is our God guys, seriously!!