by emma | May 22, 2007 | Everything Else
Shaun just blogged about this great idea… let him know what you think. I love Shauns heart for the broken and the down-and-outs. It comes across in his writting… he just seems to beat for this stuff.
It’s a welcome change to those who don’t really seem to care that there are millions of people living in hell on earth now. Sometimes people ask me about what I think about heaven and hell after this life… I think my response sometimes suprises them. It’s not that I don’t think life after earth is important… but I’m much more concerned with heaven and hell here, right now, on earth, than I am after it. I love Christian Aid’s tagline… Life Before Death. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that.
by emma | May 21, 2007 | Everything Else
Threw a wee launch party thing on Saturday night for my photography exhibition in Offshore. Just a few friends came down, was very civilised… felt very cultured that evening! There are some more pictures on my flickr…
by emma | May 20, 2007 | Everything Else
It’s been a long week…
by emma | May 18, 2007 | Photography
by emma | May 18, 2007 | Exodus
Last night we ran a quiz to fundraise some money for our Exodus trip to Latvia. I’m blown away by the support and generosity of our friends here. The energy in the room was incredible. Felt so loved and so supported by those guys! And not only that…
Just before the last round, we were £2 short of our mimumum amount need for Lativa… when a guy walked up to me and handed me £20! We finished the night £18 over target.
Starting to get more and more excited about Latvia…
by emma | May 16, 2007 | Words
“It is part of the photographer’s job to see more intensely than most people do. He must have and keep in him something of the receptiveness of the child who looks at the world for the first time or of the traveler who enters a strange country. Most photographers would feel a certain embarrassment in admitting publicly that they carried within them a sense of wonder, yet without it they would not produce the work they do, whatever their particular field. It is the gift of seeing the life around them clearly and vividly, as something that is exciting in its own right. It is an innate gift, varying in intensity with the individual’s temperament and environment.”
[Bill Brandt]
H/T: Darrell
by emma | May 15, 2007 | Books
Over the weekend I read Matt Hyams book, I Still Have More Questions Than Answers. I was initally drawn to it because of the titles… its one of my key phrases I think! Then having a flick through it I saw one of the chapters was titled “Messing up the Church” which grabbed my attention even more! It’s a quick read, I read it on the 6 hour car journey back up from England at the weekend.
Its a very personal account of the journey of Southampton Vineyard and of Matt himself. He writes candidly about his struggles and questions. I was encouraged and challenged and provoked as I read this book… at one point Matt shares how they scrapped their very slick, polished, professional Sunday services where the “professionals” lead the worship, in favour of giving each housegroup responsibility over leading the Sunday services, providing everyone with a chance to bring their gifts to the table . It’s something I’ve been thinking about lately… what we display on Sunday at our meetings is naturally what we put our efforts into. Does it reflect the priorities we want to have, maybe even the ones we say we have?
Matt also shares a bit about his heart for the poor and the broken, things that encouraged me because I often feel them, and still things that challenged me, because I still have so far to go…
“Certainly, we can support work in these countries financially from here but I just cannot believe that this is all Jesus wants for us. It just seems too distant and cold. It seems to cost us so little and, ultimately, it does not really affect our hearts that much…”
“It will cost us to be Christ to them because the very thing that makes them poor in spirit will make them hard to be with.”
by emma | May 14, 2007 | Words
“I’ve heard it said that if you don’t believe God created the world in six literal days you are denying that Jesus died on the cross. A day in Jupiter is over 300 years long – I guess it depends on where God was standing!”
[Matt Hyam, speaking at the VPN conference]
by emma | May 12, 2007 | Faith
I’m spending the weekend in Swanwick (here) at the Vineyard Prayer Network conference. So far it’s been refreshing!
I was meditating on Psalm 25 earlier, and had a few stand-out phrases that struck me anew. “All day long I put my hope in you” (v5) was one, as was “for in you I take refuge” (v20).
I also spent some time thinking about Jesus’ words in Matt 16… “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
Got that phrase… come after me… stuck in my head…
by emma | May 10, 2007 | Words
It’s the wrong kind of place
To be thinking of you…
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