i have found a better blogging site that means i can make my blog do tones more.... more you say....YES MORE i have lots of tricks up my sleeve yet to show you.
save my new blog in your favourtes: http://uncontainablegeneration.wordpress.com/
click here to see the new and improved uncontainable generation blog
"You have heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.
- Matthew 5:43-45
There was a painter named Wayne who was very interested in making a penny where he could, so he often thinned down his paint to make it go a wee bit further.
As it happened, he got away with this for some time, but eventually the Baptist Church decided to do a big restoration job on one of their biggest buildings. Wayne put in a bid, and, because his price was so low, he got the job.
So he set about erecting the scaffolding and setting up the planks, and buying the paint and, yes, I am sorry to say, thinning it down with turpentine.
Well, Wayne was up on the scaffolding, painting away, the job nearly completed, when suddenly there was a horrendous clap of thunder, the sky opened, and the rain poured down washing the thinned paint from all over the church and knocking Wayne clear off the scaffold to land on the lawn among the gravestones, surrounded by telltale puddles of the thinned and useless paint.
Wayne was no fool. He knew this was a judgment from the Almighty, so he got down on his knees and cried: "Oh, God, forgive me; what should I do?" And from the thunder, a mighty voice spoke...
"Repaint! Repaint! And thin no more!"
I done a labyrinth in revolution and it was amazing. It was alot of work to set up. But what is so great about it is the fact that it gives God the space to speak to us in a personal intermate way rather than listening to someone speak for 30 mins.
Take a look at this online labyrinth.
(you can also find out how to make one
yourself)
It's not always easy to focus on the wright thing. When there's sooo many distractions around us 24/7. Sometimes we can get so focused on what we are doing for God that we forget GOD.
Whats your focus?
Just because you walk into a garage doesn't make you a car...
Just because you go to church on sunday doesn't make you a christian.
WHO ARE YOU????
i had this thought last night of some sort of video cell group. basiclly you buy a video camera for the group and give it to one person/couple to video there own documentry about what God's been saying to them during the week. You could get creative and use puppets, hand movements, diary, pictures,driving and what ever they can think of. Then the whole group watches it and discusses. Then you give the camera to the next person to have a week of creativity with a camera.
the great thing about this is if you have someone missing on the night of the showing you can always put it on youtube for them to watch at home/work and comment online. plus you can look back over a year and watch all of then to see how the group has developed over the year.
I realize that change isn't easy for anyone, but its the time it takes to change will be our biggest question as the church, will we ever catch up with the fast changing pase of the world?
Will we ever be people that react to whats around us and set the pace of change for world?
Is your building your tool for mission or is it a drain on energy,resorces and money?
picture taken from asbo jesus
Jesus tought us to pray:
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
thy kingdom come.
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven,
Give us this day our daily bread
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us for evil,
for thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
forever and ever,
Amen
And text........
dad @ hvn, ur special,
we want wot u want,
Earth 2b like hvn,
Giv us food & 4giv us,
Lik we 4giv uvaz,
don't test us,
Save us!
bcos we kno ur the boss,
ur tuf & ur cool,
4eva ........ ok
heres a site that will make you laugh, its got loads of films like 'star wars' and 'priates of the cariben' that have been redone in 30 seconds. You could show one to your youthgroup/church and get them to guess what film it is. Just for a bit of fun.
click here to see the site
Now what message could you get from it – the tree of life, choose the right path and God will bless you more than you expect (i.e. 2 rainbows instead of one), we are the branches………………..what do you think?
In the year 2007 the Lord came unto Noah, who was now living in
England and said, "Once again, the earth has become wicked and over-
populated, and I see the end of all flesh before me. Build another Ark
and save two of every living thing along with a few good humans."
He gave Noah the CAD drawings, saying, "You have 6 months to build
the Ark before I will start the unending rain for 40 days and 40
nights."
Six months later, the Lord looked down and saw Noah weeping in his
yard- but no Ark.
"Noah!" He roared, "I'm about to start the rain! Where is the Ark ?"
"Forgive me, Lord," begged Noah, "but things have changed. I needed
Building Regulations Approval. I've been arguing with the Fire Brigade
about the need for a sprinkler system. My neighbours claim that I
should have obtained planning permission for building the Ark in my
garden because it is development of the site, even though in my view it
is a temporary structure. We had to go to appeal to the Secretary of
State for a decision.
Then the Department of Transport demanded a bond be posted for the
future costs of moving power lines and other overhead obstructions to
clear the passage for the Ark's move to the sea. I told them that the
sea would be coming to us, but they would hear nothing of it.
Getting the wood was another problem. All the decent trees have Tree
Preservation Orders on them and we live in a Site of Special Scientific
Interest set up in order to protect the spotted owl. I tried to
convince the environmentalists that I needed the wood to save the owls
- but no go!
When I started gathering the animals, the RSPCA sued me. They insisted
that I was confining wild animals against their will. They argued the
accommodation was too restrictive, and it was cruel and inhumane to put
so many animals in a confined space. Then the County Council, the
Environment Agency and the Rivers Authority ruled that I couldn't build
the Ark until they'd conducted an environmental impact study on your
proposed flood.
I'm still trying to resolve a complaint with the Equal Opportunities
Commission on how many BMEs I'm supposed to hire for my building team.
The trades unions say I can't use my sons. They insist I have to hire
only CSCS accredited workers with Ark-building experience.
To make matters worse, Customs and Excise seized all my assets,
claiming I'm trying to leave the country illegally with endangered
species.
So, forgive me, Lord, but it would take at least 10 years for me to
finish this Ark."
Suddenly the skies cleared, the sun began to shine, and a rainbow
stretched across the sky.
Noah looked up in wonder and asked, "You mean you're not going to
destroy the world?"
"No," said the Lord. " Your government beat me to it."
I truelly belive that we are facing a radical change when it comes down to our young people, we no longer have the church roots that we have had in the past, young people don't have Religius bones. You won't be able to contain them in a sunday morning slot. Todays young people run from being contained! Which is AMAZING! We will see a generation that shines the church so bright the world can't egnore it. . You'll see them preaching the word through there lives in the world. They will be the 'uncontainable generation.'
i love the honesty of this video, from a pastor in Canada
click here to see the pastors site
"If you expecting a rapture, don't worship indoors"
this is a perfect reason to get out of our comfortable church structures and meet the world face to face. Jesus said "GO into the world" not "COME into our meeting"
Picture was taken from asbojesus
I used bebo to set up a free website for my church, and its been great I have all our young people as members on it, and i have the ability to email them all. Plus theirs a discussion board for them to write what they think of Revolution. You will be surprised at how many people you know that’s already on bebo or myspace.
Its a free sign up and its all done online, so you don't need to download any programs.
Click here for bebo
Click here for myspace
How much do we as a church need to adapt to our surroundings? and what value's do we need to hold tighter than anything else?
I ordered this cd with a 160 different flash animations for worship backgrounds and its amazing!!! It cost about 20 quid. Well worth the money if you ask me.
Click here to see example
Click here to see the site
4 years ago when we first started to tell people about the new youth church, we called it a 'radical church,' people heard about it and wanted to come and see, and as a leader i felt the pressure to make everything we do different and 'Radical' to live out our name.
i soon realised that we as a church need to do whats right for us and not the viewers, whether it's Radical or Normal.
A old tramp called Sam walked into church one day with a old ripped and tatty bible which Sam had found in a bin. As Sam sat down on the church pew, people began to move from the area which he was sitting in because of the fierce smell from Sam’s messy clothes. After the service finished the vicar walked up to him and said, "did you enjoy the service?" Sam replied "Yes it was Good" the vicar then said "what I want you to do is, go away and pray and ask God what sort of clothes you should wear in this church"
So Sam went away for a week and asked God what he should wear in the church.
The next Sunday Sam when to church in the same clothes and same tatty bible, and the ladies moved away again. After the service the vicar came up to him and said, "did you not ask God what you should wear in church?"
Sam said, "yes I did ask God what I should wear in this church and he said he didn't know because he had never been in this church before."
Can we begin to enter into what Jesus went through?
this picture scares me to bits, click on it to see the big picture.
I got it from pilgrims progress site.
Worship is your heart in the way you live your life, worship isn't just singing a lovely song with a great melody! When we go to church on a sunday do we go with a heart of worship, or a hunger to be entertained? Do we see talks as just fluff or is it all part of the experence of worship? Have we really opened our eyes to what worhip is REALLY all about.
i saw this and thought, is this sometimes the first impression we give in church to outsiders???
click here to see the site i got it from
i was watching smallville the tv program the other day and thought it was brilliant, it had tones of symbolism to 'superboy' being Jesus, i'm not sure whether every episode has got it, but it got me thinking weather we could watch a whole episode in church and see what God might be saying to us through the symbolism. Maybe do some group work after to discuss.
taken from: http://www.embody.co.uk
Which door leads to more happiness?
Which door leads to the perfect relationship?
Which door leads to the most fulfilling career?
i was helping some mates move house today who were totally stressed about it. They said the only thing that makes them carry on is that God had opened the door for them, it got me thinking about what was hard about steping out in faith wasn't the pushing of the door but the actual stepping through the door.
taken from: http://asbojesus.wordpress.com
I don't wana be known as the generation that showed Jesus in all our actions and forgot to tell them about Jesus!
It has done my head in for ages, when i see a amazing video on youtube but i can't play it in my church because i don't have the internet in the building. Well my mate found a program (i think its only for mac's) that will download any youtube video!!!!!! It's called tubesock and i have used it. Works a treat.
click here for the link
chears Nath
I often check pilgrims progress site because the guy is a genius and makes amazing worship backgrounds for free. You will have to download a free flash player if you don't have one. Just save the page and then open it with flash.
click here for a great one
Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.
A question comes to mind.
Am I climbiing the mountain I need to climb, or a I climbing the mountain others say I should be?
whats this all about??? How can the world create a type of milk just for cats, but we can't create a type of church just for young people?
God's challenge to us is to not to get stale and religious but to keep on moving forward in our relationship with Jesus as a community. I think one way of stopping us from hitting a massive wall in church is to ask ourselves harsh questions every 3 months to see where we are and whether we have moved forward/backward or not at all.
Vision Questions:
What risks are we taking?
• How much do we depend on Jesus?
What changes have we made in the last 3 months?
Have we grown?
• Numbers
• Spiritually
• Individuals
Have we networked with other/members churches?
What weakness’ have there been?
• What have we learned?
• What needs to change?
What is God prompting us?
• Vision
• Direction
What Gifts are we using/not using?
How has the worship Developed?
What ministry is happening?
• One to one
• Holy spirit
What are our traditions?
How are we using our money?
Practical:
Have there been any child protection issues?
Have there been any health and safety issues?
What changes do we need in the building?
At church a few months ago, we experimented with silent worship with our young people and it was a night not to forget! All we did was sit in front of the cross for 15mins in our own space and wait on God.
What can i say the reaction wasn't what i expected, God spoke to our young people in a massive way, with visions and peace.
What i realised from this experence is that God is waiting to burst out and speak to us, and all it takes is a listening ear, is it true we can be so wrapped up in our singing, preaching, bible reading,programs etc... that we don't give God room to breath in our lives.
a lad gave me this note because he was so lost for words that he couldn't speak.
