The Lightfoot Lane Blog

We are sending out the monthly Pastor’s Printout electronically. If you would like to get a copy please add your name and email address on the form in this link. You can also select to receive the Weekly Bulletins this way.

This months Pastor’s Printout looks at:

• The grace of giving
• Are resources your ministry?
• A diamond in the rough
• Missions matters: Where did your money go?

Sometimes I think that everything I know – everyone else also knows, I’m then surprised when I find out that they don’t. I’ve had a few conversations recently with people who aren’t aware of the Bible Study resources that are available for free online.

I use a number of different bible study resources most days and here are a couple of them:

BibleGateway.com

Bible Gateway is the please I prefer to go to for Bible translations, but also for some of the reference material. I find the commentaries particularly useful. Once upon a time the number of versions of the Bible available online was quite limited – not any more. BibleGateway has 22 different English version and some of them are also available in audio format so you can sit back and listen.

They also have a mobile site for smaller screens, but I tend to use YouVersion for that.

YouVersion.com

YouVersion is another Bible site. The interface is a bit more modern that BibleGateway, they have 18 different English versions currently. There are some really nice tricks in the interface, I particularly like the ability to show two different texts, with two different versions side by side using the Parallel feature. They have audio versions too.

Their aim is to provide you with all of the facilities you need for Bible study with places to journal, the capability to make notes and provide contributions to a particular passage.

They’ve recently introduced a Reading Plan capability. I’m currently working through a reading plan for the Gospels and really enjoying it. The reading plans allow you to set the duration for your reading and to mark off each sections as you’ve completed it. While it shouldn’t be about marking-off parts of the Bible as read it’s great to be able to track your progress.

I’m a real fan of the mobile applications from YouVersion. My mobile device is a BlackBerry, but they also do an iPhone, Android, Java and plain browser version. Most of the features are available in the mobile version, the benefit is that you can take it with you.

The reading plans are synchronised between the online version and the mobile version which I make use of most days because I prefer to use my BlackBerry for my Bible reading.

What online tools do you find useful?

I was going to try and write a reflection on this weekends services, but someone else has said it better than I ever could.

Some reflections on Psalm 3 – Conquering Fear:

Hi Andrew

I know I’m probably stating the obvious but thought I would send these thoughts. 

Absalom and  David: How not to deal with anger and the importance of forgiveness.

Absalom was angry because David did nothing to help his sister Tamar after she was raped by his half brother. This anger led Absalom to murder his half brother and plot against David. A good example of how anger can lead to sin and the consequences for Absalom was his death and David, as said last week, was upheld by God because he turned to God in humility and submission.

Absalom allowed his anger to fester, he became bitter and resentful and sought revenge but his revenge did not bring peace and happiness quite the opposite, it gave him grief, misery and ultimately death.

Our way to life is to bring our hurts to the cross to the only one who has the power to heal giving it to God and having a forgiving heart towards those who hurt us and leaving God to "punish" the aggressors as He is the only one who truly knows all sides.

As Absalom allowed resentment to colour his feelings it destroyed his relationship with his father which he was never able to restore.

Absalom’s life is an example of wasted years and broken hearts that can result when communication breaks down within a family and major issues are not dealt with effectively and decisively.  It also shows the consequences of allowing anger to turn to bitterness are hurts can never be healed while we harbour resentments.

As you might imagine I find the relationship between David and Absalom and the dysfunctional family of David very powerful but I do feel that it has a clear message of the damage of unforgiveness and the consequences of acting in anger and how destructive anger can be.

Anger has to be expressed safely so it can be used in a constructive manner as Ephesians 4 v26-27 says "Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry for anger gives a mighty foothold to the Devil"

Circumstances or events can make us angry and we need to find ways to let go of the initial anger so it does not fester to destroy relationships

Again Ephesians 4 v31-32 Get rid of all bitterness rage anger harsh works and slander as well as all types of malicious behaviour. Instead be kind to one another tender hearted forgiving one another just as God through Christ has forgiven you.

Just imagine how different Absalom and David’s relationship could have been if Absalom had been able to communicate effectively with David and David had listened and taken the appropriate action with his half brother and again though we aren’t told much about Tamar no doubt she felt rejected by David’s apathy!!

As you can probably tell David’s family strikes a deep chord in me.

Heather

This week we started out on a whole new series in or morning services looking at the Psalms. We’ve called it Life Stories because it links a Psalm with a particular moment in the life of those that wrote it.

We each have a life story and they aren’t always full of joyful episodes.

This week Andrew looked at how we might know real joy from Psalm 18.

I love reading the Psalms, I love the wonderful mix of emotions. They aren’t a set of sickly nice platitudes, they deal with real situations, real struggles, wonderful exaltation, glorious highs and desperate lows.

Personally, it was great to be reminded that joy doesn’t depend upon the situation, it depends upon the person in who you trust.

We’re not having a set series in the evenings this term, we’re just going where the Spirit leads us. Our normal motto for evening services is Worship and Word, it’s a time of worship in which the word of God is allowed the time to speak to us.

This Sunday evening Chris continued his Facing Life’s Giants series looking at the issue of debt.

I’ve just been listening to the radio where an economist was talking about the debt that each household in the UK is carrying around. The numbers are eye-watering.

There are many reasons that people are in debt, some of them self-inflicted, but many are as the result of circumstance or the greed of others.

God doesn’t want us to live in debt – and it’s good to know that He has an answer and the means to redeem our situation. That doesn’t mean that redemption is going to  be easy, sometimes God does change things in the blink of an eye, at other times He wants us to walk a journey with Him.

If you are struggling with debt then there are things that we can do and people who can help you. Don’t struggle alone, reach out to the church office and someone will walk the journey with you.

As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts and stories so please do leave a comment letting us know what God is doing in your life.

One of the thoughts that occurred to me this weekend was how our relationship with Jesus is relevant to every part of our life. We divide our life into boxes – physical, spiritual, mental – but Jesus wants to be in all of them.

Chris looked at the practical Christian living that the letter to Philemon tackles. The background to this letter is that Paul is writing to his friend Philemon about one of his slaves who ran away and has since become a believer.  A practical issue to which Paul gives practical advice in the name of Jesus.

The Holy Spirit has sometimes been called the Cinderella of the Trinity. Andrew used an encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus in John 3 to highlight the importance of the spirit in each and every new birth. Jesus often spoke in parables, but sometimes he spoke in graphic illustrations. When Jesus was talking about birth in spirit he wasn’t using a parable, he was using a graphic illustration where the parallels are deliberate.

For me personally Sunday evening was a significant time. I tend to be involved in some many practical things on a Sunday that sometimes it’s difficult to focus on worship. It was really nice to be in a God place.

Last weekend we were involved in the national Back to Church Sunday campaign and it was great to have some people join us who we haven’t seen in a while.

A special thank you to everyone who invited a friend or a family member to come along. It’s not always an easy thing to invite someone to come back to something they’ve left.

And a special thank you to everyone who made the decision to come. It’s not always easy to return to something you’ve left.

The theme for Back to Church Sunday was “Come as you are”.  Jesus had a wonderful way of including everyone; rich, poor, old, young, high society, low society. The people of Jesus are instructed to do exactly the same.

There is always a way back with Jesus and I hope that we will always reflect that in the way that we treat people. If your reading this and wondering whether you could return to church, I’d like to encourage you to give it a go, there’s a welcome waiting for you.

In his introduction to the subject of temptation this weekend Trevor Crawford asked a series of questions to see if any of us were above temptation or below temptation.

One of the questions was whether anyone was too intelligent to be above temptation to which one of the young people apparently said: “if he isn’t too intelligent there isn’t much hope for the rest of us” (meaning Trevor himself).

The conclusion, of course, is that we all face temptation. And, if we are honest we all give in to them more often than we would like to admit.

We can read the story of Genesis 1 (excellently read by some of the young people) and condemn Adam and Eve for their lack of self-control, but none of us can be sure that we would fair any better put in the same situation.

Here’s a summary of Trevor’s advice for coping with temptation:

• Step 1: Understand God’s safety barriers
• Step 2: Disengage your attention from the temptation
• Step 3: Turn to Jesus
• Step 4: Read God’s word
• Step 5: Trust God to provide spiritual escape routes

Mansell Morgan visited us from Manchester to bring us a different message from 1 Peter 2:

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

1 Peter 2

The words that spoke to me were these words:

Make known the greatness of God by knowing His greatness.

It’s very easy to forget who we are and Mansell’s message is a great reminder, but it’s also a great reminder that there is a purpose to being a “chosen people”.

• Temptation: Trevor Crawford
• 1 Peter 2: Mansell Morgan

There’s been no updates from me over the last few weeks because I’ve had the wonderful privilege of being on holiday. We went to Italy and it was very, very, nice indeed.

I’ll return to writing a regular Weekend Reflections post when I’ve been around for one, which should be next week. In the meantime, I’ve just uploaded all of the podcasts for the last three weeks:

• Real Time: Dave Sewell
• Luke 24: Andrew Gardner
• Dealing with Depression: Andrew Gardner
• The Lost Sheep: Dave Bilsborough & The Lost Son: Dave Riley
• Psalm 32: Andrew Gardner
• The Hope for the Nation: Chris Drury

Off you go now and enjoy.

I hope that you all realise that you can also take the podcasts away with you. There’s a few ways of doing it.

If you just want a cope of the MP3 file simply right-click (in Windows) on the “Download” link and select where you want the file to be saved. You select where you want to save the file by selecting “Save Link As” in Firefox or “Save Target As” in Internet Explorer.

You can also subscribe in iTunes by following this link:

I listened to quite a few podcasts in Italy from a number of different church it’s a great way of getting different teaching.

I’m really enjoying writing these Weekend Reflections posts. I hope you are too, but to be honest it’s doing me so much good that I think I would carry on anyway.

A big thank you to those of you who have responded either through comments or in person; I know others have been blessed by the encouragement so please do keep it up.

This weekend was our Junior Church Prize Giving Sunday. One of the areas where we have been very blessed is in Junior Church, they are a great bunch of leaders and hugely creative in what they do. The annual Prize Giving has become an event where we celebrate that creativity. In recent years we have been treated to a wonderful production taking the whole of the morning service, this year it was the story of Esther. The creative part was to parallel the story of Esther with Star Wars, yes really.

If your idea of a Junior Church play is something that is a bit naff you are on completely the wrong page. The team do a remarkable job from writing all the way through to performing. To quote someone else:

I think the play was by far the best drama I have ever seen done in a Church service. So much fun and humour and yet without comprising the biblical content.

There are some pictures over on Facebook, if you have the right access, I’m sure there will be more later.

It’s a real highlight. Well done team and thank you for all of your hard work it was well worth the effort,

In the evening Andrew looked at some of his life “axioms”. I must admit that I didn’t know what an axiom was so here’s a little definition for you:

Axiom – noun

1. a self-evident truth that requires no proof.

2. a universally accepted principle or rule.

3. Logic, Mathematics. a proposition that is assumed without proof for the sake of studying the consequences that follow from it.

Andrew talked about three of his life’s axioms:

Church making is heart breaking; church mending is never ending

The how needs to be as holy as the what and the where

Walk towards people you struggle with

They are profound thoughts and come as words from Andrew’s heart. They are also challenging words. Many people see church as a nice little club where people smile at each other but it’s certainly not that. It’s a wonderful, glorious, frustrating, lovely, amazing, weird, lovely, tearful, refining, holy community of people. If it’s just a club then we are missing the purpose of why Jesus came.

It’s an interesting thought, what are the “self-evident truths” that govern our lives. I’m sure that some of the axioms that I live by need to be challenged because they aren’t really truths at all, but there are another set that are truths and symbolise my life. One of them for me is actually my family’s official motto “as well as I am able”. It would be interesting to make a list and see what the results were. I’ve been trying for the last couple of years to write another axiom into my heart and that is “there is a blessing to be found in everything” and that’s mainly what I write about on my other blog; sometimes you have to live a saying to make it into axiom. I suppose that take me onto another on of my axioms – “the longest distance in the world is from the Head to the Heart”.

• Axioms – sayings which keep me sane: Andrew Gardner

I’m only going to comment on one of our Sunday services this week and that’s for very simple reasons. The first reason is that I wasn’t there, that wouldn’t normally be a problem because I would listen to the podcast afterwards. That leads us on to the second reason, there were some technical problems in recording the podcast for the evening service so I can’t listen to it. So, sorry about that.

The evening service would have been an interesting listen too, it was, from what I understand, more of a discussion between Andrew Gardner and Chris Drury on questions sent in by people via SMS text message. I always like to see a bit of innovation.

I can, however, comment on the morning service. This week Andrew Gardner looked into the encouraging words of Philippians 4.

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:4-7

Every time I read this passage the words that speaks to me are “do not be anxious about anything”. I am, by nature, a busy worrier and God has spoken to me about it many many times.

Every time I feel myself getting over-busy or over-anxious (the two things often go together) I remind myself of some things.

I help to lead a programme called Celebrate Recovery and one of the things that we say there is that worry is form of not trusting God enough. If we trusted God enough we wouldn’t be anxious, so we need to trust.

A few years back I read a great book by Bill Hybels called Too Busy Not to Pray, the title of the book comes back to me over-and-over again. Trying to do life in my own strength will only result in more frustration, more busyness and more anxiety.

Sometimes I also remember the words of the poem that Andrew mentioned (once he had remembered it):

Said the robin to the sparrow,
“I should really like to know,
Why these anxious human beings
Rush about and worry so.”

Said the sparrow to the robin,
“Friend I think that it must be,
That they have no Heavenly Father,
Such as cares for you and me.”

~~Unknown Author

I’ve recently had conversations with people that have gone along the lines “how come you’ve got it all together”, the simple answer is that I haven’t and I still need reminding, as Andrew put it, to:

• Stop, don’t keep going make space to pray
• Tell God everything – what is happening, what you feel.
• Thanks God for provision, grace, strength and possibilities
• Ask God to change things but…
• Trust His will, His wisdom, His ways.

We do have a Heavenly Father and He does care for us in abundant love grace and patience.

• Encouraging Prayer: Andrew Gardner.

At the end of the service on of our number felt that God wanted them to share these words:

This is what the LORD says: 
"Cursed is the one who trusts in man, 
who depends on flesh for his strength 
and whose heart turns away from the LORD.

He will be like a bush in the wastelands; 
he will not see prosperity when it comes. 
He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, 
in a salt land where no one lives.

"But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, 
whose confidence is in him.

He will be like a tree planted by the water 
that sends out its roots by the stream. 
It does not fear when heat comes; 
its leaves are always green. 
It has no worries in a year of drought 
and never fails to bear fruit."

Jeremiah 17:5-8