As Andrew, Ian or anyone else says ‘amen’, or a similar word, it’s always followed by a cough.

I don’t have anything profound to say about this, it’s just an observation .

• Psalm 42: Andrew Gardner
• Break out from Burnout – Romans 8: Ian Higginbotham

Both Andrew and Ian encouraged us to take some time to consider what the things were that drained us, and what the things were that filled us up using the following picture as a guide.

The Well Being Reservoir ready for you to complete (If you click on the picture you will get a larger version if you would prefer to print it out):

The Well Being Reservoir with some ideas of fillers and drainers:

The ideas on this picture are only ideas, the things that we place at the top or the bottom will be different for each of us.

I’m sure that there are many who would be surprised by the different people who are already milling about at that time.

The band are already there and practice is already well underway. This isn’t the only time that the band have practiced the songs, they’ve already spent time in the week.

The person who is leading the service is already there too. They are checking that everything is OK with everyone. They’ve already been thinking about this service for some time. They’ve made sure the band know the plan for the songs. They’ve checked with a few people about the notices that need highlighting. They’ve considered prayers, introductions, welcome, closing and all sorts of other things that make a service a place where people can come close to God.

The person on the sound desk is already there making adjustments so that the sound is at the right level for the singers, the vocalists, the speakers and those listening.

I’m there on the visuals desk lining up the songs, checking and rechecking that we’ve got the right ones and the right order. There’s a video and that’s been checked too (people have spent hours in the week getting it ready). The presentation for the sermon is also checked. The projector and televisions are all turned on and we are ready to go.

The signers are setting up. They’ve already looked through the material that they’ve been provided with from the leader and the preacher earlier in the week.

There are stewards around too. They’re putting the cones out at the front of church and making sure that everything is in order. They’re getting ready to greet people and hand out the notices (which someone has edited, reviewed, printed and folded). They’ve set up the stage with the screen for the signers and made sure that the front is clean and tidy.

The junior church team are already there setting up ready for the children to come through at the appropriate time. They’ve also been preparing in the week so that they can communicate in a way that is relevant to the children.

The team that are doing refreshments are also there making coffee ready to go into flasks for the early rush after the service. They’re setting up plates of biscuits, jugs of milk, tubs of sugar and mountains of cups.

On a normal Sunday the band for ignite would also be practicing in Cypress along with their visuals, sounds people and catering team. This week the young people are sitting in with the adults.

The preacher is also there making sure that the presentation is OK and getting a microphone fitted. They’ve prayed for and prepared the message that they believe God wants them to bring. On most weeks they’d be bringing a message in a series that itself has been prayed for and prepared.

Church is a community activity – a community of servants. We are very blessed to have so many willing servants.

Thank you servants. Thank you Lord.

We make choices all the time; whether that’s the seemingly simple choice of what clothes to wear, or more significant choices that affect our futures.

This series looks at a set of choices that we can make that will lead us to healing and wholeness:

• Choice 1: Admitting Need – The Reality Choice
• Choice 2: Getting Help – The Hope Choice
• Choice 3: Letting Go – The Commitment Choice
• Choice 4: Coming Clean – The Housecleaning Choice
• Choice 5: Making Changes – The Transformation Choice
• Choice 6: Repairing Relationships – The Relationship Choice
• Choice 7: Maintaining Momentum – The Growth Choice
• Choice 8: Recycling Pain – The Sharing Choice

Andrew Gardner kicked off the series looking at what it takes for us to admit our need. We can spend much of our life denying our needs, it’s only when we hit a crisis point or we are confronted by our needs that we are forced to recognise that they exist. We like to tell ourselves that we are doing alright, but God, our loving Father, wants more than that for us, He wants to take us beyond “alright” into His abundance. He has more than enough for us. Those of us who have been Christians for a while can be the worst at this because we feel the need for everything to appear to be fine.

One of the things that you won’t pick up from the podcast is the visual nature of Andrew’s opening illustration. If you listen in you’ll find him talking about moving things from a briefcase to a rucksack to help his back. While he is talking about moving physical things, the things that he showed as he moved were some of the needs that he recognises in his own life. It’s a great illustration of what God wants to do for us, He doesn’t want to strip us of our identity, but He does want to change those things that have defined us. We’ll talk some more about that in the coming weeks.

This series is based on a book of the same name – Life’s Healing Choices – by John Baker. A number of people are also working through the book as we work through the sermon series. While each one of these messages has value in it’s own right the set of choices also work together to lead us along a journey of discovery, so please take the time and effort to listen to all eight. The podcasts for these series are here.

We’d also love to hear from you and how God is impacting you – you can leave a comment against this blog, but if you’d like a more personal conversation then please contact us at the church office.

To leave a comment on this blog click on “Leave a comment” at the bottom of this section.

• Being in the presence of God: Andrew Gardner
• Matthew 5 – How blessed are those who know their need of God: Simon Airey
• Confession – one of God’s life support systems (part 1): Rob Whittaker
• Confession – one of God’s life support systems (part 2): Rob Whittaker
• Please God: Increase my faith in You and teach me to live by faith: Trevor Crawford
• Why do children and young people matter so much? Dave Sewell
• Nehemiah 2 – Changing for Glory: Andrew Gardner
• Psalm 134 – Who keeps the lights on? Andrew Gardner
• Rested? A summer wellbeing check: Ian Higginbotham
• Acts 2 – Belonging: Mark Sleet
• Psalm 48: Marcie Huson
• Acts 1 – There must be more than this: Graham Norcross

I’m sure there are all sorts of threads and couplings, but the one that keeps coming back to me is a picture that I have of God whispering into our ear:

“Come with me. Let’s go on an adventure. I want to take you to places you haven’t seen before, deep places, exciting places.”

What’s your reaction to those words?

My sister and her family were visiting at the weekend, she has two young boys who are full of life. Given the glorious weather we decided to take a walk in the Lake District from Windermere up to the top of Orrest Head. Nothing too strenuous for the little ones, but a place for tremendous views.

As we started out the smallest of the two wanted carrying, so I said to him “shall we go on an adventure?” His eyes lit up and we were off, up and over rocks, through short-cuts, turning old sticks into walking sticks, exploring. Bit by bit the walk became an adventure for everyone else too.

At one point we turned a corner and there in a clearing in the full sunlight stood a young deer, looking up at us – I’m sure it was smiling at us. There were lots of people out on the walk that day, but I’m sure that none of them saw the deer, but we did because we were on an adventure.

How are you going to react to Jesus whisper? Are you going to be an adult who looks at all of the options and weighs them up so that they choose the least risk option? Or are you going to be a child who chooses an adventure?

Are you willing to let him take you on an adventure to new places, deep places, exciting places?

At that, Jesus rejoiced, exuberant in the Holy Spirit. “I thank you, Father, Master of heaven and earth, that you hid these things from the know-it-alls and showed them to these innocent newcomers. Yes, Father, it pleased you to do it this way.

Luke 10:21

Sometimes we go through seasons when the underlying theme for Sunday talks is planned, at others we leave it open to the Holy Spirit to move the people bringing the talk. This time it’s a bit of both. Ian Higginbotham has planned for a while to do a set of three talks on relationships: making, maintaining and ending. We’ve had two so far:

• Relationships (1) – Making: Ian Higginbotham
• Relationships (2) – Maintaining Healthy Relationships: Ian Higginbotham

These are both excellent practical talks about how we interact with people on a day-by-day basis. But beyond Ian’s planned talks we’ve also been asked to think again about our attitude towards relationships in the evening in messages from Mark Sleet and Paul Jackson:

• Luke 15 – The Parable of the Loving Father: Mark Sleet
• A better way to live…:Paul Jackson

Sometimes I, for one, can get wrapped up in the programme of things, the activity, the doing. These talks remind us of the things that are important to God, and God is a God of relationship.

God is love.

1 John 4:16

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.

Ephesians 2:4

In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven.

Matthew 5:45

Working on the technical side of things means that I see all sorts of things when we meet on a Sunday morning – I notice problems, things that shouldn’t be the way they are, gremlins. If we were there for a performance this would be a problem, but we aren’t there for a performance we are there as a family to meet our father. I try to imagine our meeting a bit like an old time gathering around the fire, there’s no TV so everyone brings a song, or a poem, or a story. While the event is entertaining, it’s real purpose is to bind everyone together and cement everyone into the family. It’s about the relationships.

We should take note of the themes in the Bible that reoccur, and you can’t read far in the Bible without coming across a section on relationships – people to people, people to God, God to people.

When God repeats a theme to a body of people we should, likewise, sit up and listen.

What is God saying to you about the relationships that you keep?

• Are you a relationship builder?
• Are you a relationship bleeder?
• Are you a relationship maintainer?
• Are you a relationship destroyer?
• Are you enthusiastic in your relationships?
• Are you passive in your relationships?

Taking the challenge from Paul Jackson – what would it mean for you to lead a one-plus-one life?

When you see someone preparing a sermon you start to realise the amount of effort that they put into it. It’s not as simple as just chucking some words down and hoping that it’s what God wants you to say.

There are times at work when I could present for an hour without needing any preparation, I know my subject and I know what needs to be said in a given context. Preaching isn’t like that, preaching is about hearing something from God and bringing that.

Even when we are doing a series I know that the preachers are all trying to bring the thing that they believe God would want them to say.

There’s a challenge in this preparation to those of us who are going to sit and listen. If this person is going to say something that God wants to be said; is that the way in which we listen to it. I am sure that if I knew that God had sent a special envoy to say something specifically to me I would take full attention of what they have to say. Is that the way we treat the preachers?

Jonah was given a message to bring to Nineveh. He hated the people from Nineveh, and with good reason, they were awful. But God had a message for them and he wanted Jonah to deliver it.

Jonah ran away, but God had other plans and eventually Jonah was back in Nineveh.

From the accounts in the Bible it doesn’t sound like Jonah was a great orator, he wasn’t funny, he didn’t soften them up with a witty story, he just brought God’s message.

"Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned."

Jonah 3:4

That’s apparently all he said, not that great a sermon really, but it was a message from God and the people heard it and changed.

If you are going to church tomorrow who are you expecting to hear from?

We’d had friends around for Sunday lunch and had spent all afternoon talking and enjoying the fine English spring weather. This meant that we hadn’t done the washing up, so that was my job while everyone else was out.

About half way through the washing up a started to wash one of the cooking dishes, but instead managed to break it, and in so doing put quite a nasty gash across my thumb.

While trying to stop it bleeding I wondered to myself whether I should just patch it up, or whether a trip to A&E was in order. Knowing that A&E gets busy on a Sunday evening later on I decided that I’d go early, rather than leave it and wait even longer. I’d managed to stop the bleeding enough to enable me to drive, so off I went.

Having checked in I sat in the reception waiting for my turn to see the triage nurse.

As I looked around I wondered about each of my fellow casualties story.

For some it was obvious what they had done, but how did they get that gash on their head.

For other’s it was obvious that alcohol had played a significant part in the story.

For the couple in the corner she’d clearly had something to do with his cut hand, and he wasn’t happy about it.

There was another couple and he was getting more and more frustrated with her lack of understanding of how Sudoku works.

There was the lady who was struggling with stomach pains for more than three days.

I whole mix of society.

There were those who you could tell were well paid and then there was the bearded man who looked like he was carrying all of his earthly belongings.

I couldn’t imagine any of them went to church, or that Jesus was even a consideration in their life – but I heard a sentence in my head over and over again:

“I love these people”

I had my thumb x-rayed and dressed and then drove home wondering…

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

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.