Poured Out

Trying something new this week.  Tomorrow I leave for a three day retreat with some friends.  They have both been on the preaching week I ran in Kent, where we became good friends.  We decided to take three days away to wrestle with some specific aspects of preaching and spur each other on in ways we couldn’t wth a beginner’s course.  A couple of others are unfortunately not able to join us, but it should be a good time together.  Please pray for us as we think through how to preach Proverbs, evaluate a preaching book that we’ve all read and invest in each other’s lives and ministries.  Along with the retreat and study times, there are also some strategic plans that we’d like to prayerfully think through together.  Please pray for these days to be highly strategic.  I preach Sunday morning in Carlisle and then return home Sunday evening.  Please also pray for Melanie and the children here.  Aunt Carol arrives on Friday, which should be a blessing to all.   Thanks!

First, thank you for praying for last night if you did.  It was an uneventful evening as far as journey was concerned, and the meeting went well.  Small church, but that is the way the majority of churches are, at least in Europe!  Please pray for small churches in this country and across Europe to see breakthroughs in evangelism and effective ministry.  Now, here’s a question.  Do you find this site to be slower than other sites you visit?  We’ve had some issues in this respect and would like to find out if people are noticing.  If it is noticeably slower than other sites, please submit a comment and describe it to us, including the time (and your time zone) when you noticed.  Thanks so much!

Yesterday and tomorrow I am driving good distances to preach. If last night is anything to go by, it is so worth it. Almost three hours driving each way. Leicester University is up in the middle of the country. They have their “missions week” coming up in about a month – a week of intensive outreach to the students on campus. These weeks happen in most universities. Pray for Leicester and other universities since this is such a strategic outreach. Leading up to that they have three weeks in the first three chapters of Romans. So last night I was asked to teach Romans 1:18-2:11. Quite a chunk in a limited time, but worth it. As one student said to me, “I used to not care at all about evangelism, until I really understood the gospel, now I’m very involved.” So last night we talked about how lost the lost really are.

Then there are the half dozen decent conversations afterwards too. People thinking about Bible school and missions. Pray for them to be able to follow through and pursue these options. As I’ve said before, often the strongest opposition comes from well-meaning Christians who feel it is their duty to encourage young people to get a “real” education, get married, get a mortgage, get a job, etc. (I still can’t fathom why people think that is helpful advice to someone actually in a position to get equipped for ministry or get involved in missions! It’s like saying, “Oh you want to run a race, great idea, but first tie your legs to this post and your arms to this gate and wear these heavy clothes that you can’t remove and once you’re all enmeshed, then great, go for it!”) If someone actually has the motivation to go to Bible school or into missions, let’s be among the few that get behind them, encourage them, support them!

Tomorrow evening I am at a fairly small church a couple of hours away. They invited me a long time ago, a friend of a friend I think. But I am excited about it. Numbers are not the concern. The opportunity to help people understand and live out the teaching of the Bible is the concern. We’ll be in the last half of 1Peter chapter 1. Thanks for praying for the journey, the preaching, the interactions.

Peter is on his way home from Leicester. He should arrive about 1am. I am not good at going to bed without him. So here I am bleary eyed at the computer. Here is a “family funny” for you.

The last few days have been sunny here. Although it’s been cold, the kids have gone out in the garden to play a bit. Yesterday I was pushing Mariah and Joel on the swings and Mariah noticed an airplane in the sky. She pointed it out and then started jabbering away. I wasn’t paying close attention but I soon realized she was saying something funny so I started asking her questions. She told me that “the animals were all up in the airplane.” I asked which animals. She said cows and kangaroos. I asked what they were doing up there. She said “eating” and there is a man who rides them. What an imagination! A few minutes later, Hannah came up and asked me if I could get the candle lighter for her. I asked why. She said to light the dead grasses they had picked because they wanted to make a campfire! After I said,”Absolutely not!” I asked her if she thought that that campfire thing was a good idea. She grinned as if to say, I knew but I thought I’d ask anyway!

On a more serious note, I am reading The Tanglewood Secret by Patricia St. John to the older girls before they go to bed.  It’s a very sweet but thought-provoking book with the gospel in it very clearly.  Hannah has read some of the others by the same author.  I remember reading them as a child and I am enjoying them again.  They are worth checking out . . .

Look for Peter’s Leicester CU report tomorrow.

Tomorrow evening I am going to speak at a Christian Union.  Just an explanation for non-Brits reading the site: a Christian Union is essentially the society of evangelicals at a secular university (all universities are essentially secular here).  So I’ll be driving up to Leicester (2.5hrs I think) and speaking to a group of around 100 students from the early part of Romans (1:18-start of 2).  I always seem to enjoy speaking to students – sharp thinkers, hungry learners, at a key time in their lives.  Please pray for preparation, safe travel, effective ministry and good interpersonal connections too.  I intend to drive home after, even though it will be the middle of the night.  Thanks!

In some ways this was a tough weekend and we are fairly drained at the end of it.  However, the preaching seminar seemed to go well, thankfully.  There were 22 present, from about 10 different churches.  Some of them travelling a long distance to be there.  The day went well.  As always I see things that I can improve for next time, but I shouldn’t allow perfectionistic tendencies to detract from the fact that the Lord answered prayer and it was a good day.  We’re hoping to do a follow-up event later in the year or next year focusing on preaching narrative texts.  So Sunday morning I drove back to Guildford again and preached the sermon we worked on on Saturday.  I think it went well.  Honestly, the sermon from 1Cor.15:50-58 was something I needed to hear.  Hopefully it was a help to others too!  So if you prayed for this weekend, thank you.

We finished yesterday with an answered prayer too. As I was putting Aliyah in her bed she told me she didn’t have her “blankie.”   We searched the house in vain.  Then she told us she’d taken it to church.  So finally I decided to drive over to church, even though everyone had left.  I was able to pull up on the sidewalk/pavement, open the door and pick it up.  I got home to find Aliyah praying about it with Melanie . . . cute.  Tears dried, back to bed, all ended well.  (Aliyah reappeared a bit later and gave Melanie the blankie – “it smells, can you wash it?” – so knowing it was safe and sound she finally went to sleep!)

Last night, Peter prayed that today would be a good day despite the fact that in human terms it looked like it could be a difficult day. I won’t go into details, but the past few days have been difficult for us. We have experienced some unexpected sadness and challenges that have been quite consuming. After the film night, we went to bed very late, with a lot on our minds. (The Oasis film night, by the way went really well! Thanks for praying!) Peter usually has the incredible gift of sleep while I occasionally can’t sleep because of being stressed or over-tired. So, I only got a few hours last night BUT today was great! Right off the bat, a Bible verse came up in my reading that Peter and I had discussed last night. Too much of a coincidence not to be a God thing! Aliyah, who has been struggling lately, was very happy and obedient today. Yay! And I read a few things in a book that really touched and helped me. Also, I had a friend over from Open House (mother and toddler group) who I was able to invite to our church’s Christianity Explored course. We had a good conversation about God that I think will lead to more talks in the future. It seems we are building a good friendship. So, now at the end of the day, I am tired but very thankful at how God cared for me today. We would appreciate your prayers that we would lean on God for all we need at the moment. Peter continues his teaching tomorrow in Guildford. I’m sure he will report soon on how the weekend went!

I should have put this on earlier, but just in case you read this in the next couple of hours.  Tonight is the Oasis book club movie night.  The ladies are downstairs enjoying each other’s food.  (I’m upstairs also enjoying their food, although maybe I can be forgiven since I didn’t eat dinner yet!)  Hannah is having a “sleepover” with Aliyah and Mariah, which they seem to be enjoying at the moment.  Meanwhile the ladies will soon head down the street to watch the film at our friend’s house.  The movie is “At the End of the Spear” – the story of the missionaries to Ecuador told from the perspective of Steve Saint, pilot Nate Saint’s son.  We’re praying that the evening will be a real blessing to all of them, and that the film will also be challenging and helpful.  Melanie and I were both blessed when we saw it in the cinema, it’s only a shame more people didn’t see it.  Anyway, I’m sure Melanie will let you know how tonight went.  Thanks!

So here’s the lowdown on this weekend.  Essentially I’ve taken a five day course and reduced it to one day.  That means less material to cover, and the participants don’t get to preach (which is a key part of the longer course).  The benefit is that it is much more accessible to people.  So tomorrow we will go from 9am until 5pm.  At the moment there are 22 participants from about 10 churches across southern England.  We will work through six sessions so that we all participate together in the process of preparing a biblical sermon.  Then on Sunday morning I will preach that sermon in the church.  (Those unable to be there will receive a DVD of Sunday morning.)  I think this is a great experience for people who preach, but have never had the privilege of training in preaching.  I only wish that we could then all take a longer course too.  So please pray for the participants to travel safely, engage well and learn lots.  Please pray for me (again safe travel, it’s about 45 minutes from here), for my teaching to be clear and effective, for good time management, for Saturday night as I do final preparations for Sunday morning (trying to take onboard the good input from the seminar!), for Sunday morning to be effective ministry (it’s not an exercise Sunday morning, it’s real people in a real church and a real opportunity). Thanks for praying for us.  I’ll give you a report after the weekend!

Perhaps following up on the issues last week, the site may be down at times today for maintenance.  Hopefully this will resolve the issues our host is having with his server provider.  Thanks for your patience.