Led by the Spirit or Dragged by the World?

I have been pretty rubbish at keeping this blog up to date these past weeks. The weird thing is that there has been so much to keep up with that I could probably write a book. This truly is a good time for the church here in Peterhead as far as growth and hope. On the other hand the evidence is also unavoidable that we are a church that is changing too. This past 3 months we have witnessed the passing of three faithful and influential followers of Christ. Yesterday we said goodbye to Ella Brown. Ella was certainly one of the most active of women in the service of God. I can remember when she used to hold a class in her house for boys when I was around 10-12 years old. I have some great childhood memories sitting around Ella's kitchen table making models and rocking chairs from clothes pegs. Ella will be missed!

The truth that faces us here in Peterhead is that we are likely to be witnessing, over the next few years, a number of our elderly passing on to their reward. Only God knows the plans He has for His church here in Peterhead. Although we have a number of elderly brethren who have passed on, or who are on the final part of their earthly journey, we have huge reason to be confident and hopeful that God's Spirit is living and active here. There is a feeling of expectancy and I believe God is active in many lives who are searching and finding purpose amongst us.

We are committed to promoting and encouraging Fellowship! In the past we have neglected this area of rich blessing to our detriment as a church and it is essential for us to get back to the basic foundations that the church needs to be built upon. John and Michelle Campbell had an open house a couple of Saturdays ago and it was good. We had a good mix of the young and old there which is so needed if we are to get a close knit family. We sang for a while and Alex Swango led a devotional thought. One of the great results from that evening was the start of Rachel's journey. Rachel is Thomas' girlfriend and she is very open and close to the kingdom. We talked for a while that evening and set up a time to study further.

When I met with Rachel it was so obvious she was allowing the seed to room to grow. She commented a few times how that before she would say "I just have different beliefs," but now she sees what Christ offers and wants to follow Him. We talked for a couple of hours and I have no doubt that she is giving her life over to God's influence and, God willing, in the very near future we will have a new sister in Christ. We love Rachel's openness and her desire to be with and to be like us "Christians."

Last night when I turned the corner into the building car park I was blown away with what I saw. There was a gathering of about 12 teenagers at the entrance to the Building! It is strange how every now and again we get signs. Last night I got the sign! We have an amazing group coming to Wednesday nights now. I love how they want to be there and be connected with godliness. It's amazing how things turn around. It was not that long ago, maybe 6-8 months ago, that I had concerns about the health of our Wednesday night class. Those concerns have now been set aside and in there place there is praise to God!

Monday night was fantastic. I was feeling very run down and exhausted on Monday. We had a pretty busy weekend (read further to see why). All day Monday I was struggling to get my head together and get focused, but upon arriving at the building and seeing the energy and life that the kids bring I was refreshed and we had a great class. Again I have to mention the desire of the teens here. There were 9 teens there to help out and I am thrilled there is an outlet like Monday nights for them to influence and get involved.

This past weekend we travelled down to Kircaldy. I had been invited to speak at their annual "Social" on the Saturday and also teach and preach on the Sunday. The Social was good. There are brothers and sisters from congregations all over the country get together for a time of fellowship and encouragement. My lesson was titled "Are you being Led by the Spirit or being Dragged by the World." My personal journey in study and prep for this talk was priceless and timely. I know how much I was blessed in preparing and by the comments afterward it seems like we all needed to be reminded to "Strengthen the Stakes and Let out the Cords." We focused on Spirit and Truth. Having our lives anchored in the Truth, but at the same time allowing the Spirit room in our lives to lead us and to advance the kingdom.

On the Sunday we had a great time too and when it was time to leave I knew God had used me and that lives had been brought close to Him. Throughout the weekend I felt weak, but always found the strength when it was needed. God is our Strength! I must say a huge thank you to Tony and Joan Clark who showed my family true hospitality. We were blessed!

Have not mentioned anything about our school ministry, but that will have to wait for another time. Just know that God continues to throw doors open and we are more than willing to walk on through in His name.

In closing please keep us in your prayers. We feel that the harvest is plentiful! I have to be honest with you all and share that we are struggling. There is so much good and at the same time as I mentioned earlier so many changes that they are taking their toll. Fenella is flat out and we feel as if were on our knees. Please keep our family in your prayers. We have the campaign coming up and although the plans and prep are taking shape I fear we will not have the energy to keep on going.

God bless.

Thanks Paddy!

The past days have been a great timely source of refreshment. I can honestly say my tank is full and I have been inspired to get deeper into the word. We had an outstanding weekend with Patrick Sullivan from Dundee. He taught our Friday night teens class and took a series of three lessons over Saturday night and Sunday morning. Paddy was a true servant of our Father's! I am blessed, my family are blessed and our church family have been blessed. The only downside was that we did not get to spend some time with Gemma, but that time will come. I love it when there is a deep connection between people who love the Lord and His Kingdom. We can't wait till our paths cross again!

I am challenged to get back into the swing of keeping this blog current, but it is still a struggle to find the time and discipline to keep it up. I am surrounded by evidence that God is active and that lives are being touched and gently stirred from spiritual sleep. I am hopeful that God has some amazing plans for 2009 and I am almost expecting great things to come soon. Thomas is now a brother in Christ and is doing fabulously. I took him along this morning to our coffee gathering to spend some time with John Campbell, Alex Swango, my Dad and David Chapman. Our "Gatherings" are a great source of encouragement and challenge to get active in kingdom work. In my last entry I mentioned the significance of Thomas and how big a milestone his commitment is. He is a bit unique in that he is our first teenage guy to commit to Christ.

We are getting geared up for our campaign with the Harding group who will arrive in mid May. It is always an exciting, yet challenging time. I have been getting together regularly with Alex to work on how we get the school assembly program to connect with the kids and we are getting it down! The teens have been fantastic too - we have pretty much got the structure for our traditional "Scavenger Hunt" and this year the theme will be based on "Food Fight." Healthy V's Junk food and relate this to how we allow various influences good and bad into our lives. I have a feeling that this years will do the business - God willing!

Here are a bunch of pics from our Monday night's class. I must say a couple of things about the state and growth of this group. This past week the lesson was on David and Bathsheba and Nathan's visit. I gave the kids a test and was totally blown away with the results. Out of the 23 papers only one did not get full marks. What was impressive was the detail in the answers they gave. They pretty much told the whole lesson in their answers. This is amazing! Another pointer is the fact that this term we had 35 kids come to the class and we had 10 who had perfect attendance! I am hugely encouraged that the kids love being with us and the class is somewhere that they want their friends to know about - praise God! I must mention Nathan Best. Nathan last term was a handful, but over this past term he made a pretty dramatic turnabout and managed to get his first MVP Silver award - I am proud of Nathan's efforts! Another I need to mention is Alana Buchan. Alana has been a truly exemplary girl this term - perfect attendance and perfect scores on all the 4 bible tests over the term. Alana is always cheery and is a great example to her cousin Steph.

Alex is doing well with us. He is a lot more settled and I am sensing that he is now happy here. He has a willing attitude and will be a channel for blessing because he wants to serve. The ladies at church are pretty protective of him and feel the need to feed him at every opportunity. I think a training program will soon be high on his priority list.

Well, enough for now - God bless!

Deep Breath!

This has been one of the most challenging months of our ministry. The reason for there being no posts these past weeks is that I have not had enough fuel in the tank to sit down and begin to put into words the events of the past few weeks. Even now as I am typing this there is a heaviness knowing what I must try to express.

We lost another close friend, in fact Ali was more than a close friend, he was our #1 encourager and he had the biggest heart for kids ever. Ali was a giant among men, gentle and attentive. You never left his presence without feeling better about your God and yourself. I was richly blessed and experienced "Holy Ground" because my life was connected to Ali Park and together we were in Christ. Ali is now for sure enjoying his reward and heaven will be resounding with his laughter and maybe a spot of DIY in true Ali fashion. My heart is heavy at the loss of a dear brother and there will, until I'm called home, be an Ali Park gap in my life. However, my spirit is strengthened and my faith is by far the richer because of the "Christ like" transformation Ali lived out in his life.

It struck me that we have lost 3 huge influences in our life in these recent times. The first was Barby Smith, then there was Dean Curtis and now Ali Park. I cannot begin to tell you the impact these godly people have had of our family. The amount of wisdom, insight and instruction we have gleaned from these giants is immense. These three would certainly make up my personal Hebrews 11.

There has been so much beauty these past weeks in our ministry and of course I have no way of communicating all of it, but I will mention the journey I have shared with Thomas Dickie these past years and most importantly the last 6 weeks. Thomas has been coming to classes for over 7 years. He is now 16 and tonight he will be our new brother in Christ! I had been teaching a series of lessons on who Jesus is and Thomas responded telling me it had all started to make sense. From that point we began meeting every week 1 on 1 to study and talk through the need for Jesus in God's plan for our salvation and God's desire for our committed life to Him. After 6 weeks Thomas said he was ready to commit his life and tonight we will witness his new birth! I have spent some time with his parents, Shari and Billy, who are totally supportive and delighted at his decision.

I promise it will not be so long to post from this point forward - God willing!

Scrambled eggs!

I know it's been a few days since my last entry, but for some reason I've kept putting off updating my blog. I can't quite put my finger on the reason why, maybe I just haven't been in the right frame of mind till now. It's been an eventful past week and I remember saying to Fenella that on Saturday I was glad to have my head back to myself and don't have to be focused on a lesson and constantly have my head in books and study. I know that sounds pretty negative, but These past days I have struggled to find some freedom from lesson preparation. Since we moved the teens class from a Thursday to Friday night I have challenged myself to make the lessons as real and connective as I can. The results have been obvious and the teens are responding to the challenge from the lessons. However, I do feel a huge weight and at times almost obsessively focused on the next class presentation. I know it's healthy to respect the Word and right to make the most of the opportunity, but I worry sometimes if I don't get the balance right and that there is too much of ME and not enough of GOD in my preparation. My desire is for the teens to be brought into the spiritual realm and challenged to consider who Jesus is, and why He is so important to mankind in completing God's plan for our salvation. Our class on Friday we looked at who Jesus was and talked about the fact that it is not enough to think of Jesus as a great Man or Teacher, in fact, to think of Jesus in this way is to totally miss the point of His life and death. I used CS Lewis point that rather see Jesus as a fool or a demon or in fact Lord, but don't see Him as simply a great Man! I wish I could see into the hearts of the teens to see what they are doing with the seed! I know I need to chill out a bit and stop taking things so seriously, and have faith that God IS active and will bring the increase - IN HIS TIME.
Well, that's my heart laid bare. I know God is active amongst us and I am confident that He has hearts that are seeking Him. I pray that the harvest will come soon!

Let me change the tone from me to my family! This past week has given Fenella and I so much reason to be proud of our girls. Beth has been the talk of the high school as a result of her honesty. She found £15 at the school, handed it in and thought nothing of it. She came home at lunch time and told us what she had done and we took it for granted, thinking that was good and having a quiet sense of pride that our daughter did the right thing. However, the next day she was called out of class to meet a young girl who had been distraught at loosing the money and having to explain to her parents what she had done. The young girl was so thrilled that Beth not only had found the money, but had handed it in to be returned to her. She thanked Beth for what she had done. Later that week Fenella and I got a letter from the school expressing their delight at Beth's exemplary honesty and the sentiments of the letter was telling us that Beth had restored their faith that there is good in human nature. Beth is still wondering what all the fuss is about and says it's just "normal," but I suppose the truth is that this now considered out of the norm behaviour. The school were going to use this to promote honesty within the student body at the high school - Go Beth!!!

Amy was asked to sing at a funeral. A good man in our community died and his favorite song was "A Gaelic Blessing," a beautiful song! Amy was asked to learn and perform the song in the space of a few days. Fenella and I went to the funeral and gripped each others arms as it came time for Amy to sing. We, along with over 600 people sat there totally captivated by the beauty and blessing that was Amy's voice. Amy was most certainly a channel of blessing to us all and a very fitting tribute to Sam, who's life was exemplary!

Well, that's a cupful from the barrel that was the last week in our life and ministry.

One last thing - Please keep Billy Campbell in your prayers. Billy is John's dad and he is in pretty bad shape at the moment. He had a tumour removed from his bowel and it was later discovered that after surgery there was a part of the bowel that was not properly closed and the result was that leakage has spread throughout his body, leaving him fighting for his life. Billy is a good man and John & Michelle are struggling to get through this, so please lift them up to the Father - Thanks!

God bless!

Exciting Stuff!

I just needed to put in a quick entry about last night's class. Today reflecting on the events I have a fantastic feeling about the road ahead. I am excited for a number of reasons, firstly because I know there is no better opportunity for the seed to be sown than at this class. Last night there were around 30 teens there who are, admittedly, at varying levels along the road of finding and making faith their own, but 30 teens who listened very attentively and engagingly to the lesson. I am excited about the fact that this class gives John Campbell, Angie and David Chapman a chance to get excited and focused about outreach. I have talked with John and my dad a fair bit this week and we are all anticipating a great year for the church. I am also excited about preaching to this group. The changes we have introduced to the setting and having all boys and girls together has made this a very exciting opportunity. I spent a long time getting last nights lesson together and praise God I think it connected and challenged the teens to think seriously about their commitment to believing that God is creator and therefore His purpose for our lives needs to be taken seriously. I talked about a campaign that is running here by an atheist group who have sponsored buses to display posters saying, "There is probably no God! So stop worrying and enjoy life." At the end of the lesson I asked the teens, "Why do you think it's easier NOT to believe in God?" There were a number of responses expressing that if you don't commit to believing in God you can pretty much do whatever you want. I finished with the question, "Have you made up your OWN mind about whether or not you believe in God?" The freaky thing was that after I finished the group started clapping. I take that as a positive that they got the message. We managed to hold their attention for a good 30 minutes. We sang two devo songs and again got a good response. Over the next 3 weeks I will do 3 lessons based on the C.S. Lewis, "Liar, Lunatic or Lord." This will naturally lead to having to answer the question about who Christ really was and what to do in response.

We chilled out for the following two hours. We played some cards, table tennis, football and talked. We had 3 new faces and the feedback from the teens is all good. I anticipate there will be many more coming in the weeks ahead. I pray God continues to give us the insight and vision to maintain the opportunity for community and faith to thrive. We continue to pray for guidance on how to marry this group with church too. Anyway, I suppose it's up to us to take the small steps and leave the BIG stuff to the Creator!

I am putting the finishing touches on my lesson for Sunday night. I am again excited about where this journey has taken me. God has been leading me to some amazing stuff this past week and I pray that my heart and tongue can get it all across. I must also ask for your prayers again. Although this past week's journey has been amazing I am physically and mentally drained. Please pray that I can continue to minister effectively in spite of weakness. Fenella needs your prayers too. We've both been running on empty. Fenella is working a bit more than she needs to be and struggles to find any kind of time for herself. She does a magic job for me and the girls, making sure we all know what we are doing as well as running a physio department. Although we are struggling a wee bit, at the moment, we have much hope and anticipation for the year ahead.

God bless!

Big Weekend!

There has been plenty to write about this past week, but I need to focus for a time on this upcoming weekends events. I need your prayers!! We made the decision to move our Thursday night teen stuff to Friday and change the format too. The teens were telling us that they had little to do on Friday nights and there was no place to go, so we asked if they would prefer the class to be held on Friday's, and had a huge response to do that. I have been talking a lot with John Campbell and we see this class as our potential for growth, so in light of this we have decided to rejig the format to allow for a more challenging and focused class. We will meet at 7.00pm and for the first hour have the class time and try to replicate our 3rd Sunday atmosphere with this group. We will go till 10.00pm and have some chill time with the teens in a similar way to the existing Thursday night style. This changes, we feel, are the best way ahead and we are prayerful that this is the direction God is opening up for us. As with any "change" we are a little fearful because we had such a successful class on Thursday's, but we want the group to grow and to see Jesus in a bigger way, and so, we step out in faith!
I have been working on the lesson for the past few days and I am really excited about it. It will be aimed at challenging the teens to examine if they have really made the choice to believe that God is the creator and, if so, will they seek His purpose and design for their lives. John is as excited as I am and we have David Chapman and my Dad as recruits to venture out with us, of course Angie is along for the ride too!

On Sunday night we have our third Sunday. I have been busy getting the bones of my lesson together for that too. As with the Friday, I am excited about what the content is and by the way my mind has been guided. I plan to preach with the idea of "Holy Ground" in mind - still a work in progress.

Last Sunday it was my responsibility for preaching Sunday morning. The whole week I was struggling with what was on my heart to preach. It wasn't till late Saturday night I was finally able to make sense of what I needed to preach. The reason I was having trouble was to do with the fact that this lesson was a reality check for me. I came to realise that I had been, spiritually, running on empty for a while. I was struggling with my own soul, because I had neglected spending time with God. The lesson touched the hearts of many in the congregation, not the least of which was mine! One brother in particular came and told me how he felt I was talking directly to his heart. We talked for a while that morning and shared a coffee earlier today. As a result both he and I are working together on a shared passion and with God's help I am excited that great things will result this year. I have a deep seated hope that this year will be a great year for the church here and there are others who share this anticipation. I am asking that if you have opportunity to remember our efforts here and pray for all the classes and avenues we are trying to ensure that the precious seed is able to find good soil in the hearts of some this year.

My ministries at the local schools are up and running and the early signs are that this will be a great year of opportunity within the schools! I constantly find strength and joy from the response of the children and staff. Again, please keep this focal point in my ministry in your prayers. Alex Swango will be with us in February and you all can be praying in advance that Alex will also have opportunity to share my joy within the schools. I have no doubt that his heart will be ready to bless the kids.

In short, we are thankful for all your prayers and just ask for more of the same please.

God bless!

A milestone for Fenella!

On the 30th of December we celebrated Fenella's 40th birthday. We didn't make a big fuss, but wanted Fenella to know that she is greatly loved! We had a great day with visits from Fenella's good friends and our families. We went out for supper with Jackie and Alexa and enjoyed relaxing with good company and good food. For Fenella's birthday I got two tickets for the "Strictly Come Dancing Tour" in Glasgow. So we will stay in Glasgow for 2 nights by ourselves and enjoy a weekend together in February. It is now that point in our lifetime where we have spent more time together than apart, this year is our 20th anniversary!