Warning: The Gospel changes lives

Since becoming a Christian I have been engaged with a transforming God and constantly developing myself. This has taken shape in many ways from dramatic changes like stopping self-harming to subtle ones like being patient. I have now finished the 2nd year of a 3 year degree studying for youth ministry I have loved the process. I was totally unprepared for the radical transformation I was setting myself up for. Before starting many people prophesied that peter pan must grow up. I knew exactly what this meant and so signed up for the course. I joined the course knowing that I have to open myself up totally to the transformation of the gospel and the learning I was about to endure.
Reflecting on my change I know that if it wasn’t for the course I would not have opened myself up so fully to the experience. What does this show me about how open I am to God and how much I expect the young people to open up to the transformation of the gospel?

A few months back I would have secretly been ok with people half-heartedly opening up to go, in part holding something back till “the time is right”. Even though God’s timing for enabling me to deal with something is perfect, it does not stop my openness toward God regarding what needs changing so I can share the gospel more fully.

“1 Corinthians 10:13
New International Version (NIV)
13 No temptation[a] has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted[b] beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted,[c] he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”

I have found that God has given me the greatest recourse ever (well 2 resources including the Holy Spirit), people. If I am tuly honest and actively make myself vulnerable to people I see that lots of people have been transformed in a similar way or experienced similar things.
Trust God to transform you to be more like Jesus Christ because there is no other that understands better, God never gives us too much to deal with and has given us great recourses to be able to make our way through.

Ant Stevens

The Best and Worst of ourselves

I don't mean to brag but i have just had the holiday of a lifetime. No it wasn't at a doctor who convention, although that would be amazing. After always thinking it was out of my league, a dream became reality and my family and I were stood in front of the Disney palace in Florida looking in awe. Ok I will stop bragging now.
The slight blip on the whole experience was our journey home. Just as we were a few hours away from landing, someone unfortunately took ill, so we turned round and landed at a little airport in a town in Canada called Gander. Unsurprisingly people were a bit frustrated and with most people having a lack of sleep tensions were higher than normal. I don't know what you are like when you are tired, but i struggle to cope with normality. I think there were around 550 others on that plane who had the same issue with tiredness. All this meant the atmosphere in the airport, getting off the plane meant there was a lot of pushing and shoving with people just in it for themselves, as long as they were ok, it didn't matter about how other people were feeling or what was the right thing to do. I managed to just sit back and watch rather than getting agitated and was amazed at how people swung from being nice human beings to everyman for themselves. Even after a couple of hours sleep at a hotel while waiting for food you saw some people pushing themselves to the front.
Then as we were sat in the airport the tide started to turn, there was a sense of community, a sense of everyone in it together, Not that i was there but it was what my grandparents used to talk about when they talked about the war. Community, you know what when people come together to serve each other rather than fight each other, when we put others first rather than ourselves first, there is something beautiful, some would even say you can sense the love of God.
I am sure when the stories of the early disciples in Acts get together they didn't always feel like it and the reality was probably they struggled in community as a lot of people do. Yet we look at what the power of community can bring: acceptance, love, joy and security. Is it no wonder that God loves it.

Richard Dawson

Curry - A rite of passage?

So what events and what things that have happened create the person that you have become? Being a dad i am often considering the things my kids do and places they go to in terms of what type of person i want them to become. That might be experiences that i had and enjoyed or things that i think will be good for them.
At the start of the month it was my birthday (not a significant one, i can wait for another one of them) and Laura had been asking for a while what i would like to do for it. Last year we had friends round for a murder mystery, which are always funny especially with the dodgy accents. This year though i thought, as i had a choice of anything i wanted to do, how many times do us men get a window of time to do that, i thought we would go and give our kids their first experience of a curry house. They did ok, had a little bit of the meat and bit of balti and a bit of korma and lots of nan bread. What they did love though was the experience, they keep talking about it and how they would like to go again. For me it was good that they enjoyed their experience, as it means we can go again, and as their dad that really please me, as curry is important to me.
Isn't that what a rite of passage is as a Christian? being part of something that please God and moves you on in your journey?
As well as curry another passion of mine is mission. Engaging people, especially young people in being part of God's mission here on earth. What upsets me is the lack of passion and drive in a number of Churches in being part of His mission. As a youth Alpha advisor i will also get a number of course leaders saying to me "we didn't have enough time to run all the session so we missed out the 'why and how should i share my faith?" It just isn't seen as an integral part of discipleship. If you keep an eye out on what is happening in the world of Nottingham YfC you will know about our 30 hour missions (eq:missuion) in which we take a group of young people to a random part of the UK and be part of the mission of a YfC centre and local Church. Doing both word and deed in a community neediing to see and hear the love of Jesus. Each one of the last group that came on it really engaged and found it an experience that will shape their life and as a leader they will remember it as mission being part of being a Christian. God loves mission and it also develops our faith. Ok so curry might be a rite of passage as a child of mine but mission is and should be a rite of passage as a child of God.

Richard

keeping optimistic

I think i am getting old. I used to love partying and staying out, or even being the life and soul of the party, but now, i know, i just want a chilled life most of the time. Is it age? (all of you younger than 35 say yes), or is it something else? I know that in many areas of my life where i can be pulled down. In both ministry and personal life, where i try to be creative and try to up my game... just make that extra effort, there is sometimes something that pulls you down, something that puts a downer on things. Let's face that something is often people. People who maybe say you can't do this, you can't afford that, what if it fails etc. We have to be very careful in our response to those people because not only can those words or their attitudes affect you and bring you down, it can also effect your attitude to others.
I was really challenged the other day when, in one of these moods, I read a few verses from Job. chapter 42: 7-11 what really jumps out at me is that after all his (so called) friends had done to job over the years he prayed for them. What an attitude, I know it says we are to love our enemies as well as our friends, but to pray for them? I tell you what though, it brings a different perspective to our lives, because not only does it impact your relationship with those that aim to drag you down, but it also helps those negative words bounce off you, and helps you get back to where you could be going. Being creative, taking risks and making a difference. So the question is where do you want to be? down in a hole or riding the wind?

are we all singing from the same hymn sheet?

Don't you love people? They constantly surprise me. When you come across someone, there are a few initial questions that you tend to ask them. The first is their name (one of my big problems is that i am thinking of the next question, when they are telling me their name). The next is what do you do? When i tell people what i do, especially Christians, their assumption is that it is really hard for a Christian organisation to get into schools. I then tell them that it is part of response to our faith to serve our local schools as well as build young people up, not only spiritually but emotionally as the whole person they were created to be. The response we get from schools, and their view of Nottingham YfC is that we do a great work with the young people that really need support. If you follower our twitter account you will know that we also do lessons in RE not only on the life of Jesus but on subjects like identity and justice. The schools loved these lessons, being showed in boxes of chocolates (who says our rewards are in Heaven lol) and requests for more lessons. It was quite a surprise then, when after sharing in a church about what we do, you get someone coming up to you saying how it is out of order what we do, and we shouldn't be allowed to do what we do. Where does the opposition come from? from within. Isn't it interesting that as an organisation you can set out with a particular mandate and then over the years life becomes more about staying alive rather than doing what you were created to be. As a Church we were created to make an impact on our communities, Jesus talked about coming to help the sick...the well don't need a doctor. My hope for NYfC, for the Church and for me is that we don't get distracted from the plan, and we certainly don't critisize those who are working with the sick.