Busy bees

1. I have just spent a couple of days learning about mission with some other churches run by Lead Academy. One thought I gleaned from Michael Harvey was that ministry is about faithfulness and not success.

2. The Biblical thought again expounded by Michael was 'God gives the growth'. Too often we think it should read 'The church (leader) gives the growth'

3. As I have been mulling on kindness I listened to 'How to change' which is a wonderful look at the Fruits of the Spirit.

4. This passage from 'Different' moved me and made me want to dig deeper into the Bible for the good of my son, my family and the health of my own soul. Reading it made me want to be a more Godly man:

I grew up with my father modelling a life of Scripture reading, often in the original languages- he was fluent in biblical Hebrew and competent in New Testament Greek. I never woke up when he hadn't been up for an hour or so already, reading the Bible- every night after the nine o'clock news (as it was then) he would retire to pray and read his Bible. I once asked him how many times he had read the Bible through- he was reluctant to say, not wanting to appear boeastful or to repeat the sin of David's census (I Chron 21), but on being pressed he shared that, during my teens it had only been once a year, otherwise as many as four times each year- so in fifty years as a Christian, he had read the Bible in excess of one hundred times. And with what result? Well, he is unquestionably the most Godly man I have ever met and I have met and known close up some of the leading church figures of the past twenty years. A life lived immersed in God's word, seeking God, has rubbed off'. p.143

5. My next read is going to be 'The life of A W Pink'

6. I enjoyed this film as a metaphor for how the un-churched experience us on a Sunday.

7. Why, so often, when I speak to clergy do they tell me how busy they are? I would much rather hear about what God has been doing or how much fun they are having. The reason I chose 'fun' is I listened to John Peters sermon called 'Fun'( by which he means joy) - something we all could do with a bit more of. John is a breath of fresh air and the least Anglican Anglican Vicar in the land........

8. A quote that has lived with (and challenged) me that I wrote down yesterday:

'A Church can only go as far as the relationship the church leader has with God'

9. Cranmer on the broo ha ha about the next Bishop of Sheffield and then this development. I am sure my phone will soon be ringing....:)

10. 'Dr John Stott, in an interview at the age of eighty-six, said there are many themes in the Bible but there is one we have tended to neglect, that is the call to be different from the world'

Different, p.142