Wednesday wanderings

1. Some wonderful folk emailed me to encourage me about how the blog had been a blessing to them down the years which has stirred me back here. The last few months have been busy, challenging and testing, at times totally wonderful and encouraging which has all led me to neglect my own ministry of encouragement here. Anyway, I am back to it if anyone is still interested.

2.  I read a story called 'The church on the porch' from a book called 'What Jesus started' in last Sunday's sermon,  It seemed to spark a cord and reading Addison's book has given me my August sermon series.

3.  I have spent the last couple of days at LC19 and was very blessed. Two things will certainly stick with me: the testimony a friend gave and Jon Tyson's talk on Hosea 10. A pal texted me to ask if I thought the conference was 'worth the money' and for those moments alone the answer is an unquestioning yes.

4.  A statement I have been pondering: 'Jesus never fulfilled his potential but he fulfilled his purpose' 

5. Here are three leadership questions to chew over on a wet Wednesday morning:

a.  What is no longer working and needs to be changed?
b.  What is no longer working and needs to be stopped?
c.  If someone replaced me what would be the first thing they would change?

6.  'Worship is a strategy where we interrupt the preoccupation with ourselves and attend to the presence of God' Eugene Peterson quoted by Matt Redman

7.  A pal is reading a book called 'Leadership pain' which I have just ordered.

8.  I listened to an interesting talk by Mark Sayers (author of this book which I read a while ago) on the five global trends impacting the church. It's worth checking out.

-Radical connectivity
-A world of competing visions
-Faltering secular revival
-A deep hunger for a better world
-The great disillusionment

9. Look out for Simon's new book 'Jesus is amazing'.

10.  What to do when you attend a Type A leadership conference and you're not Type A? The main speaker at the conference who is a remarkable man has a church of over 100K, six kids that he home schools, runs The Global Leadership Summit as a tiny sideline in his schedule, writes books by the dozen, reads the Bible for two hours a day and looks like Sylvester Stallone after all the time he spends in the gym. It's a major undertaking for me to get a pair of shoes on my two sons and get them out of the front door each morning. Mike Todd, who also spoke at LC19, had a lovely phrase 'the pace of grace'. Grace indeed......