I've moved!

I've made the traitor move WordPress! But I still would love to continue with me on my journey.

Cheers

Matt

Friday Feeling - God52 Update & Feelings on Status.

Hey again everyone :) Well this week has been a different one for me as I've had some to time off with it being half term. Its great to have a rest and feel refreshed ready to again, especially with all the exciting plans in the pipeline!

Firstly, reflections on another brilliant week doing the God52 programme! Week Seven was all about Love! A brilliant challenge to except! I wont explain all the details as to what I did as I feel it would detract from the whole point but the buzz of helping out those close to me and in one case, a complete stranger, is what it's all about! I was even on the receiving end of a nice gesture! So experienced both sides of the coin that the challenge had to offer... And I loved it!!

Week Eight on the other hand... Wow! Gonna be a really tough one this!! Lets see how this works out!

Now! You've all surely seen the Harlem Shake right? If not where have you been! Basically all you have to is type it in to YouTube and you'll see millions of examples! The dance craze has gone down at a storm! The concept is pretty well explained here.

When I first saw it, I was literally just like "What!?" I honestly thought it was utter stupidity and just an excuse to make yourself look stupid to get on the internet! Very similar to my initial reactions to Gangnam Style. But then I actually started to look into it a bit more... "Why has this got so popular?" and its only in asking that question I found out the beauty of it. It connects people. It slaps division in the face and says "who cares!?" The simplicity and humour involved as well as not needing the knowledge to understand a cultural concept such as language or norms makes it so appealing for everyone to get involved and have a right laugh! How beautiful is that!?

This lead me to write about something that has been prominent in my life at the moment and that is my opinion on status. Yep! Little may we know but status is all around us. Just look at Facebook! It's entire concept thrives on it. Even tweets really are posting status updates about certain events going on worldwide or individually. Whether you like it or not, humanity depends on status... which isn't necessarily a bad thing! Its when it gets unbalanced that issues start to arise. Lets face it no one wants to be at the bottom of the pile do they? But an unfortunate fact of life is that people live in this way. People are craving to be at the top of the social ladder and some will do whatever it takes to climb it. Unfortunately the modern world seems to make it appear that its only material things that can make you achieve it. Latest fashions, lots of money, the latest Apple product (Surface and Microsoft is far better! :P) and I've been very guilty of being sucked into this mind set. Even down to big debates, the issue is status. Gay couples wanting marriages for them to legalised is a classic one of many examples I could list. They see marriages having a bigger status than civil partnerships but why? What gives that idea? They're both public declarations of a couple's love for each other - one, if followed as a religious act is done in the presence of God. But in terms of humanity what gives us the right to decide that is more valuable than the other? Its actually the love that matters in this instance surely? Not "our declaration means more than yours!" said like a child in the playground! That links back to a previous blog post. A huge part of the Christian faith is that actually the last shall be first! (Matt 20:16). In my opinion if the world just tried to level this 'playing field' so that everyone was equal to everyone else in society then is it possible we wouldn't have half the problems man cause itself? I think that's plausible...

So if these social phenomenon's keep on happening and go viral, I think we can learn how to all connect with each other and not judge, snub and divide one another.

So you heard it here first - Could the Harlem Shake change the world for good? I think it could lay down the guidelines on how to and see where we go from there!!

Thoughts on the last week, including God52 Week Six

Well, that was an interesting week! Both personally & publicly! Over the weekend I was going to write about my views on the current hot topics in the limelight in Christian life. If you were hidden under a rock, you may not realise I'm referring to Roles of Women in Church & Same Sex Marriage. But then I held fire... because actually the reflections for both of those and the God52 Challenge were gonna tie in with each other. To say that at Moorlands everyone has had their guards up when talking about these issues would be a huge understatement, with a whole range of opinions and reasoning to back them up. Normally, the old me would've probably shyed away from the discussions, but with Week Six in mind, I took up the opportunity to muck in.

And quite honestly although the opinions have ranged far and wide and to some that, to me, seem so far out, the overall opinion on it all seems be quite consistent. This isn't just at Moorlands but seems to the same on the guest blogs plus Twitter conversations and that is this...

You know what, we're all broken and twisted. We've all sinned so who are we to judge? Jesus' love is far greater and the fact were all living for God should be the thing we use to unite, rather than having these differences divide us. God has it sorted!

So there was me, going to display my view point all over the net, but it doesn't really matter - that's not the point. The point is we use these experiences to really cement our faith and use it for good works :)

I can't tell you how excited I am for Week Seven!! Everything from the actions to reflection has me buzzing with excitement!

God is working.

God52: Week Five

So I've had time to reflect on Week Five. This was hard, a lot harder than it seemed at first. This was mainly because for me, the situation never really arose! It turned out I didn't really have a chance to talk about issues with any of my non Christian friends... In all honesty its been a hard week to focus on my faith.
But I managed to complete the challenge, just. I was very much like what Jamie said on his reflections, in fact it was through a text I managed to complete the task. I was also very lucky that I managed to find out if the prayer was answered in the way I expected. Thankfully it seemed like it had. Praise!! Amazing. I will be honest, it had an indirect link to me so I was very thankful!

It was very interesting on the guest blogs that a lot of people chose to pray for strangers, I did not. This was always something I was cautious about but some of the advice and testimonies have been incredible! So I now feel encouraged to slowly introduce that into my prayer life which is rapidly growing and I'm loving it!  

In hard times you've gotta PUSH through it.

Pray Until Something Happens

See you next week for my reflections on Week Six.

Love.

It's all about the journey... My feelings on God52

I know I mention this a lot, especially on my Twitter but if aspects of faith interest you, take a look at God52. As some will know, I decided to embark on this journey. The whole thing is explained here so have a read and see what you think. As for me, when I saw this I was excited! I knew this was a great opportunity to challenge myself on how strong my faith is and my connection with God really is.

I've tweeted some of my responses to the challenges as have many others on #God52 but after sending in a post and it being used on their site, I thought I'll join the bandwagon and do what others are by documenting all my thoughts on my blog.

So I'll try and get these done every Wednesday after I've had time to reflect on thoughts. If you think what I have to say is interesting, great! If not, fine - each to there own :)

I would just like to add, I will fail and complete some of these challenges, I'm not trying to be arrogant when I talk about doing these things, this is purely to be reflective... 

This one is gonna be a bit of a bumper edition! I'll 'backdate' to the very first week.

Week One: It seemed like nice easy one to start with! All about generosity. But there was a very naive part of me, I did the challenge on one occasion, but that was it. It didn't grow into anything else. It was like "right that's done, sorted" and really I missed the underlying point of the whole journey. And besides, all I did was give someone a lift home, nothing spectacularly medal deserving. The whole idea of this is meant to make us look at ourselves and say "Can we change this part of me for the better and to show more of the light of Jesus?" It's not meant to be a checklist kind of exercise. But then hang on, I guess in realising this, it kind of still did its job?... Love how the spirit works!

Week Two: With the previous week's reflections in mind, I was determined to fully commit to this journey. I prayed to say I really am taking this seriously now God, I can imagine he chuckled to himself at that point ;) This challenge then ended up being about prayer! Boom! Now being honest, I really don't pray enough, along with many other things that I should practice far more often, so I took this challenge with some caution on first impression. Did I complete the whole 3 hours devoted time in prayer over a particular thing? Honestly I, perhaps stupidly, didn't time myself, but I probably didn't. However what I noticed was that all of sudden prayer was really on my mind everywhere! It was as if loads of unfolding situations had an arrow pointing to it and saying "you could pray about that." All of a sudden my prayer life had become far more spontaneous, almost with a 'Yeah, lets go with this' approach and I was really enjoying it! Even in some cases I had no idea if they were actually answered. This was a massive change to what I used to think that it really should be only big and/or pressing things that I should pray about.

Week Three: There's a massive catch-22 about this one... the challenge was about humility so publicly writing reflections on this could be seen as defeating the point! But in terms of the actual challenge, logistics got in the way. In the end I resorted to prayer and just left it to God. I was annoyed that what I had planned to do for someone wasn't gonna work out. But that again taught me something! There's just some things I cant control! I know what a statement to make! - Seriously, who do I think I am to try and be in control of everything? That certainly had been in my mindset before my new journey started in September. It made me realise there are just some things I need to offer and commit to God and to trust in that. That has not been an easy thing. I feel I'd got too complacent at where I was in life and didn't look at what God wanted for me anywhere near as much as I should've done. I was probably very guilty of letting culture influence my actions which isn't the way if you're looking to be a disciple.

Week Four: My thoughts are on the guest blog here.

So there you are! Check out Week Five.  This one could be a lot harder than what I first thought, but I'll let you know next week!

Love.

The Dark side don't have cookies...

Good and Evil.

It's often talked about isnt it? why this? why that? Its something we all tackle and try and figure answers out to, here's what I've tried to answers those questions with. 

God’s explanation for acts of his seen as evil by humans.

In a nutshell, in God performs no evil act, only the Devil does. There is a reason behind every act God does and that will reveal its purpose in time. God says that humans decide whether his acts or evil or not as they judge for themselves, not trusting in what God is doing. A book called “The Shack” illustrated this, when Mack (the main character) talk to God in his different forms. One form is the Holy Spirit, taken from page 133, the holy spirit says to Mack “Humans have a great capacity for declaring something good or evil, without truly knowing.”

The following back this up in more detail.

Text adapted from a book called “The Shack” written by William P Young - pages 134-7

(The character personification of the Holy Spirit, Sarayu, talks about Evil to Mack.)

“Let me begin be asking you a question, when some happens to you, how do you determine whether it is good or evil?” It is pretty subjective

“It is you (humans) who determines good and evil. You (humans) become the judge. And to make things more confusing, that which you (humans) determine to be good will change over time and circumstance. And then beyond that and even worse, there are billions of you (humans) each determining what is good and what is evil. So when your good and evil clashes with your neighbour’s, fights and arguments ensue and even wars break out.

The choice (of Eve) to eat of that tree (of knowledge in the Garden of Eden) tore the universe apart divorcing the spiritual form the physical.”

(Mack in reply to Sarayu)

“I can see now, I have spent most of my time and energy trying to acquire what I have determined to be good (…) And I spend a huge amount of energy and worry fearing what I’ve determined to be evil”

(Sarayu)

 “Such truth in that, remember this. It allows you to play God in your own independence. That’s why a part of you prefers not to see me (God). And you don’t need me (God) at all to create your list of good and evil. But you do need me (God) if you have any desire to stop such an insane lust for independence. (…)

You must give up your right to decide what is good and evil on your own terms. That is a hard pill to swallow; choosing to only live in me (God). To do this you must know me (God) enough to trust me (God) and learnt to rest in my (God’s) inherent goodness”

 (…)

“Evil is a word used to describe the absence of good, just like the word darkness is used to describe the absence of light. (…) Both evil and darkness can only be understood in relation to Light and Good; they do not have any actual existence (in God’s eyes) Light and good actually exist. Removing yourself from me (God) will plunge you (humans) into darkness. Declaring independence will result in evil because when apart from me (God), you can only draw upon yourself (and your own wisdom). That is death because you have separated yourself from me (God), (Who is) life.

(…)

(On giving up the right of independence)

“Then you would begin to know the wonder and adventures of living in me (God). (…) Jesus didn’t hold any rights; he willingly became a servant and lives out the relationship to God. He gave up everything, so that by his dependent life he opened a door that would allow you to live free enough to give up your rights”

So some things may seems evil when actually they're not, if it's truly sent by God - of course others could be evil in its purest form.

The concept of Evil.

What is evil? Evil is anything that goes against the goodness of God, whether that be an action, thought or general being.

Why does the concept of evil exist in humans? Evil spirits do exist; God did not create them as he only created the heavens and earth. Just as God is for Goodness, Satan (or the devil) is the ruler for evil and again just as God can appear in many forms, so can the Devil, traditionally identified as the serpent who convinced Eve to eat the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3:1-6). The devil challenges our faith with God through the actions of evil or Sin.

There is a story about how another form of the Devil came to be, Lucifer. Lucifer started life as an Angel created by God who rebelled against him and accused him of many things, so becoming a fallen star (Isaiah 14:3-20). In removing himself from God Lucifer became the devil in a physical from.

The devil's most potent action is to make you believe he doesn't exist after performing such evil actions, leaving you to just be angry at God... It's clever, I've been there...

God can’t stop evil taking a stranglehold over people, due to free will he gave us to experience true love and relationship, but God can “weave tapestry of goodness” around the circumstances to tie in with his plans.

So how can we stop evil? The simple answer, through Salvation. Salvation is saving the soul from Sin and entering that relationship with God, trusting in his every word and judgement. The way we start this relationship is looking to Jesus as he is the gateway to God. Following Jesus’ example through good deeds and telling the Good News that Jesus told us himself about the Kingdom of God, to all people (Hebrews 12:1-3) and that in a nutshell is what faith and being a Christian means, to live that life to fullest you possibly can.

God also says about wearing his full armour when facing battles against wicked spirits (Ephesians 6:10-20) and that with Christ you can achieve anything, even in the most seemingly hopeless circumstance (Philippians 4:13)

Eventually the visions that were shown to John in the book of Revelations will come true and despite God sending troubles to earth to defeat evil and send warnings of judgement, those who keep God’s command and praise him will kept safe. This is where the battle between God and Satan become very real but with light prevailing over darkness and evil being thrown in the lake of fire along with all the others that followed Satan when it comes to judgement, also known as the second death. (Revelation 20:11-15). After this, the new world comes into being with the old order and sin being completely removed (Revelation 21:1-22:5) and then how Jesus will live again amongst us all and we can all have the fullness of a relationship with him to its optimum. And that is some way to live! But its up us to fight for that in the meantime - I know I'm in, are you?

Love

Looking in the mirror I see reflections...

Hey peeps! It's been a while! Hope everyone's Christmas was a great one. For me, I was given a lot of time to reflect on just how much things have changed in such a short space of time! Just thought some of you might be interested in what my feelings are now I've well and truly become a Youth Worker! - It's still a little surreal to say to myself.

Wow, thinking about it, I can’t believe 4 months have gone by. It's going so quickly but at the same time I’m glad as it means I have had a good amount of time to build up relationships, not only with the young people but with the whole church family at Cornerstone. As I have expressed many times before I’ve been able to settle in so well but that is down to the fantastic support I’ve had from everyone here. I’ve certainly felt so welcomed and valued every time I walk through the doors, which has been exactly what I needed. Lots of prayer has resulted in the transition of moving from Trinity, my home church, being very easy. As many know, this was my main concern before I started, having never moved churches before and spending at least 16 years somewhere where they have been so supportive and loyal towards me. But from Day 1, I’ve felt at home here. 

Now that I feel I have a set routine in place, I’ve found I’ve been able to manage my time impacting on how I’ve been able to prepare and deliver sessions or just be of help wherever. Most of which have been very beneficial to me and hopefully the youth too! I've already seen God working in different ways across the organisations, It's been great to see. 

Moorlands College so far has been an experience! Very challenging but fantastic at the same time, having had 2 module study weeks already and regular lectures on a Tuesday. The community side of it has been amazing, very similar to Cornerstone in a sense. I love networking and the friends I have already made have helped me expand that. I’ve begun to realise Christian circles, in youth ministry especially, are very small! And once again the support I’ve had from peers and staff have been great. 

Being able to study the Bible and take on a new angle of looking at God hasn’t been plain sailing but already in this short space of time of one semester, it has had great benefits on my work here and personal faith. With Youth Club straight after, I can find Tuesdays very intense and will have to be careful not to “over-do” it as it is quite physically demanding but I feel there are suitable ways of dealing with that in place. 

In terms of assignments, naturally I have found them challenging going from A Level to Degree standard. I know it is something to keep an eye on as they will need to improve in quality as I continue on in the course, but hopefully that’s just part of the learning process. So far I have completed 4 assignments with another due in January. 

Its a new year and I can see it being a great one for my work & hopefully for personal reasons too :) We never know what's round the corner or what lies straight ahead but with the guidance of my - our saviour, I'm feeling pretty assured and confident about it all.

Cheers! Love and blessings.


@CHURC_SYW / #CornerYouth - for more regular thoughts by me and updates of my work. If you know what these mean, you know the drill :)