One of my quotes came from CS Lewis in Mere Christianity, where he answers the question as to how much we should give. He says this:

“I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusement, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our giving does not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say it is too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot because our commitment to giving excludes them.” 

In typical Lewis style, this is a challenging and provocative statement. So, how are you doing with your giving?

Over August Bank Holiday weekend, 2,500 people gathered in North Yorkshire for North 2011. We went as a church and had a good number of people staying both on and off site. Despite generous amounts of rain and mud, the weekend was a resounding success. Such a powerful sense of God’s presence and power; outstanding preaching from Terry Virgo, Guy Miller and Jeremy Simpkins; inspiring worship; excellent kids and youth events and a great time away with friends, old and new. Once again, Paul Mogford (Jubilee Church Teesside) and his amazing team served us outstandingly well, by turning a working farm into a venue fit for such a momentous gathering.

In addition to the powerful preaching, God also spoke to us through some very significant prophetic words. Including, being shaped like clay in the potters hands, with North no longer being a holiday camp, but a boot camp where God was raising up an apostolic army!

On the first evening, Jeremy set the tone for the weekend by setting out the key distinctives of the North team and our sphere:

• Being Friends enjoying God together
• Building Churches empowered by Word and Spirit
• Advancing The Kingdom, transforming the world
• Reaching Nations, making disciples

You can watch a video of us as a team discussing these distinctives here:

Terry wonderfully served us, with 3 morning preaches from Ezra, which culminated in taking an offering which currently stands at £132,000! A very tangible example of how North was moving.

Guy Miller brought a challenging word to us, to believe God for significant growth, and he could see us becoming like a runway at an international airport with many thousands of people coming and going. He felt God challenge us to have the nations firmly in our sights and to dream bigger dreams. Guy’s presence and chemistry with us was also a very tangible foretaste of how the new emerging apostolic teams can and would work together in the future.

North 2011 was so much more than just a weekend conference – it felt like God was fashioning us together, building an Apostolic people, an army who can advance His church and His Kingdom across the nations of the world!

You can download all the main sessions and the videos shown over the weekend from www.north2011.com

(This article was written for and first appeared on www.newfrontiersuk.org)

“‘Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.’ So said St Catherine of Siena whose festival day it is today.”

This got me thinking – how do you become who God meant you to be? I am sure there are many answers to this, but the following were top of my list as I thought and prayed about it yesterday:

1. Love God and follow Him
2. Serve others
3. Develop close relationships and accountability
4. Identify, grow in, and use your gifts
5. Give generously

Love God and follow Him (Matthew 22:36-38)

This has to be fundemental to everything we are and all that we do. Jesus made it clear that loving God was our top priority.

Serve others (Matthew 22:39)

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus makes loving your neighbour as yourself number 2 on the list after Loving God, so we should take this seriously and look for ways to love and serve others.

Develop close relationships and accountability (Acts 2:42-47)

The Bishop referred to marriage in this context, but it doesn’t have to be marriage. In the New Testament, people were “saved and added” into the church community. Our culture is very individualistic, but Christian culture is far more community orientated. We make an individual response to Jesus and then we’re expected to follow Him in the context of community.

Identify, grow in, and use your gifts (1 Corinthians 12:7)

God has given every Christian at least one gift, often more. We have a responsibility to discover what this is and use it/them to the Glory of God.

Give generously (Luke 6:38)

Giving generously helps to ensure that we put God first, at the very centre of our lives. Generous giving is also a great antidote to the very materialistic culture we live in.

I am sure there are other things you might add to this list, but this is my initial offering. Live like this and be who God meant you to be. You could set the world on fire!

You can download a sermon based on this theme from the Jubilee Church website here.

I remember hearing Bill Hybels a few years ago talking about the need to plan to grow in leadership – to do things like read books, attend conferences, get a mentor and so on. The same is true of growing in the Christian life – you need a plan. So what’s your plan? Things like reading God’s word (see my previous post on reading through the Bible), praying, being part of a small group where you’re accountable to one another are all great helps. Let me encourage you – get before God to pray about it, get a plan and then ask God to help you implement it. Let’s make 2011 a year of growing in God and all He has for us.

But we also looked at potential blockages to the river of God in our lives. Just like this waterfall which I saw on a recent walk, stuff can get into out lives which blocks what God wants to do. Four things came to mind particularly, but I am sure there are more. These are:

1. Unbelief
2. Cynicism
3. Lack of faith
4. Sin

Unbelief is OK if it’s your starting point and you don’t stay there! A man who brought his son to Jesus to have Jesus heal him, exclaimed in Mark 9:24, “I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief.” God loves to help us overcome our unbelief.

If unbelief is not dealt with, it can lead to cynicism. Cynicism is dangerous – it says things like, “I’ve seen it all before”, “Yea, yea, I’ve heard it all before…”. Cynicism can quickly become a mindset and rather than it being the blockage to what God wants to do, you become the blockage. If you’re prone to cynicism, repent of it and ask God to give you faith and to help you overcome your unbelieving cynicism.

On one occasion, Jesus rebuked His disciples for their lack of faith (Mark 16:14). We should be people full of faith and those who are growing in faith.

Finally, sin can block what God wants to do in our lives, particularly if it’s persistent and habitual. God loves to forgive and offer a new start, so if you’ve got caught up in sin, turn to God, confess it to Him and repent of it and ask Him to make His river flow in your life once again.

The river that started as a trickle became a deep river that no-one could cross. Let’s be asking God to make that true of His work in our lives.

To help my reading I am following a plan from www.youversion.com that breaks the Bible up into 365 segments, one for each day. I am also using their iPhone app so that I can easily keep track of my reading and see where I’m up to as well as read on the move.

I want to encourage you – if you’ve never read through the whole Bible, why not do it this year? If you’ve done it before, why not do it again? There are a variety of reading plans available online (I’m using the Canonical Plan) and by using technology you can give yourself the best chance of completing it. In a year that is the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Version of the Bible, why not make it a year of reading through the Bible (though I would probably suggest a more modern translation such as the NIV or ESV).

The phrase I’ve been thinking about a great deal this week is verse 3, “… he restores my soul.” Particularly, I’ve been meditating on the word, “restore”. What does it mean that God restores? The image that came to mind was of a master craftsman, working on an ancient artefact and restoring it to its original beauty. In fact, when gifted craftsman work on such things, you often cannot tell that restoration work has taken place – they are that good at their work! And the same is true of God’s work in us. When the Bible says that He restores, it doesn’t mean that He just patches up, tapes over and hopes for the best. God is the ultimate master craftsman, carefully working on us, His children; painstakingly and lovingly restoring that which is damaged, broken or cracked. God loves us in our damaged state, but He doesn’t leave us like that.

For me, I am waiting on God to restore me physically after a short season of ill health. For you, you may be asking God to restore other areas of your life. Whatever it is, be encouraged that we have a God who loves to restore, make whole and make new. The Lord is your shepherd – He restores your soul.

At 10am on Tuesday morning, I was meeting with a pastor friend for coffee in the City Centre to discuss various aspects of church life. I began to feel unwell and by 1pm, I was screaming in agony in the back of an ambulance racing to A&E as the pain of a stuck kidney stone became too much to bear.

It’s now Thursday morning and I am lying in my hospital bed in the Royal Derby Hospital where I have been for the last couple of days. I was in quite a lot of pain yesterday, but I feel better this morning than I have all week. Having said that, this is not over yet and the course of treatment has not finally been decided. However, as I have laid here, there are some lessons I have learnt. So here goes:

1. I am very grateful to family and friends who rearranged schedules and changed their plans in order to help us. Family and friends are important and highly valued.

2. I can only survive for so long without my iPhone (I think I managed 24 hours!)

3. In times of severe pain or trauma when even praying seems impossible, God knows how you feel. He doesn’t judge you for not praying, he just wants to draw close as a loving Father.

4. Although I love my job leading Jubilee and the people I have the privilege of serving, it’s my family I have really missed this week. Meetings can be rearranged and emails can wait, but a hug here or a kind word or action there should not have to wait. I am looking forward to being back at home with my wife and kids. Perhaps it’s only when you’re not with those you love that you realise how much you miss them. I have realised that this week.

So what about you… who do you need to spend more time with, or show love and appreciation to today?

I have beard Bill Hybels speak on numerous occasions and read many of his books. I always look forward to hearing him, and there’s always something new and a lesson to learn. His session was a collection of his thoughts about different aspects of leadership. He spoke about having fantastic people on a team, and how he always looks for the 4 C’s of

• Character
• Competency
• Chemistry
• Culture

I’ve heard him speak about the first three on numerous occasions, but the new one was culture. This is to do with the kind of person that would flourish on your team. It’s to do with your style and what matters to you. Every team has a unique culture and as well as looking at someone’s character and competency, and considering whether the chemistry works, you also need to consider the culture of your team. For example, high challenge, sacrificial, fast changing etc.

So, what’s the culture of your team? Whether your team is an Eldership team, a kids work or worship team, every team has a culture. This needs to be remembered when recruiting people to your team. Helping new people understand your culture will help them to find their place and to begin making their contribution to the team.

Although I’ve been to many Willow Creek conferences over the years and read many of Bill Hybels’ books, I had never been to the Leadership Summit before. One reason for this is that I doubted whether a conference that had all the teaching on video screen would be as good as a “live” one. I have to say my doubts were completely unnecessary. This was one of the best leadership conferences I’ve ever been to.  I will try to blog some more details as I reflect upon the sessions over the next few weeks and months, but here is a taster to start with…

The conference featured a mix of Christian pastors & business leaders and non-Christian business leaders. This was a fascinating mix and gave a real variety to the teaching and lessons learnt.

Bill Hybels opened the conference by talking about how to help people move from A to B in their Christian life, or in the life of a church. He went on to expand what he looks for in the staff he hires – the 3C’s of character, competency and chemistry. I’ve read much of what he’s said on this before, but he added another C, culture. More on this to come!

Jim Collins, author of Good to Great and How the mighty fall was the next speaker. This highly respected business leader whose books I have read and enjoyed was a captivating speaker and he encouraged us to never, ever give up, and also to have a “stop doing” list as well as a “to-do” list.

One of the most helpful talks was by Jeff Manion, Senior Pastor of Ada Bible Church. He talked about “the land between”, i.e. the time and space between what we hope for/God speaks to us about and seeing it fulfilled. What a helpful and practical message. Certainly more on this to follow.

Hearing Blake Mycoskie, founder of Toms Shoes was fascinating and inspiring. Here was a Christian who had set up a company with the aim of giving away a pair of shoes for every pair sold. To date, they have given away over 1,000,000 pairs of shoes to children in need. It all started with an idea, and the desire to make it easy for people to participate.

What idea is God speaking to you about today? It may not be to set up a company, it maybe something quite different, but what is it, and how are you going to respond?