Reflection of identity

I finished staffing a Discipleship Training School (DTS) about a month ago and after the trainees graduated I suddenly found myself quickly moving from doing a lot of stuff to doing very little. This was difficult for me because I like to be busy, as it makes me feel needed and effective. I discovered that I’d been believing some lies, that ‘what I do is who I am’ and ‘what I do makes me valuable and important’! It was only when I slowed down that I realised this. I was suddenly thinking, “Oh no! now what do I do? I need to be doing something or people will not want me around.”

It was in this struggle that God spoke to me and asked me a question; he asked me “Why are you doing what you do? Does being a DTS leader define who you are? Or are you defined by your character, who I made you and gifted you as?” Then God took me to a verse in the Gospel of Mark where He says to Jesus “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” Even though I had read this verse a number of times before and had been told that God said this to Jesus prior to Him doing any ministry, I was greatly challenged because this thought went through my head ‘So God is pleased with me not because I do things, but simply because I am who I am.’ This was my revelation; I don’t need to do things to please God or to be accepted by Him, but he accepts me whether or not I do things. He accepts me for simply being me, just as I am.

As we spend time with God and discover more of who He is and who we are in Him, we will find our peace. It is not the things we do that define us, but who we are. Why should we strive to be recognised and accepted by the world, trying to show the people around us that we are good at this or needed in that, when we are already accepted and good at what God wants us to be? No one can be better than you at being you and the only way we find out about who we are is by spending time with God, in His word and seeing who He is.

A School Graduates

The Discipleship Training School (DTS) I have been staffing graduated at the start of September, which was such an amazing evening. It was really good to look back over the 6 months of the school and see the growth of all the trainees, and us as staff also. It’s funny, just because you are staffing a DTS definitely does not mean you have all the answers. I have certainly grown and been more challenged doing this school than when I was a trainee a little over a year ago.

It was such an amazing experience to be able to hand each of the trainees their certificate and bless them. They have all come such a long way since we started the school and I have had so much fun living and traveling with them all. The thing I loved most about the graduation was to hear each of the trainees tell the community here at Youth With a Mission Harpenden (YWAM Harpenden) what God has done in their lives over the time of the course.

Being a part of this school, part of this process, has really brought home to me how powerful discipleship actually is. Staffing the school  really helps to bring to life what Jesus did with his followers and the transformation you see with all of them after Jesus has gone to heaven. Being on both ends of the process of the DTS has really opened my eyes to what it means to really speak truth into someone’s life and talk through the hard stuff, to truely challenge someone to grow. I really appreciate those people in my life who challenge me and bring correction to me in areas of my character that are a little rough!

Discipleship is such an amazing gift that God has given us, and brings such amazing revelation about who God is and transformation in the lives of those we invest into, it is such a privilege and a hard thing to do at times, but it is so worth it.

DTS Outreach

I have been a bit silent the last few months, but what an amazing few months it has been! I have spent the summer taking a small team of people to 5 different nations on a short-term mission outreach. We started off in Macedonia, then moved to Romania, from there we headed over to Israel and Palestine before heading back to the UK, where we spent our time in Manchester.

It was one of those experiences that I will always look back on in amazement, one of my favourite summers so far! The group we took were from a discipleship training school (DTS) that I have been involved with this year. This trip was the practical part of their course, where they got to put into practice the things they have learnt. I have massively enjoyed working alongside the trainees and have seen God work some amazing things in their lives, some amazing transformation, both in them and in myself also. I have certainly been stretched a lot doing this school, and I am really looking forward to staffing the next school in January.

The whole trip gave us chances to do a good range of ministry, ranging from simply face painting and balloon modelling in local parks, picking up litter, to speaking in churches, doing dramas on the streets, and praying for people to be healed all the way to intercession and prayer walking.

The most incredible thing about this outreach was how much we saw God provide for us as a team. We felt strongly that God had spoken to us about going to all these different places, but we did not have the funds to be able to go everywhere, so we left the base in faith, trusting that God had spoken to us as a school. The best story about this provision was halfway through our trip when we were on our way to Israel. When we got on the plane the guy we were going to see still did not have any accommodation for us, but by the time we landed he had found us a place and not only that, it was free for us to stay! Even more incredible was that we were also given a place to stay for free when we reached Manchester, but not only that, we were given a gift of Tesco vouchers which covered food for our entire stay in Manchester. It has been a real journey of learning more about what it really means to step out in faith, and to trust in the word of God and to act on it, even if it does not make sense.

We also saw God move in some pretty amazing ways in all these countries, people were so open to talking with us about what faith is and who God is. We saw God move in power and heal whole villages of people, as well as so many people inviting God to be part of their lives. We saw God transform others as well as ourselves. I know that everyone on the team was massively impacted by the amount that we saw God do when we stepped out in faith.

One of my favourite examples of this happened in Romania. We did a lot of work in some of the local gypsy villages there. They are the poorest group of people in the country and really cannot afford anything, including medical care. You often find that a whole village will get together to be able to buy a horse to help with the work. We were able to do some teaching with the kids, helping them get a basic education. This lead to the kids taking us into the village they live in to meet their families and because we had people in our team from South Korea and Africa, we were instant celebrities! This lead to us being able to do a drama and pray for a few people for different pain they had. The fun thing was God healed those few people and so the kids started to run through the village telling everyone what had happened, taking us with them. We were able to pray for people with sight problems, kidney pain, back pain, joint pain, other illnesses, and they were all healed, every single one! I got to pray with one woman, with her grandkids, who was so sick she did not have the strength to even raise a hand. We were told she had been like this for a few weeks, but once she had been prayed for she got up and started doing stuff, she even went to draw water from the well in the village. We saw God turn the village upside down while we were there, one of the women even wanted to turn her house into a church.

Another incredible experience was when we were in Palestine, just outside Bethlehem. We did a lot more intercession in Israel and Palestine than anything else. One evening we felt God had told us to go to worship and pray in an area called Shepherd’s field, where it is thought that the angels appeared to the shepherds when Jesus was born. So we went, and it was the most powerful worship time I have ever experienced. God showed us prophetic pictures for the nation, He gave us words to speak out over the situation that is happening, we ended up staying for about 5 hours. It was such a special time for everyone, we all left having met God in a very different way to what we had ever experienced before.

It has really been an amazing few months, and I know that my relationship with God has grown greatly, and so has that of those who were with me. It still amazes me how truly awesome God is and the way he provides when we think that it is impossible. I am constantly seeing more of who God is and who I am. It is such a humbling experience, doing what I am doing, but I love it and am so excited to be able to do the things God has called me to in this season.

God is so good.

Mind Body Spirit...

So what is this Mind Body Spirit, well it is a new age spiritualist festival. What did we do? Well we hired a stand for the week as we felt that God wanted us to be there. We did two different things, the main thing was what we called "Creation prayer" basically asking God who the person was, what he wanted to say to them, how he sees them. The other thing we did was healing prayer.

It was such an amazing week, we prayed for over 500 people at the stand, as well as so many more during the week around the festival. The thing that we all took away from the this is that God just broke your heart for people, he is so for reaching out and touching people, I have no idea how many people we actually prayed for and talked to during the week, but the biggest thing God wanted to say to people was that he loved them. And as you told people this, after sharing words of encouragement, knowledge etc, people would just break down. The theme of the festival was Love, and people just needed to know that It was God who truly loves them. The whole experience just blew me away, so many people so hungry to know truth. We were given 100 gospels of John, and we left the festival having given them all away, but we did not just give them to anyone, we gave them to people we had significant conversations with, people who God told us to. We had a number of people come to faith as well, and we were able to give them info on local church and how to find out more. The other cool thing was there were three other Christian stands, one called the Jesus experience, who are a group of Messianic Jews, who do similar stuff to us, but using the Jesus Deck as a tool for sharing the gospel, one that did dream interpretation, the only stand in the place which did, and the other was a massage place. All the other stands you had to pay for, but all the Christian stands were for free, we had a verse before we started from Isaiah which says come and buy bread without money! And we sent people between the different Christian stands and prayed for each other and worshiped together. It was amazing.

I want to share two particular stories from the week which really ruined me, but there were so many, I would never be able to put them al here.

The first we prayed for a lady, and I have never had an experience like it, we were praying and asking God who she is, and what he wanted to say to her, and I had the deepest ache in the depths of my spirit while praying. It was an ache of longing, we had a picture of Jesus just weeping, crying out for her, desperate for her, and that is what I was feeling. We had some other really specific words for her, and also got to pray healing for her, which was instant. She broke down and kept asking if we tell other people what we were telling her. The amazing thing about the week was that no two was the same, God knows everyone intimately and we saw that. She went away after we sat and talked for a while with a Gospel to read to find out more about who Jesus is. Time after time we just shared truth with people and you saw them transform before your eyes, they would light up with hope.

The other story I want to share really broke my heart. We were praying for a woman for healing, as she told us that basically her immune system had stopped working properly, so her body was basically rejecting itself. so we prayed for healing and I really felt God give me the word rejection, that she felt rejected by her family and the other things in her life, and she told us yes and that she had accepted it. So we prayed some more and God said she needed to forgive those people, and also to repent for accepting the rejection, which she did not seem keen to do, we talked with her a bit longer, so she prayed forgiveness, but you could see it was not from her heart she just spoke the words. Because she had accepted the lie that she is rejected her body was physically reacting to what she believed in her spirit. As she left my heart broke, because I know God wanted her to be free, but she was not willing to accept it. It really challenged me, to see how desperately God wanted her to be free, but that she did not see it.

It was the most amazing time, and I know that I will not see things the same again. To see God touch so many lives in so many ways, to see how desperately he wants to share with people, but how gentle he is in that as well, he never forced his way in, he offered and waited.

My prayer is that all those seeds would be protected and grow, our link outside the festival was with alpha, each card we gave to people had the alpha site on the back and we told people that if they want to find out more about Jesus that is a really good way to do that.

God is so amazing, I can not truly express here what happened over the week, but He touched so many lives, like I said he is amazing.

Our Light...

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."


This is a quote from A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles by Marianne Williamson.


This quote has always challenged and inspired me to think about what my own light is, what does it mean to be a child of God? and what is this Glory of God within us?


So what does it mean to let our lights shine, simply to show the world who God is, his spirit is within us, the spirit that brings life, and I do not mean the everyday, I mean life in all that it can be, in fullness, after all Jesus said himself that he came so that we could all have life and life in its fullness. For me this means that that hole that I felt, always wanting to find something to fill it, but never managing to, has been filled. I have peace and satisfaction with life, knowing that God, who created everything, loves me and accepts me. That in itself is a humbling thought! "I am unworthy, but not worthless" is what someone said to me last week. In fact I am so very uniquely valuable, we all are, as God himself gave the most precious thing he could to save me. I think that living the truth of this is one way to let our light shine, not cutting myself down, but in-fact acknowledging that God actually does see me as valuable enough to give himself for me, he actually likes who I am. No matter what that looks like, he still loves me and accepts me.


The other way to live the glory of God that is found within us is to know what the purpose that God created us for, which is to be expressions of who he is on this earth. We do something on the YWAM (youth with a mission) base I work on that we call freedom prayer, which is basically asking God who we are, who he created, and then asking God what is getting in the way, what lies we have in our lives that stop us living this. Fear of what other people think is probably the biggest thing that holds us from living this as real! I know it has been in my life, but God is so good, and I love him so much, he has freed me from so much in my past.


I think that is the key to life, it is living in the love that God has for us, we can never be rejected by him, as he has adopted us as his children, and promises never to leave us, and God is always true to his word. And when we live in that love, other things do not seem so big anymore. There is great security in it, and all the things that God says about himself become more real. As we live in that freedom, that security, other people want to come round it, as they feel safe, it gives them a place where they can ask questions and find freedom also. That is what I see when I look at this quote. As we live in the reality of who God calls us to be, it releases others around us to also be able to live in that freedom. I have found this to be true in my own life, as I have spent time around people who are really on fire for God, I find they have a deep passion for living life, and it is infectious, I also want this. It challenges me, but also greatly encourages me that maybe I can also have that, and I have found over these last couple of years this to be true. As I spend time round people who are living in the freedom of God's love, I find it rubs off, and I am also able to live in that freedom, and then I notice people round me, who I can speak encouragement to also, and see them move into greater freedom. It is one bit cycle really...


Needless to say I love God, I certainly do not have all the answers, far from it, I still do not understand a lot of things that happen, but I love God and trust that he sees more than me, and I want to know more of who he is. It is a really exciting journey.

A Week In Cambridge

So we headed to Cambridge for a week with the April 2011 DTS (Discipleship Training School) which I am helping to lead. It was a time of real strengthening of friendships as a team, we all had such fun together. The city itself is so beautiful, with the university area and all the old town, buildings several hundred years old. We just don't make them like that anymore. The city is also full of bikes, simply because it is easier to get around on a bike.

We joined up with the YWAM team in Cambridge and got the chance to do a number of things during the week. The really cool thing about the week was that this is the first time that YWAM in Cambridge has had a team come and join them, and the week we were there another team had come over from the States, so there were a lot of us!

The first couple of days was spent working with a new church plant, we ended up going door to door to talk about the church and offer prayer for people. i was so surprised at how open people were, and how many people truly wanted prayer over some really significant things in their lives, we even got to pray for healing for people.

The other few days were spent doing a lot of prayer round the city, as the team in Cambridge have launched a new 24/7 prayer initiative for the next few weeks, with the aim of establishing a permanent prayer house in the city. This was really amazing, being able to write down things that God had said. I also found out that nearly 20 years before God had spoken about the establishing of a prayer house in the city, so to see the vision and dreams being walked toward is amazing.

All in all the team and I had such an amazing time, it was a really good way to be able to spend time together encouraging each other and actively practicing some of the things that have been taught during the school so far.

The team :)

Walking With God...

I am in Cambridge this week and found myself with an evening free so, since I lived here until I was almost 9 (which in actual fact is over 15 years ago!), decided that I would go for a walk with God round the area I lived. It was so much fun, and I got to see God do so many random things.

I started off popping into a local tesco, to get a couple of bits for the team I am with, and ended up having a conversation with a lady about the little pocket bags you can now get, and was able to bless her before she left. After that I walked down the main street and stopped to talk to a couple at a bus stop outside the church that my family was at when we did live here. I asked if they knew where the road that I used to live on was, and found out they were also visiting the area, but thankfully they had a map with them, so we were able to find it on the map, and we blessed each other as we parted company. So after I found my old street, I did a crazy thing and knocked on the door of the house I used to live in, and was greeted by a really lovely lady, who must have been in her 50's. We talked for a few minutes about the house and what had changed, and she said that If I wanted to see it I could come back during the day when her husband was also around, but I did et to bless her before wandering off. I headed toward my old primary school, but was not entirely sure where I was going, but I could not find anyone to ask, so asked God instead and then headed in the direction I felt was right, and got there without getting lost! Thanks God. It was so much smaller than I remember it, in fact everything was, but I guess I have gotten a bit bigger since. I then headed back to where we are staying and on the way asked God if there was anyone I could pray for before I finished my walk, and he lead me to a leisure centre, where i met two guys, Ben, who was about 3 inches taller than me and well built, and Dave, who was in a wheelchair. When I asked them if I could pray for them they immediately said yes, so I asked if there was anything specific, to which they said no, just a general prayer of blessing. So I got to pray for them, just like I had asked God, it was so amazing, to see an answer to prayer like that.

Like I said, I had so much fun, and even came away with about 30p in my pocket, as I kept finding coins whenever I stopped, God is just awesome. I think the biggest thing for me during this walk was taking a step of faith on those little prompts that I felt were from God, such as knocking on the door of the house I used to live in, or asking those two guys if I could pray for them. It's funny, when you do step out and follow what you feel God is saying, you see God touch the people you meet, but he also touches you as well, it is such an encouragement, such a faith boost.

I think this quote from William Temple sums up my walk.

"When I pray, coincidences happen, and when I don't, they don't."