Teaching a Passion

I was given the opportunity to teach a few days on one of the schools that we run here in YWAM (Youth With A Mission) Harpenden. The Foundations in Community Development (FCD) school looks at all aspects of how to equip and enable community's to develop in a positive way, both those in developing nations and developed nations.

My Passion revolves around conservation and environmental stewardship and sustainability, so this is what I got to teach on, focusing on environmental stewardship. It was a really fun few of days, with lots of discussions and exploring together what it means to be a steward of this earth and looking at why as Christians we are called to do this.

This is the second time I have been asked to teach on this subject and it has really challenged the way I think about the way I live, especially the way we look after our environment. We live in such an incredible world, such a gift from God, and I for one want to see it flourish.

A New Chapter

It is always exciting to be able to start a new chapter in a book, especially when the last one was so exciting. I feel the same way about getting married, and what God has spoken to me and my beautiful wife Christy about.

The last couple of years have been incredible, God has touched my life in a way that has left me changed forever, and I have had the privilege in being apart of God touching so many other lives around me also. I have witnessed people healed physically, spiritually, emotionally. I have witnessed God provide in some pretty crazy ways, when nothing seemed possible. I have never felt so full of Joy and Hope as I do now and feel more alive and more real than ever. This last chapter has kept me of the edge of my seat!

So I am really excited about this next one, especially with the way it has started. We got married on the 6th October in the states, in a town called Hudson which is where Christy's home church is. After everything that we were involved in we had about a month together in the states to organise everything that needed sorting. All the doors just seemed to open for us when we needed them too, every little detail fell into place. We spent much time praying together also, for the day and for what it would look like next. Our photographer fell into our lap, a woman of strong faith, and only an hour away, we were her last booking of the season. The flowers worked perfectly, and the food was amazing, and family on my side who were thinking they would be unable to make it happened to get time to be able to join us.

A small example of God's faithfulness in the day, we prayed and felt we should marry on the 6th, even though we wanted to marry earlier (looking back this would not have been possible). We wanted to get married outside in Christy's backyard, but that door closed very quickly. So we prayed and felt like we should do everything, ceremony and reception at her home church. We are so glad we listened and submitted to this as the temperature dropped and we even got light snow on our wedding day!

Our biggest prayer for the day was that it would be a God focused ceremony. We were so blessed by what people said after. "How you really know God was present", "that it felt like a real wedding, not just a show/ceremony", "how full of Joy it was".

We are both so thankful for what God did and has done since, how he has brought us together. We are both really keen on continuing to write this chapter with him and see where we end up.

January DTS 2012 Graduate

The last 8 months have really been amazing, with 20 trainees from 12 different nations, it has been a real mix of ideas and experience. Such a privilege to spend this time with them, going through teaching and leading a team on outreach. To be a part of what God has done in and through them and to look back on it with them makes what I do so worth it.

This is the second School that I have staffed, and I really enjoy the graduations, they are full of both excitement over what has happened and also over what is too come. One of the greatest joys about staffing a DTS (discipleship training school) is watching how much people change and grow over the time, and also to hear what they are planing to go to next, where they feel God is taking them. Which is why we not only give our trainees a certificate of graduation, but also commission them into what God is calling them too by praying for them.

The evening itself was simple yet full of joy. As each of our trainees came up to collect their certificate they marked on a map of the UK where they had been with a thumb print. as the evening went on the board was filled with lots of colour. We had worship and a time of reflecting on some of the ways which we have all seen God impact our lives and the lives of those we met over this school. We finished by presenting the certificates and then spent the rest of the evening in a mixture of joy and sadness as we spent time together for the last time before people started to head back home.

The school was called Impact UK, and these guys certainly left a mark everywhere they went. As well as being greatly impacted themselves. God has really done so much over these last 8 months in and through all these guys, and I am excited to hear what they go on to do.

A Week In Bow

It has been a busy year so far with the team I am helping to lead here at Youth With A Mission (YWAM) in Harpenden. We have Just got back from spending a week in an area of London called Bow (famous for the Bow Bells). We went to help a local church, All Hallows Bow (AHB-www.allhallowsbow.org.uk), to run a number of activities during the Olympics to help them build relationships with the local community. We also got to spend time in Stratford, close to the Olympic venues sharing faith with the different people we met.

We spent most of our time helping to run a café, showing the Olympics for the local community. We got to have a number of really good conversations with people, seeing them come day after day. One or two of them even came along to join us on Sunday for the service. We also went round the local area talking with the people who live locally, and even getting to pray for people. Amir, one of the guys who was with us got to pray for healing for a man with terrible knees, to the point he could not walk more than to the park bench outside his house and back each day. After talking and praying with this man, he saw a big change in his knees physically, and the man was able to walk without pain. We also got to run sport with the local kids, especially football, which they all really enjoyed. Loads of people ended up joining us in the café after we met them in the local area and talked and prayed with them.

We were also treated to some amazing views of London from people who lived close to the church we were staying in.

It was a really good way to finish off this part of the DTS (Discipleship Training School) that I have been helping to run this year. God has been so amazingly faithful in providing finances and other logistics to enable everyone who came to complete the whole school.

Tent City

Here at YWAM (Youth With A Mission) in Harpenden we are having a very busy summer. The campus I am working on at the moment is hosting a great deal of YWAM Internationals summer outreaches for the Olympic season. This basically means that over the whole summer we will be seeing over 2000 people pass through the gates of the property as we go and share who God is with the people we meet, especially in London, and pray for them.

We have had to set up what we call a tent city on the back field attached to the property to accommodate all the extra people. It has been a lot of fun so far, and we are only half way through everything that is happening.

It has been a real privilege to be able to hear all that God has been doing during this summer to date, with several hundred people committing their lives to Christ and even more asking for pray and seeing God answer. From healings of all sorts of injury and illness, to stories of provision of travel and daily needs, to God opening a way for things to happen when nothing seemed possible. We are so excited to see what else God is going to do this summer, and so blessed to be apart of it.

The Circuit Riders

My team and me spent the last couple of weeks involved with a school here called ‘The Circuit Riders’. This was a two-week course aimed at greater freedom in Christ and intentional evangelism (www.ywamharpenden.org/training/circuitriders). We had about 200 people join us here in Harpenden for this, which was pretty intense. We spent time in worship and intercession everyday, as well as receiving teaching focusing on our relationship and identity in Christ. We also went into Harpenden, Luton and St Albans to offer prayer and talk to people about God and life.

I really enjoyed the two weeks and felt like I gained a much better understanding of what my faith means to me and why I do what I do. We had a really great time, and were challenged a lot in whom we are.

Our times out in the different towns were also amazing. I got to have a number of really good conversations with people about what it means to live a life after Jesus, and to pray for a number of people. I am not sure that the area really knows what hit it, with over 200 young people dividing between the three locations and sharing the love of Christ in each different place over the two weeks. God was amazing over the time and we ended up seeing over 70 healings (from sprained ankles, to a lady who was partially sighted getting full sight back). We also had 129 people invite Christ to be their saviour over the two weeks.

I am sure it will be one of those times that I remember, and I know it has helped to give me a push into more of seeing God’s kingdom come.

A Week of Transformation

My DTS (Discipleship Training School) team and I spent our final week of our outreach working in an area of Bolton called Daubhill with a ministry called PFJ (Passion For Jesus). We spent this week on a plot of land, which used to be a community Garden, but has not been touched for a number of years, meaning it was massively overgrown and full of rubbish. It took us three days to clear the weeds and rubbish, trimming all the hedges, cutting the grass, tiding up the rose garden and replanting the old flowerbed, to transform it into an area for playing and enjoying. The other encouraging thing is that the church which is next to the plot of land were wanting to take on the responsibility of maintaining the land, they just needed a bit of help to get it going.

It was really nice for the team to be able to do something practical, something in which you can see visible results happen in the time we had available. Especially as this was the final week of our time as a team, so to achieve something together was really valuable.

The local community were also really enthusiastic about it, they would come and talk with us as we worked, making sure we were kept well hydrated and fed. One woman who has lived in the are all here life (nearly 80 years) said she has watched the area go downhill over the last 10-15 years, and it is just amazing to see something positive happening. It is also such a blessing that such a diverse team, from so many places would be willing to come and do something like we did.

We also spent the evenings in a couple of the local parks with a slack line, uni-cycle, and other items of sporting equipment. This was a really great chance to meet more people from the community and just have a bit of fun.

For me the week was not just about making a nice green space for the community to enjoy, it was also about being able to help bring a bit of joy and hope to an area of the city that has slowly been neglected. These people as much as anyone else deserves something to brighten up there summer!