Jul 30
Just heard the news there is a previously unreleased track available over at fatandfrantic.co.uk, click here to go directly to the page to hear it, it’s a must have for any fan of this great band.
Email this postJul 23
Well hasn’t it been, we have been fortunate in that we have had no problems ourselves. Several of our friends however were stranded on Friday night and had to find places to stay, Saturday saw the town run out of bread and milk as deliveries could not get in and a few people in the town have been flooded. But it is in the surrounding villages that the problems have been worse. Many people are flooded, one family we know of having moved on Friday woke up Saturday morning to find all their boxes in water, a friends farm has lost crops but fortunately they managed to rescue all the cattle. Several people (and I’m sure more, some of whom I will probably know, but don’t know of yet) are going to be left homeless for a while. And for some it isn’t over yet as water travels down it is expected to get worse in some areas with rivers unable to cope with the extra water.
My heart and prayers go out for those of you who are struggling with uncertainty and loss due to this weather.
Jul 17
The one thing I am discovering as I write these up for here is that I think I deliver better in person that i do writing on here, but i could be wrong.
Session 2 Saturday Morning – The body of Christ:
1 Cor 12:12-31
So what does it really mean to be a part of this body?
Well it means we all have a responsibility; we all have a part to play, even if we don’t think we have or don’t know what it is we are still a needed part of the body. Sometimes we like to try and come up with excuses as to why it’s not our responsibility, why we are ok just sitting on the edge, “I don’t know enough”, “I don’t have the time”, I did I once 20 years ago (this is one I hear occasionally when trying to get people to help, oh yes I did the holiday club 5 years ago so I’ve done my bit)”, or perhaps this one would be better for you “I’m too young”.
Paul wrote to a guy called Timothy and this is one of the things he said:-
“Do not let anyone treat you as if you are unimportant because you are young. Instead, be an example to the believers with your words, your actions, your love, your faith, and your pure life.”
We can come up with as many excuses as we like as to why this or for that matter any other part of the bible doesn’t apply to us, we may feel like we have nothing to offer the church, our Christian community, but our presence can make a difference often we might not now what we are contributing, it could be something as simple as someone else is encouraged to see you sitting in church. But we do all have gifts that God has given us, even if we don’t recognise them yet ourselves.
One of the things I would like to encourage you to do this weekend, is to think not about yourself and your gifts, but about your friends and the people you get to know while you are here, what gifts have you seen in them, how do they help or encourage you? Then if someone has encouraged you in some way or blessed you some way then please take the time to encourage them by telling them about it.
But also be thinking about how you can bless and encourage others while you are here, sometimes we need to think before we open our mouths, how does what I’m about to say encourage the person I’m about to say it too, sometimes we open our mouths without thinking and we say something hurtful without realising, and then we need to be prepared to say sorry, even when we think it has done no harm, the good that can come from going up to someone and saying look earlier I said … to you and I was out or order and I’m sorry, it’s not true and I don’t really think that about you, incredibly powerful words.
If your not sure what your gifts are, or think you haven’t got any and your worried about that then make time to speak to any of the leaders, cos we would love to talk and pray with you.
We would love for you to leave Yellow Braces knowing that you do have a place within the body, even if you still don’t know exactly what it is we want you to know that you are important and that you do fit in.
Jul 16
Sarah (the Good Dr) has already flagged this up from a mailing Ian the youthblog has sent out but quoting from the latest mailing from our new bishop. He is talking about youth work in the diocese and has some really encouraging things to say but this specific bit I think is not so specific just to our diocese:-
[Youth Ministry] “This is absolutely frontline mission with an age group that has never been so alienated from the Christian Church. It’s not that they’re against the Church; it’s just that they know almost nothing about it.
Anyone in our churches involved in youth work needs special thanks, regular encouragement and an occasional bottle of whiskey”
Sarah goes on to comment on the state of her whiskey cupboard although as a non whiskey drinker I don’t have a problem with that, although a good bottle of wine or various other spirits could be appreciated!
Jul 13
Last night I was taking the youth club bowling, about half way down the road a warning light comes on on the dash board and the engine cuts out. Pull over to side (on busy single carriageway A road) and try to restart it, no joy. I had to call out the breakdown service, we managed to get the young people onto bowling with my other leader and the help of her father who lived locally and some of them then had to get a taxi home. So I was towed home after a roadside repair was clearly not going to happen. This morning I booked the car into local main dealer and arranged to get the car towed into them. They were going to look at it on Monday, I am of course beginning to think this looks like an expensive problem. I just got a call from the garage they had some time and managed to have a look this afternoon, the car started first time no problems, the diagnostic machine says there is nothing wrong, so nothing has been done to a car that just died completely and now it is better? The garage are going to keep it in over the weekend and have a further look on Monday but at the moment all are scratching our heads. My biggest worry is that they don’t find anything, I get it back and it happened again. Thankfully we have some good friends who have lent us a car, and one that is beg enough to get us all in so at least we can still do all the things we were planning over the weekend. Tomorrow we are going over to some friends who live just outside Fairford where there is an air show on tomorrow so we will get to see all the red arrows etc, have a great time with friends and not have to pay £30 per head so tat will be good.
Have a good weekend and I shall try and sort out the rest of the talk from YB next week.
Jul 13
Sorry this was supposed to be posted a few days ago but somehow got saved for later here we go now:-
What fun we had! Last Friday to Sunday saw me at Yellow Braces, for those of you that don’t know this is a youth camp run by the diocese with around 80 young people, involving worship and activities all wrapped up in this Christian Community ethos. I have had the privilege for 2 years now of being the main speaker/evangelist at this event, and both have been fantastic despite my input. It’s always great getting to meet new people who want to be able to share the gospel and the leaders on this weekend were definitely all about that, the Band led us in worship with great sensitivity and enthusiasm, all the leaders genuinely wanted the young people to get the best out of the weekend this all in terms of the activities, the worship and the community so the whole atmosphere was just great.
For those of you that weren’t there, or missed some of the talks or even just wanted a recap I shall attempt to add some notes here over the next few days, but here to start you off is the first one:-
Session 1 Friday evening- The Bible:
The Bible should be the foundation for our lives and everything we do and yet although all Christian believe this, none or very few of us read it as much as we feel we should. Sometimes we try and come up with excuses, Peter himself even gives us an excuse in his second letter when he says “some things in Paul’s letters are hard to understand” (2 Peter 3:16 ncv), it’s true isn’t it, sometimes we just read a passage and the first thought that enters our minds is “huh, what’s that all about?” and sometimes because of this we switch off, “it’s too difficult for me so I won’t bother”. But Paul in one of his not so complicated bits, his second letter to Timothy tells us “All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” (2 Tim 3:16 niv). As Christians the Bible (the breathed word of God) needs to be the foundation our lives are built upon, yes some of it is difficult to understand (and some bits can seem boring) but there are tools to help us understand, books are one place but there are friends, youthworkers or ministers we can talk with, the key thing is we need to be building our lives upon the word of God, this is the foundation of our faith and the foundation upon which we try and build the community that is Yellow Braces for this weekend, and the foundation upon which our thinking is going to be based over the next few days.
Well that’s a rough outline, still to come are these:-
Session 2 Saturday Morning – The body of Christ:
Session 3 Saturday evening – Love your neighbour:
Session 4 Sunday – What next:
Jul 02
At the weekend I was doing more stilts and balloons for a local event and was supposed to be doing a workshop as well (although the balloons were so popular and the crowds small due to weather I didn’t do that). Because of the workshop I had a gazebo set up to run the workshop from, most of the time it was just a table and a banner reading Silly Simon across the front and nothing more. The first aiders on site saw the opportunity to get out of the rain and congregated under my gazebo. Upon seeing a lady with young children approach also looking for cover one of them introduced one of the team as Silly Simon and offered the opportunity to see him dance on the table, the lady in question responded with a comment something like, oh hello Silly Simon, I’m Mrs Silly Simon, I think it was at that point they realised they weren’t going to get any money out of her, the other thing that helped to add to the moment is that fact that the person introduced as Silly Simon would have known it was my wife.
So what can we learn from this? Identity theft can happen anywhere, any time, but without careful planning and research you may get caught out sooner than you think.
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