This week I also had the great experience of attending the Irish Preachers Conference, which was held in Dun Laoghaire. The conference was attended by preachers from all over Ireland (and a surprising amount of Australians!) and was a mix of seminar and workshops. I had a great time and was really challenged, encouraged and helped in my ministry by the conference.

I have some big things going on but also a lot of little things that cannot be ignored but here’s a run-down of some of the big things happening to me at the moment.

SWIM

First and foremost among the big, life-changing things is SWIM (click here for more info in a previous post). I’ve been encouraged and decided to go all out for this. Serving at MCC (the “friend’s church” mentioned in that previous post) for a year would be my dream job at the moment. The optimism of my friends and their patience with my often Eeyore-like personality has convinced me that raising the support I need is possible. Some very kind people have contributed already leaving the total amount I have left to raise at somewhere between €2,000 and €3,000. The support and encouragement I’ve already received has been amazing and I’m hopeful that I can make it. I haven’t taken any actual money from people yet because I still have to be approved by the Board of Youth and Children’s Ministry. My interview with the Board is on Wednesday in Belfast. I am nervous because I don’t really know what to expect. Also I’ve never been to Belfast before but thankfully my friend and mentor, Peter and his wonderful wife Christine will be there that day anyway and can meet me when I get off the bus. Please pray that I’ll give a good account of myself and be approved to serve at MCC. I’m hoping that the fund raising I’ve already done will show the Board that I’m serious about the programme.

Encounter

I’ll be starting my short-term mission work with World Harvest Mission Ireland. I’ll be co-leading a team of volunteers at the Anchorage in Ringsend, Dublin. The Anchorage is such an unusual and brilliant place. Basically the trustees of an old, run-down church meeting hall left it to a local man Joe because he was the only local Christian they knew. Left with a big, dilapidated hall and no idea what to do with it Joe asked God for help. This passage came to Joe’s mind and so, with no horticultural experience, Joe started growing flowers and breeding birds (and rabbits). Years later Joe’s an expert in both and sells the flowers and animals to raise money for the third world and improve his community. When I was there last year as a volunteer we planted flowers locally at the community centre, the retirement home, the women’s shelter and a few housing estates, we distributed free New Testaments door-to-door, carried out a survey to see if people would be interested in attending an Alpha course and helped out at the kids club. It’s a very exciting place to serve and I’m looking forward to doing it again this year, but I’m a bit nervous about being a leader.

Running

I think I’ve got the running bug. I started running about a month ago. I was browsing online and I read an article somewhere about some Maasai who were competing in the London Marathon. They ran in sandals made from old car tires. Back home they run everyday with their cattle and they said the marathon would be easy because there are no lions. Compared to these guys I’m like a different, more sedentary species. So, without setting my sites on a marathon or anything, I decided I’d try to run the 3/4 of a mile home from work. My first run was a crushing disappointment. I thought I could run 3/4 of a mile easy but I couldn’t even make it half of the way. I had a lot of excuses for myself – it’s up a steep hill, I didn’t warm up enough, I tried to run too fast, I had tuberculosis when I was a child, blah, blah, blah… The fact remains I was in much more need of regular exercise than I’d imagined. So next day I tried again, setting little markers for myself to keep me going but before I knew it I’d ran out of markers and had made it home without stopping. At times you could have past me walking because I was only technically running in that at one point in my gait I had both feet off the ground.

Since then I’ve been running regularly and increasing the distance steadily. I’ve mapped out a nice 5K route that starts and ends with my home and another for when I run home from work. I think I’ve made good progress and it feels great to get out and get the exercise. I’d like to aim for a race next, a 5K is certainly doable but I don’t see a lot of them around here so I might have to keep training until I can do a 10K. I’m considering blogging regularly about my running.

IBI

Wednesday is the last day of studies at the IBI but I won’t be able to make it that day because of my interview in Belfast. We have an end of year party on Tuesday, which I should be able to make it to. This is the end of an era for me since my course is finished now but I do expect they’ll see me back at IBI soon, probably for modular or evening studies.

So I’ve been left with two choices: get a job in some missionary or church organisation, or volunteer as a missionary and rely on donations. Now I’m afraid the job avenue didn’t look too good when I peered down it. I haven’t got enough experience to get a job yet so that leaves me with volunteering to get this much needed experience. Again I ran up against a wall. Working for free is expensive! Somebody eventually has to pay for my upkeep for the year. This is usually paid for by a base of very kind supporters. While I have some very kind, loving and encouraging supporters at my church the number of people in my church is still in single digits. Yes, single digits. In a large church it would be easier to find enough people to pay a small sum of money so that it would all add up to be able to fund my missionary work for a year, but in a church where the congregation has at time been only two people this isn’t possible. It was all getting a bit depressing until my elder and mentor Peter handed me a note before church. The note contained the name and phone number of a contact in charge of PCI Youth and Children’s Ministry’s SWIM programme. SWIM seems perfect. I would go to a church and work full time with them for a year and my accommodation and ministry expenses would be provided by the church as well as £50/€80 a week spending money. At last a way to gain experience.

On Monday I posted off my application form to the Board of Youth and Children’s Ministry, I received confirmation of their receipt.

On Wednesday one of those things happened that simultaneously excites me and makes me very happy and also makes me very worried and unsure of how to progress. A friend of mine mentioned the possibility of me working as the SWIM worker at his church. Out of all the churches in this country if you were to ask me to pick which one I would like to work with it would be this church. I wouldn’t even have to think about it..

So why am I worried and unsure of how to progress? The great thing about the SWIM programme was how my expenses would be provided for by the church, in fact this wasn’t just a “great thing” – a point in SWIM’s favour – it was what made SWIM even possible for me. If I get the position at my friend’s church I would have to raise the funds myself, about €8,000.

I’ll be honest, I have no idea how I’m going to raise that money.

I might not find out whether or not I’ve been assigned to this dream position at my friends church for a few months. So by the time I find out whether or not I’ll have to raise any funds I could have as little as one month to raise them. Remember my base of potential supporters is in the single digits.

So maybe you can understand how I feel. Please pray. Also consider this a roundabout way of saying “dear stranger from the internet, would you like to support me?”.

Long story short – I am not a morning person, I tried to be a morning person but that just doesn’t seem to be the way I’m wired. To be honest my tendency to stay up late and the frequent bouts of insomnia when I was younger kind of tipped me off anyway.

If anyone wants to talk with me it’s best to do it in the evening or at night. I just seem to liven up when the sun starts to go down. I’ll certainly be a better conversationalist late in the day, especially compared to my morning zombie state.

For some reason though, morning prayer just seems “holier” than evening prayer. The image of rising with the sun to praise your Maker is kind of romantic. But lets get this quite clear, the notion that morning prayer is better in itself than afternoon, evening, or night prayer is rubbish.

Maybe you’re a morning person and you’re in your best form at that time of day. In that case then your morning prayers are probably going to be your “best” prayers. I’m an evening/night person so it follows that my prayers said in the evening or night time would be my “best” prayers. By “best” prayers I mean those prayers where you can really unload your heart to God, praise Him, confess to Him, thank Him and bring your supplications to Him.

One of my teachers at the IBI said on Wednesday “if you’re not a morning person why would you give God you’re worst time of the day?”. This really struck me. If I wanted to talk to you, dear reader, I wouldn’t invite you around at seven in the morning for a chat, you’d only meet with Zombie John.

Zombie John no talk good.

I still pray in the morning when I wake up but it’s just a kind of “good morning” where I thank God for the day and ask for His blessings. I am really enjoying my prayer times more now that I’ve been reminded that it is an invitation to come before my Father and talk to Him not an obligation or opportunity to look as holy as I can.

I am constantly surprised at my ability to take some beautiful, free gift and turn it into work. The ever-present pride is at the bottom of this – I can’t accept gifts because I think I am good enough to earn them. This completely goes against the Gospel, a gift so great I could never earn it but a gift given to me by a loving Father nonetheless.

With that said, lately Peter and I have been discussing my upcoming graduation from the IBI and what I could do afterwards. I don’t think going straight to seminary would be a good idea, and to be honest I’m still seeking God’s will on the whole ordained ministry thing. I do know that I am a man of books – it’s just like me to stick my head in a book, learn the facts, have the “right answers” and still not even know my neighbour’s name. I know that’s the way I’m inclined so I have to take measures against that. So I’m hoping to go into some sort of missionary work to get me to step out of the boat and get out there working with people. This is something that I absolutely love doing but I do need to push myself out of my natural comfort zone – books, classrooms, lectures, etc. – to do it.

I’m looking into a few different options. One of the major problems is that I need a job but all that’s available seems to be volunteer work. That sounds very materialistic but I don’t have a lot of funds and my support base (my church) is too small to support a year of volunteer work.

I’m looking at PCI’s SWIM scheme which is voluntary but accommodation and ministry expenses are provided as well as £50 a week and it does look very good. I’d get to work with a church for a year. I’m going to ask around to see if I could afford this but I’ve already started filling out the application form.

I’ve mentioned this earlier – I bought 20 copies of John’s Gospel to distribute them around Cahir. The Gospels arrived a while ago, they look really nice, you can see a picture of one of mine bellow.

I ordered a stamp from VistaPrint to stamp the inside cover of each Gospel saying that it had been distributed for free by Cahir Presbyterian Church. You can see what the stamp looks like below:

When they’re distributed, each copy of the Gospel will have a stamped and addressed reply card inside so people can let us know if they’d be interested in attending a Bible study on the Gospel of John. I plan to lead that study. I bought some blank postcards and printed all the information on them. I think they look pretty good.

I want these Gospels to go out to people who actually want one rather than just sticking them through the letterboxes of people who don’t want anything like that. I’m going to advertise and people can contact me if they want one. Advertising is probably going to be the biggest cost of this little project so I’m going to try to keep it cheap and effective. Advertising on the church website costs me nothing. I’ve done up posters to post up around Cahir. You can see the top of the poster below, the rest of it has my address and phone number on it so I’m keeping that off-line.

The nice doodles you can see framing the text I downloaded from ScrapbookScrapbook.com, very handy. Creative communities rock.

This is all very exciting! Jonathan, my MAP teacher has asked me to speak about this in class.

Any ideas for alternative advertising methods?

Most weeks I’m assigned some topics to think about and journal. This week’s topics are:

Do I live what I know I believe?

The short answer is “more than I used to, but still far less than I’d like”. It’s like there are two levels of belief for me (although I know I’m not alone in this). There are things I know in my head, I believe them, but sometimes I think I must forget them. Sometimes the love of God and the sheer grace of the Gospel hits me right in the chest. It hits me. It’s real. It’s really real. He’s really real and He loves me more than I could imagine. As for my tendency to “forget” I put it down to my sinful nature. I’m proud and sometimes I really think a lot of myself. Sometimes I’m just more comfortable leaning on religion to make me feel like a better person, like I’m some how good enough to deserve the blessings of God. That’s a serious underestimation of just how muchGod loves and blesses me as well as a serious overestimation of my own righteousness.

How do I misuse the Law?

Well, the point of the Law, I think, is to point us to the Gospel. The Law is tough, too tough to keep. The Law shows us that we have all messed up. The Law shows us our need and the Gospel shows us that the need has been met in Jesus.

I misuse the Law by treating it as as some kind of pick-a-mix, taking what I want. I pick the laws I consider easy to keep and use them to make myself feel better. I make myself feel like I don’t really need Jesus, like I can manage this on my own. When I really look at this it is nothing less than turning my back on my Saviour to satisfy my own pride. I’m proud. Deep down. Right to the core. Proud.

The Law is not meant to be treated as a pick-a-mix and it is not meant to make us feel good about how well we can manage it. We simply cannot manage it, it’s too hard and the burden is too heavy. The Law shows us our need, Jesus has met that need.

Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, (1 Timothy 1:8 ESV)

I wrote “1 Timothy 1:8″ in my notebook, that’s all. So I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to do with this verse because I’ve forgotten. I guess I’m to just think about it and journal my thoughts.

The Law is good if it is used lawfully, or properly. The Law is good as long as it is used as it is supposed to be used, and as I said earlier I think the point of the Law is to point us to the Gospel. The Law is good as long as we remember what a rubbish job we all do of keeping it, as long as we remember we cannot treat it as pick-a-mix and feel self-righteous about how well we’re doing without Jesus. The Law is not there to show us that we are better than “those sinners”, the Law is there to show us that we are “those sinners” and point us to the Gospel where we find out that us sinners have been blessed to be called the beloved children of God.

About a couple of weeks ago I was asked back to be one of the team leaders for this year’s Encounter. I’m very excited about doing this again but also nervous about the extra responsibility this year. The important thing I need to remember is that God will do His work and, if I allow Him to and depend on Him, He will work through me.

I started my new subjects at the IBI this week – “Church History” and “Spirituality and Self-Understanding”. The Spirituality and Self Understanding course is very very similar to the Sonship course of Encounter so I’m looking forward to this subject. I should be well prepared for the summer.

Spiritual and Personal Development

This area has suffered a lot over the holidays. We opened the chip shop a few days before Christmas, under-staffed and inexperienced. We were so busy! I would get up in the morning, go to work, work all day, go home and catch a few hours sleep and then repeat the process again in the morning. My prayer life suffered a lot and I needed to get extensions on my assignment for college. Things are calming down now but they’re still not quite the way I’d like it to be. We have more staff now and we’re all a lot better at our jobs but we could still do with another full-time staff member.

My Prayer life is getting better again and, looking back over my notes, I can see the prayers God has answered and this makes me very grateful. I’ve also started a new Bible reading plan. I had just finished reading the Bible for the first time towards the end of last year so the timing was perfect. I was going to do a one-year reading plan but my Biblical Interpretation teacher suggested a five-year plan. I’ll study a book a month (although since the Bible has 66 books I’ll have to read two books some months) and at the end of each year I’ll have studied at least twelve books well instead of just reading through 66 books.

Here’s what my plan looks like:

Relationships

This is the big thing I’ve been keeping a secret in the last few meeting notes but it’s public now so I guess I can write it here. Sam, my pastor is leaving our church, actually he gave his last sermon in Cahir on Sunday. We’ll miss him but I guess he needs to move on now. He’s off to Kenya in February for a sabbatical and then he starts in his new position in Dublin in April. One of my MAP goals was to develop better communication with Sam, so that’s kind of not really possible now. I’m more concerned about the future of our little church though. There was few enough of us already and now we have no minister so we’re in a very vulnerable spot.

Ministry Involvement

Peter and I talked about getting another banner for the church to celebrate Easter. The first banner has been a success, it’s been noticed by passers-by and it’s been commented on by people who come into the church.I still have to write the Statement of Faith page, I’m not sure how to write it really – it needs to be short and understandable, theologically correct but broad enough to welcome diversity on the minor issues. Now that work is calming down I should have more time to work on this.

Leadership

Peter and I discussed the Bible Study I was to lead some more. I’ve since lead the study and it went well. It’s very different to preaching – it’s a conversation so I have to lead it and encourage questions without dominating the study and just giving people a lecture – so it’s good experience to gain.

Personal and Spiritual Development

My schedule kind of went out the window on Monday night. I installed Ubuntu Linux on my laptop and I was tinkering with that until about 4 in the morning. When I have a computer problem to tackle I can get completely immersed in it and I don’t notice the time going. It’s a leftover trait from my programming days when I’d stay up all night coding. Ubuntu is working brilliantly though! It’s been a while since I’ve used Linux and it has really improved, especially on my laptop.

Anyway as a result of that late night I woke up late and didn’t have enough time to properly pray in the morning. Other than that praying has been going well and I’m now using a notebook to keep track of requests and answers to prayer. At first I was trying to write a new list for everyday but this wasn’t working for me and I’ve changed it around a little to suit myself. I think I’ve found my stride with the whole praying thing – not to regimented but not unstructured either.

I handed in my notice in work on Monday. That felt great! I’ll be going to work for my brother when he opens up his new takeaway just down the road from my house. He hopes to open on the 22nd.

Relationships

Again I’m not really going to give too much away regarding this just yet. There have been some issues at church and I think it deserves a post of it’s own to explain fully. I’ll get around to that eventually.

Ministry

Peter and I further discussed having a statement of faith page on a website. I would prefer a simple, easily understood page using bullet points. I should check out some other websites. At the moment I have a lot to do for college so it could be a while before this is done.

Peter and I also discussed me doing some more preaching at church. We have not set any dates yet and I’ve been assured I’ll receive plenty of notice. It would be really great to preach again.

Leadership

I’m still gathering notes and making observations on Daniel 9:1-19 for the Bible study I plan to lead. I have nothing written yet but I have until the new year before the study. Peter gave me some good advice on preparing for studies. I’ve only lead one study before and I didn’t write much for that. Peter says he writes a lot.