Woodworking bits

Not much happening in my outdoor workshop. I was doing a repair job on some bits from a gazebo that had broken when the wind picked it up and blew it across the garden! Lots of epoxy adhesive and some fibre-glass too. We'll see how well it works. I also used some jubilee clips as part of the repair. Quite a Heath-Robinson affair.

One job I did do for the tool chest project was to make a couple of trays for bits and pieces. I continued with my scrap philosophy and found some pieces of 9mm ply for the sides and 6mm ply for the bases. They will do the job.

Another little job that needed finishing off was an adjustable stop for my mitre saw. It's a simple hand saw, nothing fancy. I usually end up with a block of wood clamped to another block of wood clamped to the bench to provide a stop, but I knew there would be a better solution. Once again I looked at all the 12mm ply left over and created a simple base with a sliding block.

The block can be clamped anywhere along the bench and the sliding block gives me a measure of fine adjustment.

The central slot was cut in two passes using a 6mm cutter in the router table.
These simple little jigs are really useful things to make as you go along. It doesn't take much work and it's quite a nice feeling to solve little problems that crop up time and again as you try to make repeatable cuts.

My end stop can be used with my drill press with a minor modification and I guess with anything that needs a measured distance.

Of copiers and mortal men

For about 3 months now I've been trying to get a photocopier fixed. You'd think it would be fairly simple, call an engineer, pay the fee, fix the copier. Not so easy. I have to confess that some of the delay is because it's not been No.1 on my priority list.

The company from whom I purchased said copier (a Canon IR1022A for those who want to know), have been helpful but I've struggled to get to speak to an engineer. I tried Canon themselves, but they were less than interested given that I didn't buy it directly from them and haven't got it on a service contract with them.

Finally I thought we'd cracked it this week having made contact with an engineer and arranged a service call. I thought too soon! I got a call this morning to tell me that I should call Canon because according to their records I'd only taken delivery of the copier in December of last year and therefore the problem would be fixed by Canon under warranty.

So I called Canon.

"Your contract isn't with us, it's with the distributor, you'll have to get them to organise it." I was not impressed. No matter how I pleaded for an explanation there was no moving Canon.

So I'm now back to very near square one, not knowing if anyone is going to fix my problem. And I'm rather frustrated. Canon is not on my Christmas card list!

And you know what's really frustrating is that when an engineer finally makes it to my door, he or she will plug in a laptop, download a bit of firmware and the thing will wake up and copy away as it did before the dreaded "Standby download" message appeared.

And the Doctor tells me to reduce my stress levels!!!

Simple ways to live out the mission of God

Back in April of this year the Church Planting Novice posted this "8 ways" article about being missional. Here are the 8 ideas, you can read the full post here.

1. Eat with Non-Christians.
2. Walk, Don’t Drive.
3. Be a Regular.
4. Hobby with Non-Christians.
5. Talk to Your Co-workers.
6. Volunteer with Non-Profits.
7. Participate in City Events.
8. Serve your Neighbours.

Following my Grandfather

I've had a little question buzzing around my head for a little while now. Should I follow my grandfather and go to the Gambia? Not  permanently  but at least for a visit. Let me tell you the story.

One day, while I was at college in the late 1980's studying theology I got a 'phone call from my father. He had a question for me about my grandfather. Now I knew very little about him. I knew that he'd been a Methodist minister at some point and that he'd left the church for some reason but that was about my sum total knowledge of the man. My father's question was about his father's nickname at college. He was called Typhos, and my Dad wanted to know what it meant. Well, it's a Classical Greek word not used in the New Testament so I looked it up in my big Greek dictionary and told him it meant a small lake or pool. Fairly obvious given that the family name is "Pool". Clearly they were nothing if not inventive at the turn of the 20th century.

Having shared this information with my father, I then asked why my grandfather had a Greek nickname. It turns out he was at a Methodist training college in Birmingham (which I think later became BBI) and cut short his studies to go and serve in Africa. Sadly the yearbook that had his photograph in and a something of the story of his call and response was lost in father's later years when he was suffering from dementia.

As I recall, someone came to the college to speak and talked of the desperate need for workers in the Gambia and my grandfather dropped everything and went. Suddenly I was no longer the only member of my family that had ever shared a passion for God's mission in the world. 

And now I have the opportunity to visit the Gambia and stand in the place my grandfather stood. I wonder if he felt the pressure of living on a limb, I wonder if he felt the burden of the church in the UK that I felt when I was in Africa in the 1970's. I wonder if he prayed for more people to follow God's call into kingdom service. I wonder if I am part of the answer to a prayer my grandfather prayed.

Such wonderings make me worry that my view of his life and ministry has more in common with the little house on the prairie than it does with the reality, but I can't help feeling that there's part of my journey that somehow connects with his and that it would, at the very least, be interesting to see the land he once felt compelled to serve.

Father's Day

Here are a few characteristics of our heavenly Father that you might want to reflect upon as Father's Day approaches.

He was willing to pay any price in order to save you.

He is always ready to meet your needs.

He loves you so much he is willing to disciple you to bring you to maturity.

He continues to do what is best for you even when you rebel against him and reject his love.

He does not make his love for you conditional upon you loving him.

He loves you even when you are not loving him.

He has made you an heir and has a home reserved for you in heaven.

Quite a tall order to emulate as a father!

These characteristics were paraphrased from a daily devotional in Experiencing God day-by-day, June 17th.

On moving

The penny is slowly but most definitely dropping that we are moving in the autumn. September is not that far away, and the enormity of the decision we've made casts quite a shadow! I guess that ministry has few peers when it comes to the factors involved in the change process.

Not only do you change jobs, but you change location, you change house, you change friends! The last of these is sometimes the hardest to bear. Maybe it's just me, but I always consider the people around me as friends more than "clients", so moving has quite an emotional cost. The truth is that busyness takes over and no matter how deep the friendships might be, busyness can rob you of the relationships you once enjoyed.

The nice thing is that you know that there are people all over the country, well at least in 6 places for us, with whom you have a strong connection. A connection that can be renewed through a chance encounter or an intentional visit. Just recently I bumped into an old friend at the Christian resources Exhibition. I hadn't seem Ian in a long time and it was great to pick up a conversation that rumbles on through our lives whether we're together or apart.

So here's to more friends with whom to enjoy the journey with God and for the many friends we already have who still mean much to us and who we miss now and will miss in the future.

Great Commission Resurgence

This is interesting.

I came across the GMR through a Google alert I have set for anything missional that pops up on the internet. If you've not tried using alerts, give it a try. It's a useful tool to capture themed ideas and resources.

Anyway, back the Great Commission Resurgence. GMR sets out ten core commitments for Southern Baptists with the intention of refocusing SBC churches on fulfilling the great commission of the church. Restoring the missional mandate to the church you might say.

Whilst not all the points would translate for every church, clearly some arise directly from recent debates within the movement (I'm no expert on SBC history and debates), there are some valuable core commitments that we should all take note of and consider.

I'm particularly drawn to the principles of Biblical communities, a clear focus on the great commandments and the great commission, gospel centredness, the Lordship of Christ and diversity. But it's all good.

Wood storage

It was high time I did some sorting out of all the accumulated bits of wood from last summer's projects and this year's woodworking. It had become a bit of a mess, and given that I work outdoors, it was getting unsightly too for anyone sitting in the garden.

The problem is that off-cuts always have a potential use someday!

So, with the able assistance of Ally, we made a bit box for all the off-cuts. In fact we made it from off cuts in the first place. A truly green woodworking project.

Now at least the waste wood looks tidy and the bonus was sorting out all the little blocks I'd cut for protecting surface during gluing and clamping.

Tool Chest Project (update 4)

Not much to report. I still need to decide what I'm going to do about the "tote" that goes in the back of the tool chest. I'm considering a sort of parts case of some sort, but then again, a simple tote for screwdrivers and bits and pieces that you don't want to go searching in the drawers for might be a good idea.

The thing is, I haven't actually decided if this is a workshop caddy or a portable tool chest. It's a bit on the heavy side for lugging around, and when it's got tools in it, it will obviously be even heavier!

It looks quite nice sitting on top of my router table cabinet, so maybe it will become a workshop cabinet for chisels and other things. So that begs the question, what would go in a tote for a workshop tool chest? Hmm. The metaphysical conundrums of woodworking!

The finish is yacht varnish, just two coats has produced quite a nice surface.

Dreaming of lathes

Well, I can dream can't I?

I've been looking, longingly at times, at lathes over the last week. I'd sort of settled on the one I was thinking I might buy and then I came across this Axminster lathe that looks exceptionally well priced.

Of course it doesn't stop at a lathe. I'll need a good set of turning tools (£100-£130), a decent scroll chuck (£100), a face plate and revolving centre (another £30-£40, although some lathes come with these and some don't) a bench grinder (£50-£60) and some wood to turn!!

Still, if I can sell the cross trainer, the airwalker and my golf clubs...

Maybe it's time I took the plunge and investigated ebay?

Daniel's Prayer

In chapter 9 of the story, Daniel prays a prayer of repentance on behalf of the nation. He associates himself with their failures, although he himself has lived a life of dedication and wholehearted commitment to God. He understands the times and knows that God spoke through Jeremiah about how long the exile would last.

In all of this there is no hint that Daniel judges the people for their sin or that he adopts a attitude other than that of a fallen human being desperately seeking grace from the God ho has come to know and trust throughout his faithful life.

When we pray for our nation, do we pray prayers of judgement or repentance? Do we pray for others the prayers they cannot or will not pray for themselves?

I wonder what difference it might make if we took Daniel's approach in our time?

Create Booklet

Ever since changing to a Mac I've been looking for something that will produce a booklet nice and easily. I've tried a couple of things including Clickbook which worked brilliantly on the PC but never seems to do what I want it to do on my Mac!

I may have found the solution courtesy of a friend of mine who pointed me to this neat little utility. It may not have the bells and whistles of Clickbook, but at least I get a booklet at the end of it in the format that I want.

The next step, and I hope the author finds it in his heart to do this soon, is to be able to shift the margins so that when I print out my address list for my diary, there is a suitable margin for the hole punch!

Missional Renaissance

A few quotes from Missional Renaissance by Reggie McNeal:

Missional is not a place you arrive at but a direction in which you are moving.

The role of the church is simply this: to bless the world. In doing this, the people of God reveal God's heart for the world.

The true vitality of a congregation rests in the abundant lives of its participants and in the blessed lives of the community it serves.

Our acts of service and love, not our oratorical brilliance and institutional success, will intrigue people with our message. Jesus followers live the truth; they don't just study it. Because of this, others are invited into truth and life.

Q&A from "The Church Must Change"

What was interesting, and not really surprising, was that many of the questions about engaging with the world beyond the church focused on "doing evangelism". It was as if the only way we can think of engaging with our far from God peers is to share the gospel with them.

Sharing the gospel is important, why wouldn't we want to tell them the truth about who God is and what he's done or them? But it wasn't what I was trying to get at. 

It was really interesting and challenging to hear and see that we haven't really got it yet when it comes to what living missionally might mean.

I hope I can make it a little clearer when I preach for them tomorrow morning. We shall see!

The Church Must Change

I went to speak at a nearby local church's weekend away this morning, although they are staying home for it! My topic was "The Church Must Change" and I was asked to be provocative! In brief, this is what I said.

I believe that the fundamental shape of that church is missional (and I’ll define that in a moment) and it’s focus is not internal, meeting the needs of the gathered faithful, but external, influencing the world through sharing kingdom life.

I would not argue with those who quote the creed and say that the chief end of man to worship God, but I would dispute that as a definition of the church. That, it seems to me, is where we have gone wrong. We have turned the missionary movement that we were meant to be into a gathered community of like-minded people who share their sense of collective disappointment that the rest of the world doesn’t realise how wrong it is.

The missional church refocuses our attention where it ought to be, on God’s redemptive work in the world he made amongst the people he loves. To be a missional people means simply:

To be partners with God in his mission.

That mission is redemptive (restoring the broken relationship between humanity and God through the cross of Christ) and it’s active (God came looking, Jesus said, “Go!”). God’s intention was made clear through his covenant with Abraham when he declared that he would bless Abraham in order that Abraham’s descendants would be a blessing to others.
Time and time again this principle of the people of God being a blessing to the world beyond the confines of the people of God is seen in the Old Testament story. Jonah is sent to Nineveh, Daniel serves in Babylon.

Fast forward into the New Testament and although the Gospels make it clear that Jesus focused his ministry on the Jewish people, he consistently blessed those beyond the nation of Israel. The Roman Centurion’s servant, the Syro-Phonecian woman’s daughter, and a Samaritan woman of questionable moral standards.

More telling than that was the derogatory title the religious people gave him: Friend of sinners. Not only did he bless people beyond the confines of the nation, he also befriended those within the nation but excluded from the religiously faithful community.

This is the kind of church I believe Jesus wants to build. A church made up of people who will partner with him on his mission to bless the world and share the message of his redemptive love and sacrifice.

What must Change?

Two fundamental things have to change. The church’s view of the world, and the church’s view of the church. Alongside these fundamental perspectives, our motivation for evangelism must also change.

The world is not the enemy, and it’s not the fault of the world that it finds itself as it is. Let me explain. Darkness is by its very nature dark. The problem is not the darkness, but the lack of light. When light shines, darkness disappears. Darkness does not overcome light, but where there is no light, darkness will rule.

Most church rules set out the responsibilities of members somewhere. They are almost always internally focused. It is heartbreaking that the expectations on members of the greatest missionary movement of all time makes little reference to the mission in which it's supposed to be engaged.

Secondly we must stop seeing ourselves as the faithful few who remain, but as the kingdom task force we are called to be.

Finally we must reshape the church. We need to adopt the principle of Christology drives missiology which drives ecclesiology. In other what we believe about Jesus determines how we understand our purpose and this in turn shapes the kind of church we become.

More than one way to use a post-it

Thank you Michael for pointing out this video.

Woodturning project 3

This is my final piece from the course.

It was meant to be an ornamental shaving bowl for soap. I'm not sure it will get used for that purpose, but it certainly was interesting to make.

The body and the lid are formed from two pieces of maple (I think it's maple), the body first. That's left in the chuck and the lid is turned from a separate piece of wood.

Very carefully a rebate is formed in the lid.

 The body is pushed into the lid as a tight fit and seated in the bottom of the rebate.

The whole thing is then put back in the lathe and the outside of the lid is shaped.

It has a oil finish.

So that's it. Two days, three pieces and a whole lot of fun.

If we had hamsters they would have enough bedding for a decade. 

Will I get a lathe? I think I might, I will need to talk nicely to the senior income earner. Maybe I can sell a few bowls, do you think that will persuade her it's a good idea? 

Woodturning project 2

Having made a bowl, I began work on my second project, a candlestick. 

Roughing down the rectangular blank to a cylinder sends small chips of wood everywhere. In fact you end up with a shirt full of little bits of wood. At the end of the day, you have to untuck yourself and shake all the chipping out before you go into the house!

The candlestick is made in two parts, the shaft and the base. The base is turned in the same you turn a bowl.

And this one is finished with shellac and canuba wax, which I'm told has many uses in the sweet industry possibly even to polish Smarties! But that may just be a rumour!

Woodturning project 1

Here's the bowl I made on Thursday under the excellent supervision of Chris Child.

It's sycamore and the finish is a simple wax finish.

It's rather nice and a great first piece. 

Hollowing out the bowl is one of the most tiring things I did. You just have to keep going and going until you get the shape you want. I particularly like the wide rim on this bowl.

Woodturning Course

I've spent most of the day doing the first part of a wood-turning course, learning all about how to sharpen a gouge and practising with all sorts of tools on a lump of tree that was cut down only last week! 

After that I was given a nice piece of Sycamore to turn into a bowl. It's quite a challenge to learn how to control the cutting edge of a turning tool, but hopefully practice will make perfect! I'm really grateful to Trevor, David's grandfather for letting me have a go on his lathe, and the course is adding to my desire to give turning a decent go.

I'm the only one on the course, so I'm getting individual attention. I guess the tutor must get quite bored only having one student!

Tomorrow's project is going to be a candlestick, so we will see how that turns out (excuse the pun!)

The Changing Church

This article arrived in my inbox as part of the Preaching Today newsletter. I thought it was worth sharing wholesale:

THE CHANGING CHURCH

In his new book The New Shape of World Christianity (IVP), Mark Noll illustrates how dramatically the face of world Christianity has changed in recent years. He writes: "The most important thing to realize about the current situation of Christianity throughout the world is that things are not as they were. A Christian Rip Van Winkle, who fell asleep under a tree midway through the 20th century and then woke up this past week to the sound of church bells (or a synthesizer with drums) on a Sunday morning, would not recognize the shifted shape of world Christianity. It is as if the globe had been turned upside down and sideways.

"A few short decades ago, Christian believers were concentrated in the global north and west, but now a rapidly swelling majority lives in the global south and east. As Rip Van Winkle wiped a half-century of sleep from his eyes and tried to locate his fellow Christian believers, he would find them in surprising places, expressing their faith in surprising ways, under surprising conditions, with surprising relationships to culture and politics, and raising surprising theological questions that would not have seemed possible when he fell asleep.

"A series of contrasts can underscore the great changes of the recent past.

• This past Sunday it is possible that more Christian believers attended church in China than in all of so-called 'Christian Europe.' Yet in 1970 there were no legally functioning churches in all of China; only in 1971 did the communist regime allow for one Protestant and one Roman Catholic Church to hold public worship services, and this was mostly a concession to visiting Europeans and African students from Tanzania and Zambia.

• This past Sunday more Anglicans attended church in each of Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda than did Anglicans in Britain and Canada and Episcopalians in the United States combined -- and the number of Anglicans in church in Nigeria was several times the number in those other African countries.

• This past Sunday more Presbyterians were at church in Ghana than in Scotland, and more were in congregations of the Uniting Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa than in the United States.

• This past week in Great Britain, at least fifteen thousand Christian foreign missionaries were hard at work evangelizing the locals. Most of these missionaries are from Africa and Asia." 

Is Daniel Missional?

I'm currently reading the story of Daniel as part of my devotional time. I love the story as it unfolds across 70 years following Daniel from youthful commitment to elderly faithfulness. 

But one of the things that can go unnoticed as we focus on Daniel's faithfulness is God's mission to Babylon. Daniel rises to prominence, not on account of his faithfulness, but because God speaks to the kings of the empire and uses Daniel to interpret the dreams, visions and signs he sends. At least that's one reading.

If we are willing to look, we cannot ignore that fact that God speaks beyond the confines of his people into the lives and situations of the nations and peoples around them. His purposes are fulfilled and his plans worked out through them.

So it would seem that Daniel is missional, dare one say even incarnational, as he lives out the mission of God in exile. 

Church Membership

I've been working on some questions to ask an informal gathering of all the folk at church. The idea of the meeting is to have lunch together one Sunday and talk about membership. About what it means and how we can better engage in membership as a meaningful part of being a local church. 

So far I've generated a lot of questions and they need to be narrowed down. I won't even be surprised if they are not replaced by a few new ones too as we process them as a leadership team.

But I wouldn't mind finding out if anyone who reads my blog has any thoughts about membership and what questions we should be asking ourselves.

So here are my initial 16 questions! I did say there were a lot, and they will be narrowed down I promise they will.

1 What is Church Membership
What exactly is a church member? Is anyone who comes to church a member?

2 How should you become a Church Member 
Is it by faith or by vote?

3 What should a Church Member do?
Is this something that is internally focussed, ministry and service within the church, or does it have a wider, mission-focussed heart?

4 How do we make Membership more meaningful?

5 If we had a membership covenant, what might it look like?

6 Should it be easier to become a member or harder?

7 How often should we meet?

8 What kind of church meetings should we have?
How much prayer, worship, sharing should they include? What should be on the agenda?

9 How should we make decisions?
Should we vote more? Are we supposed to be doing things democratically? What principles should apply?

10 How should the church meeting and being a member relate to the church leadership?

11 Is church membership just about having your say or are there other things that should apply?

12 What should we do about “inactive” members?

13 How would you feel if you had to opt into membership each year?

14 How do we express membership beyond the church meeting?

15 What kind of members does God want us to produce in this church?

16 What kind of experiences do people need to have in order to become these kinds of members?

Interesting opportunities

A couple of interesting opportunities have come my way recently. Next weekend I'm taking part in a nearby church's weekend away, except they are not going anywhere! 

I've been asked to take a session on the Saturday morning looking at the church and the need for change, and then to preach on the Sunday morning as a follow-up to the Saturday.

The other opportunity came about through a conversation at a CWR event in March. I've been invited to do a training day about pastoral care and about the health-check document I introduced to the church last year. In fact it's time to do the check again, which I hope we will do in a couple of weeks time.

So, I'm rather looking forward to doing these things. It will be different and a challenge too. But then what's life without a challenge?

Leaving Bedford

This morning at church we made the announcement that we are leaving Bedford. It was an emotional time as I shared with the church how God has called us to a new setting. We've been here for 8 years and we love living here and being involved in local church life and local community life too. 

The anatomy of moving church in Baptist circles can be quite a long process, but God has once again be gracious to us and what began in January came to its conclusion last week with an invitation to become the pastor at Upminster Baptist Church. I've wanted to blog bout the spiritual process, but I haven't been able to do that because of the circumstances that surround moving.

I may look back through my journal and see if there is anything worthy of posting, if only to let you see the process from the inside. As it is, I can at least begin to blog about preparing to move and how we handle moving etc.

So a new chapter opens up. I'd have happily stayed in Bedf0rd until retirement, but it wasn't to be. Perhaps we'll come back in 13 years time when I reach 65!!

Tool Chest Project (update 3)

Had a little time to myself today so I did a little work on the tool chest. I had to buy the hinges for the top and I found some nice brass case latches that I might put to good use. 

The handles are from the pack I bought when I made the tool box last year. They came in a pack of 10, so with five used here, one on the tool box and another on a case I made, I've almost used them up. 

What's the betting I do something that needs four next time!

Anyway, it's looking like it's nearly finished. Not sure what I'm going to store in it. I might put a tray in the top drawer for my chisels. There are about 14 of them as I recall. Some mine, some inherited from my father and grandfather.

I'm pretty sure I'll fill it up!

Acts 2 Church

You may have heard the phrase "Building an Acts 2 church" from time to time, especially if you have been around any Willow Creek events, but I'm not sure I've ever heard a succinct definition of what it means. I'm sure I've heard lots about it, but over the years it gets muddied by lots of other things.

So I was really pleased to hear Bill Hybels do a four phrase synopsis of what and Acts 2 church is all about. Here's a precis of what he said.

An Acts 2 church is about:

• Helping people far from God find faith
  
• Growing believers into fully devoted followers of Jesus
  
• Developing a Biblical community
  
• Carrying a servant towel
  

So there you go. I think it's a really helpful description of the purpose of church, it might even make it to my wall!

Pdf to Word anyone?

One of the things I've always liked about the Mac is the ease with which you can create a pdf version of a file. Simply choose the pdf option from the print menu and the operating system does the rest for you.

I like pdf's because everyone can read them and see them exactly as you send them. No need to make sure you have a compatible version of a programme. This is great for me because I use programmes like Omnioutliner and Scrivener, and when I want to send the data I can simply convert it to a pdf.

The only problem is what do you do when you get a pdf that you want to edit? Well, if you are a Windows users, then you might find this application worth a look.

You can find the download here, and there's a free trial version.

As a Mac user I haven't tried it but thought I'd point it out in case anyone I send a pdf to wants to be able to edit the content!

I've yet to find a pdf editor for the Mac that I really like, but that may be because I haven't looked particularly hard.

Tool Chest Project (update 2)

 Final update from the workshop! 

I made my runners, rounded over the front ends using a sanding drum attachment for my power drill. I had the drill in the stand and used a small platform to provide a flat, stable surface from which to work. The only problem was that the sanding drum sheet kept riding up off the rubber cylinder. 

I can't see how to fix this, so it's a bit disappointing, but I managed to get the job done. Perhaps a big washer that overhangs the rubber drum would do the trick. It's the first time I've used it and I did wonder id this might happen.

I pre-drilled pilot holes for the panel pins that hold the runners in place. They are also glued in!

After that I dry assembled the whole think and fitted the drawers. There was, and still is, a little bit of adjusting that needs doing. But everything fitted together.

So now it's all glued up and the drawers are eased and have their cleats fitted ready for the locking mechanism to be made.

So that's the end of today, and I'll get back to it in a couple of weeks time. Next week I'm off to learn more about wood-turning, so I dare say there will be more woody blogs after that.

Tool Chest Project (update)

The project is coming along nicely. I'm just taking a break for lunch and thought I'd post a few pictures of the progress so far. 

The first thing I did this morning was to set up the router to make the rebates for the half-lap butt joints for the two trays that form the lid of the tool chest.

I was a bit overcautious and they are not a close a fit as I'd like, but they're okay. Once I'd glued them and clamped them I left them to dry for a while before adding the ply skin. I decided to use some 6mm ply in a contrasting colour rather than make some 12mm matching ply tops. I just thought it might give a nice effect. We shall see later when it gets the finishing treatment.

Next I reset the router to run the grooves in the sides of the drawers.

This took a little time to figure out the best way to do this for maximum stability. In the end I put the bottom of the drawer against the fence and marked on the table the start and stop points so that I didn't break through the front face of the drawers. Running the groove from the back is easy because it goes all the way. You just have to make sure you stop at the pencil mark. From the front you need to lower the drawer onto the cutting bit. I usually start this slightly away from the mark and the pull the draw back to the pencil line, then push forward.

After that I put a flush cutting bit in the router and trimmed up the top trays before putting the router away and getting the circular saw out!

I needed to make some runners for the drawers and found a piece of 9mm ply (remember this project is all about using up the ply I had left over from the blanket box project) from which I cut the runners using my sawboard.

Here's the "mock assembly" so-to-speak. You can see how the top trays will fold out and the drawers are not yet on runners.

The runner material will also provide the cleats for the drawer ends as part of the locking system.

The next challenge is setting out the runners so that all the drawers run smoothly and accurately in and out of the frame. I need some 1mm shims to help with this and so I'll have to see what I've got or go and get something from the shop.

Eugene Peterson

I've been listening to an interview with Eugene Peterson from 2007 where he's talking about books and literature and reading and things. He made a really interesting observation about the purpose of church (in the sense of the gathered community I would say).

He said that we gather this group of people together on a Sunday to:

incrementally build a true, whole picture of God.

And that the role of the pastor was to:

keep the perceptions clean about God.

Clean as in clear and pure.

These two together are quite a challenge when you start to think about them. Perhaps one can almost hear an echo of Paul's word that he taught the whole counsel of God not just a part of it. 

I wonder whether some of problems we have with God arise because we don't see the whole we only see the part. There's that great scene in Bruce Almighty when he decides that the easiest way to deal with all the prayers is simply to say yes to them all. I believe it's one of the deleted scenes where God shows Bruce that by doing so he robs people of the experiences that shape them. There's a boy, as I recall, who asks to be able to climb the rope in the gym, and he does because Bruce says yes to his prayer. But his "success" creates a mean-spirited person rather than the thoughtful and reflective poet that he could have been.

So here's to the gathered church as it seeks by faith to reveal the whole and true picture of the God we know and more importantly who knows us.

From the BBC

Great quote on the newsfeed for the BBc website:

Robinson takes home Orange Prize

Well of course they do, they make the drink anyway!

It made me chuckle.

Measuring success

Listening to an interview with Bill Hybels he shared these two questions when it comes to measuring ministry success:

Did I hear God's calling for my life accurately?

Am I carrying it out faithfully?

When we're tempted to measure our personal success in ministry by comparing ourselves with other ministries, or by numbers, then maybe these two questions have real value.

And while typing he said this:

If I'm doing the work of God at a pace that destroys the work of God in me, then I'm in trouble.

Pentecost, The Spirit and Mission

I was at our housegroup last night and we were reflecting on the Pentecost theme from Sunday. The reading was part of Peter's sermon, but we read right to the end of the chapter. 

As we read and talked I began to reflect on some of the things I've been reading lately and the overall pattern of my thinking about church for the last 20 or more years. As I looked at the whole story of that day recorded in Acts 2 a questioned formed in  my mind: When we ask God to pour out his Spirit upon us, what do we expect? Moreover, where is the focus of that outpouring? 

I think most often the focus is on the church as the inside world of the believing community. We want God to pour out his Spirit to enrich our worship, improve our discipleship and increase our experience of him. But that's not the point of the outpouring on Acts 2.

In Acts 2 the impact of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit was mission. The church as it was in the meeting room found itself empowered and thrust out into the community. 3,000 people were added to the church, not by being drawn to the room, but by their encounter with the gospel.

I just wonder if the biggest challenge is to set ourselves free from the selfishness of prioritising our needs over and above the mission of God. 

The change in mindset that this requires might be a quantum leap for many of us as we move away from developing programme after programme of outreach towards becoming a truly missional community. It's a change that will take great courage and faith, but a change that I feel more and more convinced will need to happen if we are going to become the partners of God in his great mission-movement to the world he loves so dearly that even the life of his Son was a price worth paying to redeem it.

Models for Ministry

My post the other day about an ideal working week got me thinking about how we measure what we do in ministry. Some people will advocate really tight measuring to check effectiveness, others might take a more eternal view, arguing that you can never really measure the true effectiveness of ministry this side of heaven. 

But that's not the kind of measuring I'm thinking about today. It's more about the appropriate use of time and the concentration of effort. With all the tasks that present themselves for us to do, how do we determine which ones to give what amount of time to doing? 

This got me thinking about Acts 6 of course. The apostles have a very clear view of their role and their primary responsibility. But 21st church is not like the early church! That made me think about Ephesians 4 and got me wondering if here was a framework for ministry just as much as a description of the ministries God gives to the church.  

Now I know that the passage clearly states that God gives some not all to be apostles, prophets etc. And I believe that we need all the offices fulfilled if we're going to be effective as the church and  active as partners with God in his mission. But, I just wonder if these roles at least provide us with a model for ministry, a rough guide, where we are the primary leader and sometimes the only leader. 

If you do not yet have a team around you that provides these key leadership functions, then you can at least look at the structure of your diary and the pattern of your ministry and check it against the list. In other words, if you carry the weight of leadership in your local congregation, then simply ask yourself how you are fulfilling the role of apostle, prophet, pastor, teacher and evangelist.

Perhaps, as you criticise yourself for not doing enough visiting, you might just want to ask yourself if the visiting you are doing is in proportion to the evangelism you are doing or the teaching. Do you get the idea?

I certainly do not believe in the one person ministry as an effective model, but over the years I've found myself in just that kind of situation form time to time. Maybe asking these kinds of questions would have helped me get a better perspective on what I was doing.

Glorious June

Welcome to June!

The wonderful weekend weather has continued into today and my thermometer says it is 24 deg. C in the shade.

I feel an iced tea and lemonade has my name on it somewhere. Garden chair here I come!

PS To read of course, in the light of my previous post!! (actually I had my prayer-time out there earlier this morning does that count as work?)

The Working Week

Over the years I've been asked, quizzed, interrogated and grilled about what I actually do week by week. The simple answer is that it's actually rather difficult to quantify, and the day the put a time-sheet against ministry will probably be the day I stop doing it! Ministry is hard to measure in a way that truly reflects the nature of a call and an office.

On the other hand, it's always helpful to review what you think you do and what you think you ought to be doing. Most of the ministers I know work really hard but think they are lazy at some point in their lives. And it doesn't help when you have to listen over and over again to the comment that you only work one day a week! I think it has a lot to do with the mix of personal expectations and the expectation of the church you're serving. That and the feeling that you're never quite "there" when it comes to doing the job.

Years ago I did a survey for the national statistics people. In the process, and it was early on in my ministry, I discovered that I was working incredibly long hours. More than even I thought was healthy. So I sat down and wrote out what my ideal week might look like. Somethings have changed along the way, but it still looks pretty similar even today.

The problem is trying to put hours against things like Sunday, or pastoral care. But in order to keep myself sane and not present myself as just another overworked workaholic who can't stop themselves and whose time disappears from view almost as quickly as it comes into view, I've written out my list again.

For what is worth, here's my outline of what might happen in a typical or ideal week. The kind of week that rarely ever happens in my universe.

For want of a better term, I'm going to list "tasks" and the hours  a week I'd like to devote to them. Some are not really tasks, but you'll get the idea.

• Prayer & reflection: 2 hours a day
  
• Reading: 1 hour a day
  
• Study time: An afternoon a week = 4 hours (I remember John Stott talking about an afternoon a week, a day a month a week a year or something like that)
  
• Preparation time (for Sundays): 12 hours a week ( this is really hard to quantify because I don't sit down at 9:00am and work until it's finished, but it's not a bad guess)
  
• Administration (we all have to do it no matter how much we hate it!): 3 hours a week (I can always dream!)
  
• Sundays: 8 hours (we only have a morning celebration, so it's not as long a day as it has been in the past)
  
• Pastoral Care: 8 hours a week (how do you measure this? I still don't know, but it seems reasonable to give it a day so-to-speak.)
  
• Leadership & meetings: 4 hours a week (if only!)
  

So that all comes to 60 hours and then there's community stuff and spending time with people who are far from God. And I guess there are degrees of overlap. I think that if you totalled it all up in detail it could come to as much as 70 hours, but then again it might come to a lot less depending on how you count it. As I said it's not easy to quantify.

Some of you might be thinking only 8 hours for pastoral care. Just remember it's a guide, a guess if you like. You might also want to know how much of the two hours prayer is personal and does that count.

The thing is, ministry is not a job you do, it's a life you live and you just can't stuff things in a box and say that's my private world, that's my ministry world. I have quiet weeks when I rejoice in being able to kick back and relax, knowing full well that the 'phone can ring at any time and will be thrown headfirst into a crisis or something that could demand five minutes of my time or five hours.

And of course this is not like an office job, it's not as if you're doing 60 or 70 hours without a break and chained to a desk. It's very different.

Having written the list out quite quickly, I'm wondering now if I've missed something. for example where does writing my blog fit?? Better stop now and get back to some real work.

Mind you the weather is looking good and I have got a couple of books I'd like to get stuck into!

The Present Future

Although an examination of the North American church, this book has much to say to UK church culture too. I've managed a first pass through the book in three sittings, which I reckon to be about 4.5 hours. 

The style of the book makes for fairly easy reading but the content is far from easy to read. I found myself recognising many aspects of church culture with which I've always struggled and whispering a quiet "that's right" like a punctuation mark throughout the text.

For some time now I've been convinced that the church must change and move away from it's inward looking, club mentality towards a more outwardly focused mission orientation. The tough questions (six of them) that McNeal asks in the context of six new realities he identifies are a helpful but far from comfortable framework for this shift.

Written in 2003, this book reads as relevant today as it was then, if not more so.

I'm looking forward to reading the second book, Missional Renaissance to see where that takes me.

What's wrong with the church?

Amazon delivered another brace of books this morning via Royal Mail. The two books in question are The Present Future and Missional Renaissance by Reggie McNeal. I've got a presentation to do and I thought these two books might help crystallise my thinking a little.

I like the following as a working definition of the problem we face as the church:

Church leaders seem unable to grasp this simple implication of the new world–people outside the church think church is for church people, not for them.

In other words, whatever it is that people are looking for, they are not looking for it from the institutionalised church. So, all the energy we pour into making the institution of church more attractive might just be an enormous waste of energy, and a resource better spent elsewhere. People don't necessarily want to be part of  church, but they might be interested in a movement.

Fortunately, although Jesus did say he would build his church, I think he had something more in mind than a self-perpetuating institution and more like a mass movement of people experiencing the transforming power of the gospel.

That's my guess.

Defining Church

Something Reggie McNeal wrote in the forward to Neil Cole's Organic Leadership struck me as a helpful definition of the church:

engaged in the world as partners with God in his redemptive mission that targets all of human experience, not just church life.

Worth pondering I thought.

Toolbox project

Being a Bank Holiday, and being a rather nice day too, I decided to get the woodworking bench out and do a bit of work on a toolbox project I started last summer.

I got the idea from a magazine article. Th original was made from oak, but I've been using leftover 12mm hardwood ply for my version. It was really just to see if I could make something a little more complicated than the things I'd already made.

Anyway, I set to work today to add the rear top rail and the 6mm ply bases to the tool tray and the toolbox. Having done that little job using my homemade router table to run the rebates for the panels, I turned my attention to the 5 drawers I need to make. 

Running the groove for the ply bottom was no problem, having cut all the section to length for the fronts and sides, I ran them through the router. The backs would be cut to size after making a rebate for them which needs to be set in from the end of the sides. This is because of a clever little locking system that will make sense when I post some pictures of a finished drawer.

To create these rebates I needed a mitre gauge and a simple, repeatable set-up to get them all in the same place for each side so that the drawers are nice and square. This is what I came up with for the job.

The mitre fence is made of two pieces of 12mm ply glued together at right angles. One rides on the surface of the router table and it is attached to a piece of timber that runs against the edge of the table. You can see it on the second picture.

The stop-block allows me to set the distance from the end of the rail to the rebate, and the two-piece fence keeps the fingers neatly tucked away and also away form the cutter-head. 

I guess I could make it even safer by incorporating the hold-down clamps and sled from my sled.

With the router bit set to the correct depth and a few test runs completed, I was able to make all the rebates for all the drawers quickly and easily. 

As it turned out, I was able to use the same set-up to make the rebates for the half-lap joints where the sides meet the front face of the drawers. Simply moving the stop-block to the edge of the groove that was cut in my mitre fence gave me the correct position for this.

So, another creative solution that will be quite useful in the future. 

I managed to complete one drawer before it was time for tea, so the others will have to wait until another day-off comes around. Hopefully I might even get them all done in the next couple of weeks. Provided the rain keeps off of course!  

Local Wildlife

So, what is a young lamb to do when someone points a camera at you?

Ribblehead Viaduct

It was raining and we just pulled off the road to take a quick photograph of this famous viaduct. I'd like to go back with my Sony Alpha and get closer, but this picture gives you a small sense of the bleakness of the landscape and the wonders of Victorian Civil Engineering (at least I'm assuming it was the Victorians who built this thing!)

The Old Mill?

Looks like and old mill to me!

Aysgarth Falls

They may not be big, they may not be spectacular, but they are a beautiful sight. 

These falls are fairly typical on many in the area. There are some taller ones, not far away I think there is the tallest waterfall in England at Gaping Hill, but these will do for a place to rest and listen to the sound of water falling over rocks.

Down the valley

A couple of pictures of the rolling countryside along the valley. It really was this green.

We walked about 10 miles this first day and saw very few people at all along the way. Mostly sheep and birds!

From time to time it rained a little, but nothing too heavy. 

At the halfway point we stopped at the George and Dragon in Aysgarth for lunch. Wonderful sandwiches presented in an unusual way.

River view

The view along the river on our first day's walk from Askrigg to Aysgarth

Visiting The Dales

We’ve come to the end of our short expedition into the Yorkshire Dales, and what an interesting visit it has been! We managed to get out for a couple of walks, the longer of which was just over 10 miles from Askrigg to Aysgarth and back, taking in the falls at Aysgarth.
Our second walk took us up through the village of Clapham to Ingleborough Caves. The climb was fairly steep, and the advisory notice to “allow yourself at least 20 minutes” to make the ascent was rather over-optimistic for all but the fittest of walkers. But the path was good, and you can take you time.

The climb takes you up through woods, alongside a lake and within earshot of the water falls but in not sight of them. The best view comes before you enter the trail. Eventually you emerge from the woods into open skies alongside the river and you are within 300-400 metres of the cave entrance.

The tour takes you about 1.5Km underground into the cave. There are some 15-20Km of explored caves and more unexplored pathways hidden from access at the moment. The cave was first explored in the 1830’s by Victorians using candle-light. You just can’t imagine how difficult that must have been!

Anyway, we left the cave after about a 50 minute tour and set off back to the village to have some lunch. On our first day’s walking we had lunch in Aysgarth at the George and Dragon (at least I think that’s the name of the pub). They do the most amazing sandwiches! On the second day we found a small tea sop and had another good sandwich before setting of for a drive around the valley.

We took in the Ribblehead viaduct in the morning and passed it a second time as we made our way to Hawes to have a look around. It was probably the busiest settlement we’d seen. From there we made our way back to Askrigg but decide to drive over to the next valley via what turned out to be a narrow, twisty road, with a 24% gradient in places. We came back a different way!

The prize for the most amusing sign has to go the one that simply read “Crackpot 1”. I’m just surprised he stood still long enough for them to point a sign at him!

Overall we’ve enjoyed our short visit and Anne is looking out for a large house to rent for the wider family next year!

Wensleydale: It's not just a cheese!

I'm resting my weary old bones and feet after just completing a nice 10 mile walk in this wonderful part of Northern England. We arrived yesterday for a short break and, apart from a few small showers, we've had a great day walking. 

We've met a lot of sheep and very few people as we roamed our way from Askrigg to Aysgarth and back again.

I've taken a few pictures with my trusty compact but I didn't bring any cables to connect to the MacBook, so the gallery will have to wait until I get home.

Anyway, at least I've done my 10,000 steps for today, and for tomorrow too!

Is this what it's come to?

I find myself wondering about the sorry state of affairs at Westminster. It seems that we have apparently been guilty of electing a significant number of MP's who are incapable of taking responsibility for their actions.

As I read in the paper this morning about the need for Gordon Brown to "sack this 'dead speaker'" I wondered to myself  if this wasn't an exercise in shifting the blame. It looks to me like a group of kids caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar passing the buck down the line. 

And now we have calls for a general election, as if an election is going to fix the problem.

I know some good MP's. I trust them to act ethically and morally and have no doubt that they do. But I despair at those who are looking to blame someone else for not stopping them doing what any thinking person might have suspected to be unjustifiable even if it fell within the famous rules.

I wish Michael Martin well in the future (I've just heard he's announced he's stepping down), and I hope MP's will not think this is the end of a very sorry tale of greed and abuse.

Continuing ruminations on a new systematic theology

I was wondering what the basis for this "new" systematic theology might be. Where would you begin to develop a new approach or at the very least an alternative structure for it? 

Perhaps a missional systematic theology is what is needed.  Something that takes seriously the missionary nature of God and builds around that as a core concept. Then I got to thinking about a sermon I preached last year about mission and remembered the little mantra that arose from it: Christ, mission, church. 

In other words, our Christology drives our missiology which in turn drives our ecclessiology. The problem with this is where do you fit some of the important issues like the doctrine of Scripture or of man.

Maybe Alan Hirsch's Forgotten Ways, or Michael Frost's Exiles or even Brian McLaren's Everything must change, are all more systematic that you might think at first glance. Maybe our job is to think them through in a systematic way.

Oh dear, I think I'm falling under the influence of organised thought. It may be too late for me, but save yourselves!

Reading a systematic theology

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned and idea about the need for a new systematic theology. As I said then, I'm' not a big fan of them, but then again we actually all do systematic theology whether we call it that or not. We make statements of faith and about our faith that amount to a core set of beliefs. We all think they are Biblical, whether they stand the test of scrutiny or not. This is systematic theology.

Perhaps what we actually need is a more systematic scrutiny of our existing systematic theologies that we carry around with us. In other words, do your core beliefs and practices actually stand the test of biblical reflection?

Anyway, I decided to take the plunge and to set about reading at least one comparatively recent systematic theology text to start getting my head around how my idea could work in the context of the local church.

I chose Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology, which runs to around 1200 larger than typical pages. Helpfully subtitled "An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine" (Yes, I too wonder how long the full treatment would be if the introduction is 1200 pages), it's actually a very accessible book to read. Okay, so you might need a dictionary occasionally if you're not familiar with some of the theological terms used, but overall, this is not a hard book to read. The chapters are quite short, and of course you don't actually have to read it from start to finish, you can pick the topics in which you are most interested and read those first.

What I really like about the book is the approach Grudem has taken. This is a book written from an evangelical perspective and in a disciple-making context. The goal of the book is not to fill your head with all sorts of theological information but to help you grow in your understanding of your faith.

There's a good bibliography, and each chapter ends with a passage of Scripture to learn and a hymn or song that reflects the topic just discussed. You may not agree with every conclusion that he draws, but I don't think you can claim that you're going to be uninformed by the time you've worked your way through this weighty tome.

So why would you want to read a book of this length? 

First of all I should tell you that there are two edited versions of the book also available. Bible Doctrine: Essential Teachings of the Christian Faith is still 400 pages long, but even at that, only a third the size of the original. And if 400 pages is too much to get your enthusiasm racing, then the very concise Christian Beliefs: Twenty Basics Every Christian Should Know, is only 160 pages long and not a bad place to begin at all.

And the reason you should at least one of them or something similar? Well I think the answer lies in a verse from James that we all know but probably don't think it applies to us.

Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.
If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.

I doubt we consider ourselves unstable, or double-minded, or with divided loyalties, but I often wonder if some of our struggles are rooted in an incomplete theology at work in our minds.  Take for example a person who becomes unsure if God still loves them. Our modern experiential framework means that they tend to look for some kind of feeling to solve their sense of being unloved. Sensing God's love is a good thing, but knowing we are loved is, I suggest, of far greater importance. 

The latter is a matter of understanding, the former is incredibly fickle because our feeling can be fickle. 

I don't want to set myself up for a fall, but I have come to the conclusion that the thing that keeps me going when things get me down and things get tough is my theology. It is what I know and believe about God that provides the foundation for my perseverance. And that's why I am beginning to see the need for a new systematic theology in the church today. Not so that we can argue the finer points of doctrine, or debate the order events in the end times or even test our orthodoxy with respect to the five points of Calvinism, but that we might grow, that we might become mature in our faith, for the glory of God and for sake of his purposes.

Is Church Family?

Here's an interesting piece with a rather long title and a lot of content about church, the nature of the Sunday gathering and what to do about visitors. The essence of the post is a reflection on community and accessibility to that community. The author points out that:

In post Christendom, as I have often argued, the Sunday morning gathering is essential, buts its very character changes from the ways we met in Christendom. It is no longer structured to attract seekers or non-Christians and evangelize them. It is no longer put together to attract Christians wandering away from other churches. It is instead formational, it brings us corporately into the practice of encountering God and being transformed by that encounter for life and Mission in Christ.

Such a gathering does, by its very nature, becomes somewhat inaccessible to visitors because it's a community that knows itself and knows its struggles and its mission, something a stranger to that particular community will not know. 

Now this doesn't give us a licence to be inhospitable to visitors, but it does challenge the concept of over-working the need to be so welcoming that people feel "at home" straight away.

The article goes on to suggest that we view our Sunday gatherings in the context of being a family, and guests to a family event always come by invitation. In other words, there is always someone they have got to know outside the family context and who is there to help them navigate their way within the family.

If you have time, it's a post worth reading through and reflecting upon.

My first lathe project

Today I have to say a big thank you to David's grandfather for letting me try my hand at wood turning on his lathe. (David is Ally's fiance... did I mention they got engaged a few weeks ago).

Anyway, back to the important stuff, my wood turning. The bowl would have been a bit bigger, but I managed to tear a lump out of the edge, so it shrank! The wood is cherry and the finish is wax.

It is quite an intense experience for a beginner. Learning to control the various shaping tools needs concentration but relaxed hands and wrists. I'm certainly game for another go!

Mind you, I think I'm probably not quite ready for mass production, and maybe a hand turned wedding present for Ally is a long way off. And anyway, I suspect David's grandfather will have first dibs on that project!

The busyness of life and ministry

I've been busy. Nothing newsworthy there. I'm guessing that there are precious few people out there who would actually describe their lives as particularly "not busy". If you are not busy for some reason, then please enjoy it if you can!

Anyway, my busyness stems from the convergence of two days away Waverley Abbey House, a funeral in between and a wedding on Saturday. In fact, had the wedding been two days earlier it would have meant that, for the first time ever in twenty years of ministry, I would have done a dedication, a funeral and a wedding in the same month!

I'd not thought about before Saturday, but things don't tend to come together quite like that for me. 

It does mean that there's a pile of post to deal with and much work to be done preparing for the next series as well as for the coming Sunday. But I don't get quite as worked up over this as I used to do. I think that although I'm not as well organised as I'd like to be, being more organised than I was certainly helps. For example, I know that the post can wait a day because I know there's nothing earth-shatteringly important in there and I know where it all is (it's all in one place in my famous tickler file). In fact I don't expect it to take me more than 10 minutes to deal with, even if it's a growing pile come tomorrow's delivery. And that's tomorrow's job.

So, if you're feeling stressed out by the busyness of everything, my prescription would be to take a long hard look at your organising system and honestly ask yourself if it's working. If it isn't, then begin to write a list of what you need to do to regain control and don't assume because all you papers are hidden away in a file that you've got it sorted. I've done that before and all it ever meant was that my disorganisation was hidden. Once written, tackle things one at a time. Pick the thing that will bring either most benefit or most joy as a starting point, then work systematically through the list. You might even be surprised how quickly you recover control. I've certainly discovered that by having a system, control is regained far more quickly that it was without one.

The humble presence of Jesus

As I was scanning the book shelves for some resources to help me shape the next series for Sunday mornings, I cam across a booked called Christianity 101 by Gilbert Bilezikian. If you've ever listened to Bill Hybels talk about the inspirational teacher who challenged him, then you will recognise the name.

Scanning quickly through the book, I came across this opening paragraph in the chapter "The Doctrine of Christ":

The humble presence of Jesus Christ towers over the jagged skyline of human history. Through the ages, visionaries have come and gone, strong men and heroes have immortalized themselves into the memory of the race, sages and seers have lifted the human spirit toward its Maker, thinkers have plumbed the depths of the mysteries of existence, crusaders and conquerors have created kingdoms and destroyed them, saints and martyrs have sacrificed their lives for noble causes, but no other man has ever accomplished so much in so little time to affect the course of the world as Jesus of Nazareth. He is at the center of human history.