Randy Alcorn in his book “Heaven” includes the following story: “In 1952, young Florence Chadwick stepped into the waters of the Pacific Ocean off Catalina Island, determined to swim to shore of mainland California. She’d already been the first woman to swim the English Channel both ways. The weather was foggy and hilly; she could hardly see the boats accompanying her. Still, she swam for fifteen hours. When she begged to be taken out of the water along the way,…
The past week or so I have been thinking a bit about Psalm 119 and was struck by the apparent connections between Hope and the promises of God. So for example the Psalmist writes 49 “Remember your word to your servant, for you have given me hope. 50 My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life.” Then repeatedly through the Psalm the Psalmist looks to God in hope to deliver him “according to His promise”; 58 I have sought your face with all…
“ ‘Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.’ So I [Jeremiah] went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Then the word of the Lord came to me. He said, ‘Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?’…
I first encountered the Southampton Navigator student ministry in 1999 when I joined a weekly breakfast and Bible study group that met in the home of Gez & Alison Perry. Since then the ministry has been an increasing part of my life. In 2004 we were asked to start a Christianity Explored Group whilst a number of the other couples who were also involved with the ministry moved onto new initiatives or moved away. Hence the current student ministry grew out of that small…
A change of perspective can completely transform how we see things. This happened for Debs by way of a rare poem!
The title I have given to this blog is “Hope Rediscovered” because for me that is the journey that I have been on this past 9 months in particular. Its been a journey (and one which we are still walking) that has been motivated by the notion of hope. When you start thinking about something like hope you soon start to see hope everywhere but what really is hope? In today’s secularised world defining the nature of hope has not…
Welcome to my new blog! If you want to read more about me click on the link above. I’ve been studying the subject of Hope and as part of phase two of my project I am wanting to share some of what God has been teaching me. The past two years have been particularly challenging for my family. This dark period began for us in Spring 2013 when I found myself feeling weary and lacking the kind of balance of…
Last week we started talking about the apparent tension between the freedom we have in Christ (Galatians 5:1) and our ongoing struggle with sin. We talked about Paul’s words in Ephesians 2:1-3 where he says that they were captive to three things; the cravings of our sinful nature (flesh), the ruler of the Kingdom of the air (the devil) and the ways of this world. While none of these are mutually exclusive our aim this week is to talk about…
Kinnamon and Lyons statistics (quoted in “Untamed” by Alan & Debra Hirsch) claim that 91% of those outside the church aged between 16-29 say that their primary perception of the church is anti-homosexual (87% judgemental and 85% hypocritical). I find these statistics very difficult to get my head around. Where did we as the church go so wrong as to turn this issue into one upon which are very reputation as Christians seems to be tied up with? Our aims…
If you need to be refreshed about our vision as a ministry; it is to: “To encourage students to know, love and share Jesus Christ through purposeful, intentional and reproducible disciple-making as we share our lives together in community.” Which itself is a local expression of the worldwide Navigator calling which is to: “To advance the gospel of Jesus and his kingdom into the nations through spiritual generations of labourers living and discipling among the lost.” We are trusting God…