A Minute for Madeleine

Please watch this and post it widely on your blogs/social networking sites/Twitter etc

Sent to me by www.ccpas.co.uk

Weekend Reflections

It's been a good but pretty tiring few days but I am very glad for the recent holiday.

I spent a few days at a national denominational assembly and particularly enjoyed catching up with some friends from my YF days who are now pastors as well as my fellow children's champion Lorraine. And I got to spend two nights with my dear friends so we stayed up watching Michael McIntyre clips on youtube :-)

I had an opportunity to lead some corporate repentance using this and was pretty deluged at the break time with people asking where the thoughts came from and how they could get them to their congregations so that they too could repent. We had talked about having group discussions in our planning meetings some months ago but I felt we needed to repent if we were going to see change happen.

I was very moved when an older woman (who looked like she might have been about 96!)walking with sticks came up to me with tears in her eyes saying that she knew she had harboured critical thoughts and ungodly beliefs about children in her mind and she wanted rid of them.

Man, that's pretty significant. I didn't write anything that I, too, haven't felt in the past. I'm guilty of every one of those things at times - which is why I was able to write them! I am LONGING for the floodgates to open wide for a move of God in our nation like we have never seen before. People, get ready. God's deconstructing a lot of our false beliefs in the church in Scotland so that they can be replaced by truth.
Bring it on - it's painful and uncomfortable but we so need it.

My SP preached an absolute stormer today from James 2 verse 14 to the end of the chapter.
I knew a lot of what he was going to say as he had talked a little about it during the week but that didn't stop the tears rolling down my cheeks as I counted yet again the cost of what it means to have true faith. When we consider what we have to give up we often revert to measuring how much we have to give up compared to *them over there who need to give up more*. Why do we indulge in such self-centred reflection?

So it's been a pretty raw weekend.
Staff day away tomorrow. Wonder what that will hold?
As long as I don't have to build a raft out of oil drums and timber planks..........

All Age Services (HT: ASBO Jesus!)

I have written this post in some way to highlight some of the issues being debated in a helpful and honest way over at ASBO Jesus today. Please check this cartoon out here (I love it!)- please do follow the link so I can honour the copyright and send the click that-a-way to Jon's own blog.

Reminds me of this one from 2006, which I insert on the contents page of any training packs I write for my volunteers :-)

Someone said in the ASBO jesus comments that there is no one strategy that works for every church and I agree with this to some degree. Here's some of my semi-serious thoughts on all age services. There are more under the label "All Age".
However, the following is non-negotiable, in my opinion:-

1. children should not be patronised
2. children should not be ignored
3. the attitude that WE lead the children and they learn to worship from us needs to be binned; the most honest, heartfelt worship to the Father comes from children. Look for the opportunities to incorporate this so that adults are touched/challenged/inspired (choose your own word!)
Check out the children's radical worship (I love to hear children shout worship. We did some very loud ones on Sunday there!) in the temple area in Matthew 21:15-16
I have seen some incredible things happen when children worship, including all of us as leaders kneeling before God and confessing a whole load of stuff because we (who were leading the kids' residential weekend!) watched as a dozen children fell face down in God's presence.They were experiencing God.
4. a strategy for including children should be part of the leadership's vision; you can do all the fantastic songs and creative arty stuff you want but if your pastor/leadership team don't support you and/or affirm the place of children then it makes following on from this much harder.
5. my final suggestion for a non-negotiable value is that the church leader/worship leader/person in charge of worship should be familiar with biblical texts not just on Jesus and children but on the responsibilities of the faith community to nurture faith and build a worshipping community (NB this is actually very helpful when thinking about worship services and new believers of any age. Why do we do what we do? What's the point of it?
More helpful information on this (perhaps?) in this entry.

Thanks Jon! What a great cartoon!

Prayer Request

I have been very moved tonight by the story of little Kate Macrae (HT:Learning from Sophie) - maybe you could join forces in prayer too.

Read her story and updates here

and then have a look at this amazing picture.

Matthew 11:25

Pictures of the Day - Thursday

Today - long walk in Glenmore Forest and later in the day, a visit to see Mercedes the Polar Bear at the Highland Wildlife Park.

I would have posted some of the photos from the latter but the children had control of the camera at that point and invariably photographed snow monkey's bottoms and red panda poo.


How jaunty would YOUR smile be in the crowded Mountain Cafe while your small son shouts loudly, whilst holding the camera: "Can I take a picture of you mummy quick because I need to do a fart!"

Picture of the Day - Wednesday

My picture of the day today isn't an outdoorsy one at all (back to that tomorrow though) as today was a shopping day (for me) and a cinema trip (for the family).
Up is an amazing film but I cried a lot; not just about the obvious sadness in an opening montage, but in the sadness revealed in the little boy's life. I can't watch any film with sad children in it - even if it is animated cartoon fiction - without turning it all over to God for the rest of the day to ask big order questions like "why?" "how long?" "Jesus bring healing" etc etc

Re: shopping while the rest went swimming - I just wanted a few hours to wander round the shops but seeing as this is a 5 week month I couldn't really buy all that much. Still it was therapeutic to have a wander without children and, of course, exercise self-control about all the lovely things I wanted to buy but couldn't in Zara. And same for the boots in Schuh. Mind you, its Clinique Bonus Time in Debenhams - a date I had been eagerly waiting (started Oct 16th) so I managed Something Nice :-)

I wonder what it's like to be able to buy exactly anything you want without having to think twice about it? Not like, in an ostentatious manner, but in that sense of not having to think about it, in that had I bought that £60 pair of boots then my daughter couldn't get a school coat.

I have never ever had the privilege of being able to buy exactly what I want without having to think about it. I expect most of us reading this are the same. And, while sometimes I think it would be lovely, I now welcome the kind of excitement that comes every month when the money has run out and God supplies in unusual and pretty dramatic ways. This past year has seen humbling to the point of fall-down-on-the-floor in hysterical incredulity with the revelation of papa who knows me so well and knows what I/the family need. We are trying our best to teach to the children that good things sometimes have to be waited for, or some birthday wants can only work if the cost is shared with other relatives, or holidays downsized in order that other things take priority.

We are so thankful for incredibly generous friends all round the country who have done so much to bless us - lend us their houses (like this week!), give us a shot of their cars, do lovely things for our children this year in the new place, or visit, write, phone, email and text so very frequently. Sounds quite like Acts 2:46 really.

God, your people are so very, very good. You're an amazing, inspiring Father and I love you so much.

Picture of the Day - Tuesday

There's nothing worse than someone jumping out from behind trees in a thick wooded forest to snap you as you pedal.....