So, last weekend was summer Harvest 2010, which if you read my blog from last years harvest. you will know that it is a long weekend away for young christians and non christians, looking to find out about and encounter God. To be honest it was a pretty amasing weekend for many, myself included. I went there with a view of finding some answers to some questions i had, as well as just spending time being close to God and getting myself prepared for the year ahead.

If you read some of my posts from last month you will now that i have felt lead quite strongly down the path of leadership in the church, and am preparing to move churches to pursue that path, but there was one question i wanted to ask God, and that was, what kind of leadership are you leading me into? Beacuse there are so many options, i have found it difficult to dicern where i am headed. Well in all honesty, last weekend, i didn’t get that answer, what i did get was and understanding of what a leader is, how big a responsibility it is, and how i need to prepare to be effective in that role thanks to the leadership seminars that were run over the course of the weekend.

So ok, i didn’t get the answer i was looking for, but thinking about about it, i don’t think i was meant to, not yet, its still early days, i guess i have my whole life ahead of me, to figure that out and decern what kind of leader i am going to be.

However i certainly got a taste of what being a youth leader is like, as i went with a youth group i have known since i became a christian, and i have developed a great respect for their leaders, trying to keep every one in check and behaving properly, and ofcourse me being older than most of the group, i pitched in to try and stop the jumping on each other etc. But during that time i made some new friends, and got to see some old friends i don’t see very often.

I also grew quite close to a couple of people in the group, both whome i have know for some time, but have never gotten that chance. However the downside to that was that they were both going through a particularly difficult time, but God equipped me for that, he provided me with some great advice for them, and i believe He pulled them closer to him through that. So i am happy that i could help bring peace to them even for a short time .

There were many other activities happening over the course of the weekend, such as Tribal Wars which involved pitting campsites against each other in battles of strength and accuracy, like tug of war and welly wanging etc. there was also water games, inflatable gladiatoring, and a gyroscope ( a chair that people sit in to get dizzy ). There were also entertainment events such as Harvests’ got Talent, 70′s disco, comedy night and a couple of open mic nights. Infact on one open mic night even i played my guitar, which was extraordinarily terrifying but an incredible rush, as i have never done anything like that solo before, and i mean ok i wasn’t fantastic as the nerves got the better of me abit, but i am glad i did it, its something i can cross of my bucket lits , but i have felt inspired to practice more and build confidence and then go for it next year .

In conclusion, last weekend was awesome, there were great speakers, brilliant worship lead by a band called Yfriday, and I did lots of business with God, i hadn’t realised how much i need to release to him until then, and it was so freeing when i left on sunday afternoon. Though admittedly it was a bit of a tearful farewell, particularly for one person who had to leave all her friends behind that day as she recently moved away, which i think we all found hard watching her go :’(, but i think she left with a sence that she is never alone, she will always have us as friends, and it just adds that extra aire of excitement when we do see her .

Since coming back from Harvest, I have felt stronger, and more prepared for the time ahead. I have dealt with so much of the rubbish in my life being there, and i am ready to move forward, i am ready to follow the Gods will for my life.

I hope you have enjoyed my latest installment, it was great to follow up harvest with this, and if you are my friend of FB then check out the video of some of the fun we had camping in a field, it didn’t rain much .

So until next time, farewell and God speed

Matt

My situation is like this, i go to to churches, one called trinity and one called heaton baptist, i have spent my time bouncing between the two for the past five years since i made my commitment to faith, which has been fine, i have made loads of friends at both churches, though i have more of background at trinity with it being my family church. However i am now in the situation that i need to decide where i am going to be firmly rooted within a community rather than spreading my self over two.

The basic gist of what was said is that a leader cannot be affective as such unless he/she is fully grounded and committed to one community, which i can totally understand, because it is about support and accountability, for me to be an affective leader i need the support of a community and be in relationships with those i can grow to trust and be accountable to, because this will help me to give the same support to those whom i may lead.

So basically i need to decide and discern what God wants for my life, do i root myself in the community of Trinity, where i sometimes feel i am a bit stuck in my comfort zone and not really moving forward as quickly as maybe i am meant to, or do i root myself into a relatively new community, form new relationships with a community where i feel i have grown more over the past five years. All plans for leadership and student work a side, i need to figure out where my next step in my journey is.

A piece of my heart is a both churches, which makes this decision all the harder to make, so if anyone has any words of wisdom, any advice you would like to give then please do share it. but at the end of the day, guess i need to follow Gods path, and be driven with what is on my heart to do.

Anyway just though I would catch you up on the events as they have unfolded.
Keep Praying, and God Bless.

So yes, recent events, well as i have just said i have more time on my hands, due to the unfortunate fact that i lost my job last Friday (19th Feb) which though i am a little glad about, i was actually pretty gutted and got quite emotional and angry on the day, because you get a certain sense of failure when that happens, but that’s life i guess, doesn’t always go the way we plan, and to be honest i found my christian life was suffering because i was devoting all my time to worrying about work and trying to “impress” the unimpressible. I believe everything happens for a reason, i just couldn’t find it at the time, which didn’t really help me deal with it, But i spent some time with one of my Christian friends on friday afternoon, which did help a lot and actually prerpared me for the weekend i was about to have, of which i will tell you about in a bit.

However I reckon God was always looking out for me, i was able to persevere through the 5 month period, and i have actually learned so much about being a good technician, my skills and knowledge have come a long way, it might have been the most stressful time of my life but i can take away that experience and use it in the future so i am in no way regretting my time there.

This weekend i have been away on a christian retreat with a great bunch of students, and i truly believe it came at the right time, it helped my tune myself back in to Gods “frequency” if you like, because i really felt lost on Friday, but God really found me again this weekend, and i am feeling stronger for it, i am feeling more connected, more able to commit myself to his purpose for me. For instance last night i really felt inspired when preparing worship and prayer for tonight’s lifegroup, which is really encouraging for me because i feel my leadership of the life group has suffered the past couple of times i have attempted to lead the group. However i attribute that to trying to do it under my own strength, letting my mind lead my heart instead of the other way round, and also it was not particularly spirit lead either which is probably why i messed up so often. So i guess i am just coming to grips with what it means to let the spirit minister through me into the lives of others, whether i am leading worship or a study. I guess i had forgotten how big a role the spirit plays in our lives. so i am just praying that i will mature in my faith and not step backwards into my old ways of dealing with things on my own.

On a final note, i may not be long out of work, because after sending off an internship application for a web developer position yesterday, i got a call today for an interview, so my future may be looking a little brighter in worldly terms (if you know what i mean).  So we will see what comes of that, i will be praying hard about whether or not this is a role i am meant for, because God may have other plans for me, i guess i will have to put my trust in Him and trust that he has a plan for me. If you are a Christan or believe in the power of prayer, i would really appreciate the support.

So i guess thats it for now, i hope you don’t find this post too preachy, i am just using it as an outlet for my thoughts and feelings . And you never know i might be back next month to post again. Bye for now.

P.s. pleas leave any comments or suggestions below, i will be happy to read and reply to them as long as they sensible and not spam. Thanks.

Anyway, i thought i would tell you about another exciting weekend ‘Spiritual Retreat’ with my christian friends, but this time not to the luxury of Nottingham University, a city by the way with one of the highest car crime rates in England so there you go, it’s not just famous for robin hood and his band of marry morons *cough*… men, no instead we shall be exploring the far reaches of Prudoe in a victorian style conference…i know sounds riveting, but at least its in the middle of no where and you won’t get your car broken into lol.

I’m really looking forward to this weekend though dispite its location, because there will be loads of students from one of my churches there, many of whome i don’t no well if at all, which sometimes makes me feel a little left out when all of my friends know everyone and i don’t, so this will be a good opertunity to expand my facebook friend list, as well as learn more about and draw closer to my God.

This weekend however should be pretty wild, people think because we are christian folk we are all tame and never do anything outragious, but as a matter of fact we are all pretty excitable and well up for doing somthing crazy and adventurous, so there you go. The only downside is i miss my Christian Union meeting on friday, but i’m sure i’ll get over it .

So thats your lot for today, I’m tired and I’m off. Bye

This weekend i had such an amazing time in Nottingham at the FireSeeds conference, i got to spend the whole weekend just feeling so close to God. I really enjoyed spending time with many of my friends from Newcastle as well as those made in Israel ad it was great seeing them again after so long. i also got the chance to make so many new friends it was incredible, because i don’t usually find making friends an easy thing, but i just felt really comfortable with it.

This weekend i have done so many things i have never been able to do before, things i have never had the confidence to do, and it is just an awsome experience letting all those fears go, and do everything totally spirit lead. It’s amazing what God can do in us if we let Him.

There were a couple of small downsides to this weekend, they usually ended up with me in some form of physical pain, the food for instance, first night we had spaghetti, now I’m talk the old days of school dinner spaghetti, stuff that had enough greece to lubricate an engine and subsiquently left me with bad food poisening for a night but i was recovered by the next morning which was good. i was also left with two dead legs after a football tournament but i wasn’t so bothered about that cos i had fun and i hadn’t played in ages.

One thing i did find really exciting (event though nothing really amazing came from it) was that for the first time i lead in evangelism on a counsel estate in Nottingham, it was pretty nerve racking but i gave it my best shot an hopefully gave some confidence to my team mate who had never done evangelism before, so i really feel like that was something God really wanted of me otherwise i might not have had the confidence to do this…Thanks God!!

Can’t wait to do it all again next year, i really feel God has Helped me to grow this weekend through encourgament from himself and my friends. It’s really been an exciting time.

Anyway i’ll end there before i bore you all to death with details, Happy New Year to you all who are reading this.

Bye ;D