hopefully I can sort this out

"Our God is an awesome God"
"How great is our God"
These are two songs that get to me, and not because I don't like them, because I do, but because I find myself standing there before God asking myself "so why when I come to talk with my friends and others that I know and meet who don't know God can I not explain to them how great and awesome he is?"
Have I forgotten what God has done for me in my life? maybe.
Do I just think that because they might not feel that they need forgiveness from God because hey they haven't really done anything that bad, and so they wonder why Jesus had to live, die and rise again? I think this is a rationalisation on my behalf to not tell people about this part, although it's an important bit.
Do I think that God hasn't really done anything awesome or great in my life and so don't have anything to say on that? I think I would be lying if I said that.

I do feel like I would hit the same wall and answer as the young enthusiastic evangelist from South Africa who went to a group of young men saying to them that he had discovered this revolutionary movement that was life changing and all about love, real love. That they were this amazing community of people who lived extraordinary lives, loving each other and all people no matter their race or lifestyle. And when the young men replied fantastic where can we find this Jesus Church and see this, he replied "oh well there aren't any here...."

I also at the same time feel like I am apart of the problem. And that i can't blame everyone else, I know in the end it is my life and like as in Kingdom of Heaven
"A king may move a man, a father may claim a son. But remember that, even when those who move you be kings or men of power, your soul is in your keeping alone. When you stand before God you cannot say but I was told by others to do thus or that virtue was not convinient at the time. This will not suffice. Remember that."
I can't stand before God and say well but everyone else was like that or but other people didn't do that.

I think that i expect that others will expect so much of me that I can't live up to right now and that I need permission to suck at being like Jesus so that I can have permission to grow. I think I am finding that we need to wear our imperfections on the outside so that we can give others around us the permission to suck at being like Jesus and grow, so that they don't feel like they have to live up to your standards before they can go any further.
I think I need to do more of what I say I believe and start to actually believe it.
If I really do believe not just think that God is so great and awesome than I know I will live it not just think it.
What I think and believe are two different things, hopefully I can sort this out.

Henry is leaving

Henry is leaving.
Arsenal Football Club can confirm that it has reached an agreement with Barcelona for the transfer of Thierry Henry.

"This is my last contract. It is where I belong." Those words, uttered by Thierry Henry as he committed his future to Arsenal in May (2006), were music to the ears of anyone associated with the Club.
But just over twelve months later it is the exact opposite and the golden boy of Arsenal for the past 8 years will pull on a different coloured jersey next season, in a different league. Is he a liar who has dealt a cruel blow to his club? Or was it the club that dealt a cruel blow to it's greatest ever goalscorer and some would say greatest player?
It all started with the departure of David Dein from the club in April when he resigned from the Arsenal board apparently due to irreconcilable differences with other members of the board. David Dein was the man who brought Arsene Wenger to the club and who was Wenger's greatest supporter and a great help in getting the kind of great players who have graced the Arsenal shirt for the past 11 years that Wenger has been with the club, including the most prized Henry. With one year currently on his contract and his good mate Dein gone under ill circumstances Wenger was reluctant to sign a further contract, preferring to wait until it runs out to make any further decisions final. Henry simply could not wait another year to see if Wenger would stay or not and with the possibility of him not being at the club, who can really blame him for moving to Spain.
While hopefully Arsenal are a club bigger than a player and a manager, they may have underestimated the consequences of letting David Dein walk out the door. It well could truly be the end of an era if Wenger does leave at the end of the coming season. But one thing is for sure it will be the greatest challenge the club has faced in the past decade.

Thierry Henry
Born
August 17, 1977
Paris
France

Position
Striker

Squad Number
14

Previous Club(s)
Monaco
Juventus

Joined Arsenal
August 03, 1999

Arsenal Debut
Leicester City (h)
Premiership
August 7, 1999,
Won 2-1

Appearances (sub)
369 (32)

Goals
226

Honours
2 League Championships 2002, 2004
3 FA Cups 2002, 2003, 2005
2 Community Shields 2002, 2004
1 FA Cup Runners-up 2001
1 UEFA Champions League Runners-up 2006
2 Community Shield Runners-up 2003, 2005

You could call me homeless

I in no way mean to be offensive to those who live at the other end of the scale in degrees of homelessness, who daily struggle with issues of safety, security and shelter.
I am writing an assignment at the moment on the effects of homelessness on young people, and after doing some research into who is defined as homless, I have discovered that I am pretty sure that I could be considered homeless. See there are many different degrees to which someone can be defined as homeless, and what it really comes down too is whether you have an adequatley safe and secure home. Now I would say that if I do fit in to this that I do fit right down the bottom of the scale but since I have moved at least once every year since I moved out of home at the start of 2002 and sometimes multiple times in a year I could be classified as not having a secure home. Now there have been times when I have been more homeless than others, like when i was staying in a friends place till I could find somewhere with just a sleeping bag and a bag of clothes and things. Then there was when I was sort of bording at a families house but I was only there for a short term. There was another time when I was bording somewhere for 6 months, and times when I have rented places for a year. All short term accommodatin really. Now at the end of the year I will be moving again, so at the moment it can be said that while I may have a safe home it is not a secure home. I don't know when I will end my homelessness, but hopefully sometime in the next few years I could settle somewhere for a while, maybe at least a 3 year spell. That would be a nice experience to live somewhere in the one house for 3 years, I think it would make a big difference, it would be challenging too.

Challenges to Christianity

Found this on Smulo Space John Smulo's blog that I read-

"I'm not sure whether this is peculiar to American Christianity or not, but I seem to regularly hear Christians discuss challenges that face the church. These are virtually always discussions about external challenges such as secularism, atheism, or a particular Teletubby--oh wait, the latter was last year's news.
Contrary to this sentiment, I have relatively little concern about external challenges. I believe the church can withstand anything that might be thrown at it.
That said, with others, I do have serious concerns about challenges facing Christianity. But my concern has to do with internal, rather than external, pressures."
Read more here...

I have to say I agree that often we can be looking too much at the issues from the world we feel are threatening our mission and don't look at the issues within ourselves that are holding us back.

From XXXChurch

Why do we bury our wounded?
How come sometimes we (Christians) act like anything but God?
Why are so many of us so ignorant?
There are a lot of books about why people don’t like Christians, what the church should do a better job of, statistics on what non Christians think and sound like. You name it there are study guides and all sorts of junk to read. Why not just listen. Why not just listen to people that want nothing to do with church and God and hear what they are saying. Don’t read a book about it. Go talk to those, befriend those that don’t like us and hear why and then start to change. Read whole thing...Anything But God

"more people, more like Jesus"

So the church i am apart of has a little vision phrase that goes like this "more people, more like Jesus" but what i want to ask is this question what was Jesus like then? If we are trying to be more like Jesus and get other people to be more like Jesus then we had better know how to be like Jesus.
So tell me, what do you think? What in short points do you think Jesus is/was like and why?
I will start with this
Jesus preached God's good news and that the kingdom of God was near - Mark 1:14-15
He did this to announce the coming of the new age that John had been talking about and so that people would turn away from their sin and towards God.

Michael Frost

I was on YouTube when i found these short clips with Mike Frost talking about Jesus on the poor and outcasts.
check them out:
Becoming The Poor
Jesus Etiquette
Jesus: Man Of The Streets

I love how looking at how things were in Jesus day can change your perspective so much on what he says and what is really going on.