Tag: Family

How the gospel can go viral like the Ice Bucket Challenge

This is my talk from our recent baptism service at Ivy, where I looked at the Ice Bucket challenge and drew out its lessons for leaders and churches committed to helping people find their way back to God. It followed 5 scheduled baptisms; some breathtaking stories of life change with Jesus as the star of every story – after the talk a number of people indicated that wanted to follow Him too, and then 3 more people were baptised too! (If it was good enough for the Ethiopian eunuch and Phillip…) I blogged some of the thoughts from my notes of this already on what has been one of the most read blog items I’ve ever done here if you want to look at that too, but there is more on the talk than that item. Thanks for dropping by and I hope you enjoy the talk.  Let me know your thoughts?    

GRIEVING and the Battle for HOPE – #LC14 Rick & Kay Warren at HTB Leadership Conference, Royal Albert Hall

NOTES FROM INTERVIEW AT HTB LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE 2014 NG – How do you cope when your world is rocked- as it was when Matthew died? RW – I wish we could be as unified in evangelism as we are in grief. Because there was an outpouring from the Body of Christ. Why can’t we be as unified about the mission? KW – I will grieve for my son every day until I see him again. But we have to go through it together. This could tear us apart, though divorce is never an option for us. RW – So we decided to grieve differently, together. Because the stats are against you staying together when you’ve lost a child. So, whatever you’re feeling is okay. Enter into a deeper level of grief. Easiest death? Godly old people, ready to go Then death of spouse, death of child, you’re not meant to outlive your children Then suicide Some rejoiced and laughed that their son had killed himself. What do you do? And they are public figures, so they used social media to […]

No Such Thing As Private Morality.

Tomorrow we finish a series I have loved us going through at Ivy, all about David. We’ve been in his life for months and learned a lot. But as we draw a close on his life, I’m left wishing he finished better – and praying that I will finish well. David was a man after God’s own heart. But as we track through his life we know that David’s heart was often broken. All of our hearts are broken by sin. By wrong things we’ve done and things done to us. Last week we saw how at times, temptation won and sin reigned in David’s heart and controlled him. If you want to check out my video teaching on that fall with Bathsheba it’s available free on ‘Ivy Player’ on www.ivymanchester.org now Now while David was forgiven of that because he turned to God in repentance, consequences came back to bite him. That’s something we often forget ahead of our sin, or even post confession. Consequences. There were consequences with regard to how much God could bless him, because that […]

‘COULD YOU NOT WATCH ONE HOUR?!’ – (My struggles with learning to pray. part 2)

Occasionally I’d have a bit of an energy burst and do some journalling (ever done that?). Some of the conferences I went to had experts saying if you didn’t journal every day you had to doubt your salvation. I got a journal. The ‘MAN’ type, leather, with a cross on the front, not the girls one with flowers. Some time later I got another one because I’d hardly written in the first one. It had ‘MY PRAYER JOURNAL’ written on the front. But there’s still not much written in it. Actually though, Jesus didn’t journal. It really wasn’t me. I love writing, I hate journaling. I’m not even sure journalling is a word. How many ls should it have if it is? Spellchecker doesn’t like either. I read somewhere that CS Lewis STOPPED journaling when he became a Christian, because he’d done it for years before, and found it made him too self centred. I was doing really badly from the outset at how I thought you were supposed to be growing spiritually. It never got better. It’s not like […]

Watch LeCrae Explain What ‘A Real Man’ Is

Then if you live within striking distance of Manchester book in here NOW for the Diamond Geezers Men’s Day on Saturday April 13th before it’s too late. [vimeo http://vimeo.com/59965923] (If you have any trouble watching the video here, go to http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/lecrae-explains-true-manhood)

CHOOSE to Change Your Mind!

I promised to put on here the fantastic jpg put together by one of our churches (Ivy Fallowfield) on how they want to live differently. This is a predominantly student area with a rep that’s hedonistic to say the least. Check out the challenge and invitation to live differently by this fantastic church community that meet every Sunday for worship in the 256 Bar on Wilmslow Rd. (And as I speak are going out every night in Lent to bless people on the streets into the early hours).

We don’t need Divine Rehab but Divine Rescue

CENTER CHURCH – Tim Keller  (Ivy GG notes – much of this material comes from today’s Ivy GG Leaders Day; thanks so much to all who made time to attend and for all you’re doing at ‘the church that meets at your house.’) I have been very inspired as I read Tim Keller’s latest book, Center Church. Check out the video summary at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_ZWlPUmVug I downloaded it on my Kindle and began to highlight in yellow important phrases and concepts as is my usual practice, but there’s so much there it ended with what looks like a Christian version of the Yellow Pages! DISCUSS: Do you read regularly or is that something you find hard to make time for? If so how might you overcome that challenge so you keep on growing? What have you read recently that’s encouraged, inspired or challenged you? I outlined my understanding of what I’d read in the book to our leaders as follows: The ‘model’ of church isn’t what’s most important. We have at one end (D.F.) the DOCTRINAL FOUNDATION. What we believe – and as […]