As part of my intern year I am being given a variety of podcasts to watch and books to read. I completed watching my first podcast this morning.
The title of the message was 'Personal Pilgrimage'. My initial reaction to the title, coupled with being from 1985 when video quality was questionable, was that of 'oh dear, what have I gotten myself into?'
Little did I know that from the message would come notes, thoughts and a song which would shape my life in some way.
The preacher, John Wimber, has a very interesting testimony to tell. In brief, he grew up with little or no connection to the church whatsoever. One evening he found God when he prayed out to Him about a situation with his wife, and God responded instantly. This planted a seed for John that God was real and wanted to work in John's life to make it a better place to live. John speaks about various incidents that happen as a result of finding Jesus away from the church. He doesn't know about the Bible, he doesn't know why people speak the way they do at church, he didn't even know that when he asked God for help that it was called 'prayer'.
The most intriguing part of his testimony, for me, is that he found God on his own. It was a personal thing straight away. So often kids are brought up in churches learning about Jesus, about God, being talked at about Noah and his arc, Jonah and his whale (or 'big fish'), Adam and Eve. But they aren't brought up knowing about GRACE, about God's personal relationship with them. They are told that they are unique but they're not told that their relationship with God is unique also.
These are quite sweeping statements, I admit. I have visited churches where it is quite the opposite. Where small children are hearing messages from God that are for their friends. We speak so much about having a child-like faith, yet lots of churches fail to fuel that faith in children.
I speak from the experience of having called myself a 'Christian' my entire life. When I was 8 or 9 I found the Lord's prayer in an old book and I learnt it off by heart. When I was 11 I 'prayed the prayer' to give my life to Jesus. I think I always knew that there was something more but I was always quite happy to stay in my little safe Christian bubble. When I was 15 I got baptised. My public declaration of my love for Jesus, God, Father, Son. At this time in my life I was hearing messages from God and sharing them at my youth group. I was starting to develop a prophecy gift which God has blessed me with. I was using all of these skills and talents that God had given me to bless others but avoiding letting God speak to me through these gifts.
In the past few years I have been seeing pictures in my mind during worship. The type that suddenly appear and disappear just as quickly, ones which I trust are from God but until I test them out I can never be sure. More recently, however, I have received a picture and then felt a tugging sense of 'this one is for you'. I cannot describe the way I feel in that moment. So I have been writing these down on a notes app in my phone and not doing anything with them. I have also started to write down my dreams. For a few years I have listened to a few of my mum's dreams and been able to interpret what it could mean. As I seek to deepen my relationship with God I have been trying to use this gift/skill on my own dreams, for my own benefit. God blessed me with a gift to bless myself and not only others. I have found that God really does want to speak to me too.
One of the things I noticed as I watched and listened to John Wimber was at the moments where I paused the video to give into a distraction, I forgot all about the amazing message I had been hearing. I remembered that I needed to get back to the video to finish watching it but it was only when I clicked play that I got back into the swing of listening and remembering that God was talking to me in an amazing way. I think our relationship with God can be a bit like this. When we get out of the habit of working on that relationship (in this case, getting distracted from watching the video) we forget how amazing it is to be in a relationship with God and we start to view it as a chore which is very time-consuming. However, when we get back into the swing of things we realise just what we had forgotten we'd been missing out on (having an amazing, awesome, refreshing, positively challenging time with God).
I have always viewed prayer, when I'm not doing it, as something that can go on for so long and be a bit of a bore. Even though I knew and had experienced countless times that, in reality, prayer is so beneficial, so refreshing, so real. God connects to us on a deeper level when we ask Him to because He's there waiting for us to make that decision ourselves. Our free will is such a precious thing that God has given us because it enables Christianity to be a relationship with God rather than a forced cult.
When you need to fill a cup with sand, ping pong balls and marbles there is a specific order that you must do it in. If you were to pour in the sand or the marbles first then the ping pong balls would not fit. And there's always room after the pingpong, balls, sand, for a few beers with friends!
It's the same with God. We must first fill our hearts with Him, then other people, and then things. That way there is always space for God in your heart. He's the best help you can get in any situation.
I'm not too sure how to describe how I feel about this week, but it's definitely positive! I saw a post recently which gives names and explanations to emotions that you didn't know had a name. But these were all negative so that'll be no help for me this week.
As it was a bank holiday this Monday, I started on Tuesday. I had a fairly busy day with a LOT of information to write down and digest over the next few days.
I've had fun this week getting to know different aspects of the organisation and I'm amazed at how many things run on top of the standard 'Sunday Morning Gathering'.
God's definitely been challenging me with some choices already, one of which I was lost for how to do even though I knew the right decision and wanted to go for it. And lo and behold a couple of days ago He handed an answer to me on a plate. God is good! Today I've been in the office preparing a few things for Sunday morning, networking with some people within the church and looking at some personal discipleship. I'm about 10 minutes into a video entitled 'John Wimber Signs Wonders1985 1/12 (Personal Pilgrimage)". It's on YouTube if you'd like to have a listen. Already some thing that has been on my heart recently is cropping up in the video. The difference between "Christians" and those who have a relationship with God.
In the next few weeks I hope to have gotten my head around some of the challenges and questions I'm sure this video will present and I plan on writing a bit of a post about what I've learnt from it and what I've found interesting.
A quote from the video that is already ringing in my head is that the 'study of scripture' should directly 'affect our behaviour' otherwise it was pointless study. This is quite the sweeping statement to make but it has a very valid point that when we read the scripture our hearts long for things that God longs for and this should, in theory, change our behaviour in some way.
A question to ask yourself as much as possible over the weekend:
What would Jesus do?
And if you don't know then look it up, the Bible is there for you to use in times of uncertainty as well as every day life.
Please give it a watch it if you can spare a couple of minutes; it's such an important topic that is too often avoided in conversation.
As part of my A level in Media Studies last year we were asked to make a video. I chose to make a short film. We were also asked to write an essay answering a question that we set ourselves. I chose to answer: How has the representation of the definition of slavery changed in the last decade and how has the media facilitated this, specifically looking at "Taken" starring Liam Neeson (2008), Channel 4's "Captive: The Sex Slave Girl" (2012), and the UK Home Office's "Modern Slavery Ad Campaign" (2014)"? If you would like to read the 1800 word essay, let me know. It's a difficult read but has some interesting points which I started to explore.
So, yeah, please share the video with your friends!
