500 RAW - Jesus Army Life

It's been an amazing few days. The first UK youth event for Christians organised totally by young Christians (we think) has just taken place - and it's been beautiful. 500 people under the age of 35 pressing their commitment to Jesus even deeper than it was before. 500 Christians worshipping freely, reaching into simplicity and purity and sacrifice and commitment and brotherhood. 500 young men and women learning the lifestyle of the Kingdom of Heaven.

We called it RAW - Real and Wild discipleship, it took place in Northampton and it's produced momentum among our generation. Where before you could find cynicism, listlessness, compromise and misunderstanding now we're seeing a 2nd generation Jesus movement rising up to show what following Jesus is really about - so there was fasting, there were healings, there was help for the poor, there were signs and wonders, there was sharing homes, there was the challenge to live single all our days, the word spread and over three days the numbers increased. We delved into our past and dreamed of a future where nothing counts but a people honed by the love of Jesus showing Jesus to an uncertain world.

For me it was an experience of growing as I helped lead a platoon of saints around the streets of Leicester talking to people about Jesus. And it was a time of learning that God is willing to work through the humble and bring them into His service.

And I can hardly wait for RAW 2008.

photos by Kathryn Callard

Learning power - Jesus Army Life

It's been a long time, but I can't help feeling we've come through a bit of a season as a household. Now we're entering into a time of fruitful faith. There will still be need for endurance but we've learnt so much about holding on through the hard times they won't seem so harsh anymore. And the fruit will come, we'll see more people turn to Jesus.

And I'm glad, personally however these last few months have been an opportunity to question the extent of my own spiritual clout. A friend of mine committed suicide a month ago and it's left me angry and disappointed, especially since he sometimes confided in me. I would have hoped that something of God in me might, maybe, have been enough to persuade him that there's a life worth living for. He is a Christian. But it's challenged me.

Will I ever know the power of God enough to bring change to others' lives? I want to, I need to.

Photo by cayusa from flickr.com

Still running - Jesus Army Life

It's been ages, I know. What's been lacking? Inspiration? Not really. Vision? Maybe. Energy? Definitely.

This could be a neat way to introduce the theme of perseverance in community, but really, it's more simple than that. I've been worn out. (And to those who love me, 'No, I don't want a holiday.') It's not burn out - at least I hope not, I'd always hoped burn out would be more glamourous than this. It's simply a matter of not being able to juggle too many plates competently and so I had to drop some.

Does this new entry indicate a resurgence in energy? You bet! Though (ouch) I'm still having to take it a little easy (groan).

So I find myself increasing not reducing my vision, refining the love I want to offer into something more solid, and being more definite about my sacrifice, but yes, there are times when I hide more too, times when I have to stop myself reacting too quickly.

It's like I've run the gauntlet and I'm still running, and I don't want to stop. There's still only one thing that counts in this life, one person, and he spent all his life entirely and resumed it all again in greater glory simply for me. So I'm running increasingly more until I can jump through that vortex of death into life unknown with him.

Photo by nnic of flickr.com

Bible bashers can't jump - Jesus Army Life

Bible and basketball last night. 4 heathens, 3 Christians. Short chat about how we saw God, shoot a few hoops and invites to tonight's BBQ. Sometimes it seems so simple.

Sadnesses of the Spirit - Jesus Army Life, Day 652

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life.
Proverbs 13:12

It's been a time of powerful 'anointings' from the Holy Spirit lately - there's been lots of laughter and joy, there have been times of unmissable sadness too. For me it's been a time of travail, I haven't cried so much for a long time. But God knows what he is doing. I look forward to the tree of life that God has promised.

21 photos - captions welcome

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

Perfect Day - Jesus Army Life, Day 639

Quick note to say that last Saturday was perfect: an outing to a castle and meadows on a beautifully sunny day with many of my closest friends. The pictures were fantastic - I'll have to see if I can get a few posted up here.

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Busy month - Jesus Army Life, Day 628

First White Stone 2 Agape meal. Festival Weekend. Manchester March. Adrian moves in. Goldsmiths Event. Lead Drop In team. Preach at Gospel Event. Regional Leaders meeting. Lead evangelism campaign. Baptism. And relax...?

No, not stressed at all - Jesus Army Life, Day 626

Just finished the first day of our two day evangelism campaign. Oooh I find campaigns stressful, moreso because I'm supposed to be in charge. Still it's been a good day, a few people have made some new contacts and we've moved on a step with some old friends. We've prayed for quite a few and there's been some healing as well. So it's working.

The question that remains is: will I survive tomorrow? Maybe, but very possibly without my sanity intact. Good night.

"Heroes aren't born, they're cornered" - Jesus Army Life, Day 622

Last night I spoke about heroes. I had to admit to dressing up as superman when I was a kid and performing on the Sunday dinner dining room table. But heroes are supposed to do that aren't they? They're supposed to inspire us. They're supposed to save us too, which is why Jesus' name means God our saviour (Yahu=part of God's Hebrew name, shua=saves in Hebrew) or as I prefer it: God to the rescue!

So who's the hero in your life?

To the Potentate of Time

If we had keen vision and feeling for all ordinary human life it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we would die of the roar which lies on the other side of silence.
--George Eliot

Double the dynamism - Jesus Army Life, Day 611

I'm getting the sense that having a second household is bringing a new dynamic to White Stone. It brings extra muscle to the whole. We all have to operate as part of a small unit, bringing our own gifts and will to bear on the issue of household growth. And the contrast in character of two different groups within one house means that there is always something happening, always one of the two households finding the Spirit, bringing grip, reaching out, knowing the cross. We will have our different emphasis but together we are White Stone, still taking the land, still doing our all to love Jesus.

Photo by ucumari of flickr.com

Bowled over - Jesus Army Life, Day 609

I must have mentioned before that White Stone was splitting into two households (that's the name we give to each core unit of the church). Well, on Sunday the households were commissioned and several of us ended up on the floor as the Holy Spirit blessed the bunch of us together. It was fairly hillarious - a typical White Stone rumbustuous event, but it was fairly important too: important to be recognised by the whole church, important to be blessed by the Holy Spirit.

The whole festival weekend was filled with Holy Spirit activity as the church gathered together to seek God. One of our family was so blessed with the Spirit that she couldn't stop talking in tongues and picked up again as neared the marquee tent for a meeting the next morning! I was very glad that many of us were filled with the Holy Spirit. May he not only fill us but affect our character as well.

Me, myself? I had a useful time of initially feeling disappointed by God and then finding a way through to meeting with him. He's calling me to be more Spirit led.

God's generous expansive heart - Jesus Army Life, Day 590

those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint
Isaiah 40

In community life can seem very tough at times. It's easy to forget the amazing generosity of God. But in community you don't sign up for an easy life, you pledge yourself to live with other people, for better and worse. If you become tired of all the meetings then you have to question what community is about for you because when we are in community that's what we do, we meet people, all the time.

But I was feeling tired, emotionally worn out. I was getting repeatedly annoyed with God for nothing working out right and desperate for some reprieve; when in bursts my friend and tells me he's had a dream: a dream that remembers God's generosity, that things can be bigger and better, more successful than they already are, because we have a generous God!

It's my hope that news like that doesn't just make my day or week, but makes my life! The tough times will always be there, but that's not the point with God. His heart is more expansive, more roomy than you could ever know... (see Ephesians 3:15-21)

One last thing... God gives every Christian an inspiration of faith and hope when they first meet him. Some aspect of faith so big, so true, that all their vision is expressed in that virtue. For me it was his love, for others it is his power. What was it for you? Return to that principle and live in its reality as much as you can because God gave it to you as a key for you to express his spiritual life as richly as you possibly can!

photo by artandscience of flickr.com

Enter the supernatural - Jesus Army Life, Day 580

Why do people in church seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? … Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us to where we can never return.
—Annie Dillard

Indeed, with trembling and fear we press in towards a god who will change us forever. So let us quickly press in.

Choice - Jesus Army Life, Day 574

Community life leaves you with a stark choice: give your all for the greater good or hide away.

'Hiding' can take various forms. You can sink into problems, you can create little indulgences, you can pretend to be spiritual or you can become stubborn having come this far but no further. None of these compare to laying down your life.

Jesus spoke of laying down his life for his friends (John 15). Who are his friends? Those who love him and obey him. Friendship with God is more than just dutiful service, it is complete intimacy and obedience.

To sacrifice everything you are is to break into real friendship, not only, I believe, with Jesus, but with others who truly want to follow him too. We are called to love one another the same way Jesus loved - by laying down our lives - that is the nature of community.

In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
Hebrews 12:4

We too easily forget that experiencing hardship is all part of becoming God's son.

Great idea: Beginner's Guide to Sainthood

Written by Jack Bernard of the Church of the Sojourners, a community based church in the US

Reservations - Jesus Army Life, Day 558

Dear Jesus,
------Please help me to entrust to you my passivity. The passivity that says I will do what I want, when I want to. The passivity that refuses to be obedient to you and so dampens my faith. Please help me to entrust to you my fears and reservations, not so that these fears will be enshrined by you but so that you will put them in their proper place in the light of your glorious love.
------Amen.

Go to your heavenly Father and tell him you are frightened, and he has ways of taking away these fears. For though they may be ridiculous to some, a child’s dreads are never too frivolous for the sympathy of a loving father, but he meets them as if there were some great reality in them and so sets them aside.

Whatever then your need, your woe, your grief, go to your Father and he will give you comfort. Believe from this night forward that God does pity all those who fear him, and whatever he sees of weakness in their nature and of sorrow in their lot he will help them. So may you find it now and evermore, for Christ’s sake.
Charles Spurgeon

photo by scribeoflight of flickr.com

I believe - Jesus Army Life, Day 551

I've been rediscovering belief. It seems to be the logical step on my quest for a deeper conversion. But I don't think I can oversatate how important the exercise of faith must be...

Let's face it, we all have reservations, inner questions, uncertainties, doubts. It's important to be honest about these, and it's useful, as Martyn Joseph says, to "treasure the questions". Personally, I was brought up to question everything, especially things which imposed on my own self autonomy. My Dad still holds that no man (or god) will be his king, and I think that standard has become part of my own personality too.

But I have found Jesus undeniable and unforgettable, his Spirit lives in me, his impact on those close to him is documented historical fact, he gives me hope and makes sense of my world. But still there have been questions... And yet I have experienced the supernatural on a number of occassions... And still my faith has been small... But so was that of the disciples.

While longing for more of the transforming power of God in my life and others', I began to think about what God's power actually meant. I remembered this verse:

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes
Romans 1

I couldn't ignore the emphais on belief, and then i found this in the KJV:

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name
John 1

Belief. Belief, belief, belief. Jesus asks me to believe. That's where his power lies - in faith. It's not leaving my brain at the door, the questions remain, but I've got to risk my whole life on this man who is God if I'm ever to know his transforming power. A half cocked faith simply will not do. There's something simply fundamental about belief, without we can't operate. I know that even the simplest child knows this, but it's taken me some while to understand. Faith pleses God. And now having believed beyond reservation I must act...

We must not content ourselves with liberty and consolation and gust in prayer. We must come out from prayer the most rapturous and sweet, only to do harder and ever harder works for God and our neighbours. Otherwise the prayer is not good, and the gusts are not from God.
Saint Teresa of Avila

photo by ange's photos of flickr.com