Sunday, August 21, 2005
Blogger for Word
This is my first post using this tool, which is an add-in for MSWord; it will hopefully make posting easier, and hopefully more regular. Check it out if you’re a blogger and see how you find it. Handy for me since I aint got broadband yet!!
Great to see a fellow Reach Out leader Justy has stepped into the world of blogging, check it out if you get a chance. Maybe some fellow leaders will follow the trend and set up a blog...........
Monday, August 15, 2005
REACHOUT
The past week was an awesome week where God really moved in the lives of the young people that attended and through them into the wider community. He totally blew our mind, answering our every prayer beyond anything we could have comprehended. What was merely a thought a number of months ago he nurtured, developed and grew into something that impacted many young lives and through them impacted the wider community. So what went on?
Weeklong actvities, with 40 teens attending from a couple of local churches, and many with only loose church connections. There was fun and fellowship, we grappled with the Big Questions of our faith, we served the local community in practical ways and finished the week off with a celebratory social event.
Was the community impacted through the young people - yes. The one question that we were constantly asked was why, why are you doing these things expecting nothing in returned. As we washed cars for members of the community in a local golf club, as we cleared the roads of litter, as we made and delivered hampers to elderly folk in the community we were constantly asked why. And this gave us the opportunity to share that, having experienced God's grace in our lives, we wanted to share God's love in practical ways, and this was our way of showing them that God loved them. And when you have an army of young people, full of energy and enthusiasm, then God can make great things happen in and through them.
It's our prayer that this will have been a life changing for the young people involved, and those in the community whose lives they impacted. That the seeds planted will one day reep a mighty harvest, and that a generation of young people prepared to passionately follow their Saviour no matter what the cost will rise up again. God impacted each of the leaders lives as he blew our mind with what he done through the week as we simply gave ourselves in humble service to our master, and we pray that every life touched will be impacted in equally as powerful a way
The past week was an awesome week where God really moved in the lives of the young people that attended and through them into the wider community. He totally blew our mind, answering our every prayer beyond anything we could have comprehended. What was merely a thought a number of months ago he nurtured, developed and grew into something that impacted many young lives and through them impacted the wider community. So what went on?
Weeklong actvities, with 40 teens attending from a couple of local churches, and many with only loose church connections. There was fun and fellowship, we grappled with the Big Questions of our faith, we served the local community in practical ways and finished the week off with a celebratory social event.
Was the community impacted through the young people - yes. The one question that we were constantly asked was why, why are you doing these things expecting nothing in returned. As we washed cars for members of the community in a local golf club, as we cleared the roads of litter, as we made and delivered hampers to elderly folk in the community we were constantly asked why. And this gave us the opportunity to share that, having experienced God's grace in our lives, we wanted to share God's love in practical ways, and this was our way of showing them that God loved them. And when you have an army of young people, full of energy and enthusiasm, then God can make great things happen in and through them.
It's our prayer that this will have been a life changing for the young people involved, and those in the community whose lives they impacted. That the seeds planted will one day reep a mighty harvest, and that a generation of young people prepared to passionately follow their Saviour no matter what the cost will rise up again. God impacted each of the leaders lives as he blew our mind with what he done through the week as we simply gave ourselves in humble service to our master, and we pray that every life touched will be impacted in equally as powerful a way
Sunday, July 31, 2005
God’s sense of humour
We had our final pre-reach out event last night, and lets just say it was a learning experience for me, a lesson I’m somewhat slow to learn. The plan was a DVD night, namely The Incredibles, projected through a projector with the sound through an amp with speakers, giving the full on cinema effect. So I gathered together the equipment and cabling that I figured would make it happen, went down in the afternoon to set it up and test the sound, and came home having succeeded and feeling pretty good about myself that it would work.
The evening arrives, nearing 50 kids show up; we have hired out the DVD, sit them down and go to show it. Sounds booming out until the crucial point – when the characters speak, you see their mouth moving but there aren’t any words coming through. Nitemare, so I check a few cables, check a few setting’s on the DVD, still no words. Try plan B, play it through the laptop and hope for the best, still no joy. Only thing we can do as kids become more restless is go for the subtitles that worked for a while, but ultimately isn’t the same as sound. The digitally enhanced DVD needs a surround sound system to bring through the full range of sounds, and our two speakers through an amp didn’t match up.
So we had a swift change of plan, played some music while we fed them their pizza and hot-dogs, ran home for some karaoke dvd’s, and they sang their hearts out for the remainder of the night.God again taught me that it’s not in my strength that I do things for him, but through the strength and ability he gives me by his spirit. Because I had left God out of the equation, and let my quiet time’s with him falter over the past week, he used this incident to remind me that it’s Him that should have priority in my life. Its Him I’m serving with all my heart, it’s Him who gives me strength when I’m weary, and ultimately it’s Him I need to rely on for all I seek to do in His name.
We had our final pre-reach out event last night, and lets just say it was a learning experience for me, a lesson I’m somewhat slow to learn. The plan was a DVD night, namely The Incredibles, projected through a projector with the sound through an amp with speakers, giving the full on cinema effect. So I gathered together the equipment and cabling that I figured would make it happen, went down in the afternoon to set it up and test the sound, and came home having succeeded and feeling pretty good about myself that it would work.
The evening arrives, nearing 50 kids show up; we have hired out the DVD, sit them down and go to show it. Sounds booming out until the crucial point – when the characters speak, you see their mouth moving but there aren’t any words coming through. Nitemare, so I check a few cables, check a few setting’s on the DVD, still no words. Try plan B, play it through the laptop and hope for the best, still no joy. Only thing we can do as kids become more restless is go for the subtitles that worked for a while, but ultimately isn’t the same as sound. The digitally enhanced DVD needs a surround sound system to bring through the full range of sounds, and our two speakers through an amp didn’t match up.
So we had a swift change of plan, played some music while we fed them their pizza and hot-dogs, ran home for some karaoke dvd’s, and they sang their hearts out for the remainder of the night.God again taught me that it’s not in my strength that I do things for him, but through the strength and ability he gives me by his spirit. Because I had left God out of the equation, and let my quiet time’s with him falter over the past week, he used this incident to remind me that it’s Him that should have priority in my life. Its Him I’m serving with all my heart, it’s Him who gives me strength when I’m weary, and ultimately it’s Him I need to rely on for all I seek to do in His name.
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