A.R.T. Antics

I haven't seen snow as thick as this I believe since I was three years old, there are pictures of me in a little coat in the snow.  So despite the chaos it has caused on the roads there is something beautiful about the way everything turns to white around us.  Of course Christmas is not about the snow or about the presents under the tree or even the tree all of which I really enjoy.  Christmas is all about hospitality making room for Jesus in our lives a reminder of what we should do all the time.  His name is the message of salvation IMMANUEL, GOD IS WITH US, this is what gives us Hope! So I wanted to give you a little idea of what I have been doing just in the last month. As part of Wildfire Kings Kids we ran a day for young people to connect with each other and be open to be a generation who will be on the frontline of the battle not at the back.  Our young people need a purpose to live for it is our responsibilty to release them into this.  I have be...

It has been an interesting year of internal struggles and making many decsions that I didn't think I would have to make so soon. As many will have read and seen I was living in East London I thought I was going to be living there for more than 2 years but after a year it was suggested to me that I came back to live with the rest of the team. My initial reaction wasn't great at I began a struggle of what the best thing to do was and for quite a while I have to say that my decsion was more based around ministry and generally based on Doing. I was so desperate to build something and have something to show for who I was. I in many ways had missed the point. Yes I was doing many of the things that I had dreamed of for a long time, working in a youth club, I knew the young people on the estate I was living on an estate which is something that I had wanted to do for a long time. I was even had postiton of leadership both in YWAM and the church. I was facing a decsion where I appar...

California is one of the most beautiful places I have been to, after waiting what seemed like an age for the bus with a Spanish girl who was in the states learning in English who just happened to be called Marta!! The bus came I have to say I thought LAX was kind of small and not at all exciting. I also expected it to be a lot warmer than it was. As we went along the coast road towards Santa Barbara which would be my destination I noticed how pretty the beaches were, I was in and out of consciousness for the duration of the journey. On the way home from the place I was picked up I noticed how beautiful the place was something I would say again and again during my stay in California ‘I can’t believe it is this beautiful I didn’t expect this at all!!’ I came to the states because it was a chance to have a holiday and I was accompanying my bestfriend so what ever happened happened, I didn’t really have any expectations but I thoroughly enjoyed my time there I didn’t expect ...

So for those of you who know nothing about Wildfire I guess I haven't wrote much about it on this blog, one of the main ways we disciple the young people who are with us is by getting them involved so this was not my outreach it was the outreach of seven young people the oldest was 18 the youngest was 12. At the same time we encourage families to be involved and we had the privlidge to have a family with us from Scotland. We encourage the young people to be involved to the Max, preaching or MCing etc. Italy feels like years ago but in reality it is only 2 months ago. I really liked Italy, I guess it is the latin culture which I really liked. Pescara is very beautiful as well, towards the end of my trip I was thinking I would like to spend sometime there when I am a little more relaxed not working on an outreach, just to walk around and take in some of the beautiful views. However I did manage to spend quite a few afternoons on the beach and an early morning cursory of a new Arg...

Being a follower of Jesus is not about the doing it is about the being. So who am I when I am not doing anything does my life still have value am I still worthy am I still a Christian. Well of course I am but so often our relationship with God can get so mixed up with doing stuff that when you stop it's like whats the point for the relationship or does it even exist. I found myself in this place the other day it was my day off and I felt kind of lost and I read the passage about where Jesus sends out the disciples and they come back all excited that the demons listened to them and cleared out and Jesus rebukes them and says don't rejoice because of that rejoice because your names are written in heaven. All of a sudden it dawned on me that I was again putting to much emphasis on what I did or I had to do and that my passion only comes out of what I need to do. Still my relationship needs to go so deeper than that but then passion is something I will address at another time be...

Recently I've been thinking a lot about Jesus, God's son. To start with that I don't fully understand the power and the beauty of the cross because if I did perhaps I would live my life differently I would react distinctly to difficult situations. Not fly off the handle when things don't go as I had planned Salvation is just the beginning it is not the whole story, and even this I don't think I grasp completely, saved from what? Well in the last few months God has revealed to me some of the tendencies I used to have and where I could have ended up it is not a pretty picture at all. A little girl in one of the camps I run came up with an idea that I hadn't found in any devotional or theological books still it blew us all away. I have once wrote that Children are treasure in our hands not only that but they can give us little nuggets of Gold that if we blink we might miss. She said that Jesus came in God's form Jesus came to show us how we can be like God we ...