TABERNACLE

Here are some pics from our first road test for the new prayer journey 'Living Tents'. Tunes by Ric & Aaron from Blackdog Studios, along with some creative prayer stations made for a great experience. Next month sees more road tests at CFC over the 28 & 29 March, so if you fancy coming down and walking out in the path of Moses and Aaron, give me a shout and we will book you in for a slot.

THANKSGIVING FOR RACHEL

Today I attended the thanksgiving service for Rachel Timothy aged 16. Rachel was the daughter of rob and eleanor, rob I have known for the past nine years through teaching together at FRIENDS SCHOOL LISBURN. Rachel was born with physical and mental disabilities, yet today listening to the tributes that family & friends brought it was obvious that she enriched the lives of those around her. The words of her dad sum up the feeling in that service today ' when we grieve for Rachel it will be without any need to question why? There is no-one who needs to be forgiven, there are no issues which need to be resolved, it will simply be a mourning for someone who was a lovely human being, who dwelt with us for a while and then left behind a family and community which cared for her and were enriched by her'.

BOYS WILL BE BOYS

sitting in on a band day retreat with the boys from BLUETREE, a bunch of nutters!

HOLA

just back from five lovely days chilling in Enniskillen with jenny, the boys and the in-laws. great time away. asked jonny (aged 4)tonight what his highlights were:

1. having granny & granda away
2. staying at number 5 cottage (they really were great - type benaulin cottages into google to find out more about them)
3. eating ice-cream
4. going into the forest
5. digging for treasure

let me explain number five a bit more, for christmas jonny got a big pirate ship, he loves playing with it and we are all given pirate names mine is ' captain hook'. so during the week i took jonny off into the forest and we hid some treasure and laid a trail and then made a map for jenny to find the next day! all wonderful stuff, exactly as family holidays should be.

managed to escape out for a night with jenny to the lovely OSCARS (in memory of oscar wilde) for a lovely meal, if you are ever down there check it out a class place. just heard my mate BRIAN HEASLEY is blogging, check him out, we have managed to scoop him for HELIX this year and he will also be speaking in CFC on sunday 12th march at all three services.

PINK MEN, THAI MEALS AND BODY BASICS

what a weekend so far, first friday night at Version 2.1 was a whopper nite, the boys (dee, jay, kyle and mark) did a great job organising it. four 17 year olds sorting out an entire youth event - excellent. the 'piece d'resistance' was them coming out in pink lyrca aerobic gear and leading everyone in a routine in the middle of worship quote ' this is worship -just different, so get into it'.

saturday night we had 11 friends round for a Thai meal, a glorious feast prepared by one of our 16 yr old girls in Version 2.1 who is heading away to Thailand during the summer. great food, banter and conversation and a chance to raise some cash to help cathy .

just finished a 3 hour discipliship course on Basics of our faith, as usual, we started late and were playing catch up, but i really enjoyed getting to hang out for a while with these guys, they are so enthusiastic and up for learning more - a real core bunch and a joy to have as part of our youth team.

tonight should be good at CFC ruth walters one of our SOURCE students is speaking.

FUTURE

great site on FUTURE TRENDS just watched a presentation of his last night on the web, some really great thoughts on how business needs are changing.

THE CORE & SUNDAY

sitting in my comfy office typing busily on the final script of the 'basics' course that we are running this sunday in Merge. getting really excited about the chance to cover some key truths in our christian faith with the lovely young people from CFC. going over bible passages has been refreshing to re-engage with the scriptures, it's kinnna like you know the truth in some vague fuzzy way but when you read it in the bible, it comes straight out at you and hits you right between the eyes. came across an interesting passage in Luke 11: 37-54 'six woes' what a lovely title. basically it is all about Jesus getting stuck into the falsness of religious leaders of his day. i watched aNOOMA yesterday on the same thing called Sunday, rob Bell says' God hates it, he can't stand it when we put on a religious show and then we ignore the poor and the broken and the marginalized and the oppressed' ...........hmmmm food for thought eh. sunday's course will be great but only if it transforms young people into being more intentional in their faith to bring 'good news to the poor'.

just out of a planning meeting with the guys from HELIX, we are pumped that this years event is gonna be amazing. last year we thought it was time to gather those in the 18-30 group from across different churches. we loved having over Brian Heasley of 24-7prayer fame. so the dates are 10-11th March, we have three speakers

Steve Brothwood, originally from London, born to Irish parents, a finiancial whiz for Eagle Star and is currently the pastor of CFC Dublin.

Priscilla Reid. Priscilla is on the leadership team of Lifelink and CFC, Strandtown. She frequently speaks at conferences in the UK, Europe and North America. Her current involvements include developing today’s leaders for tomorrow’s church and uniting prayer for Ireland.

Brian Heasley. Originally from Belfast, Brian is a church planter and much sought after speaker in North America and the UK. He has been central to developing innovative approaches to engaging with youth culture through the Cultural Shift network and 24-7 prayer. Having led a successful church in England for several years, Brian and his family are currently pioneering a new church plant in the party island of Ibiza as part of the global 24-7 prayer movement.

so check your diary and get booked in.....

MANNAFEST

just back from mannafest great night, God showed up challenging us to be full of mercy, and not judgemental. i was a bit uneasy with the speakers references to 'gays' and how we tend to be so full of self-righteousness to this community, know what he was getting at, just think that at times it seemed like an inside joke on our part. bluetree were great and it was good to see so many of the guys i had been with during the week at Rostrevor.

FRIENDS ACROSS THE CITY

check out our friends at city church great site and a cool bunch of ppl

THE SILVER CHAIR

i have just finished reading CS Lewis' book in the Chronciles of Narina 'The Silver Chair'. yes i know that i am a bit slow and most other people have devoured the writings of Lewis, so Jenny bought me the entire collection for christmas and i am now on my last one- The Last Battle. Having just spent the last three days with a bunch of young people taking year out programs it struck me how much we can get caught up in the lies of the enemy, just like Prince Rinnian. For years he was under the impression that the Witch was his friend, with his best interests at heart, when in fact all she did was offer false hope, keep him imprisoned and use him for her own gain. too often i just let the lies of satan drag me down, i allow my perspective to go and with that make myself a slave to fear and doubt. as i taught from Philippians this week i had a real sense that just like Paul, we need to guard our minds and thru prayer experience the peace of God! check out chapter four of this great letter for more on this...

OFF AGAIN!

tonight i head down to Rostrevor to hang out with the lovely teams from YFC and Methodist Church, who are on a year out experience. these retreats are always good fun and a chance to catch up with some friends. i am speaking at four sessions and am excited at hearing stories of how God is moving in different parts of Ireland. in the schedule i was sent they have for late tonight - 'chill & suprise', it has got me thinking what it might be? now i am all intrigued..... if you want to have a guess at what they have in store for us drop me a wee post and i will let you know when i get back on friday.

REFLECTIONS FROM MURLOUGH

just taking a few minutes to process the FIREWIRE weekend that we are just back from, for me some of the highlights were

1. paul francis' interpretion of the JCB song, and relating it to our attitude to worship (we hope to get paul into the recording studio with Blackdog and get this recorded asap)
2. seeing the pile of paper after people's prisons were prayed over and torn up - FREEDOM!!!!!
3. the worship, full on, no sense of awkwardness and the flow of the prophetic over the weekend
4. letting stevie millar think he had nearly blinded me with hair spray and getting a big bag of sweets out of him!
5. being around a bunch of young people who are still going on with their faith - you are all legends

lots more i could say but that will do for now,thanks guys for being there and making it such a great time. it shows the importance of having regular times in our schedules when we draw aside and have a sabbath experience, learning from the Master to withdraw from life's noise and tune into heaven's fequency.

FUN PEOPLE

just so you know the background to the last post, concerning a missing lap-top. i was speaking last night at our 3rd service and was using the illustration of the pleasure and passion i had for my new lap-top, how it gave me endless hours of fun and related that to how each of us are created to bring God pleasure. i thought it would be fun to post a message to 3rd service on my blog and then have it thrown up on the big screen. at the end of the service everyone was laughing and i realized that richard Morrison had nicked my mac and got onto my site and posted 'where is your lap-top, the Lord gives and takes away!'. a great way to end a super night. it was communion and i love watching everyone as they file past the table, what a visible testomoney of God's grace.

Missing laptop

Adrian,

Where is your laptop?

The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away!!!!



Guess who

You People are lovely

big hi to all the cool, lovely ppl at 3rd service CFC tonight - you look great!!

Psalm 147.1 'how good it is to sing praises to our God'

3 hours to go!!

Getting ready for the FIREWIRE weekend for our older teens, last week we had the squeakies away and it was a great time, God showed up and amazingly we managed to get some sleep. we are back to the same place, the lovely Murlough House. excited that we have Paul Francis speaking, Paul always has an interesting slant on things and i think that the guys will really connect with what he has to say. meanwhile back in CFC we have just ordered in a massive bouncy castle for our young 'uns tonight. the theme is BOUNCE- coming off the back of a retreat it is always easy to be on a downer so we want to encourgae them to keep going in their faith. i wonder how the worship will go with them all going mad bouncing away! adds a new spin to Dancing Generation - maybe Blue Tree should write one ' BOUNCING GENERATION'......

lots of facts

check out this

thanks to elaine stitt for the site!

Mac v's PC

so i have caved in under the pressure and moved over to the world of Mac's! what a strange little place it is, everyone is so into their Giga Bites and Ram! me i guess i am just a shallow computer user, all i want is speed, speed and more speed - and a little bit of cool graphics! i have started playing with a nice piece of VJ software called Arkaos (check out www.arkaos.net) for a free 30 day download. this is a great way of getting some great images up during worship and we have used it with some of our Troy Toy events and last week in church at our 3rd service. i am interested to connect with anyone out there who is starting the path leading to Mac world or a few seasoned campaigners who can pass on some tips......

Spin City

Ok watching a re-run of Spin City as I write this, just back from city centre and I reckon something is stirring in the city - first you have us as a church (CFC) going out and praying in different locations during our week of prayer and fasting in early January, then we had the worship Belfast 06 conference and concert (8,500 worshipping at the Odyssey) and now Kingdom Come - an Evangelical Alliance inititative bringing churches together from all over the country to be inspired and chase after God's plan and purpose for his people. Throw into the mix, last months Mannafest, with the challenge to be Hungry for God and I reckon God is definitely up to something with this place. But with the pace of life I find it so hard at times to be able to take time to hear and move to the Spirit's rhythm. Must find a quiet place in the next few weeks to process some of this. selah!

A pound of meat and a quarter pound of salt!

just about to head over to the Kingdom Come conference where i am giving a worskshop with the lovely Claire Hill on'helping young people grow'. came across this quote as i was preparing 'a pound of meat would be affected by a quarter pound of salt. if this is real christianity, the salt of the earth, where is the effect of which Jesus spoke?' (W. Iverson).