Book Update

Children, Families and God: Drawing the Generations Together

And in other news, my book is selling well but could, of course, do with more selling (I'd make a rubbish salesperson!) to help me pay off the rather large debt I incurred in this project. If I'm being honest I'm a bit concerned about this, I sometimes worry at night about finance, but this whole year has been about me being on a journey of faith and trust and no longer feeling safe in ministry. In that case, 100% success has been achieved there and I couldn't ask for more ;-)

However, I would like to be employed again in some capacity. I'm trying to work out if its sinful to ask for this....! Probably is. I'm just awful at waiting quietly.

Copies of the book are available direct from me right to your door on www.lynnalexander.org.uk - only one click needed to buy (you're doing better now, Lynn!) and it will be posted straight to your door.

A distribution company in the UK (the truly wonderful Joining the Dots UK) has brought the remainder of the books into the UK for onward transmission to bookshops etc and lots and lots are being taken to the three New Wine weeks I think, as at least two one speakers have recommended the book. I am praying that they will do well there because, of course, bringing them in to an event is no guarantee that they would sell. I have a book launch and signing at CLAN (New Wine Scotland) next Wednesday 1st August at the morning break in the bookshop - please do come along if you are there - all support of every kind hugely welcomed!

The Diocese of London, Scottish Christian Broadcast magazine and the Baptist Union of Great Britain have reviewed the book very favourably, with more reviews on the way. Some churches have bought multiple copies for their leadership teams to read with regard to the mission and discipleship of the great big family of God together. My friends at 3DMUK have been selling the books to pastors and church leaders from the UK and European countries - I watched in awe as Dutch pastors took ten copies when I attended Pilgrimage in Sheffield!

I never imagined this kind of thing in my wildest dreams when I wrote the book. I remain in awe of the way God communicated his heart to me for the book in the midst of my own pain and sadness with regard to the frustrating situation I found myself in at that time. He put people around me who saw and listened and spoke the words of life over this project. They were operating at another level, really, with eyes of faith that saw something God would bring to completion. All glory and thanks to God - he clearly had his agenda in the book project as I simply would not have been able to write it had it not been for all that happened.

The really exciting news (for me) is that Children, Families and God: Drawing the Generations Together has been released in ebook format and is available in 6 countries - see the relevant amazon kind lore stores for further details - UK, USA, Spain, Germany, Italy and France.

If you have read the book and liked it, please let others know - buy one for your church leader(s), your parents, your youth workers, your neighbours - I did try to design it as a bible study guide, as a resource to underline and use for training others, as a tool for personal reflection and personal prayer and for activating and and encouraging others for what is ahead. I pray you will be blessed and be a blessing.

Oh - and if you want to pop a review on www.amazon.com in the USA especially - or on www.amazon.co.uk or www.eden.co.uk or anything else - that would be great!

www.lynnalexander.org.uk
www.facebook.com/childrenfamiliesandgodbook

The Influence of Parents

I just read the following (see quote) on a Worship Central forum. The thread asked people what Bible speakers or teachers had influenced them the most.

One person wrote boldly and publicly -
My Dad. He's The Real Deal. He Is Radical About Jesus, Like Jesus Is Radical For Us! He Doesn't Water Down The Word. He's My Biggest Role Model. My Dad Didn't Commit His Heart To Jesus Til He Was 31yrs Old. (I Was 12yrs) He Was Raised In A Broken Home In The Slums Of Philadelphia, And All He Knew Was To Fight His Way Through Life. (Literally) I Grew Up Watching My Dad In Rock Bands And Semi-Pro Boxing. While My Father Hid His Vices From Me And My Sisters, I Knew He Was Broken Inside. I Saw The Hand Of God Captivate The Life Of My Dad. God Reveals To Me His Power And Love Everyday Through The Life Of This Man. He Became A Home Missions Pastor By The Age Of 37 & The Lord Has Used Him To Turn Our Community Upside Down. He's A Combat Commando!!! My Dad Has Taught Me To Always Remain Faithful To God No Matter What The Cost, And He Leads By Example.

Those of us who are parents, how deep and wonderful our love is in influencing - nay - SHAPING and MOULDING the next generation. And where we're struggling - don't parent alone. Get alongside others in your community who will help you reflect the glory and grace of God which can change your life - make you more patient where you feel tetchiness and graceless, fill your heart with love for your child where you feel dry, refresh you in the challenge of parenting. He really does do this - if only you knew how much I need this and receive this whenever I come to the fount of living water to ask for help. I'm living and loving Hebrews 4: Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Resist the urge to send your children away to activities or camps every week during long holidays - invest your time in them and you will reap the dividends. Tell your children you cherish them - explain what the word means (if they are younger) and lavish its use on them - it makes them feel so secure and loved.

Precious, dearly loved children. How they need to know this. And so do we.

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! (I John 3:1)

Face into the Sunflower

Life just got really, really exciting. Word is beginning to get out about the book and the first book launch is one week tomorrow. A couple of national reviews have been done and the physical books - my share of them - arrived today.

I think what I am most excited about is that "it is finished". I have been obedient to what I believe God asked me to do. Read back here, wow, I can hardly believe it myself!

I have just realised that I have not written anywhere on this personal blog what happened at the HTB Leadership conference in February 2011 that was really a catalyst for all that you may have been tracking. At the end of one of the session (and to be honest, coffee was being served, there was no remarkable encounter/ministry time happening for me), a chap I knew vaguely but who I had never, ever had a conversation with came up to me and asked, out of the blue: "what's God saying to you just now?"

I was taken aback, its true I hadn't left the front where worship and prayer had been happening, but I was just standing quietly, alone. I said: "God is saying to me once again that I will write a book to prepare the UK for the coming influx of children and their families and I will write this to help church leaders know how to handle this from a number of different angles. The book will take many different topics but will ground it in practical theology and real life stories " (or something like this).

I didn't expect him to be that interested, to be honest, but he stood back and said: "the time is now. You need to write this now". I explained that I had a demanding job on staff at the large church I was part of and came home exhausted, just wanting to be with my children and husband and I couldn't see how I could fit this in until the children were bigger.

He paused for a moment and said: "you need to ask for a sabbatical." At this point I burst into tears as I had been feeling the same and had asked my employers who had not responded favourably to my request for a number of reasons - so that door was shut. I had been a children and family pastor for 8 years; I had worked hard, I loved those I served deeply and I knew hand on heart that I was not asking for selfish reasons.

We exchanged a little more on this and then he prayed for me. I can only explain what felt like lightening strike me - and him - and - I don't know how you will take this readers, but all I can say that what happened in the natural PHYSICALLY felt like a decisive 'strike' to act. I had no idea how I could afford to do what I was going to end up doing a few weeks later and the mechanics of what happened next I will leave there. Suffice to say, the friends with prophetic ministry confirmed the compulsion I felt to do this thing. And as you read back you will see how much pain was in the birth of this book, but it meant my face was pressed hard against the throne of God; all I could do was look at him and bring all that I felt, all that I wanted, all that I had risked and given up, at his feet. Hence the sunflower picture at the top of this post - face into the beauty!

I was misunderstood and misjudged and the pain of having to leave the children and families whom I loved was incredibly deep. Yet I didn't feel free to be myself and minister the way God had wired me to. That's recorded in April 2011 posts and I don't intend to go back to those days and those reasons. I tried my best and I couldn't fix it. Whatever the rights and wrongs of this statement are, I did the right thing by leaving as it was the catalyst to step into what had been stirred up in London. Immediately I felt a sense of relief although very sad. But we received HUGE support from an army of bystanders and observers who had seen what was happening - oh wow, how the saints prayed over this book! .

I would rather please my heavenly Father who gave all he had for me, than live out of a fear of getting it wrong - and under pressure (that was a biggie) or misplaced loyalty. People and ideas and (gasp) even vision can be an idol in the church of Jesus. I had become obsessed by the pressure of trying to please, trying to get it right and I was becoming unhappy because I just couldn't do it. Obsession with this was taking the first place God wanted. And so I was called back to the Place of the Knees. All that's just to say that each word in the book has been 'felt' - this was not written lightly nor in a hurry! For the first month of writing I cried every morning and pressed my face against my bed asking God for the strength to keep on going and for his hand on me, cleansing me, refining me, redefining me for what he has made be to BE rather than what I do for people


Getting the Book
If you live in the States you will be able to order Children, Families and God: Drawing the Generations Together to Change the World here

If you live in the UK, order using my personal website below in the first instance, and/or ask your local Christian bookstore to stock the book (this would help get other people to buy it?) - you may need to let them know the publisher is Evangelista Media, formerly Destiny Image Europe, and it has just been published (June 2012)

If you happen to be reading this and are attending PilgrimageUK in Sheffield, 11th to 14th June, you can also buy it there!

If you would like a copy to review for a national publication, contact me via the website.

Orders/contacts/endorsements/diary - all do-able now through this website.

Thank you for standing with me.

Book Launch Details

On June 9th the first delivery of this book will with me!

If you would like to pre-order, please send your email address to children.pastor@gmail.com and I will send you a pre-order form.

The publisher is Evangelista Media (formerly Destiny Image Europe) and so the book will be available to Christian booksellers through the normal distribution networks. The book will also be available in the United States and worldwide through the publisher's website.

Below are the details of the two Scottish book launches. If you live anywhere near, or can travel to come, please do come to celebrate with me the culmination of this part of the journey. For me these evenings will be a time to celebrate - I managed to finish a book and more than that, the HUGE risk I took has paid off in that those who have pre-read the book say they have found it encouraging, inspiring to them personally and timely. I'm so glad. All I wanted to do was to produce something that was helpful and gave something back from all that I have experienced in my walk with God thus far. But it wasn't borne easily and as many of you know, I experienced pain in its birth - in many ways I felt very alone.

I left my job to read and ponder children, families, faith, discipling and missional communities and the future of the church! So on these evenings we will worship and pray together for the future of the church in the UK. These evenings are not about buying a book (honest!)


Friday 15 June 2012 @ Holy Trinity Church, Hailesland Place, Wester Hailes, Edinburgh EH14 - 7.45pm


Tuesday 19 June 2012 @ Queens Park Baptist Church, (Camphill Building) Balvicar Street, Glasgow G42 - 7.45pm


Below is one of the endorsements at the front of the book. Hopefully it gives you a flavour of what its about.

Page after page of this excellent book is filled with the testimonies of children, young people and families who have been completely transformed by the love and power of God. These stories are woven together to produce a passionate and articulate advocacy for the church to move in a new way. Lynn is calling on the church to embrace whole family discipleship and so much more. This is a radical departure from a great deal of what is currently happening in children's, youth and family work within the church.

I believe that this is a prophetic book - there is something here that is a foretelling of what the Lord wants to do in our nation. Lynn boldly lays out a way of thinking and being the church that will enable every generation to find their place within the church's new awakening. I strongly recommend the reader to take time to read, ponder and weigh what is being said here. There is a way ahead within these pages.

Alan McWilliam, Church Leader, Whiteinch Church of Scotland and Chairman, CLAN (New Wine Scotland)

I'm so excited and I just can't hide it

April 2012 (how did we get here!?!?)

It’s been an awful long time since I have posted. A long time since I said something about “what I’m doing”.

I guess I haven’t really wanted to share the details till now - suffice to say that God has cared for us tenderly, loved us as a family intimately and justified us enormously. He has showered us every second of the time with little gifts and signals of his care. I do not regret for one second resigning from my post – looking on now I can see so clearly that staying would have caused so much more pain. Now we see that this church was our home for a season before moving on to the next thing. It took me a while to see this but those close to us saw it first.

I guess many readers would say that’s a common occurrence (I know someone moving to their fourth church in four years!) but we did not sell up and move to worship and serve there because we thought we would move on four years later. I happen to believe that community should have deep roots – of accountability and of time spent with one another, not just quitting at the first sign of trouble. Our first church was our spiritual home for 23 years!

I listed to Andy Hawthorne of the Message Trust talk about what it was like to serve and grow a church or ministry with those you would consider your pals and everything within me thought; “I want that!” Must they currently be your pals or can they become them over time? I am not sure of the answer to this. The key thing he outlined was the levels of accountability to speak into one another's lives that arose out of friendship, love and respect. Wow. Hope I can contribute to/build that!

I am currently serving on a children’s ministry team at Spring Harvest with pals. (www.powerpackministries.co.uk)

We don’t see each other often but we keep in touch with emails, facebook, texts and occasional phone calls. We have holidayed to visit with each other. The team is honestly more like a big family than anything else I have experienced in church life before and its something we cherish. We look for opportunities to be together, if we can. We're not the local church but come together to serve at specific events so perhaps it is easier, in a way. I am very glad of these kind of cross-church, cross-denominational, cross-boundary relationships as I think they are good for us (all).

So my book project is finished, the editing is complete, the front cover design is nearly finished and the Scottish book launches are booked (anyone want to host me in England!?!?)
In the next month or so I’ll post a couple of the pre-reader reviews – as I keep being asked exactly what it’s about and they do give a good flavour.

I’m preaching most Sundays in the next couple of months in different churches with vacancies – not about the book nor about children and family issues but simply from and about the Word of God, whatever the local church has asked me to do. I am praying through a couple of serious job opportunities. I am simply seeking the Lord and quietly trusting him as last November he told me in a dream that the more settled period was coming. He laid out an order of events and three out of the four things have happened in the exact same chronological order of the dream – yayy!!

So I will post further information as and when I can. If you are reading this, having ever doubted that God can turn painful, hurting situations around, please believe me that he can MORE THAN RESTORE all that you lost. Without going into detail, our family is living proof of that. Just love like there was no tomorrow, forgive as if your life depended on it and trust him deeply.

It takes a whole church......

Below is an open comment I wrote on Krish Kandiah's blog in response to a post he wrote. Read all the responses others have made. Great points raised from other people's experiences. What are your thoughts?


Hi all

I am probably too late to add a comment in but I had a special reason for waiting…..this post really wound me up Krish. Not in a bad way, as I hope I will explain but because it made me weep tears of pain and frustration. I have taught, practised, written, trained, preached and prayed on and through what I am about to say. I'm not posting it to wind people up or being deliberately (naughtily) provocative back, I’m just sticking my head above the parapet to share a little of my heart for our church.
I didn’t choose to do what I do now, I would have been very happy (and better off!) in my previous career and like the commenter who has been asked when he’s going to become a real pastor, not a youth pastor, I have felt the pull of God to do what I do because of the reformation I believe he wants to bring to the Church.

What we have always done just isn’t working. In the year 2000 the church-going population of Great Britain was 4.4 million and 19% of this figure were children aged 15 or under, i.e. 836,000 children. By 2025 the churchgoing population is estimated to be 2.3 million with 5% aged 15 or under i.e. 115,000 . That’s a huge decrease in 15 years or so, if current projections continue. We will have lost 721,000 children in a 25 year period that we are almost halfway through.
If we were to go back to 1990’s figures and compare this with the 2025 estimate, we will have lost contact with 1.1 million children .

Now Peter Brierley (from whom I have these stats) and Mark Griffiths ("One Generation From Extinction") have written extensively on this. I don't want to remain at the point of doom and gloom. I write now as from my experience as a children and family pastor.

I found your post provocative Krish because unless the way we do church is up for root and branch reformation, we simply talk. We know how bad the statistics are and we know we have to do something. I don’t believe we have to have the attitude of getting our kids to last through church but instead, have more of an attitude that is up for a return to the Old and New Testament pattern of (as Gordon Wenham says) – “we’re part of a team”. We’re in this together and we don’t live for our own preferences or style of church; how can we together learn more about our amazing God and let as many people as possible know about because of the way we live our lives as individuals, families and communities?

I’ve been able to think recently, (and huge thanks to Joel Green’s writing on children and families in the book of Acts) at what it must have looked like to see such radical reformation of household life in the First Century. For women and children in particular something so utterly revolutionary was happening to their treatment and status that those outside Christianity looked and wanted to be part; in a context of hardship and even waves of persecution, people wanted to see the same kind of radical reorientation and transformation in their family lives. Pliny wrote that even children were at risk from the menace of Christianity! Chuckle. This thing was spreading like wildfire through the Roman Empire and men, women and children were loving Jesus and each other as part of the embryonic church.

You see, straight away what I represent is more than just children, although I love them dearly, I love the church. I love what we look like when we are together. I love that on a Sunday morning I look out a gathering like no other on the face of the earth. No shopping mall, football stadium, concert or school composes such a rich mix of ages, backgrounds, interests and ethnicities.
Partitioning and compartmentalising for convenience sake only has really got to stop in all of our major denominations in order that we might operate as I believe an extended family (the clan and tribe of the people of God).

Now I do not write this post as an intergenerational guru.Yes, I have set up and advocated intergenerational small groups. I’ve also done age-specific groups. I teach or oversee in all-age settings, but also separate settings. I am not saying that we must be together ALL of the time What I am saying is that we have deferred to be apart MOST of the time. I could write or propose a structure for an individual church as I have been able to put into practice in my own ministry but you know what, that’s not going to kick it either.

What I have found to be most effective is not a structure or de-programming exercise but a massive culture shift in how we see the young: their current potential, their innate ability to have proven insight into things of the kingdom, their natural connection with the supernatural, their place of incredible acceptance and humility. THESE THINGS we are to nurture, provide space for and…..learn from…..

Negativity and decline is NOT the picture across the whole world. There are lessons to learn from churches in nations (Indonesia is a great example) who are experiencing tremendous growth due to what I would summarise as this: children contribute to and partake in kingdom practices – they are being discipled as naturally as drawing breath through the input of the whole church which means they learn to pray with expectant faith, worship chasing the presence of God and engage naturally in mission which is marked by signs and wonders.

I just feel its time for us to take our hands off controlling church shape and structure a little more which, at times, favours the oldest/wealthiest/gobbiest/(insert your own adjective!!). Children occupy a unique place in the gospels, one which with all my heart I long for the church in the UK to return to.

Jesus, children and the kingdom, all three are in relationship. Through their lack of desire for power and prestige or glory they possess something that I believe we are desperate for in the UK – a church with integrity, authenticity and humility marked with God’s heart to love freely and with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power.

Bless you Krish for taking the time to stir this up – you have been much on my mind since you wrote this.