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.

Book Update

Quick update on where the book writing project is. It's finished!

It's now in the internal editing process which is me and my three senior pastor friends who have agreed to have a read and suggest changes, but at the same time the manuscript is now with my publisher and next week the external, professional edit begins.

The publisher has also asked me to obtain some 250 word summaries for the first page or back cover of book. The person who knows me best, my senior pastor of 27 years, said it contains "dynamite". That's a bit scarey (it could go down like a lead balloon?) and also very honouring of him to say that as he is man with a deep knowledge of Scripture with impeccably high standards (there is no truth at all in the rumours that he used to re-align all the chairs early on a Sunday morning if they were millimetres out from their set pattern.....!!!?)

Next comes the cover design, title etc.... - very, very exciting. It's been a long haul but I have read a lot, prayed more and really "enquired of the Lord" to process my ideas and thoughts. It has also been an act of worship and a time to recall all the great things the Lord has done amongst the congregation in the two churches I have worked in.

If you are interested in getting a copy, I hope it will be out by June this year

Top of the Pops

Now then, now then!

Who'da thought it!?!?

I'm rising up the charts with no advertising agent, no press releases, no book on the Wesley Owen shelves yet....nothing I do has changed and yet I seem to have hit the heady heights of no 69 on the Wikio female blogger chart, even getting my own wee coloured line on Revd Lesley's graph.

Stand by for another post tomorrow, Thursday.

:-)