New Podcast

Please listen to the new Hoobada show podcast
Here

Colouring in

My boy sits colouring his picture in.
His tongue and finger movements synchronised,
And concentrating surgically he fills
Each shape with colour. Carefully he tries
So hard to keep within the printed lines.

Despite his careful touch mistakes are made.
Frustrated by the errors he looks round,
Berates his younger sister, then to me
Blames her for jogging him. He moans aloud,
"She made me mess it up and now it's ruined!"

The SHACK

The Shack is the sort of book that I thought would be rubbish. I assumed that I would find it predictable and boring. However it proved to be nothing of the sort and I actually really enjoyed it.

The story is well known by now but the most suprising aspect of it was the depth of thinking behind the nature, character and above all relationship of God (as a triune being).

I absolutely loved the theology inherent behind the fiction. I reccomend this book wholeheartedly! (It even made me cry 3 times!)

Tom Wright on The Colbert Report

All I can say is great!!!

Church

I haven't blogged about church or related religious things for a while.
At the moment Helen and I are involved with a house church that is trying to create a New Testament style community, based on what we read in the NT but placed in our Cornish contemporary context.
Another thing is that I am halfway through The Shack and I am loving it.

Ethan's Birthday

Just checking that this works!

BookMooch and journaling

I have bee mooching on a great site called Book Mooch.
It is cool enough as it is but then I found out about a very interesting idea...

Come join the BookMooch Journal Project, a traveling art journals project!

This is a brand new undertaking, complete with its own blog and a hosting system to track the journals! First, join http://www.bookmooch.com which is a book trading site. There is no cost to join. The concept behind bookmooch is to trade books you no longer want with others. For every ten books you add to the system, you get one point. with that point, you can get a free book of your choice. We’ve utilized this system for it’s sheer simplicity. Rather than mooching just books, you may use your points to mooch traveling art journals!

Search for journals using this keyword: BMJournal

If no journals are presently available, you can search for ‘unavailable’ titles, and then add the ones that interest you to your wishlist. Every time one of the journals becomes available again, you can mooch it!

Click to see images of some of the journals.

People who have obtained a journal or released a journal can leave a note in the comments associated with that specific journal.

Come join us for the journey! After all, getting a journal from 1000 Journals is harder than winning the lottery! Bookmooch journals are much easier to obtain, because it is strictly limited to BookMooch members.

Thanks for participating, from the folks at The BookMooch Journal Project



I of course added a jounal called BMJournal: Inspired by India
So get mooching!

The leaning tower

Today we went to Pisa to see the famous leaning tower. It was very beautiful and leant surprisingly more that i had expected. Face on the angle of lean is astonishing. The weather today was sunny and hot and the crowds were large. This being so we decided not to but tickets to enter the Baptistery or to climb the tower.
It was a memorable day and much more spectacular that i imagined.

An old article that will begin my book...

It has always been my intention to live a great life. I have read the biographies of our treasured saints, great men like John Wesley, Charles Finney, Smith Wigglesworth and I have desired to leave my own mark on Christian history in such a way as these. I have longed to build something that is of worth with my life, something that others will look in at and see greatness. For such a long time I have desired to live a memorable life, one that is full and abundant, one that is exciting and adventurous, one that is full of spiritual encounters and experience. And to this end I have looked to create this life for myself. I have put myself in the way of things, deliberately seeking the opportunity to be great.

But now I see that my Christian life has been my Christian career. Opportunities to be great become opportunities to look great. A life of memories becomes a showcase for the gullible. A life of adventure and encounter becomes forgotten and redundant unless shared with those who will listen. I am a chaser of celebrity.

This revelation comes as the gentle breeze of the Spirit dispels the mists of my mind. He blew a true apostle of Jesus into my life and I can think clearly now the reins have gone, my thoughts having formerly been captivated by career and focussed on achievement.

Janaki Mennai met Jesus in a vision as she lay dying. Her prayers to other Gods had fallen on deaf ears and Jesus called her to come and know His love and to work for Him. She was miraculously healed and 10 years later stands great amongst men. She is the founder and director of Faith In Action Ministries (FIAM) in Andrah Pradesh, India. This great christian woman has planted over 60 churches in rural villages, founded 2 schools, supplied many villages with bore hole wells, developed ministry to local prisoners, planted a church in the middle of a leper colony, developed and run vocational training courses for young women, founded an orphanage, fed the widows and children of her village, trained pastors and church leaders over the whole region, seen thousands come to Christ in gospel crusades and street evangelism, run medical provision camps for the poor, fed and clothed the needy, among other things.

Janaki is a great woman but she is not great for doing all this worthy work. She is great for just one reason, the same reason that Jesus was great. Janaki only does what she sees the Father doing.

Martin Scott says that if Jesus had written a book it would have contained those 8 words. “Only do what you see the Father do.”

Jesus’ true greatness lies not merely in His divinity or perfect humanity but His willingness to do only that which he saw Father do. This was revealed in the garden as he sweated blood to say “Not my will but yours.”

I have done so many things to get further in my Christian career. I have got busy for God, led home groups, prayed very long and very loud (only when people were watching), preached sermons, gave seminars, done missions and led worship; all really because I thought that to be great was to appear great. How many of those things did I do because I first saw Father do them? My quest for greatness seen in the light of this paradigm is a quest for the praise of men rather than submission to the Lord.

But I have met someone who is submitted to this way. I have met someone great. And she is someone who is humble and meek, she is gentle and kind, pure and loving. Janaki Mennai only does what she sees the Father doing, and what she sees is a Father who loves people, a Father who feeds people and clothes them, who visits them in prison and provides for them. Being with Janaki is like being with Jesus. I saw Jesus in her and I saw in her great life what my Father is doing.

India

I still think daily about India, that most fabulous of locations that the sun visits on his rounds.
Over a year ago I was asked to think about writing a book about Janaki's life and current ministry.
However I have been so immensely lazy this has never been got round to. I did manage to take notes and tape some interviews with Janaki during our last visit and i have decided to use the end of the summer holidays to get some of this book done.
I have decided to write in short chapters, each being 1500-2000 words each.
I will use the original article that got Andy's publisher interested as the intro...
Check out the new post to re-read this piece.

Back to Basics

I am currently in Italy, on holiday with all the family. We are having a wonderful time.
However during the first few days while we have been hiding in the villa away from the heat during the hottest few hours I have once again been thinking about writing, my writing.
I have long dreamed of being a writer but seem to have a block to getting anything done of any substantial value. I have of course submitted regularly to the magazine i edit see here but i want to write more.
I have decided that this being the case i should resurrect the blog again and try to get something down daily on any subject.
So here goes...

The podcast returns

Hi guys,
John, Reuben, Esther, Ethan and even Helen star in this latest podcast, back without popular demand.
Enjoy!

John meets Baz Gascoyne

I met Baz Gascoyne for this interview at Blackpool EP 2007

John meets Pete Greig

Here I interview Pete Greig about his new book and other stuff. Recorded at Easter People 2007 in Blackpool

John meets Andrew Sampson

John has a chat with the bible teacher Andrew Sampson during this years' EP 2007 in Blackpool

John meets Echolab

John has this interview with the band Echolab

John meets Mark Williamson

This is my interview with Mark

John meets Jo

This is my interview with Jo Wells at EP 2007

John meets Kit Lewis

Here I am chatting with Kit Lewis from London

John meets Dave

Here I talk to Dave Hull at EP 2007 in Blackpool

John talks with Reuben at EP 2007

Here is me chatting with the boy wonder at Blackpool recently

Test media host

Just testing something

Just back from the last ever Easter People

Just got back from EP. Had a great time camping! The kids loved the site, especially the hens!
Some podcast interviews coming soon!!

John

Esther and the broken leg

Well, look what I got up to over half term! Breaking Esther's leg!!
Doh!
We were going down a slide together at Folly Farm when the accident occured!
I think that the pink cast has cheered her up a bit. True to form though she has been getting her moneys worth out of me for it!

Please check out my other blog FIAM for details of Janaki's forthcoming visit!!

Video Embed test

Why the church doesn't need preaching

Many Christians that I know may have a problem; they are addicts, users, dependents. They have been “using” the preaching of men and women of God, using it as a fix. They need a regular hit of the “word” of God in order to feel spiritually satisfied, to feel as though they are making progress in their journey of faith and perhaps even to feel the presence of God. They rely on the preachers and pastors in their life to teach them about God, to show them His ways and to guide their relationship with Jesus. I know all about it because I too had this problem.

As with many dependencies one might only become aware of the problem when that which is needed is taken out of their life. I have been through a season recently of not receiving my weekly high, gained from hearing the preaching of the pastor, passing on from the pulpit, things he had himself received from on high. I noticed that all of a sudden my relationship with God seemed to be going nowhere. There was no life in me anymore. I felt that I was quickly drying up and it forced me to rethink much of my Christian life so far. I reached a place of brutal honesty with myself.

What I realised is that we can confuse the temporary thrill and excitement that follows hearing anointed preaching with personal growth and edification. We are often not actually changed by what we hear however much it impacts and challenges us. Many times we have heard amazing sermons, inspiring seminars; incredible preaching and we feel so excited and vow that our response to what we have heard will change the world. Many times however it hasn’t and a few days or weeks later we are back in the same old ruts, stuck in the same lifestyles and disappointed in ourselves. The problem is that we can simply be responding to anointed preaching on a short lived and shallow level. Just like the swirling colours of a titration approaching its end point, there are brief indications of change but these soon revert back to the normal. My feeling is that we are not actually being fed by the preaching we receive week after week. Much of it is excellent, often challenging but it singularly fails to feed our “inner man”.

This thought leaves us looking for how we can go about finding “food” for our spirits. How can we take the inspiration of a sermon and use it to really impact our lives to the point where we are being changed?

I think what we need to do is view preaching differently and learn how to engage with God for ourselves. Preaching is not the place where we are supposed to be fed. God has designed other ways for that to happen. Preaching is like the menu of the banquet that God has on offer for us. We can read the menu, get really excited, even salivate over it, but it is still just the menu, the real food is yet to come.

God wants us to meet with Him in our personal prayer lives. This is the place where He will feed us. We must get the language of the bible, the word of God, into our prayer lives. We must pray the bible, we must sing the bible, and we must meditate on the bible. We must use the language of His word by praying it, out loud, to Him. In doing so He will feed us.

We should realise that we don’t need to rely on others for our sustenance. Your pastor cannot take care of your prayer life for you. God provides everything that we need when we come to Him. He will bring us into incredible depths of revelation. He will show us truths about Himself that will blow our minds. He will change us and mould us into the people He wants us to be.

The church will always have preachers. I think that they should be seen not as shepherds who feed their flocks once a week, but rather people who have seen the amazing and glorious food that God has made available to us. Their sermons will guide us down the menu of this heavenly banquet! We can then go out into our own everyday lives, and find that God calls us to meet with Him there and feed at His banqueting table with a banner over us of His boundless love.

John's Podcast is Back!

Yes back once again with the renegade matser here is John at his podcasting best!

Titration

From time to time I do titration in a lesson. Small amounts of one substance are added to another via a biurette, drop by drop. The solution to which you are adding has some sort of indicator, ususually a colour, which cahnges as the second substance is added. There will be a distict end point when the indicator changes disticlty from one coluor to another, indicating as it should that you have dispatched enough of the second solution.
What interests me the most about this is that sometimes when you add a squirt of the titrating solution you can get a temporary swirl of colour change. The experimenter thinks briefly that the end point has been reached but as he swirls the receptacle he finds the colour change is but a brief swirlf of change and shorlty things have been restored to their original and pre change colour.
This reminds me of when in the past I have read inspirational books or heard brilliant sermons. For a moment it looks as though this things that has dripped into my life will change me for good. There is indication of things being different in my life but it soon becomes apparent that this is only temporary and that things have not really changed after all. The swirl of life that I had imparted to me through the book soon is invaded with the original colour of my life.
What i need to do is find a way of keep going with the dripping of thses life giving solutions in to my life. There is a permanent change to be realised but when will it come? When will the end pioint be found that indicates the passing of my old coulours and the bringing of the new.

Hi everyone!
Not blogged for ages so I thought i should write something!
Lots going on recently!

Updates soon, I hope!
Please look here for my new video blog/ youtube channel!

Bye for now

John

ps a new podcast is on its way!!!
Also I have my own radio show now on Truro Hospital Radio!!

More pics!!