My 6th week at college (well almost!)

Well OK I'm having an essay crisis and to be honest I was just going to write a sentence to say something along those lines but...

Was chatting to God this morning (after being in a right grump about how little I'd achieved the night before and how the children had made me cross and ...) and really felt like he was saying that I want Him to help me out with my work and honour all the effort I've put in on this essay but actually I haven't honoured Him. I want Him to come and fix my problems but I'm not spending time with Him and seeking His priorities.

Then Zoe in the morning devotions was talking about how we want God to come and heal us so we are better but actually God heals us so that we can serve Him and carry out His purposes.

Man! I was so blown away by this - before my essay was everything and I was trying to apply God to my essay and my priorities but actually it's Him that's to be the priority.

I just felt this wave of peace come over me and I was totally changed - from panic and stress to reliance on God - I can't describe the transformation I am so different in my outlook and I'm really looking forward to doing my essay...right now in fact...

Bye!

My 5th week at college

Preamble
Hello there - 5 weeks down and only 2 more before "reading" week - however since my Old Testament timeline is due in the end of this week and the big exegetical paper is due in at the end of next week - I think I'll need a week to recover!

Apologies for subscribers who didn't get the email last Monday - there seems to be something horribly wrong with the system. Once again I'll always aim to update on either Sunday or Monday every week...famous last words...

So let's get on with the blog...last week was our brief overview of the Old Testament (all 4000+ years) so this week followed on by looking in detail at just a few parts of it (we'll do much much much more detail later in the year) to give us an exciting taster (or at least that's what they told us )

Introduction to Judaism
We had an absolutely smashing day on Tuesday learning all about Judaism - their main pillars of belief (monotheism, covenant, election, purity, messiah and The Land), including the many feasts and festivals (passover, Shauvot, Sukkot, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and Hannukah). Man these people know how to celebrate - Christmas and Easter are dull in comparison (and completely secularised in this country) - methinks we need to party more as Christians (see photos later on) - am putting on my thinking cap of how we can celebrate All Saints Day bigtime (why should halloween get all the fun?!)

But the thing that blew me away is how they view the law - not as a burden but as a privilege. They see it as the responsibilities of being God's chosen people. I guess the best way of seeing this is to think of marriage. My marriage vows to Jennie including sharing everything and loving her through thick and thin (and boy have we been through the thick...) - do I see this covenant as a burden or as a privilege of being the only man in Jennie's life until she dies...

Lamentations
Had a day looking at the book of lamentations - which reflect the sorrow of the people at the destruction of Jerusalem (and the temple) by the Babylonians in 587 BC after a three month siege.

It's just a fab book to express your deepest sorrows - this really resonated with my journey - that expressing these feelings is totally ok - it's part of our honest and real relationship with God - and we needn't be afraid of it. Brill.

Other stuff
We also looked briefly at how the old and new testaments fit together - is the God depicted before Jesus the same as the one depicted afterwards?

And finally looked at the historical and theological run-up to the birth of Jesus - particularly who were the key players in the social world Jesus was born in (Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, zealots and Palestinian and Hellenistic Jews), the difference between the temple and the synagogues and the expectations that people had about the coming Messiah and why Jesus didn't quite fit into their mindset of the one who would set them free from the Romans. Really interesting stuff and we'll being doing more on that next week.

Cooking
Part of our service is cooking for all the students - so me together with 3 others (well actually three others with me! ) prepared a meal for 38 of lasagne and banana cake. They were stuffed - so mission accomplished.
Jennie's 30th birthday party
Finished the week with Jennie's fancy dress party - we all had to dress up from one of the decades of the 20th century. So Jen went for 60's and of course I had to be 80's...



Jim and Claire from the 20's:


Mikko, Olivia and baby lydia all in 60's outfits (the baby one was so cute!):

Penny and Andrew from the 70's:

Dan and Lulu from the 70's (Lulu shaved her head especially - such dedication):

And finally Jennie with my friend, Paula, from bible college:

It was great fun (though the tidying wasn't! )

Baby is still with us after 10 days of us knowing about him/her - so we are very happy. The sickness and heartburn (according to the doctor) are indeed good signs!!

Until next week readers...

My fourth week at college

First the apologies:

Sorry for the late posting.  I'm aiming to always post on Sunday nights ready for that Monday morning look-at-posts-rather-than-do-your-work moment - but what with attending my brothers wedding on Saturday and err...oh all right I admit it I had a night off on Sunday!

Also sorry that I still haven't got the toga version of the Greek alphabet song for you.  Don't know if you can view it yourselves on the facebook KBCTC 08/09 group...

Now on with the blog...
 
Well after one induction week, one overview of the bible week, one week of exegesis, we have moved onto two weeks on the Old Testament (ie the bit of the bible before Jesus was born).  I have to say that my head was spinning at the speed at which they were trying to give an overview of some 4,000 odd years of history...and didn't help having our first exegesis deadline on Friday I was a tired bunny (well a tired man actually).  Though it was interesting what a deadline does for the popularity of the library! 

Tom Sine
On Thursday had a break from the Old Testament and had Tom Sine give a presentation based around his latest book "The New Conspirators".  Basically it was an exciting overview of how many Christians are radically living out their faith and being counter-cultural.  It's something that has been stirring in me for a while - why do we resemble our society so much - how much are we truly influenced by God and how much by our culture and advertising, etc.  We already have our home as a drop-in centre and share our lives (and holidays) with people and dream of building an extension so we can have people live full time in it - and this passion was re-ignited anew by Tom (who lives in a community).  Community is something that is desperately needed by the world and too often we have swallowed the home is my fortress (or whatever - it is late!) line...

NEWS FLASH Thought you all might like to know that we found out on Friday that Jennie is pregnant with our sixth child. 
The children are VERY excited and the consensus is that they would like a boy.  Lizzie thinks this is important as we have had 3 girls and 2 boys so far - so it'll be balanced!  Josiah would like a boy to play with and looks at the pregnancy test each day to see if mummy is still pregnant.  Hannah just keeps saying "baby in mummy's tummy" and "can I touch the baby?"
Public "thank you" to all those who have said "congratulations" to us - your affirmation of our baby's life means so much to us.  We don't know how long we will have to love this one - so these moments have been so precious.
If you want to pray for us then please pray that we would love this one without holding back (it would be so easy to do so after losing the last two to protect ourselves from pain) and that Jennie would not be afraid of living (avoiding doing anything that might cause a miscarriage - but there's no life living that way).
Am very happy.

Monday's devotions
Finally for those who have asked how me leading the Monday morning devotions went (we have half an hour first thing every day except Thursday where we have "chapel" later in the morning)...I did it on Lamentations (a cheery thought indeed for Monday morning!) First I started with a quote from Matt and Beth Redman's book "Worshipping God on the road marked with suffering" (great book by the way - written by people who have been through the mill):

 Worship is always a choice.  At times it's an easy, straightforward one.  When life is peaceful and painless, the choice to respond to God in thanksgiving and praise may not be such a hard one to make.  But at other times in our lives, worship becomes a much gutsier decision.  Caught up amidst a whirlwind of pain and confusion, the decision to cry out, "Yet I will praise You," is a costly act of devotion.  In the life of every worshipper there will come times when worship meets with suffering.  And these moments shape what kind of worshippers we will become.  Yes, praise be to God for times of abundance and plenty in our lives - those carefree days full of peace and laughter.  Yet we praise Him also in the wilderness times - those dark and stormy seasons of the soul when we're left crying out with the psalmist, "How long, O LORD, how long?" (Psalm 6:3) When trials come, trust must arise.  When there's nothing to rock the boat, our trust in God is rarely tested.  The question then is this: Can we still find our way to the place of praise?  We may have faith to believe in God as Lord of the calm - but do we also have faith to believe in Him as Lord of the storm?

Then we watched the video clip:



I wanted a video to engage people's hearts.  It's very easy with something like this to only give mental ascent to the ideas whereas I wanted people to open up to hear what God had to say.  I was also wary of using a video as I didn't want to just create an emotional fix - but have people meet with God and be changed.

I then talked about how my wife and I sought to worship God when we lost our baby (Rachel) last Boxing Day - one of the first things I did was talk to a lady in our church whose husband walked out on her and her two kids for another woman and asked how - how did you worship God? She said "worship is a choice" - she was so right and has it made the difference in her life - she sought after God and has been transformed - she has no bitterness only joy and all the more so now her prayers for a godly man have been answered (she gets married in 2 weeks!).  So we did choose - we chose to trust that God is who He says He is and worship Him and we don't regret it - we are different people as I said in one of my previous posts.

I had a number of passages that I felt were right to use and then prayed about which people to give to read them.  God was so good as they seemed really speak to those individuals.  If you're interested, they were:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=habakkuk%203:17-18;&version=31;

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm%2013:1-2,5-6;&version=31;

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=lam%203:20-24;&version=65;

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm%2042:1-6;&version=31;

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=job%201:18-21;&version=31;

We then sung "Blessed be Your name" and "Even though I walk (You never let go)" by Matt Redman.  Great songs to worship God in all circumstances - the first was written after 9/11 and then second after their third miscarriage in a row.

Finally I pointed out how many of the passages tell us how they remembered.  When in these circumstances we should remind ourselves what God has done for us, who He is and the hope that we have in Him.  So had someone read Psalm 103:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ps%20103;&version=31;

We finished off with singing "Our God is an awesome God" by Rich Mullins.

"Mint!" as JK would say.

My third week in college

A very brief entry this week - as I'm doing the devotions tomorrow and really need to prepare and practise (just a lot nervous )

Well this has been the heavy teaching week exegesis and hermeneutics!  Exegesis is working out what the text meant then, whereas hermeneutics is working out how the original meaning applies to us now.

So what exactly have we been doing?  Well we've been having to learn the Greek alphabet and Dave (our lecturer) helpfully gave us the following Greek Alphabet Song.  Here it is performed by last year's students (I'll replace this with this year's version as soon as I get the video - it'll be worth it if only to see why it was called "Toga Tuesday"):



Who said that Christians are boring?  Strange is the word they're really looking for.

So the exegesis is all about looking at the greek words and the grecco-roman background and all that so we can understand what the author was saying (as it's all too easy to take verses out of context - and even sell millions of books on it...).  I have to say though it's been pretty cool.  I've now got my first hand-in for these exercises this coming Friday - and there's so many more books to read.  Not enough time and it's all greek to me (hoho had to get that one in somewhere ).

Carrying on from my reflections last week...  I was really struck by Jesus' response to the disciples question about why a guy was blind shortly before Jesus healed him:

This happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.
John 9:3

And Joseph's (the technicolour dreamcoat fella) response to his brothers (remember they sold him into slavery):

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.
Gen 50:20

Not only have the bad things that happened in my life now become part of my story of how great God is, but also they're not wasted as they have been used to achieve His good purposes.  I wouldn't be the same person I am now had Jen not been hospitalised - certainly we would've been divorced yet now I love her so much.  Had I not been bullied I wouldn't have worked as half as hard as I did at school and so it goes on.  By the grace of God I am indeed who I am.

My second week at college

Well after a gentle week of induction followed by a weekend retreat (oops forgot to mention that on the last entry - never mind - I'll just have to squeeze that in a bonus blog entry!) we're now into the course proper.

So last week we were doing "introduction to the bible" which covered what is "scripture"?, the different genres, what does it mean to say it's "inspired by God", which books got in (ie the canon) and which didn't and why, what about apparent contradictions and alleged errors, what authority does scripture have and why, and what is it's role in God's relationship with his people...woh!
Heavy stuff indeed - but this week we look at exegesis and hermeneutics (which I can only spell by copying it off of my notes) which sounds far more terrifying and this is what our next assignment is based on...

Here's some interesting facts about the bible for your pub quizzes:
- written over 1500 years (40 generations)
- written by over 40 authors from every walk of life including kings, peasants,
philosophers, fishermen, poets, etc.
- written in three languages (Hebrew, Greek and errr I don't know)
- written on three continents (Asia, Africa and Europe)
- written in different places including wilderness, dungeon/prisons, palaces, during
military campaigns, etc

So it's been quite an academic week but helped by our lecturer (Dave Perry, who is a bit of a Lord of the Rings fan) who likens the bible is a drama in which God is the author, Jesus is the hero, the Holy Spirit is the "force" that moves the plot, if we follow Jesus we get to be part of the cast and in the end the good guys win! (Hurrah!) He makes it really quite accessible.

Two things stood out this week for me:

The first was how the Torah (first 5 books of the bible) is very similar in style to the suzerain vassal treaties (covenants between the king and his people) that were common around that time and region - and so we can see that in their day they would see God as the king who is making a covenant (promise) to look after his people in return for the people keeping the laws kept in the covenant. Fascinating.

And the second was that after a heavy week we finished on Friday with Dave telling us to spend 40 minutes meditating on Psalm 121 after which we would feed back what we felt God was speaking to us from it. Forty minutes and in SILENCE - any of you who know me will know how hard this must have been! After 20 mins I was all ready to throw in the towel but then something happened and it was like treasure was unlocked...and I was writing all sorts of ideas and inspiration that was coming.

One momentous moment was when I was wrestling with God about the the verse:

The LORD will keep you from all harm
he will watch over your life;

I didn't get it as I was bullied almost all of my secondary school years, had a difficult home-life, had a marriage that nearly ended in divorce, had a wife that got clinical-post-natal-depression and was hospitalised and have had two of my children die. So surely he hasn't kept me from harm.

But then I felt God remind me of how he has healed these memories (in particular I was reminded of the "celebrate recovery" course I attended where we were praying and I just saw Jesus in my mind's eye step into some of these memories and transform them taking away the power they held over me). And I can truthfully say I am not living in fear, or regret or bitterness or whathaveyou - these memories do no longer harm me (before the various prayer sessions these memories used to really hold me captive with fear and bitterness). The LORD has indeed kept me from harm.

Again, with the death of our children Rachel and James I can say I am not bitter, or afraid of trying for more children, or depressed. I am in fact thankful - I am just so grateful to God that He entrusted us with these precious ones no matter how short the time was. It was a real breakthrough moment of understanding for me and I don't think I'm going to be quite the same.

Lots of love
John

My first week at college

Gosh! So much has happened in one week - I'm a bit at a loss how to summarise it all! But here goes...

My first essay
Well I had to write a 1,000 word "critical review" detailing interpretation (what was the purpose of the book), technical analysis (how did the author set about doing it) and judgement (did they achieve the purpose). I choose to do it on:
"The return of the prodigal son" by Henri Nouwen
Well it was a bit of a shock writing an essay at first - but once I started it seemed that the words just kept flowing (not that I'm at all talkative! ). Ended up having to ignore the quotes in my word count to get it under the limit and finished by 2am Monday morning (I wasn't the latest - Lucy was up to 3am!).
What did I think of it? (I love writing a blog - as I get to make up the questions!)
Well to be honest given the prodigal son is about God's fatherly love for his children and how he delighted he is when we say sorry (and boy do I need to hear this):

"But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
"The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'
"But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate.

He seemed to spend more time talking about the darkness and struggle away in the foreign land than the return and the kindness of God.

My first week
Well this was an induction week so I got to know my fellow 26 students (I'm not the oldest!) via a facebook ice breaker (you would've loved it Katy and Jo!), we got a tour of the centre, the library and the kitchen (as we'll be cooking meals for the group and others as part of our serving), we also got to learn about our learning styles (turns out I'm an activist - want to get on and do it - not brilliant at listening nor yet at crystallising their mixed up thoughts...this is so not me... ahem!).
Found out where we're going on our mission trip...only allowed to say "North Africa" in a blog and not allowed to mention the group who we'll be partnering with to ensure their safety. Living on the edge, eh?
Also started to talk about our community service placements (as what we believe will impact how we act - if it doesn't then we have to question whether we really believe it). Think God wants me visiting prisons and/or working with the homeless rather than working with the youth centre...watch this space! Am I terrified?
Friday was the freakiest day of all. Last year's students all prayed for this year's bunch and were asked to write down what they felt God wanted to say. We were also told to get with God for half an hour and write down what we felt He wanted to say as well. It was terrifying and exciting all at the same time (is it me? is it Him? what if we hear nothing? )
Then we fed-back (is that the right word? I really should write this blog earlier in the evening!) what we felt God was specifically saying to each student in turn and then had the things the students wrote last year read out.
It was mind-blowing how many of the things we felt God was saying to a particular individual were identical to what the students had written last year (do bear in mind they had never met any of us) and also how appropriate they were to that individual. Yes I believe God is very much alive and active but when He speaks to us so explicitly it can be just a bit terrifying (eek - He knows everything!) as well as exhilarating (wow - He's really that interested in me!!)
Think that this might just summarise how this year is going to be...

Preparation for college

Well yes I know I should've been working hard on my essay but instead I seem to have spent my week off between work and bible college decorating! Rather too much. But look at the lovely results:
The study before - now why did Becky reject this for the H&S admission?

My friend guy has helped clear the room - mmmm, lovely carpet.

Ah yellow - bright, warming and cheery!

Ta da! Becky would be proud of me (quick use this photo for H&S!)

And the bedroom...hmm nice blue walls adds to that feeling of being cold in winter (and the manky blue carpet which is just missed out of this phot for your protection!)

Ah nice yellow again (ok so we didn't have money to buy lots of different paints!) helps us feel warm and sunny(and the fixed central heating and loft insulation should help too!)

Quick get that essay finished - it's got to be in at 9am on Monday!