Occasionally in life, you come across those moments when you just feel complete and utter happiness, like life couldn't get any better, you're with your great friends, you feel completely comfortable, and it's just like, wow. That was yesterday.
It was one of the annual baptism and confirmation services over at Northcourt, and it was spaceband's turn to lead. Now there are two very good things about that; firstly, it means that numerous people have reached a point in their relationship with God that they have decided to make a public statement to live their lives for him. Secondly, it means there's a large number in the congregation.
Unfortunately, it means that as half of the front of the church is taken up by the baptism pool, we have the squeeze the band into a singularity. And the stress that was in the air when this was all being arranged was so thick it was almost visible. Fortunately, about half an hour and 3 popped stess balls later, the band managed to fit in, and I got to sit next to a radiator.
Another thing, is that when you've led worship before, you then appreciate how well other people do it and how difficult it can be. Ed was the worship leader of the evening, and honestly, credit where it's due, he did an absolutely fantastic job! He managed to organise the band, fit the instruments into a packed space and do a run through of around 7 songs in about an hour and a quarter! And on top of that he managed to bring the band together prefectly and make it sound amazing!
And on the baptism/confirmation side of things, there was this absolutely amazing testimony that struck me to the absolute core, and I think most of the people in the church probably felt the same way. it was of a woman who had fallen pretty much rock-bottom, and when they went to a friend's baptism, they were sruck by God's love so powerfully that she was left weeping on the foor. I just find those things amazing. And what was even better was that I got to spend these few hours with one of my best friends, and whose sister was getting baptised and confirmed, which was also amazing!
There were so many good things about the service but I feel I must move on to space. It was just a social evening, with no particular aim, but they can be some of the best kinds. The amazing special thing about this space session was that my friend who I hadn't seen in over 2 months was coming along! So I got to spend the evening with him which was amazing. And at some point in the evening, about half an hour before the end, a little group of us were standing in the kitchen area, and out of the corner of my eye I spotted a challenge. I reckoned that I had it in me to limbo underneath the kitchen door hatch majigger thing. It turns out that I didn't, and in not being able to do so, I ended up causing a bit of a scene, and people crowded around...
That turned into a half an hour - odd limbo competition.
This is going on a bit now, the point is, I had an amazing day!
I'll let you go.
Monday 14 February 2011
Monday 31 January 2011
Genesis Weekend Away - If in doubt, freeze it!
The time had come another year, where we head off to the mass grave of snowmen, known as Carroty Wood; for the 2011 installment of the Genesis weekend away!
There were the three of us in the band, Matt leading on the keyboard, Dan on drums, and myself on the guitar. At first, i was a little skeptical about what kind of sound a band of three could produce, but once we'd started practicing, it came together quite well, and we managed to get a good sound out of what we'd got. I was sharing a room with Dan, and we had prearraned a couple of ways that we could make Matt's weekend just that little bit colder. I'd thought of a couple of things we could have done, involving sharpie markers,but when I was given the idea of underwear freezing, I knew we had a winner.
Another matter of the case was night duty, something that we had assigned ourselves to do, it pretty much consisted of ourselves shining torches in peoples faces and screaming at them until they would either run, crying to their rooms, sit there staring at us, or hurt us.
When I was looking through my suitcase one time, I found something which at the time was more precious than gold!... a padlock and key. It must have come with the case for locking up, because I didn't pack it myself, but it wasn't MY case that I locked up, it was Beer Matt's. Over the course of the hour, the memory of it slowly faded away, that is until Matt walked at me, stopped and said; 'Keys please.' - how he assumed it was me I don't know. After about quarter of an hour, I gave him the keys, but a sudden realisation hit me, Matt now had the padlock and the keys, this realisation had obviously hit him aswell.
It was then time for the first activity; archery, me, Dan, Matt and Simon were helping. And I noticed, that amongst the arm braces, and for some reason, a pack of cards in the archery box, there were some coloured felt tips.I wont go into detail here, but there was an epic fight between me, Dan and Matt in which Matt ended up looking like he'd very messily eaten some curry.
Later on that day, I was warned of a South- African intruder in my dorm, I rushed down immediately to see what had happened, and it turned out that Matt had come up with the original idea of padlocking up my bag, fortunately for me, Matt never had the intellect to lock up a padlock, and all I needed to do was simply pull it off. Now Matt had the key, and I had the padlock, therefore, neither of us could use it.
A couple of other incidents occured throughout the day, such as posessions gaffa taped to the wall, and slippers in the freezer, but later on that night, or morning depending on how you look at it. Dan and I decided to pull off the piece de resistance. We headed off upstairs at about one in the morning, after having aquired a pair of Matt's underwear (clean, may I add) After making a camp for ourselves out of beanbags, we went to the kitchen. We filled up a measuring jug with water, and then lowered the boxers into their watery grave. But something didn't seem complete... so we put an orange in, and then put it in the freezer, giggling all the while.
We woke up at about 7 that morning, to the sound of Happy Day being played at full volume, a noise that would wake anyone want to run screaming, and that i did, straight to the kitchen freezer. What I found was a block of ice, with Matt's underwear in the middle... and an orange.
Matt's chance for revenge came a few hours later that day, on the low ropes course; an area so muddy, that no one comes out without being confused for bigfoot. I knew that this would be Matt's chance for his own back, so I decided to stay back for a while, as far away from the swamp as possible. This worked for the first 45 or so minutes, but then everyone decided to turn on me. I was accompanied to the swamp willingly, and put on the platform, in effect walking the plank. I asked to say a few words. 'Dear friends, I ca-' And then they pushed me in.
I'll let you go.
There were the three of us in the band, Matt leading on the keyboard, Dan on drums, and myself on the guitar. At first, i was a little skeptical about what kind of sound a band of three could produce, but once we'd started practicing, it came together quite well, and we managed to get a good sound out of what we'd got. I was sharing a room with Dan, and we had prearraned a couple of ways that we could make Matt's weekend just that little bit colder. I'd thought of a couple of things we could have done, involving sharpie markers,but when I was given the idea of underwear freezing, I knew we had a winner.
Another matter of the case was night duty, something that we had assigned ourselves to do, it pretty much consisted of ourselves shining torches in peoples faces and screaming at them until they would either run, crying to their rooms, sit there staring at us, or hurt us.
When I was looking through my suitcase one time, I found something which at the time was more precious than gold!... a padlock and key. It must have come with the case for locking up, because I didn't pack it myself, but it wasn't MY case that I locked up, it was Beer Matt's. Over the course of the hour, the memory of it slowly faded away, that is until Matt walked at me, stopped and said; 'Keys please.' - how he assumed it was me I don't know. After about quarter of an hour, I gave him the keys, but a sudden realisation hit me, Matt now had the padlock and the keys, this realisation had obviously hit him aswell.
It was then time for the first activity; archery, me, Dan, Matt and Simon were helping. And I noticed, that amongst the arm braces, and for some reason, a pack of cards in the archery box, there were some coloured felt tips.I wont go into detail here, but there was an epic fight between me, Dan and Matt in which Matt ended up looking like he'd very messily eaten some curry.
Later on that day, I was warned of a South- African intruder in my dorm, I rushed down immediately to see what had happened, and it turned out that Matt had come up with the original idea of padlocking up my bag, fortunately for me, Matt never had the intellect to lock up a padlock, and all I needed to do was simply pull it off. Now Matt had the key, and I had the padlock, therefore, neither of us could use it.
A couple of other incidents occured throughout the day, such as posessions gaffa taped to the wall, and slippers in the freezer, but later on that night, or morning depending on how you look at it. Dan and I decided to pull off the piece de resistance. We headed off upstairs at about one in the morning, after having aquired a pair of Matt's underwear (clean, may I add) After making a camp for ourselves out of beanbags, we went to the kitchen. We filled up a measuring jug with water, and then lowered the boxers into their watery grave. But something didn't seem complete... so we put an orange in, and then put it in the freezer, giggling all the while.
We woke up at about 7 that morning, to the sound of Happy Day being played at full volume, a noise that would wake anyone want to run screaming, and that i did, straight to the kitchen freezer. What I found was a block of ice, with Matt's underwear in the middle... and an orange.
Matt's chance for revenge came a few hours later that day, on the low ropes course; an area so muddy, that no one comes out without being confused for bigfoot. I knew that this would be Matt's chance for his own back, so I decided to stay back for a while, as far away from the swamp as possible. This worked for the first 45 or so minutes, but then everyone decided to turn on me. I was accompanied to the swamp willingly, and put on the platform, in effect walking the plank. I asked to say a few words. 'Dear friends, I ca-' And then they pushed me in.
I'll let you go.
Saturday 22 January 2011
Catch up for 2011
I looked back at the blog recently and I didn't realise how long I've been blogging for in comparison to how long I thought I had, I remember I started the blog back in July because of my excitement for New Wine, and now, 6 months later, it's become a raging successful blog with way over 4 followers!
I also realised that I haven't done a blog yet this year, and whilst I'm sure in the incredibly 'interesting' life I lead, there are many things that have happened, I have forgotten most of them, so I'll just talk about the thngs that I can remember.
The first thing that comes to my mind is leading worship at the Space Celebration a couple of weeks back. I hadn't led in quite some time, and I'd been getting all these ideas of what to do, but without a chance to do them. So I was very glad when I got the chance to lead. There's this song that I fell in love with by Matt Redman recently called 'This Is How We Know' and whilst there are many other songs that I love that aren't in the church folder, I felt that this one was the right one to introduce. When we played it in practice though, Ed brought up the point that it was a bit too complex for a first time, so we had to lop off the tag and mid section, I was disappointed, but I had to admit, he was right.
In the practice, the band was sounding alright, but I felt that the levels were a bit out, and the timing wasn't brilliant, which unnerved me a bit. I decided to stay behind during the evening service to pray about it a bit, and I went through some songs with Meg. And it was definitely worth it, because when we played during the celebration, everything came together, and it sounded fantastic!
Although, something happened that's made me think a fair bit. Someone (of course, I'm not mentioning names) when talking about the evening service, referred to the talks as the 'boring bit', and yet they said they love the worship. This worried me a little bit, because it made me think about how people view the worship. Because the worship as we've touched upon in a recent Space Band practice is about our response to God's amazingness and all the great things he's done, whether it's rejoicing, thanking or whatever; but the common form of worship nowadays in Church is though singing, so that the words are put to a tune, with a band playing it. And it worries me a bit that some people may be singing and enjoying the music without really thinking WHY they're singing, and what they're singing about. Because some people's music taste may just be what's played in church. And the fact that someone would say that they love the worship and yet find the talks boring makes me think that they could be enjoying the worship for the reasons i mentioned.
Now, I'm not saying that's necessarily what it is, I mean, some talks, it has to be said, can be boring. If they're about a topic that isn't necessarily very relevant to us, and/or if the preacher doesn't communicate a message very well, and rambles on about a point that only needed a little bit of attention, then the congregations attention can wander, and people can find themselves bored. But that's only ocassionally the case. There are particular preachers that I find often really make you think, and bring great point across! And of course, they're the ones that should stick in our mind, not the 'boring' ones.
Now another point that I'm trying to get at here is that if someone is worshipping someone that they don't really understand or know about, is it really worshipping? Or just a show and love of the music, without really understanding what they're doing?
Anwyay, sorry for the kind of rant, but I've been thinking about it a fair bit recently, anyway;
I'll let you go.
I also realised that I haven't done a blog yet this year, and whilst I'm sure in the incredibly 'interesting' life I lead, there are many things that have happened, I have forgotten most of them, so I'll just talk about the thngs that I can remember.
The first thing that comes to my mind is leading worship at the Space Celebration a couple of weeks back. I hadn't led in quite some time, and I'd been getting all these ideas of what to do, but without a chance to do them. So I was very glad when I got the chance to lead. There's this song that I fell in love with by Matt Redman recently called 'This Is How We Know' and whilst there are many other songs that I love that aren't in the church folder, I felt that this one was the right one to introduce. When we played it in practice though, Ed brought up the point that it was a bit too complex for a first time, so we had to lop off the tag and mid section, I was disappointed, but I had to admit, he was right.
In the practice, the band was sounding alright, but I felt that the levels were a bit out, and the timing wasn't brilliant, which unnerved me a bit. I decided to stay behind during the evening service to pray about it a bit, and I went through some songs with Meg. And it was definitely worth it, because when we played during the celebration, everything came together, and it sounded fantastic!
Although, something happened that's made me think a fair bit. Someone (of course, I'm not mentioning names) when talking about the evening service, referred to the talks as the 'boring bit', and yet they said they love the worship. This worried me a little bit, because it made me think about how people view the worship. Because the worship as we've touched upon in a recent Space Band practice is about our response to God's amazingness and all the great things he's done, whether it's rejoicing, thanking or whatever; but the common form of worship nowadays in Church is though singing, so that the words are put to a tune, with a band playing it. And it worries me a bit that some people may be singing and enjoying the music without really thinking WHY they're singing, and what they're singing about. Because some people's music taste may just be what's played in church. And the fact that someone would say that they love the worship and yet find the talks boring makes me think that they could be enjoying the worship for the reasons i mentioned.
Now, I'm not saying that's necessarily what it is, I mean, some talks, it has to be said, can be boring. If they're about a topic that isn't necessarily very relevant to us, and/or if the preacher doesn't communicate a message very well, and rambles on about a point that only needed a little bit of attention, then the congregations attention can wander, and people can find themselves bored. But that's only ocassionally the case. There are particular preachers that I find often really make you think, and bring great point across! And of course, they're the ones that should stick in our mind, not the 'boring' ones.
Now another point that I'm trying to get at here is that if someone is worshipping someone that they don't really understand or know about, is it really worshipping? Or just a show and love of the music, without really understanding what they're doing?
Anwyay, sorry for the kind of rant, but I've been thinking about it a fair bit recently, anyway;
I'll let you go.
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