However, I am conscious of the fact that I’m approaching this book with an attitude similar to the ‘fundamentalists’ that Dawkins criticises in the book. If I set out in the mindset that this book will only serve to help me argue with atheists, and refute the possibility of an alternative viewpoint before I’ve begun, then I’m doing the very thing that he finds so objectionable. Am I right to take this stance? Or should I actually be prepared to be converted to atheism, unlikely though this is? I guess it all comes back to the fact that we cannot have true faith without doubt……

I’ll be interested to see what he has to say about the value of ‘religious experience’ ie: how people of faith have interacted personally with God. My guess is that he has no experience of God’s presence, and his encounters with Christians are limited to those focused on the ‘religious’ aspects and on militantly defending their viewpoint on some issue or other (Dawkins seems particularly keen to argue against Creationism – I suppose that’s natural for a scientist….). I find myself agreeing with him to some extent – rigorously defending something like creationism seems to me to be a waste of energy on the part of the Christian. Why aren’t we focusing on the commands of Jesus? The Bible says that we can’t fathom God, so why are we worrying about producing tons of evidence to fly in the face of evolutionary theory? And more importantly, why are people so angrily defending their stance on ‘issues’? There’s no wonder people are put off religion (for want of a better phrase).

I think it’s vital that anyone who really wants to live as a disciple of Jesus seeks to understand where we’ve gone wrong over the years in portraying out faith, because that is a large part of the reason why people like Richard Dawkins feel like they do (that, and a load of scientific evidence…..). Shutting out other viewpoints makes us narrow-minded and less able to relate to others effectively. One-to-one relationships are, in my view, the way forward in making Jesus known. I love the church (by which I mean the people), but I agree with Dawkins – organised religion is responsible for a lot of crap. I propose to comment more on The God Delusion as I read it, as I think we can gain valuable insight from such books. Obviously I’ll be offsetting all this heathen-ery by reading plenty of the Bible (I’m looking at John at the moment, trying to make more sense of Jesus…..).

In other news, I’m excited about letting everyone hear the newResponding with Tea songs. If you’re on Facebook then there’s a RwT page on which I intend to post the songs for download (some other tracks are there at the moment). There are also plans afoot for some CD artwork to accompany the music. On the writing front, I’m going to put the next part of The Weight of a Voice in a separate post to this one. I had another agent rejection the other day. This summer was supposed to be the time when I made a big push to get an agent, but that hasn’t happened. My efforts have gone into music. And camping…..

uk voice in the global conversation about alternative worship, mission, postmodernity, emerging church and all that.

One of the things he often does on his site is what he calls ‘Worship tricks’. He gives little ideas for services, worship, prayer… that kind of thing. He is also involved in a service that is called ‘grace’. He shared a blessing that was used as part of grace a bit ago and I liked it so thought I would share it here. It’s worship trick 87 for those that want to find it on his site.

Here’s the blessing:

May the extravagant love of God the Father
Fill your hearts and minds and his embrace hold you
When you feel unworthy to be called his son or daughter

May the friendship of Jesus Christ, your brother
Rid you of any notion that you are only a slave
And you find your home in and with him in his kingdom

May the Spirit of God release you
From a world of duty
So that a new joy and freedom wells up in your life

Go and reconfigure the world as on order of embrace
In your friendships
In your work place
In your families
In your street
And in your churches

And the blessing of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be among you and remain with you always

Faith week was an amazing experience; God answered our every prayer and showed us his awesome faithfulness. One morning we got specific, praying for some work on a farm, a meat pie for lunch and we got it all, including playing with the farmers 5 grandkids, answering a prayer from earlier in the week.
After faith week we’ve had teaching on relationships, spiritual warfare, Lordship, Dreams and Visions and God’s revival through the Jewish people. These weeks have been weeks of real breakthrough and I thank God for continued energy and hunger. Spiritual warfare was a real eye opener, and the final day of Lordship was huge laying down things that simply hold us back from everything God has for our lives.

I was also baptised in the local river on Thursday which was incredible, declaring publicly that Jesus is Lord. It was amazing to publicly set in stone many of the decisions I’d made on DTS. It was a special time for us as a school and God definitely moves in the spiritual through baptisms J

As I write this letter in around 5 hours I will actually be leaving New Zealand for the next stage in the DTS, the outreach. This is very exciting and it’s an answer to prayer that every student has the finances and is flying out, praise God. As I mentioned in my last letter I am spending 2.5 months in Africa, with about 3 weeks in South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania and Morocco. In SA we will be working at an orphanage for children who are victims due AIDS and TB. Then in Uganda we will be part of a sporting crusade consisting of around 3000 people from the Ssese islands to the north of Lake Victoria. I will share more about Tanzania and Morocco in a later prayer letter.

Praise

An amazing family that I have been blessed to be a part of here at the base.
Great teachers that God really spoke through satisfying our hunger for more and more of God.
Finances for all the students. We raised nearly $200,000NZD in under a month, God the provider is good.
The permanent base staff that make a DTS possible and who are such a blessing to all of the students.

Prayer for……..

Safety in travel for all the teams heading out very soon and as they continue to travel all around the world.
Unity throughout the teams that we would all stay so strong and rooted in his Word.
Continued growth in him and an overflowing confidence to spread the gospel to everyone we come across.
The hearts and minds of everyone we are going to minister to over the next 14 weeks

Thank you again for all your prayers; I could not be learning so much or having such a good time without yours and God’s help. Love and Blessings in Him to you all. John H

The more I think about it, the more it becomes evident that this song was a subconscious acknowledgement on my part of the fact that God’s plan was/is vastly superior to mine, and that it reflects a desire to simply be before Him, saying, ‘God, you are all these things to me. And this is what I offer you in return – a sinful, jealous heart. Please forgive me.’ Not much of a deal from His perspective, at least on paper…. Yet the truth is that His power is made complete in our weakness. All that is required is for us to relinquish our crowns, to lay our agendas down, and to whisper, sing, or cry, ‘Your name is holy.’

Here I am before You
Bound by sinfulness, and broken
Only You restore my soul
And in Your mercy I will find my rest

My comfort and healer
My hope, my defender
My salvation, my father
Let Your glory fall

Your name is holy

As part of the course we are given group mentors – imagine X-Factor mentors and you’re somewhere close to what these guys are for. At the end of every day together we spend a short time reflecting on what we’ve discussed and praying. Normally this is in the format of listening to a piece of music and then hearing a blessing, prayer or thought from our mentor.

This month I found the blessing that Mick read really helpful. I thought it might be worth sharing:

May you listen to your longing to be free
May the frames of your belonging be large enough for the dreams of your soul
May you arise each day with a voice of blessing whispering in your heart that something good is going to happen to you
May you find a harmony between your soul and your life
May the mansion of your soul never become a haunted place
May you know the eternal longing that is at the heart of time
May there be a kindness in your gaze when you look within
May you never place walls between the light and yourself
May your angel free you from the prisons of guilt, fear, disappointment and despair
May you allow the wild beauty of the invisible world to gather you, mind you and embrace you in belonging
So may the God of grace, our creator, redeemer and sanctifier, bless you.
Amen.

John O’Donnahue – Annam Cara

Now here’s where I’m going to make a smooth link to my point, and it’s going to be grade-A cheese: Reading the bible is like our own ‘performance management’. We need regular ‘review meetings’ (aka church/cell group). We need people ‘higher up’ to advise us and check we’re on track. Maybe we even need some targets….

I’ve been reading a book (another one…..) called ‘Velvet Elvis’ by Rob Bell. I was initially sceptical given its silly, abstract title, but actually it’s amazing. It’s subtitled ‘Repainting the Christian Faith’, which is exactly what I think we need to do at all levels – individually, in our small groups/churches, communities, etc. He talks about this concept of ‘binding and loosing scripture’ which, at the risk of over-simplifying it, means that we should wrestle with the bits we don’t understand, discussing it in our communities (there’s that theme again….) until we have arrived at what we think is the interpretation most appplicable to us, now. Biblical Rabbis did this all the time.

This doesn’t mean that we can make the bible fit whatever we want to do (history is full of idiots who did that). It means that we allow God to speak to us through his word again and again – even the same passage can hold something new for us every time we read it afresh. The other day I re-read a couple of verses, from 1 and 2 Timothy. Both kind of reiterate the same message; if you’ve received a gift through a prophetic message and/or the laying on of hands then don’t neglect it – fan it into flame. At University a friend gave this prophecy about me – that I would speak and people would listen. In a poor interpretation of binding and loosing, I tried to make the prophecy fit what I though at the time was my ‘calling’, which was to be a Christian rock legend…. I did this for six, maybe seven years, with no success. Finally I gave up – but the prophecy kept returning to me. It is only in the light of re-reading those verses that I have attach meaning and context to it.

So that’s what I’m doing now. Talking – and you’re listening. To what, or why, I’m not sure…. I hope I say some things that are helpful. Maybe not the Postman Pat bit…..

We ate together. It wasn’t a meal after the service. It was the service. Inspired by Deuteronomy 14 where the Israelites are called to tithe their food and things and eat together in the presence of the Lord.

Mealtimes are so important to family life – to community life – you can learn so much about people at mealtimes. Things that can stay hidden behind a well rehearsed act can so easily be broken down by eating together. It’s a bit like the episode of Friends when we found out that Joey doesn’t share food…

Joey is the nicest guy but when it comes to sharing food he draws the line. At mealtimes we find out things about people. Stories can be shared, troubles can be halved, concerns voiced and hurts can be healed by spending time together round the dinner table.

Most cultures in the world recognise this importance but it is something that seems to be slipping away in Western culture. Meal time has become something to rush through, to get over so that we can get back online or back to work or back to whatever it is that is more important than taking time to just stop.

Mealtime is also an amazingly biblical thing to do – so many times in the gospel we hear of Jesus being somewhere eating, or inviting himself round to someone’s house to eat. Example – at a mealtime we see Christ’s attitude to forgiveness. In Luke 7 we read the story of when Jesus is at Simon’s house – Christ’s feet are anointed by a ‘sinful woman’ and we read about forgiveness. Example – in Luke 6 we see Christ declaring his rule over the Sabbath by eating with his disciples and talking about David’s eating of the consecrated bread. Example – in the last supper we see Christ sharing bread with those who are nearest to him. Example – in Luke 19 we read the story of Zacchaeus. Christ calls him to account but goes to his house and shares a meal with him. This simple act speaks of Christ’s love for the ‘least’ and the ‘lost’.

By eating together we grow as community. By sharing our lives, and our food, we become more like Christ.

On Sunday at St John’s we took a step towards that. We worshipped and we shared together. As we search to go deeper with God this year I think it will follow that we also go deeper with each other. As we strive to be more like Christ we will start to see where Christ is among our community.

The challenge, I think, is to look around and see who is missing from our table. And then to show them that there is a place prepared for them.

Thank you for reading this, my second prayer letter is attached. Thank you all for your prayers, interest and support in my Gap year, I cannot tell you how encouraged I feel this year knowing that you and most importantly God is supporting me.

Love in Christ

John Hopkins
Download the entire prayer letter in pdf format here.

We are both really excited now that a placement in Uganda has been organised for us through BMS (Baptist Mission Society). We are looking forward to serving God in Kasese, Uganda. Our main focus there will be to help start up a sunday school for a church there. At present there are lots of children at the church but no sunday school so we shall be devising programs for the sunday school sessions and training the leaders! We shall also be leading some youth talks and staying for a few weeks nearby in a rural school helping teaching there. We will be staying in a volunteer flat with a couple who are working there long term and also helping them out with their work (schools work and legal work). At the moment we are busy trying to organise resources we may need with great help from our families! Here are some prayer points which if you can lift up in prayer would be much appreciated:

Safety in travel
Language – the children and locals speak a tribal language with little english so we’re not sure how exactly our sunday schools and training will work (we may have a translator?!). Pray that we can learn a little language and somehow be able to communicate in English or via a translator effectively.
Adapting what we know of children and youth work to Uganda to make it relevant and accessible to Ugandan children.
Training – that our training to local church people will be sucessful and sustainable so that after we have left they will be able to deivse their own programmes and continue with sunday school building up the children.
Health – that we will stay well with differences in diet, water and safety from malaria.
Realtionships – that we will form good relationships with the couple there (Graeme and Jenny) and with local people at the church and school.

Thank you! It is very much appreciated!

Love Tim and Ali

The brief outline of my Gap year is that I am currently spending 4 months at the Oakes until Christmas, followed by a Ski guide training Scheme with the Christian outdoors company Abernethy, followed by a 6 month DTS (Discipleship Training Scheme) with YWAM (youth with a mission) with outreach in Africa. I will touch more upon these in later prayer letters.

I have spent just over a month here at the Oakes and Praise God for a really great month. I have loved getting to know the team and living with them all. During this month we’ve spent some time in Abersoch getting to know each other, followed by all the training we needed to be able to lead camps. We have also had 3 camps so far which have all gone really well. Aside from the camps we have work days around the house and grounds and study days which have also been really good. We have the half term camp coming up and many more to look forward to including some discipleship camps in the run up to Christmas.

Praise

• For a really great summer, God showed and taught me so much and it was so much fun.
• For the team here at the Oakes, that everyone gets on so well and we really enjoy living and working together.
• For 3 great camps so far and for all the kids that heard the Gospel a fresh.

Prayer for…….

• Further bonding of the team as we get used to everyday life at the Oakes.
• For the kids that are coming on camp, that they would have a great time but also that God would prepare their hearts and minds to hear his good news.
• My own personal growth that I would continue to learn more and live a life worthy of his name.
• For finances as I am not sure where all the funds for my whole gap year are coming from.

Thank you so much for your time and prayers. Here at the Oakes I have already been really encouraged by the prayer I have seen at work.

You can download my first prayer letter – feel free to print it off and let everyone see it!