Grace - Broken is Beautiful

From the guys at POTSC and Prolifik Films. Beautiful!

BROKEN IS BEAUTIFUL from PEOPLE OF THE SECOND CHANCE on Vimeo.

Kidz Church Set up & take down

At MKCC we put much time, effort and finance into ensuring our children learn about Jesus at their own level. A huge team of volunteers do an unbelievable job each Sunday, welcoming, caring and teaching the Children.

The space we create Kidz Church in is used as a Day Nursery during the week. So each Friday evening and Sunday afternoon after church teams of volunteers transform the environment. Taking down the Nursery, setting up the Kidz Church on Friday and Taking down Kidz Church, setting up the Nursery. It takes around 30 - 45 minutes each time.

If you would like to assist at one of these times email info@mkcc.org.uk or call the office 01908 670655.

Take a look at what happens.

Kidz Church Set up & Take Down from Billy Ritchie on Vimeo.

Why do we choose to listen to ourselves over God

God gave Moses a mission. (Exodus 4)
Moses didn't think he was up to it.
Who was he that anyone would listen to him and believe he carried the message of God.
He was a stuttering, stammering, nobody.

God spoke to him.
gave Moses sign upon sign.
Said he would be with him and give him the words to speak.

But Moses was still reluctant.
He chose to listen to himself instead of God.

Eventually God got angry.
Is God getting angry because you are choosing to listen to the rubbish you keep telling yourself rather than listen to what he is saying about you.

Is God trusting you more than you trust yourself?

Meet Jesus - Leon's Story

This past Sunday Leon shared his story of life change at MKCC.

Leon spent a lot of time behind bars. In his own words "I've had more porridge than Goldilocks and the three bears."

After meeting Jesus he has been taken on a journey back into prison but this time as a visitor sharing his story and helping the inmates.

Take a look, hope you can understand his east end accent and one liners!

The Lord is my rock

At MKCC on Sunday we sung "The Lord is my Rock" written by Wade Joy from Elevation Church.

It is an amazing song given to him by God at what was a very difficult time for him, his wife & new born twin girls Liana and Adleigh. Read the full story here.



While singing it on Sunday God brought to my mind Psalm 27:

1 The Lord is my light and my salvation—
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life—
of whom shall I be afraid?

5 For he will conceal me there when troubles come;
he will hide me in his sanctuary.
He will place me out of reach on a high rock.
6 Then I will hold my head high
above my enemies who surround me.
At his sanctuary I will offer sacrifices with shouts of joy,
singing and praising the Lord with music.

At our darkest hour when we cry out to Him he will reach down from heaven itself and lift us up. Even when we think we are about to drown he will hold our head above the water allowing us to breathe.

Lord, You are my rock.

But why me?

But why me? - Ex 3 v 11

It's a question God has been asked many times by so many people, including me.

With Moses we just don't think we are up to the Job.
We have not got the talent & skill.
We have not got the eloquence.
We have not got the purity & holiness.

To all these questions and more besides there is one answer;

God said: “I’ll be with you,”

So whatever it is that God has broken into your "ordinary" life to ask you to do, remember, if He asks you He will be with you!

And he has everything and more that is needed.

Sunday stuff on Monday morning

• Different start to a Sunday. I only did one service today. Strange experience staying home and coming to church for 12 noon. ( I watched Sunday Supplement & Goals on Sunday on Sky Sports. :-) )
• Nicola is still not well. She has another doctors appointment today. Please pray for her.
• Worship set was awesome. Glory to God Forever, The Lord is my Rock, Hosanna & How Great is our God.
• The Lord is my Rock by Wade Joye - Elevation Church, is just a great song. Written in the middle of his most testing time.
• By the way big lesson for today is if you want to tweet that the Worship band was STONKING the predictive text changes is to STINKING. (One red face)
  
• Then during communion the band did "How he loves us". I was in heaven.
• Ryan did a great job closing our Impact series - Meet Jesus - Encounter Life Change.
• He spoke on Paul - From persecutor to passionate follower.
• Jesus choosing Paul is THE prime example that God can use anyone.
• When Christ shows up lives have to change.
• We think we are a mess but His grace is enough. http://read.ly/Phil3.13.NLT
• As part of the message Leon Robinson shared a little of his story of life change. From time inside as a prisoner to now visiting prisons to share what Jesus had done for him.
• "When God is in your life never say never. Don't let your past become your prison" - Leon
• Then I ran our Knowing & Growing course. I love equipping people for their journey with Jesus.
• We Baptised 7 people.
• I had BBQ'd kippers for the first time this summer. :-) at the same time as trying out our new decking. And guess what it rained!
  
• Switched of the Chelsea v Stoke game when they had scored 6.
• Then chilled out watching some TV with Nicola.
  

Understood, Remembered & Listened To

24 God listened to their groanings.
God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
25 God saw what was going on with Israel.
God understood.

Ex 2 v 24 - 25

In the middle of the rubbish we need to remember three things:

God is listening to you, He remembers you and God Understands what you are facing.

One of the oldest trick of the devil is to isolate us from God. He wants us to believe that God has forgotten us and stopped listening to us. Once isolated we start listening to ourselves in our own specially conveined pity party.

Pastor Mark Driscoll recently tweeted: "Don't believe everything you think"

Start with the knowledge that God understands the situation you are in, he remembers you and he is listening to you.

Start talking to Him instead of listening to yourself and the devil.

Loving the new Newsboys sound

A few years ago we were honoured to host Tait at the Ultimate Event at Alton Towers. He really was a great guy and he performed what I think was the best set we had in the 15 years of the event.

It was great to here that Michael had joined forces with the Newsboys and I am loving the new sound that is coming out.

Here is their latest video which also profiles there work in Mexico.

newsboys "Born Again" *Official Music Video* from newsboys on Vimeo.

Are you a disappearing Christian

But the harder the Egyptians worked them the more children the Israelites had—children everywhere! - Ex 1 v 12 (Mess)

Petrified at the explosive population explosion amongst the Israelites the King of Egypt started to persecute them. Even to the point of trying to kill new born babies. In this situation the surprising thing is that the birth rate increased!

In the midst of slavery, forced labour & child murder they kept having more and more babies. It seems contrary to what should happen.

The same happened in Acts when the church came against persecution and the believers scattered around the known earth. They didn't pack up, go silent and give up. They shared the gospel and saw new Christians born where ever they went.

I can't say I have ever experienced a level of persecution of more than a bit of name calling and I guess that would be similar for the vast majority of the UK church.

What I have noticed is the proclivity for us Christians to disappear from church when we hit some difficulty. Faced with a crisis, illness, bereavement, financial etc. etc. we withdraw from the the very environment that can assist.

Yes I know that it is in God we find refuge but honestly in most situations I have witnessed a withdrawal from church and Christian brothers and sisters is a an outward sign of a heart that has withdrawn from God.

The Christian life is not like holding a "Get out of jail free" card. Paul uses words continually in his letters to the believers like: Hold on, persevere, finish the race.

As we reach out our hand to hold on we find that God already has us in His hands.

God is jealous for me

My favourite song of the last couple of years has got to be "How he loves us". It has been made even more popular in the last few months when David Cowder covered it but I cam across it a couple of years ago through this video on YouTube:



The opening line is "He is jealous for me".

Can God be jealous? Surely jealousy is a sin. So I decided to see what the Bible says:

"You must not have any other god but me. "You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea. You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. - Ex 20 v 3 - 5

Notice that God is jealous when someone gives to another something that rightly belongs to Him.

First place belongs to Him.
Our affection belongs to Him.
Our worship belongs to Him.

Jesus uses messed up people

Today Mark carried on our teaching series - IMPACT at MKCC. We are studying the lives of some guys from the early church whose lives collided with Jesus.

Jesus Impacted their lives to enable them to impact others. Today Mark looked at Peter.

The thing that spoke to me most was that Peter, one of Jesus closest followers, in Jesus greatest moment of need, walked away and denied that he even knew Him. Later we find Jesus in a conversation with Peter.

The first thing that hits me is that it is not recorded anywhere that Jesus tears a strip of Peter for letting Him down and walking away. I think most of us would want to stick the knife into someone like this, maybe even twist it a little, not Jesus.

He just checks Peters heart. Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me?

I can feel Peters pain as he replies. I know I've messed up, I know I've let you down but Jesus, you know that I love you. I know that sometimes it doesn't look or sound like it. But you know I love you Jesus.

Jesus simple reply to a messed up person - get involved in ministry.

This is so opposite of how we treat people who have failed Jesus. We exclude them, we scold them, but Jesus invites them to join Him in the ministry.

Fatigue is the price of leadership

“If a Christian is not willing to rise early and work late, to expend greater effort in diligent study and faithful work, that person will not change a generation. Fatigue is the price of leadership. Mediocrity is the result of never getting tired.”

- Oswald Sanders - Spiritual Leadership

HT Tony Steward

How far will you trust God?

Don’t you see, you planned evil against me but God used those same plans for my good, as you see all around you right now—life for many people. Gen 50:20

This is an amazing statement by Joseph.

We throw our toys out of the pram when we hit a bump in the road and someone give us a hard time.

Joseph was the victim of a despicable act when his brothers sold him into slavery because they disliked the fact that he was his fathers favourite. An act that was to separate him from his home, parents, family & friends for decades. It would set in process a chain of events that would see him serve as a slave, be falsely accused of rape and imprisoned for years.

Sold into slavery at the age of 17 he didn't see his brothers again till he was 39 - 22 yearsm most of them spent as a slave or in prison. A long time to trust God.

His perspective on God being in ultimate charge rather than his brothers act is truly amazing. The statement does not take away the 22 years & suffering but it removes the bitterness and gives it meaning.

How far am I willing to trust God? Am I willing to suffer to bring life to many?

Who forgot the bread?

The disciples were finding fault with each other because they had forgotten to bring bread. - Mark 8 v 16

Sometimes we just don't get it.

Jesus' Disciples had watched Him perform a miracle twice now for crowds that were hungry.

5000 people - 5 Loves of bread and 2 fish - all fed and 12 baskets of leftovers.
4000 people - 7 loves of bread - all fed and 7 baskets of leftovers.

And just after they end up arguing amongst themselves about who forgot the packed lunch. We do a good job in the church arguing over little things that really don't matter.

We have a powerful friend in Jesus who has a mission for us to connect to and we spend the time arguing over minutia when the king of the universe is looking over our shoulder.

I heard about a church that was looking to plant a new church in a nearby town. A good idea? Well not to a church that was already in the town. They didn't seem to think it was a good idea. I personally don't know the church but lets say there are 200 people attending the existing church & 20,000 people in the town. Can I suggest that if 19,800 people do not go to church there may be, just maybe room for another church to reach some of those people.

So we forget that Jesus is in the boat and argue over the lack of "food" when Jesus wants fill our "churches" with people if we will only expend our energies on serving the hungry.

Why Jesus Rose from the Dead

“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” - Matt 9:12-13

Josh's Story from 1LifeDigital on Vimeo.

Impact - What happens when you meet Jesus

Ryan sent me the graphics for our brand new teaching series starting after Easter at MKCC.

We have spent the last few weeks focused on the Cross and what Jesus accomplished there.

During April we will look at 3 characters from the Bible, Peter, Stephen & Paul and find out what happened when they met Jesus.

Join with us each Sunday 8.30 am, 10.15 am & 12 noon or watch at www.mkcc.org.uk when the sermon is uploaded each Monday.

My Substitute

I saw One hanging on a tree, In agony and blood;
He fixed His languid eyes on me, As near His cross I stood.
Oh, can it be, upon a tree The Saviour died for me?
My soul is thrilled, My heart is filled,
To think He died for me!

(“He Died For Me” by John Newton, 1725-1807).

On the cross he took my place and my punishment and bought my freedom with His blood.

Once it was mine, the cup of wrath,
But Jesus drank it dry,
When on the cursed tree transfixed,
He breathed the expiring sigh.

No tongue can tell the wrath He bore,
The wrath so due to me,
Sin's just desert; He bore it all,
To set the sinner free!

Now not a single drop remains,
"'Tis finished," was His cry;
By one effectual draught, He drank
The cup of wrath quite dry.

("The Cup of Wrath" by Albert Midlane, 1825-1909).

Good Friday - The Greatest Love of All

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. - Hebrews 12 v 2