Entering Area 51

So its my 51st Birthday. So here are 51 words or people that have in some way shaped my life, taken it in a new direction or just brings a smile to my face for no particular reason:

1. Belger (aka Cairnbulg)
2. Cotton (aka Inverallochy)
3. Albert
4. Elsie
5. Brother
6. Twins
7. Mizpah
8. North Sea
9. Quiet Waters
10. Sonny Brae
11. Mrs Alexander
12. Kinnaird
13. Didie Bill
14. Granny Mary
15. The Rack (Shore line)
16. The Fitba Perk ( Home to much more than football, cricket, tennis)
17. Aberdeen FC
18. Fergie
19. Uncle Billy
20. Roger Blackmore
21. Walstead School
22. The Mission
23. Andrew Smith
24. Cairnbulg AOG
25. Mattersey Hall
26. The Ice Box
27. William Dillon
28. Keith Green
29. Gothenberg
30. George Ridley
31. Milton Keynes
32. Nicola Ritchie (outside of no 51 the most important)
33. John Ecclestone
34. Aston Villa
35. Key Consultants
36. Newport Pagnell
37. Abbie
38. Liam
39. Mark Sherratt
40. Philip Yancey
41. Grace
42. MKCC
43. Florida
44. St Jean De Monts
45. Coffee Shop
46. WiFi
47. Apple
48. Books
49. Friends
50. The Bible
51. Jesus

Not a complete list, put together in a few short moments. If I sat and thought about it i'd probably change it. But at 51 my memory is going!

What is God's point?

"One of the biggest questions we've ever asked is: What God's point is? I asked myself that as a little boy, still asking it in may ways. Although I think I've come to a conclusion.

It is I believe that we are born to be loved. Everyone is trying to love God, they don't know that he loves them. So being born to be loved is the key to everything else, because God's point is a love affair.

And so when we actually try to achieve something we are going to have to do it together. So if we are ever going to get what God wants, which is his inheritance. We are flat out going to have to love each other, work together, which means we are going to have to grow up. We are going to stop being boys and start being men. We have got to stop being girls and start being women. We have got to get out of the bleachers into the arena. We have got to get out of the wilderness, where it looks nice, you live in all these lovely blessings, but you actually end up disinherited.

God is looking for his family that will get a full inheritance. Which means that we have got to become who he is, we've got to become God with skin on.

And you have got to go pioneer something, build something, then smash hell to pieces and take back what's been lost. That's his inheritance!

Is there a generation actually out there that's capable of becoming something like Christ?"

- Andrew Shearman

Check out the G42 Leadership Academy

Different Countries - Partners in the Gospel

Today we welcome Mark & Laura Waltz to MKCC. At Granger Community Church, Mark oversees adult relational connections, including groups, guest services and volunteer strategies. He is going to be training many of our staff and volunteers over the next few day. Including a workshop on Saturday, Lasting Impressions, you can still book in here.

Here is post that Mark put together. It is very interesting to me what he has gleaned through a couple of short conversations and reviewing MKCC's various guises on the internet. Web, facebook, twitter etc. If this is what MKCC is communicating through media and face to face it makes me very happy.

Last year the good people of Milton Keynes Christian Center, just outside London, invited me to join them for a few days of training, including an all-day workshop with their teams and area churches.

My wife, Laura, and I have anticipated this partnership (as well, as the rare opportunity to take in the history and beauty of their region) for months now. It's here! We leave this week to join lead pastor, Mark Sherratt, associate pastor, Billy Ritchie, and their amazing team.

Before we even get there, here's what I love about MKCC: 

Their values are clear and courageous:

• We're passionate about people 
• We're committed to community 
• We're moving towards maturity 
• We're saved to serve 
• We're forgiven to forgive 
• We're given to generosity 
• We're bringing our best 

They love their community

• They have opened their campus for business and city to maximize their efforts 
• They are creatively and constantly initiating ways to give to their city 
• They are wiling to "go the distance" to embrace their people 

They believe in equipping, empowering and praying

• They frequently invest in their staff and volunteer leaders 
• Training is normal and expected 
• Prayer covers their new and existing leaders 
• They trust and celebrate their leaders 

MKCC is already a partner - with me and Laura - and Granger Community Church. We share many of the same values. Our mission is the same. Our belief that people matter shows up in how we go about ministry. We're so excited to spend the next week learning, equipping and sharing life with this impressive staff and amazing church!

If you are in the area in the UK, it's not too late to join us for a day of guest services training this Saturday, 8 March 2014. You can learn more and register here.

Relational Leadership

You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia - Acts 20:18

Over the nearly 3 years in Ephesus, Paul had an eventful stay. He struggled against opposition, was imprisoned at least once, feared for his life, and wrote letters to other churches including Corinth where he wrote this:

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. -2 Cor 1:8-10

Paul seems to talk about we often. And writing this letter from Ephesus it would seem that the we at this time are the people he is surrounded by, the believers in Ephesus.

The guys he was teaching, in public and in their homes. The people he did life with. Paul is often portrayed as a harsh individual where relationships are secondary. But this passage gives short consideration of that caricature.

We read of tears many times. The fact that the leaders of this church were happy to make the 68 mile journey, in an age when walking was the mode of travel, to spend a short time with Paul speaks volumes. This was no leader locked in an ivory tower who kept himself to him self. This was brother on brother, flesh on flesh, friendship and deep love.

Relationships were clearly vital to this great missionary and leader. Today too many leaders are lonely for no good reason. Paul never seemed to do life alone he always seemed to have travelling companions in the cause of Christ.

Lets not do life or leadership alone!