This months Pastor’s Printout looks at:

• The grace of giving
• Are resources your ministry?
• A diamond in the rough
• Missions matters: Where did your money go?

I use a number of different bible study resources most days and here are a couple of them:

BibleGateway.com

Bible Gateway is the please I prefer to go to for Bible translations, but also for some of the reference material. I find the commentaries particularly useful. Once upon a time the number of versions of the Bible available online was quite limited – not any more. BibleGateway has 22 different English version and some of them are also available in audio format so you can sit back and listen.

They also have a mobile site for smaller screens, but I tend to use YouVersion for that.

YouVersion.com

YouVersion is another Bible site. The interface is a bit more modern that BibleGateway, they have 18 different English versions currently. There are some really nice tricks in the interface, I particularly like the ability to show two different texts, with two different versions side by side using the Parallel feature. They have audio versions too.

Their aim is to provide you with all of the facilities you need for Bible study with places to journal, the capability to make notes and provide contributions to a particular passage.

They’ve recently introduced a Reading Plan capability. I’m currently working through a reading plan for the Gospels and really enjoying it. The reading plans allow you to set the duration for your reading and to mark off each sections as you’ve completed it. While it shouldn’t be about marking-off parts of the Bible as read it’s great to be able to track your progress.

I’m a real fan of the mobile applications from YouVersion. My mobile device is a BlackBerry, but they also do an iPhone, Android, Java and plain browser version. Most of the features are available in the mobile version, the benefit is that you can take it with you.

The reading plans are synchronised between the online version and the mobile version which I make use of most days because I prefer to use my BlackBerry for my Bible reading.

What online tools do you find useful?

Some reflections on Psalm 3 – Conquering Fear:

Hi Andrew

I know I’m probably stating the obvious but thought I would send these thoughts. 

Absalom and  David: How not to deal with anger and the importance of forgiveness.

Absalom was angry because David did nothing to help his sister Tamar after she was raped by his half brother. This anger led Absalom to murder his half brother and plot against David. A good example of how anger can lead to sin and the consequences for Absalom was his death and David, as said last week, was upheld by God because he turned to God in humility and submission.

Absalom allowed his anger to fester, he became bitter and resentful and sought revenge but his revenge did not bring peace and happiness quite the opposite, it gave him grief, misery and ultimately death.

Our way to life is to bring our hurts to the cross to the only one who has the power to heal giving it to God and having a forgiving heart towards those who hurt us and leaving God to "punish" the aggressors as He is the only one who truly knows all sides.

As Absalom allowed resentment to colour his feelings it destroyed his relationship with his father which he was never able to restore.

Absalom’s life is an example of wasted years and broken hearts that can result when communication breaks down within a family and major issues are not dealt with effectively and decisively.  It also shows the consequences of allowing anger to turn to bitterness are hurts can never be healed while we harbour resentments.

As you might imagine I find the relationship between David and Absalom and the dysfunctional family of David very powerful but I do feel that it has a clear message of the damage of unforgiveness and the consequences of acting in anger and how destructive anger can be.

Anger has to be expressed safely so it can be used in a constructive manner as Ephesians 4 v26-27 says "Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry for anger gives a mighty foothold to the Devil"

Circumstances or events can make us angry and we need to find ways to let go of the initial anger so it does not fester to destroy relationships

Again Ephesians 4 v31-32 Get rid of all bitterness rage anger harsh works and slander as well as all types of malicious behaviour. Instead be kind to one another tender hearted forgiving one another just as God through Christ has forgiven you.

Just imagine how different Absalom and David’s relationship could have been if Absalom had been able to communicate effectively with David and David had listened and taken the appropriate action with his half brother and again though we aren’t told much about Tamar no doubt she felt rejected by David’s apathy!!

As you can probably tell David’s family strikes a deep chord in me.

Heather

Please continue to pray and to give.

Sometimes these things are just too awful for us to really feel like we’re connected with these people thousands of miles away. As a church, though, this disaster has been different, we’ve been watching people we know who are actually there.

Within the Free Methodist Church structure we come under the guidance of a Bishop David Roller. Just before the earthquake David had been preaching and Haiti, but left before the tragedy struck. There are many connection to the Free Methodist Church in Haiti.

David decided to go back and here’s his video:

David wrote this:

I preached last Sunday morning to a capacity crowd (2,000 people?) at the Parc Chretien church in Port-au-Prince on our resurrection bodies. I told how there will be continuity between our resurrected body and our earthly body but that there will also be a radical transformation. I eagerly shared from I Corinthians 15 Paul’s explanation that just as a seed is transformed into a plant, so our bodies will be transformed into a NEW kind of body, in the resurrection. And now I’m glad I did. For some it will have been their last sermon.

Please continue to pray for the people of Haiti and for those seeking to bring relief.

You can get regular updates here:

• http://www.helphaitiheal.org/
• http://fmcna.typepad.com/roller/

We each have a life story and they aren’t always full of joyful episodes.

This week Andrew looked at how we might know real joy from Psalm 18.

I love reading the Psalms, I love the wonderful mix of emotions. They aren’t a set of sickly nice platitudes, they deal with real situations, real struggles, wonderful exaltation, glorious highs and desperate lows.

Personally, it was great to be reminded that joy doesn’t depend upon the situation, it depends upon the person in who you trust.

We’re not having a set series in the evenings this term, we’re just going where the Spirit leads us. Our normal motto for evening services is Worship and Word, it’s a time of worship in which the word of God is allowed the time to speak to us.

This Sunday evening Chris continued his Facing Life’s Giants series looking at the issue of debt.

I’ve just been listening to the radio where an economist was talking about the debt that each household in the UK is carrying around. The numbers are eye-watering.

There are many reasons that people are in debt, some of them self-inflicted, but many are as the result of circumstance or the greed of others.

God doesn’t want us to live in debt – and it’s good to know that He has an answer and the means to redeem our situation. That doesn’t mean that redemption is going to  be easy, sometimes God does change things in the blink of an eye, at other times He wants us to walk a journey with Him.

If you are struggling with debt then there are things that we can do and people who can help you. Don’t struggle alone, reach out to the church office and someone will walk the journey with you.

As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts and stories so please do leave a comment letting us know what God is doing in your life.

But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, there are still plenty of things to enjoy before we actually get there.

On the weekend of the 5th and 6th of December we have some great events for you.

We start the weekend with Greg Downes joining us for a Men’s Breakfast looking at the subject of “Failure and Hope”:

Mark Ritchie is joining us once again on the Saturday evening for “Are you feeling Christmassy yet?”

Mark is a wonderful story teller and sure to make us laugh and cry. The tickets are free, but you will need to get one from the church office beforehand. I have it on good authority that we’ll have the Christmas Tree up by then, something that definitely marks the start of Christmas for me.

Then on Sunday we are joined by Greg Downes from the Watford School of Leadership. Greg is a gifted speaker and not to be missed.

On the 9th of December rather than serving their usual Soup the Lunch Break team are laying on a special Christmas Dinner – with all the trimmings. They’ll be joined by the students from Capernwray Bible School who will be presenting “The Greatest Gift”. Please make sure that you reserve your place beforehand.

We continue the Christmas theme on Saturday 12th December with the Saltmine Theatre company who are joining us with their show “Robin Hood: Merry Christmas, Merry Men”. If you like pantomime then this is the event for you. The tickets are £2.50 available from the church office.

Wednesday 16th December is a special Christmas night just for the ladies with the Revive team laying on a special night. It should be lots of fun with a pamper zone, Christmas treats and live music.

The highlight for many people and the definitive start of Christmas at Fulwood is the Carols by Candlelight service, this year being help on the 20th December at 6:30pm.

Then on Christmas Day join us for a short 45 minute service – don’t forget to bring a present.

For those of you who have been eagerly waiting for the podcasts from the last two weekends please accept my apologies. I’m hoping to get them up there before the end of the week.

Chris looked at the practical Christian living that the letter to Philemon tackles. The background to this letter is that Paul is writing to his friend Philemon about one of his slaves who ran away and has since become a believer.  A practical issue to which Paul gives practical advice in the name of Jesus.

The Holy Spirit has sometimes been called the Cinderella of the Trinity. Andrew used an encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus in John 3 to highlight the importance of the spirit in each and every new birth. Jesus often spoke in parables, but sometimes he spoke in graphic illustrations. When Jesus was talking about birth in spirit he wasn’t using a parable, he was using a graphic illustration where the parallels are deliberate.

For me personally Sunday evening was a significant time. I tend to be involved in some many practical things on a Sunday that sometimes it’s difficult to focus on worship. It was really nice to be in a God place.

A special thank you to everyone who invited a friend or a family member to come along. It’s not always an easy thing to invite someone to come back to something they’ve left.

And a special thank you to everyone who made the decision to come. It’s not always easy to return to something you’ve left.

The theme for Back to Church Sunday was “Come as you are”.  Jesus had a wonderful way of including everyone; rich, poor, old, young, high society, low society. The people of Jesus are instructed to do exactly the same.

There is always a way back with Jesus and I hope that we will always reflect that in the way that we treat people. If your reading this and wondering whether you could return to church, I’d like to encourage you to give it a go, there’s a welcome waiting for you.

My experiment with Facebook has been a revelation – having dusted it off 6 weeks ago, I have had a number of conversations with a whole range of people – from missionaries on 3 continents to several conversations with folk who have connections with our church but are struggling with God. Conversations I would never have had, discussions and challenges that would have passed me by if I hadn’t “got connected.”

A spin off has been that it has also given me an insight into what people are up to, whether the Sunday facade is a Monday facade too; what say our youth are up too, thinking, reading (horoscopes, games, self evaluations and love-potential all seem to feature). In fact, one of my friends told me in no uncertain terms:

I’m not letting you be my on-line friend, there’s stuff on there I don’t want my pastor to see!

Have we really replaced real friendships with cyber ones? Do we now live in different realities?

If this is where people’s social networking is leading, what’s the communication challenge for a church that wants to be relevant to its culture with a message of transforming hope found through relationship? How relevant is what we sing on a Sunday, what we preach from our pulpit to real lives, real issues, competing realities? How loud does our message speak when competing with the flashing lights and instant access of multi-media Britain? In a world of email, web access, social networking, Freeview and DVD’s, do we really communicate effectively? Or do we lose the body language, the eye contact and meaning that taking the time to sit and chat speaks?

Someone challenged me recently with how I communicate, the way I say things, and how who I am and what I really think can get lost in my choice of words. How often do our heart and motives get lost because of the way we say something?

You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

So I have got to thinking about what we say and how we say it. And this has left me pondering how story plays such a large part in communicating effectively. Story seems to have played such a place through history in preserving heritage, truth, community – from the aborigine round the fire to the grandfather with his grandkids. Even the Bible uses narrative to tell the story of God with man. How many of us can remember what was said in the training session or business meeting last week, or the sermon on Sunday? Yet how many of us can remember the story our friend told us over a brew six-months ago?

So I tried something different last Sunday, and used story to communicate the message of the prodigal son. With Back to Church Sunday looming on 27th September, I wanted to communicate how our feelings and perspectives affect us all over the question of “coming back”, finding a “second chance”. So I told 3 stories from 3 perspectives, and posed one question – who do you identify with? And all in 15 minutes!!! And so far, the feedback has been really encouraging, much greater than I normally get when I preach “normally”.

If we want to communicate effectively, maybe we need to experiment with different forms, and not be afraid to carry a tool belt with us, selecting the right tool for the right situation rather than persevering with the same old-same old single method of communication. Perhaps if we are willing to take risks, and break through cyber friendships to making time for real life then this amazing message of hope, love and second chances might shout louder and more clearly?

Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved. Matthew 9:17