Hello everyone

If you can spare anytime today, try to make to the Market Square in Knaresborough where the BBC Songs of Praise programme will be filming local clergy cleaning shoes. Why are local clergy cleaning shoes?

In Jesus day foot washing was a normal activity and when a guest came to someone’s house their feet where washed as a welcome and for their comfort. This task was carried out by the least of the servants.

When John the Baptist came he said that there was one following after him whose sandals he was unworthy to untie. Great worship and great humility was part of John’s service to Jesus! Yet the one following, that is Jesus, knelt down and washed the feet of the disciples as an act of love and to show the type of service they should offer to others. The foot washing was a demonstration of the love, grace and care of God towards all people.

In Britain we do not ‘foot-washing’ but we thought, that is Churches Together in Knaresborough clergy, that the next best thing would be to offer shoe cleaning as an alternative and chat to the people about Jesus while doing this.

BBC Songs of Praise were in the town last weekend filming their programme at St John’s C of E and today’s event will go out with that programme on Palm Sunday. If you want your moment of fame be in the Market Square at 2.15pm today.

God bless you.

~Bj

Morning all.

We had an amazing 3t’s earlier this week and I shared that with KURC yesterday morning. You know how a bible verse stays with you when you hear it and it gives you fresh vision, hope and encouragement that has happened with the following verse that came from last week’s 3t’s. The verse is Habakkuk 3:17-18:

17 Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,

18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Saviour.

You know when the dishwasher has broken down and you run out of washing up liquid, when the car won’t start and you don’t have a bus time table, when the grass is long and the lawn mower won’t start, when the bank won’t cash your cheque, when all your family are ill and you are too and the medicine cabinet is empty, when friends don’t return your calls or emails, and one of your children is seriously ill and the diagnoses is a long time coming and your job stinks and so does the salary and you have noisy neighbours, Habakkuk is a vision, a hope and an encouragement!

If God is God then he is our source, our hope, our way forward and as Paul says “if God is for us who can be against us.” In God there is love and grace and he gives that! What we have to do is pull our heads out of the toilet and see what God can do. He is all there is and in him we live and move and have our being and he can turn the darkness into the brightness of a new day. Live for God even when life is anything other than good!

God is our hope in Jesus! Amen!

~Bj

Morning everyone

There is a buzz and an anticipation as Holiday Club is only 20 weeks away and there is a lot still to do but the Holiday Club staff are working hard and praising God for what he will do this year!

As part of the Kids. Com staff development I will leading training afternoon next Saturday at Angie’s place. This will help us focus on our goals and how we think we have developed individually and corporately since Holiday Club and assess what impact this has had on the Sunday by Sunday teaching of the children.

Don’t forget that all the United Reformed Churches in the area are meeting to praise God at 4.30pm in West Park Church Harrogate tomorrow afternoon. The last meeting was good and it was nice to connect with other Christians and share in worship with them.

Have a good Saturday in Jesus.

~Bj

Sorry I should have mentioned in the article below that the bed race event is on Saturday 12th June 2010.

Thanks!

Morning, morning, morning!

God bless you and thank you for looking at the blog.

Yesterday we had an awesome 3t’s, check out what 3t’s is on our website, because Sheila gave us all much to think about in relation to our mobile phones and our bibles. She suggested that if we looked after and engaged with our bibles as we do our mobile phones we would be in a closer relation with our Lord Jesus! That is a good and strong point to be made and it gave us all ‘food for thought.’

Sheila then quizzed us on where particular verses in the bible came from and then asked us to tell each other in groups what our favourite bible verses were and why. One person chose Habakkuk 3:17-18 and everyone “oh, Habakkuk that’s amazing who reads Habakkuk? Here’s the verse:

17 Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,

18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Saviour.

This person said that they had had a particular rough time at one point in their life and this verse helped to sustain them. When everything else had seemingly fallen apart God was their strength. It was very quiet in our group as they shared that amazing point and I think we were all strengthen by what was said there and our reliance on the Lord grew…………………

Yesterday evening Darryl, a Curate in Knaresborough, and myself went to the Workingman’s Club to see if Churches Together would come out of the draw to enter this year’s ‘Bed Race.’ That’s right a bed race! There were 120 applicants, each application is for one bed to enter, to push a bed you need six males or six females and a person on the bed! There were only 90 places. Thirty applicants would not make it through! Would we Churches Together Men’s bed make it through?

My Friend on Holy Island, Barry, who is the director of the St Cuthbert’s Centre, said he would pray for us to succeed! Margaret in Knaresborough, of KURC, said that she would pray that we would make it. And there prayers were answered! There has not been a Churches Together Men’s bed for about six years so this is good news. In between those times there has been a Churches Together Women’s Team that have ‘carried the flag’ and done so with fortitude. They deserve a year off! Step forward the guys. If you want to see what the bed race is like YouTube Knaresborough Bed Race 2009 it’s a great watch!

Pray for us as we train and make up that steep incline known as ‘The Castling’s’ it is a lung buster.

God bless you this day with his presence peace and love.

~Bj

Hi Guys

Yesterday I learnt, again, that in order to be the best I can be in Ministry I must keep focused on Jesus. This truth is obvious and one that should be within me every day. Yet I fail, I lose direction at times and need reminding of the narrow path that the Lord Jesus has called me too!

What is wonderful about Jesus is that he is my constant reminder of where my life should be going. The Lord uses his word in the bible to speak to me. He uses beloved Christians to speak a word to me and I am so thankful for his word and his people. Are there people like this in your life? Give thanks for them and ask God to bless their ministry for without them you and I would be further away from God than we should be.

Have a great day!

In Christ

~Bj

Morning all

Yesterday evening at Holiday Club Together in KURC, this is when Holiday Club staff gather to worship and pray about this year’s Holiday Club, we learnt about Joseph in Genesis 41. Yes, we studied fifty-seven verses, and had a good time in doing so.

The conclusion of the study was that in Joseph’s case wealth followed suffering but this will not be the case for everyone. What Joseph demonstrated was his love of God and loyalty to God’s standards. He resisted Potiphar’s wife who wanted an affair with him and for that he ended up in prison. If he had not said no to Potiphar’s wife he would not have been in prison in the first place. If he had not gone to prison he would not have been in the place where God, through him, interpreted the Chief Cupbearers dream. If he had not interpreted the Cupbearers dream he would not have been brought into Pharaoh’s presence for God to interpret Pharaoh’s dream etc!

His wealth came about because God had a plan that would lead to Jesus. All our lives should be dedicated to God and leading others to Jesus. This should be our soul aim. Talking of leading to Jesus:

I was really excited yesterday because a Core Team for Messy Church (Goggle it is great) met for the first time in Bilton URC. These are Bilton URC people who are seeking to reach out to the community to bring others to our Lord and Saviour. Please pray for the Core Team. They were eager to be assigned tasks and take care of those tasks and report back to the Core Team meeting about those tasks! This is good news!

Have a God blessed Day

~Bj

Yesterday I led the morning worship at Bilton URC. There was a nice surprise just before the service started a lady who had attended KURC and then moved into the Bilton area came to Bilton URC yesterday for the first time. It turns out that she has moved next door to a lady who attends Bilton URC. God is good.

We do not see what God is doing and then he does something like this and everyone is amazed! The Father has great plans for his people and we have to trust him in all that goes on. He knows our hearts and what we truly desire and the Christian truly desires to walk with Jesus each day.

I hope you have a good day and a good week and that whatever happens, Jesus is with you, and you are blessed. Lean on him and take care to pray at all times and on all occasions for his guidance and his love.

In Christ

~Bj

Today's blog features for the first time the sermon of Helen. (Loud applause!) Helen is a lay preacher within KURC. Thanks Helen.

I feel there`s something bitter and yet sweet about our scripture this morning. It`s a piece of scripture which seems to me is often over looked and yet it provides a bridge from the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem and the prophecies of the past, into the future.

On the one hand it celebrates the fulfilment of prophecy but as Simeon speaks it moves us on and focuses us on what will be.
Here is the old man Simeon seeing the promised Messiah and trembling with joy as he takes the child God assured him he would see before he died in his arms.

Of course there is Anna too who seems to be eager to tell all she meets about the baby. Here is a woman with mission on her heart!

However, let us not forget that in the midst of this scene there is Joseph, a young carpenter and his wife Mary who is only a young girl, a teenager!
Mary had known that this child was from God from the moment the angel came. Until that point her life had been ordinary and satisfactory!! She was to marry Joseph the carpenter and live a simple life in the town of Nazareth or so she thought and it seems she was happy with that!

I wonder did that moment with the Angel or indeed Elizabeth`s baby leaping in her cousins womb when Mary went to visit provide any real hint of quite what this child would mean?

Did Mary really understand the full implications of being the mother of God`s son?

She was clearly overjoyed to be chosen by God as her song of joy in Elizabeth’s presence indicates but did she really know what was to come?

There were hints at the baby`s birth in the gifts the wise men brought: the gold, frankincense and most significantly myrrh. But here Simeon spells it out….he packs no punches: ”a sword will pierce your heart”.

I am told that motherhood is a painful privilege and that all mothers worry about their children feeling their hurts and that the worse thing ever is to lose a child. Perhaps some can connect with that!

You know Mary was the only person to be there both at Jesus` birth and at his death. She cradled her new born baby in her arms in the animal shelter and if artist’s impressions are to be given any credulity she may have cradled his broken and lifeless body when he was taken down from the cross before he was placed in the borrowed tomb.

Imagine the pain of that! Maybe some of us can, for in these first 2 chapters of Luke the writer provides for most of us characters with whom we can identify. In identifying with them and getting into the story we make it our own story and as it becomes our story it becomes our vocation.

I don`t mean that we become Mary or Joseph or the shepherds or even the soldiers or the innkeeper. Nor do I think we live out their lives vicariously but maybe we begin to understand their perspective and how they might have felt. Maybe we somehow glimpse the full glory and awesomeness of what is unfolding before us.

We become like Anna. We just have to talk about it all and to tell the story in the hope that it will become someone else’s story too.

For here in this passage from Luke we, alongside Mary, are given an insight into what this child will mean to the world.

So what is this snippet of the story truly all about? Well it seems to me that here in chapter 2 we learn a little about suffering and about joy! Simeon and Anna had been in the world long enough to know and feel the suffering of the society in which they were living especially Anna who seemed to have a connection with the people who came and went in the temple.

They knew and they understood the oppression felt by the people as they endured Roman occupation and they knew too the promises from God recorded in the scriptures. God`s promises that a Messiah would come to liberate them. The people dreamt of a ruler who would over power Caesar and rule in his place bringing peace and freedom to the people of Israel.
Simeon had read those scriptures perhaps a little mote comprehensively than some and heard the full message. A Messiah would indeed come to rule but not over an earthly Kingdom. His rule would be over the Kingdom of God and the freedom he would bring, the salvation, would be for all people, all nations, for Jew and Gentile alike. It was this that would rock the world of the Jews and that would cause “some to fall and others to rise again”.

If this story is of suffering then Jesus the promised Messiah, the baby brought in his mother’s arms to the temple to be circumcised and given to God as was the Jewish tradition is at the heart of that suffering. Jesus who would bear it all for the nations, for the people, plunging to the depths of hell and rising triumphant and in that rising would shed a true unblemished light on the darkest recesses of sin.

This is the story of God come down to earth in human form. God come to share all elements of human life so that we, you and I, might be saved from the things which enslave and oppress us!!!

Jesus who was fully human and fully God was a son, a brother, a carpenter, someone’s neighbour and friend, a teacher and a preacher of God`s word. Our Salvation!!!!!

And if this story has it`s shadows of sadness, it has great songs of joy.
For if this had not all happened we would not be sitting here today.
If Mary had not accepted her calling and if Joseph had not listened to and believed the angel who visited him in his dreams…if….if all had not played their part and fulfilled their God given purpose then you and I would not know the joy of resting in God`s presence and knowing his love. But we do know that joy. We do know the depths of God`s love for us whether we always remember it or not we are truly blessed for we have met with the Saviour and one day will dwell with him in the Father`s Kingdom where he now reigns.


So what is our calling? What is YOUR calling?
Is God calling anyone of us onto something new?

Is our calling to be up front preaching or teaching the word like John the Baptist? Is it to spread God`s love in more practical ways like Dorcus caring where there is need? Or perhaps it is to be less prominent. Is it to be out of the glare of public scrutiny? Is it to be quietly working and praying in the back ground like Anna and Simeon who waited and watched and listened for God`s word? Is it to quietly share with those around them?

Have you taken this story to your heart and are you thrilling to share it in whatever way you can? Are you watching and waiting for God`s purpose for your life?

Or perhaps you have already heard that still small voice whispering in the night calling you to pick up the challenge and go forward. Be assured that God has a purpose and a plan for each one of us and at the heart of that purpose is the story of our risen Saviour, a story yes of suffering, of pain and tears along the way but ultimately a story of profound joy.

So bitter and so sweet!!!

Taste the sweetness of God`s love for you!