Memoirs of a Skinny Welshman

FAITH COMMUNITIES CONTRIBUTE OVER £100 MILLION TO WELSH ECONOMY

Work undertaken by faith groups in Wales contributes the equivalent of over £100 million* to the Welsh economy, according a report launched today.

The report, Faith in Wales: Counting for Communities is the first of its kind in Wales. It  includes statistics of all the main religions in Wales – Christian, Baha’i, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh – and was carried out by Christian group Gweini, working in partnership with the Wales Council for Voluntary Action (WCVA).

Ready for the conference Mr Brettle ?

Only back from India long enough to bring the control explosions in my bowels to a close, it's head long into the Impact The Nation conference, our annual ministry time together.

To be honest we haven't had much time this year to promote the whole thing, so numbers are down, but onward and upward we go.  It was only just over eight weeks ago we got into our new offices.

So I'm trying to keep awake enough to finish off the final jobs to get the whole thing on the road.

You know that feeling when you start going out of focus and things seem like they are running away from you, when the sound goes slowly distant and sleep pays a visit.  Then in your head, you begin to shout at yourself to WAKE UP - it's neither the time nor the place to slumber or sleep - it's been one of those days !!

I'm resigned to the fact that the conference will be all that the Lord planned it to be, and the right people will be drawn there on the day or days they should come.

More than that, it's up to Him, the one we serve, the one, who gives hope to a hopeless world, brings light to displace the darkness and shows mercy in a sea of judgement.

Here we go again, my fingeerrs arrrr slleee....py

Chennai

Never having been one to turn down the opportunity to travel, it has been great these last six days to be in Chennai (Formerly Madras), India.

Being picked up at 4am by my good friend Paul Gnanarajan, it didn't take long to realise this was going to be an experience and a half !!

We drove out of the airport and the car and bike horns started from there....

New York, New York....

Having spent a couple of weeks in Florida, speaking in a church, meeting up with friends and having a family holiday, I finally headed upto New York for a one day meeting of Interprayer.

The city is the kind of place you get really excited to be visiting, then about 35 minutes later, a crazed frustration starts to take hold, and then upon leaving you miss the place like crazy.  It's the strongest location drug imaginable.

I stayed with good friends Meredith and Jim, who finally took me to see the Dead Poet Pub, which I must say ha some great regulars, the stories and new friendships were awesome.  Meeting Ayle, who just came back from Ghana, was great, seeing someone light up when talking about helping street kids, and then giving up her time to visit a country alien to our western perceptions, yet still determined to get involved - hats off to ya!!

The following days meeting was in Kings College, within the Empire State Building (what a great location for our meeting).  We were having a working group meeting to develop the work of Interprayer a group totally dedicated to see spiritual and physical transformation of people, places and nations.  It's quite a group, with lots of experience, so the conversation was as usual, excellent.

Then flying back to Orlando via Washington, to return the rental car, pickup my luggage only to get back to the airport, to fly to London, via Washington (yes I did say that again).  We're stuck in the airport right now, due to the loudest thunderstorm I've ever experienced, which it seems has forced me to loose my connection home, so it's likely to be a night in DC, followed prayerfully by a day flight to Heathrow tommorrow.

But hey, I'm not stressed, I have a brilliant trip, having quality time with my family Theresa, Wayne, Kelly & Arran, it's just been brill - they even got me wet on a rollercoaster - what can I say.

Will post soon.  Blessings, Carl.

The advancing Kingdom

The walls that divide must come down. Division that exist within society, division which cause intolerance, hate and pain on every side.

We've read of late of the personal heart ache of an 'icon of the faith' Mother Teresa, bringing her own belief system into question as she investigated a sea of questions which had no answers, poverty and war being the tip of the iceburg.

The message of the Kingdom demands answers in that same sea of questions, requires justice for the most hated, and provides forgiveness to the most vile within society. Yet for our part we struggle grappling with a Kingdom Faith with provides no recognition of effort and of course no certificate of attainment. It's simply left to society to provide the affirmation of what is often hidden, costly and with zero praise.

I'm growing more and more aware of people who are determined to live life like this. They are not concerned about who they 'mix' with, they don't count the cost. They never judge, they only love, that of course being completely unconditional.

I wonder what lies ahead, what will the world be like in ten years time, when more and more of these social repribates choose to shape the society of the future. One thing is for sure, it's going to be very hard to defend the wars that divide us and even more difficult to speak out against something so simple, so pure, that keeps on giving even when persecuted.

The advancing Kingdom is here, an underground movement of social change, there's no membership fee, there are no titles and everyone is qualified to become a member.

Join the advancing Kingdom today.

Being an Economic Force

I was speaking at the Friday night service of Covenant Center International last night in West Palm Beach, Florida, and found myself saying several times during the message, which was a study into what I learned during a life audit last year - that we need to focus on being an 'Economic Force'.

What on earth could that mean ?

Jesus, a collision of two worlds

I'm the type of guy that gets completely absorbed in a subject for a few months and tries to milk the most out of a message to try and find the hidden meaning that the author perhaps was truly trying to reveal.

With one subject coming to it's conclusion, it's time to start the search for the next topic that has some hidden depth.   The changing of a season like this evokes a desire to search afresh for teaching from Heaven's eternal lecture theatre.  I find myself considering the 'the culture of Heaven' and it's impact on our civilisation. 

'Oh boy this is deep' - you may say, yes it is, but in it's simplicity we find truth.  Have you ever thought about Biblical truth being interpreted in our culture as primarily physical and believers interpreting heavenly culture primarily through in our rational mind.  I guess you might have been expecting me to say spiritual, but because we are not yet spiritual beings ourselves, we can only primarily consider spiritual interaction on a Rational level.

It's snowing

I was up at 4.30 (that's AM) this morning, wide awake for some flu related reason.  Taking a look out of the window, to my complete surprise it was snowing.

I am supposed be travelling this evening to UCB to do some radio work tommorrow, I wonder whether I'll get anywhere near Stoke on Trent.  I'm also supposed to pick up friends Kevin & Rosemary Sambrook from East Midlands airport - hmmmm I wonder....

An Open Door into your Heart

2007 for me in many ways is bringing my life full circle, a circle that's taken 10 years to complete.  In 1996 I co-led a team of 13 people to Uganda, to undertake schools ministry, preaching in churches and large open air outreaches.  When we arrived there we were confronted with the street children problem and a new journey for many of us began.  The leaders of a local charity called 'An Open Door into your Heart' had come along on the trip and were so deeply touched by the plight of the children that within a year a home was opened to take in, rehabilitate and resettle street kids.

Ten years on the whole thing has grown, to two bases in Uganda looking after around 300 children and more recently a base in India, where a school and medical centre is being built in an area affected by the 2005 Tsunami.  An Open Door also has an active schools ministry in the UK seeing around 25,000 children every school term.

I've recently taken on the role of Development Director, trying to bring cohesive sense to all the various aspects of the work and also trying to help grow the funding, the influence and the reach of the charity to help as many children as possible.

The picture on this post is of Jemima one of the children we look after in our Kampala home.  You might want to help - get involved, introduce the work to your church - you never know what your effort to help children will do in the long term.

Speeches that changed the world

With all the nonsense of celebrity big brother firmly over, at least until the next 'need to be racist to help the ratings' season of this crazy show.  My thoughts are turned to a book I bought last summer, Speeches that changed the world.  Whether it was Churchill or Gandi or Mother Teresa, this book is something else, it recounts transcriptions of world changing speeches from the familiar and the extra-ordinary. 

Well worth a read - it makes you wonder what are you doing with your life that anyone might choose to publish as memorable in a few centuries time.

Is Shilpa more british than Jade ?

After seeing the re-emergence of Richard Hammond, which apparently was scheduled to steel over 6 million viewers from the first hour of Big Brother.  I must admit I did surcome to the buttons of my remote to click over to the very last celebrity big brother (thank goodness for that!).  The show which producers had admitted was in decline had a ratings boost when Jade Goody and other house guests slandered the winner Shilpa Shetty with Racist comment.

It seems in our society these days foul mouthed, only a celebrity because of having an A+ in crass individuals are stereotyping the rest of us, to the point where people in other nations measure all of us against this new league of 'Brits'.

Whether you go on holiday in Spain, watch football in Germany or go and see a musical concert, most area's of society are now plagued by bing drinking loud mouthed individuals intent on looking for a fight just to prove their different.

On the other hand in the winner of the programme, we saw an individual who loved life, had a natural elegance, opted not to swear just because it wasn't polite.  The real Great Britain it seems only now exists in an emerging culture called India.

How much more then does this suggest to believers in this nation that we should be different, we should be able to stand apart from the crowd, not because we shock, but beacuse we exude grace, love and peace.  Britain can still be great in a spiritual context, and hopefully if we attain the goal of coming closer to God, there just might be a chance that holiness would rub off on all that's bad in this Nation.  Seeing the Jade Goody acted in Big Brother, I was left feeling embarrased to be British, and Shilpa, just wanted to come to her defense not to cause problems!!  I mean, is she a believer ??

Heroes

I recently came across a new TV show in the USA called Heroes.  The programme aired on NBC's network, features several characters that realise over time they have super natural powers.  One can fly, one can change time, one is resistant to death etc.  It's a complete package of what people would like to happen in their lives.  The ability to change the past, he ability to escape injury or pain, the ability to get rich, the ability to influence the future.

In a world where people yearn so much for things to be different with the life they are currently living, fantasy is a cheap and easy opt out.  We're living a world, where is completely OK, for people not to face upto their own individual problem or situation.  Escapism is 21st century oxygen.  The truth is, we can dream a reality that we live out.  We can influence our future, we might not be able to literally fly, but in most situations the change element is us, in our frail bodies we can change history for the entire world, if only we live upto our potential.

iPhone

Over this weekend I watched the Macworld main presentation by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple.  Being an early adopter I've used a mac for a few years now and have been watching with much interest how the company is slowly repositioning itself as a lifestyle technology company rather than just a supplier of nifty computers and mp3 players.  Realising some years back that the biggest single consumer electronics product was a mobile phone, apple is now entering this market with some style I hasten to add.

In order to bypass potential media leaks that might happen during the FCC approval process, apple chose to launch iPhone a good six months before it's available to the consumer and my goodness devoting over 70% of the main presentation time to this product is an indication of what apple expect to happen in it's takeup once the product is launced.

Them Bones.....

Just to update everyone on the ladder fall.  It turns out that I had to go to the Doctor then the hospital for some tests as I developed quite an acute pain around a couple of the vertebrae in my middle back.  Once I had got past the initial examination, which I can only describe like having one of those electronic muscle machines being hooked up to a nuclear power station.  I had some xray's which together with the examination suggested I had compressed one of the discs in between the vertebrae quite badly.  The temporary legacy is that I'm holding my posture too tightly and look like I have ridden a horse for the last four years.

The doctor basically informed me that I should opt for some physiotherapy, and then prescribed me a few boxes of pain killers and some anti-inflamatory drugs.  I'm secretly hoping they will also have an effect on my tubby stomach which grew quite dramatically over the Christmas period.

Big Brother....

It seems TV knows no bounds when it comes to shows which wheel in has-been celebritities to perform for three or four weeks to a captive audience.  Big Brother created some five years ago was one of the first shows to create a human laboratory and beam it's findings into our homes - exciting or what !!

So for the next three to four weeks we are running a daily email called 'Our Father' to have an alternative focus.  The email comprises, a short introduction, the Lords prayer, some facts for prayer in our nation, then a closing prayer at the end.  It takes no more than five minutes to read.

You can sign up for the newsletter on the www.ourfather.org.uk website.

Give it Forward.....

I thought the first provoking blog of 2007 would be a challenge - to do three acts of kindness.  At the charity I run 'An Open Door', we have recently come up with an idea simply called 'Give it forward', we're hoping to provoke people to bless others as well as help the work of the charity.

Inspired by the film Pay it Forward, the hope is to create a wave of selfless acts of kindness.  This will only work if you commit to participate and there are of course some rules :-

Prophetic Insight for 2007

People have been emailing asking what I am sensing from the Lord for 2007.

Here's what I have so far.

• Love the Lord with all your heart, soul and mind & Love your neighbour as yourself.
• Take care of the poor and widows.
• Speak words of encouragement, correction in truth and love.
• Reach out to those who don't yet have a relationship with Jesus.
• Always focus on the Kingdom.

If we can do these five things, then the end of 2007 will be better than the beginning, so what is prophetic about that ? - well you could say absolutely nothing, but they are all the teachings of the one we know as Jesus, Prophet, Priest and King.

Resolutions

It's often a New Years resolution that begins our trek into the next twelve months.  A resolution which only normally lasts three to four days at best.

Resolutions allow us to take a glimpse at all the area's of life which we would like to fix.  Often we are left howevery not feeling strong enough to address our weakness in that area, when if and when we fail at keeping our resolution going, leaves us feeling more guilty that when we began.

Tackling any area of life which we feel weak in often requires support but the New Year encourages independance to the point of failure as the perception is that everyone makes a New Years resolution therefore no-one is available and we're all in the same boat.

Only the strongest of characters manage to conquer a life issue during a New Year period.

If you are intent on challenging your own way of life this year, at least get yourself a buddy, who that you can be accountable to.  Many habits are broken if you can go for 40 days without engaging in that habit that has governed your life in some way.  I've listed in the extended section what with Dictionary explains a resolution is.

Happy New Resolution !!

Happy New Year including the backache!!

Happy New yearto everyone.  No doubt by the time you read this, no doubt we're all ready in 2007.  I started the weekend on Friday evening by falling off a ladder.  I was planning on changing some pictures around in the hall. Quite confidently I stepped upto the top of the ladder and wobbled quite suddenly.  Then enacting something out of an episode of Harold Lloyd I reached for the wall which was beyond my reach.  10ft up isn't that far from the ground, but with a knowledge that half way down your still 5ft up, the ground comes toward you like something out of a paracute jump.  Unfortunately I didn't have a paracute, but do now have pulled muscles in by back and stomach.  The pictures remain where they were !!  And on a brighter note - to all a happy new year!!

I'm back....

After 2 months and six days of no posting, I'm back.   You might be wondering why the break.  If I'm honest things with the life audit got a bit too much, too much transition in such a short space of time, but things are slowly but surely working through to the point where it is time to pick the blog up, dust it off and get going again.

I want to start back with a challenge.  My friend Nigel James earlier this year went to India to visit Pastor Prasad, things clicked and Prasad has become friends with Nigel and subsequently friends with me through the link with Nigel.

I've pasted below video footage of Nigel's latest trip and will then explain the purpose of this posting.