miracles

Its almost the churches 90th birthday which has made us start to look back at our history.
Elim started in Northern Ireland almost a hundred years ago as an off shoot of the Welsh Revival. In 1921 George Jeffrey's was invited to Leigh on Sea to run some revival meeting and out of this the first Elim Church in England was birthed here at Leigh.

the hallmarks of this was a move of the Holy Spirit in signs and wonders. By this I mean that miracles were common place in the early church. people were healed, delivered and set free from addiction. People left wheelchair and canes behind in churches because they no longer needed them.

The early church magazines which we still have copies of today were full of stories of how this or that person was healed.

So what has happened? In the latest edition of Direction our current National Magazine as far as I can see there isn't a single story of a healing. It reports extensively about this years Conference and as far as I can recall there wasnt a single story about healing there either.

Has God stopped healing? Certainly not. We see it in our services on a regular basis. Its maybe that we are frightened to talk about it for fear that someone will investigate it and find it isn't true.

What a shame! If we stop talking about the Power of God to Save Heal , Deliver and Bring Freedom then how will people hear.

If God is at work in our lives we must speak out.

Rioters use Social Media to orchestrate looting. We need to use the same media to talk about how Great our God is.

Speak up before it is too late. Give Glory to God for what He is doing in your life.

Holidays

For many of you you will be embarking on the great summer get away in the next few weeks. I have just had mine, almost three weeks away from church and home. I didn't realize how much I needed it. Its very easy to take time off but actually not take any time off at all. Although I kept in touch regularly with family and church I had done something this year that I have never done before. I made a public declaration that I was handing over the reigns to my two elders and giving the decision making to them too. Spiritually it broke a bond and meant that I could relax without thinking I was responsible for stuff happening 450 miles away.
Well I'm back and like the pilots of planes say "I have control" .
When you take a break make sure you do that, don't check and answer emails every day, don't expect staff to run to you to make decisions, or worse still leave those decisions till you return otherwise you will need another holiday.
Rest relax take time to get your head sorted, take time to get personal issues resolved then come back and "take control" . You will feel better and your church, business, family life will feel the benefit too.

Revival Fires

One of my greatest joys is travelling to other churches and speaking with Christians from other places and even different streams, by that I mean from different church backgrounds.

One thing I have found in recent months; There is a real expectation across the board that God is about to move.

I have a real sense in my spirit that the next move of God will not be in the major revival centres where folks flock to ‘catch’ something new from God. It won’t be a Pensacola, Toronto, or any of the other high profile churches. I believe it will be spontaneous combustion in the small, little, faithful churches of many denominations. Revival springing up in the ordinary every day churches who faithfully preach Jesus.

We need to be faithful to the message and develop a hunger for God to move. It won’t come to those that look for the publicity that these large scale church revivals  brings: the  My church is better than yours  or my church is featured on The God Chanel mentality that seems to  pervade many evangelical ministers minds. No it will be for those people and congregations who simply want more of God and to be used by Him. I think that it will have many different faces and not be identified by one manifestation of the Spirits power but by many. Each church will have its own unique experience of God.

Are we ready?

How would we cope?

I sometimes wonder how we would cope. Could we actually survive and keep our faith. Persecution. All over the world Christians are facing persecution; they are having their churches burnt, being arrested and even killed for their faith.

I have over the past challenged our folks at church about this wondering if Persecution will ever reach our shores.

The other morning I was awake about 4.30 am just before dawn and was thinking about this. I know I should have been asleep but its a sign of getting old.

For the first time I realized that here in England the Christian church has been persecuted and is being persecuted almost to the point of extinction. We have listened to the lie that we should turn the other cheek, be silent when our faith and lifestyle is being undermined when legislation so hard fought for by our forefathers is systematically undermined and repealed.

Christian leaders are frightened to speak about what we believe. The days of Political Correctness have all but silenced our Christian heritage. Minority groups with loud voices change our fundamental laws and we remain silent. Is that persecuted ? It sure is!

We need to wake up before it is too late. There needs to be an audible loud Christian voice in our nation. Our Church denominations need to raise up a public voice for our views and shout and shout it from the roof tops.

Demob Happy

Well folks its time to go.
Where on Holiday of course. We all need to take time to recharge our batteries. If not you burn out.

What about you? Is it time to take a well earned break.

Bread in The House

Churches can be strange places. Each one is so different at times I wonder if we have anything in common at all.
There are no spectators in church. That's what I tell our folks. We are all part of a team, like a football squad, we don't all play every week but each one of us has a role to play. the team is poorer when one is missing or not fulfilling their role.
I am delighted to have two elders. In our church Elders are appointed by the minister and serve at the ministers pleasure. ( very American sounding I know) . They were appointed by our predecessor and what a choice they were and still are. They still serve because they are the right people for the job. John and Roger are both successful business men with a wealth of knowledge. They both have great spiritual insights. John is our church finance officer. He spends hours looking after the church cash flow. All done quietly without any fanfare and he keeps the church ticking over. he also has a strong prophetic edge. Roger is our church secretary . He is a little quieter but when he speaks I listen. These guys are given the awesome responsibility of looking after Ann and me. They can speak into our lives and tell us if we mess up, they are there for advice and its not unusual for us to ring to talk over issues that arise from time to time.

We trust them.

So when Roger and I were talking last week about church growth and Roger started talking I started listening. He was telling me that we would continue to grow because there is Bread in The House.

By that he meant there was a real sense of God's presence in our church, not just our services, but all we aim to do and  and there is good strong uncompromised teaching.

This week we came to the end of our 6 week Lent Course looking at the sayings of Jesus from the cross. I was amazed at the end when we were told just how good the teaching had been and more importantly how much our ministries are developing. You see there is Bread in the House.

Hungry people will be drawn to where there is food.  There is Bread in this House.

Ann and I would never actively sheep steal;that is seek to get people to move churches to us. However we are equally aware that there are times that people need to be fed. There is Bread in this house.

Passions

If you asked me what I was passionate about I am sure I could come up with quite a long list. Some of the things are obvious, like Ann, but there would be others that at first glance might make you smile.

One of them would be sausages.

Yes that’s right sausages. I really am passionate about them; and animals called George, but that’s another story.

I have always had a halfhearted dream of opening a sausage restaurant where nearly all the items on the menu would include sausages. I think it would be a success. How do I know; I would eat there. If it’s good enough for me well its good enough for anyone.

They are incredibly versatile little things and have a range of flavours from boring to highly exotic. If I ever visit new butchers one of the tests as to how good he is, is how good are his sausages?

I would have sausages 5 days a week. Well I have to have a curry once in a while too.

Unfortunately I don’t have a sausage restaurant I have a church, which specializes in catering. We have FREE …yes you read it right a FREE café every Tuesday for anyone who wants a hot meal. This isn’t for the homeless or dropouts but for anyone who wants a FREE feed. Sometimes we do serve sausages and they are special days.

Food is important to me. As a church leader I see the potential for food. We use food events to reach out into the community. It says we care. We know times can be tough, we know people can be lonely, we know people have needs and guess what we want to be there for you. We don’t just do Sundays where we seem to be after your money. We do life where we are there for you.

God asked Moses at the burning bush “What is it you have in your hand?”

What are you passionate about? Take some time today to think about how you could develop a passion into a means of service.

Life defining moments

There are moments in everyone’s lives that are truly life defining moments.

Some are those truly awesome moments such as when you walk in the room and your eyes meet with the prettiest girl in the room and you just know ‘she is the one’. There are others which are not so great but are life defining none the less; the moment you take your first cigarette or steal your first bar of chocolate from the corner shop.

Someone said that life turns on small hinges.

There have been many such moments in my life some good and some bad. One of the most radical moments was a weekend in March 1973. I know it seems an eternity ago but it was a weekend that would change my life forever. It would change who I was and who I would become. It was the weekend I became a Christian.

Let me say this wasn’t a religious experience as such. I had never been to church and had no interest in it what so ever. I was 17 and loved music and going to the pub. So to get an invite not to church but to see a band was cool. The band ‘the Advocates@ were my age and played the coolest live music I had ever heard. They also talked about their own decisions to follow Jesus and how it had radically changed their lives. Kids my age passionate about Jesus. Passionate about the change that following Jesus had made to them. So when the opportunity was given to give at a go I leapt at it . If Following Jesus could change their lives and make it so exciting maybe the same could happen for me.

I knew nothing about the Bible or Church but I knew this. If following Jesus could change their lives then maybe he could change mine to.

Life turns on small hinges. Deciding to follow Jesus was one such hinge. Life did change. It did become exciting. I did change.

To tell you all that has happened would take a life time.

Why not try Jesus for yourself. “Seek  the Lord while he may be found . Call on him now while he is near.........turn to the Lord for he will forgive you generously”  Isaiah 55 :6

For a book explaining all this check out the ‘How do I become a Christian Page’ at www.elimleigh.co.uk

Leading Sheep

Leadership can be a lonely place. There are times you have to make decisions without being able to tell people why because of the confidential nature of a situation.

It’s at those occasions you need to know why you are a leader.

It’s been said by me and others that God really isn’t interested in your gifting, after all the gifts you have and use come from Him. He is really interested in your character. Is your character strong enough to support your gifting?

Over the years we have got to know many where this wasn’t the case and as a result when their character came under pressure they lost their way and despite being incredibly gifted people lost their roles as leaders. Such a waste.

It comes down to the call of God.  What do I mean by that? Well what has God told you to do? What is burning deep inside your spirit? Many of us have all been to meetings where a visiting preacher has prayed amazing things over our lives: prophesying that we are called to the Nations...called to an international ministry..called to do great exploits..

The trouble is that often this is not from God or if it is, its time sensitive.  We hear it, get excited about it and wonder why it’s not happening or worse still we rush out  and try and make it happen right now. So many people rush out and start a ministry, give themselves a title and role but  often lacking the gifting to make it happen our the character to see it through. God has not called you to be the next Matt Redman if you can’t sing.

For nearly all of us there are two distinctive calls from God. The first is the ‘Big Picture’. Where we will one day be:-  Leading a church, preaching at conferences, leading worship for hundreds.

Moses was to lead 1-2 million people out of Egypt across a desert for 40 years. He started by leading sheep for 40 years through the same desert. It was only after that the God said “What have you got in your hand” The answer was his shepherds’ staff. This was more than a piece of wood. Shepherds carved their staff with little maps to the best pasture. Reminders of their successes and failures. Every time he touched it, it reminded him where he had been and what he had done and what God had done for him.

So don’t be in a rush. You see there is the other call of God. That is where he has placed you now. What are you doing NOW for the kingdom? Are you prepared to lead sheep? Clean the church toilets? Stack chairs?  

Some years ago I helped head up an evangelistic team. One young man came from abroad to join us. He thought he was a great worship leader. I set him on with stacking chairs into a trailer so we could go out to do a tent crusade. After an hour or two he walked away saying he had come to lead worship not stack chairs. Guess what he went home. Years later I found out that he had become that worship leader but he had had to learn some hard lessons on the way.

What is God calling you to do today? Do it with all your heart. Learn from leading sheep because one day God may call you to lead a nation. But it will only happen successfully if your Character has developed.

Friday 18th March

We all have them. Yet to each of us they will be something different. What are they? Giants. We all have Giants to face in our lives. It could be unemployment, debt, ill health, family problems. But they all wear the same face . That face is FEAR.

Saul in the Old Testament was faced with one such Giant. He was called Goliath. A huge mountain of a man. But Saul only saw fear. For 40 days this man strutted and roared and each day Saul saw him get bigger and more frightening and became totally imobolized by Fear.

Until along came a small boy who saw the man and heard his threats and then saw his God. David knew this man was nothing compared to his great God and went and dealt with him.

David knew the secret. His God was bigger than the bully. the Giant still needed to be dealt with but the Fear wasn't there.

What is your Giant. You still have to face it but lets be honest the God we serve is much bigger that any problem you might have. Start to realize that and the Giant will not seem so big, it wont hold you in fear. You still have to deal with it. To take its head so it cant return but guess what....you can do it. It may take time. But
get on with it. Don't let your Giant hold you in fear.

David didn't need armour, or weapons he went just as he was. You don't need special training, special techniques just a firm trust in God as maker of the Universe and Jesus as your own personal saviour. Stop saying I will do it when...when I've been to Bible School, when I am older....when I have more money. God want you to start serving Him today with all your heart, your strength and your soul.

Get on with it there is a fight to WIN.

Friday 11th January

Today is my day off. So what better way than to start this Blog.

I am so new to this that I really don't know what I am doing and those that know me will say 'What is new'

My passion is to tell people about Jesus and to see them come to know as their personal saviour and friend.
I am a pastor, so my second passion is to see people develop and grow. You only have to watch TV to see what a sorry state our Nation is in at the moment. And the Church, well, it is noticeable by its absence.

I hope that as I get more used to this I will be able to impart some teaching to those that need it most. Not a list of things to do or not to do but a reason to live lives worthy of the call of God.

Watch this space. Be patient with me and together we can go on a journey of discovery.