THE HOUR

SUGGESTED PRAYER POINTS

@ 7.14 - ALL lift hands and lights and pray the Lord’s Prayer together

PRAY FOR LEADERS:
7.15 - 7.20
The Mayor, PM & wise Government in this time of crisis: 1 Tim. 2:1-2

7.20 - 7.25
The Economy and Eurozone / integrity, humility, generosity 4 bankers / those creating wealth

7.25 - 7.30
Integrity in the media in wake of hacking scandals

@ 7.30 - ALL sing ‘Spirit Break Out’

PRAY FOR JUSTICE:
7.35 - 7.38
2.5m kids being trafficked right now. Pray 4 detection, prosecution & rehabilitation

7.38 - 7.41
13m E. Africans starving this Christmas. Pray 4 NGO’s & for rain / Pray 4 Aids pandemic

7.41 - 7.45
1m Christians face torture / prison this Christmas coz of faith. Pray for comfort and courage

@ 7.45 - ALL sing ‘Be Thou My Vision’

PRAY FOR REVIVAL:
7.48 - 7.51
For the Bish of London & St Paul’s cathedral as a House of Prayer for all Nations

7.51 - 7.55
For another great revival to awaken the church throughout the UK

7.55 - 8.00
For new faith for your own local church and its leaders

@ 8.00 - ALL kneel for one minute in silence start & end with a whistle

PRAY FOR NATION:
8.01 - 8.03
Peace in areas of conflict and war

8.03 - 8.07
For God to rescue the ‘lost Generation’ of 1m unemployed 16-24’s

8:07 - 8.10
For the 12m ppl who’ll hear the gospel this Christmas in UK churches

@ 8.10 - ALL raise candles and glow sticks and sing ‘Amazing Grace’

Dear readers (all 5 of you) this is the last post I will write in this blog. It is as the title of this post suggests, the end of an era. I have now graduated from the greenhouse (KBCTC) and am slowly entering the real world.

I haven’t really posted much in the last few months other than random quotes a couple of pictures and a song or two. The reason is probably a mixture of things. There has almost been too large a backlog to think of writing, I have also been surprisingly busy the time I used to have to blog has disappeared and I don’t know where it went really.

Trip

A couple of months ago we (KBCTC, students and staff) went away to Spain and N.Africa. We were there for two weeks which is not very long really. In that time we had lectures from Roy Godwin who wrote a book which I think is outstanding. Like a lot of things I built Roy up to be this massive deal then found he was just a normal bloke who made himself humble so God could use him. My experience with Roy reminds me a bit of my experience with The Drums.  Last year I was trying very hard to be the coolest kid in town/the world. The Drums were my ticket to success I liked the first single “Let’s Go Surfing” it was nice indie-pop. I also really liked the ep “Summertime” which was also full of great songs. When I heard that the album was coming out late August I was very excited. I needed to let the world know that this was my band and I loved them before they were popular (or something like that). When I bought the album I geeked out for about a week. I then suddenly realised that it was pretty average, it was just the ep rehashed with some new less good songs in between. I was very disappointed and went from recommending them to everyone to feeling almost embarrassed to play them. 

Roy wasn’t this bad but the feeling was there of expectations crashing to reality. In Roy’s book he talks about crazy manifestations of the Holy Spirit like from amazing healings to angelic visitations. He does write that he never asked for it and doesn’t need it and thinks that these manifestations are for those who are weak in faith and need to say “if God can do this then he can fix me”. I was aware of this, I did however expect a bit of madness like just a bit of floor time or something. I was eager, I talked a fair bit with my bio before hand about being unsure of what I wanted; Jesus, or manifestations. I think I wanted God on my terms being manifestations. The climactic point was when we had “Crazy Prayer”. It was written on the agenda like that. Having not had much action I thought this would be a little outlet for me to feel a bit mad. Turned out to be one of the straightest most conservative prayer meetings ever.

This really set me down for the whole of the trip which was a shame. I think life is filled with highs and lows. At this point in my life I am trying to learn to make them a little less extreme. God is really helping me with this.

We had some debriefs whilst we were in Spain. In my first one I shared the way I was feeling and was asking why I must come down from my spiritual highs. I was told to redefine words like “wild”, “crazy”, and “normal”. I was told that what we prayed for was wild and its crazy that prayer works so get with the program. This was great to hear and to help me to zoom out a bit and get some perspective. Its not about me. When I pray I pray for God not for me. I glorify God not get kicks.

Over Easter I really got refreshed by God. A lot of it was just reflecting on my experiences of KBCTC so far. I also got really into Bethel Live’s album “Here is Love”. Over this Term I have continued to listen to it LOADS! It has 752 plays on my last.fm . Over this Term I have also started listening to some of the podcasts out of Bethel. They are really good. On the whole they are quite extreme and black and white but I think its nice to hear it. The impression I get is that they are all totally crazy,  but love God and love his word. I have become a bit of a fan if I’m honest with you. I was really happy when there were some things that I disagreed with them on. I really don’t like Christian Groupies and knew I was in danger of becoming one.

On Trip I thought it would be a chance to pray for the sick and get hands on experience doing practical ministry on the streets. However it didn’t turn out that way. I personally take responsibility for being a lazy bum on trip and not putting myself out there. The trip was more focused on a national/international level rather than an individual level. We prayed for countries to change, we blessed cities, provinces, nations, areas, continents. This is crazy but feels quite plain.

The trip was a time which I didn’t enjoy but was full of things that were very very helpful.

The enemy tries to limit who I am make me 1 dimensional, God wants to expand me and make me big and multi-dimensional. God likes my Pente-Catholicness. I can live in seemingly paradox and God’s cool with that.

Tracks

Tracks was four weeks with a small group from college where we went adventuring around different Missional Communities around the UK.

This was a great chance to see missional communities doing their job in real life not just in books or whiteboards. I learnt a lot during this time some of which I don’t know what to do with but its stored for when I need it.

If I were to summarise what I learnt I would draw some triangles. Seriously the Up, In, Out triangle is out of this world! If you get held accountable to that triangle the world will change. Love God Love Your Neighbour Love Your Family/Friends. Or Eat Pray Love haha.

Missional Communities need to be the two words Missional and Community. Mission, who’s mission God’s not ours. God’s mission is for His kingdom to come on this earth as it is in Heaven. Community, community is a group of people who always have space for one more, who eat together, who live life together even if they live different lives. Communities are a context in which we can carry out God’s mission,

Small enough to care …. large enough to dare

Leaving KBCTC

After Tracks we had two weeks of lectures on “leaving well”. I thought this would just be a chill out time full of socials and prayer. It was this but it was also a time of being realistic and appreciating what we have had and recognising that it was never meant to last but to be a platform to build from.

It’s hard to leave friends. Always. However the way we left college was one of the best ways I have ever left anything in my life. We all cared for each other, we want the best for each other. We spent time together but didn’t deny that we were leaving. 

We spent a week after college hanging out, cleaning, and watching Harry Potter. Most people are going to Transform at the end of the month which meant saying goodbye was more like see you soon. For those who are not going to Transform the goodbye was harder, for some it will be years before we see them again. There are a few who I’m not sure I will ever see again.

Kings Bible College and Training Centre has changed my life.

Seriously. I came in a music elitist who kinda believed in God but that was just one of my faces. Now I leave with faded black skinny jeans and faded hopes of writing for NME. I now love God. I still love music. I am no longer an elitist with my music (unless your playing Katy Perry then I really do object.). My identity is no longer so narrow. I am now on a journey (sorry) that will take the rest of my life, I know the final destination and I think I know the next stop, everything inbetween is one crazy adventure.

So I still quite like Tumblr and as such have created a NEW BLOG which is currently undergoing a identity crisis on account of having a crap name. This will be my blog that I update occassionally from now on with; videos, music, quotes, and random posts.

Thanks for reading

PEACE OUT!

ps.

Things I said I would never own/do before KBCTC which I have/done subsequently at KBCTC

• Buy a Live Christian Worship album
• Learn to play a conventional worship song on the guitar
• Preach
• Enjoy corporate worship
• Become a Christian Groupie (short term)
• Play music live
• Pray for stupid stuff (car rides, shuffled songs etc)
• Enjoy reading Christian books
• Pray until 2AM
• Like whiteboard diagrams
• Get a Girlfriend AHHHH!