Recently in Christian interest Category
I thought I should probably list my new-year resolutions on this blog, so I can kinda be kept accountable.
I always make loads of resoultions, in the hope that I'll actually achieve one or two of them, and there's usually a combinations of serious, spiritual and fun ones. So here goes.
- Read through the bible in 1 year (again)
- Drastically improve my lead (and general) guitar playing!!
- When offered a choice of desserts, always choose the one that comes with custard.
- Develop a habit of going to bed earlier (and maybe even getting up earlier too)
- Read more (especially around the area of spirituality and leadership/management)
- Find new outlets for playing, encouraging & leading worship.
- Socialise (even) more.
- Sell (or rent) our other home in Stoke.
- Try to use the word "one" regularly when referring to myself (just for fun).
And that's it. Simple huh?
Wow, it's really been a long time since I was last here, which means as usual I have so much to report that I'll probably forget half of it by the time I get to the point where I may have considered writing about it, and if that is the case I can only appologise in advance for the small amount of detail that is missing regarding the last month of my life!!
Anyway, what was I saying? I forget... Oh yes...
Aaaarrrggghhh!! I've now officially been waiting over 2 months for my new mobile phone upgrade - that's frustrating enough, not helped by the fact I decided to use Lara's 4yr old phone for a while til it came so I could sell my orange replacement pda phone (the one I lost in France) before it got all scuffed and well used. But now to add insult to injury, I called Orange on Wednesday and amazingly they said they had the phone in stock, it finally got ordered, and I worked from home all day yesterday excitedly waiting to receive it. However, by 4pm I was bored of waiting so I called to get a consignment number in an attempt to track the courier, only to find that (apparently) between being told that it was in stock again, and actually completing the order process, it went BACK OUT OF STOCK!!! Aaaarrggghhhh!! So still no new phone and a very annoyed Jon to-boot.
So, what else has happened - oh, the CYFC exec agreed to buy me a spanky (nearly) new Macbook Pro, with a budget of just £700, and I managed to find one for £650 with a dodgy keyboard but 1yr warranty left so that got replaced for free, leaving me £50 to upgrade to the latest mac OS (leopard, for those of you that care). Owner/Carer and baby are doing fine, don't know the weight, but you get the idea!!
I would have totally written more about that if I wasn't trying to cover a whole month in one blog entry!!! (incuding the ebay purchase of an unsuitable operating system that I then re-auctioned and sold for a huge profit of -£19.00 (yes, that is a minus sign).
I'm gradually running out of beer. I bought a new kit like 2 weeks ago, and just haven't got round to it, so that's not much of a story.
Our new house is small but warm and the outside light finally works after 2 evenings replacing the whole lot and tracing wiring for faults - it turns out, you have to plug it in as well!! (oops) Lara actually made the discovery whilst trying to find somewhere to do the ironing. @What do you think this plug is for?@ she asks all innocently. Eureka!! (notice the strange quote marks... anyone that every changed from PC to Mac should find that quite amusing.)
And I've discovered a new found passion for the guitar - mainly through many nights with lack of an internet connection and seeing young people who can play better than me.
I really should have broken this down into several entries - do let me know if you need any more info on any of these points.
Oh, 2 other things...
Our house still hasn't sold, and now that our 2yr tracker has run out we're paying £200 more per month for a house we don't live in - GREAT!!
And Work at CYFC is going really well - a few interesting teething issues, but nothing that I wasn't expecting.
And thirdly, (for those of you that don't know where number 2 comes in the numeric system) Zak is having an amazing time at school - he gets so many stickers that we've run out of things to stick them to.
Oh, and fourthly, Lara now works part-time for St Matts as Children's worker, and Maisey has started going to nursery (the Maisey thing should really have its own point, but this is quite frankly getting ridiculous)
And I'll stop there.
Ciao people!!
ps. check out the new Cov YFC website - www.covyfc.org
This weekend has been quite stressful in many ways - I have a progressively bad cold, the outlaw is here, and then there's the whole housing/work stuff going on.
So here I am, lying in bed on a Sunday morning watching TV when I'd normally be at church, and they start talking about "Back to Church Sunday" which loads of churches are partaking in this week.
The idea is that churches encourage their congregations to invite a friend to the service on this one Sunday of the year (usually linked to the start of a huge country-wide Alpha course starting.
Anyway, I'm really quite shocked by what the people on this programme had to say about it - all of them claiming to be "non-religious". It seems the general consensus is that this is just a big ploy to raise church funds and get more weddings (i.e. money) back into the church. One guy even suggested that Christians were "trying to take the church outside of the church building, which makes the whole thing pointless". Another presenter suggested that in the future we may even see "Bishops dressed up as batman" to try to raise the church's profile.
I mean, really? A bishop, being normal, even "fun" - heaven forbid!! (lol)
My concern - Is this really what people think about Christians (and the church in general) - that we're all just money grabbing morons?
They also, later in the programme, happened to mention that next week is "national smile week" which they're all really positive about!!
So the moral of Sunday morning TV: Forget Church, just keep smiling!!
EXCELLENT!! (not)
Have you ever heard the story of a guy, trapped on his roof after his whole street gets hit by a major flood - Being a Christian, he prays that God would save him. Some time later a lifeboat comes past, offers to help, and the man replies "no, God's gonna save me!!" Then a helicopter flies by and offers to help, but the guy says the same again, after 4 declined offers of rescue, the guy falls from the roof and drowns. On getting to the pearly gates, The man asks God, "Why didn't you save me?" to which God replies "What do you mean? I sent you a lifeboat, a helicopter....".
So, what does that have to do with anything, I hear you ask...
Well, we've been asking God for a while now to help us with the whole housing thing, and it kinda feels that over the last week or so, we've been offered a lifeboat and now a helicopter.
I can't really say much about the lifeboat, but the helicopter is an offer of a rent-free 2 bedroom house just down the road. It's really quite an unbelievable offer, but still means committing to Rugby for the forseeable future, rather than the planned move to Coventry.
The big question is, is this God trying to help us, or a cunning ploy of the other guy to keep us out of Coventry?
And can we really risk the potential of drowning when I'm still on a 6 month probation period at YFC?
As usual, your thoughts are really appreciated on this one, as we need to make a decision (again) pretty quick smart.
I'll keep you posted!!
On the way back from somewhere (I honestly can't remember where we'd been) last week, Zak started talking to us about Jesus, which obviously we were both quite excited about.
He asked us various questions, about how Jesus could be everywhere and yet we can't see him. I thought we explained it quite well - all about the wind, and how you can't see it, but you can see it's effects in the moving trees etc. And the Zak told us something that we found quite comical...
"But dad, I don't want Jesus to be invisible, cos what if I bump into him and fall over and hurt myself?"
I soooo love listening to our kids trying to explain away the universe in a way that only kids can do. It's amazing to be a part of!!
He asked us various questions, about how Jesus could be everywhere and yet we can't see him. I thought we explained it quite well - all about the wind, and how you can't see it, but you can see it's effects in the moving trees etc. And the Zak told us something that we found quite comical...
"But dad, I don't want Jesus to be invisible, cos what if I bump into him and fall over and hurt myself?"
I soooo love listening to our kids trying to explain away the universe in a way that only kids can do. It's amazing to be a part of!!
I know I don't hear clearly from God all that often, but I never would have said he was "sending me to coventry" before. However, now it seems that He is!!
I had a series of job interviews last week, both with National YFC and for the Director role at Coventry YFC - and bingo, they offered me the Coventry role, so all is very exciting.
I think the vanishing "bandana" trick had a lot to do with it!!
I can honestly say that it's the first interview of all of them that I had a "good feeling" about. Don't ask me what that means, but It's all very exciting and I can see a whole load of potential in the role.
There are obviously still a few questions that we need to work through (not forgetting the couple of other options that we can't talk about), but at this stage, the Cov role is ticking nearly all our boxes and the idea of being back in (or near) Rugby also makes moving again far more bearable.
Watch this space for more info as it arises!!
And please do keep praying for us - we still need to sell our house - whatever!!
For those of you who are interested, our lives are even more confused now that 2 weeks ago.
and here's why...
- I still know that my time @ NSYFC is coming to an end
- I've applied for 4 other roles
- I've got 4 interviews!!
- 3 of them are within 48hrs of each other this week!!
- They all have good & bad bits!!
- God's definitive voice has not yet spoken on the matter!!
Here's the detail (prepare for an essay)...
I have an interview for a role in Bromsgrove (near Birmingham) working as a "Church Community Worker", which basically means that I'd be living in a house provided by the local church on an estate and working to forge relationships with the local community with the aim of sharing the love of God in practical ways. All very exciting, and closer to my family in Birmingham, so that's good too. I'm still not sure how "rough" the estate is, and have a few concerns about our kids (obviously) and how it would be for them if we're surrounded by vulnerable people for a lot of the time. However, the job does excite (and scare) me. The interviews for that role are next Wednesday evening and 10am on Thursday morning with a panel (including the Arch Deacon of Dudley).
I've also got an interview for the role of "Director of Coventry YFC". This is another one of those roles that excites and scares me. All YFC centres have their issues and having worked closely with several YFC centre directors I think it's fair to say that it's no 9-5 role. And I know Coventry's a big place which probably means spreading yourself very thinly between lots of churches, or working closely with just a few and going from there. It's also good that Coventry is right between my family in Birmingham and our good friends in Rugby. That interview is early on Saturday morning.
And I have been invited for an interview with National YFC in Halesowen for a role that fits my gifts and experience well, and doesn't even have a job spec yet. I'm really excited by this role - partly cos I love the idea of staying connected to YFC, partly because it's 5 minutes from all my family, and partly because it's in an area of work I know fairly well now. However, the down side is that I'd need to raise 50% of my salary myself, and I have, let's say, limited idea how I'd do that. The other thing is, that that interview's on Thursday too, which makes life kinda busy. And I wouldn't be allowed (I think) to start until I'd raised the financial support, so how do you accept that job and not the others without any certainty of a start date?
The other interview is at Beverley Minster, which looks like an amazing church, but it's a long way from our friends and family, and the interviews aren't until July, so no panic on that one yet. It's good though that they shorlisted me, seeing as I didn't apply til after the closing date.
Oh, and there's also possibly another role in the pipeline, but I have no idea how much I'm allowed to say about that as at present it's anything but a done deal, so watch this space.
Anyway, as you can see, I have an interesting week ahead, and not a lot of sleep to look forward to.
Do I just take the first thing I'm offered?
Do I risk the National YFC role even without the security of finance (that'd be a real "God" thing)?
Should the location thing be an issue when I always say that God calls us to purposes before places?
Any wise thoughts (or just loads of prayer) would be much appreciated.
It's been a while, but I'm back, and this time I'm slightly baffled!!
For those of you that don't know, after spending the last few months working through various issues of Leadership and Life-Planning I decided it may be time to move on from NSYFC so started looking at (and applying for) various youth-type roles. As yet, I still remain unconvinced whether my future is in church based youth ministry, a YFC centre based role, or something completely different - all I do know is that I need to work that out within the next 2 months.
Having had several long conversations with Liz at NSYFC, I can now officially tell you that I leave my role at NSYFC at the end of August this year. What that means in the short term is that we need to work on selling our house (there aren't many youth worker roles around in Stoke at the mo) and looking to God and the jobs pages for ideas regarding our futures.
One thing I know for sure, is that God has big plans for our futures and I'm actually really excited about the possibilities that lie ahead. Believe it or not, this is a very positive situation to be in. I just kinda wish I knew what God's plans were NOW (but apparently he doesn't often work like that).
Anyway, keep praying for us as we work out what's next on the journey, and if you feel the need to don a paint brush and work overalls for a few hours at any point, you know where we live.
Ciao for now dudes (and dudettes)
You may have noticed that my last post was sightly different to many of my recent entries.
The reason for this - I have just been well and truly challenged by reading a blog of a friend and former colleague.
I originally set this blog up as a way of musing over the God stuff of my life, and yet somehow it's become far more of a "Mills family update" blog.
I really don't know when (or how) this happened, and my fear is that many of the people who check these pages regularly may lose interest if it suddenly becomes super spiritual.
I guess what I'm trying to say, is that God is still alive and active in my daily life (more-so than ever) and maybe I need to start using this space to capture more of the heart of God in my days than the practical stuff of life - or maybe a healthy(er) balance would be the best move.
The fact is, that I do need to start keeping more of a spiritual journal - the real question is, should that be something I keep for myself (ie. in a paper journal) or should I post it all on the web for others to muse over (and even challenge me on)?
It'd be really great to get you're thoughts on this - would you lose interest if it became a bit more of a spiritual musings blog (like the previous post), or would that even maybe encourage you to read and even be inspired?
I know that loads of you that read this blog have never commented - so this is your big chance - go on, you know you want to!!
Stick or Twist?
Have you ever had one of those weeks when everything seems to take much longer and is far more complicated than it really should have been?
Ever since the first rays of summer sunshine a week or so ago, I've been desperate to get out into our garden and "chillax" with a decent pair of sunglasses and a glass of something cold golden and bubbly. The trouble is, that we've had ongoing problems with our back door - it just won't shut!!
First off, there was a problem with the door frame - somehow it was too big for the door to fit in, so I filed it down and bingo, the door would close, but within a few days the door handle mechanism broke in the open position, so the door would only stay closed if we locked it.
So last Saturday, I decide to go get a new lock for the door, so we can finally have a back door that shuts properly. What I hadn't considered, was that it would take me a WHOLE DAY just to adjust the door frame for the new lock. So I spent the whole of a glorious Saturday, half in, and half out of our house, chiseling wood from our doorframe, and eventually, just as the sun was setting I finally got the door to shut properly.
Anyway, Late on Tuesday afternoon (i had been working from home as the office was too cold?), I decide to go into the garden to relax, and as I go outside I remember that I need to replace a piece of rotten wood on the doorframe, so I spend an hour or so fixing & painting that, decide it's to late to go and sit in the garden and go back inside - only to find... the flippin door won't shut cos the frame has somehow stretched again!! I DON'T BELIEVE IT!!
So, what's this got to do with the title of this entry?
Well, I decided to go to our church's prayer meeting on Tuesday evening. And as I walked into the building, what was up on the screens - Revelation 4v1 -
"After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, "Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this."
(obviously, Revelation 3v8 - "see, I have placed before you an open door which no-one can shut" would have been even cooler, but the imagery was still there.)
- I then get a text from Lara to say she's got an interview for a children's worker role in Birmingham, and it hits me like a lead balloon -
God places open doors before me all the time. The trouble is, it really easy for us to not notice what's on the other side of the door, but rather notice that there's a door that needs fixing!!
God, I ask that you would open my eyes to the open doors that you place before me. That I wouldn't get so focused on fixing the door that I miss out on the things that your about in me.
You ROCK!!
(ps. I get it now!! Please don't mess our back door up again!!)
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