…or as its better known : “The Jedi’s Prayer”
Archives For Prayer
“Father God, I realise that You have set an appointed time for everything, and I may not necessarily know when it will come or how it will happen. I choose to remain expectant & trust that You will bring my breakthrough no matter how long it takes. Amen”
Picking up the collection of “A” words…
Agape: A fancy word for a type of Love, which you may have only heard about if you’ve sat through one of those talks on Love. Whilst checking my spelling for this, I was also reminded that Agape is also the name of a charity that is, “dedicated to addressing the spiritual needs of the UK by helping people to see, hear, understand and be forever changed by the person and claims of Jesus.
Check out www.agape.org.uk for further information of the agape organisation.
Alpha: A happiness course ran by Churches around the world, with the aim of increasing the size of peoples smiles.
Amen: Normally a signal of agreement to a request just uttered. Can also be heard shouted out across a congregation during a particularly exciting sermon.
Angel: I cant help but think that the whole subject of Angels is a bit of a weird one for the church. I guess PR wise, I cant help but wonder if we’re not really sure how to sell Angels. Are angels really just a heavenly choir, that worship leaders tweet about? Are they cute girlies in the Christmas play? Are they guys with a gentle Irish accent? What if Angels went to an Alpha course? Are they big beasties of light with multiple faces, and massive wings?
Some people would say, that they just turn up randomly to help out in times of need, just to disappear later.
Or are angels real people, like the marathon runners that finished the race in Boston, just to run to give blood at the hospital?
The firemen that were caught up with the explosion in Texes
I cant help but think that my angel was the Scottish registrar who took the time to reassure me that our daughter was doing well, two hours after she was transferred to Neonatal.
Whatever they are, I hope they do more then sing.
Are we clear about the prayers we make? Homer possibly isn’t…
Love the prayer from David that is found in Psalm 51, that the above is based on.
Read Psalm 51.
Would you like to see more teaching on relationships, and how to pray for your relationships in Church?
Saturday 20th saw The Christian New Media Conference 2012 take place in London, now the great thing about it was that the amount of tweets that took place about the event using the #cnmac12 hashtag meant that if needed, people could attend the event… via twitter. Quite odd, not ideal, but still quite good fun and almost educational.
As I shared three lessons I took away from the conference last year, I decided to have a go at sharing a few ponderings and questions that stood out to me after attending #cnmac12 via Twitter, using some tweets that stood out.
1) Who are you. What do you represent?
The image of God online is important because of the incarnation #cnmac12 God painted a picture of who he is in Jesus so we can too.
— Bryony Taylor (@vahva) October 20, 2012
#cnmac12 Twitter isn’t just for tweeting CS Lewis quotes, it’s for telling stories & being vulnerable.
— Phil Maylor (@Maylor) October 20, 2012
We must connect with pple through our vulnerability. Pple have longings to connect not with abstract principles but with the heart #cnmac12
— New Hope (@NewHopeBradford) October 20, 2012
If Jesus painted an image of God, so we can as well; what sort of image do we paint? Do our Twitter / Facebook streams look like one long collection of inspirational Nicky Gumbel / CS Lewis moments, or do we take a chance and share when we’re vulnerable? What if we over share when we’re vulnerable? I’m sure we’ve all seen those Facebook status’ that make it obvious that the person who wrote it is upset – but they dont want to say why…
Is there a happy medium between sharing the highs and lows of life, without coming across as either boastful, or that you’re just looking for attention?
2) The Future of Media.
#cnmac12 Who last had a news story broken to them by the TV or a paper? #showofhands
— Richard Shearwood (@mistersaxon) October 20, 2012
#cnmac12 socialmedia is dead as a unique space. Going forward all media has to be social. how does that influence ur church/charity website?
— Andy Burns (@andyburns1974) October 20, 2012
Well I’m sure there have been news stories that I’ve heard about via newspapers / TV reports first… But I’m fairly sure I’ve heard about all the interesting stories via Twitter first. Is the online world really starting to influence the world of printed / on screen media? The tale of George Osborne and the Standard Class ticket was first told via Twitter before the news was available via other means. In her talk on “Has twitter made it ok to pray?“, Bryony Taylor suggests that the printed media now follows what happens first on digital media, with the observation that without Twitter, the headline “God is in control” would never have appeared in The Sun.
What does it mean for the humble church notice sheet if digital media is leading printed media?
3) Who Do We Talk To?
#cnmac12 connect with the excluded: social media breaking us out of the Christian ghetto? #reach
— elimREACH (@elimREACH) October 20, 2012
Does anyone use the “nearby” search on Twitter to see who they can connect with in real life? #cnmac12
— Graham Crosbie (@grahamcrosbie) October 20, 2012
Do we stay within a Christian bubble online? Do we talk to people in our local neighborhood? If you’re on either Twitter or Google Plus, try out the “nearby” function, if nothing else you may end up finding a great way to get local news.
4) You Are Not Alone.
#cnmac12 ‘we read to know we’re not alone’ – yes! This!
— Claire Ashurst (@ClaireAshurst) October 20, 2012
#cnmac12 I always love the freedom to tweet at these conferences! Sermon tweeting sometimes gains me glares in church!
— Helen Nicholls (@Hels_Bels_1) October 20, 2012
We read stories to remember we’re not alone in the world.
We read tweets and go on Facebook to connect to people.
And I guess, conferences like this are important in case you’re the lone webmaster / facebooker / creative type / tweeter in your church. Just remember: You are not alone.
5) Pickles.
Why?
This post originally appeared on The Big Bible Website