So, if you haven't heard already, my time at CAP is coming to an end. CAP announced about a month ago that they are going to go through a time of increasing efficiency so that as they continue to grow bigger over the next four years they are able to continue providing an amazing quality service at a cost that is sustainable! I massively respect the charity for making this decision now to try and increase efficiency in all areas of the charity instead of waiting till they have no money, but unfortunately for myself (and quite a few of the other interns) this leaves me without a job since CAP has decided that a starting point for this is to do no recruitment in September! This sucks, but at least there is a good reason, and I respect CAP for standing strong in what they believe is the right thing to do!
So the last few weeks have been an ongoing job hunt, having been offered some interviews, things are looking hopeful, but still no job as of yet. I am looking for event management, fundraising or anything involving lots of organising! I am hoping to stay in and around the Leeds area due to the possibility of getting involved in a new church plant in West Leeds (new blog post coming soon about that), so would love it if you can pray for my job situation and then accommodation in this area as well.
In terms of CAP stuff, I am currently in a crazy week, organising the final logistics for our Yorkshire Three Peaks sponsored event this weekend which should be very exciting. I will try and update you after the weekend with more info about the event and how its gone, but we are praying for more people to sign up last minute and for weather that isn't raining or too hot!
I was just praying this morning, and was reminded again of the commandment to love our neighbour as we love ourselves. We studied this a couple of weeks ago on our reach intern retreat, and we were given the following quote by John Piper. I just thought I would share it with you.
The commandment to love our neighbour as we love ourselves, is overwhelming because it seems to demand that I tear the skin off my body and wrap it around another person so that I feel that I am that other person; and all the longings that I have for my own safety and health and success and happiness I now feel for that other person as though he were me.
It is an absolutely staggering commandment. If this is what it means, then something unbelievably powerful and earthshaking and reconstructing and overturning and upending will have to happen in our souls. Something supernatural. Something well beyond what self-preserving, self-enhancing, self-exalting, self-esteeming, self-advancing human beings like us can do on our own.
If you are either friends with me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter, then I hope you are aware that I am taking part in a sponsored 24hr table tennis event to raise money for CAP. This is going to be a crazy event where I play to play near enough non-stop table tennis for 24hrs, with short breaks to eat! There will be 8 of us playing doubles over two tables, so it really is going to be mental!
I am hoping to get a live stream of the event up so that you can watch the event as it happens, but I will update you on this nearer the time.
Last weekend I had the opportunity of working at one of our sponsored events. We had organised a sponsored zip slide off the cliffs at Marsden Grotto, South Shields. The day was really exciting with about 65 people taking part in the event. Weather was pretty good, and it was great seeing lots of families enjoying the beach. During the day I had the chance to chat to lots of our supporters which allowed me to inspire them more about the work that we are doing across the country, but also to thank them for their involvement!
There was a small amount of free time at the end, so I was lucky enough to get a go on the zip slide myself. It really was lots of fun. I recorded a very bad video on my phone as I flew down the line from the top of the cliff to the beach, so I thought I'd share that with you. It really isn't the best quality in the world, but I hope you can make some of it out!
OK, so from my previous update, I attended both Spring Harvest and New Word Alive, a combination of conferences that not many people take part in! If you were reading my blog this time last year, then you may remember me posting an article called 'Spring Harvest and New Word Alive - What Happened?' - explaining the split that happened between the two conferences since it wasn't that long ago when they were joined!
So it has been very useful and revealing to continue to study the scripture on these issues, and it was very interesting to see how both of the conferences have changed since they went their separate ways. I don't plan on making this too long an article, and so in not doing so I will probably end up making quite big generalisations so please don't take anything that I write hear too literally, I just want to express my current views on the situation and what I got out of attending both of the weeks.
Firstly, Spring Harvest. The theme this year was 'Different Eyes: Christian Ethics'. The theme itself shows a lot about the heart of Spring Harvest. I was never going to get over excited by the prospect of learning about Ethics from a conference full of different denominations and backgrounds- since Spring Harvest therefore can't really have a stance on a lot of the ethical issues they decided to talk about without causing disagreement. I felt that a large amount of the evening main meetings were very unfocused in terms of the bible study. I would go away from the evening meeting without having learnt much, if anything, from the Bible. For example the first evening, we were studying the first chapter or so of Esther. Esther is a great book, but unfortunately it also can be used to basically preach on whatever you want since it covers so much (not a good thing). This therefore led to a whole talk on human trafficking (an issue which is a huge problem, I don't doubt that at all), but in terms of going away from the meeting having learnt something, that really wasn't the case. I felt more inspired to help stop the traffic instead of learning anything from the bible.
I wouldn't go as far as saying that Spring Harvest has become very liberal in their views since I do still believe that they hold the bible quite high up in their priorities, but their style of preaching and how they show that has changed quite a lot over the last few years. This might be caused by the type of speakers they are now getting. Since the split with Word Alive, quite a few of the people who used to speak at Spring Harvest have decided not to.
New Word Alive on the other hand is totally focused on the bible and holds it at complete authority (a great thing since it is the inspired word of God!) The programme was packed full of bible sessions and teaching. I think I worked out that if you went to everything you could for a day you would sit through 13hours of meetings - that's insane! I did come away from nearly all of the meetings that I attended feeling that I had learnt something, that the teaching was of a very high quality and that they focused and trusted the Bible which was great.
My concern with New Word Alive is their lack of allowing the Spirit to speak to people on an individual basis - there was near enough no mention of this either during worship times or preaching. The worship was much more traditional, often singing older hymns and maybe just one or two songs at a time. I have no problem in singing hymns and older songs, but I really believe that during times of worship we should be connecting with God as we worship and sing praises to him and allowing God to speak to us, renew our passion for him and change us. This was something that I didn't see much of. New Word Alive is great though at making sure that all the songs sung are full of truth and based on God's word. I hope that as New Word Alive continues to grow and change (it is still quite new), that they will be more and more open to the working of the Spirit during the conference.
It really was great to be able to attend both of these conferences allowing me to make personal comparisons and grow in my faith and beliefs even more.
If you are either friends with me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter, then I hope you are aware that I am taking part in a sponsored 24hr table tennis event to raise money for CAP. This is going to be a crazy event where I play to play near enough non-stop table tennis for 24hrs, with short breaks to eat! There will be 8 of us playing doubles over two tables, so it really is going to be mental!