Looking back over the years since that happens, I am aware that, along with the ‘physical’ changes in my life – children, houses, jobs, etc – there have been a number of spiritual changes to contend with. While much of the church have been steeping themselves in the teaching from Bethel Church in Redding, California, I’ve mostly been drawing on the wisdom of Mark Driscoll, and through him John Piper, Tim Keller, and a few others. All of which has made the decision to move back into leadership a lot harder – my view of leadership has been challenged by rereading the passages in Titus and Timothy that identify the quality of a leader. The call to be “above reproach” is a scary, but valid, one; I’m pretty sure that I fail that one on a regular basis. Equally, the call to lead my family in a way that indicates that I am “fit for purpose” is something that I think about most days as I look to be a not just a good, but a godly father to Mira and Jamie, and a godly husband to Heather.

I am reminded of a bit from the end of the film Prince Caspian where Aslan calls on Caspian to rise as a King of Narnia, and Caspian says “I do not think I am ready” and Aslan replies “It is for that very reason that I know you are.” I am not sure I am necessarily ready for the rigours of leadership based on the criteria of the New Testament, but I do know that I want to do my best. I’ve been at Whiteinch for as long as I have because I believe in it and the work that it does. It’s not perfect, but that shouldn’t stop us from trying to make it so. It is an honour and a pleasure to be able to serve in this way.

mrBen

1. I’ve lived in Glasgow for 14 years now. This is the first time I will have lived outside the Scotstoun/Whiteinch area (1 year in Scotstoun, 13 years in 5 flats in Whiteinch). It may only be 2.6 miles (as the Google drives) from our current flat, but it feels like a lot further when you’ve lived in flats all with a mile radius of each other.

2. Although 2.6 miles isn’t all that far, it’s not reasonably walkable, especially with small children. (Not impossible, I grant you, but not ideal). But most of our friends, and most of the things we go to, are still in Whiteinch. This will probably mean that the bike will get more usage for going to meetings and the like.

3. We’ve been married 11 years, and we’ve spent 5 of them in this flat.

4. Both our children were born while we were living in this flat.

5. We’ve not had a window in the bathroom for the last 10 years! (Nobody seems to understand how significant this is….)

6. Lastly, and, I suspect, most importantly, this is very much an investment in a number of ways. We’re obviously investing financially, and this will require a certain amount of rejuggling. Also, though, we’re investing in our future and the future of our children – we don’t expect to be moving again (God willing) for a number of years, and so this house will be the house that our kids grow up in, and probably the one they will remember the most. And we’re investing spiritually in both our ministries – looking to make more space for hospitality for starters, but also a better living space for us to live and work in. With Heather’s work with Source kicking off, things for her (and consequently for the rest of us) could well be changing significantly in the next few months.

So – looking forward to it, but with a certain awareness of changing times. House warming party will follow At Some Point (TM)…

mrBen

Sadly, the code is probably not something that many people are interested in, but I was interested and that’s enough for me

Whetstone is a small application to help you memorise verses of scripture over a period of time. Currently it only runs on Linux, although the Windows version is around the corner. Testers are welcomed

mrBen

After a certain amount of internal debate, I chose a rough compromise – I would have 2 blogs, but I would post regular summaries of links here to posts on the other site. This has the additional benefit that the other site will likely contain posts from multiple people involved with the project over time.

And so, at long last, I am pleased to officially announce (meaning it happened a while back, but I didn’t get around to posting before) the life`boat project. If you want to read the posts regularly, you’ll find them there, otherwise there will be summaries here every now and then when I remember (I hope to get something automagic, but haven’t found a plugin to my liking at the moment).

Summary of all previous posts from life`boat:
First post (7th July)
Ships and the sea (17th July)
Back from CLAN (26th July)
Tasks for the next couple of months (4th August)
More from CLAN (10th August)
Influences (Part 1) (13th August)
Brief Update (6th September)
Influences (Part 2) (15th September)
Influences (Part 3) (23rd September)
Balancing Act (30th September)

Comments, as ever, welcomed, although I realise this won’t be everyones cup of tea

mrBen

There were only 7 completed responses to the survey, and the results go something like this:

Background:
5 Female, 2 Male; 6 UK, 1 US; 6 Christians, 1 agnostic (nominally marked as Christian, but neutral in belief in God and neutral in following their prescribed set of beliefs). All but one prayed for more than 25 of the 40 (the one being one of the Christians, not the agnostic)

Prayer:
There was a spread between the different options for what to pray for. The Christians believed that God would answer (although one was unsure it would happen in this timescale). The Christians all felt they had an answer, although only one thought it was “complete”. The agnostic gave it a -1, so not a complete opposite, but worse than a no answer. Interestingly, the number of times people prayed did not seem to have much effect – the person who prayed the least seemed to have one of the more answered prayers.

Changes:
The Christians had no change in their belief in God, but a little more faith in prayer. The agnostic had less faith in God, and less faith in prayer. The Christians would definitely keep praying, whereas the agnostic stayed neutral.

I’ll leave the rest of you to formulate your own opinions on this, as you probably would anyway. Thanks to those who took part (especially those who filled out the survey).

mrBen

mrBen

If you took part, head on over to the survey to fill out your responses. Any problems or questions, please don’t hesitate to mail me – mrben -at- jedimoose -dot- org

I know some folks have got a bit of time left to wait on their answers or lack thereof, so I won’t be publishing the results until around the end of May.

mrBen

“Faith is something we have to embrace. Faith in God mean believing absolutely in something with no proof whatsoever. Faith in humanity means believing absolutely in something which has a huge amount of proof to the contrary. We are the true believers!”

Discuss……

My friend Innes put a huge amount of effort into designing the site – everything that looks pretty is down to him. Everything that looks a bit clunky is down to my implementation of his design

It’s built on (badly written) Django, and there are still loads of ideas and plans in my head on what else to implement. But hopefully it’s now a little bit better than the one-page excuse for a site that’s been up since 2007.

mrBen

1. What are you praying for? Well – apart from praying that everyone elses prayers would be answered, I’m praying for a guy I know who’s partner was recently taken ill.
2. Don’t clauses 1 and 8 contradict themselves? No. Clause 8 only requires you to invoke the name of Jesus, not to actually believe. It’s there as a control point for the end results – rather than people coming back and say that they’ve been praying to Allah or Vishna or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
3. How should I pray? It doesn’t really matter all that much. You can be as formal or informal as you like. If it helps, just make it conversational. Other people prefer something more structured, like “Jesus, please will you [insert prayer here]. Amen”. There isn’t a “magic” formula, so do what makes you feel comfortable. Avoiding blasphemy might be nice, but I find God is a lot more forgiving about that kind of thing than a lot of people

mrBen