Nothing like a few choice words to attempt to kill that Monday ministry buzz.

Some 2 dozen local children stormed our 8 day old kids’ ministry last week.  This was it!  We had moved venues from an industrial district to this residential area of Craigavon so we could reach and minister to these hurting families.

Then when I encountered a local government youth worker on Monday, she did her best to burst my ministry buzzing bubble.  She proceeded to tell me this pack of children go from group to group taking a anything they can get. 

And the buzzkill almost worked….until I responded to her  “That’s so awesome…cause we’re only here to give to them.”

When I mentioned our intention to reach “At Risk Youth” to a City Council member recently, he said to me, “At Risk?  These kids are In-Risk, half of them ARE the risk.”

Someone once told me having a child is the most awesome and awful thing in the world all at once.  The best of times and the worst of times.  Ministry is so similar.  To help the hurting, we will experience hurt.  To heal the broken, we will touch sickness.  To find the lost, we will reach into darkness.  It’s all worth the risk to see what Jesus does firsthand.

Still Buzzin!

-John

After a season of searching our options, this facility clearly was a godsend.  The Hub has Sunday morning and Sunday night booking availability, is a centre for Craigavon, and is a top notch facility.  It is found 1 roundabout up from the Rushmere Mall, and is walking distance from at least 19 estates and developments in Craigavon.

The Hub has excellent rooms for children’s ministry, an ultra modern lobby, meetings rooms for groups and teams, 2 kitchens for food service, and an acoustically designed main hall that seats 300 people.

I’m most proud of our leaders viewing this not only as a more functional facility, but also as an outreach opportunity to reach more families searching for a life-giving, non denominational church in the area.  Our current location at the Seagoe is in an industrial area, and the Hub is in a recreational and residential area.  The Craigavon Leisure Centre is on the same property, where hundreds of local families enjoy sport, swimming, and community events.  2 local schools are adjacent to the property with thousands of teenagers in attendance.  The Hub itself has a uniting theme, as it is replacing 3 older community centres in nearby distinct communities.  As a non denominational, multi-ethnic ministry, it’s our honour to be a part of seeing a new chapter move forward in our city.

The 28th of August was a LIFE changing day for me.. it was a day I thought would NEVER come. I got BAPTISED!

A missed christening and struggles…

For years I had went through life having no faith, no foundation, when I hit rock bottom..I just kept going down. I struggled through my teens confusing the idea of right and wrong. I saw people who had faith and I was jealous of them but I couldnt connect with them on that level, dispite them being close friends of mine in school. I always had questions but wasnt willing to accept the answers. Which I think is a hang-up of most non-believers.

I had always asked my mum and dad what they thought, they told me that God is inside you and you dont have to go to church if you dont want to, you just need to be a good person. I dont think this was bad advice from parents who didnt go to church themselves. The encouraged me to be a better person. It was around then I found out I was the only sibling not christened as a child. This stuck with me for years! Why wasnt I christened?! My mum and dad told me I could always be baptised if I wanted to, but to me this wasnt possible as I didnt go to church and found the idea of church hard to warm to.

A friend’s  wedding that changed me forever…

I cleaned up my act over the next while, determined to be a better person with or without church. It was during this part of my life I was at a wedding (earlier this year) and met on old friend, Ashleigh Ballentine, Ashleigh planted the celebration seed and I was going to church for the first time the next week! I loved it! Its young, current and real! I never knew church could be so fun and friendly!

I still had many questions. I asked a few here and there and was always encouraged to seek God through prayer and devos. I started attending group devos and couldnt get enough of them, reading God’s word and applying it to my life, LIVING it, gave me more strength than I had imagined possible. I was hooked, I AM hooked. The questions I had in the past I realised, werent questions but problems and voices trying to stop me leading a God first life. When I was saved these went away and now… I simply have faith.. and it is enough.

And then a baptism I’ll never forget…

I serve in the church, I love to serve God and getting baptised was a MASSIVE and exhilerating step for me- and chance to make it public! With my family, friends and God as my witnesses I got baptised. That will be the day that I will always remember.

I want to give everyone the opportunity I had and I want to encourage anyone who is finding it difficult to keep at it, it doesnt come overnight to everybody, it took time with me but I got there… I’m here right now so come and join me!

For me, Celebration Church has meant….a complete life change. Before I never thought of even having God in my life and that I could just face each day as it came. I depended on my family and friends to correct my mistakes. Celebration Church opened my heart to who our amazing God was and it wasn’t for people who just wanted to “be good living”.  Pastor Stovall Weems spoke on God’s plan for us, why he gave us a plan and about trusting in God, this spoke volumes.

God has taken ground in my life….by providing more than I could ever wish for. God has shown me a career direction that I never thought was for me but now working with 16-17 year olds makes me excited that I am providing them with learning that could be the foundation for their future career.  With everything else I can wait for the right time for God to supply everything and everyone else for my life.

God is taking ground here (in N.Ireland) too….Massively!!! Celebration Church is a wonderful thing for Northern Ireland’s society, youth and communities. God is taking ground here to reach out to the lost, for us to reach to the lost. Celebration Church is so exciting as it grows, it allows people to come and worship  God in a fun way, to hear God’s amazing word through energetic and real/relevant pastors so that we can shine God through our lives.

As part of groundbreaking month, here’s a guest blog from CCNI Launch Lead Team member Andy Uprichard….

For me Celebration Church has meant a total life change from the inside out. God has used men from his church to pour into my life and show me how to lead a God first life. Looking back to this time ONE year ago, the change has been massive. I want to be part of a church that is going to continue to do this in many lives, for years to come.

To me, this ground breaking is about reaching out into our local communities. Local communities to me are the people who not only live where i do, but work where i do, spend time where i do, people who i come into contact with. I  want to see break throughs in their lives and give God the glory for it. I want to reach the unreached.

God is taking ground here too. Being a member of Celebration Church and watching it take ground in NI has been great. The numbers our church is reaching has increased immensely within the past year or so and this is still the beginning! God is continuing to open doors for our church to move into and is changing the lives of many as we go. Its my prayer that God continues to push us forward and that we can play our part in turning this country around.

I have a Stake in this, and it has a name.

Even though I’m in the UK,  you could say I have many stakes in Celebration Church’s August groundbreaking, but the one closest to my heart has my daughter Anikah’s name on it.  When Rachel and I got married, we prayed to find a church where our family could experience God in a relevant and exciting way more than once a year.  We found that with Celebration.    We want our daughter to grow up in a place where it’s normal to have a real, relevant, and enjoyable service every single week…and that she do life alongside a generation of worldchangers that will call her to a cause so much bigger than herself.

To me, this groundbreaking is about….

… a Generational Legacy.  Long after we’re gone, her generation will have propelled massive initiatives and work that brings glory to God.  Groundbreaking at any of our facilities means more people reached, and more influence upon the world around us.

God is taking ground here too…

Celebration in Northern Ireland is greatly affected by the momentum in our other global campuses.  The prayers for and favor in our church has put wind in our sails here, as God has expedited relationships and contacts in the community here.  Just this month, doors have opened for us to make a real impact in the Brownlow community, an area with some of the oldest sectarian rifts and most intense hurts in our country.  Pray that the ‘fallow ground’ breaks up in our city!

In 010, I hosted Sam and his wife when they came to FL for our women’s conference.  The picture above was taken as we found a momentary escape with Pastors Darren Sullivan and Josh Quietsch…we soaked up a man movie of Robin Hood!  Epic time!

Later in the year,  I flew to England to see Sam and his family, then took him with me to Belfast to Celebration Ireland for 4 days.  We worked with our leaders there, and he brought valuable insight and support in developing some vital partnerships for us.

 In the midst of it, he made every person he encountered…great and smal… feel important, loved, and value.  Here he is with 1 of our Irish Leaders: Timmy Vennard.

Sam doesn’t have a twitterfeed or personal blog on trends, leadership, coolness, or popular culture.  Heck, He barely ever checks facebook.  Yet I’ve never met anyone under 40 who’s done so much for the kingdom with such character and vintage sincerity.   In our generation of fads and phases, fanpages and followings….he’s a person I emulate, admire, and am incredibly thankful to call a friend.

Thank you Sam for being you…for loving thousands of the ‘least of these’, and for being a true once in a lifetime friend and role model to me.

-bigJohn

I’m so glad John Sowers has brought his voice into the culture and beckoned a generation to bring life back into those millions of souls.   The conversation on manhood the past 18  or so years in christendom has been dominated by living up to basic “1st mile” responsibilities to your own wife, kids, and church.   This has been both noble and helpful, but somehow incomplete, or maybe better said, unfinished by a long shot.

Omniabsence
Even while many men walked that first mile well, Don Miller (the author who wrote a heart moving foreword for this book) became a voice in the wilderness and jumpstarted a conversation of fatherlessness around the “churchy” table.   John offers an all important voice on this growing conversation: the grassroots real voices of the kids both young and old walking their miles alone. I find the book does a great job of putting us in those shoes. For those of us who already walk in those shoes, he lets us know why our feet ache and how this fatherly omniabsence has “formed a callousness” in us we don’t quite understand because we’ve never known differently.

Voices of a generation
The first half of the book is John taking out his earbuds and letting us in on what he’s been listening to.  In this plugged in/blaring out 21st century world, he took time to listen to the voices of the fatherless through social media. Before you think some quoted social mediums are archaic, do recall that this conversation was on AOL, blogs and myspace in the early-mid 2000′s before twitter, facebook, and others gained their mainstream momentum. While the book is not statistic laden or politically driven, it gives a disinctly broad and human voice to the reality of this generation’s heartcry: “We are a generation that desperately wants to be found, a generation that desperately wants to be home.”

Becoming part of the story
The second half gives practical language, principles, and action steps to “Redeeming the story”. The author gives real life example and traction to walking a 2nd mile faith around the track of life as a mentor to the fatherless.

Interweaving stories of his own life with scripture and conversations with other Christian leaders, Sowers leads the reader to see that mentoring is not only needed, but that it’s doable.  He cites several instances from his own life, along with keys to being an effective mentor.

Again, it isn’t the end of the converstion. If anything, this second half not only warrants a follow up volume by the author himself, but realistically it’s this call to action that will produce thousands of follow up stories by the lives touched by the actions of the ongoing, real time arm of this book… Sowers non profit organization “The Mentoring Project”, which has a goal to train 10,000 mentors in 1,000 churches nationwide. 

Buy It, Gift It, Read It, Repeat
I’ve bought this book for my leaders, youth workers, and also friends who still struggle with this issue in adulthood.  I recommend it for similar people in your life: pastors, leaders, potential mentors, and friends.  Regardless, become part of the story.

Few people view groups of at risk youth as an army.  Mostly they’re viewed as victims. 

While watching Ridley Scott’s ‘Robin Hood’ Director’s Cut, my jaw dropped as Robin (aka Robert) happened upon the fatherless kids, the runaways in Sherwood Forest.  Kids who had been stealing and terrorizing the elderly and women see the desperate need for what it means to have guidance from a mentor.  here’s the scipt of the 1:30 scene, thanks to movie-censorship.com for their compilation of the all the scenes/dialogue.  Robin is confronting Loop, the leader of the boys.  the quotes are priceless. 

 I believe the scene speaks for itself- Just as their arrows were crooked and bows were weak; the boys were destined to not fly far or last long without someone to show them how to become men.    

 It looks like the cutting room left out this key foundational backstory of mentoring and its importance to the developing story in the franchise.  Regardless, those who have seen the film realize the ending and franchise direction will be Robin taking these bandit boys, giving them a cause to live for, and seeing them become his merry men.  At that point, the boys will being to know who to fight and why.

Desmond’s faith in others and his destiny doesnt come from his strength, it flows from his weakness.  A defining moment of Desmond’s life happened when someone said to him, “you will never be a great man.”

“What you’re not is worthy of drinking my whiskey…how could you ever be worthy of my daughter?”

Widmore’s voice is that voice in my head that tells me I’m no one and will amount to nothing.  Regardless of achievement, this voice will always find something I havent accomplished.  Regardless of success, it will whisper to me somewhere I have failed.  No matter who I become, it will point at someone “who’s become more” to show me I don’t measure up. 

This voice is a lie.  There is another life Brotha.

We can go through our mundane monotony, believing the lies about who we really are.  Desmond leaves this moment, and out in the street realizes he’s not that weak man Widmore saw.  He spends the next years reminding people of their true identity-that they have a part to play so much larger than the lies they’ve believed. 

It’s people like Des who have kept me alive.  People who see in me what I don’t have the strength to believe myself.  You want to talk about leadership?   A leader is one who who cares enough to wake us from the nightmare of living suffocated by the lies we’ve believed about ourselves.   People who change our world see something in us maybe no one else sees…. and they help us see it and believe it ourselves.  

Don’t just settle for listening to the right voices…. BE the right voice for others.  If you and I have been lied to this much…imagine what others have believed.  They need a new lease on life–life lived under the truth.

Being the right voice gives a person a whole new life.  This is how we can say as Des does so simply…

“See you in another life, brotha”