Alpha Course - Week 1

Last night was the first night of the Alpha Course.

Adrian dropped me off at the house in which the course was being held, at around 7.30 pm. I was welcomed by the man of the house, who was incredibly friendly. I was shown into the living room, where the rest of the course members were sitting, and we had a quick chat while dinner was finishing being prepped.

We then ate together (soup, jacket potatoes with salad and various fillings, and trifle, and they were all delicious!) and chatted together, finding out odds and ends about each other. I resisted mentioning CF etc., for as long as possible, and so at this point, all people knew was that I have two kids, a boy and a girl, aged 5 and 7 yrs old.

After we'd all finished our lovely meal, we went back into the living room to get to know each other better. We all had to give each other nicknames, after getting to know each other a little. We all had to introduce ourselves, one at a time, and then we picked names for each other. My introduction went something like this ...

"I'm Rebecca, I'm 29 years old, and I have two kids, Seren and Dylan, who both have cystic fibrosis and asthma, and Seren has hypermobility syndrome, and Dylan is autistic. I also recently joined a folk band, which I sing with, and am going to be playing the tin whistle and clarinet with them too. I love writing, music, and reading, and hate wheat (or rather, what it does to me) and having to go out in the rain."

Everyone introduced themselves, and then the other course members had to choose a nickname for me, one which started with R and they chose Rhythmic Rebecca, because of me being musical. :o) I like it! I don't feel comfortable mentioning the other course members names, but their nickname part of their names are Jeany J, Crafty C, Rehabilitated R, Joyful J, Catty C (a cat lover), Divine D (the course leader) and Bouncing B. :o)

Once we all had our nicknames, we were given this book to use while we work through the Alpha Course ...

The Alpha Course book

And then we watched a DVD of the first Alpha Course session, and afterwards had a chat about how we felt about what we'd seen, and what stage of our Christian journey we're at.

Some said that they had been going to Church for years, but wanted to move forward in their journey with God, others had been through rehab and so had a relationship with God through the step programme (I can't remember if they said 10 or 12 steps, but you know what I mean) but wanted to understand how Jesus fits into that relationship, and to explore Christianity further.

When it came to my turn, I explained that I'd grown up in the Baptist Church, and had LOVED it, but then once the kids came along and were diagnosed with CF, and then I lost my grandfather to cancer, and then my father was diagnosed with cancer that they didn't think they'd be able to cure, my anger obscured my faith.

And when I admitted that my anger at God had escalated to the point where I could still believe in His existence, but couldn't bring myself to be praising him, I burst into tears and couldn't speak any more. I couldn't believe that just speaking about it was affecting me so strongly, and I felt like a bit of an idiot, sitting there with tears literally pouring down my face, but everyone was fine about it.

I recovered a bit, and went on to explain about how Seren and I came to visit the local Baptist Church, and how everything had changed again at that point.

Once we'd told our own stories of what stage we are all at, we were given some more reading material ...

A copy of the New Testament and Psalms, and a booklet called 'Why Jesus?' which covers what was said on the DVD last night

We agreed on the same time next week for Week 2 of the course, when we'll be looking at Jesus again, and we all had another chat over coffee, just getting to know each other.

The family holding the course at their house were kind enough to drop me and one other course member home, which was lovely of them. I got home feeling rather overwhelmed and a little drained after my surprise outpouring of emotion, but I am very much looking forward to going back next week. :o) And of course, going to Church again on Sunday!

God bless.

Seeing Jesus

Seeing Jesus was the theme of this week's Church service, and we kicked the service off in fine style with this fabulous, uplifting hymn. Seren and I both have it on our mp3 players, so we were singing our hearts out!


Shine Jesus Shine

Because the theme of the morning was Seeing Jesus, one lady and her son came up to talk about one way in which they've seen Jesus in their lives. The little boy is profoundly deaf, and was born without cochlears, and there is nothing which can be done to allow him to hear at all, and yet, he recently astounded his speech therapist by being able to say the word 'Hello'!!! His mother showed us a little video of her son saying 'Hello', and oh, when I heard his little voice, I couldn't hold back the tears. As his mother said, it's their own little miracle.

Once the kids had gone through to KatCh, the main service was led by one of the male Church leaders, and again, his sermon focused on 'Seeing Jesus'.

He said that we can see Jesus in the bread and wine of communion, in our daily walk with God, in other Christians around us, and also that Mother Theresa talked about seeing Jesus in the poor.

He then moved on to talk about when people in the Bible saw Jesus, and we read from Matthew 17, when Peter, James and John went up a mountain with Jesus and saw Jesus' 'transfiguration' (to change form), when his face shone like the sun and his clothes were dazzling white. They also saw Jesus talking to Moses and Elijah, and were terrified when they heard God's voice saying that Jesus is His Son, with whom He is pleased. The disciples closed their eyes in fear, but when Jesus told them not to be afraid, they opened their eyes and saw only Jesus.

The verse that he particularly wanted us to focus on was the one where it says that when the disciples looked up, they saw ONLY JESUS. And he said that if we want to follow Jesus effectively, we too need to see ONLY JESUS - we need to have a clear picture of what he's like and what he calls us to do.

The pieces of the puzzle really fell into place for me when he explained that we need to see Jesus as the man who is like us, who knows us and understands us; and we need to see God as God who is unlimited. If God were just like man, He would be limited, no better than us; and if Jesus were just God, He would be too big, immeasurably powerful and great, but too big for us. Jesus bridges the gap between man and God.

Thank you Jesus!

He then talked about just how important it was that the disciples saw ONLY JESUS after He had touched them and told them not to be afraid. He said that if the disciples had looked up and seen nobody, then ... well, they would have just come down the mountain with a story to tell, not knowing whether what they'd seen was real, and not having any proof. It would just have been an experience.

If they had seen only Moses when they'd looked up, they would have been impressed by the great man of history who had seen and spoken to God face to face, a man whose faith was all about what he DID for God. And if they had followed Moses' example, then maybe places, people and activities would seem more important than God Himself. If we focus only on what we do for God, and how we do it, then we are missing the point, we're not getting the whole story.

If they had seen only Elijah, the prophet who was full of power and miracles and prophesies, who challenged tradition, and was happy to be very isolated, on his own, then the disciples wouldn't have had the full truth then either. Elijah stands for truth, but only part of it, he brings the sense of guilt, sin, inadequacy and repentance, but again, that is not enough on its own.

And if the disciples had seen all three of them, Jesus, Moses and Elijah, they would have walked back down the mountain with Moses to teach truth, Elijah to give power, and Jesus to teach compassion, and would have in effect, been trying to bring best of faiths together. But as he said, that wouldn't necessarily work. In the world today, people sometimes try to combine multiple different faiths from around the world and bring them together, but again, that's not the whole truth either.

Which is why the disciples looked up and saw ONLY JESUS. Because in Jesus we see Moses bringing 10 commandments, but Jesus saying that the most important commandment of all is to love God with all our hearts. We see a bit of Elijah, but Elijah's job, as John the Baptist, was to point forwards to Jesus. As he said, once you get to destination, don't need the signposts anymore.

Jesus doesn't need anyone else. He came down the mountain with the disciples as the answer to their fears, and would soon be their Saviour, and give them hope. He was the man who lived with men, who didn't condemn them for failing to live up to God's standards, and brought them love and compassion, showing them that they were sinners but that they could be forgiven. Jesus came down the mountain to everyday life, to die for us.

And as he said, we need Jesus to come down from that mountain to be with us in our everyday lives. We need to focus on Jesus. Jesus has been there and understands, but even better, He understands with power over death and demons. The power to save us.

We then prayed together, and then, before we took communion, we sang this most beautiful hymn, which really hammered home exactly what Jesus did for us.


When I Survey The Wondrous Cross

So when I took communion, I asked Jesus to forgive my sins, and thanked Him for dying on the cross for me. Wow.

As I just wrote that, the words to the first verse of the hymn 'Amazing Love' by Graham Kendrick came back into my mind ...

My Lord, what love is this
That pays so dearly
That I, the guilty one
May go free!

Thank you Jesus!

I'll leave you for now with the Text of the Week from the Church pamphlet:

"Oh god, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory." Psalm 63 v 1-2.

Valentines Sunday's Church Service

The second of my catch-up posts ...

The Valentines Day Church service naturally focused on love, and the service kicked off with a fun sign language style song, based on John 3 v 16 "For God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not die but have eternal life." We sang this verse over and over to music, complete with actions, sort of like the song 'Wide, Wide as the Ocean'. Seren loved it! :o)

We then sang this fabulous hymn ...


His Love Endures Forever

Once the children had gone through to the hall for KatCh, the Reverend spoke to us about 'The Great Commission'.

He was reflecting on Valentines Day and the theme of love, talking about our Church's missionaries, and talking about choosing a new leader for our Church. He combined all these things in the word Heart - God's heart/love for the world, God sending missionaries out to be God's heart in the world, and choosing a new leader to be the heart of our Church.

So we focused on the very heart of the gospel, the love of Jesus, and the world being saved by Jesus' love. As the Reverend said, we are all 'perishers', focusing on our own lives and forgetting God can only end in death, but by focusing on Jesus, by living for Him, we can become 'flourishers', and can live a better life here on Earth, and have eternal life with Him in heaven - the greatest gift EVER.

We then moved on to God's heart for the world, and his Great Commission (Matthew 28 v 16-20). One of the things the Reverend said which really made me think was that God doesn't just love the people of the world, He loves the physical world too, the world which He created, and He wants us to look after it. I had never really made the connection between being 'green' and religion before.

The Great Commission focuses on our role as Christians, that in reward for God being with us always, we should spread His word, and teach people about the gospel, about how they can be saved and have eternal life, and pass on Jesus' teachings about how to live life.

Our Church has missionaries in Brazil, Argentina, Albania and North Eastern India, so we are doing our bit for God's Great Commission, and once a month, the Church gives an update on how everyone is getting on, which is fascinating, and it is so wonderful to see the difference our Church is making. The Reverend talked a little about his time in Mizoram, North Eastern India, as a missionary, which he will share more about in future.

We also need to look to our own town, to sharing the gospel in our own town, being missionaries in our own town, and we need to look to our Church, to making sure that our new leader is after God's heart. Someone who has a heart for God's world, our town, God's word, and God's spirit.

We are all part of God's team here on Earth, charged with our own little parts of the Great Commission, and I guess that by writing this little blog, which according to my site counter, has currently been viewed 737 times, I am helping to spread the gospel and share God's heart too!

I would leave you with this week's Text of the Week, but as I already used it earlier in this post, John 3 v 16, I'll just bid you adieu until my next post about this week's Church service.

Bible Study Group

I went to my first bible study group a couple of weeks ago. It was held in a local Church member's house, on a Tuesday evening. We were focusing on Jesus feeding the 5,000, just like at that previous Sunday's Church service, and there were some really thought-provoking questions.

After a quick introduction to all the other group members (all of whom were quite a lot older than me, but very very nice), we started in on the list of study questions.

The first, an ice-breaker, was to describe in a couple of sentences your most memorable meal or ideal packed lunch. I didn't speak up on this one, but if I had, I was going to talk about my most memorable meal, which is probably our Wedding Breakfast. It was 17th March 2001, at a local hotel, and we and our guests had soup, then roast dinner, and ... I can't remember what was for dessert. Profiteroles, maybe? And my Dad made us a BEAUTIFUL wedding cake.

The second question was: "Can you think of any time when you were short of something (not necessarily food) and God provided for you in a surprising way?"

There were some very varied answers, both food-related and not, and my answer was not food-related. I shared the story of how God brought me back to the Church, totally out of the blue, providing Seren and I with a new Church family. Everyone seemed to enjoy hearing our story, and said that God definitely moves in mysterious ways!

The third question had us comparing the two accounts of the feeding of the 5,000, in Mark 6, and in John 6, which was really interesting. We also had to think about what 'feeding' really meant in that context, and what Jesus gave the crowd other than food. We also had to think about what 'food' we bring, what gifts has God given us, that we can give back to Him. We also had to think about how the feeding of the 5,000 can teach us about responding to famine in the world today.

I found it absolutely fascinating to focus so closely on the Bible story, and to be able to discuss it and interpret it together as part of a group!

After the study session had finished, we had a long prayer session, before having a cup of coffee and a chat. Two of the group members gave me a lift home, as it was 10.30 pm by this point, which was lovely of them!

I was very much looking forward to going back to the study group this week, but now I've joined my friend's folk band, we have to sing every Tuesday night, which clashes with this particular bible group, so I had to miss it. However, there are other study groups held on other days around the town though, so hopefully I can join one of those instead, so that I'm not letting down the folk band, but can still get the bible study group in as well.

Sorry For The Delay!

Sorry for the delay in posting, life has turned manic lately, what with bible study group, Church, rehearsals for the folk group I've just joined, performances with them at folk clubs, practising my tin whistle, caring for the kids, doing schoolwork with them, and trying to keep up with my housework and grab some sleep, blogging has been harder to find the time for.

I am starting the Alpha Course tomorrow (Thursday) evening, and I want to be all caught up ready to blog about that, so I'm hoping to catch up on 3 posts before then, but this post is unrelated to those, I just wanted to post a couple of my favourite hymns.

This first one is more suited to Easter-time, but we're into Lent now, so it's not too far away now. I can remember thinking 'Yuck!' about the first verse the very first time I sang this at Church as a child, but then when the chorus started, I totally fell in love with the song and love to sing it!



This one is another one from when I was growing up, and again, I loved singing it! I couldn't find many videos of this song either, and this was the only one which showed the tune I used to sing it to. It doesn't sing all the verses though, so if you click here, it will show you the full lyrics.



Our God reigns! :o)

Some Great Finds in the Christian Bookshop

When I went into town on Saturday, my first stop was the local Christian book shop. I had some birthday money to spend!!! And, I did want to get something for Marjorie (mother-in-law) too.

I found a lovely holding cross for Marjorie, a cute bible activity book for Seren (which she has barely been able to put down since I gave it to her on Sunday!), a fish pin (I think it's called an Icthus) for my coat, and this REALLY cool phone charm ...

This way round, it's a fish

And this way round, it's a cross!

I love it, and I love having outward symbols of my Christianity on my person. :o)

I took Marjorie's holding cross round to her house that evening, and as it turned out, she'd had a really rough day with Marge. They'd been to the hospital the day before, where the consultant had told Marge as delicately as humanly possible that she has abnormal cells in her blood and bone marrow (ie cancer, leukaemia, but not actually saying the words out loud to frighten her); that her life is now about quality, rather than quantity; that they can't cure her bone marrow 'problem'; and that she will require weekly blood tests on the cancer ward to see if she needs blood transfusions every week, for the rest of her life, which can have some nasty side effects like haemorrhaging.

Friday, when I spoke to Marjorie, they both seemed to be coping quite well, but when the kids went round to visit on Saturday, Marge rang up to say that she had a headache and backache, and didn't feel up to anyone except Marjorie visiting that day. So when Marjorie got home that evening, she looked incredibly drained, and said that Marge was struggling as it was all sinking in.

So she really needed her holding cross that night. The one I bought at the Christian bookshop didn't come with the leaflet like mine did, and so I took my leaflet round to give to Marjorie, and when I gave her the cross, she gripped it so tight, and never once let go of it for the whole time we were there - well over an hour. I hope that it will help her to stay close to Jesus at this time.

Both Marge and Marjorie could use some extra prayers, if you could say one or two for them.

Family Service

The first Sunday of the month is always the Family Service at our church. There's no KatCh group, and everyone stays together for a fun, family friendly service. And today's service was just great!

The main theme was Jesus feeding the five thousand, as seen through the eyes of a female baker called Hulda, who had baked the loaves of bread and had packed them in a lunch box for her son, who was the boy who provided the five loaves and two fish for Jesus to use.

We kicked the service off with some great worship songs, including this one ...


Blessed Is The Name Of The Lord

And then the two service leaders started off the service by giving out a little paper bag to each person with a gift inside, but we weren't allowed to open it yet. They also asked us to provide the sound effects for the story which was about to be acted out. Those sitting on the right side of the church had to 'gobble' quietly, those in the middle had to 'gobble' louder, and those on the left side of the church had to 'gobble' as loud as they could, and then one lady who was particularly talented at burping on demand, had to burp right at the end. And so every time the word gobble/ed/ing was mentioned, we had to do the gobbles, getting louder from right to left, with the burp at the end! Hehe!

And then the story began, and out came Hulda, to be introduced to the congregation. And oh my, Hulda had five o'clock shadow, thick black eyebrows, and a very masculine-looking watch and wedding ring on 'her' left hand! It was just like panto! The 'dame' in question didn't half get into his character though, camping it up and flouncing about in his dress with his handbag on his arm and a bright pink wig, and he had the congregation in stitches!

So, we were told that Hulda was by far the best baker in the whole of Bethseda, and that she made her loaves of bread with a special secret recipe. When she had finished her work for the day, she walked home and hiked up the hill to find Jesus preaching to the five thousand at the top. Another church member was dressed as Jesus, and there were more church members dressed as members of the crowd of people listening to him.

As far as I remember, I think the story then paused for a while, to talk about how baking was Hulda's talent, and that God gives each of us a special talent to use. We all had to think of our talent, and then shout them out all together. Seren shouted out 'Reading', and I shouted out 'Playing the Clarinet'. We were then allowed to open our gift bags, to find a fish symbol drawn on a piece of paper, and a pen, and a piece of flapjack.

We were asked to write our special talent on the fish, put it back in the bag, get up and walk around the church and swap paper bags with everyone, saying "Here is my special talent; God gave it to me, and to thank God, I am giving it to you."

So we did!

When we had all settled back down, we heard/saw the rest of Hulda's story. As was narrated and acted out, Hulda's friends in the crowd around Jesus kept telling her all about this fabulous bread they were eating, that was even better than hers, and she got very upset. She kept asking everyone who had made the bread, and in the end, they told her to ask the boy near Jesus, her own son.

So she found her son (who was acted by a man taller than Hulda the dame!) who told her all about how one of Jesus's disciples had asked him to donate the contents of his lunchbox to the crowd, and that Jesus performed a miracle and turned the bread into enough food to feed all of the hungry people. When Hulda realised that it was in fact her own bread that was so good, she was very happy!

We then sang some more fabulous worship songs, including this one, which is now Seren's new favourite worship song ...


Lord I Lift Your Name On High

After the service was over, we went through to the hall for a hot drink and a chat with various church members, and it was there that I was asked to join the next local House Group meeting! The church has various House Groups spread around the town, and it just so happened that I was speaking to the lady who runs the House Group in my area of town. They meet on a Tuesday night, twice a month, for a bible study session and a chat, and they've invited me to come along to their next meeting, which happens to be this Tuesday coming.

I was a little nervous to say yes at first, because obviously I probably won't know very many people there at first, but God wouldn't have placed the opportunity so firmly in my lap if He didn't want me to take that opportunity; so I said that I'd check with Adrian that he was happy to babysit, and that I was hopeful that I'd be able to attend. Yay!

Things seem to be moving so fast now, what with the Alpha Course starting after half term, and these House Group meetings twice a month, reading my Bible every night before I go to sleep, reading other Christian books, church every Sunday ... God is well and truly taking over my life ... And I love it!

And so does Seren. She is really embracing Christianity like I've never seen her do before, and she's loving every second of it. :o)

I'll leave you with this week's Text of the Week from the church pamphlet, and a prayer request.

"He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust." Psalm 91 v 1-2

And the prayer request is for a teenaged boy named Matthew in our congregation. He has cystic fibrosis and is currently in hospital on IVs, so any prayers for a swift recovery for him would be appreciated.

Thank you xx