Six on Sunday

As I sit here listening to the sound of little J snoring over the baby monitor, I'm enjoying a rare moment of peace and chance to reflect on things that have inspired me or made me smile this week. In honour of my friend Lizzie's 5 on Friday, here's my 6 on Sunday:

1. We've just started getting into Geocaching. Armed with a hand-held GPS and a bunch of clues we went off in search of hidden treasure. It made our trip to the local park more exciting and it was great finding things we must have walked past many times without realising.

2. We've finally started doing family Bible time and it's going pretty well. We've been using some great material written by a friend of ours that you can get free online here (or even better buy a copy and support our dear friend, Glen). It's short enough to fit in before I rush off to work but it's meatier than most and very Christ focused.

3. Thanks to my new chores rota, I've actually found a better balance in life and had chance to sit and read articles and play on pinterest. I just found this great article that beautifully describes what it's like to be a stay at home parent, as well as giving tips on how to make more meaningful connections with our loved ones.

4. Even on the rainy days we've tried to get little J out of the house. Earlier this week we only made it as far as the cafe at the end of the street but what a great place! Comfy sofas, long communal tables that force us to be un-British and talk to strangers and the cheapest pot of Earl Grey in town. Add to that daily specials, friendly service, books/newspapers to read and cute little touches like jars of sugar cubes with mini tongs and you've got a winner of a place to while away a rainy afternoon.

5. There are many things I hope to teach my son and values I hope to instil. One is the importance of helping others. I'd really love to get our family involved in volunteering and doing regular mission trips abroad (any suggestions?). I just got an email about one of Save the Children's latest campaigns. Could you spare some time to read to a child who is struggling in school?

6. And finally, if you're struggling for ideas of what to do at home with the kids, pop on over to Nurture store and sign up for their free weekly emails packed with fun and educational ideas.

eyes wide shut

Well, we're back from conference and had a great time. My talk seemed to go well and I got to lead worship one night too. Truth and treating went really well. We got to chat to a few people and one group even got to pray for healing with one guy on his doorstep.

We are currently at the start of a month of prayer in our church. We've kicked the month off with a week of 24/7 prayer and it's going great. The youth have really got into it and are putting the rest of us to shame with their passion!!! I spent a night in the prayer room with a few others over the weekend and though I found it easy to stay awake, found it really hard to actually pray. I really wanted for God to speak to me and had lots I wanted to pray about but just couldn't for some reason. I spent another couple of hours in there last night and that time didn't try to pray or listen, I just focused on being with God. I had an awesome couple of hours!!! I'm starting to see now that God wants me to be still and just be in his presence right now. It's time to just rest in Him and stop trying so hard!

Another thing I've been realising recently is that we're not called to make converts, we are called to make disciples. What does that mean? We're not called to get people to 'pray the prayer'. Though it's important to preach Christ crucified and to challenge people to make a commitment to Him, my focus should be on helping them to become a follower of Jesus. I need to teach people how to pray, how to worship, morality, what God's Kingdom looks like... Discipleship is so important. Recently I've got a little frustrated that I don't get to spend time with many young people right now. But it's quality not quantity that counts! I'd much rather get to spend a lot of time really pouring into a few people - seeing them transformed and then transforming others - than to have shallow connections with loads of people. Jesus had a small group that he spent loads of time with and he taught them to go out and change the world. I want to do the same!