Zephaniah – Symptoms and Problems

February 3, 2009

This is part of a series of posts on Zephaniah. The following is a brief summary of part of one of Mo’s talks on Zephaniah at Relay 2.

At the start of the Josiah’s reign Judah had several problems. They’d lost the Book of the Law, but that in itself was only a symptom. In what would have been a moment of comedy had it not been so serious, they rediscovered the Book of the Law and officially started doing the things they should have been doing all along. But that only sorted out a symptom. They still had problems.

Their main problem was that they thought there were other gods worth worshipping besides Yahweh. They looked at the pagan nations around them and noticed that those guys seemed to be getting everything Judah wanted, and so started worshipping their gods to get those things.

Their other problem was that they thought the main problem wasn’t a problem. They didn’t take it seriously because they thought life felt normal.

Zephaniah is God’s answer to these two problems.

They’re problems we have too. We also look at the people around us and want to be the same as them. We worship the same things they do – sex, money and power. And the other problem we have is that, just like Judah, we don’t see that there’s anything wrong with this first problem. It feels normal to us.

At Relay 2 we studied Zephaniah in our Fellowship Groups. In the coming few weeks, as I work through my notes from the conference, I’ll be blogging some of my thoughts and some of the things that really struck me from our studies on Zephaniah.

I should say up front that most of what I type on Zephaniah is going to be recycled from the talks that Mo gave us and from the studies that other people in my Fellowship group led, so my thanks and all the credit goes to them!

Mo has posted some helpful thoughts on Zephaniah here.

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Relay 2 Karaoke Fun #1

January 27, 2009

The North East’s contribution to the Karaoke fun.

“I can be your Relay Worker, but I’m not your CU slave!
I do more than go for coffee, every day’s a Relay rave”

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Really Relay?

November 2, 2008

Judging by the many half completed draft blog posts I’ve written on what I’ve been doing so far in my Relay year, I think this post is long over due!

The other day I was on the bus heading up to the station to travel out to one of my universities and was not in a particularly good mood. I think I was pretty tired and didn’t really feel as if I could be bothered to go to the CU event that was going on… But half way there it suddenly struck me just how fortunate I am to be doing Relay. I couldn’t help but smile and think that I was, in my opinion, the luckiest person on that bus.

Get this: I get to spend my time studying the Bible for myself and meeting up to study it with Christian students. I get to spend time discussing the gospel with students who don’t believe. As well as that, I get to look at the Bible with other older, more mature Christians, all of whom are much wiser and godly than I am at the moment. On the side, I’m learning a language in preparation for years 2 and 3 of Relay Homestart where I will hopefully be working with a certain IFES movement in Europe. On Fridays, I get to spend a whole day looking at Systematic Theology and the Great Commission.

In my opinion, this is a flipping awesome way to spend your time. So, in an attempt to celebrate the first two months on Relay (1/5th of the way in) these are five highlights so far…

1. Relay 1. Seriously, this is the best Christian conference I’ve been to. It can be summarised in that beforehand I thought I got grace, afterwards I realised that beforehand I really didn’t! I’d still not say I’ve completely got it, but from what I know, it’s more amazing than I ever dreamt. I’m not going to say too much more at the moment, because I’ll post on it in the near future.

2. Glad You Asked. After a slow start, we now have a few students who attend – some don’t believe and some do. What a privilege it is to be able to discuss spiritual truths with them and see them come to a deeper understanding of the Good News as they look at things for themselves.

3. Studying the Trinity. Mindblowingly amazing stuff. God is so incomprehensible, but that only deepens the awe at who he is. I blogged some of my thoughts on the Trinity over at threelay. Take a look!

4. Meeting up with students to look at the Bible. I’m currently meeting up with 4 students at different times and we’re looking at Mark and Romans. What a privilege it is to point people to Christ in the Bible and see them realise just how awesome he is! It’s also great because I get to study these great wonderful books and it actually counts as work!

5. Studying Hebrews. I’ve never looked at this book before, and it’s also blowing my mind! I’m also really fortunate that I get to meet up with two absolute legends, Zac (legendary Staff Worker) and Judith (legendary Relay Worker) to look at it. We’re really getting into it and, just like a fine wine, we’re savouring it: 5 weeks of studying it and we’re only in chapter 2.

Note: It should also be said that this also has absolutely nothing to do with persuading any final year students about doing Relay next year ;)

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Just another blog in the blogosphere

September 10, 2008

Craig, Jez and I have just started threelay, a blog where we’re writing about theology we’ve covered in our Relay study programme. Might be worth bookmarking/following/subscribing to!

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Time for an update

August 18, 2008

Well, it’s almost a whole month since I posted on here so I think it’s about time for an update. A few questions need answering: What have I been up to lately? What am I up to now? What will I be up to in the near future?

Over the Bay

In the past month I have been on a family holiday in Port de Pollenca, Mallorca. Apparently it was voted the best holiday destination by readers of Sunday Times in 2001. We already knew that it was nice as we’ve been there before. This time round was very pleasant, if a little bit on the hot side of things! The best bits of the holiday were being able to hang out and chat with my Dad and siblings, spend time chilling out before Relay and finally being able to start reading my way through my ever increasing pile of still to be read books.

This week I am helping out at my home church’s holiday club, Go For Gold. We’re going for an Olympic theme for the week and looking at the parallel between Christian life and running a race. We’re looking at the life of Paul as shown in Acts, although how much depth you can go into that with children age 4-11 is debatable! I’m fortunate to be in the year 6 group with kids aged 11, so there should be some scope for opening the Bible and discussing things with them during our team times! If you’re wondering about the Argentina flag below, each group is a country, and seeing as my co leader is Spanish and (much to her annoyance!) Spain was already taken, we decided on being Argentina!


As of August 26th I’m heading off up to the Quinta Conference Centre in Shropshire for Relay 1 – the conference that marks the official start of my year on Relay! I’m really looking forward to this coming year and I’m so excited that it’s almost begun. I’ve not even started and I’ve already been challenged about how much I trust God: this year I have no other option than to cling God for help with my finances.

UCCF ay that ministry and living costs for a Relay worker add up to around £6000 and although I’ve raised part of this from working, most of this is coming from friends and family that want to support me during the year. Raising financial support is a strange thing to do – I know so many missionaries that would testify that God has provided for them, but when it comes to trusting God to provide for me, I often doubt that he’s able to. I guess it’s easy to trust a tight rope walker until you have to be carried across by one! Despite my embarassingly small amount of faith in him, I’ve seen God arrange for about 70% of the £6000 to come in which is really incredible and just shows that he is completely trustworthy and able to provide when it comes to these things.

I’ve read a bit about J Hudson Taylor this summer, and he summed it up nicely when he said “Our heavenly Father is a very experienced One. He knows very well that His children wake up with a good appetite every morning…He sustained 3 million Israelites in the wilderness for 40 years. We do not expect He will send 3 million missionaries to China; but if He did, He would have ample means to sustain them all…Depend on it, God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply.”

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Signs That You’re Saved

July 1, 2008
I’m currently working my way through Colossians in preparation for Relay 1 in August – I reckon you could probably find a good few of us future Relay workers by looking to see who else is writing blog posts on Colossians :P
Ever wondered if you’re saved? Maybe you’ve accepted Jesus and put your trust in him, but you’re just waiting for that magical feeling that you’ve been accepted by him.Paul gives thanks in Colossians 1:3-5 for three characteristics he’s heard of in the Colossian Christians. The three characteristics he refers to are faith in Christ, love for all the saints and hope in heaven. It’s a pretty good checklist of things to look for to see if you’re saved!
Faith in Christ
This is the consequence of the work of the Holy Spirit in someone, not the cause of it. How often do we think that our faith is something that we do? That’s completely wrong – before, we were completely dead and blind; now, we have been given faith as a gift from God- our eyes have been opened and we have been shown that the Gospel is the truth. Thus if we have faith, it has been given to us by God and it is evidence that we are saved.
Love for all the Saints (other Christians)
Love can be an easy thing to do if you like the other person. If they’re attractive, pleasant or fun to be around, it’s easy. Try loving someone that is the opposite of that – someone who’s different to you or who’s hard to get on with – is hard. However, that is the essence of Christian love. It’s a love that can only come from God. This love is what binds people who are so incredibly different into a unique fellowship called the church.
Hope in Heaven
This is the confidence that we as Christians have that whatever happens here on Earth, whether it’s persecution, suffering or comfortable living, there are infinitely better things stored up in heaven. It’s the hope that enables us to persevere and endure hard times or the hope that helps us from getting too materialistic and focussing too much on the here and now. Again this hope can only come from God, if you’ve got it you’re saved!So, if you can see these things in your life, you’re definitely saved and if you can see these things in your friends, they’re definitely saved!

Note: updated 23/7/08 due to David pointing out my grammatical errors :/

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Relay!

February 6, 2008
Awesome news. Just been officially accepted onto the Relay programme with the North West team. I’ll be working in Salford and Bolton universities. Am very excited about it, if a tad concerned about having to do something like this.

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