UNCU Events Week 4

Highs of 1°C :: Lows of -1°C :: SNOW!

University of Newcastle Christian Union Events Week :: Thursday

Just a quick update before I hit the sack. I’ve managed to get an evening off and it’s been great to chill out a bit. The day has mostly been a snowy one and that meant that numbers at the lunchbar and around the tent were a bit lower. The topic today was “I’m not interested in ancient history. Why take the Bible seriously?” There seemed to be an excellent number of questions afterwards. There were also various issues with the marquee and such large quantities of snow-come-water! Please do pray that the marquee holds out for the last day and that we don’t have any problems with that regard.

One of the really encouraging things today was the grill-a-Christian event that some of the members of the CU had organised for the afternoon. It was great to see some eighty people turn up in the tent to hear a group of their fellow students explain something of the reason for the hope that they have and to answer any and every question. There were some incredibly moving moments as some of the students come from non-Christian homes and talked of their grief that their parents are currently on their way to hell. Please do pray for those students that were on the panel that God would protect them after they stuck their heads above the parapet and do pray for those who heard their clear explanations of the gospel. They ended the event very movingly by asking the audience to contemplate the question that God asks of us “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and yet forfeit his soul?”

This evening there has been a curry and talk event so do pray for those who have heard Mo’s talk there. You’ll find a review of that event and today’s happenings over on Mo’s blog, which you can find here.

Tomorrow is the final day of the events week. There will be lunchbars and a jazz event in the evening. Please pray for perseverance, for endurance, for joy, for grace and for blind eyes to be opened and for people to accept Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.

Thanks again for your support and prayers – they are much appreciated.

God bless.

Dear Freedom

UNCU Events Week 3

Highs of 3°C :: Lows of -1°C :: Clear skies, sunshine and cold… just cold!

University of Newcastle Christian Union Events Week :: Wednesday (written on Thursday!)

Day (fortunately not week!) three is notoriously the hardest day of a mission. You feel like you’re a whole age from the beginning of the week, but realise that you’ve got the same again before the end! However the prayer meeting was still well attended and a few people even did the actions for “Our God is a Great Big God”.

We spent the morning doing worldview surveys and it was fantastic to get eight students turn up and volunteer to help out with that – because of university rules the CUGs (CU Guests) aren’t allowed to approach students by themselves, but have to be with a CU member who is a student. In a way this is good because it does mean that they can support CU members rather than doing their job for them. We did a good number of surveys in the morning and it’s been interesting to see the dominant worldviews – mostly existentialism and naturalism – this seems a bit of a shift from the last students I did surveys with where there were far more nihilists…

The lunchbars went fantastically well. You can see Mo’s account on his blog. I got to sit in the first one as my friend came along – please do pray for him, L. The title was: “I’m not a murderer or a rapist. Why isn’t being good, good enough? Mo spoke fantastically well on morality not even being in the right ball park when it comes to acceptance by God. There were over two hundred people across the two lunchbars, which is an absolutely awesome turnout. Please do be praying that as such significant numbers of people hear the gospel that they will turn to Jesus and that the Holy Spirit will be working in their hearts and minds.

In the evening we had little grub-crawls come meal-with-a-message. The university halls CU groups had organised little groups of people to go round three CU members’ houses and to have starter at one house, main at the next and pudding at the last house and over pudding there was a little “gospel-thought” from a CUG that went along. We had twelve in our little group including six non-Christian girls. I did a little though on Jesus not being who we expect him to be based around the account of the healing of the paralysed man in Mark 2. Do pray for those that came along to those events that they would continue to investigate the claims of Jesus.

Today we have lunchbars and a curry night so do be praying for ticket sales for the evening and for strength, endurance, grace, peace and joy for Mo and the others who are busy supporting the CU.

God bless.

Dear Freedom

UNCU Events Week 2

Highs of 4°C :: Lows of -3°C :: Clear skies, sunshine, rain, snow, wind and permafrost come mud!

University of Newcastle Christian Union Events Week :: Monday/Tuesday

Yesterday evening we had the Globe Café event, which was geared towards international students. What an excellent event that was! There were over 150 people there for what is a regular café evening for international students and I was able to sit and chat with a four guys from Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and mainland China – all there and all friends because of the Globe Café. If you’re an international student in Newcastle then that is the place to be on a Monday night! Mo spoke on Mark 7 and the distinctiveness of the claims of Jesus that our hearts are the big problem. Please pray for those who were there, that they would consider their own hearts and be honest with and about Jesus’ diagnosis of the problem.

This morning we met again at the bright and early hour of 8am (early for students and people that work with students!) in a freezing cold tent. In the CU guest meeting I lead the thought for the day looking at some things that I’ve been reflecting on recently from Hebrews 1 and 2. We must remember who Jesus is, we must proclaim him clearly and we must not neglect the great salvation that he offers! During the meeting I volunteered to coordinate the work outside the tent for the morning and over the lunchbars and so immediately went and bought a full thermal base-layer from Millets… I am now totally warm from my ankles to my wrists to my neck!

We spent the morning doing worldview surveys, which are a great questionnaire based tool that allow you to determine a persons “worldview” through a series of simple questions about people’s understanding of truth, reality, humanity and God. These surveys created quite a buzz outside the tent which was a good pull for those interested in today’s lunchbar: “I don’t like discrimination. Why doesn’t God accept everyone?” Mo is live-blogging over at his blog on how the talks are going and some of the questions that are being asked – do head over there for an idea of how that’s going – it’s difficult for me to gauge from outside of the warmth of the tent!

This evening we had the pub quiz and a short talk from Mark : “Would God want someone like me?” I sat with a bunch of guys who were friends of a CU member. We didn’t win the quiz, we didn’t have any particularly great conversations and they didn’t seem particularly interested, but they were there and praise God for CU members bringing their friends along and seeking to introduce them to Jesus. Please continue to pray for CU members as they invite friends along and as they seek to live and speak for Jesus among those with whom they live their lives on a daily basis.

Tomorrow we have more lunchbars, more worldview surveys and more laid-back “meal-with-a-message” type events around the city. Do be praying for myself and others as we do little “thought-for-the-day” style talks to provoke some discussion at those.

Thanks for all your prayers and support. The “photo-man” has promised photos tomorrow… We’ll see!

God bless.

Dear Freedom

UNCU Events Week 1

Highs of 4°C :: Lows of 1°C :: Clear skies, sunshine and a form of permafrost underfoot!

University of Newcastle Christian Union Events Week :: Monday

What a fantastic beginning to the week! We met to pray at the very godly hour of 8am and there were around 30 students and CU guests there including the three intrepid “men” who had stayed the night in the marquee the night before – please pray for the nutters who have volunteered to do that each night! We had a great time of prayer together and then had a good time as a group of CU guests looking at John 17 together and Jesus’ prayer in the garden. Fantastic to be reminded that the reason for our evangelism is the Trinity and the privilege of inviting people back into restored community with the Trinity!

Today the first lunchbars were held – we’re holding the same lunchbar twice from 12-1pm and 1-2pm with the hope of spanning all possible lunchbreaks. Mo was speaking on the topic of “I’m not really bothered. What’s in Christianity for me?” There were around 100 people in total that attended the two lunchbars and there seemed to be a good bunch of questions after the second talk, there were also a good number of feedback forms handed in. Please do pray for those who develop a keen interest early on in the week that they would continue to return throughout the week and develop their interest and understanding.

During the rest of the day we have been handing out flyers to advertise the events, chatting to people in the marquee (praise God for the warmth of the tent!) and drinking innumerable numbers of cups of tea from a much appreciated urn! Please do pray as we get some first contact and worldview survey materials together for the rest of the week. This evening we will be meeting in a local church for an international evening and a talk on Mark 7 and the topic "But is it real?" Please do be praying particularly for Mo as he speaks that he would be particularly clear for the international students that will be there.

There are hopefully some photos coming soon and I would also encourage you to look at Mo’s blog as he is also “live-blogging” the week. You can find his blog here.

More to come later today or early tomorrow...

God bless.

Dear Freedom

This week...

This coming week (9th-13th February) is the Newcastle Events Week – details can be found at http://www.free-newcastle.co.uk They have events running every lunchtime (twice!) and every evening. They also have a marquee set up on campus, where the events will be held (yes, I realise it’s bitterly cold, but they’ve promised heating – a definite thing to pray for!), and will be running a café all day everyday. Please particularly pray for Maurice McCracken who will be speaking – please pray that he would be faithful to the gospel and that God would give him patience, stamina and endurance for the week. Please pray for the CU members as they invite friends, course-mates, team-mates, house-mates and anyone else, that they would have courage and a thick skin to any mockery or rejection. Please pray for myself and the other CU guests that we wouldn’t get hypothermia (!), that we would enjoy the privilege of working with the CU and that we would be faithful to the gospel as we spend our time chatting with people and getting to know friends of CU members and strangers.

This year’s theme for the Newcastle events week is Free, which is based around the gospel distribution project that I’ve mentioned before. Newcastle CU has 6,000 copies of Mark’s gospel to give to students. This is quite a task, but they have shifted a significant number already. Please do continue to pray for the Free project both in Newcastle and across the country. I’m going to endeavour, I hope, to blog each day about what happens during events week, what can be prayed for and what is coming up.

God bless.

Dear Freedom

Watching films to the glory of God!

Yesterday I listened to a superb talk by Andrew Fellows which can be found on bethinking.org, UCCF's apologetics website and superb home of a plethora of resources! Andrew directs the work of English L'Abri, which I had the privilege of visiting last year. Andrew spoke on the topic "Engaging with Film". I listened to it as part of my preparation of speaking at Northumbria CU last night on "The Arena of the Gospel", which is the second part of the Free for All course and investigates the idea of Jesus' lordship over all things. I would strongly recommend downloading and listening to this talk.

During the talk Andrew gives us nine “worldview questions” or “apologetics checkpoints” to ask ourselves whilst watching and enjoying films:

"What does the story reflect about what it means to be human? Is there a strong sense of the dignity or the glory of humanity? Is it honest about the depravity of human beings?

What type of universe exists; naturalist or super-naturalist?

How does the story reflect history; fatalistic or do our choices determine the outcome?

How is evil portrayed; banalised or taken seriously?

Does existence have meaning; bestowed upon us or created?

How does the story deal with the issue of justice?

How does the story reflect relationships?

How does redemption fit into the story? Who needs saving? Who is the “messiah”?

Does the story have hope when it looks to the future?"

God bless.

Dear Freedom

Guess who's back... back again...

Probably a little known fact is that I'm a bit (I own almost all his albums) of an Eminem fan... We all have our vices ;-)

On Monday Eminem released his first fully original track for the best part of five years called "Crack a Bottle", which also features Dr. Dre and 50 Cent. It's the typically brutal Marshall Mathers where "In Eminem's world, all women are whores and he is eager to rape and murder them." as Bob Herbert described him in his article "In America: A Musical Betrayal", which was published in the New York Times and quoted in Bernard Goldberg's book "100 People Who Are Screwing Up America".

In some ways Eminem's willingness to take his brutal existential worldview to its conclusion is refreshing as he seems to quite literally speak his mind, but it's like a bresh of fresh air that comes with a punch in the windpipe! Mid-way through Dr. Dre betrays this existentialism:

"But hey, what else can I say? I love LA.
Cuz over and above all, its just another day
And this one begins where the last one ends.
Pick up where we left off and get smashed again."

I do however think that Eminem is a phenomenally influential "poet" of today - despite his 5 year silence he was still voted "The Best Rapper Alive!" by Vibe Magazine in 2008.

The song is currently at number 3 in the iTunes chart and has been released as a bit of a primer for his up and coming album "Relapse" which is due for release in the late spring of this year... It will be interesting to see how and whether his views have changed during his downtime. I'll hopefully let you know once I've bought it and braced myself for the lyrical onslaught.

God bless.

Dear Freedom

Mars Hill today...

No, I'm not referring to Mark Driscoll's hangout. In fact I find naming a church after a centre for the exchange of ideas slightly odd as the church's job is surely to proclaim just one idea - that of Christ Jesus and him crucified. Anyway, that's an issue for another day!

No, I am referring to a modern day Areopagus (Mars Hill) namely Google. A place where the employees "spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new" (Acts 17:21) ... or so it seems! On a regular basis one hour plus long lectures are posted on the @google Talks YouTube channel. Authors, musicians, politicians, philosophers, businessmen etc. It is a true centre for the telling and hearing of all things new. Many of the participants are people who massively influence much of our culture today and so it is well worth subscribing to if you seek to be culturally relevant.

Some of my favourites have been; Christopher Hitchens, Slajov Žižek, George Soros and even Tim Keller, author of "The Reason for God", who you can watch below.



God bless.

Dear Freedom

Evil and moral indifference

I'm reading Esther Lightcap Meek's book "Longing to Know" at the moment. It's an interesting book and essentially an explanation of the way that the epistemological ideas of Hungarian philosopher Michael Polanyi coincide and work with Christian epistemology - according to Meek (I've yet to be convinced that she's right, but I haven't finished the book yet!).

Yesterday I read this:

“This horror [9/11] is not one that denies God’s existence or the reality of good. That will happen only if we ever come to view such an event as good or of indifferent moral value, if we were to view it and feel no moral outrage. Human outrage at evil confirms God’s reality, for there is no other way to account for the passion we feel. This is profoundly rational.”

Integration, Not Deduction – pg.79

God bless.

Dear Freedom

Free to think: Is faith reasonable?

Here's the recording of a talk that I did at an events week hosted by the Christian Union of the Queen's Campus of Durham University, which is in Stockton.

**Please excuse the "mobile-phone-by-speaker" noises - it wasn't mine! It does get better as the talk goes on!**

There's an introduction, then there's a video, and then there's the main content of the talk.

Listen to the introduction here.



Listen to the main talk here.

God bless.

Dear Freedom