The final post

I have been doing a lot of thinking and reflecting recently, and have come to a decision regarding the future of my writing/blogging. 

In recent months I've been trying to write two blogs with two very different focuses and while I believe the motivation and the vision behind that was the correct one, that ultimately it is becoming too much of a drain on me.

I've also begun to feel recently that the blogs were becoming more of an obligation, almost like a job. They have become something I felt I had to do rather than something I was passionate about. It had become more of a chore and the joy and the purpose seemed to be dissipating. 

Recently I've had to contend with a lot of internal issues and one of the outcomes is essentially that I now feel like I need to pay more attention to what I write and what goes out on my blog. 

In essence, instead of just writing straight from the heart, which is often what I have done in the past, and my gift of writing has got me through, I think now is the time to largely leave that behind and put more preparation into my posts.

In thinking about that, I've also come to realise that carrying on with two blogs is just not going to be manageable from now on. 

My real passion is the church, the future of the church, what church should be and could be and how we can communicate the gospel more relevantly, and I think those messages are best communicated through my newer blog, www.jamespressgang.wordpress.com (the link is 'Evolving Church' on the right)

This is the 'Evolving Church' blog I started last year, and I think that site rather than this now more accurately reflects where I am in my faith and what God is speaking to me about.

Therefore, this will mean that from now on I will only be posting new posts/blogs on my 'Evolving Church' site, and that this will be the last post on this site 'James Prescott'.

This site has been a real journey for me, from when it started in 2006, and I think I have now moved on to a point where I've done all I wanted to do here. 

The site will remain open and you'll be able to read all the posts I've written, but other than that my work on this site is done.

Thanks to everyone who has read or contributed to this site, it really means a lot to me and it wouldn't have been the same without you. I've loved writing this blog, but they say everything that has a beginning has an end, and this is the time to end.

----

If you want to keep reading my work, please go to:

www.jamespressgang.wordpress.com

or 

www.jamespressgang.ning.com

(or just click on 'Evolving Church' or 'James Prescott's Network' on the links)

----

If you want to contact me:

E-mail/msn: jamespressgang@hotmail.com

----

Thanks everyone! :-)

A new development - 'James Prescott's Network'

Another new developement on in terms of my site and my work.

The new development is my 'James Prescott Network' on Ning. I've realised that although its important that I continue with my respective blogs, 'Evolving Church' and 'James Prescott' (see links below), that its now important that I have a space where people can connect with me and with a bit more personally, with photos and videos and all that jazz.

For this I have decided to actively promote my new Ning network page. The link is now on my links below (along with my new 'Rob Bell' link which I'd really encourage everyone to check out - more on that in another post). If you are already on Ning then you can become a member of my network, if not you can still read and view all the information on the homepage, just click on the link 'James Prescott's Network' on the links below.

I will keep on running the two sites I write now independently, and so as far as this site goes northing will change and new posts will appear as usual.

The network is a place I will try to update this place with news on anything significant I'm doing personally and hopefully with first news of any major projects round the corner, or major developments. I'll also be doing some book recommendations and posting some more teaching from Youtube, from Rob Bell and others I find useful, as well as blogs which I want to recommend.

The network is basically a place where people can connect with me and benefit from the resources I find as well, while still being able to read my two blogs.

As I've said both this and my other blog will still operate in themselves independently of the site, but will feed into that page so as well, so as to keep all my resources in one place.

I'd appreciate it if you guys kept visiting here and my other blog independently of the network, and to encourage that I will only be showing the most recent post in my network home page, and to see others you will need to come here.

Obviously there's a bit of work to be done to get the network all up to speed, but bear with me and I hope it will all be going as I wish very soon!

Please do visit the network and e-mail me your feedback, but also do please keep a regular check on this page as this will be the only site which has all my 'Evolving Church' blogs archived and stored together.

Flow Reflections Part 5 & 6

Here are the next two video reflections on 'Flow'. I've just finished this mission, and there will be another videoblog soon reflecting on what I've learnt and how I've grown in this process.

For now, here are parts 5 & 6 of my video reflections on 'Flow'.

Coming soon...Flow: Final Reflections and hopes for the future.

Flow Reflections Parts 3 & 4

So here are two more of my video reflections on 'Flow', my church's 'mission into your own life'. There will be more to come soon. One thing I would ask is that you make sure that the volume is turned up to maximum in order to hear them properly. 

I know the quality is not brilliant,  but I hope you're really blessed through my reflections below. 






Hope you liked them. Coming soon, Flow Reflections Parts 5 & 6...

Flow Reflections Parts 1 & 2

As promised, here are the first of my blogs on 'Flow', my church's 'mission into your own life'. They are video reflections on my experiences during the first few weeks on the mission.

They're filmed on my mobile as I experienced them, so they are quite raw and authentic. 

There are two shown below, and there will be a further two coming very soon, and some more as the mission goes on. I hope that they will be a testament to what God is doing now and will be encouraging for you all. 

Watch, enjoy and be blessed!

.

Hope you enjoyed them both. 

Coming soon...'Flow Reflections' Parts 3 & 4.

Coming in 2009

A new year, a new look.

Slight change to the look and feel of the site this year, and hopefully with it more of a focus to the site. My 'Evolving Church' site is developing and taking more of my time, but this is still important. 

I hope that this year I'll be able to look at some key issues facing Christians today and take them head on. On my 'Evolving Church' site I'm going to be looking at several key issues the Church is facing today, in particular the topic of identity and how important it is to the growth of church.

Here I will be discussing issues like that but more in relation to individual growth rather than its overall impact. I will also be posting some videos here as well, and my 'Flow Reflections' are going to take the form of a video blog (quite raw and unpolished, for authenticity) which will be starting very soon.

Keep reading, its going to be a challenging and interesting year here on my blog.

Nooma 'Dust' - What it means

Many of you who know me and have read my blogs know how big a fan I am of Rob Bell, his teaching, books and DVD's.

On one of the DVD's, 'Dust', he talks about God's faith in us and belief in us to follow Him. He uses the story of Peter walking on water, and says that one of the reasons he sinks is becuase he loses faith in himself.

Now this goes against the traditional view of this verse. Many people have attacked Rob Bell for this, but I think I know what he's getting at.

He's not saying that Peter thinks he can do things by himself.

He's not saying that Peter loses confidence in himself and his own abilities.

He is saying he loses faith in His ability to be like Jesus. His ability to become like Jesus and do the things Jesus does. He loses faith in his own value through God.

Jesus calls Peter out, He believes in Peter, and that through the power of God he can do what Jesus himself is doing. Peter keeps his eyes on Jesus, and keeps faith in His ability to do what He does, and has faith in what Jesus has spoken to him to do.

Then Peter doubts. He doubts whether he's truly capable of following his masters footsteps. He's lost faith that he could ever do the things Jesus does, so he takes his eyes off Jesus.

So in fact, both meanings are correct.

Peter loses faith in Jesus, and he loses faith in himself - in his own ability to be like Jesus, to follow Him and do His will.

Jesus does believe in us. He believes that if we follow Him and put Him at the centre of our lives, order our lives around Him then through the power of the Spirit we can become like Him.

Not perfect of course. But as close as is humanly possible.

Jesus entrusted the spreading and building of the kingdom of God to His followers. He beleived in them, that if they were obedient to God and put Him at the centre, and allowed Him to work through them, that they were capable of "even greater things" (his own words).

Rob Bell doesn't for one minute suggest that we can do things for God in our own strength. He doesn't ever say that. What he does say is that Jesus and God beleive and have faith in us to put Him at the centre, and through His power do the things He wants us to do, which are beyond the abilities we would have without Him.

That's what Rob Bell says when he says Jesus has faith in us. He sees who we really are and what we're capable of if we put God at the centre, and wants us to see it too. Then we really put Jesus at the centre of our lives, and we end up doing things by His power and in His name that we never thought we could do, but Jesus always knew we could by His power.

If we lose confidence we can do what God has called us to, if we lose faith and trust in Jesus and take our eyes off Him, if we doubt what He has spoken about us and to us, and we doubt His ability to enable us to do anything He calls us to, then we may fall down. We might get set back.

Indeed, we probably do sometimes.

But that's where Jesus comes in and saves us, and sets us back on the road we were on, and we are stronger for the experience.

Jesus has faith in who we were made to be in His strength. God beleives in the person we can be through faith in Him.

That's what Rob Bell means, and that's a great source of encouragment.

Through faith in Jesus and believing in His call on our lives and in who He made us to be, by His power and in His strength there's nothing we're not capable of.

'Flow' Reflections: Never forget

On Wednesday I started a mission with my church called 'Flow', essentially a mission into my own life and re-ordering it around God.

As such, it is my hope that in the next few weeks I will achieve a deeper intimacy with God and will hear from Him in different ways, as such a lot of my posts will be categorised 'Flow Reflections' both for your and my benefit.

This is the first of these.

One dimension of 'Flow' is daily prayers, and as part of this I set reminders on my outlook calendar at work to remind me to pray every hour. At first I was very conscious of this and thinking about it all the time. But eventually I got carried away with my work, and was busy working and talking to people when suddenly, out of the blue, this reminder popped up on my computer, reminding me to pray.

It took me by surprise, because somehow in the busyness of the day I had totally forgotten about my prayers, totally forgot about God.

It brought home to me how easy it can be to get so carried away by the busyness of everyday life that we can simply forget to pray at all, and forget about God completely.

That's a lesson for us all I think, though I think many of us already know this experience.

The whole idea of this mission is to instead put God first and make everything else revolve around and involve Him. I've set my reminders to keep on doing this each hour every day, even after the mission had ended.

I hope that by the time the mission is over I will actually be looking forward to the little 30 second - 1 minute break every hour to remember God, and that my work will start to revolve around that, and around God.

It also occurred to me how we can also get so caught up with doing church-related things, that we forget why we do them in the first place. So busy helping, serving, setting things up and doing things that we start to forget why we're there and who we're doing it for.

That is something as Christians we should beware of.

When we serve, let it be an act of service to Jesus, not just something we do to be helpful or friendly.

In the busyness of life, we need Jesus just to get us through and keep us going, and we need to be kept reminded of what's really important.

Lets not forget about Him.

2009: Challenges, goals and a real hope for us all

So a new year is upon us, and I thought it right that both in terms of my personal growth and also the development of this site there are some thoughts I should share.

1)'James Prescott' in 2009

This site will continue to exist, for sure. I will continue to be posting my thoughts and reflections on everyday life within today's culture, as Jesus speaks to me about how to live the Christian life through the things I encounter within my own cultural context, church and Bible study, and I will still be posting those reflections here, though probably not as many as 2008 because of my other site (see below).

2) Evolving Church in 2009

In terms of my other site, www.jamespressgang.wordpress.com , the plan really is to continue developing my ideas about church. That site will be where I post my visions, thoughts and reflections on what church is and how it needs to evolve, adapt, grow and re-define itself for today's world while keeping Jesus at the centre. I'd encourage all of you to regularly check that site as well, as I will be posting there regularly.

I hope to visit some churches this year of many different types, and hopefully around autumn time I'll be writing a piece (probably in two or three parts) with my reflections and conclusions from these visits. I may report on individual visits if something really stands out, but the real benefits of these visits will come out in this series. I also hope to keep posting here my thoughts, vision and reflections on what God wants of church in this coming generation, what church is and isn't and how we can move forward and evolve as a church both locally, nationally and internationally.


3)Flow

I'm doing a church mission called 'Flow'. Essentially this is a mission into my own life and re-ordering my everyday life around Jesus, with daily prayers and bible study, giving, serving and discovering more about myself. I hope to use this to hear more clearly what God is speaking to me about, more about church and also to get into good spiritual disciplines I can continue with after the mission has finished. For me its the perfect way to start the new year, and it begins this Wednesday (7th January) for 40 days.

4)A more disciplined life

The real area I am being challenged and need to grow in this year is my self-discipline, and getting into good disciplined habits. This covers the area of my diet, health and personal fitness, as well as Bible study, prayer and general reading. These are areas God really is challenging me about and I hope to tackle these this year, and have already set some goals in these areas. Living a more disciplined life around the values of Jesus is a key part of anyone's spiritual development and growth to become more like Jesus, and in particular as a leader I feel responsible to get these areas of my life re-ordered this year and develop good habits which will hopefully stand me in good stead for the future and give me a deeper perspective in terms of envisioning and realising the vision of an evolving church.

These are the challenges that face me this year and areas I hope to grow this year. We are all on a journey with God, and this is I think the journey Jesus has for me - and this site - this year. I would appreciate all your prayers and I hope simply the act of writing them down makes them real for me, and will allow me to keep hoping and believing when I'm feeling weak and not up to the challenge.

People may seem to be very despondent in the current climate, and those issues are very real and need to be faced and acknowledged. But life is like that. We face problems and challenges all the time.

There is a very real God who is always with us and equips us with all we need, and gives us strength to persevere. A God on whom we can depend on, who loves us and accepts us as we are, who shows us a better way to live and a new kind of culture to live by.

A God who gives us hope.

As I, this site and all of you enter this year, let us do so acknowledging the challenges ahead, but positive that with the help of our Saviour anything is possible.

Have a great year.