Life Transformation Group

This is a pretty hefty phrase "Life transformation Group" we have been doing it hewre in Ibiza for the last year and it has been excellent. We were inspired by Neil Cole of rganic Church fame, and also borrowed the questions from the Kansas city boiler room.

The basic premise is this "do we take being a disciple of Jesus seriously" if the answer is yes then how are we outworking our discipleship?

We know what we should do but do we do it? If I got with one or two other people and regularly got asked a few questions about my own life and spiritual growth would it help me to grow?

What have I got to lose?

A few objections would be:

1. I don't like structure and organized questions it all feels a bit manafactured and not very organic..... well I have got over that realising that in any area of life if you want to grow develop and remain healthy you need to get it together be organised and practice regualr disciplines. Therefore having someone almost check on that every week really helps to incentivise me in my growth.

2. I am a private person and I don't like having to admit my weaknesses, well I need to get over myself and once again realise that if I am to grow I need to live in the light.

Anyway I want to grow I want to be more Christ like therefore I will try hard by doing what ever it takes in order to keep growing.

So over the next week or so I am going to try and explain about life transformations groups and how they work for us here in Ibiza.

Maybe some of the principles will help you.

Ring out the wild bells

A poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, powerful, prayerful and prophetic

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Travels

Had a great few days in Guildford, its an extremely lovely place made all the better by the people who live there. I had great fun staying at the Greigs hanging out talking, watching x-factor and raking the leaves off the back lawn. The Guildford boiler room community is very exciting.

I got the chance to do a little video for 24-7prayers weekly rewind video, check it out here you need to watch the out take at the end, it was very cold!!!!

Anyway I am now at Billy and Caroline Kennedy's for a few days in Southampton which is also very cool.

Blagging

My lap top has finally died, so I am blogging from my son's little note book. I will get a new computer next week so my blogging may be a little sparse.

Have you ever heard the phrase "blagging it"?

Blagging means getting by on the minimum, or last minute dot com, or rocking up to a meeting and pretending you know whats going on, or getting to an exam without revising, or doing a talk with out any prep (most speakers will say something like this when they are blagging it "I had something prepared but I am just going to share whats on my heart" read that as code for "I haven't prepared")

We can blag our way through life. Blag our spirituality, in the end it gets found out.

Anyway you will see limited blogging here for a week, and hopefully limited blagging!

Organic

This is an organic vineyard based here in Ibiza called can rich.

It's very structured!

We need more bibles

My friend Maria works with prostitutes in Barcelona, I met her at our 24-7 spain gathering a couple of weeks ago.

Every Tuesday night they go and hang out with a prostitutes who work the streets all year round in Barcelona.

Maria has a blog check it out, it's in spanish.

The same thing that happens here in the summer happens in Barcelona; they all want Bibles.

I have promised I would help so I need to find some nice Romanian and Spanish bibles maybe 30 of each, that we can send to Barcelona to put into the hands of these working girls.

If you no of anyone or anywhere were I can source these bibles from please let me know, so far we have just been giving out English bibles here because thats what the girls wanted. Cheap or free would be good but I am happy to raise the funds for this one.

Watching waiting

I took this last night I wonder if he caught anything? But hey thats fishing sometimes you catch something sometimes you don't. I would like to get a fishing rod and give it a go.

Fishing seems to me to be about waiting, in the words of the Guinness advert "good things come to those who wait":

He waits; that's what he does.

And I tell you what: tick followed tock followed tick followed tock followed tick...

Ahab says, 'I don't care who you are, here's to your dream.'

'Here's to you, Ahab'.

And the fat drummer hit the beat with all his heart.

Here's to waiting.

Affairs

Man and woman married, lets say 7 years, man comes home from work each night, tired worn out and distracted, woman (excuse my gender stereotyping) has been at home all day with two toddlers, she is also tired and frazzled. Desperate for husband to spend some time with the kids and give her a break. He's just stressed and wants to watch the news. She gets the tea ready, they both wrestle the kids to bed maybe dashing up once or twice to settle the kids. They watch a bit of Tv then dodge off to bed. Man fancies making love, woman is disinterested there is a brief prod and fumble she makes it clear it isn't going to happen. They both roll over and go to sleep. This becomes a bit of a pattern, maybe at weekends things are a bit better, but there is a gradual cooling off. Nothing nasty, just tiredness, busy-ness and the living of normal life.

Woman takes kids to school every morning, one day there is a new dad dropping his kids off, they share a bit of idle chit chat, he appears interested in what she has to say, but it's pretty mindless 8.30am banter. This happens for a few months, she becomes aware that she is quite looking forward to Monday mornings, after a boring, quiet weekend with her husband, so she can chat to new dad, in fact she gets up 30 minutes earlier to make sure she looks ok!

6 months in, one thing leads to another and they are going for a coffee after the kids have been dropped off at school. He really listens, he laughs, they have so much in common, he compliments her, a bond develops. She thinks about him a lot, and when she does the thoughts make her smile.

A month later they sleep together. When did the affair begin?