you should be dancin'

I stuck a few new photos up here from a not too recent night out in belfast. but it ties in nicely with a advertisement for the below:

Sat 15th October - Clubbers, DJs, missionaries, musicans, punters, prayers, dancers, creatives & church planters will be gathering at the city of London Boiler room (The Basement, 4-14 Tabernacle Street, London, EC2A 4LU) to pray, dream & scheme about influencing the underground scene. We've in Ibiza, Ayia Napa, & Tenerife among a few places, but Britain needs breakthrough too!--> you are a part of an underground movement in the making.

blam!

blam

alright the world this week has been, creative, productive, messy

i did this pic for rae and chris' wedding present which they havent got yet so if you know them dont say...


listened to a cool talk on Grace Franklin its the living in the spirit one,

goes well with some of that stuff in the post two down called Hope of Glory

back in the hood

after a marthon drive from stranrar in scotland down to southampton via lemmington (to drop off soph) i am now in my student house. yo. looking forward to the year.

the photo is from rae's wedding yesterday, it was very beautiful with great food and jazz. wierd to think one of my halls mates from first year is now fully married, but i suppose thats the way it goes.

was at a church this morning called oasis in the south of london. really awesome. just very average looking people genuinely chasing God, with a fantastic understanding of how little it has to do with us, and so the time spent with God "soasking in His presence" is really good for you.

feeling a bit tired so going to slide off...

Hope of Glory

this is a picture a drew in my journal today.

It kinda sums up how im feeling. Pretty crap but sure that God has "the love I
need to get me through" (olive - your not alone TUNE)

On Friday I was driving too fast, skidded around a corner and cracked the front
wheel off the kerb. Thankfully I didnt hit anyone or thing else but for the sake
of putting the brakes on two seconds earlier it is costing me £150 I dont have
and so much grief with the parents.

Basically I perpetually damage the car, say sorry, help out round the house and
then a wee while later do it all again. It got me thinking about how
many of the mistakes I make in my life over and over and over again.

Everytime its like, "Well at least I wont do that again" but really I do.
How do I learn my lesson how do I change? I think on one level I need to wind
my neck in eg dont drive like a lunatic, but then on a deeper level and for
loads of the other stuff, its a bit like paul when he said

"I decide to do good, but i dont really do it; i decide not to do bad, but then i do it anyway.
My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong
deep within me and gets the better of me every time." - rom 7v19>

he then goes on in romans 8 to give a hope for how this might be changed,

3God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all.

5Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them--living and breathing God! 6 Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. 7 Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God....

12 So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it--yourself life one red cent. 13 There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. 14 God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!

I think this is the hardest part for me, to trust that there really is a God who cares about each moment I am alive, that He has little adventures in each day, and that I dont have to run around trying to achieve something on my own but just listen to Him.

but two things I am sure of I really dont want to ding the car again....
I really dont want to do to cheat on anyone else...

a wee bit

Belfast's local radio across the line which is legend, not just because i have won their competition a bunch of times (about 4 ppl enter :) but tonight they are doing a chat about the relivance of religion to their listeners (age range prob 15-25) so i thought id blast in my 2p (feel free to throw yours in the comments)

christianity:
im not big on religious institutions but Jesus is the most important thing in my life, i find it easier to worship Him on the dancefloor of shine than by singing hymns written a few hundred years ago. i think that Jesus' love for everbody for who they are not what they have done has not really been publicised over the last 50 years and instead there is a general, big school teacher in the sky image of God, which probably stops a lot of people from considering religion in their lives...

however a i think that a relationship with him requires a selfless decision that is probably an increasing culture shock to our self-centerd society.

the photo is part of the adobe design awards taken by a mr david field