choose where you bleed

Life cannot be lived too far without picking up a few cuts and wounds. It shouldn't be surprising to sometimes feel like crap or a bit lonley. Instead of holding it in and having it brust out on someone find a safe envirnoment and express the issues. Choose where you bleed. For me it was going late to church even when i didn't really want to but on the floor in prayer and frustration, surrounded by beautiful music, i was able to let out and begin the healing... maybe its a group of friends or ur family but if your cut you have to bleed...

sometimes you best isnt good enough

i was working really hard to get some visuals finnished for a band last week, so i didnt have any time to promote our clubnight... the gig went well, but on tuesday night we had 5 people show up. i had been doin my best but it wasnt good enough....
got me thinking that sometimes life is like that, i have hung out with ladies in africa who work physically hard all day and still cant feed their children and when they can the food is so poor it still leaves them mal-nourished. sometimes your best is not good enough.
for all those jobs, positions and courses, there are thousands of applicants per place, there must be hundreds of people who do their best but it isn't good enough.
sometimes in a relationship you can make a mistake, and after it do your best but its not good enough, its still broken...
maybe thats what hope is for, to look at the same situation the next time and say my best will be good enough...

to live... ?

to live we must make a difference, we must attack the darkness and injustice we see in our world in our city, in our family, in ourself. A mindless pursuit of affluence, comfort, security and status will leave us restless, unfufilled and worn out. Each of us has a destiny and can radically change much more than we would ever dare to believe.

We are familiar with our desires and hungers and how to satisfy them but its temporal and shallow without understanding them in the bigger picture of who were made to be.

Such sublte and complex issues require a deeper understanding, we are more than the sum of our parts, fate, hope, chance and gut feeling are much more than passing feelings. They are pointing us in the direction of spiriuality and beyond a maths equation or physics model. We need to be in touch with our creator, understanding his passionate love for us, His Son's passion and Spirit's inspiration... we need to do more than scratch the surface to journey into who we are.

understanding surpasses intellect

Intellect and knowledge are generally triumphed in the western world as being the best and most useful elements of humanity for reasoning, living and proving points by. But when it comes down to it I dont think they are nearly as important as we make out. How many times do we make a decision in our mind and then do the total opposite? Ill just go for one drink we tell ourselves, because logically we have to get up tomorrow and we're a bit skint. But then in the situation the connection of friends, the craic, the new experience of that night over powers all reason and we do what feels right.

In politics etc how many leaders state their manifestos on honour and caring for the working people and schools and hospitals, but when it comes down to it make choices out of fear and self preservation.

In the context of Christianity, i have recently been having a few discussions about particular theological points, which may or may not be that important, these people argue that we should strive to discover as much as possible intellectually, as if it was the highest form of human knowing.

However, I think it has to be deeper, it has to be more mysterious, behavoir modification through reasoning is powerless in the face of all consuming passion. The greatest acts of humanity, of bravery of hope of tolerance and love, flew totally in the face of reason. Therefore to limit knowing God to the intellect or claim these other aspects of humanity are not important or trustworthy is to live in denial of how we really live and are.
Jesus was alive he burned and hurt and raged, he wants to give us new hearts that will provoke us against our own intellect to act in love. To be in relationship with Him is an adventure that connects with every fabric of our being not just logic or reason.

sometimes we can all use a little deliverance

so this one is pretty far of the ricther scale. ill keep it vauge for the sake of all involved but basically on friday in a house in the western world i and a couple of others prayed for deliverance for a person from at least one demon who was in control to some extent of their body.

to give a little background on this seemingly incredulous event, its day to day for a lot of people to deal with in most of the non-western world, its spoken about over and over by Jesus and i have seen it over myself in africa etc. People can have a normal life and have a couple of extra passengers that rear theire ugly heads at times. God's supreme authority dwells in the form of the Holy Spirit in anyone who knows Jesus and that gives them the right and power to command a demon to leave.

Now although i believe all the above it wasnt till it was taking three of us to hold down someone under 10stone, who had a difference voice speaking out of their convulsing body that i started taking it serously. i was on the verge of freaking out as we commanded a demon full of aggresion, hatred and disgust to leave whilst reassuring out teary eyed friend, depending on who was in control of their one body at the time. this zoning out from one to another would happen in a matter of seconds and our friend would struggle to hold onto his concisousness or complete a sentance, whislt the demon would cause him to try and poke his own eyes, punch himself in the face or pull his hair.

We went through a number of prayers breaking unforgivenesss and other agreements he had made which might have given the demons power to stay, and fought with it for several hours, in which time it was weakening and he getting stronger, but in scripture Jesus tended to do it with a word, or the demons would just leave trembling in His presence, so I havent quite untied all the theological knots as to why it was so hard work for us. but one thing is for sure I havent prayed like that for the Holy Spirit to come and fill me for a while. this is a bit of a mad one so ill happily answer any comments as best i can peace g

suicide sucks

i was at a thing tonight in west belfast called solidarity against suicide. it was pretty powerful, a bunch of people from different churches coming together to talk about the issue, pray, give and consider practical steps to stopping the spiraling suicide rates in west belfast and ireland as a whole.
it seems really twisted to me that even the most broke person in belfast is like 1000s of times richer than over 2 billion people on the planet yet life can still get so hopeless they kill themselves. not that money = happiness but more suicide = despiration and dispiration means a lack of hope on job / life / money front. i dont know its a kinda deeper thing too i guess.

the question i have is how have we let our city get to the point where 26 of every 100,000 people would rather be dead?

its easy to point the finger and the "problems of the world" and moan about how powerless we are, but here i our city there is something really really wrong that we need to address. a part of our destiny lies in the hands and lives of all the people of this country and if we say just cause they wear tracksuits and have bad mostaches we dont want to know them, then we are missing the point of who Jesus was; we cant deny the humanity in another induvidual without losing a bit of our own.

but more, much more than this, God's heart is for hope and freedom and destiny, and he longs to use his people to set the captives free and let the down-trodden know God is on their side (see luke 4,18> for details). and its on these adventures we discover who we are and see him move in power to do miracles and bring that freedom...

so maybe the restless middle class church goers, myself included, that seem to overrun this city / country should stop watching dvds and drinking coffee and start getting involved with the least of these on our doorstep....

a non performance based realationship

fresh hard rain, ran down the back of my neck, as i sauntered back across the road with a warm coffee. sipping the steaming brew as rain water fell in sheets its amazing how much on can become aware of in a reflective mood on a sunday afternoon...
after spending the dregs of a night on half a tiny sofa with a friend I had been much more than friendly with, the strange reality of Jesus love took me by surprise.

the sofa having been preceded by a day including praying for healing and vjing at a christian event, there were definitely a few hypocrisy alarm bells ringing. but then in church having told all to some unsuspecting member of the prayer ministry team, the guilt trip i was probably twistedly hoping for failed to kick in, instead they encouraged me to realise how much Jesus delighted in me and who i was...

and that is the truth of grace and why Jesus death on the cross produces this most beautiful non-performance based relationship. he understands we will continually make mistakes and break any rules our society or religion might suggest. these disasters are almost irrelevant to how much he completely loves us.

design pain and some grade a junkies

i did this today which im pretty pleased with...
i also got two wisdom teeth out, it was pretty brutal the guy had the slice my gum open and drill the mofo to pieces, lots of winching, trying to be a man and listening to loud dance music and top volume....

the junkies is reference to sunday morning and hill street fellowship, i use the term in the holy spirit sense of the word, ie they loved Jesus and werent afraid the get blasted. it was cool, a disused warehouse on the way to being a music venue, old rickety wooden seats, a shoddy amp and single guitar, hardly enough people to form a huddle... and BAM! the spirit of God falls and the little group of average joe's are singing, laughing, prophecying and generally hopping on the good foot and doing the sunday thing... thats what im talking about...

ps went surfing yesterday with claire, nail and ruth anne, it was a fine days craic... if you really want to see the pics she's ruru on bebo.

4talent and a festival

Yo bit of shameless self vj promotion but sure... click here to see my artical on 4talent, also got booked for this festival:



yo!
tekumah on tuesday went class next one 14th of june...

opportunity

i was on my way for a bacon soda this morning and bumped into ben. he's a homeless guy i have met a few weeks ago. as he chatted about the state of homlessness in belfast and the way in which the system, intenionally has him jumping through hoops and sat in catch 22s it seemed a bit ridculous. here is a diagnosed manic depressive forced to wake up soaking wet cause it rained last night. is this the society we are proud to have created?

its all great the assembly is up and running and we're all moving forward, but ben reckons belfast has gone from one of the best cities at providing advice, care and support for those without a home to one of the worst.

why do we accept homelessness as a part of our countries? there are many parts of the world where it simply does not exist, where people are prepared to do what it takes so that any induvidual can be housed.

i do think the governement has a role to play and indeed it has the greatest power when it comes to delivering serivces, but what if we had a more creative attitude to spending our money.

what if a holiday home in spain was a bit passe compared to having you own 4 bed mini hostel for down and outs? forget a jag and bling bling, i fund a support worker who has helped 20 people find housing this year... oh really well my peanut factory in madagasgar recently won a national award for health and safety...

i dont think we should feel guilty for enjoying the wealth that we have been given, instead we should get excited about how much potential there is for good in all our wallets.

i know we're not all at the point where we are buying second holmes or even one, but 50p can stop a child going blind, and you ask the next homesless person you buy a coffee for if that 1.80 wasnt worth it.

the world is only as we make it to be

sweet video about the worlds cultures

check it out here and be inspiried

o, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!

sometimes its hard to hold on to everything thats possible
when ur surrounded by those who only care for the plausible
sometimes its hard to offer to pray when cold dark eyes just stare right through you
sometimes its hard to hold on to promises of love and life
when your feeling drunk and its right there in front of you
a quick fix even when you know its not what you really want

sitting in hungover desolation as the ugliness of your actions
circle round and accustaions fly...
not worth of a single drop of his prescious blood,
yet it all gushed out to wash away even crap like this on a grey day
but a clean slate seems to quick a solution,
will it really be any different, can i have a greater level of devotion?

no, no i cant,
but he can
he loves me still and it will be enough
to set me free cause
goodness is stronger than evil
love is stronger than hate
life is stronger than death
and hope is stronger than fear.. .. ..

back in belfast

A wee shout out and thanks to Jesus and all the guys who were praying and sending the love over the whole america trip. It was most excellent.

The maddness didnt stop after that last post... On the sunday chilling in the spa of the hotel the first gig was i met a guy and ended up going for sushi with the dude who runs the microsoft crossfader site (where coldcut and the light surgeons some of the orignal uk vjs do stuff).
I also had loads of conversations with people and about spirituality and stuff the guy who took me to that meal was really interested in the healing and deliverance stories from mozambique, as they were all into yoga and healing to hear of Jesus doing it they were really open.
After miami i hung in birmingham alabama and nashville tennesse with some of the orignial mozambique homeboys ty-ty and alex, as well as pris and mal, who are all superstars. I got to go to gracecentre church, which was some much good vibes and jesus love it was pretty breath taking. I also enjoyed the delights of smokes and brus.
Then i popped up to new york to stay with a friend from hungary and see what all the fuss was about. I had a blast and through some more connections ended up having dinner with the biggest / only vj booking agent in america. Although over all i was a little disappointed, kinda got a bit distraced by running round trying to do new york and in the end its the big love hugs from jesus that make me happy...
So all in all another fantastic God adventure which if you had told me what would have happened it would have laughed at you a few weeks ago, it was also amazing free of girl type temptation. i seemed much more popular with the boys... but seriously cheers for all the prayers and hope to see yous soon.
peace g

yo yo

sorry the whole updates have been a little sparse, the last few days have been mental. since the last update,

i met up with Tim Hirst, one of the original 24/7 homeboys who was out here with his label which was really cool

i played at miamibent the gig i got before coming out. It was cool and although the new software im using crashed a few times it was really cool.
But the big news of the week was that i got a stage at the ultra music festival its a 60 - 80,000 people two day dancemusic festival a big like homelands mixed with oxygen :) i played on an up and coming stage, but got whisked around the park on golf buggy and generally felt excited yet amused at the whole experice.
Then, it gets even better, i first went to the wrong stage and got to meet another vj called omni, who marina, the girl who got me the stage arranged for me to go to the afterparty with. He was playing the d n b room and so i ended up playing back to back with him doing visuals for Goldie, Grooverider, Fabio, ShyFX, MC Tali, Skibadee!!!!!!
Who for those who dont know are probably the most famous Drum and Bass djs in the world.
During all of which i was totally free to put up visualisations of Jesus, words, scripture and all that good stuff all over the place :)so a massive thanks to Jesus for pulling the strings, and all you beautiful ppl who have been praying..
im heading to birmingham, alabama tomorrow but thats a whole differnet story...

wmc day 1

bingo bango, this is a quick pic taken in the lobby, since yesterday leaving for my flight i got to pray for healing with a muslim guy in the heathrow prayer room, met a vocalist playing with eric morillo tonight in space, hung out all day the the onbeat vip area after meeting psyperpixie the vj, met a cool local guy called gaberil who does minimal techno, spoke to sony ericsson about vjing, met a chiliean promoter and the owner of brasil's branch of el divinio. which looking back on it is quite a lot going on :)

on the down side its not that sunny... right off to dinner, please pray for boldness with these ppl so i can get the jesus love all in them.

getting ready for the launch

its about 12hours before i get on a plane for miami, i;ve about 30% of a set ready, my midi controller hasnt showed up and i cant register the softward im planning to play with.
but on the plus side the last two days i have been chilling with the mozambique massive getting totally blasted by God and ready to bring some kingdom of heaven into the the wmc.
to be continued...

stretching the truth

how far is too far? if a conservative sermon talks about us as sinners and that we need to dedicate ourselves to christ and try harder, at what point does it sufficiently collide with the truth of grace and the holy spirits desire to lead us into deeper commitment and love with jesus that we can no longer reconcile? is it two perspectives? or is it a lie that leaves the western church robbed of its opportunity to fulfill divine potential and unleased to love the world around them?

if jesus and his followers lives were characterised by people coming to understand God's love for them and demonstrating that love supernaturally through healing and deliverance. and our contries experience of christianity isnt that right now then where does the change need to take place? with us personally, with our churchs, with whats being preached? with all of it?

a fine betrayal?

so its been in the news that the director of the divincy code movie was claiming to have found jesus and mary and joesph's bones in the middle east. from what i understand its pretty much cause he found those three names on the tombs, but there were really common names at the time so its pretty much balls.

anyway i was reading a bit or mark's book about jesus life just before the crucifixion and a couple of bits struck me for the first time. Firstly peter his mate denys him three times, but i was thinking if he hadnt he probably would have been killed with jesus, the other disciplines who all fled, if they had stood their ground the same thing. in the end they formed the first church and the beginnings of christianity, so if they hadnt of been chickens and run away then who would have done it. So basically what looks like a totaly failure on their part was actually part of God's bigger plan, which give me a lot of hope ;)

secondly im kinda starting off freelancing and its pretty clear that who you know is a lot more important than anything else, but think about jesus when he was crucified, the way he went from each court to the other and finally before the crowd, if he had spent time getting to know even one priest or palace official they probably would have been able to pull a few strings and get him off... but that would stopped God's salvation plan for the world. So basically im kinda floored by that instead of running around making "connections" and building "networks" Jesus just loved each person with a perfect equality, it didnt matter to him what job or position or money they had, he NEVER chased influence, his afirmation came from his father in heaven and he just loved the people he came across each day...

mini cd stuck in mac book pro fix

this is a bit random for the blog but just stuck a mini cd into my mac book pro and then nothing happened so i pushed it further in with another cd, then i searched the internet and got told that was a really stupid thing to do.

i paniced for a while then turned the think off and give it a big shake and praise the lord jesus the wee disc dropped on to the floor.

the end

wondering round ground zero

i had a lot more inspriation to write this post about 30mins ago but now have been fruiting around trying to get stuff to work and lost the imputus a little.

i played 3 vj gigs in the last three nights, which was fun but totally knackering and the last two nights were pretty thankless. thursday was for an up and coming band called The Tides who were cool, although ended up at a cultchie holy lands house party. friday was a night i put on for cutting off the long locks to raise money for iris ministries who i was away with before christmas. A good few of my mates came and some cool ppl played and although we made £185 it felt like a bit of a wash out as the venue was quite big and never felt anything like full. Then last night played at the opening of an underage night club / super youth club, again awesome location and cool ppl but just not really enough.

that all lead to me feeling like crap driving home, but once there i just chilled out with Jesus and after a little while he showed up and loved me back to life, mozambique really has ruined me for satisfaction in anything other than Him, now matter how hard i tried, got some good Holy Spirit jiving going on too.

then woke up this morning just in time to catch a lift to church with my parents, a while ago i felt called to be involved in the place i first encountered God again. The church is Jesus bride and not matter what state it is speaking ill of it isnt goin to get us anywhere, but it just felt a like so little of our potential in God was on offer, we arent slaves to anything anymore, there is no need so encourage ppl to show up at church, God's interaction with us is a love story, He things we are awesome and although there may be some areas of our lives which arent perfect He is MUCH more excited about getting to know us and love us than He would like us to try and sort ourselves out.

the Holy Spirit will mould us more into Christ's image but right now we are master pieces of God's handy work (eph 2) and He is longing to do miracles through us right now, not when we have quit smoking or stopped having lustful thoughts. look at the disciples, went around healing ppl and casting out demons (matt 10) then a wee while later are aguing about who is better, and then denying then even knew Jesus when the pressure was on.

i highly recommend the mosaic podcast its an awesomely creative church in LA.

but yeah where do we go from here, its all a bit like hard work, i dont min workin away at stuff but i dont want to waste time floggin a dead horse, but then there must always be hope, or rather there is always hope, and its all worship....

some rambilngs

Mashed up in the ireland:
went over to catch up with mozambique crew last night in coleraine, it was pure awesome, we ate, chatted and then on got blasted by the Holy Spirit yooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Rocky Balboa:
i accoumpanied a good friend to the press viewing of this on wednesday night. its whack for the first hour, then the training montage kicks in and i was nearly in tears "go on rocky son"
verdict: take you da, it will give him great hope that "its not over till its over"

Tip your fecking waitress:
was hanging out with my mate and his girlfriend who are manager and supervisor in two different restaurants on the same road near a cool church. but apart from lots of funny stories it kinda sucked that they both were of the opinion that christians were the worst tippers they came across. its such a simple way to bless someone, who has to serve you. dont spend all your money leave enough for a decent tip (10% is average aim for 15%) i mean God gave us the riches of heaven and we wont even pass a little on.

5 things you dont know about me

so after mozambique its all hard to describe, despite my best efforts a bit of culture shock has been experienced, probably mostly how important sex is in this culture is a bit wierd, but hard not to e affected by it. its been nice to have the old comforts back, but my perspective has definately shifted so its all fun now ;)
just went to street reach leaders training for this summer, basically 3000+ ppl are going to clean up just about every estate in belfast for the love of Jesus and transformation of the city. i would highly recomend you either stay in the country till after the 7th of july or fly over here.

ok so to the title tagged by jo shannon
5 things you might not know about me

1. i have super long hair at the minute and will be cutting it off for the charity locks of love and iris (who i was in mozambique with) as part of a big night in early feb

2. i have been drinking lots of aqarius lately, its a new "heathly" soft drink coke have made, my mate jo (not shannon) is workin for them and gave me a case free YO

3. when i was at school i was in cadets and we won uk competition for marching, during which time i would have thought nothing of shining my shoes for 3 hours. (you could have shaved in those bad boys) i also ironed creases in all my uniform and generally looked A LOT more neat and tidy than you are likely to find me now

4. i quite enjoy a good shesha pipe, apple and mint flavour being my favourite

5. i just joined a frequent flyer program and it made me feel grown up.

i tag lambert

4.