Ian and Deborah Matchett

Time and opportunity

2009-10-11T12:14:00.001+01:00

Sometimes you have the time, sometimes you have to make it.

This is a making time season of life. There are so many things I want to do, from consolidation of YWAM Aberdeen vision to family focus and plenty of exercise!

YWAM Aberdeen is in a healthy place, none of us have what it takes to make anything happen! Plenty of ideas are bounding around, and God is speaking lots of cool stuff for the future, but it is all so out of our grasp that it is impossible without Jesus. I spent a week @ YWAM Harpenden learning from Lynn Green, YWAMs current international Chairman. He gave lots of logical well thought out principles and poured wisdom into us for the week, and still found the majority of his time to say "but seek the Lord", or "see what God is saying", or my favourite "I don't know, go ask God...". How often do you hear that from one of the senior leaders!? Outstanding.

So I have lots of ammunition now to take back to Aberdeen, and the feeling that none of it is any good without a living breathing relationship and dependence on our loving Lord Jesus. Bring it on!

Family time is such an important thing, time to connect and have fun, to relate and discuss, as well as show affection and communicate love. It is not the time it takes to do the dishes and change nappies and other such chores, which all need done, often before quality time can be taken. That is what our holiday in Wales is primarily about, QT! At the half way point we are feeling tired but rested at the same time, making sure we intentionally put more things in our week that will rest us and not simply revert back to TV.

Exercise is a funny one, so hard to keep doing but very needed for our bodies to behave the way they were intended. It would have been so much easier if we were designed to sit in chairs most of the day and the odd occasion of walking was enough to get us fit, unfortunately or fortunately we need a bit more than that! I am learning that a trail for me is to keep exercising, and if I am faithful in it I will not only be fit but have perseverance, and physically be mature and lack nothing. If I don't have this perseverance I will not be totally physically mature and need all sorts of extra help to fill the needs my body can't fill by itself.

So lots of time that I need to make and things I need to do!

Blessings all
Ian
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Back in Aberdeen!

2009-06-23T10:03:00.003+01:00

Hey All,

We have had quite a few weeks of travel, nothing major or mad but good chunk of miles racked up and a lot of great people in some great places!

We spent some time a few weeks ago in Strathdon where we have some CLAN Gathering planning meetings, for the Young Adults program. This was fantastic, the team we have is outstanding, plenty of really spiritually deep people, with lots of ideas we can bring to the Young Adults this year!

The weekend after that for me and Zoe was spent in Belfast being spoiled by my parents and catching up with mainly close family.

The weekend just gone has been spent in West Kilbride and Livingston! We arrived in West Kilbride on Thursday last week to spend a couple of days meeting with YWAM peeps to catch up relationally as well as talk strategy and vision with our line leader, Dave Ausdahl. And then there was a YWAM Scotland BBQ!! Around 80 - 90 people were there, as was a bouncy castle and lots of food!! Great times!

Sunday was then the Almond Vineyard, and a hog roast! Warning, hog link not for faint hearted or vegitarian... Again lots of food and lots of good people, and another bouncy castle!! This one wasn't for adults tho... :(

So we are now all back in Aberdeen!

This week we have lots of meetings, including the pastors/ministry leaders lunch, various friends and collegues as well as hopefully an American girl called Sarah who has a real heart for Aberdeen, God inspire her to bring her gifts to this city! Oh and we also have a Scottish Sarah(Bell) staying with us as she progresses towards moving to Aberdeen to work in Dyce High School.

As usual lots on the go, need to get back to work on www.northatlanticdreams.net, and www.secure.clangathering.org.uk, and a bit on another soon to become visible site!! Oh it is a lot of fun!!!

God is good and He is the one who inspires!!!!

Praise Him.
Ian

Time spent at home

2009-06-14T08:25:00.001+01:00

Zoe and I have been enjoying a couple of days in Belfast, home
cooking, trip to the zoo, lots of time with "nani" and "nanda"! Today
we are off to my home church, St. Mary's. Looking forward to seeing
everyone again and Zoe being made a fuss over!

It is very easy to come back to a place so familiar and slip into who
you were when you were last there. The expectations of everyone is
that you are the same person, which is very reasonable! However with
God we are always being transformed more into His likeness(if we allow
Him) and so this time I am back I am a different person than before
and it takes a concious choice to live that out. Thus was most
highlighted after DTS with YWAM, but no less true every time I come
home.

What's great about God is that He loves to test us, with the point of
showing us how much we have changed!

Praise Him!

Ian

24/7 prayer in Aberdeen round up

2009-06-02T16:54:00.001+01:00

www.247prayeraberdeen.org

Sun day 31st May ended 2 weeks of 24/7 prayer in Aberdeen, well it was proposed as 24/7 prayer, ended up being day prayer! In partnership with Graham Black of the Siloam Trust we felt that God was asking us to create a prayer room in the town centre and offer it as a service to the Church, with the aim being a prayer community.

The room itself was very well received, plenty of people met with God, lots were blown away by a new way to pray, and a Muslim lady and a guy who didn't know Jesus walked in to find out more! The guy came back a second time and gave himself to the Lord! Praise Jesus!

A word from another room user,

I've managed along to the prayer room for two short stints and have loved every precious minute of it.
I came with a view to praying for our church (Aberdeen Vineyard) which has a healing service on Pentecost Sunday and I REALLY want to see God move there. But, as so often with God, He has given me so much more.
I started each session using the Scriptorium to focus myself on God. And as I got to each passage - I just happened to be copying two of my favourite passages - Psalm 18 and Isaiah 40 - each talking of the restoring power of God.
I finished each session with worship - when the sense of the presence of God was almost overwhelming. The prayer room is indeed a sacred space - Holy ground!
On Friday after I had prayed for our service - I just knew, once again - it's all about Him - it's all about Jesus and only through what He has done. And that He would have done it even if it was only for me. The prodigal came home (see Homecoming space)
I drove home along the beach and was blessed with an amazing sunset and I just had to take my worship onto the beach. I was singing along with my i-pod and dancing on the beach. I must have looked crazy!
It has been a long, long time since I have had such joy in the presence of the Lord.

This is what it is all about, creating space for people to come before God, whether they know Him or not! Trusting Him for the good things He wants to bring out of it.

As we reflect on the fortnight we will take away many positives from it, and look to God to see what the next step on the journey is. He wants a vibrant bunch of crazy people seeking Him at any hour of the day, believing Him for miracles we haven't dreamed of and seeing thousands coming to know the King of kings!

A taste of what God wants to do can be heard in this encouragement we received on the website:

Just want to thank you for this opportunity. I have really met with God during the time I've been at the prayer room. Particular this morning as I came a bit discouraged about the news of the the church of Scotland minister. As I prayed for Aberdeen, God reminded me of a dead city (Famagusta) that I had seen during my holiday to cyprus. It was heartbreaking to see no life, nothing just empty buildings that once bubbled with life. As I prayed it was like I was looking at Aberdeen. I began to see small pockets of light visible in various parts of the city. As i prayed I then see runners like those during the olympics with torches in there hands. They were going through the city lighting fires- fire lighters. Then as I prayed more into this I seen a river of like Gold lava running between the fires connecting them.

Prayer is the spark, fuelled by the power of God.

After this I no longer felt discouraged and realised that God has a much bigger plan for this city and there is a continued call for us to keep on praying in partnership with the Holy Spirit and we will see men and women of God, old and young rise up and make a difference!
So I want to encourage you with this just as i was and am, that our prayers are making a difference and not to give up even when it sometimes looks is if darkness is prevailing.
Mandy

We thank God that he met with people that came in and used the room, it is His faithfulness that meant we were honoured with His presence.

Onwards to the next thing then!
Ian

National events

2009-05-21T08:01:00.001+01:00

During our time in Germany one of the things highlighted was the
importance of the larger gatherings. It was in axiom form during the
conference as the encouragement and life we found in the larger group
was amazing.

So today I go to a smaller, larger group called NLF(national
leadership forum) and tomorrow we all go to a ywam scotland staff day,
all in Stanley house, Paisley. We are expecting God to strengthen and
encourage us as well as heat and be a part of the larger YWAM picture
in the nation.

On another note, the prayer room, 247prayeraberdeen.org is going well,
even if it hasn't been received quite as well as we hoped. God is
using the room though, with plenty of testimonies of encounters with
Him filtering through. Praise Jesus!

Till next time,
Ian

--
--
Ian Matchett

YWAM Aberdeen
86 Newburgh Crescent
Aberdeen
AB22 8SU

Home phone : 01224 821702
Mobile : 07742 261961

www.ianmatchett.co.uk
www.iananddeborah.com

ianajmatchett@gmail.com

Youth With A Mission Scotland | Tel: 01294 829 400
9 Glenbryde Road | Fax: 01294 829312
West Kilbride KA23 9NJ | www.ywamscotland.org

Youth With A Mission Limited is registered in Scotland
Registered Company No. 77148, Registered Charity No. SCO13315
The Seamill Centre, 9 Glenbryde Road, West Kilbride, KA23 9NJ

Opening of the prayer room

2009-05-18T00:30:00.001+01:00

So I am in the prayer room at the minute enjoying the presence of the
Lord! Tonight has been wonderful, we arrived at 5.20pm with Graham and
Hazel Black already here. A bit of set up, a bit of tidying and some
dinner before a car full(four) of intercessors arrived! They came from
Seamill YWAM base and are here until wed. Before we knew it 8pm
arrived and it was time to kick things off! A spot of worship and
prayer, led by Graham, with Communion followed by an open prayer time
with the 10 or so people that were there.

Then back home, dropping off a couple of the other YWAMers at their
host homes, before turning round and coming back in again!!! I have
the 11pm to 1am slot tonight, with the YWAM team taking the 1am to 7am
slots.... Gotta be God or there will be lots of nods!!!

This prayer room isn't just for people to look at and enjoy, it is a
space carved out of the centre of this city for God to do what He
wants. For Him to inspire and direct prayers to allow His hand to move
in this wonderful city, and for us to see Aberdeen declare the glory
of our God.

May Aberdeen be famous for being the City of Praise!!! (Msg Isa 62:6-7)

Ian

--
--
Ian Matchett

YWAM Aberdeen
86 Newburgh Crescent
Aberdeen
AB22 8SU

Home phone : 01224 821702
Mobile : 07742 261961

www.ianmatchett.co.uk
www.iananddeborah.com

ianajmatchett@gmail.com

Youth With A Mission Scotland | Tel: 01294 829 400
9 Glenbryde Road | Fax: 01294 829312
West Kilbride KA23 9NJ | www.ywamscotland.org

Youth With A Mission Limited is registered in Scotland
Registered Company No. 77148, Registered Charity No. SCO13315
The Seamill Centre, 9 Glenbryde Road, West Kilbride, KA23 9NJ

DNA Infusion

2009-04-29T14:01:00.002+01:00

Short update, I haven't been able to get internet on my phone, so haven't been able to blog as I have no lappytop! Having to borrow Crystals to get online/

All is going FANTASTIC and God is speaking LOADS through teaching as well as prophetic words and directly to Deb and I. He is outstanding and loves to speak! The verb for "speaks" or "said" occurs over 3000 times in the Old Testament alone.

Ian

Time spent in the sun

2009-04-19T09:48:00.002+01:00

We have made it to Livingston, we fly out at silly hour tomorrow
morning. Amazing how much extra effort travelling is with a wee kid!
Zoe basically didn't sleep the whole 3 hour trip from strathdon last
night, and then was very unsettled during the night. Makes us wonder
what Germany will be like!! Still, trusting God for the victory in
physical battles as well as spiritual ones.

So yeah, after an intense day of meetings, a rough travel and night
time and the prospect of our first major travel experience we are
enjoying some time in the sun, and it feels great!!!

--
--

Newsletters

2009-04-14T22:13:00.002+01:00

So Newsletters are a bit of a pain, taking lots of time out of what you want to be doing, to write about what you have done! But they are also a great way to reflect and assess what you are choosing to spend your days doing, especially when the validity or worth of each day can be distilled into a paragraph!

Anyway, after a big push we have our quarterly newsletter done....
Easter 2009.pdf

Now just to get a few tweaks on a couple of websites, a prayer room prayed into, CLAN Young Adults prayed into before a planning weekend for said conference and a trip to Livingston, all before Sunday! Then we are all off to Germany for three weeks for a YWAM Conference, called DNA. Really looking forward to it, lots to do before then though!

See y'all soon!

Ian

P.S. I will try to update the blog from germany, but will all be from my phone so smaller updates and more frequency is what I am aiming for....

Great things and great organisations

2009-03-03T14:56:00.010Z

Hey All,

Since my last post we have been up to our usual standard of intensity, with another outreach team, a couple of CLAN Gathering Young Adults meetings and a visit to the hospital!

The outreach team were with us from 30th Dec until 20th Feb, almost two months with them! They were from Seamill, on the West coast of Scotland, with nationalities ranging from Sweden to the States, and that was just the leaders! They were a reasonably crazy bunch, with lots of enthusiasm and a good dose of Spirit led obedience! Good combo! They were led by Claes and Sarah Ljungemyr, friends who have been in Seamill for a few years now, and it was great to have them in Aberdeen to work together and hang out with our friends! Every time we meet people from YWAM Scotland we have a great time, mainly because there are so many great people in YWAM Scotland and we miss them all!

The team were very blessed to have the use of Old Macher's manse, which is vacant as they look for a new minister. We do not take this for granted as they have some very strict(rightly so) critera for people to use church property! However because of this we made ourselves available to the church for various projects they are running, the most notable for our team was a friday night drop in kids night. There are roughly 50 to 60 kids every friday night, most of whom do not know Jesus yet. There are so many opportunities to reach out and show them the love of God, and the team were privileged to be a part of this fantastic outreach.

I am also privileged to be part of a fantastic organisation, YWAM! Deb Zoe and I have booked to go to Herrnhut, Germany in April for a 3 week conference entitled DNA Infusion, which is all about YWAM's history and value system as well as hearing where we are as a mission and where we are going to. In preparation for this I have been reflecting a bit on the foundational values YWAM bases its conduct and structure on. As a value based movement each base is free to interpret the values as they see fit, realising that they are God given for integrity and direction. Integrity because they are a great measure for how we are functioning day by day, and direction because they can lead us through tough times in ways that aren't easy, but ultimately bring us closer to God and more fully into our destiny as individuals and bases.

I would like to focus on one of these values now which God has been highlighting to me:
15. VALUE FAMILIES
YWAM affirms the importance of families serving God together in missions, not just the father and/or mother. We encourage the development of strong and healthy family units, with each member sharing the call to missions and contributing their gifts in unique and complementary ways.

The last few weeks have been strange for me in work terms, as I have not done very much "ministry" but have focused on my family, and as so often when God is trying to make a point, it hasn't been on my terms! Two weeks ago Deb went up to Fraserburgh for a couple of nights to have a kind of retreat, time to focus on God and rest a bit. This meant that I was looking after Zoe, including going to parent and toddler groups! This was quite an experience, and lots of fun too! Then last week Deb got sick, sick enough to call out the GP, who referred her to the hospital! Without going into too many details, Deb had a chest infection and sinusitis, and because of some complications, and the pregnancy, they wanted to check her out thoroughly. She ended up spending a couple of nights in hospital and coming home with a big bagful of pills! Through all of this it would have been so easy to look at the work that needs to be done, and the time spent looking after Zoe and Deb and get frustrated. But God in his wisdom had started me thinking of value 15 before the events of the last fortnight, and through the events has given me deeper revelation on why we are called as a mission to value families. It has been a tough time, but we are over the worst now and I think we are stronger for it as a family, and ultimately if our family is suffering, YWAM Aberdeen is suffering!! Also we have had the blessing of Deb's mum Liz up for a few days to take some of the pressure off. She has done a powerful amount of cleaning and cooking, as well as spending lots of quality time with her favourite(and only) granddaughter!

Families are great!

Well I think that is enough info for one post!!!

Ian

New Year with new beginnings!

2009-01-09T10:22:00.005Z

2009 has started pretty much where 2008 left off, with lots of people and things to do! WE welcomed a DTS outreach team on the 30th Dec who will be with us for almost 2 months. Since they have been here they have been involved with Street Pastors, Bethany Christian Trust(Lighthouse), Somebody Cares as well as declaring lots of portions of Scripture out into Aberdeen. It has been a great 10 days or so and I am expectant for the next chapter of their stay.

Our wee family had a great time over Christmas, with a trip to Belfast for a long weekend, followed by the arrival of a crazy family from Texas(Deb's aunt being the forerunner in the crazy stakes...) and then Livingston for Christmas itself. It is always good to spend time with family, and I know they all enjoyed plenty of Zoe time! Deb and I especially enjoyed having people to take Zoe in the morning times as she woke up most nights crying and coughing and we desperately needed to sleep!!!

I think it is fair to say Zoe loved her 2nd Christmas! Plenty of pressies to unwrap and attention as she did so! The star pressie has to be her toy kitchen, which I am all for, sooner she can learn how to make me a cup of tea the better! :)

Anyway, just a short update this time, I am off to see the team, then to go to the Gospel 4 Grampian studio for some on-air Bible declaration!

Peace!
Ian

Tyler Texas Team

2008-11-25T17:30:00.008Z

Well it seems like a life time ago that these wonderful people were in Aberdeen! Coming from Texas, roughly hotter than anywhere else on the planet, to a place the same latitude as Juneau, Alaska! I think they came with faith!

They arrived on a Friday morning after a flight from Dallas to Amsterdam, and a connecting flight to Aberdeen. Apparently there was just one of them who managed to sleep on the plane, Sarah, who took a sleeping pill, I can imagine someone else on the team giving it to her.... shades of "I ain't gettin on no plane fool!"

I jest, Sarah turned out to be someone of incredible depth and a love for the Word of God that was her direction in many prayer times. Outstanding. And in fact that was the flavour of the team, incredible depth. We were truly blessed by them.

Back to the first couple of days, and we put them to work on the Saturday, building a prayer room! This was their first major assignment and they spent many hours in there over the first week. This is a picture of Kristin, from NY, making a "fire" out of tissue paper and fairy lights for our living room section. It added greatly to the feel of the section. Great to be able to come into God's presence as his child, no condemnation or striving, just to sit with our Father.

For the first two weeks they stayed at New Life International Church, Leadside Road. This is one of the most welcoming and friendly churches I have ever been to. They were very hospitable to our team, to the point that we felt it wasn't an outreach at all! The amount of food provided was staggering, and so was the quality! The team were given opportunities during the main church service a few times, as well as Undignified, a monthly youth night. We were blessed to meet the church, and hope it wasn't a one off work relationship!

The second two weeks of the outreach were spent in the Bridge of Don, moving out of the church and into host homes. We are very grateful to everyone who helped out by putting up a team member or two. The response has been that the team were a blessing wherever they stayed, which I hope isn't just Christian courtesy speak!!!

In the Bridge of Don we were able to be more of a part of team life. It was difficult with Zoe to be at most team meetings etc. in the centre of town, but in the BoD we had team meetings in our house which was GREAT!

There were also plenty of ministry opportunities, like teaching on prayer in Old Macher Church of Scotland, TNT(a church service for guys from the Lighthouse), speaking in other churches, as well as intercession assignments and hang out time looking for people to talk to.

We found the whole experience with the Tyler team fantastic. Our first taste of an outreach team from outside of Scotland, and it has whet our appetite for more! There is a short video produced by one of the team, Nick, which tells the whole outreach story, in 3 minutes!

Now they have all left and gone back to their respective home towns, we wait expectantly to hear who of them will come back.... there may well be a couple of them! More Lord!!

Ian

travel, breaks and a team from Texas

2008-11-13T09:21:00.005Z

Hi All,

Plenty to talk about not all of it that plesant...

i haven't blogged in a wee bit because of intensity(24/7 prayer room), travel(a trip to Malaga via Belfast for a new team network with YWAM) and a break. The break I am refering to is not the nice relaxing type where you leave the hustle of the city for some r&r, but the kind that leaves you in a cast! I had a moment of stupidity, got all frustrated and annoyed and punched the floor(not that hard I thought, but there you go!). Turns out I hit it hard enough to break a metacarple in my right hand! Doh! So I have had my first experience of a cast, two weeks worth! Thankfully the Doc thought I was suffeciently healed last Monday to remove it and warn me not to knock it again, a small knock in the right direction could break it again! Mad thing is that I have gone from cast from fingers to mid-arm to just taping my fingers together! Apparently thats all it needs! I am still getting some pain from it, especially when I try to do something that my hand doesn't like, for example shake hands with a drunk guy on Wed night, totally instinctive to shake back!

Anyway, enough of that, I can now type two handed and that is OUTSTANDING>

So travel.

I went to Spain to meet with a few other small/new team type people in YWAM Europe. We had Belfast, Paris, Valencia, Milan, Brussels and Derby covered! Along with the small team people there were some more senior YWAMers, there to give out wisdom and experience, which I soaked up! There were lots of processing times, talking about what could help us in our jobs, and what would be good protocol to help anyone wanting to start another small team. The hope is for lots and lots of small teams to go out all over Europe. We also had plenty of time to get to know each other relationally, this was the first time for me to meet most of these people and it was fantastic to get some mutual encouragement from people who were or have done something similar to what we are doing in Aberdeen. On the last full day we had a time of worship which spilled over into prayer for each other. This I found very interesting as God confirmed some really important stuff for me and a word given during my DTS in 2005! God is good and faithful to His promises.

Team from Texas

These guys deserve a blog post all to themselves, which I will do very soon. However to say quickly, they were 11 top top top quality people which we enjoyed working with immensly! Time will tell the true impact that they had on Aberdeen city.

Till next time!

Ian

Internet technology

2008-10-06T17:09:00.006+01:00

Since my last post I have been spending far too much time on my computer, but not the casual surfing/enjoying type of time! Oh no, I have been learning! I purchased a copy of a Microsoft program called Expression 2.0 which essentially is a web design package, but as I have found out comes with a whole host of benefits! The Design part is the first vector based graphics program I have used, very funky. Blend allows me to create Silverlight applications apparently, and until I got this program I didn't realise I wanted to do such a thing!

Silverlight
As with most new technologies Silverlight is starting life trying to tell people what it is. However because it is a Microsoft product it is doing it a lot faster than most! Essentially it is a competitor for Flash, and can do some very funky things! E.g. Nerd Plus Art If you come across a site that requires Silverlight, I would recommend it, it will most likely become the norm soon enough anyway!

So I feel like I am back in full time study again, couple the Silverlight stuff with learning asp.Net 3.5 and other things that are very geeky and my brain is fried! Still all good fun too and I hope to be able to make some cool websites soon.

Other stuff besides computers...

Deborah and Zoe are returning to Aberdeen tomorrow night after almost a week down "south", meaning Whitney, near Oxford. They have had a great time by the sounds of it, with Deborah's brother Neil and his wife Julia. I will be glad to have them back though!!!

We have an outreach team arriving in Aberdeen on Friday, for a month! I think this is still very conceptual in my head, I might be in for a shock when they arrive here!!! 11 people fresh from Texas(average hight temp between 24 and 28... they are in for a shock!)

The teams arrival brings with it the start of our 24/7 prayer week! All sorts of good stuff happening through it! Speaking of which I need to go get some stuff done for it!!

Adios!
Ian

YWAM Staff conference

2008-09-25T10:21:00.004+01:00

As a YWAMer I am constantly being challenged by our foundational values, and the foundational value of "To Know God" ranks at number one. This weekend we are meeting in Seamill for a YWAM Scotland Staff Conference, entitled "A new monasticism - A changing culture". Sounds intersting, but then I look at the detail of the weekend and see Katherine Robertson, of ICC, teaching on 1 Peter 1 : 3 - 8:

2Pe 1:3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through the full knowledge of the one who called us by his own glory and excellence.
2Pe 1:4 Through these he has given us his precious and wonderful promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, seeing that you have escaped the corruption that is in the world caused by evil desires.
2Pe 1:5 For this very reason, you must make every effort to supplement your faith with moral character, your moral character with knowledge,
2Pe 1:6 your knowledge with self-control, your self-control with endurance, your endurance with godliness,
2Pe 1:7 your godliness with brotherly kindness, and your brotherly kindness with love.
2Pe 1:8 For if you possess these qualities, and if they continue to increase among you, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in attaining a full knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And I get VERY excited! Nothing like a good challenge to go deeper with God and see Him for who He really is, "full knowledege of our Lord Jesus Christ", to get the cobwebs out! I am fully expectant of God doing something great this weekend, fully expecting whatever He does to be totally about Him and totally about reaching the lost of this nation.

On another note, we are preparing a 24/7 prayer room for the 12th - 19th Oct, and plans and progress have gone really well. We are partnering with Siloam ministry, a YWAM outreach team coming from Tyler Texas, and 12 city centre churches to put on the week(go here if you fancy signing up for a prayer slot). This obviously takes a lot of coordination, but it also has received a lot of encouragement from God. For example we would had a planning meeting about it here in Aberdeen, and during the meeting I received an email from Texas saying the exact same impression we had during the meeting! God speaks Texan and Scottish(with a hint of Irish ;))

However where God encourages, the enemy wants to discourage, and we have received a few quite potent attacks in the last few days. If you have the time and/or desire could you pray for God's will to be accomplished in His timing and in His way. God is up to something really good and I want to be in the flow not blocking the flow!

Until next time, keep your eyes on Jesus.
Ian

Not your average church service

2008-09-16T10:05:00.002+01:00

As this blog is about life and ministry, I will recount a very short version of my experience on Sunday, which ended up making the news! Unfortunatly I don't feel it is right to put any details up here, but what was supposed to be a trip to church with friends from Tillydrone ended up being a stand off between my friend and police that lasted over 4 hrs.

http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/838438

Quite the day! Lots of pain and emotion for my mate and everyone else involved, looking forward to seeing some sort of resolution.

The crazy thing is that he has been showing some real progress up to now, and it leads me to realise how much influence the world and the unseen world has on us. There really is a fight on for every person, and all moves forward for God will be contested. Why doen't God make it easier? Who knows, maybe we don't do the "right things" enough to facilitate God making things easier.

Just a thought.

Ian

It has been a while!

2008-08-06T15:29:00.006+01:00

Hey All,

So with CLAN Gathering safely behind us, and a new house filled with all our stuff, I can finally breath a little bit and tell you all about the current happenings!

CLAN was a great success, well from my point of view anyway... Our venue looked good, we had lots of people there(about 150 - 200 at every session), no major difficulties or hold ups and a great sense of God. There were many different people involved in the whole process, but I feel a special mention has to go to Richard and Mel Spriggs. They oversaw the worship(along with other things), which I feel was the key area for us this year. After all we are a bunch of Christians coming together, surely God should be the reason for doing so, and therefore giving Him the praise He deserves should be a high priority! Throughout every worship session, whether it was Richard himself leading, or one of the other amazingly talented leaders, I was struck by the total God-centeredness of it.
Deborah did a seminar, "Hearing the voice of the Lord", which she did a great job at. There was lots of inspiration to delve deeper with God and find out how much God actually wants to talk to us.
The weather was fantastic all week, I even managed to get a bit of redness from being out too long playing ultimate frisbee! Our venue was a 15 minute walk from the main site, which made it even more impressive that we got so many people joining us! Just as well God decided to bless us with sunshine!
Now we have the first year over us I am looking forward to planning for next year(which starts in Sept) with a better idea in my head as to what things will look like.

House move
We moved all our stuff on the 28th July, and thankfully it was the most stress free move we have done so far, I can recommend moving round the corner!! Our new house is a 3 bedroom semi, and suits us down to the ground. We still have lots of boxes to unpack and our furniture will go through a few moves before it settles in a "final" position, but we already feel very at home.

There are plenty of other things to blog about, but they will have to wait.

Till next time!
Ian

Crash bang whallop

2008-07-16T13:17:00.005+01:00

I am afraid to say that through carelessness and stupidity my laptop has ceased to display anything on its screen. It does still work well apart from that, meaning I have to hook it up to an external display to get it to work, so it has now become a desktop! Most annoying.

So posts wont be as frequent, neither will Twitter or Facebook status updates, and yes all the stuff I had for CLAN has been transported to Deborah's lappytop. Thank goodness for that!

Ian

Crunch time

2008-07-08T11:31:00.004+01:00

A definition of Crunch time : a critical moment or period (as near the end of a game) when decisive action is needed

It feels like that for us at the minute. CLAN Gathering is about to start(19th to 26th July), and we are about to move house(28th July)!! Lots of pretty intense stuff!

CLAN Gathering, specifically Young Adults
There are about 200 Young Adults officially signed up, less than previous years, but not included in that figure is day visitors. CLAN is a strange thing in many ways, a whole week in the middle of summer that people take time off work for, depleting much protected holiday time, spending lots of money on the conference and accommodation, all just to have a week of church! Sounds like a strange choice to make!

Of course for anyone who has been before, the factors above don't really compare to the immensity of the conference itself. Around 4000 Christians, mainly from Scotland, coming together with one objective in mind, Jesus Christ. Bring it ON!!! I have been to CLAN twice before, and both times I have been blown away by God. He chooses to meet his people when they come as they are before him, and when he is meeting everyone at once, the force of blessing is, literally, awesome.

So the Young Adults side of things should be great. Lots of details still to iron out, but I am really looking forward to seeing what God wants to do. The Edify venue is something a bit new, trusting God in the new as well as the old.

Moving house
We get back from CLAN on a Saturday(maybe close to dinner time) and the removal company comes on the Monday! A change is as good as a rest??? Maybe?!?!?

We are moving from the Bridge of Don Baptist manse round the corner to a house belonging to another member of the Baptist church. He is in missions with Interserve and hopefully has no plans on coming home any time soon! We have taken a year lease on the house which should give us enough time to settle in properly and enjoy a period of stability. It is a great house, semi-detached with 3 bedrooms, enough space for us at this time for sure. It will be fun watching removal men try to get our nice big 3 seater sofa through that wee window on the front there, our sofa's wont go through the entrance hall...

So almost lunch time now, we are using up all the different things in our cupboards so we don't have to move them, that usually leads to some very interesting meals!! After lunch it is on to packing boxes... this is the life of a missionary sometimes!

Enjoy the peace of God,
Ian

Leading from the front, even if it is just me

2008-06-27T10:17:00.006+01:00

Decisions are hard to make, but I think walking them out can be even harder!

We have had a great time so far at Seamill catching up with old friends and making some new ones too. We had a time with Carolyn Howard, who is our line leader on the National Leadership Team(NLT). She talked us through some of the things we have been going through and decisions that we have to make, and it was very rewarding. It didn't totally feel like it at the time, in fact I felt very deflated, not because of what Carolyn said, but because I started to look into myself a bit and realise what was going on for me. Introspection is a strange thing, too much is unhealthy, conversly so is too little, and life at the minute has tended to be the latter. You just keep on keeping on until you stop and reflect a wee bit, which opens up a huge vault of stuff that has been building up for ages.

You would think God would have some sort of pattern set for us in the Bible that would help wouldn't you... hold on a minute, maybe he does....

Matthew 14
22Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. 23After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone,

Interestingly enough, this is just before Jesus, and subsequently Peter, walks on the water. Even if we look at the start of Jesus ministry and the 40 days he spent in the desert, right before "Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit" - Luke 4:14

Power of the Spirit, demostrations of the Spirits power, complete calm in the middle of the storm, even though Jesus had been through tough ordeals he came out just as strong after spending time alone in prayer. Loving the Father, loving the Spirit, communion with the Three on earth as the had/have in Heaven. Sounds like a good pattern for me!!

So leading from the front, looks like that is what life has for me in terms of YWAM Aberdeen, even if it is just me!!! Still takes a lot of effort, but then God is with me and so who can be against me!? The next steps for me will be to seek God for concrete vision for the team. What is it that God has created YWAM Aberdeen to be? What form will that take? What words does He want to describe us? What faith goals do we need to have? Lots of questions that need answered. I have been told that I have a breakthrough anointing by a few different people over the last few years, sounds fancy until you look at real life examples, like the bow of a ship going through ice in the Arctic! Smash bang whallop, not pretty, ending up with a sore head! Still, that is what we need in Aberdeen, breakthrough.

Right, that is enough for now. More on work vision etc. when it comes to me I think...

Cars, boats and Belfast

2008-06-23T20:26:00.003+01:00

We are in Belfast for a couple of days, allowing the grandparents some quality Zoe time. We arrived at 11.45pm on Sat night after a day of Zoe not sleeping and coughing chesty coughs!!

We have had a great time so far, apart from Zoe being a bit sicky bad. I went to St. Mary's, my home church, and it was fantastic to see everyone again. Lots of "hey hows things?" and "yeah, good..."!! But seriously, it was a real rich time. I also met Jonny Clark from YWAM Belfast today. He is a really solid guy and he didn't even seem to mind my million questions!

Mark, the minister at my church, talked about Jesus walking on the water and Peter asking if he can come join in. God has been talking to me lately about the importance of keeping my eyes on Him at all times, and not just crying out for help when I am drowning! I feel like I am asking Jesus if I can come join him on the water, and about to jump out of the boat. In the boat the waves are buffeting and rocking it, and in the midst of that Peter asks to go out. Stepping into the stormy waves.

So uneven surface, not to mention liquid... Not knowing what can happen, I mean where was the Scriptural basis for Peter thinking he could walk on the water too??? Crazy thing is that even after Peter starts walking on the water and comes towards Jesus that he looks away, and starts to sink, the Jesus rebukes him for his lack of faith! The man that just walked on water with Jesus is being rebuked for a lack of faith!!! Still, one of the great points Mark made on Sunday was that it was as soon as he started to sink that he called out to Jesus to save him, not as he was half way submerged, or drowning, but as soon as he started to sink. Good lesson in there for me, I usually cry out to Jesus after I have gone through ten different ways to save myself first!

So yeah, keeping my eyes on Jesus, out on the stormy waters. Sounds like things could be getting more interesting!

Ian

Fathers day

2008-06-15T21:19:00.006+01:00

My first fathers day.

All sorts of great things happened today, not the least receiving a fantastic mug signed(well footprinted) by my fantastic daughter, Zoe!

Thys, a South African in our church, made the great point today that God is our perfect Father. He is the one who is always faithful, never lets us down, always looking for the best for us, and loves us totally. When you put it like that His discipline doesn't seem so bad!

I have also been thinking about the word faith a bit, and how it is mentioned so much by Jesus in the Gospels. He says things like "your faith has healed you", and "the work of God is this, to believe in the one he has sent". I wonder how much God smiles when we believe what He says??? In Matthew 8:26 Jesus rebukes his disciples for their lack of faith, and because they were worried about a silly thing like drowning!!! It is very easy to see the storms of life and worry about drowning in them, but Jesus wants to rebukes the waves and the wind of our lives and increase our faith!!!!

We can say words that have faith or words that are empty of them.

I have been very guilty of the latter, lots of words and not much substance. God has been teaching me in the last week how to have faith, to pray with faith, act with faith, move forward towards Him.

Hebrews 10

21and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.

How cool is that??? Since Jesus is our High Priest, we can come near to God with FULL ASSURANCE of faith, because GOD IS FAITHFUL!!! We can have faith in God because He is 100% faithful. More faithful than gravity, the sun, and all the stars in the sky put together.

That is our Father. Our Dad.

I am off to make Him a mug...

When people give you stuff

2008-06-13T16:00:00.005+01:00

When someone decides to give you something, especially when there isn't a real reason to, it is a very strange feeling. I have been the beneficiary of a few different incredibly generous gifts in the last few days, I get the feeling God is teaching me how to receive a bit more!

A few days ago I started to believe God fully, with faith, for more finance. All good there, offering up the prayers and petitions to God for more... then I gave money to my home church, two months instead of just one.... then the floodgates opened and finance came flooding in! Crazy the way God works, give to release more!

Anyway, quick post to say God is good, He is faithful and wants to give to us, His kids.

Ian

Why do we give?

2008-06-05T23:12:00.004+01:00

I have just read through the book of Malachai, a nice short book of the Bible, at the end of the Old Testament. It is really challenging, forcing me to look my giving and asking God what my heart is in every gift I give. It seems people from Isreal had been giving God less than the best, holding off on what they should give and keeping the best for themselves, as if God couldn't really tell what was being giving to Him... God even challenges them at one point to give to their govenor what they were giving to God and see if the govenor accepted their offering!

So for me I have to look at what I am giving at this point in time and ask God where is my heart, am I giving our of duty, but secretly trying to hold back the best bits for myself? Do I have a misconception on why I am to give at all? Do I treat it like I am losing out on "my money" by giving some of it away? Of course God answers that one very well:

Malachai 3: 8 - 12
8 "Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. "But you ask, 'How do we rob you?' "In tithes and offerings. 9 You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me. 10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. 11 I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit," says the LORD Almighty. 12 "Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land," says the LORD Almighty.

My question to myself is, am I bringing the whole tithe into the storehouse?!

Do I bring all my money?
Do I bring all my time?
Do I bring all my talents?
Do I bring all my energy?
Do I bring all of me???

Giving to God is strange, I mean He already has all he needs right? And if He doesn't He can basically create it! So this whole giving thing can't really be about God, it must be about ourselves.

Of course God is gracious enough to give us a mind blowing incentive in this book as well, namely knowing He is watching, and that even our conversations are remembered!

Malachai 4
16 Then those who feared the LORD talked with each other, and the LORD listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the LORD and honored his name.
17 "They will be mine," says the LORD Almighty, "in the day when I make up my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him.

I think that is well cool.

What else would you do with a Saturday morning?!

2008-05-31T08:36:00.010+01:00

6.30am and our dear sweet Zoe decides enough sleep has been had, brilliant. Now all it takes is to let her work of some energy before going down for the first nap of the day, some thing I will do as well! It is a Saturday after all!
God must have known what He was doing when He made kids, I mean they take up so much time, energy, money, they don't allow you to be selfish, you have to choose their needs over yours the vast majority of the time, but then, it is worth it. Every choice, every nappy change and temper tantrum! There is no other feeling like having your own kid look at you and smile. Also, knowing that you are responsible for this wee ones life and development brings in so much more focus, even on a Saturday morning!

Zoe started crawling today! She saw what she wanted, and went for it! Lots of fun coming our way methinks! Lots of moving things and making sure the fire is off before she goes anywhere near it!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIcdjkh8SYs

It is amazing watching a wee person's development, and frustrations when they know what it is they want to do but can't do it yet! Much like our own I am sure, wonder how God views our development eh?!

Nice thought to end on :)

Ian