1000th Post - A Milestone Reflection

This the 1000th post and together with listing the all-time favorite posts as of this week, I will also describe some of my impressions of Oxford.....Thankyou very much to the readers of this blog which was conceived on the 8th August 2008 and launched with its first post in the following week.

In four and a half short years we've gone from a time where nearly nobody knew there was another distinct level to Christianity, the Father level, and back in 2007, people only shrugged their shoulders if you dared refer them to the stages St John maps out in 1 John 2.

Both in blogs and now on the social networks ,Christians have been voicing their extreme disgust at the shortfalls in evangelicalism and the charismatic realm. Some identify with this blog, others at least now fully recognise the power of grace to carry them through. The Church worldwide, contrary to the almost complete disinformation progamme of  the media and secular world, is alive and growing probably at a pace and depth unknown in all its corporate history.


These are the all time favorite posts and the number of times they have been opened. The absolute clear winner is not one of my posts at all, but one of my dear friends Ole Henrik Skjelstad (Norway)as posted by Andrea Garzon  (Equador). A great Post.

Top Post-The Real Thing - 12569 HITS incredible !

This week we have been caravanning in Oxford and these are the pictures I took with my trusty Sony Cybershot P200. Although I lived in Amersham only 35 miles away,I have only actually been to Oxford on very few occasions, since the gravitational pull of a city like London, about the same distance in the opposite direction, is infinitely greater to youngsters.
So this halfterm week we thought we'd "do" Oxford.




No.2 -A Post about the Ancient Door Of Control - 5536 HITS - My highest read post.




Top 10 things to do in Oxford. Click pics to enlarge.
It was exceedingly bitter this week, so we dived in restaurants and eating houses as well as visiting the Ashmolean Museum. I visited again on the Friday night because there were a number of free musical events and lectures taking place. These occur on the last Friday each month.
I was treated to a John Cage recital/reading, an incredible series of wellknown pieces played on violin and theremin, some adlibbed music in the stairwell on different floors, DJ's using old and new material, various hands on noise producing gadgets, and a demonstration of a 1933 top of the range gramophone playing contemporary works on 78s such as the then 16 year old Menuhin conducted by an 83 year old Elgar.

No.3 -Too Much Process As Illustrated in the lives of Jane Fonda and Derek Prince

- 2913 HITS - Do we really need to jump through so many hoops?

No. 4 - The First of Gary Sigler's series Coming Out of Darkness
- 2774 HITS - Part of a series

On the offchance I contacted Norita Roberts on Facebook, and before flying to Spain for a leader's conference Marcus and Norita kindly came to visit us in our caravan. Christine has never met them and so it was her and my chance to catch up a bit on the quarter of a century that has passed since our paths divided in 1988, when I left Emsworth Church.The next day I went to visit Roberts Pianos Workshop 


No.5 - Rich Novek's brilliant letter to a modern day Christian Pharisee
- 2612 HITS -  Check out his new book on Amazon

Ofcourse over the two days I was able to learn some of the details I knew absolutely nothing about and for me it was more than interesting, but for the reader here that knows nothing about Marcus or I I'll try to paint a quick picture.
Marcus is six years older than me, which is somehow in God's plan. Marcus's agegroup very much got swept up into the tail end of leadership in the charismatic/Jesus move that we all came in on in the early 70s. It is quite handy that , being just a tad younger, I somehow missed this, but have been able to do detective work from underneath, the results of which form the subject of this blog.
Marcus and I both never set out in life to have careers in pianos. We both fully expected to be involved in the Lord's work and as such we both found ourselves in Emsworth Bible House with Norita and some 20-25 others.


No.6 - The Nature of the One Cult that we are Leaving
- 1626 Hits

In the interim,Marcus started a student church first in Portsmouth, then he and Norita began one in Oxford when he moved his business up there. So by now Marcus and Norita are quite seasoned pastors, and their three lads are now established in their own lives being between ages 20-30.
The original Rios De Vida Argentinian church stream based in Quilmes, Buenos Aires, under Jorge Pradas and until this year Norita's brother and wife Daniel and Nellie Garcia, has since spread through all the Argentinian States and has churches in Europe and in the UK, notably this one in Oxford and one under Colin and Christine King in Bangor.
Now Oxford and Cambridge are much appreciated cities by church planters. Because , like Harvard, they are all cities which influence the future. Marcus and Norita know and meet with other pastors in the city and are aware of the Salt and Light churches which originated through Barney Coombs, and have proliferated throughout Oxfordshire. This is particularly relevant for Christine who was one of the first nine of what has become the thousands strong Derby church, also in the Salt and Light network.


No.7 - Why Havant Church is in such a significant position....PIVOTAL even
- 1187 HITS

Tomb wall - Ashmolean Museum

Second to pursuing unity among Christians in the town, it was immediately obvious to me that their business Roberts Pianos  is quite a tree of life for the birds nesting thereupon! It supports ten or more fulltime and part time staff, which in the rather niche world of piano restoration is no small deal.
As a business owner, obviously you are paying salary rates, but you have to support those staffmembers through thick and thin. And therein lies the skill. Can you get those employees to earn you more than what they are paid?  If you do, you are running a profitable business. If then you plough back those profits into fresh expansion, or Christian projects, you may or may not ever become wealthy yourself, but you will be able to cast your eyes back down some long furrows.
 These then are all the different aspects to running churches and businesses over decades.



No.8 - Mark Stibbe always gave a prophetic Word at the start of the year. This was 2011
- 1090 HITS

I asked David, the son of the pastor who excluded me from Emsworth Church, what was it he felt was the role of Los Rios De Vida now that a lot of other churches have  caught up with the vision of praise and worship and finding the Presence of God together? In the seventies and early eighties there was nothing else quite like Emsworth Church in the UK. Some ten to fifteen years later fellow Argentinians Ed Silvoso and Claudio Freidzon were used to implant much of this vision across the Church in the UK. David replied that the Los Rios churches were still pursuing this vision but solely because it was their vision and not to seek to exclude the callings of other churches.

HMV Oxford? One of the last CD stores?

No.9 - Who is Francois DuToit, the translator behind the Mirror Version of the Bible?
- 912 HITS

So,what are my conclusions after 1000 posts? Can I point to any church or similar sized business that I have developed? Nope. And for most of those who have trekked along the same furrows as myself, we all have strikingly similar stories, yet strangely far from being despondent, we are all more confident than at any time in the past 30 years. In fact, next month, beginning in the USA, God seems to be giving us liberty to roll away the chockblocks and begin to share what we've been shut away for decades learning. In March Daniel Yordy and Rich Novek take the opportunity afforded by their recently published books to begin sharing from the same platform together into homes, small and large churches.

I find the model in Oxford interesting, because it very much traces Jorge's apostleship. Namely that people find God and are transformed by Him in meetings, then share life as a church "in the practical outworked love of the brethren".
For me,while in Emsworth that never worked. It never provided the "inner answer of Biblical revelation" I was searching for.Now, I can never speak for anyone else's path, and indeed I never followed the Los Rios path for more than 10 years, so perhaps if you do, certain other factors kick in to make it work. But for me,Rich , Daniel,Fred Pruitt,Annalize Mouton, Nancy Gilmore,Ole Henryk Skjelstad,Andrea Garzon,Chris Kimmel, Nick Cabbiness, Cathy Rheeder,Joan Reilly and so many many more who have supplied posts, we trod an individual path to come to the conclusion St Paul did at the end of Romans 7. That "independent living" is not really independent living, it is powered by the sin spirit, it is "sin in the flesh", masquerading as flesh. And that this is what makes Romans 8 work by setting our mind on the Spirit and telling ourselves repeatedly until it becomes consciousness....it is nolonger I that live. We have had an exchange. This lying "soul/I" that never was, has been replaced at our true spiritcentre by Christ/I. And that is the key that opens this "heaven on earth" lock.

No.10 - James A Fowler's article and diagrams on what Jesus has done
- 887 HITS

And finally, when I asked which post Joan Reilly had most enjoyed, she replied this spoof post.

Make Loadsa Cash Now From the Different Gospel

Another Lie Exposed! - Rich Novek

Facebook Group Note
July 28, 2012 By novek7@gmail.com

It is for FREEDOM that Christ has set you free. (Galatians 5:1)

We have been hood winked, lied to, duped, and deceived, and concerning the very thing that takes us into the deepest places of who God really is!

Can we actually think for even one rational second, that our loving God (He is a loving God, isn’t He?) would give us something that would hinder us from knowing Him in a deeper and more personal way?

If you then being evil, are able to give good gifts to your children… (Matthew 7:11)

WHAT? Evil, what exactly is this “evil” Jesus is talking about?

Is the “evil” Jesus is talking about only concerning certain unacceptable behaviors, like we have all been taught, or is there a much deeper meaning here that He is wanting to convey? Could He be talking about the same “evil” He spoke of in Matthew 6, which upon closer examination is more about the opposite of “single” than anything else?

The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be “single”, thy whole body shall be full of light.

But if thine eye be “evil”, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! (Matthew 6:22-23)

James also expands on this “evil” way of seeing and believing: Only he exposes “evil” in another way, and he calls it something completely different.

But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is “double-minded” and unstable in all they do. (James 1:6-8)

If you being “double-minded” are able to give good gifts to your children, then how much more will your “single eye” Father, the One who sees only YOU… And not only does He see only you, but sees you as the “apple of His eye”, which means when He looks at you, you fill His whole vision, you become the center of all of His looking!

So how much more will that Father give to those who ask of Him?

This lie of a punishing and separated God, the lie so many have bought for so long is NOW being exposed, and do you know how? By the “mystery” kept hidden for so long…of boasting in the same condemnation, fear, worry, anxiety, and confusion we have avoided and hid from our whole lives. Not to mention the poverty, depression, confusion, sickness, and rage!

We no longer need to run or hide from these things, but instead, we need to take what the enemy has meant for evil and then do what Job, Paul, and even Jesus Himself did, which was to simply embrace it. And in our freedom, we embrace the weakness, and release it to God. He has no other choice but to fill that weak (empty) place with Himself!

Nothing can exist in a vacuum. Why? Because He is the One who fills everything IN every way.

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance IN His holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength He exerted when He raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above ALL rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed ALL things under His feet and appointed Him to be head over everything for the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills “everything” IN every way. (Ephesians 1:18-23)

He will fill that empty place with Himself. But if we continue to hide from it, or cover it up, He cannot fill what is already full…of self for self love!

And so what happens when we do that, when we finally surrender all of our weaknesses to God? It’s only then we are able to see that God loves us with an unconditional no-strings attached love that gives us the freedom to…just BE!

And in our “being” us, the real us, not the “us” we want everyone to believe is us, we get to see the REAL Jesus. The Jesus who really does bind up the (spiritually) broken hearted, heals the (spiritually) sick, opens the (spiritual) blind eyes, and sets the (spiritual) captives FREE!

And He does this when finally see and embrace the one and only thing we have to boast in apart from God…our weakness!

Joan Reilly Yes it does! "keep getting better" "And in our freedom, we embrace the weakness, and release it to God. He has no other choice but to fill that weak (empty) place with Himself!" Hallelujah!!!

4 hours ago · · 1

Joan Reilly ‎...so when we hear that we have to do something to improve ourselves in some way because God's grace is (not) sufficient and until we clean up our act, God can't hear our prayers, it's exactly the opposite...we run to Him because "And God placed ALL things under His feet and appointed Him to be head over everything for the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills “everything” IN every way."

Chris Welch

RELATED to what Rich wrote is faith.You see if we ever face our weakness we are forced into faith mode to find an answer. I'm sure you know in your own life and in others how we do everything to avoid the weakness that propels us into faith. We rush out and get the most high paying jobs so we'll never be short. Those jobs are all now tied into each other in a giant pyramid supporting a massive New World Order. Or we rush into university to get us a higher paid job not realising that snuck into the whole knowledge base we are acquiring is a godless consciousness of a false self-reliance, which is actually a reliance on the same power pyramid as above.Do you realise that every book published in University is screened before publishing to check that it fully supports the world view of the independent self.And so it goes on. Each thing that we "buy" into actually in real terms costs higher and higher faith, very sinliar to the effect of relying on credit cards, which in the short term buys us out of having to use our faith, but in the long term represents interest of 16%,29%,39%. Decisions have been made by unscrupulous decisionmakers to use our future budgets ahead of time, our pensions,our health allowances, because they believe as they plan to kill nine tenths of us, why will they ever be needed? Our faithlessness has driven us into a web, that is every bit a fulfilment of "Lead us NOT into temptaion/trial/testing but deliver us from evil". The only way out of evil is to exercise faith in a Saviour, and to avoid this we now hurtle into horrendous trial.

· · · 2 hours ago

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    Chris Welch

    Like anybody, I'm not naturally thrilled with the verse " Count it all joy my brethren when you face various trials"....but this was said by a professional...literally. He made a complete profession out of it. he proved over and over again that "hearing and doing" and placing yourself on the vulnerable line so that the electricity of God can earth your negative, yourvulnerablity.....would raise up life in individuals and new churches all over the place. It wasn't even theory. It was absolutely without question for Paul. No contesting.

    44 minutes ago ·
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    Chris Welch

    Please understand everybody that I am absolutely FOR science, for University, for Business, for modern life. Newton spent his last years deep in scripture and he founded the Royal Society. Oxford and Cambridge began as Christian (templar infiltrated) organisations.Harvard was evangelical. What I object to is that the only two scientists male and female on the BBC are chosen for prettiness and total atheism. Like Christians cannot do research without agenda. What without agenda like atheists, you mean...you know saying man must be 135,000 years old because bones are found in rock....oh and the rock is dated because bones of men who are 135,000 years old are there.....you know independant agendaless research like that!!!!! Completely without bias, like all of atheism!!!
    
    What I am trying to say is Darkness is so embedded in our whole civilisation we cannot even see it anymore.....it's like the gravity of Jupiter....a monster that draws everything into it. The independent scoffing self described in Psalm 1 and Proverbs 1 has no understanding that it is already being sucked into a huge gravitational system , because everyone else is in the same orbit, so it assumes it is free.... like everyone else>>>>NOT

G.R.I.N. - God Religion In a Nutshell

A few days ago I had a go at doing a potted history of the Church in the world, as it relates to Jesus own description of a half-built Tower. As a generalisation each move of God has "got" the first bit of Christianity, but no "move" in history has ever "got " the second bit.....only those gorgeous individuals we love reading from online and Christian bookshops.
The original text, now expanded was put into 3 Facebook statuses. So, yes, quite potted. But quite unlike the rather random, cobbled version we get in schools.  Who runs the schools? You've guessed it!

For those who cannot play the YouTube below, I include all the component graphics.

We Need to be real 2 - Faith in the Margins

Three Posts from Faith whose blog is Faith In the Margins


Run For Your Life
Run from gospels that focus on your success and prosperity.
Run from those that use the name of Jesus Christ only for personal gain.
Run from those that are picking your pocket in the name of Jesus.

Run!

Run from gospels that focus only on self-improvement, or on three steps to a better personality.
Run from churches where men and not Christ are glorified.

Run, get out of that place!

Run from churches where there is no Bible, no cross, no searching Word, no repentance from sin.
Run when there's no mention of the blood of Jesus. It's an unclean place, so run!
Run from churches where the worship leaves you cold, where there's no sense of God's presence, because they don't know God.

Run!

Run from churches where you're comfortable in your sin. If you enter God's house with sin in your life, but you're not convicted of it, you're sitting at a table of devils.

Run!

Run from pulpits that are filled with politically driven men who use the pulpit of God for a personal agenda.

Run!

Run from those who preach division between races and cultures.

Run!

Run! Get out! Turn it off. They know nothing of God.
Run from ungodly, spasmodic movements and endless empty prophesying. Beloved Church.

Run for your life!

Run from preachers that stand, who tell only stories and jokes.
Run like you've never run before.

Run from those that are only after money and they use one gimmick after another to get your money. One foolish thing after another to get your money.

Run!"

( taken from 'Run' by Carter Conlon)

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Two Little Eyes

Wait for the Lord: Those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

I remember being 27 - about 20 years ago. (This is going to be a long post!) I had just become a Christian, prior to this I had been about to commit suicide as my life had fallen apart in every way possible. I guess I thought that as I had invited Jesus into my life and accepted him as my Saviour and the Holy Spirit had knocked me to the ground everything would start to sort out. My husband (the love of my life and my baby daughter's father) would return and I could get on with a normal life. As I climbed into a friends car and sat in the back God spoke to me at that time very clearly He said 'I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten' Joel 2:25. I was elated. He was going to turn my mourning into dancing, my tears into joy and my despair into hope. I waited.........


It took another failed marriage, 2 more children, another suicide attempt, an abusive relationship with a church leader, being rejected by 2 more churches, becoming homeless and abandoned by all but one of the Christians I knew, it took becoming penniless and nearly having a mental breakdown before God brought to my attention the repayment. All in all 20 years of despair, suffering and waiting. But when he did it boy - does he know how to do it!!!

I have 3 children. This is a story about one of them - the other 2 are just as amazing in different ways.

My son.

He was born into a marriage made in hell. I married for all the wrong reasons - for the second time. I was still broken hearted about losing my first husband. I was still a mess, yes I was a christian but God had so much still to do in me before he could get me in my right mind. After 3 years we split up.

We had a son together. He was long awaited. I had a daughter so I really wanted a son - and God in his graciousness gave me a son. He was born too early and I thought he might die. I would sing to him in his incubator and promise him I would always be there for him no matter what, and I promised God if He let him live I would give him back to God all the days of his life. God didn't forget that - and neither have I.

Through all the suffering and pain the next 16 years brought me I never realsied until now how those two little eyes had been watching. He watched and learnt. He studied my actions and watched the way others mistreated this vulnerable single parent in the churches I took him to.
He was there when they asked me to leave - he lost his sunday school and his church friends and his faith in institutional church. He lost his childhood home and his stability because of what the church did to us. He watched. He understood that we had no money, that we had no home of our own. He understood we were weak and it was easy for those with power in the church to walk all over us - and they did and he saw this.
He watched as I tried to furnish an empty rented house in a new city without money or friends. He watched me struggle and he heard me pray and cry until my heart broke. He made him and his little sister dinner when I lay in bed so damaged by life and church that I couldn't function. He watched it all and I loved him. I taught him about God and how he cares for the lonely, the unwanted, the needy and those on the edge of society who have nothing - I taught him, I lived it and he used to say 'Mummy when is God going to care for you? Why does He let bad people do bad things to us when we have no man to protect us? Why doesn't God protect us from bad people in the church? And I couldn't answer him. And this was the story of his life for 16 years.

I remember when he was about 12 he started to get really good grades at school. I was pleased - but not really that concerned, as what was inside him and how he treated others was of a greater concern to me. I watched him. He would come home from school - retreat to his room and study. On his own, while my life fell apart almost to the extent where I nearly had a breakdown. He studied. And I continued to pray with him and teach him about our amazing God who cared for me and him and his sisters and who was just and merciful.

All my Christian life I have been ignored and treated like a second class person because I am twice divorced and live in poverty with the poor in social housing - homes the government provide for those who have no money. I have no social standing in the church and therefore my views and opinions have never been heard. I am an undesirable by the churches standards - still.
All the church goers who have treated me like this have been from well to do middle class backgrounds from wealthy family's who raised them to be good Christians (and to avoid people like me) and who sent them to the best schools where they got the best grades and went to Universities like Oxford and Cambridge where they learnt to look even further down their nose at people like me - True!

Now one day 2 years ago my 16 year old son when thinking about applying to go to University said he might try and get into Oxford. I was still reeling from the fact that I could actually have a child that went to University at all!

I think my world stopped in that moment.... and things began to dawn on me.

My son.

And us with no money and no home of our own and no 'breeding' or social standing and him with no well to do upbringing which had trained him from the year dot to get into Oxford etc etc....... I pondered this in my heart and my heart grew. And he applied. And sent off his personal statement - to Oxford University. And my heart leapt inside me. And we waited. He was offered an interview - we screamed together and jumped round the room. He told me things. He told me he wanted to change the world for the better. He wanted to right he wrongs he had seen in his own life and those of others who are forgotten about and mistreated. He told me he wanted to be a voice for the voiceless. He told me he wanted to be a politician - a good one. He had soaked it all in. He told me he would put God first and do as He told him. He wanted to serve God with any opportunity he was given.
The interview was tough. I knew and he did that he did not have the background, upbringing and training to negociate an interview of such a high calibre.
I prayed, he prayed, we prayed together - if it be your will God. By now I was nearly shouting it in the streets.......................


Today I drove him to University for the start of his second term at Oxford. He is studying P.P.E. (Politics, Philosphy and Economics) the course studied by our present and many former Prime Ministers. We walked through corridors walked down by people such as Clement Atlee, William Beveridge, Gladstone and C.S. Lewis and saw them staring down at us from a great height. I helped him unpack in his little room round the back of the old cobbled steets. He and I were quiet together. We didn't need words. He did it. My kid. After all we've been through. This was not even in my frame of reference for what God might do. My son knows God has called him here for a purpose.
We hugged and said goodbye, I walked out into the cold January air. I breathed it in deeply. I looked heavenwards and saw the large tower of Magdalen College rising up into the grey afternoon sky.
I drank it in and smiled. I felt my heart leap inside me as I punched the air (victory!). God caught my attention and said:

'I told you I would repay you for the years the locusts have eaten.'

Perfect timing. I hadn't thought about that for years.

I feel like Cinderella must have felt

when the Princes butlers found her and she tried the slipper on and it fitted and no one could believe it was her!!!!!


N.B. In all the years I've waited for God to intervene and turn my life around he never answered one of my 'big' prayers. I prayed for him to save my first marriage, I prayed for him to save my second marriage, I prayed for him to give me recognition and a ministry in the church so I could be a voice for the poor and outcast. I prayed for a Christian husband. Each of these prayers consisted of long battles, years long. And He did not answer. Instead He gave me the best answer I could dream of - something which cannot be taken away from me. He used my past and all my pain and struggles and turned it round and poured it back into my lap until my cup overflows with JOY. And it came through the vessel of my most dearest and most precious thing - my son.

Glory be to God.
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Wednesday, 5 January 2011
Concentration


I have practically no concentration any-more when it comes to listening to Christians talk or reading Christian books. I cannot listen to online sermons by my fave preachers or follow blogs or websites I have followed for years. I cannot concentrate on a good sermon or have a normal discussion with anyone about God without losing interest in the first few seconds.


And as for church! well. When I realise it's the day for church I sigh a deep bored sigh and I dread it all day. I know I'm gonna have to brace myself for about 2 hours of intense boredom. Listening to people whinge on and moan and berate each other about their 'hard' lives, the oh so typical Bible study. I can predict every discussion how it will start and how it will end. I know what's gonna be drawn from a passage before it starts.


I'm perplexed and a little annoyed with the way I am behaving but I have no control over it. I can't tell the christians how I feel because I will just get marched off for ' prayer' and get the 'how to be a good christian talk' from my pastor and peers which is liable to elicit an even more worrying response from me in some form which will probably see me cast out of another church! I am concerned though - what does it mean? I love God as much as I always have. But I cannot force myself or my children to be with other christians or to go to church. The Pastor said last week that without regular church we would lose our faith we would flounder. He shook his head like he was agreeing with himself that without church faith dies. He knows I've been without church for 3 years nearly..... and my faith is smoking!


The only things I can still do are worship and read the Bible. It's been hard to write this post I had to force it out of me I just wanted to stop writing- having to reflect on christian stuff fuses my brain.


Let me tell you a story...


I work with the homeless. I feel alive and connected to everything when I'm with the unfortunate people I support. So last week I get a new client. He is 54 and his brain is shot from using to many drugs and drinking too much alcohol. So I meet him. I'm slightly wary - he comes from a family notorious for violence in his town.
He answers the door and my heart nearly leaps out of my rib cage. He can't walk without support, he can't talk without slurring, he struggles to sit down and is obvious pain. He is fragile physically and mentally. He is so humble he wakes my emotions and interest up. My heart stirs within me. He asks for nothing - lots of clients demand and expect even on a first visit.
I wanna scream with joy. This guy has nothing from a worldly point of view , but he has everything he needs. He talks to me in a quiet voice looking at the floor alot, but when he looks in my eyes I see my brother - I can't explain it any other way.
He thanks me regularly as we talk. He thanks me when I haven't done anything except tell him how our organisation could help him secure accomodation and help him pay his rent and access grants etc.
I ask him questions many of which are quite personal about his drug and alcohol history and his violent past. He answers every question far more honestly than any church minister I know ever has. He is honest about his failings. Genuine. Tearful and regretful. Totally humble.I'm on the verge of tears myself. We get to the question about religion.I ask him if he has any religious or cultural needs we need to take into consideration. He looks me straight in the eye and says 'I'm a born again Christian' and that's how I've given up my addictions and moved away from my violent family....


And there my friends you have it. For the whole time I was with him you could have heard a pin drop. My concentration was 110% I was transfixed talking to him. I knew - even before he spoke that he belonged to God. So you see I can concentrate, on occasion, when talking about christian things. But I have zero concentration when I'm with middle class, rich, shallow, happy zappy clappy types. They make me wanna puke and run til I can run no more.


Thanks be to God.