1 year 2 months on since my first blog (there or there abouts)

Hi people

Just over a year ago I started writing blogs, partly as something to fill my time, partly as an output for my emotions and feelings, and partly as a way of giving me people more opportunities to comment on what I have to say!

So where was I a year ago:- Well I was going through a bit of a rough time, my uni course hadn't gone to plan, CU was being difficult to deal with and small group leadership was being a drain and a hassle rather than an enjoyment and a privilege. Not that I'm blaming anyone for this but I'd become negative and drawn out, and part of me wanted to give up there and then (especially when I scraped through in terms of surviving uni but having to carry on part time instead)

However after many weeks of trying to sort uni out (trying to sort out what was going on was confusing) I decided that this was the year to try and get involved more in my church, as with my smaller time constraints on uni (I was only doing 3-4 hours a week) and stuff like that. This seemed to match up with God's plan as well cos as soon as I'd offered my services to church, doors to 'big scary opportunities' opened up. This included volunteering for the office team, joining the street work team, and getting involved with a life group

First I'd decided on a whim to see if there was any odd jobs I could do around the church, thinking I'd just be put on the odd thing here and there. However this was slightly blown out of the water when I was 'enlisted' on to the office volunteers 'rota' once a week helping out on a Thursday. Now people who know me well will have thought, 'hang on this is a dyslexic guy who hates being sat around doing nothing, and doesn't really like answering phones' well for some reason it just stuck, and before I knew it I was pretty much being left to my own devices to man the office alone, which was very scary but also was given a lot of jobs to be kept busy with, weather it was sorting out the church database! (yes I've got my own log in for it) given master keys to the building! (Insert evil grin!) and answering the phone and generally being the public face of Jubilee centre. Thinking back this was something I probably would of ran away from in the past, but through God's strength, some great mentors in the form of Hannah Evans, Chris Haygarth and Sara Cosgrove and some general 'I hope you know what you’re doing God, cos I've not got a clue!' I've managed to haul my way though the year, and for some strange reason considing sighing up next year! thought this I'd also been put on the Sunday night live core team, moving tables and chairs around Costa, before being one of the public leason, and then moving tables and chairs back

Secondly I'd started attending prayer meetings and other midweek church meetings, which in themselves where very helpful this year, however at the first one I attended, it was announced that we were looking to do a street party to commemorate the Queens jubilee. For some strange reason I'd signed up to help before even thinking about it and before I knew it I was sat in a room with a load of high up people from both community and the police force, council and bus company talking about road closures and licensing, and I'm sat there thinking 'this is a bit over my head isn't it!'

However 8 months on the party went down a huge success, with us closing the road, covering a 0.2 mile section with tables and staging having the media both locally and nationally potentially showing up and having my name in print in a paper! all very scary stuff!

Thirdly I'd also decided to join the street work team, going out on to the streets of Huddersfield giving out hot drinks, and generally serving the people on the streets of Huddersfield. From this I've gained a lot of experiences in evangelism, especially learning how important it is to listen to what the other person is saying. So many times direct contact evangelism I used to shudder at the thought of, as I'm more used to reacting to someone, rather than trying to dictate the flow of the conversation. However on the streets, standing and listening I discovered was as needed talking, and while we might not have seen conversions on the streets, people were willing to strike up conversations with us, and talk about a whole host of things, from God, to Komodo Dragons. This kind of relationship building had sometimes been missing from CU evangelism, and I Decided at the time to 'put myself forward' for a position on committee, with the possibility to change things as I saw them.

However committee had seen my commitment to the church as well, and in their wisdom desired to allow me to focus my energies on that rather than on CU stuff, freeing me up to get more involved with in the Church, by not putting me on committee, or continuing on my 3rd 'term' as a small group leader. Although this a was a disappointment in some aspects, 1 door closing was showing me the other door was the one to chose, and so I continued on my additional church activities

Another 'sub door' that had opened to me during this year, was the switch from open homes, which in previous years I'd allowed to pass me by, to life groups, consistent groups of people which got together to share how God was working in their lives and grow as a group. This was part of this year that I grew to love very quickly as it was what I'd loved about small groups in the past, people getting together and being free to share and build each other up. through this I Got something out of the group as well as purely contributing to it, something which small groups had become slightly in the previous months, I now left each group feeling challenged and wanting more of what God had for me, rather than just leaving and trying to work out if I'd got anything out of it.

So what have I got out of this year? Well the confidence to try new things, before this year, I'd stuck to what I knew to some degree, both in church life, with my exploration in to spiritual gifts controlled at my pace, and in CU life, becoming involved in other areas outside small group leadership including event planning (the joys of playing pacman and being able to call it research!) a realisation that just because people maybe older and have leadership roles within the church doesn't mean they don't have time to give to students if we are prepared to be dedicated to the time they give us. Lastly, don't put boundaries on your abilities without giving God a chance to prove otherwise, I've always said office work and direct evandalism are two things I'd never do, and yet I've done both through God's strength this year

So what about the future, I'm still in the position of being reliant on passing both my modules in a few weeks to get on to final year!, However if I do so I've realised that much church life is stuff I'm going to continue with, especially working in the office and life groups. However I've decided to give up street work, at least interims of every week, though I may occupationally go back to catch up with the people. As far as CU is concerned I'm entering my final stages of university life, and so may not be able to offer the same amount of time as I once did. However I hope I can use my experiences and gifts to be an example to the more active members and help out where I can (even if it’s only doing words every couple of weeks and being someone's prayer buddy, or even just being around and being a scary final year to all the freshers! or how ever else God wants to use me.) it seems strange that around 7 years ago life didn't seem worth living, and now I've got more opportunities than I can use, I just hope God gives me the wisdom to work out which opportunities to take

So on that bombshow, Good night and God bless

Danny-d-b
The Christian Foodie

A love so high, so wide, so deep

hi blog readers! (yes that's all of you!)
sorry if your expecting a blog on giants, I did have that further along the pipeline than this, but after tonight, that has been put back thanks to tonight 

Last the few Sundays at church (community church, Huddersfield) there has been a lot of words brought about God's love, and how important it is. (you can listen to them here the two I'm refrancing are Chris Haygarth - Live With A Wide Open Heart and Ian Rossol - The Three Journeys though I'd also suggest listing to Nathan Caughey - He absolutely well and truly, significantly, scientifically, entirely, decidedly, conclusively, indisputably, really clearly loves us.)

2 weeks ago Ian was talking about the great commandments (love your God, and love your neighbor as your self- sounds like a blog I once wrote!) and the main point of his message was that to love others, we need to love ourselves, and to love ourselves, we need to allow ourselves to be loved by God. Now this might sound easy, but how often do we just assume we allow God to love us, or just presume he loves us. We can spend so much time 'being a christian' loving others, doing good deeds, and making everything about us (even if it is admitting our faults/asking for repentance from sins) we don't have time to be loved by God, so often we are to busy trying to love him.


now I'm not saying we should be making the relationship about us, or try to be something we are not, but with out allowing God's love to fill us, we can become dry. Because agape love (God's love for his people, and the love which is meant in the 2 great  commandments)  can only be giving out of an over flow, because its a love that doesn't make sense, nothing else in the world gives something for nothing, but not only does agape give something for nothing, it gives the most presious thing in exisitance (eternal life) for something that destroys relationships (sin) and that is not something we can just produce with out it filling us first, we can only agape love because he first agape loved us (1 john 4:9) we love others out of an over flow of God's love for us!


1 week ago Chris haygarth spoke on living with an open heart, and prophetic for that morning was in 3 parts, that God's love was higher than a mountain, wider than the universe and Deeper than the sea, That God's love was a rock beneath our feet, and also a mighty river (so mighty it was a flood plain) for us to dance in!

God's love is something for all occasions, its not something that only applies some of the time, its a river to dance in when we are happy, a rock beneath us for when we feel we are losing our footing or need solid ground to 'retreat' to but also a something that empowers us to climb any mountain, cross any universes and get to the bottom of any sea!

But one of the points was that the heart is something that as a muscle needs to be active in order to grow, and open up, cos an open heart allows us both to accept God's love but also pour that out to others, and the more it grows and opens up the more of God' love we can aspect

But how do we spiritualy activate our heart, how do we allow God in to our lives 


well that something we covered at life groups earlier tonight (I say that its not 00:34!) God's love is so high, so wide, so deep we can't escape it, once we are in it  we can't get out of it! its like a swimming pool that every time you try to get to the surface or the edge, it moves equal far away from you, ergo your never going to get out of it. 


Well that is unless we chose to put up walls and enclose ourselves- God still loves us but we put sin between us and his love, and build barriers between them, God is still there on the outside waiting for us to to realize we have sinned and tear down the walls, but we are hiding away and blocking out the ourselves the thing that allows us to Grow most effectively.


So how do we practicaly activate our hearts 


Spend time with God- this isn't just being a christian machine gun- barking out a load of requests and occasionally some praise to God before leaving before we give him chance to respond either through meditation or the bible but this is giving up time to both 'talk' and to listen and enjoy the relationship with God

Spend time with God's people- like I have been working all day for the last 2 days with out much time for anyone's else (other than the occasional FB chat) and I realy felt that I needed some time with God's people tonight, just as the text came through telling me life groups was on. I mean I could of easily said no and carried on working, but instead went and it was probably one of the best life groups I've been able to attend in terms of what I got out of it 


Be honnest about where you are with people- I mean I've relised that I've come accross in a way in the past that isn't: a, who God made me to be and b, actually where I am, and rather than dealing with the issues I have, I hide them away and try to cover them up, rather than acccepting I'm a loved, cherished and paid up son of God

so to sum up, we are Free men, Free from sin, Free from rejection, Free from loneliness, free from depression, we are only 'slaves' to them if we let them take over rather than relsising that God loves us. If we concentcentrate on God's love, realize that it is freeing, empowering and secure and relising that we are ment to be in a loving family with the rest of the church then we can fight all the schemes of the evil one, which is something I need to remember myself as much, if not more than anyone else

Be Free, Be Loved, Be Powerfull

and on that bombshow 
goodnight 

redefining, redescovering, reloving

Yo all- a long time since I wrote a blog so feels like a lot to update you lot on!

considering this year is my part time year I've not had the time, or rather the motivation for blogging- for the last few months I've thrown my self in to Church and CU stuff. but I've gone to far.

For the last couple of months its been realy hard to motivate my self to do most things, especially uni work, even getting out of bed some days had been like running a marathon, everyday I felt like I had to re-prove how usefull I was to everyone, Prove I was good enough to have around.

But thats when the problems happen- what happens when someone is just as good as something you at something, or even better, well its been soul sapping, even for something such as a love a small group leading had become a chore, because rather than being confidant in my abilities and gifting, I felt I had to compeat with Katie rather than work with her, and when it seemed that I had no way of 'beating her' there was no reason to compete anymore, no reason to use the gifting God gave to me, no reason for me to even be here. and so when i sat there getting in depressed how I'm no good at anything, Katie contacts me with a funny one liner and I give her a Dan Brown special of how I'm the worst people ever to existed, defiinatly not what she was expecting





However God has realy worked the back end of this week, I've been lucky enough to spend time talking and enjoying the company of some realy good friends.

First of all Jamie M who dispight the fact he was up at 7am the next morning for a meeting sat with me till about 1am chatting about my life up untill then, and for the first time in a long time I allowed someone to take an interest in who I am, rather putting up barriers by forcing someone to talk about them, or making shallow talk about what I'm up to (and trying to prove how useful I am) we talked a lot about my past, and it felt like I was opening a lot of doors that I'd forced to stay shut for a long time.  After leaving jamie's it took me between an hour and a half and 2 hours to get from ashenhurst to marsh and I was crying most of the way home, because for the first time in a long time I'd allowed someone to get to me, and although it was one of the most 'painful' things I've been through in the last few months, it was also one of the most needed, and God taught me a lot of stuff over that time, although I was a experiences small group leader, a willing volunteer and insperation, that was just qualtites of who I was, and I'd let it define me rather than allowing my self to just be loved by people, I'd relised I was trying to prove to people it was worth loving me

I then had a great day meeting up with Katie, who when I'd orginaly broken down at her over FB, then had broken down to her, we had agreed to meet up and chat. However this is where God (and katie) surprised  me. I was expecting to be allowed to take up an hour of her time, then excusees would be made and I'd spend another evening home alone, but instead spent the day hanging out with her, laughing, joking and enjoying some very good music, by Josh and Bob before sitting in a pub and just hanging out!

the following morning there was a student men's breakfast at community and it was great to spend time and hang out with some realy inspireing people (Bob, Matt H, Matt S and Mark) eating lots of pig and drinking lots of tea! Great morning all round!


then last night Jolita invited me round for tea and one of the cheesiest predictable christian films I've seen, which had us both in sticker at times (mostly at how 'black' the church was) and it was a just a realy good time of chilling out, letting my hair down (not that I have much of it) and allowing me to be me, not me the Councillor, or me the inspirational mad man, or anything else of me trying to prove myself to myself, to others or to God, but me being a son of God, his prized creation, a work of art, and someone who is loved and saved by grace, and not how useful I am to people