general ramblings...

Well it has begun, and i'm here. Here, being Abergavenny :)

Training was the DREAM. Not gonna lie. Haha...i've met some people who I'm sure i'll know for the rest of my life. They are seriously awesome, and made the whole experience even better. But aside from all the joking and banter, and getting into trouble for noise levels..there was some quality teaching.

One of the main things that stood out to me was about being made in the image of Jesus. I always thought being fully human, was a negative. Like being fully sinful...and in some ways now when I say it, it seems so stupid and obvious. Because in all honesty, being fully human is what we should be aiming for. To be fully what God intended us to be. Completely his child...the way Jesus was. Wow..thats crazy. I had it so skewed in my head. We are all absolutely unique...yet we are made in the image of Jesus. How amazing.

I was also thinking about Church, and what it means to me. We seem to have a lot of choice in our lives. We can have pretty much what we want, whenever we want it. And we seem to apply that to our Christian lives too. We attend a Church, and sometimes, if its not doing exactly what we want or 'need' we stop going, or look elsewhere. If something doesn't instantly deliver what we want, we opt out. This is not to say that we should attend churches where we are deeply unhappy...but rather we need to asses whether the things we dislike in a church are big things, or things that we are just picking on...if that makes sense.

Jesus' prayer in the garden..the night before his crucifixion can kind of tell us about this. He says...'not my will, but yours'..Obviously he was not keen on the whole idea of being sent to die..but he loved his Father enough to do it. He did it for us. Now that is amazing love. So rather than what he can get...he concentrates on what he can give...to his Father...to us.

In some ways, what i'm trying to say is that we could maybe apply thi love to our church fellowships. I'm not suggesting tht we should martyr ourselves or anything, that won't be necessary in this country! But that we think about what we can GIVE...rather than thinking about what we are getting from it. Obviously if it is impacting our spiritual journey, then yes, we need to make a change. But in all honesty, you can't influence anything for the better unless you are involved in some way or have opportunity for impact.

God has given to us so that we may become joyful givers...he gives us his love...we need to pass it on!