Sabbath Day Online Petition

"Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. " Exodus 20:8-11(NIV)

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/LordsDay/

Pretty self-explanatory. I found out about this petition through Peter Loughridge who posted it on the RP Bulletin Boards but because that is read by even less people than this blog (yes it is possible!) I decided to post a link to it here on DMFWS. It needs more signatures.

As well as signing the petition to Tony (or Gordon or whoever is incharge of the country at the moment!) you can play spot the RP! When I signed I managed to spot 7, see if you can do any better!

James

Serving Christ: Two Must-Read Books

Here are two books I think you must read this summer and no, neither of them is the new Harry Potter novel!

Total Abandon is the inspiring biography of Gary and Bonnie Witherall a young couple who were missionaries to war-torn country of Lebanon. Bonnie was martyred at the hands of an Islamic gunman in 2002. The website is www.totalabandon.com. Secondly another book which challenged me about how I serve Christ is John Piper's Don't Waste Your Life (check out www.dontwasteyourlife.com).

Many would speak of Bonnie Witherall's death as a tragedy and in one sense they are right. She was a young missionary who was giving her life to help others and share the good news of Christ to the Muslims around her who she had seen celebrating the death of her country men on September 11. She had done nothing to deserve or provoke the attack by the terrorist. John Piper in his book however argues that the death of Christians who have given their lives to serving Christ "is not a tragedy. It is a glory. These lives were not wasted." It is a tragedy, he says, to waste the precious time on Earth that God has given us.

This made me think. What do I want to do with my life? These books challenged me to make my life count for Christ and I hope as you read them (if you haven't already read them) you'll be challenged similarly. John Piper asks "Where are the young radicals for Christ?". Total Abandon asks "Is what you're living for worth dying for?". It is easy to answer "Yes, of course my faith's worth dying for" but do we really live like it is in our day to day lives? Would you're non-christian friends and colleagues think that you would be prepared to die for your faith by how you live your life? In the Reformed Presbyterian Church are there too many who are saved but are wasting their lives? "Radical devotion" sounds like a thing to be avoided to many RPs. Many think it is just for Ministers and Missionaries. Or maybe they think it is just for those Christians who they look down on thinking "they don't have the same understanding as us". Whilst we cling dearly to our doctrines such as exclusive pslamody and non-accompanied singing (and these are good things) we need to be prepare to step outside our comfort zones and serve Christ radically.

James

The Balmoral Show!

As we were all ;) off on study leave we deicided that we would make an appearance at the Balmoral Show. We had two debutants at the show, my colleague and our American Refugee known as Brian Wright.

We quickly showed them the ropes and after the first burger of the day we got going. Me and Michael decided to try and relieve ourselves soon after and suceeded but on the way out realised that we had managed to use the Ladies Toilets. Which answered our questions about how clean and well kept they were. The worst thing was that the lady that I confronted on the way out convinced her husband that they were mixed toilets too!

We quickly passed the embarassment over with a food interval and then progressed to try and look impressed by the machinery while farmers were crawling around us! We squeezed out and entered the Government Department Building and as there wasn't an opportunity for me to fail my driving test like previous years, we filled out pockets with tons of pens, pencils, bookmarks, cheap magnets and stickers. Then we hit the Kings Hall, but it was abit of a let down as we weren't really interested in the new PVC Broom that collects 25% more dust. However we did benefit from a cooking lesson from the good people of Sainbury but left early so we could avoid the free samples of carmalised apples and pork pieces as they wouldn't sit well with our eating schedule!

One of our party became sufficiently more interested in the show as a namesake of mine arrived and we hit the stand to relax and watch some quality Show Jumping but quickly left as we realised the voiceover man had possibly the most boring voice ever. We decided to head for the Childrens Area and went on the Virtual Simulator, which altogether was a bad experience as myself, who had never been known to head a Football in my life managed to get a textbook header on the back of another womens skull in front of me!

One of the Highlights of the day was doing Kareoke infront of a huge crowd at the Dale Farm stand, we proclaimed 500 Miles for all to hear and there was even randomers taking video's of us so we musn't be too bad! James is trying to get a video of it up here so watch this space!

As we decided to head home and hit the trains, we narrowly avoided a coach on the road outside the Kings Hall and managed to head home and watch the Show disappear behind the horizon.

Also I used the F.A Cup Final to get out of revision and forget about watching paint dry, this was like watching a tin of paint dry. Incidentally I switched to the Cricket after the first half, apparently it got abit better but I wouldn't know!

Alastair

Ok still working on getting the video up but until then enjoy this photo of a shame-faced Michael making a hurried exit from the Ladies toilets! Ali had already scarpered!

James

Ok this is hopefully the video. Enjoy. Or maybe not! I've only managed to get a few seconds up but i'm not sure you'll want more!

The Mobile and the Bible

This is an extremely good post from Mark Loughridges Blog (see link on Homepage). Don't worry, I did ask him for permission!

(Local newspaper column)I love gadgets. I love having a digital camera and playing around with it. I love my iPod and being able to listen to whatever I want wherever I am. But there is one gadget that just doesn’t excite me – the mobile phone. I do own one, but it isn’t the latest or the smallest and it doesn’t even have a camera. But I see that I am almost alone in this. Everywhere you look someone is gabbing into a bright shiny phone, or a cluster of people are standing round peering at photos on a 2 inch screen, or talking about their latest upgrade deal.It has become the new mentor that has to be consulted before we do anything. It carries our lives, our diary, numbers, games, messages, pictures, and music. It has become the new Bible. But I can think of several ways that a Bible is better than a mobile:

It doesn’t need charged.
There is nowhere where it is out of coverage.
No-one will beat you up for your Bible.
There’s no monthly bill, or pay as you go.
A mobile turns you into a slave who can always be found, the Bible sets you free.
Phones carry possible health risks; the message of the Bible enables you to live forever.
They don’t keep issuing better models with new options every two months.I wonder what would happen if we treated our Bible like we treat our mobile phone?

What if we carried it around in our bags or pockets?
What if we turned back to go and get it if we forgot it?
What if we referred to it several times a day?
What if we used it to receive messages from God?
What if we treated it like we couldn't live without it?
What if we took it out of our pocket to pass the time on a journey?
What if we gave it to kids as gifts?
What if we used it as we travelled?
What if we used it in case of an emergency?

One more advantage a Bible has over a mobile - You can get one free from me, but you won’t get a free mobile! If you would like one, or if you would like someone to give you a beginners guide to the Bible, get in touch.

The Writers

Complete Contrast at Heart

What the Bible says and what the world says is incredibly different. Often this is obvious as the actions of the world are in complete contrast to Scripture but sometimes it is more subtle and can slip in our lives and thinking as Christians. This happens in many ways but the way I noticed recently was through the lyrics of songs. I'm not talking about blatently blasphemous or immoral lyrics but that they show us the world's thinking, which is different to what God says, and the world's thoughts and opinions can sneak under our radar contradicting scripture. This is apparent in what lyrics of popular songs and the Bible say about the heart. The world tells us to trust our hearts, for example

• "Follow your heart"- Robbie Williams "Ben's Brother"


• "Don't think so much/Let your heart decide" - Raven-Symone "True to your Heart" (Disney Ella Enchanted Soundtrack)


• "Don't think so much/Let your heart decide" - Raven-Symone "True to your Heart" (Disney Ella Enchanted Soundtrack)


• "Trust your Heart/Let fate decide" - Phils Collins- "Two Worlds" (Disney Tarzan Soundtrack)


• "Follow your heart/ Let love lead" - Celine Dion - "I believe in you"

This is what Christ said:

For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.' " Mark7:21-23 (NIV)

Bit of a difference don't you think? Even things we regard as "safe" are filled with the world's philosphy contradicting Scripture. The world says that we should trust in ourselves but God tells us that we are to trust and rely upon him and not to trust our own sinful hearts. I'm not saying you should now go and throw out any of your music which reflects the world's ideas and listen solely to Psalms on your mp3 (though it probably would have its benefits!) we just need to be aware of what songs are saying and not let it subconciously sneak into our thinking. Its interesting too the way some of the songs listed up there are from Disney so these thoughts could be going towards younger children as well, I know you can't beat a Disney Classic but maybe we all have to think of the message we're putting out some times and who will be listening.

James

The First Ever Post

Thats right folks, the egg heads that are James and Alastair have finally put a Blog together, watch this space because as time goes on and exams pass, it'll be the only thing you'll get up for!

The Writers