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When I was growing up I had to deal with, among other things, some rejection issues and this resulted in my becoming incredibly ambitious and driven. I left school at 16 and joined the high street retailer WH Smith. My plan was to become chairman as soon as possible!! After two promotions at work God called me to ministry and during those early years of ministry God dealt with my heart and also taught me a really important principle that would help me and give me an amazing sense of peace and security....

Are you one of those people whose life seems to be in a constant state of disarray?! Some of us are naturally organised and others just seem to live from one crisis to another. I know people who never ever write anything down. They just presume they will remember everything which is simply crazy. None of us can and the larger responsibility we have the more we have to remember! Being disorganised is not good! My aim right now is not to make you feel worse but to try and help...

When I was a young man my favourite motor bike was a Kawasaki KE175 and it went like a rocket (particularly due to the fact that the previous owner had altered the gear ratios to make it go much faster!). I loved kick-starting it and the way it literally jumped into life! It was amazing bike and took me on many adventures! Our prayer life, once kick-started has the ability to take us on amazing adventures with God but also change the narrative of our lives completely! I want to help you kick start the most powerful force at your disposal...

I wonder what your greatest fear is? I guess for me my greatest fear is not living to see the fulfilment of the vision God has given me for our church and the Newcastle Dream Centre. It's a massive vision! Just recently I've also noticed that the devil has been really playing on my fears of an early death and at times has tried to torment me with the fear of death every time I am ill or simply have an ache or a pain. In addition I've noticed recently that when one of my children calls I have become fearful of what news the call will bring! It's crazy and irrational and certainly you may be shocked that as a pastor I have those thoughts....buy hey....I'm human just like you! To be honest this is an area of weakness for me and I have to regularly battle against those fears.

The challenge is how do you and I deal with fear......

I was talking to someone recently who was really discontented with their life. They had prayed and prayed for something for years and God, seemingly, hadn't answered their prayers.....this person was really angry and discontented with their life & with God. It's difficult to know what to say in those circumstances but God said to me 'this person needs to surrender their life to me again and trust me that I know what's best right now...' Sadly the guy wouldn't hear of it..... I guess this caused me to reflect on what I'd said and to consider what God would say to us when our prayers aren't seemingly being answered and we're discontent with life...

There are moments in our lives when we simply don't know what to do next. It could be the loss of a precious loved one, bad news from the consultant, the end of a cherished relationship, a sudden change to our work situation or even job loss and sadly sometimes it can be a combination of many different factors coming into play at once. Of course we all have moments where we simply don't know what to do....