Good Words From the Past

Some of you may not know it, but I am a regular attender at our 8am service for our parish. Now this service is predominately for the oldies, (and when I say old, the youngest apart from myself and the minister would probably be over 50 and average age around 75) but I find great encouragement from going for a number of reasons.

Take this morning for example - we sang a song written in 1964 by C Simmonds. The words are as follows (I have not put in the chorus)

I want to walk with Jesus Christ,

all the days I live of this life on earth;

to give to Him complete control

of body and of soul.

I want to learn to speak to Him,

to pray to Him, confess my sin,

to open my life and let Him in,

for joy will then be mine.

I want to learn to speak to Him,

my life must show that He lives in me;

my deeds, my thoughts, my words must speak,

all of His love for me.

I want to learn to read His word,

for this is how I know the way

to live my life as pleases Him,

in holiness and joy.

O Holy Spirit of the Lord,

enter now into this heart of mine;

take full control of my selfish will

and make me wholly Thine!

What fantastic words these are and a challenge to us in our daily lives. Have we given our lives completely to him? Do we speak to him regularly through prayer confessing our sins? Do our lives reflect him and all his love for us? Do we read his word so we know how to live? Do we let the Spirit take total control of our lives and make us wholly His?

I fall short so often, yet continually strive to do better in many of these ways. What I can continually be reassured of though is that Christ has done all that needs to be done through his death and resurrection. All of these other things though help me to follow him and surrender my life to him each day.

Please pray for me as I do for those of you that are Christians that we will be able to do these things and surrender our lives to him each day.

What's in a Name

I have been tossing up what if anything to call the youth group that I am working with here in Narrabri. I thought of different names, ones that my Sydney friends had used, search the net and even asked the kids what they thought (not always the best option this last one they come up with some strange things)

Whilst wanting to have something that was catchy, I did not want something that was degrading or had some other sort of innuendo attached to it. Friday Night Live was mentioned, but all I thought of was Big Brother and I want to keep as far away from that as possible.

I also wanted something that would reflect who we were and what we were on about. I ended up with ENGAGE (which I used off a friend in Sydney). I thought it reflected what we are wanting to do every time we meet up with the youth - engage them in Gods word, engage them in their relationship and engage them in prayerful response to what they hear.