Month: July 2010

Do not be like children

Last Sunday morning’s sermon was rather challenging. Wyn Hughes continued on the same theme as the previous week on the need to be mature as believers. He preached from Ephesians 4:14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. The church should not be affected by the spirit of the world. The Spirit of God governs the church, not the spirit of the age. Wyn Hughes went on to describe children as an illustration on how we should not be as Christians. So how do children behave?

  • Children lack of self-control, they are controlled by their feelings. We should be controlled by our heads.
  • Children over react: we should not be involved in playground policy and avoid being dogmatic.
  • Children love novelty. Novelty isn’t bad in itself, be we should be wise and not too quick to adopt every new fad.
  • Children like being entertained. We need to grow out of that, we need a stability.

So how to we get out of this childlike state? The answer is simple: by feeding on the word of God and making the most of the means of grace.

I found this challenging. My impression is that the world we live in encourages a childlike behaviour in adults, and this creeps in in our lives much too easily.

Getting Back on Tracks

Over the last few months, I’ve let a lot of things to do slip through the net. But today is the day to start getting back on track. Jean-Baptiste is in School, Esther is out for the morning, so let’s make the most of it. I am a fan of GTD (Getting things Done), a “method” with the goal of streamlining your worflow and capture all your commitments so that you can start getting things done and stop worrying about it. The first phase is collecting: you get everything from around the house into one place, before processing it one item at a time.

I’ve already packed some of my books, so there is plenty of space on the shelves to collect. Let’s get started.

Another rather good weekend

We had a rather good weekend again. We spent Saturday in Shrewsbury for a Family reunion. All the family on Esther’s side was present, the sun was shining. We enjoyed each other company and good food. The children played well together.

Thanks to the wonders of technology (and my online backups), I was able to retrieve the presentation on Brittany I’ve given in Churches in order to show it to those who had not seen it, in spite of the fact that I had not taken my computer with me.

On the way back, a bad accident on the A49 reminded us to be grateful that we have been kept so far.

Today’s shift was rather sad

We’ve decided that I would stop working in Costco on 15th July. It is exciting but also rather sad. I have worked in that shop for two years now, actually, I went to a recruitment day for WDS on 14th July 2008. Since then, I’ve got to know quite a lot of people, both staff and members.Most of the staff already know I am leaving, but not the customers. So I’ve started to tell some of the regulars today. I’ve grown to like these people, and it will be a bit sad.

I am also thinking of the staff. I’ve had few opportunities to share the gospel, but I’ve tried to do my best to be a Christian in a very dark place, and pray that this has had an impact, and that they will come accross other Christians. I am planning to invite some to the commissioning service.