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Christmas thoughts

Have I mentioned my awesome church recently?

Praise God, it's great. I'm well settled into MPCC, making friends. It's been nearly 6 months I've been there - wow! Lade came to the Christmas Carols service yesterday. That was great, everybody welcomed him so well.

Now I've been to many carol sevices (at least two a year in my young life) and sung the same songs (mostly worried about how I'd hit the high notes in them, dang why do they pitch the songs so high?!) but this year's one service was different.

Christmas has kinda snuck up on me - because life has been so busy - and though I've heard so much Christmas music (I had a week in New York with all the Christmas trimmings!) my Christmas feeling this year is very different to that of previous years.

I'm excited still cos I love presents, and giving gifts - but I think I'm more ponderous this year. The words in the carol service meant so much more this year (possibly cos I stopped straining my voice) because Jesus is closer to me, more treasured by me I should say. He was always really really close.

A song we sang at the end of the service yesterday: not Christmassy at all but so much truth for all Christians. Jesus is coming back dudes, and building His kingdom now! Amazing!

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Christ is in you,
The hope of glory
in our hearts.
He lives! He lives!
His breath is in you,
Arise a mighty army,
we arise.

Now is the time for us
to march upon the land,
Into our hands He will
give the ground we claim.
He rides in majesty to
lead us into victory,
The world shall see
that Christ is Lord!

God is at work in us
His purpose to perform,
Building a kingdom of
power not of words,
Where things impossible by
faith shall be made possible
Let's give the glory to Him now.

Though we are weak,
His grace is everything we need;
We're made of clay but
this treasure is within.
He turns our weaknesses
into His opportunities
So that the glory goes to Him.

Am I ‘reformed?’

I’ve been looking for churches in the past few weeks, visiting churches all over East London. I have, as a result seen so many different churches with different teaching styles, worship styles, communities. Obviously on a visit one can only see but a glimpse of actual church life, one would have to spend a lot of time in a church to understand the character and balance of church family, and weigh up what they believe will be best for them. I’ve been visiting lots of different churches, as I said and have almost decided (she says tentatively) on the one I’d like to join.

This is the first time I’ve really weighed up what I want to find in a church, feeling the first breath of independence after Relay’s information, and after making snap decisions on what I like in church over the years. Thank God, He has been gracious. The question I’d like to address in my mind is whether I am what one would call ‘Reformed’. I definitely shy away from putting labels on myself, I believe uninformed labeling in Christian circles is highly prejudiced, almost akin to something as bad as racial prejudice, because it serves sometimes more to place divisions on God’s people than to draw them together. On the other hand I do believe that one should know what it is one believes about the God he/she serves – with a clear knowledge that one cannot know everything but what He chooses to reveal – Romans 11:33-36.

Having been through university Christian Unions I think I would define myself as a Calvinist (a very basic description of this is someone who believes in God’s power and sovereignty over all things), but not sure on how many points I would agree, probably because I haven’t studied them thoroughly enough (former Relay worker hangs her head in shame). Theology is an interesting thing. It really changes a person’s point of view on church and Christianity; it has forced me to think so much on things I would have been totally uninformed on otherwise. I don’t want to think so much that I lose the capacity to love though. It’s something that is really being lost in our cold world, and I really don’t want to become unfeeling, and find myself incapable to relate to other Christian friends simply because I don’t agree on the same theological intricacies as they. Lord, teach me to love my brothers and sisters, to be the light of Christ in this dark world!

Romans 11: 33-36

“Have you ever come on anything quite like this extravagant generosity of God, this deep, deep wisdom? It's way over our heads. We'll never figure it out. Is there anyone around who can explain God? Anyone smart enough to tell him what to do? Anyone who has done him such a huge favour that God has to ask his advice? Everything comes from him; Everything happens through him; Everything ends up in him. Always glory! Always praise! Amen!”

Difficult days...

I'm really struggling to trust God at the moment. I'm going through the days, these unstructured days, as I search for work, just very morosely and unaffected by life. I am watching more TV than I've watched ever before, and I know that's not healthy for me. I'm spending an endless amount of time on Facebook too, looking at...pretty much nothing.

I know I should spend these days getting to know God more, through his word. These quiet days are especially useful for that. But it's funny, when I don't have much to worry about (other than finding work, of course, and alleviating myself and my family from the struggle we've been through since we moved to this country) I just sit around extremely uselessly, wasting all my talents. Jumping from TV to PC is my speciality, in a relentless search for something to do. I fear I'm not being very productive in the way I search for work either, as I constantly distract myself. I hope this doesn't become like my bid to lose weight; something I'm determined to do, running to the gym once/twice a day, yet eating snacks in between that don't affect nothing.

I still haven't found a church yet either. I visited one in West Ham last Sunday, and it was unstimulating, to say the least. I think I may have to stick to the one I've been to over the past few weeks. This is a slow process, finding a church. I like the one I've been visiting, with its brilliant teaching, and really great worship style. I'm not too sure about the community of the church though. It's in East London, and that part of the world is not often conducive to close-knit communities like one would have in, say the Midlands. It's extremely frustrating entering a church and not receiving at least a friendly welcome. Other than the church leader, I don't think I've interacted very much with anybody, and I'm an interactive person! Sigh, gotta keep working though. And trusting God.