Saved to Serve

With only a week to go until we all start our Summer adventures in Milton Abbey for Ministry + Mayhem we were all bouncing from the walls in excitement. Alot of whispering could be heard this week as small subgroups of our small group all planned who they would be hanging around with, who would be sharing bunks or dorms ecetera. – This week was very weird due to the fact that when we all went downstairs we noticed a note from Pauline. – she was writing to the people who had used a pair of unmarked keys to try and open the pool table when the cueball got stuck last week. We sorted all that trouble out and I challenged Morgan to a swift game of Pool, only to find the balls were stuck inside the table…. someone had jammed a crisp packet inside the table!

With Kelvin, Victoria and the Girls still away soaking up Mr Sunshine, Graham led the Morning Worship on the contraversial and challenging topic of ‘The Meaning of Life’ – the meeting was interesting and had a really good child-friendly angle.. as Keith and his Boomwacker Band performed 2 melodies (Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star) and (Sing Hosanna/Give Me Oil in My Lamp) – which along with our usual Action Song (I Am Incredible) really got us all in the mood for a spirit-filled morning of groundbreaking Worship, together, and as one.

After we opened the meeting together upstairs, the two teaching groups Primary & Junior Soldier went downstairs to learn about God, His Word and His Son in a less conventional, Child Friendly Way. Today Anne Watt & Dean led the lesson, which was based on ‘The Feeding Of The 5000′, one of Jesus’ many but most popular Miracle… we played Bread based Games and shared out Jelly sweets before taking plain white bags and adorning them with the words Saved to Serve :: God Bless You – which is the title for todays blogpost, we then filled these decorated bags with some sweets and chocolate and gave one to each member of the Corps, with our best wishes.

When we returned upstairs we closed the meeting as we opened it, a short, poignant prayer that really lifts and gives you that boost you need to fight your way through another week – we also sang the benediction this week.. which reminded a few of the older members of the Corps about the old Open Air Evening Meetings.

But the party didnt finish up there – with the C&C Kids going downstairs to endulge in a meal of Fish Fingers and Chips. and Roy performed his random act of Kindness by buying some of the kids drinks from the Coke machine from his own pocket (including me, thanks Roy)… after we had scoffed meals that would literally feed the 5000 we got down to an afternoon of Wii, Lego and 40:40, spending some time with our mates in a familiar setting before, being pulled out of that and set challenges elsewhere.

I am accompanying the Children to MAM next week – so I will not be here to write another of these. but I hope to write some on paper, in this style to post up each day of the week after we return (if you get what I mean) culminating in a post on the Sunday of our first C&C back. – you can find these in a new category:

C&C: On Tour > MAM Camp 08′ - the category list is avalible on the homepage.

Right, I believe thats it for this week…. yup just one last thing to say,

Hope you all have an Amazing week and really feel the Lord working in yout life, because no doubt he will be working in the surroundings and of course in all the Kids and Leaders at Milton Abbey School next week.

See you all soon

Jordan.

Each is Different

Todays Church & Chips was much more relaxed than usual because now each of the islands Schools has closed up for Summer, giving most of the Church & Chips Kids six whole weeks off!… everybody was excited about their six weeks of freedom, some of our regular crowd had jetted off to the sun already (Including Anne Le Marchant and the other Sunday School Leaders) and some unlucky adults had been drafted in to work (Dean & Roy) so our small group were controlled by Vicky, Maureen and Me (yeah, I can hear you laughing already!) – its good preparation for Ministry & Mayhem Camp in just two weeks!!

Vicky led the Morning Meeting today and we had a good time in Worshipping and Praising the Lord together – and a small group of boys plucked up the courage to stand in front of the entire corps and lead ‘Okey Dokie’ – one thing I found with them is that they seemed to make as much noise as we would if we had 30 more children! – well done boys!

Todays Sunday School groups were led by Anne & Terry (Junior Soldier/Youth) and Kim (Primary) and I sat in with the Junior Soldiers (as usual) and we extended on last weeks topic in which the main point was that we are special, God Created Each of us Differently and how we were created in Gods Image, Anne also mentioned that we are Gods favourite creation.

Anne & Terry brought in some Chocolate Bars and Fruit Jellies to share and took a picture of each of us – they then printed this out using their spangly technological home photo printer, we then stuck these pictures to a peice of paper and put down some personal information, such as: Favourite things to Do?, Height and Eye Colour…. reminded me a little of Facebook! , after we finished the class we showed the Corps our profiles – which were emblazoned with the words ‘We are Created in the Likeness of God, We are his Masterpeice’.  we also read out a passage from the book of Genesis – which documents and depicts the Creation of The World, The Human Race and all the Animals and Plants that came with us!

We closed this Mornings Worship in an extravaganza of Hymns, Prayer and the Spoken and of course The Grace, we also sing this downstairs before we eat but I have to admit it is a shorter, rockier version that is written in the style of our Action Songs… talking of downstairs, Maureen had cooked up a pretty lipsmacking meal of Sausage & Chips, which seems to be quite a favourite with the Crowd because the number of empty plates and satisfied faces is uncountable (of course the atmosphere was a little different without Dean, Roy, Victoria, Kelvin & F&F) but Vicky & Keith (and his Boomwackers) made up for it!

Today was good fun and everybody who was there really enjoyed it – weather it was the good game of pool in which the white ball got stuck… dont worry we got it back, or having to open the coke machine several times for several reasons – all good!

Only Two more weeks until MAM Camp!

See you next week

Jordan

Special…. Good Word…. Kinda…… Juicy

13th July was the date of another day of learning and excitement headlined by God with his support acts Love, Jesus and Joy. and with Graham leading todays Worship we were given the chance to hear a fresh perspective on the Messages of The Lord handed to us by a man who has inspired Spurgeon Church and was ready to bring that inspiration to his home Church, ‘The Best Church in The World’ Clifton Hall, Salvation Army (of course we all know who im talking about) Graham Rimmer!

As usual we enjoyed each others company as people began to arrive at the hall… fresh faced and ready for the challenge of learning more about God our Creator and how he thinks we are Special. (everybody but me anyway!) Special… Good Word…. Kinda Juicy The group was a little small but we still made double the noise we should be able to on our way up to join the rest of the Church for the begining of the mornings Worship.

The atmosphere was brilliant… it sort of built up over time and really hit its peak when we sang ‘He Has Made Me Glad’ and the sound was just amazing  – the people in the room this morning were really hungry for enrichment from The Lord and I hope the feeling you get from that stays with you for the week to come.

After we had shared in Prayer, and given our vocal chords a good tug we went downstairs to enjoy our lesson with Anne Le Marchant, Anne Watt and Kim… and the lesson was based on quite a few things.. we explored the concepts of how God thinks we are special, we did some simple posters which showed a our own hands drawn onto peices of card and decorated them specially and I drew my left hand and put a different part of my body around the outside with the words ‘God Created Every Part Of Me’ adorned on the back of the hand… I added another personal touch by writing Gen 1:7 which depicts God creating man and giving him life.

We also worked on some of our Junior Soldier course… talking about an issue that is squashed onto many column inches… Drugs, what they do to you, how they make you and the ones around you feel… we worked our brains and listed some that are harmful and some that are good… some of the boys came up with some weird ones such as Drinking Petrol? (lets just hope that doesnt become a Google Keyword!) and Anne explained how she worked with Drugs in her daily life as a Policewoman and urged us never to cross paths with anything of the kind.

After the session was finished we had some time left so Good ole’ Guitar Hero came out to play! and we had only just managed to load up the game screen before it was time to rejoin the congregation upstairs Coincidence? hmm.. we closed the meeting by showing off our posters, and after Graham had closed the meeting with a prayer and we had shared Grace together we went back down to the basement to enjoy a meal of Chicken Nuggets And Chips prepared by resident feeders Dean and Maureen… The afternoon was then lost to a selection of running and jumping activities and lots and lots of lego construction…. the afternoon was much more relaxed than usual due to the fact that the islands Schools will break up for six whole weeks of Freedom by the end of this week, and people are looking forward to lounging around doing nothing, going to Junior Camp Ministry + Mayhem in Milton Abbey as well as their family holidays.

Next week we will be missing the Langs as they go to visit the Mothership for two weeks before the Camp Carnage and we are unsure what is happening to Sunday School next week due to the absence of Anne & Kim who are jetting off to French France for a Month – hope you all enjoy your summer breaks and come back ready to face the Autumn and fast approaching Christmas Celebrations, and of course the First Birthday of this here Blog!

See you All Soon

Slip, Slap Slop

Jordan

The Christ Aspect

Its the 6th July 2008 and this weeks Church & Chips was quiet, just the way we like it! – reasons vary for the absence of some of our friends, maybe they are off on Holiday or not feeling One Hundred Percent… or off on a island wide Bike Ride and Fun Day – thats right its the weekend of the Rock to Rock Bike Ride and as many flock on two wheels to the starting line we flocked to Clifton Hall, as always to Worship together in the presence of the one we love.. and in some cases with the people we love in a place we love.

Kelvin led todays Morning Worship as Victoria is not feeling well, but he greeted us with the same smile and happy face as usual… Im still not sure if those two are on Happy Pills or not because whenever we see them they are happy… even if we spill a drink, or break a Playstation they still wearing a smile – and that is how we like it!.

After we opened the Worship together in a frenzy of Prayer, Hymn and Action Songs the young people all converged downstairs to form a big Sunday School Group.. just for the first bit, then we split to work on our seperate Sunday School classwork (although I think we should have stayed together as their was only two of the Primary Class). In the Mobilise! Course we were extending on last weeks lesson with Anne about Choices (See Choice Words).. but this time we were discussing how God wants us to spend our Lesuire Time, how we can be Christ-Like with our fun time (that is why I have named todays Blog ‘The Christ Aspect’)

Kim helped out with todays session which began with a round of the Playground Classic ‘Simon Says!’ which illistrated that if we want to follow Gods Plan for life we shouldnt follow the example of our friends all the time, because our best interests are at the core of everything God does for us.

We then used our colourful activity books to explore our topic further, utilising our Drawing skills to illistrate 3 of our friends who do not believe in God, his message or His Son. Once we scribbled our ideas down we sat down in a circle for a special prayer time, Anne shared a Prayer with the Group as we focused our attention on a lone flame, which was part of a colour changing scented monster candle. That to some people signified Gods Presence in the room, I thought of it as Gods Ear… listening to our Prayer like a child listening to a bedtime story, taking in each detail and imagining what comes next… only difference is that God makes it happen!

After the session we rejoined the congregation to close our morning of worship, with a heart-stopping rendition of ‘Shine, Jesus Shine’ and Kelvin read the Benidiction… I always stay upstairs to say hello to , everyone as I think this is very important, and I was going about my usual buisness, saying hello to Terry, Anne and their Russian Visitors, Keith etc. and Joy came along, she placed an envelope in my sweaty paw and says ‘this is money for your holidays,’ and I opened the envelope and out fell a crisp 5 pound note.. I obviously looked shocked cause she said ‘Your Welcome’ and that really brightened up my day because my friend had felt she would give me money, I never asked and certainly didnt expect it but thank you all the same. – I thought this good deed deserved a mention this week because she didnt have to do it.. she did it out of the goodness of her heart, I believe this deserves public recognition so I can show my apprcieation in a way that truely means something! – The Blog!.

Maureen cooked up a batch of Sausage and Chips for us to scoff, and that we did – we then spent some time playing and having some fun before another week descends on us… and with no Friday Club I am unsure what I am going to do with myself..! but alas, Church & Chips will soldier on!

Have a Great Summer and See you Next Week .

Thanks from the Bottom of My Heart

Jordan

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