The valley of Elah – Finding courage for the battle
In the valley of Elah David fights the giant Goliath. Its a story of courage as we see how David’s relationship with God empowers and inspires him to triumph against all the odds.
An Invitation to “Go” – A vision to give our lives to
Yesterday we continued our series at Southampton Student NAVS with our fifth session entitled “An Invitation to Go – A Vision to give our lives to”. Our fifth session is the culmination of the series so far and builds heavily on the ideas and concepts developed especially in the session on the Invitation to Labour. We are now talking about the overarching vision that holds together our desire to labour in God’s harvest to help others to follow Jesus, grow in faith and build them up. This…
An Invitation to Labour – God’s Harvest
Yesterday we continued our series at Southampton Student NAVS with our fourth session entitled “An Invitation to Labour – God’s Harvest”. This week we introduced our next metaphor which will be the basis for our discussions for the rest of the term. Having discussed what it might mean for us to follow, grow and to build (primarily in our own lives) our focus in this series is now changing to start to think about how we labour in God’s harvest-fields. This metaphor is from the natural…
An Invitation to Build – Building to Last
Yesterday we continued our series at Southampton Student NAVS with our third session entitled “An Invitation to Build – Building to Last”. Having spent some time in recent meetings discussing what it means to follow Jesus and to grow towards maturity we now turn our thoughts to the New Testament’s building metaphor. As someone who has spent most of their life building (whether it be in Lego or in house construction) this is a metaphor dear to my heart! Paul is clear that we…
Life of David – God’s choice
David was a a man after God’s own heart: Saul was removed for David to come into position… God is looking for men and women whom He can trust with the outworking of His purposes and the Bible is a record of God working in and through the lives of individuals so He can use them in the way He wants to. David’s life shouts this message. When the people of God demanded a King ‘like the other nations’ (1 Samuel…
An Invitation to Grow – Growing to Maturity
Yesterday we continued our series at Southampton Student NAVS with our second session entitled “An Invitation to Grow – Growing to Maturity”. This week we thought about the ‘growth metaphor’ and thought how there are examples of growth in the people, animals and plants all around us. Likewise in the spiritual realm we also grow as we get to know Jesus better. This is growth from the inside out, not mere conformity to a particular pattern of behaviour but transformation from the ‘inside out’…
Developing an eternal perspective
Learning to see the world through the lens of eternity and live accordingly.. Its been a while since I last posted something and this was a post which I started some months back but held back on because I was sharing a little on this subject in Norway. In previous blogs we discussed hope as a culmination of a temporal hope (based on God’s promises for us now) and an eternal hope (based on God’s promises for us in the future)….
The Elephant in the Room – Lessons from the transition…
You may remember that some weeks ago I posted an entry entitled “The Challenge of Transition” in which I talked about how times of transition are difficult places to be and yet they are opportunities for much growth. This post was itself followed on from another post which I provocably entitled “Saying goodbye to student ministry?“. In that earlier post I talked about how I felt God was asking me to hold student ministry with an “open hand” and being willing…
Saying Goodbye to student ministry?
I first encountered the Southampton Navigator student ministry in 1999 when I joined a weekly breakfast and Bible study group that met in the home of Gez & Alison Perry. Since then the ministry has been an increasing part of my life. In 2004 we were asked to start a Christianity Explored Group whilst a number of the other couples who were also involved with the ministry moved onto new initiatives or moved away. Hence the current student ministry grew out of that small…
Catching the vision
If you need to be refreshed about our vision as a ministry; it is to: “To encourage students to know, love and share Jesus Christ through purposeful, intentional and reproducible disciple-making as we share our lives together in community.” Which itself is a local expression of the worldwide Navigator calling which is to: “To advance the gospel of Jesus and his kingdom into the nations through spiritual generations of labourers living and discipling among the lost.” We are trusting God…