If Our God Is For us....

So i wrote a whole Blog out last week and came onto my blog account today and it didn't send!!! so i wont bother sending it now i will just incorporate the main things from that one into this one here!

         So i spoke in my last blog about me getting back from our 'M4' weekend and things from there have just blossomed, there have been 4 young people starting 'text a prayer' where they put a number on a poster in school in if someone wants prayer they text in and then these people will get together and pray for it! its been great so far and has really made a difference so far 150 texts have been received in two weeks! there is also lots of people wanting to make differences in there schools and colleges, people telling there friends about God telling  people about events going on with the local church and encouraging the people to get along side it and come to the events!  So has been the best result after the M4 we had two young lads from one school who were telling there mates in the lunch club about why Jesus was there Hero and why there friends should go to church! has been amazing and what we do here isn't about us its not about how much we get out of the year, its about blessing these young people and it seems like were doing that and seems like were really  making a difference in their lives!

In terms of my church life things are really growing there, we have got an idea for a new bible study we will be starting for the 15-18 year Old, and ive taken feedback from all these young people and have put together an idea for a once a week meeting, this will start the week after Christmas so its really exiting! also an idea for me leading worship and even doing a preach at my church is coming about so things are looking up and are looking very exiting for this next few months coming up!

     If our God is for us...   this is a verse which has really touched are team here in Burnley, we turn to God in all our situations and we look to |God in all we do, and we come up with difficulties,  a school we once got 70 people at a lunch club! one school we once has 0 people! so we have facing these, then we face difficulties with the student that come, some dont care about what we have to say and some do... and then me on a personal level am struggling with the youth at my church as they are finding it hard to make commitments to things and coming along to things because they live so far away from church! so we face difficulties but in ROMANS 8 V 31 it simply says 'If God is for us, who can ever be against us' and then also Acts 5  39  'if it is from God you will never be able to stop them' And this is what has kept me Personally Going and has Kept me positive, if God is with me and in me.  then who can be against me and who can stop me?  simple answer NO ONE...


Thank you to Everyone who let me know that you read my blog was great to see who does read it... and i would love to set one challenge this week for people who are reading this, i don't care if your Christian, NON-christian or somewhere in between this is something i want to challenge you with. some time this week when your experiencing a problem, may it be you have work to do, you have to go somewhere, you've got to speak to someone who you really don't like... then i challenge you to do something, before you do it pray to God... say to God 'God please be with me in what i am about to do' and then go and do it, i bet you something different will happen in this difficult situation, and if it does please let me know, would be great to here from people who have done this and who have seen a difference


Cheers Luke

M4 Weekender!!!!

So this week has been quite a cool one to be honest....

started off the week with a few really good lunch clubs.. one we spoke about Seeking First God... so spoke about why its important to Look to God first in all situations no matter how big or small they are, then we spoke about why is Jesus are Superhero.. so we went into a school and one of the young people actually came to the front and in front of all his friends told us why Jesus was his superhero, was Fantastic to see and he was just a real inspiration to me about doing this. so we had two amazing lunch clubs. Also I helped out at Life Kids which is the weekly kids club that happens at life church was great to be involved and see young people ENJOYING coming to church! and I love it there!  So Yeah the week started of amazing and finished off even better!!!

So the week Ended with Something called M4 Weekender.. this is one off the Pais ideas for mission with Young people. Hence M4 (Mission 4, 4 ideas for mission) so this weekend was Weekender, so the whole point of the weekender is to invite your young people from your church who you cans see are wanting to do more are wanting to be an impact in their schools and communities, so we ended up getting about 40 young people at the event, from around east Lancashire and it was just a weekend of Praising God and giving the young people ideas off how to work in their communities and get them fired up to get out there! so we had some amazing talks from some directors of  Pais GB and hub and team leaders! was great to be involved in it and you could really feel Gods spirit in the event and throughout the weekend. on the last evening off the event  God entered the building and his spirit fell among all of the young people and they just ended up praying for each other! 15 year olds praying for other 15 year olds who they have never met before! it was just phenomenal and i loved ever minute of it!  I was involved with the worship band so got to play with an amazing group of musicians with our goals just being to worship and bless God!!!

   My weekend ended by going to Church Sunday morning and speaking to the church about what im up to and everything, they seem very motivated and exited about ideas i have for the young people at church and are really supporting me well in the ideas i have! i then got to go down to Nelson at the Mission church to watch a lad from the M4 weekender getting baptised! was awesome to go down there and see everyone and one of the Pais workers lead worship and another Spoke and was just great to hear and see them both glorifying God! the service finished and i couldn't find any off the youth anywhere and finally i found them.. all 20 of them were praying with each other in a room in church for about an hour after the service!! come on they were being encouraged to do more by one of the young people who had been on the weekender! was great to see the passion in these young peoples lives and it was a great way to end such a great week

Now we move onto the next stage which is Coaching young people.. we aim to try and SSSS Young people... SO spread the word of God... Spot the young people who are seeking and searching for more.. Stay with the young people who we have spotted then Send the young people out... so over the last few months i have been spreading and spotting young people.. now i am begging to Stay with them and input into their lives and give them encouragement and support in what they want to do over the next year with God!

Time has gone so quick already with Pais, and if the year is continues to be as great as the first few months have been then im looking forward to an AMAZING year!!!

I would love to just find out who and how many people are reading this blog... so would be awesome if you could just send me a quick email on    luke.al.thomas@gmail.com     just so i can get a gage of who is reading it :) 

Thankyou 

The cloud and the Line

So this week has been quite a cool week.  I got back from Blackpool then was baptised so was a cool weekend, Then this week me and my Team have been going into schools again talking about Gods love, we have been into 2 Primary Schools talking about ‘man looking on the outside but God looking at the heart’ so has been great going into Primary schools there a lot of fun and the Children treat you like celebrities when they see you. I had a tough task this week in teaching in a lunch club about a concept which pais workers have which is the ‘cloud and the line’ (which is the name of the book the global director wrote a few months ago) the concept in simple terms is there is a line in life and on one side of the line it says ‘how much can we get away with’ so how much can we push the rules of society in order to still be OK with the law or in Christian terms with God how much can we push God rules to still be in Gods good books. Then the other side of the line is how much do we have to do in order to get something back so I want an xbox so im going to tidy my room, do the lawn ,wash my clothes, do everything so that my parents will buy it for me or in Christian terms if I pray everyday and I thank god every day maybe he will bless me lots and lots, how much do I have to do in order to get something in return! So there the two extremes of the line and the concept of the line and the cloud is, when God appeared on earth to Moses he appeared in a cloud, so our aim in life is to live in the cloud so we want to live in the presence of God so in order to do this we must live above the line! We shouldn’t be thinking how much have a I got to do to get something back and how far can I push the rules, we should be living above that, we should be thinking about are motives behind things why do we do things? Do we do things in order to bless God? Is what were doing a good witness for people?  So I had to explain that to young people in a lunch club and its very deep stuff, but they seemed to get it and seemed to respond really well to it!  Also I got to drop in on Sunday with the Fuel band (Passion praise equivalent) and meet the worship leader Neil Wilson, and just spent the day talking and observing how he lead the band and was just great to learn things of him and talk to him and just be with him for the day. Really helped me learn a lot of cool things about worship leading and ive defiantly taken some thoughts out of that!

I’m going to do things about different this week and give you bullet points of my thoughts, rather then big paragraphs

·         Jesus uses things which were everyday items,  so Garments people would be thinking wool, leather… things like that, so people then day would know how they are made

·         Wine was also an everyday occurrence and everyone new about how to make wine

·         Everyone understood that wine releases C02 during its fermentation so  while it was in the wine skin it would stretch the skin, so a new skin would be able to stretch more then an old skin!

·         If a new natural piece of cloth was put onto an old one when washed that piece would shrink, then if it was sewn properly it would tear causing a worse whole then to start with, also who would put a piece of NEW cloth onto and OLD cloth?

·         So Jesus has given us illustrations about old things and new things and not mixing them but how does that apply in our lives?

·         2 Corinthians 5:17  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

·         So when we accept Christ into our lives our lives must be changed we must not let the old into our lives we a new people in Christ so we must not mix the old and the new!

·         Make sure God is glorified in everything don’t mix the old and the new, accept Jesus as your God and become a new person in Christ

·         “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;” (Ephesians 4:22)

This was a great parable for me to read just being baptised and was great to have this message in my head over the last week and help me think about what the act off baptism has done and will do for my life!   So yeah any thought please comment or email me J    this week im studying ‘ THE SOWER’ 

Mathew 13v 3-23

Mark 4v 2-20

Luke 8v 4-15

Have  great week