Timshiels’s Weblog

Live churches’ expenses are always more than their income; dead churches don’t need much money!
Live churches have parking problems; Dead churches have empty spaces!
Live churches may have some noisy children; Dead churches are quiet as a cemetery.
Live churches keep changing their ways of doing things; Dead churches see no need for change!
Live churches grow so fast you can’t keep up with people’s names; In dead churches everybody always knows everybody’s name.
Live churches strongly support world missions; Dead churches keep the money at home!
Live churches are full of regular, cheerful givers; Dead churches are full of grudging tippers!
Live churches move ahead on prayer and faith; Dead churches work only on sight!
Live churches plant daughter churches; Dead churches fear spending the money, time, and talent!
Live churches outgrow their Sunday School facilities; Dead churches have room to spare!
Live churches welcome all classes of people; Dead churches stick to their own kind!
Live churches’ members read their Bibles and bring them to church; Dead churches’ members seldom do!
Live churches’ members enthusiastically support the ministries; Dead churches have no ministries–only functions!
Live churches’ members look for someone they can help; Dead churches’ members look for something to complain about!
Live churches’ members reach out to share their faith in Christ; Dead churches’ members don’t have enough to share

Sunday is an incredibly busy day in the Shiels house.  Depending on the time of year we may have two church services, a dinner date with my parents and on top of that we try and fit in some quality family time. It’s class!  I really enjoy the busyness of a Sunday.  At 7.00am every Sunday the alarm goes off, I wake up, get ready and head out to church.
CCF is a church with a massive volunteer force, we do not yet have the luxury of owning our own building and therefore have the enormous task of setting up and tearing down for our different services held at different locations across the city.
I drive the church van and a lot of the equipment that we use for our church services is stored in my garage.  It is really important that i’m up and ready for action every Sunday morning.  A lot of what happens on a Sunday morning is dependent on me being there and arriving on time  Can I point out at this stage that I’m telling you this because I want you to think that I’m special, that is not the purpose of this blog.
This Sunday morning I missed my alarm. I slept in for church! I was out cold, dead to the world in dream world.  At 7.45 am my ten year old son Oisin came rushing into my room  shouting ” Daddy, Daddy, Daddy. Where are you? Are you here? Have you left yet?  He woke me out of a very deep sleep.
Abigail Van Buren is quoted as saying “If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders”
I can see this at work in the life of my son.  For the last 18 months Oisin has got up with me every Sunday morning and now sees himself as a valued member of the church ’set up’ team.  He has taken on the responsibility with great enthusiasm and developed a huge heart for service,   he loves to serve in the kingdom of God and he loves to serve the local church or what he calls “his church”. I love the fact that through the church Oisin has the opportunity to develop his inter personal relationship skills.  He is surrounded by a group of people who model sacrificial service by generously giving up their time and energy.  He is welcomed into a space where he can be encouraged , loved, supported, motivated and inspired. In essence he is the company of people who reflect Jesus.  As a result of their influence Oisin has grown closer to Jesus, he has opened himself up to receive more of the Holy Spirit and is developing a strong and  healthy character.  For Oisin not to be a part of that process now, for him, would be a great loss. He would hate to miss out on the opportunity which is why he came bursting into my room in such a panic  when he thought I had either slept in or left him behind.
In the Old Testament it says this “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it” (proverbs 22:6)
As a youth and children’s pastor can I encourage you to lead by example.  If you want your children to have a heart for service, get involved in serving others and get them involved in serving with you.  If you want your children to have a passion for Jesus, show them your passion and surround them with people who are passionate about Jesus.  If you want your children to be  passionate worshipers show them your passion for worship.  If you want your children to be passionate about God’s word get passionate in Gods word with them.  If you want your children to keep their feet on the ground , put responsibility on their shoulders.

Big Mo Comes to Those Who Know…and Do
By John C. Maxwell

How do leaders generate positive momentum? It’s very simple: by learning and then applying what they have learned. In the knowledge economy, leaders are distinguished by their ability to process information and put it to use.

There are three ways in which leaders interact with information, and each impacts momentum.

1) Ignorance

The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: Be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge. ~ Elbert Hubbard

What you don’t know can hurt you. Just ask Circuit City. In March 2007, the company chose to lay off its highest-paid, most knowledgeable employees in favor of cheaper labor. The result? Customer service nightmares. Complaints skyrocketed as inexperienced workers replaced seasoned salespeople. By the end of 2008, the electronics superstore had filed for bankruptcy.

Whenever a company ceases to learn or reduces its storehouse of knowledge, decline swiftly follows. In today’s climate, change happens too quickly for businesses to forego learning. Unless leaders make a concerted effort to gather information and re-educate themselves, their organizations will suffer the negative momentum of ignorance.

2) Negligence

“Negligence is the rust of the soul, that corrodes through all her best resolves”
~ Owen Falham

Executives at Philip Morris clearly knew the health hazards of smoking, yet they chose not to warn customers about the harmful effects of their products. When the truth about tobacco became widely known, the public was outraged at the company’s negligence. Scads of lawsuits were filed against Philip Morris, alleging that it deliberately withheld information from customers. To date, the company has paid out millions of dollars in court-ordered settlements, and is on the hook for millions more.

When companies refuse to act on important information-either due to apathy or wicked intentions-then they are said to be negligent. Philip Morris failed to respond properly to the information at its disposal, namely that its products fostered addiction and had adverse health effects. In the end, the company paid dearly in financial penalties and lost significant momentum.

3) Action

An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage. ~ Jack Welch

Big business doesn’t always equal heartlessness. In 1987, Merck realized it had a drug that could counteract river blindness, a disease endemic to impoverished regions. At great expense to its pocketbook, Merck agreed to provide the drug to all who needed it, as long as they needed it. In the 20+ years since making that commitment, the company has provided over 600 million treatments.

Merck’s public image was boosted exponentially as a result of its generosity. The best and brightest minds in the pharmaceutical industry flocked to Merck to associate themselves with an organization that genuinely seemed to care. By putting its knowledge to work in such a benevolent way, Merck enjoyed a surge of momentum.

Summary

If you’re looking for a surefire source of momentum, then make every effort to learn-and to turn what you learn into action. Yes, learning can be a costly endeavor. You may have to open your wallet to purchase resources and provide training opportunities for your people. However, at the end of the day, you cannot afford to neglect the pursuit of knowledge.

Starting 25th April 2010, I will attempt to run from Derry City to Dublin covering a massive 168.5 miles over the course of seven days.
It will all start at 8am on the 25th April 2010 when I will line up to to leave from The Everglades Hotel Waterside Derry.  Over the following 6 days my running will take me via Strabane, Omagh, Armagh, Newry, Dundalk and Drogheda, 128.5 miles down and ‘only’ 40 miles to go. On Saturday 1st May, I will pull on my trainers for the last time and attempt the final leg of this unique and physically demanding endurance challenge.

Day 1 – Derry to Strabane – 13.74 miles

Day 2 – Strabane to Omagh  – 19.52 miles

Day 3 – Omagh to Armagh  – 35.63 miles

Day 4 – Armagh to Newry  – 19.56 miles

Day 5 – Newry to Dundalk – 13.3 miles

Day 6 – Dundalk to Drogheda – 26.71 miles

Day 7 – Drogheda to Dublin  – 40.04 miles

I am running to raise funds for the charity Zimbabwe Orphan Care. Zimbabwe Orphan Care was established in Harare, Zimbabwe in 2000 by Alan & Dorothy Graham, originally from Belfast. ZOC is a registered UK and NI charity(XT8500). 
In a world where the problems seem overwhelming, ZOC seeks to offer housing, schooling, clothes, food and water, hope and love to some of the 800,000 orphans currently living in poverty in Zimbabwe. We believe that all the money raised should go to this cause so we have no administration or staff costs outside of Zimbabwe where we offer much needed employment to over 20 people. 2009 saw the opening of ‘Jabulani, our first home in Harare for abandoned babies, and through this we have been able to offer ‘life’ to these new born, abandoned orphans, without which they would surely have died.

If you would like to know more about ZOC please log onto www.zimorphancare.org

With your help we can make a difference

It’s easy to donate online with a credit or debit card – just go to my JustGiving page:

Link (roll over me to see where I go)

JustGiving sends your donation straight to Zimbabwe Orphan Care and automatically reclaims Gift Aid on all eligible donations, so what you give is worth even more. I hope you’ll join me in supporting Zimbabwe Orphan Care.

Thank you.

I am quite confident that many of you who are regular visitors to the blog have got some level of interest in personal development or personal growth.  I’m sure that many of you have dreams and aspirations for the coming year and even further into the future, things that you want to accomplish both personally and spiritually.  What you expect from yourself this year and beyond will have a direct impact on how your life will look. How you imagine yourself and your future will have a huge effect on what actually happens in your life.
The month of January always serves as a great month for casting vision, planning  and putting strategic measures in place that we believe will go towards ensuring that what is inside of us has a way of coming out.  January can be a month of great inspiration, excitement  and momentum fueled by a great sense of anticipation and expectation. I love January’s!
I’m not too sure about you, but have you ever noticed that by the time February comes we seem to hit a bit of a lull?  By the time February comes we’ve expelled so much energy with all our vision exercises, planning and strategising, we become exhausted and run the danger of losing sight of the vision and the things we were so excited about in the first place.  This is when we really need to hang in and dig deep.
Have you ever noticed how sometimes in life your desire to achieve or your need to accomplish can be enough to pull you through?
Most of the time we need more than that. Yes we need passion and desire but we also need resolve.  If I had to use a word to describe my theme for 2010 it would most definitely be RESOLVE.  Resolve is the by product of spiritual discipline and character.  Resolve is fueled by prayer, driven by the Holy Spirit and cannot exist without an undying belief that says “God is in control” .  It is patience, endurance, persistence, perseverance, faith and hope all rolled into one.  Resolve is the backbone that underpins great success.  People with it refuse to give up and succeed the most, they expect great things and are more likely to accomplish great things.
Whatever else we might need to live the life of our dreams and to live the life God has called us to live, I know this: your dreams won’t work unless you do.  You cannot expect just to sit back relax and wait for it all to fall into your lap.
I pray that 2010 will be a giant killing, ground breaking, territory increasing God filled year.  I pray that you find great joy in all that you do and that you hold tight to the things of God and the promise of his word.  Have faith, show great character and in all that you do bring him great glory.

At the turn of the year CCF launched a new prayer initiative called ONE.  2010 saw the start of a new decade and represents a new and exciting chapter in the life of the church.  In promotional literature  Brian Somerville or Senior Pastor uses these words “as a church committed to reaching out to each other, our city and across the world, we recognize our need to pray”.
During a recent Mosaic podcast I heard Erwin Mc Manus say that “God had spiritualized the word conversation and replaced it with the word prayer”. If there were a christian dictionary  and you looked up the word prayer it’s definition would probably looked something like ‘the conversation or dialogue that takes place between you and God’.  Prayer is the communication process that allows us to talk to God!  We all long to connect with someone who can identify with our circumstances and share in our day-to-day life. Prayer is just that – a personal experience and intimate connection with our loving Heavenly Father.
Today you have a fantastic opportunity to connect with God, an opportunity to connect with the living God and have a real God encounter in your life.  A God encounter has the potential to change the world.  A God encounter can inspire vision, create purpose and fuel passion.  It can bring healing, transformation and restoration.  There is no limits to the potential of what can happen when you connect with God.  The power of prayer should not be underestimated. James 5:16-18 declares, “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective”.  Jesus taught, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you” (Matthew 17:20).
Right now the enemy is terrified of the potential that lies within you, he is terrified of the prayers that you will pray today, he is terrified that we will connect with God and have a God encounter not just in our own lives but in the life of our church as well.  The last thing the devil wants is for us to have a God encounter.
In the same way that God will do anything to try and connect with you, the devil will try and do anything to prevent that from happening.  He wants to interfere with your relationship with God.
In his book the Inner Game of Work, Tim Gallwey says that Performance = potential – interference P=P-I
Your performance is equal to what you are capable of when you remove obstacles. Your ability to pray, your ability to be effective for God is equal to your potential minus the negative influence you have in your life.  If you have Jesus in your life you have infinite divine potential in your life.
If you have Jesus in your life you are an unstoppable force.  Imagine a life free from negative influence, free from obstacles and interference.  Imagine the prayers that we’ d pray and the things we would accomplish.
Lets face it we all have stuff, we all have stuff that gets in the way,  we all have stuff that the devil will try to use to interfere with our God encounter.  Fear, guilt, shame, a past hurt, a painful memory and so on.  Can I encourage you that whatever it is God has already dealt with through Jesus and the cross.  It gone! It’s finished! It has no power over you! Let it go! Let it go!
The prayers that you pray today have the potential to change the world, they have the potential to change you and they have the potential to change me.
I pray that something of the miraculous will take place in your life today, that something of the supernatural will happen in each of our lives and in the life of our church.
Let the voice of faith be the voice that influences your prayers today and remember “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.  And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him”.  1 John 5:14-15

Anyone close to me will know that I have a real passion for running. I just love to run.  Its a time when I can escape the business of the world, get away from my incredibly hectic schedule and connect with God.  It’s a time of great conversation where I get to pour my heart out to God and very often he pours his out to me.  When I run I feel close to God.  Now I am very much aware that running isn’t necessarily everybody’s cup of tea but I do know that we all have a way that is unique to our relationship with God that we connect with him.  Some people like to get up early in the morning and sit in their favorite arm chair, others like to walk, some people like to get lost in worship and so on.  I think it can go to show the enormity of God and the great lengths that he will go to connect with us at an individual level, in a way that is unique to your relationship.
Every Monday I try to get out for a long run and this Monday I tried to focus on connecting with God.  While I was out I began to think about the cross and the historical relevance and timing of it and how God has used it to connect with the world. The very shape of the cross has so much significance that it would appear to me that God has gone to even greater lengths than would first appear.  When we look at the cross we all forgiveness, love, grace and mercy but lets for a moment look at the relevance of the shape of the cross.  Why did Jesus come at the time that he did to die when he did.  If he had been put to death my any other means would it have been effective. He could have come back at a time when hanging, or the electric chair, or death by lethal injection would have been the chosen form of punishment.  But he didn’t!
The shape of the cross carries so much significance.  If we stop and take a look at the horizontal line of the cross we see one side stretching east and the other side east, the hands of Jesus nailed to cross go from east to west.  God is telling us that he will go to any lengths to connect with us, there is no distance to great and nothing he won’t do to connect with us.   There is nothing i can’t do for you.  We are probably all familiar with the phrase how much does God love you (out stretched arms) this much.  John 3:16 says “for God so loved the loved the world…………..”
Lets look at the vertical line of the cross, the line that goes from north to south or south to north.  This line symbolizes the connection between us and God.  At the foot of the cross or at the base point is you and me, or if you like it’s the worlds at large, flowing through to the top of the line directing us to heaven with Jesus in the middle. Jesus is the connecting force, the common denominator that connects the world to heaven.
John 14:6 Jesus said these words  “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”. If you want to connect with the father you have got to go through the son.  God wants to connect with you, he wants to connect with me, he wants to connect with all of us and he is willing to go to any lengths to make that happen.
There is something inside of me that is saying we should pursue God with the same passion that he pursues us, we should be willing to go to any lengths to connect with God, whatever it takes for us to connect with the living God to have a real God encounter in our lives we should be prepared to do it.

The english language is full of a variety of interesting, exciting and challenging words that all have the power when used in the correct context to provoke a number of different emotional responses.  I love seeing the different reactions when I use the word church. Church is a word that can be met with some of the most incredible emotional fueled reactions.  It is a word that has the power to make a person smile, get a person excited, it can make a person angry or it can instill fear in a person.  The word church is an incredibly powerful word and many of us if not all of us will have an emotional attachment to it.
When I tell a person that I am employed by a church, I am usually met by a look of fear, body language changes and very often it sparks the end of our conversation.
What has happened to The Church ‘Big C’ that would make a person react in such a way?
I am all for church. I love church. I love the idea and concept of church.  I see church as a place of hope, a place where dreams are born, a community of faith building people that encourage, inspire, motivate, challenge and  support.  Jeff Lucas writes this about the church “We are part of the grace – family called the people of God. Together we cry, laugh,share our burdens, worship, grieve, pray and serve”(The Prodigal Friendly Church)
The apostle Paul in his letter to the Corinthians wrote “The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance”.(1Corinthians 12:25-26 The Message)
There is no other place in the world that I would rather be than at the heart of the church.  In that space where Jesus is guiding us, the Holy Spirit driving us, where both are brining us closer to the father and to each other.
In a ideal or perfect world I suppose every church would look, feel and be like this, but again the unfortunate reality is that this is not the case.   If we are to be fully engaged in spiritual and social transformation then it is vitally important that we become fully engaged in our own relationship with the one true living God.  The way that the church will grow and develop is through the everyday interactions and engagements that you and I will have with the world.  You and I may be the only church that the people in your school, on your street, in your home this city may ever meet.  We are the church! Jesus has locked his credibility into ours, placed the future of his church on our shoulders and commanded us to go to the ends of the world. If the world is to catch a glimpse of the invisible God they will do it through us.  We have a huge responsibility to reflect Jesus in a way that is true to the magnificent and wonderful deity of his character.  In doing so the world will have no choice but  to stand up and take notice, change their view of the church and open up to receive the loving, healing, transforming power of God.  I pray that we will be a church that will be judged not by what we say about Jesus but by our acts of kindness, which serve everyone indiscriminately.

I am very fortunate to be surrounded by an amazing group of people known as cornerstone city fellowship.  At cornerstone you will find a group of people committed to living out the teachings of the bible in practical and relevant ways. In cornerstone you will be inspired to dream big dreams, encouraged to live the life God has called you to live and motivated to be the man or woman of God you have created to be. As a member of cornerstone I have fully come to realise that our greatest natural resource is the potential that lies within each and every one of us. The earths greatest resource is the gifts, talents, passions, and creativity of it’s citizens; it’s you, it’s me, it’s all of us.  With this comes huge responsibility.
I believe that 2010 is going to be a great year in the life of our church and I am relying on you to make it happen.  Inside you right now is unlimited, untapped potential.  At this very moment in time you have dreams beyond your wildest dreams that are just waiting to escape.  The future is waiting inside you, ready to be released.  You are a wealth of creativity, a dynamic hero that God wants to use to bring change to the world.
In his book ‘wide awake’ Erwin Mc Manus writes “This planet is made better or worse by the people we choose to become” .  The world needs you to be at the top of your game, it needs your best, it needs all of you.  If you choose to live a life that is somewhat less than that of your potential, it’s not only you that loses out, but the world the  at large loses out also.
Make 2010 a year to remember.Let passion, purpose and potential empower you as the holy spirit equips you so that God can release you into a world that needs you.

We live in a very exciting and ever changing world.  Technology is moving forward at an incredibly fast pace and we are constantly discovering new and innovative products that are being pushed in the market place.  If we look around us we can see  the development of fresh and inventive ideas, state of the art design concepts and the most impressive architecture .  Creativity and vision have become fundamental parts of everyday living in modern society.  Creativity and vision are the catalysts to change, without them things stay the same.
In his book Who You Are When No Ones’s Looking, Bill Hybels says, “Vision is the ability to catch a glimpse of what God wants to do through your life if your dedicate yourself to Him”.
King David had a vision from heaven. He said, “I had it in my heart to build a house as a place of rest for the ark of the covenant of the LORD, for the footstool of our God, and I made plans to build it” 1 Chronicles 28:2 NIV.  David dreamed of building a magnificent temple that would be  state of the art and innovative.  David’s temple would require new levels of creativity that would push the boundaries of the status quo to even greater heights.
We now live in the age of the new covenant where we have become a holy temple for the Lord.  Ephesians 2:21 tells us that, “we are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord”.  The spirit of the Lord lives and dwells in each of us.  He lives in you and he lives in me.
In the same way that David dreamed of building a magnificent temple, a dwelling place for the Lord, we too can dare to dream.  We can dare to dream of making ourselves a magnificent dwelling place for God.  We can dare to dream of building a magnificent life that is full of creativity and innovation.  We can dare to dream of a life that will push the boundaries of the status quo to new and greater heights.  God already has the blue print drawn up, the plan has already been made, the design feature that is uniquely you has already been created. You have got limitless power and potential at your fingerprints, being driven, guided and engergised by the power of the Holy Spirit. Let us fix our eyes upon Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, submitting to God’s perfect will for our lives.

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