Year: 2012

Phatfish release single for World Water Day

Today, World Water Day, sees the release of Phatfish’s new single ‘Thirsty’, proceeds of which will go to Samaritan Purse’s Turn on the Tap initiative.

Turn on the Tap is raising money for water supplies to be fed into homes in towns and villages across the world, as so many people are still affected by lack of drinking water: “4000 children die every single day from drinking contaminated water”.

In exclusive with Christian.co.uk this morning Phatfish said: “We take for granted how easy it is to grab a glass of water. Yet for thousands they have to walk miles – and the water they get to drink might end up killing them. It’s heart wrenching.

“We have been so struck by the devastation that such a simple thing can bring that we wrote a song that we’ve been using in our UK tour to really highlight this issue.

“We want to do all we can today to help raise awareness and cash for these guys who are working so hard to put an end to this devastation.”

In a promotional YouTube video singer Lou Fellingham said: “Just £48 enables a family to have a clean water supply in their homes for at least 15 years.”

Turn on the Tap has already provided fresh water to around 250,000 children and adults – but is aiming to do so much more. Their website has many ideas for individuals and groups wanting to contribute by raising money.

These include going on a water fast (and giving the money you would have spent on food to the cause), using their ‘spend a penny’ water filter coin collectors or water bottles by your toilet to ask for donations every time someone uses it, walk for water (they are officially holding a Water for Water Weekend on 23–24 June). Turn on the Tap are hoping to raise £22,000 during World Water Day.

‘Thirsty’ will soon be available on iTunes – but for today only – World Water Day – Phatfish are keen to give people the opportunity to give more if they can by visiting www.turnonthetap.org.uk/donate. Everyone who donates today will be given a free download of the song. You can give as little or as much as you wish.

As Lou says in the video: “Help us raise awareness, help us raise cash, help us spread the word about Turn on the Tap.”

This article first appeared on www.christian.co.uk

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Taking the time to be grateful

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This week is half term for us. It should be a manic time, with me juggling my workload with two exuberant children who want to get out and do things. But yesterday my kids were picked up to have a little ‘holiday’ with my parents. They were so excited – and secretly I was very relieved as I have a huge pile of work to get through. I know there are probably loads of you out there that would do anything to have a bit of time to yourselves, and that is how I feel quite often too. However, this morning I’m totally on my own – my husband was out for a breakfast meeting before I got up so, for the first time in years, I’ve got ready and had breakfast on my own. And, to be honest, it’s been quite hard. I have a pull on my heart, as it feels like there is something missing. I’ve been singing worship songs at the top of my voice to stop feeling lonely. Now I know this will pass as soon as I get my head down and get on with work, but I just felt that I needed to stop and let myself really experience how I’m currently feeling rather than rushing on. God seemed to be nudging me while I was preparing breakfast. We are embarking on the HTB Worship Central course tonight with our worship team, so I am speaking all about how central worship is. I’ve been looking at how worship is what we were made for – but when I started feeling the pangs of missing my children this morning God spoke to my heart in a way I wasn’t expecting. He simply whispered a reminder that that is how I should feel whenever I don’t get a chance to speak to Him. It really challenged me as I thought of how busy I normally am each morning – how I rush from one thing to another and often don’t even notice that I’ve not started the day connecting with Him. I hope I can remember this pang for a long time, and what it stands for.

It is true that often it isn’t until we don’t have something, or someone, that we realise how much it/they mean(s) to us. Having had a few weeks of my children being ill and still trying to keep on top of my deadlines, I was really looking forward to a few days of being able to get on with work without interrruption. I am still exceedingly grateful for the time my parents have graciously given me this week, but being apart from my children is making me realise how much I miss them, and how grateful I am to God for them. I am desperate to hold them, to tell them I love them, to play their silly games that often drive me insane – and they’ve only been gone one night! But it wasn’t until they went away that I felt the full force of how I feel about them – and I am quite overwhelmed. I think God longs for us to slow down and take stock regularly – to actually be calm enough to take in our surroundings and learn to live with a heart of gratitude, being thankful for what He’s given us – but mostly for His presence with us day by day.

A friend of mine started the year challenging the group of mums we meet up with to keep a thankfulness diary – to write down at least 5 things we are thankful for every day. I started off very diligently, and found that doing it at my desk just before I started working really lifted my spirit and helped me to view my day differently. It gave me positive eyes as I looked for the good in things, rather than getting bogged down straight away. I wonder – how do you make the time to be grateful?

A source of inspiration

I have spent the last week or so learning about, and interviewing, a woman who has totally inspired me. I suddenly realised it has been quite a long time since somebody has been an inspiration to me, and I like the resulting determination and fresh vision I have gained from the experience! 😉

So let me tell you about the woman who has inspired me. Julia Immonen seems like just an ordinary woman – but with extraordinary passion and, yes, determination. She certainly makes things happen. Since learning the horrifying truths of human trafficking, she set up her own charity Sports Against Trafficking in order to use sport in a positive way to raise awareness on this important issue. And the last 18 months have been spent making the idea of a Row For Freedom crew a reality. As part of that all-female rowing crew (only 1 of which had any previous rowing equipment – can you believe that?!) what has she just gone and done? Only broken 2 world records by rowing across the Atlantic Ocean! What an incredible feat of endurance, determination and grit for the whole team. Totally inspirational (especially as I really don’t have a sporty bone in my body so cannot comprehend doing such a thing!). I had the privilege of talking to Julia when they were still on the ocean. What impressed me was the attitude the whole team had towards what they suffered – and suffer they did. So much of their machinery broke down, and they all had terrible sea sickness to start with then grappled with sores and crippling cramp. But when they found things difficult they just remembered the victims of trafficking and found the strength to keep going.

I was also inspired by something else Julia told me. She said that being on that ocean stripped her of everything, and she was able to see what her faith was really made of. And now, with so many great ideas and plans for future campaigns etc, she told me that she doesn’t want to do anything but that which God has called her to do. What a great plumb line that we can often forget amongst the busy-ness of life. Am I doing only what God has told me to do, or have I filled up my time with so much stuff that God’s voice can’t be heard over the din of activity?

If you want to find out more about Row For Freedom’s world record crossing please take a look at my article for the Evangelical Alliance here. And watch this space – I am planning on writing about their achievements, and the issue of human trafficking, a whole lot more!

Is my life about promoting God…or myself?

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I have steered clear about directly commenting here on the raging debate that occurred as a result of Driscoll’s interview in Christianity. I have written a few comments on other people’s blog responses, however, and it is the whole idea of celebrity Christianity that has stuck with me, and many others too. As a newbie writer I am held in that tension of wanting/needing to promote myself but it is far too easy to get caught up in the whole process of trying to get yourself known. As a Christian isn’t that beside the point? It’s all about dying to self and revealing the wisdom and glory of God through the way we live. I know when you make your living from an industry that hardly ever takes notice of unknowns there is an inevitability about trying to promote yourself to a certain degree. But the celebrity culture we have in western Christianity today is quite strange and there is something in the recent debate that we should probably be very grateful for – it has made a lot of us uncomfortable and made us turn to look at our motives once again.

Here’s what I wrote in response to one helpful blogger (and then thought it could quite easily be a posting on my own blog…so here it is! 🙂 ):

As a new-ish writer I’m always so excited about new contacts I meet, but also get really frustrated when I see what a small world the Christian media world can be – and because I’m not that known I can be overlooked. I was having a little moan to God about this one day when I was suddenly stopped in my tracks – I read something a well-known worship leader wrote a few years ago but it was as if God himself was talking to me, reminding me that I’m called to be faithful where I’m at. Chasing after status can so easily distract you from the needs that are right in front of you. As a busy mum, church/worship leader, school governor etc I come across needs all the time. Am I doing all I can to serve those right in front of me or have I started to get impatient when someone starts taking up too much of ‘my’ time? Time I could be spending researching and writing? And why do I get disappointed when I read someone with a ‘name’ writing on a subject I know I could write on easily – or have pitched similarly in the past but was turned down? I have to remind myself to be grateful for every single opening God does provide for me, and juggle that with my other responsibilities closer to home. And yes, when you do have a platform of any sort at all there comes an added responsiblity. I have been writing about family issues, marriage and worship leading in the last week. But if I take a look at my own marriage, family, worship of God and discipleship of the worship team I am responsible for do those hold up to the same scrutiny I’m asking other people to do in my writing? The last thing I want to be is a hypocrite – and yet I think there are times that I am.

I think perhaps the thing we all need to bear in mind is that our lives, and our works, will be refined through the fire – and those things that were not of lasting, eternal worth will be burned up. Are we seeking after and promoting those things that will stand up to that test? God says that when we feed or clothe one of the least of them we are feeding or clothing Him – is that something we always remember or are we eager to get through that aspect of our ‘ministry’ so that we can turn our attention back to something that we feel will benefit us, or our careers? It is horrible to write that down in black and white and then read it back – and I’m sure that is not how any of us set out. But, honestly, when I’m tired and juggling too many things my patience and humility is in short supply and I guess there is a small element of that in the way I perceive things. If this whole Driscoll episode causes some of us to re-evaluate and re-prioritise then some good will have come as a result. Whether we agreed with him or not, were offended or not, isn’t the point. Can we look at our lives and be happy with the way they are going in terms of promoting God and His kingdom, rather than our own statuses and agendas?

 

Socially networking, but how is your connection with God?

As usual, I have had many ideas for blogs running through my head but little time to write them. And my time today has been cut down even more – for lovely reasons though. It was the last day of my children’s holiday before school starts back. We had a friend drop by in the morning and then this afternoon we took a spur of the minute decision and went to the cinema. It’s been a really precious time – but that’s not the point of this blog!

What I want to think about today is whether our technogically based lives these days leave any space to properly connect with God. With phones that gives us instant access to the internet it means that not only can people reach us at any time, anywhere, we can also be constantly connected to twitter, facebook and other networking sites. And, be honest, how hard it is to ignore those status updates that show a new posting has come through?!

I obviously don’t know what your own personal devotional times with God look like, but I’ve been thinking about mine ever since someone I’ve been mentoring emailed to ask how much time she should be spending with God one on one, and how much time do I spend. At first I was rather disgruntled by the questions – after all it isn’t about quantity but about quality right? And each individual needs to work out how they best connect to God and when. But then I was ashamed. Ashamed and not wanting to answer her question. Because recently I’ve got busier and busier with work and I had to acknowledge the fact that making time for God has got harder. It has been significantly harder since having kids but the last quarter of this year I can look back and see I didn’t do much quiet dwelling in God’s presence. There was always a bit of work to do, the kids to sort, someone who needed my help at church – oh and a few hundred tweets to wade through. And I would say I’m worse off now.

Don’t get me wrong – I think the things we can achieve via the internet, and the connections we can make with other individuals (and for me the work contacts I’ve made) are fantastic. But keeping up with the very small amount of social networking I do has made it even harder for me to connect to God – because it is just one more thing that gets in the way – that I find vies for my attention and often wins over quality time with my maker.

I watched the last episode of Living with the Amish over the holiday period and, again, was challenged on the same point. One family had left the most strict Amish community and was going it alone. This meant they had embraced some technological advances – including the internet. The eldest daughter of the family was interviewed and she said that her brothers now have facebook and twitter. She said she didn’t know what they were (and didn’t want to know) but she was sad for her brothers, because they now wasted so much time that they could be reading God’s word – and she then patted her Bible as if it was her most precious possession. That really resonated with me. Not because I want to give up on the internet, but I do want to make sure my priorities are straight as I start this new year – with all the joys and challenges it will most certainly bring. How about you? Are you connecting with God as well as you are with others on the internet?