Beacon Family Festival -3rd to 10th August

What do you get if you take a church who wants reach its local community, a great team of people who love Jesus and a community full of all ages looking for things to do during a rainy summer holiday?

You get the Beacon Family Festival!

Monday 3rd August saw the launch of the 2008 Beacon Family Festival, a week of community outreach and family fun, for the third year based at the newly built Beacon Centre, St Mellons ... and despite the weather most of the events were able to go ahead as planned!

Pastor Steve said “The Beacon Family Festival has been an annual event for the Beacon Church for over 10 years now. With the Hope 08 theme during this year, it was an ideal opportunity to continue the festival this year and with the help of a team from Holy Nation church in London, we had a fantastic week. St Mellons is area in Cardiff which has a mixture of social and private housing. St Mellons is still any area of many social challenges but we are excited about the changes that have taken place over the last 10 years and we believe the church has played an important in that change over the years.”

The afternoons provided a whole host of activities from singing, dancing and DJ workshops, a sports programme and skate ramps in the car park, craft activities and a bouncy castle for the younger children while their mums had a cup of coffee. Wednesday afternoon we joined forces once again with other local organisations and Council children’s workers to celebrate National Play Day with around 200 people attending. Some of the highlights were a climbing wall and bouncy castle, and indoors we had crafts, displays and refreshments … it didn’t rain!! On Thursday to Saturday mornings we had the Children’s Holiday Bible Club, on the theme of Olympics with over 60 children attending in total.

In the evenings we had an number of activities, the Thursday and Friday evenings being the highlights. A Pamper Evening was dedicated to blessing the local ladies with facials, foot and hand massage and manicures. This gave many opportunities for conversations, to build relationships and to speak about the love of God.

Then on the Friday evening, the last evening, we had a “St Mellons Got Talent” night with around 140 adults and children turning up to hear a mixture of Christian and non-Christian music and dance performed by children from the community and team members. Young people and children who had attended the workshops in the week had the opportunity to showcase their talents, and all had the opportunity to vote for the act of their choice. The atmosphere was positive and exciting and again, built on personal relationships with the people who live in the environs of the church.

We had fantastic help from a team of ten from Holy Nation AOG Church in London and others who returned to help us for the week, as well as our own church guys lending a hand.

We ended the week with a family service with dance, music and Pastor Steve doing a 10 minute talk on how God can restore even the most broken of lives.

Steve added “much of the week is about building relationships and it has been great yet again to see God working in the lives of team members and the local community. Our desire is be salt and light to a community that needs to know that there is a God who loves them passionately and that there is a group of people who care about them. Our desire is that this would open doors for us to tell them more about Jesus.”


Pastor Steve Harris
steve.harris@beaconchurch.org.uk

Finishing Well!

I am in my mid forties and it certainly seems that time moves faster that it used to. For example it is now June - where did the first half of the year go? I suppose the reality is that I as you get older there is smaller part of your life passes by each year. For example when I reached ten years of age the last year I lived was a tenth of my life now it is less than a 40th of my life!

The scary truth is that my son is now 18 (an adult) how did that happen? I have been married nearly as many years as I was not married. I have been worked full time for churches for nearly 10 years (I did a real job before that! - only kidding.)

I am the type of person who not only wants to begin well but also end well. I want to be a person who can look forward to the next 20 years before I reach retirement age and make a difference. To my family, to the churches I work with, to all the kids I see in schools each term.

A marathon runner does not win the race by being first after 5 miles but after 26 miles on crossing the finishing line. I want to run well and finish well - I need God's help to do that, and don't I know it.

To finish someone sent me a great video of the two year old boy who certainly has potential - watch this and remember it is not just starting well but finishing well too!

On your bike!

Tried to get a bit of time off this week. It didn't really work to well but one of the things I did start to think about was should I buy myself a bike. As I have mentioned before in my blog I try to get to the Gym once a week but I wondered if getting a bike would also help we to keep fit.
Once you start thinking about bikes your realise how many types there are, mountain, hybrid, racing and then should I go for new or second hand (once because I am pretty thrifty and secondly because I am not sure I will use it that much)

Thought I might get some inspiration form You Tube and found this video - I guess I will have to do a bit of practicing to get this good!

Lord even in the hard times!

You know there have been a lot of sad things going on in the world lately particularly in Burma and China. And I believe it is OK to ask God the big questions like: "Why God". To be honest I don't think there are always answers this side of heaven but I really believe that God understands it when we question him. One thing I remain confident of is the fact that what ever may happen, even in those time when we cannot understand it all,ultimately one thing remains true, even in this broken and fallen world, God is still in control.

Let's remember to pray for those who are suffering at this time way beyond what we can understand and ask God in the chaos to bring his comfort and peace to a hurting world.

I must admit there are times you need to be encouraged sometimes a song can really do that. Check this one out and be encourage that God is still in control. He is still Lord of Heaven and earth.

Here I goes again!

Every Monday morning after a busy church day on Sunday I try and go to the gym for an hour. The first half hour is spent on the tread mill - I now have to find a few friends to help make the half hour more enjoyable. To see what I mean watch the video below...

Rediscovering my Guitar

Over the last couple of months I have been visiting a school - Meadowlane - just across the road from where we meet as a church. I already visit the school once ever school term to do an assembly for them and that is great fun, but I wanted to do a bit more. So I went and talked with the Head of the school about doing a weekly guitar club.

So a couple of months back I started Guitar Club with about 15 children aged 9-11. It has been great fun seeing them come along each week and you can see that some have a natural ability to learn the guitar easily and others need to work harder to remember the chords and the rhythms. One of the side benefits has been I have been picking up my guitar a lot more often. Having started playing over 30 years ago I am pretty good but soon noticed how out of practice I am at playing. One of the most obvious things is how quickly your hands get tired and your fingers hurt!

It is funny how business of life can get in the way of so many things and this is true not just of guitar playing but also of so many things that God wants us to do in our live. Today I have been working on a sermon for Sunday and read how Paul in a whole passage about the grace of God talks about the fact that

"we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do".

Having that kind of attitude will effect everything that we do and say and for that matter how and when I pick up that guitar...

Below is one of the YouTube videos I have been using to encourage me in my guitar playing a great song by Lincoln Brewster

What is it about men and church?

I was in a seminar a week or so back with a guy called Dave Murrow. Dave is from the states but just like the UK he has found that some men find it hard to relate to church. His question was why are there more women than men in most churches? Where have all the men gone?

I guess there are many reason why men, in the Western world at least, struggle with church. It is important for us to remember that it has not always been this way.

When Jesus was on the earth he had no problem getting men to follow him. The early church was full of men and it is interesting to see today that even when there is persecution in the church men still want to join, so it is not that they afraid of the challenge! There no doubt that as as church leaders (who ironically are mostly men themselves) we do not always make it easy for men to relate to church. I have certainly been challenged recently to take a look at how we do church to make sure it relevant to men, women, youth and children.

The message is certianly one that is relevant to everyone but my challenge is to make that message relevant. I don't think it is about changing the message - if we make sure we are still presenting the same message the Bible presents to us - the challenge is to look at how we present that message and make sure that what we do it in a way that makes sense to men and women alike.

We have some great ladies in our church, and some great men too, but my prayer is that we will have a church full of men and women excited about the message and responding to the challenge that Jesus presents to each one of us. Jesus call is, and always has been, "Come, follow me."

One thing is still certain in my mind at least, Jesus is still worth following.

New Year - New Challenges - New Adventures!

I know that in reality it is just another day but there is something good about a New Year.

Many people make all sorts of resolutions and plans at this time of year and that can be a good thing but I think for me the challenge is not making the plans but keeping those resolutions I make.

Over the next couple of weeks as a church we will be concentrating on prayer and fasting in preparation for the New Year. 2007 was a year of great change for me personally and for my family. Having only come to Beacon Church in November 2006, and not knowing if we were going to be with the church long term, it meant that for the first part of the year at least we were kind of moving forward but with great caution and realising that we may not be called to take the church forward long term.

Summer saw that all change with a confidence that God wanted us to be around until he said otherwise. The Autumn saw family changes with Myra leaving work to study full time for a year and both the kids with major exams in the year ahead.

So here we are. What will 2008 hold? To be honest I am not sure what God has planned for us but of this I am sure - he knows and our responsibility is to stay close to him so we can hear his voice as he directs and leads us.

Plans - oh I've got plenty of those but I want to make sure they are his plans not just my good ideas. One thing I am confident of is that there are plenty of people who need to hear the Good News of Jesus this year, others who need encouragement and challenge on the journey and if we open our eyes there are plenty of opportunities for each one of us to have a great adventure with God.

Oh and I must remember to change that star date..... that's a job for another day.