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If you buy something in a concentrated form, they you need to add water, usually, in order to make it user friendly.

From screen wash for our cars to squashes in our kitchens and washing up liquid, we routinely buy things that need to be watered down to use. The obvious advantage is that, just like Ikea, furniture that arrives flat packed, you can transport more of the end product when it is concentrated while being transport.

I recently attended a church where I saw a massive range of work for the city they serve. But, what I didn’t see was Jesus.

The Bishop of Winchester upset a lot of Anglicans when he took office, because he said that while churches need to serve the areas where they are based; while they need to provide for the needs of the people in the community, those same people needed Jesus far more than a meal, or debt advice.

We see in Jesus a model of serving people, and frequently meeting their needs in order to win the right to speak into their lives.

This is perfect - of course it is! But, please, let’s make sure we don’t stop at helping people, when what they need far more than food or clothing, is Jesus. I totally agree with the Bishop of Winchester on this point.

Thanks to The Devotional Guy for my final inspiration today, and his idea about how we may be the only bible that somebody gets to read.

So let’s make sure we’re easy to understand, and available for people to see Jesus in.

Just a thought…

Andy B

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Sometimes, the simplest solutions are the best – when something electronic freezes, hangs or stops working, turn it off an on again is often the simplest way to help it reset and start working again.

As a family we share a digital calendar and a digital to do list. It’s a great way of us each knowing what the others are doing, and helps us to stay on top of things like shopping lists, or cleaning lists which we’re all involved in. And a digital diary helps us know where we’re each at, and reminds us who is cooking dinner every night.

However, sometimes, those lists need to be resynchronised. And, when it occasionally gets really bad, we delete the app and reinstall it.

But we do this with God? Do we add things to His To Do list, or digital Diary, and just expecting Him to turn up as we asked Him too?

Or do we sometimes stop what we’re doing, check in with God, hit that resynchronise button and catch up with everything that God is asking us to do?

Just a thought…

Andy B

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Music. It can move in pretty amazing ways, and God designed, and hand made us, to be able to enjoy music.

Vinyl records were once at the height of technology for listening to music at home. Later CDs took over, and now digital music is streamed to us in better quality than those discs we used to play on record players.

With advancing technology we can see improvements. But I’m always reminded that because we can doesn’t mean to say we should. Likewise, just because we think something is better, it doesn’t mean it is.

Electric cars are amazing technological devices that produce almost no emission when being driven on the roads. But they consume vast amounts of resources to be created in the first place; their batteries use precious resources often being mined at  the hands of child labour in developing countries. Also, as much as a battery creates clean energy, generating that energy is anything but clean!

While these new ways of creating energy may be seen as good, there is a wider picture we need to consider before we consider something actually good or not, or an improvement or not. For example, a pencil and a piece of paper can’t crash and don’t need updating or charging. Just sayin…

In the same way it’s easy to walk into a church, see ways of doing things that we consider to be antiquated, old fashioned or just plain out of date! And yet those same systems have sustained churches for an awfully long time, long before we arrived.

The phrase ‘don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater’ comes from multiple people using the water of a bath to get clean. Over time that water could become so dark and dirty, that you could literally lose a baby in the bath, and risk having the baby thrown away with the dirty water when everybody had finished.

Let’s not be too hasty to throw away what we consider to be past its sell by date. Much like vinyl, which is making quite a comeback, we need to see the wider view - because vinyl brings much joy to many, without any digital devices being used, and has done for many years and will for many more years to come!

Just a thought…

Andy B

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Introduction

In this week’s Marriage Matters, Andy B and Jo talk candidly about things that cause problems in our marriages, that may lead to unfaithfulness in one shape or another and things that lead to an affair. They ask whether we should affair proof our marriages, whether this possible and whether this beneficial.

Tips and Resources

- John Piper, “Should Christians Watch ‘Game of Thrones’?”

- Jessica Rey Ted Talk, “The evolution of the swim suit”

- Meditate on the scriptures above.

 Andy B  -  Affairs don’t just happen, there are many steps to infidelity. Don’t seek to affair proof your marriage, spending time on what could go wrong, instead focus on the good – what is working in your marriage and how much you love your spouse.

 Jo - Be aware of the dangers – actions that can lead to an affair – the bible helps us stay on the right track!

Andy and Jo

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Catch us on Konnect Radio for our weekly show - Family Focus: Sundays, 3 til 6pm

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A friend in the US sent me a photo from her garden. And it struck me just how much the old vegetation had protected the new flowers growing, because the old had literally covered over the new, during the winter.

With Easter just a week away at the time of writing this theme of old becoming new, is very much on my mind!

I’m reminded how the terrible eruption of Mount Saint Helens resulted in the devastating loss of much forest. And yet that loss also allowed smaller plants, flowers and bushes the chance to grow and thrive because they finally saw lots of sunlight – that the forest canopy overhead had denied it prior to the eruption.

It’s easy to see devastation as just an end. But, with Jesus Christ, the end is never the end.

Jesus is known as the Redeemer. And it more than a name. Because Jesus can redeem everything in our life, especially those things were just the end. With Jesus, they can also be the beginning.

Just a thought…

Andy B

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While being the awesome husband I am, I kindly drove jo to work again. It meant I could do some shopping without making a second trip, and we could some time together in the car. She got to have a couple of hours in the office and come home again.

By the time I’d got in the car, Jo had already pressed the button to raise the electric garage.

We drove out the garage and started our journey.

Only, because I didn’t open the garage myself, I didn’t look back to check it was closed as we left the driveway. Thankfully, our oldest spotted the open garage door when he went to put some washing on the line. All was good!

This made me remember of the importance of looking backwards sometimes.

If we always look behind us at where we’ve come from, we’ll never be able to enjoy the journey we’re on now. And we’re likely to fall over or walk into a lamppost!

It’s great to have goals. It’s healthy to have dreams and ambitions and to work towards these righteous things we feel led to do.

But, it’s also good to look back sometimes.

It helps us remember where we’ve come from, and to see how much progress we’ve already made.

It might, also, help us see the gaping hole that should be a closed garage door. 

Just a thought…

Andy B

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Beards need grooming. They need care and attention, or they can look pretty scruffy rather rapidly. That may be the look you want, but in our house that wouldn’t fly! So, since I can’t shave at this time due to a medication I’m on, I’ve now bought myself a beard brush.

I didn’t know such a thing existed, and yet I now use it fairly frequently to keep my growing beard in order and making myself look a little more presentable.

In life we can often spend time tidying and grooming ourselves to look presentable in all sorts of ways. This can be a good thing – like my beard! Or it can be a way of hiding things, or covering them over. And in our journeys as spiritual people we need regular grooming too. We can also be easily prone to trying to cover things up that we’d rather other people not see in our spiritual journeys too!

And yet, we need not fear when Jesus comes, in the form of fellowship or family or church, to help us be reconcile to God, and to get on with each other a little better.

My beard brush literally forces my beard hair to fall in line, one with the next. Sometimes there are small hairs on my beard brush that stick out a tiny bit, and these can scratch my face if I press too hard. 

Let’s not fear that spiritual beard brush that is spending time with other Christians. Because while we may not always enjoy it, it isn’t there for us to enjoy! It, is however, a God ordained method for us to become more like Jesus.

When we rub up against each other sometimes it can feel like a painful chafing, rather than anything positive: it isn’t a pleasant experience. But, even that, is useful to us because it highlights things in our own lives that are sticking out, that perhaps should not. Other times spending time with Christians can feel more like honey soothing a sore throat: we all like those moments, but of course!

Either way, we need that spiritual beard brush. So what are you waiting for?

Just a thought…

Andy B

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A cup of tea with a friend can be a great way of spending our time! Talking to someone, seeing the reaction on their face as we say something, helps steer the conversation. It is invaluable feedback to deepen the relationship.

As a preacher, or as a worship leader, that same feedback is really important - it helps us steer how we say things, or how many times we can get away with repeating that same chorus while we try to remember what the next song was supposed to be, or how we’d agreed - with the other musicians - to seamlessly get to that next song and continue the worship (that last one might just be an Andy B thing).

We can be easily led by the reactions of people: there are plenty of people saying they are preachers of God’s word, who are saying things that get them a good response. But I’m not talking about that sort of feedback. Of course it is good to have encouragement when we do something from the front of a church. Validation is important, to some extent. But if we aren’t careful that feedback can both help us to speak more clearly or to help us linger on a point we’re making that needs a little more explanation. But, tragically, it can also encourage us to move on away from something people don’t want to hear and on to something a little less challenging, or to simply skip more volatile biblical topics altogether.

As someone who considers themselves a newbie in the blogging world, I often marvel at the skill and penmanship of the many blogs I read from other Christian writers. Some of them can condense their thoughts so wonderfully, and in such a short space, it regularly baffles me! 

We must not look at others and let what they do intimidate us away from God’s calling upon our life either. And, as a Christian, we must not be steered by people’s reactions too much, or see what we do as only relevant or ‘good’ if we regularly receive sufficient likes, comments or re-shares: the only face we need to please is God, and His ‘like’ is the only one that matters. Our task is simply to faithfully undertake whatever He has asked us to do, to the very best of our ability, while knowing that He will equip us to do it.

Jesus travelled about a lot, and was wonderful at the one to one ministering we so often read about. But it struck me that He was, and still is, the master at the virtual ministry.

Now, before you try and burn me at the stake, let me explain what I mean! Consider His speaking from a boat, for example, where He literally put a physical barrier in between Himself and the people He was speaking to; Jesus didn’t minister in person to every person who heard Him speak! (Paul on the road to Damascus is another example of this – Jesus spoke to Him, but He didn’t actually turn up physically, although the result of Him certainly was felt physically!).

Andy B

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This Andy B 2 Minute Video was inspired by Mandy, and her brilliant post - and power packed prayer - “April 2022 Prayer”. You can find out more about Mandy at her blog “Blue Collar Theologian”. Go check it out!

Darkness often feels like it is greater and has more power. People love to do bad things in the dark because, I guess, they think it can appease some of the evil of their actions. Or, just because they don’t wish to get caught – which really amounts to the same thing.

Darkness often feels like it is closing around us, and it can seem as though it wins more often than the good.

And yet, as Christians, we have a sure and certain hope that where there is light, the darkness will not be able to win! Scripture tells us that where light is, darkness can not be. It also reminds us that darkness and light can no exist together – one of those things has to win and one of them has to lose. I’ve read the end of the book, so I can confirm the winner is not the darkness!!

And we know this to be true in our own lives too – when we stand in a pitch black room with a working torch (flashlight) in our hand, we know that we can dispel the darkness around us by sampling switching that torch on. And as followers of Jesus, we are those same torches, and we also need to switch ourselves on.

You, and me, are the bearers of the light of Jesus Christ into the darkness of this world. 

Don’t be afraid of how dark the darkness may feel. Because in our hands, much like Frodo when he was fighting against Shelob (Lord of The Rings reference…sorry if you’ve not read the book or seen the film but they’re a BerryBunch favourite!!), he had in his hand a powerful source of light. But it didn’t do anything until he activated that light source. Without the right action on his part (saying some Elvish words over the light source) it was just a light source, and not a light.

So, let’s shine our lights ever the brighter. And if you don’t feel your particular light is bright enough as a Christian, don’t worry. Where there is light the darkness can not be. Or maybe switch it on or activate it, or just give it a really good shake (which works for me when my torch has weaker batteries)!!

Because Out Of Darkness Cometh Light – so go be that light in the darkness, and do not fear because the Light of Jesus Christ has already defeated the darkness of the enemy so what can we possibly have to fear!

Just a thought…

Andy B 

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Andy B begins this week’s episode by asking, “What do you do when things go well?” and, “How do you handle praise?”

He makes an interesting point, that out of the top three places in a running race, the person in 2nd place is often the most depressed.

He proceeds to share his struggle with receiving praise – how he finds it easier to face criticism. And he warns about some of the dangers when things go well, such as false humility, rubbing our successes in other people’s faces, and of course pride.

He makes a point of stating that being resourced for something doesn’t mean it’s God’s will; just because you have the money to do something doesn’t mean that God wants you to do it.

He challenges us to acknowledge the gifts we have been blessed with by God, whilst not getting full of ourselves. And he reminds us of the importance of giving thanks and receiving thanks from other people.

Plus, so much more.

Andy B

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