Deeper

As you reflect on this months deeper service, what do you notice rising up in your own heart?  Spend some time with the following questions…ask them as a prayer to God and see if anything stands out to you.  Spend some time resting in the grace of God, which is greater than all of our running, all of our sin, all of our confession.

Where do you find control in your own life? In what ways have you thought, “I would rather be an orphan?”

How have you found yourself at the end of your rope?  In what ways are you afraid to go back to your Father?

What do you know about the character of God that might give you courage to turn back to him?

When in your life have you experienced the Father running to you?  What does this say about who you are in him?

You were given some questions to take away and think about from the last Deeper. Here are a few more to continue your thought process.

1. Read Ezekiel 36
2. What is God saying to the Israelites in this passage? What is the main point of his message?
3. What might God say to the Church (the body of Christ around the world) today, in light of this passage?
4. What might he want to say to St. Silas?
5. How can we be more open to his softening of our hearts together?

1. Do I feel as though I’ve been dwelling in a foreign land? Exiled?
What are the circumstances that have caused this feeling? What does this feel like?
Take some time to talk with God about these circumstances, to tell him how you feel.

2. In what ways is my heart currently hardened to the love of God?

3. Is there some way that God is using my circumstances to soften my heart?
Take some time to ask this question of God, stop and listen to God’s answer to you.

This may be a frustrating time. You may feel resistance to what he speaks, or you may not hear anything at all just now. Keep your eyes and ears open throughout the next week for God to answer these questions in his time.

Last in the theme of Monsters – looking at the inner monsters of Envy, Anger and Greed.  This months meeting was also moved forward a week to make way for the West End Festival event next week.

Before the start of each of these we have been using playlists of related music, someone asked me for a track name, so here is this month’s Greed related tracks: Money (In God We Trust) by Extreme; Material Girl by Madonna; Money by Pink Floyd; If I Had $1000000 by Barenaked Ladies; Gold Digger by Kanye West Feat. Jamie Foxx; Mercedes Benz by Mercedes Benz; and Money (That’s What I Want) by The Beatles.

For a change, after a short welcome from Jenny we started with a worship set of the following songs: Indescribable,   O taste and see,   Amazing grace (my chains are gone).  Then Gordon told a story about a Hamish the Hamster – this is where the mp3 recording starts – this was followed by this video looking at forms of Greed in the media…

Most of the core team that organizes Deeper then gave some examples of Greed in their own life, then asked people to share in groups what they thought their own greed was…

Jenny and Gordon both then taught on the topic of Greed – mp3 recording – then there was an opportunity for ministry and worship (the second set included: The splendour of the king; This is my desire; Jesus we enthrone you; I’m giving you my heart and God in my living. Finishing off with Be Thou My Vision.

There is no Deeper service in July, have a good summer.

The last of our 6 ‘Organic Faith’ series which was designed to help you readdress and renew the aspects of your faith which easily get sidelined.  It was a time to remember why we believe, how our faith grows, what stifles that growth and how to overcome these things.

• Sept: Breaking the ground
• Oct: Putting down Roots
• November: Grow!
• January: Weeds, Thorns & Worship
• February: Feeding & Watering
• March: Future Harvest

It was also one of the most technical series that we did experimenting with many ways of interacting and engaging.  With a month between events we wanted to bridge that gap by keeping in touch via email and blog, we asked you to participate in online surveys and used that to inform the next event and during some meetings we asked you to send us feeback instantly by txt.  Here is some of what went on:

Lastly, for this record, this month the visual team switched to new technology to produce the live visuals during the meeting – usng VJing software instead of the usual DVDs and video mixer – this meant super-widescreen effect onto our custom built full width screen.  While this took longer to setup it gives us more space, layers and flexibilty to mix.  We hope you enjoyed the effect and, as always, that this added to the experince without turning it into ‘a show’.

timelapse of March event

Meanwhile:  Envy, Anger & Greed is what we are looking at in the next short season building up to summer.  More details soon.

This was the fifth in the series of Organic Faith series, Feeding and Watering.

If you are looking for…

• Jenny’s Teaching Notes
• Gordon’s presentation
• MP3 recording
• This Month’s Survey

This was the fourth in the series of Organic Faith series, Weeds, Thorns and Worship

If you have any comments or feedback on this or any element of a Deeper meeting, please leave a comment below.

Tonight, was the third in the series of Organic Faith series, Growth

What happened this month: We continue to try different setups for the entrance way, this time opening up the archway half way down the church but making it more ‘deliberate’ by putting another drape across to the window to divide the space up.  We also used some more stand alone two-coloured lights to help brighten the building up some.  Once people came into the main space there was the usual mix of chairs and cushions, however once we got started we closed off this main entrance way and opened up another way in at the back – all of this helps us seat people all around rather than folk only sitting at the back.  We also used the entrance way area (once the drape what put back in place) as a second screen area for Jenny and Gordon to speak from – any comments on how this layout worked are welcome.This service was the third in the series Organic Faith, and opened again with the modified Intro Video, which ends with a summary of what was covered in previous months.  We started with an opening worship set, then Jenny (from the side area) again re-capped the previous concepts including the video diary of how one team member had got on with the challenge from last time to be more deliberate in whatever method you find useful for your time with God.This then led into an excellent personal testimony by Lorna which was also a demonstration of a simple exercise of drawing out a graph of your spiritual life, to do this you think about various points in your life, what was going on at those times and how your walk with God was at that time.  Did these things affect you positively or negatively?  Is there a pattern?  What can you learn from this? JJ took over from this to help lead people through doing this for themselves or in groups using the handouts people got on the way in.  Firstly people were to think about their own spiritual life graph, then discuss with folk around them what in general helped their spiritual life, and the things that tended not to help.  These were written on leaf-shaped paper and stuck to one of two ‘vines’. Gordon followed all this with the actual ‘talky bit’ about what should help us grow.  Asking the question “do you actually need the faith we desire?” in other words if we have enough faith for what we are doing now then perhaps the problem of our faith not growing is that we aren’t doing anything that needs more faith. There followed a longer time of sung worship during which prayer ministry was available.

If you have any comments or feedback on this or any element of a Deeper meeting, please leave a comment below.

During this series we want to invite you to get back to the basics of your faith, to get back to Jesus:

• Sept: Breaking the ground
• Oct: Putting down Roots
• November: Grow!
• January: Weeds, Thorns & Worship
• February: Feeding & Watering
• March: Future Harvest

The first challenge is to chose to try this out.  To ‘break the ground’ of your own heart, your own faith, whether it feels like breaking through concrete or turning over good soil ready for a new sowing season.  All you have to do is say to yourself that you will give this a try.

To ‘bridge the gap’ between Deeper services we are trying several new things:

• we are asking people to give us your email address, this will be used to send you a few emails each month to remind you of the topic, pointers of what is going on and reminders of things you’ve to do.
  to sign up send an email to: deeper@stsilas.org.uk with the subject = SUBSCRIBE
• we are asking people to take short (anonymous) online surveys.  The results of this will be used in the planning each month’s Deeper so that we cover what actually matters to those who come, not just what we thing is relevant to those who come.
  the first survey is now available
• someone is making a video diary of their journey through this topic which will be used each month to help remind us what is going on and to introduce the series to newcomers.

a few notes about the use of your email addresses…

• by giving us your email address for this we will only use it for this series of Deeper.
• We will not retain the information within the church or passed on to third parties.
• Once this series of Deepers is complete we will delete the email addresses.