Thoughts From The Road

7 Reasons Why Ignite Will Succeed in Liberia

I will continue to write my Ignite Liberia report but until the next installment, I wanted to re-publish a blog that Nigel put on his blog site http://nigeljames.typepad.co.uk .His site is always worth a read.  It is so encouraging and I wanted as many people as possible to read it

Liberia is one of the poorest nations in Africa- when we were there Gary and I didn't meet anyone with a paying job apart from taxi-drivers, waiters, and a shopkeepers ( I use the term 'shop' in its loosest sense.)

 Liberia is recovering from the lingering effects of a decades-long civil war, and the infrastructure of the country is still ramshackle- no mains water or electricity, no public transport ( but with a depot full of buses sitting idle), poor health and healthcare- we didn't see anyone over the age of 50 and heard terrible stories about the infant mortality rate. Women are still very much second-class citizens and the country relies massively on support from the United Nations.

Nevertheless, we saw many signs of hope and so after reflecting for a week or so, here are my seven reasons why I believe that God will use Ignite powerfully in LIberia.

1. Amongst the faithful and faith-filled leadership of Ignite Liberia, especially in Rev. Emmanuel Jonah and Rev. Stephen Wonbenyakeh there is a real belief that Ignite is going to be part of rebuilding a nation by starting to breath life, hope and purpose into the young generation. Men like Emmanuel and Steve could easily be leaving LIberia for a more affluent lifestyle overseas, but have chosen to remain in their native country and serve God where they are so desperately needed. Both of them have the gift of connecting with people, and encouraging people to come alongside the vision they have for Ignite Liberia.

2. Although there are many churches in LIberia, it seems that most of them haven't really engaged with youth ministry since the civil war stopped, so there is a gap for effective, structured youth ministry to take place. It's likely that in Liberia Ignite will be seen as much more of a national youth ministry involved in local churches than it is in the UK.

3. Most of the Ignite county co-ordinators and centre managers are not in full-time employment, and even those who are pastors have time to give, so there is ready-made manpower willing to work hard and share the vision of Ignite. Already, Ignite has spread to 7 of LIberia's 15 counties with plans to reach all 15.

4. There is a depth of understanding about the Ignite declaration and the reasons to challenge young believers to sign it. Our conference merely confirmed that understanding and gave renewed enthusiasm to focus on the Ignite Declaration as the centre-piece of Ignite ministry.

5. Given that so many young people grow up without hope, drift into crime or drugs or prostitution, and have no real career prospects, the message of Ignite that God has a special purpose for you and your generation is a powerful and timely one for the youth of LIberia.

6. Already, Ignite LIberia is successfully breaking down geographical and denominational barriers in the country. Pastors, churches, and young people from many denominations are committed to being part of the Ignite family in LIberia.

7. There is clear evidence of the hand of God on Ignite Liberia. A couple of days before we arrived, Emmanuel and Steve had been given the opportunity to meet the Vice-President of the country and share the vision of Ignite. A musician friend of mine calledBenny Prasad was in the country for a few days, did a concert for Ignite and arranged the meeting with the Vice-President. For Ignite Liberia to continue to flourish, there will need to continue be a miraculous provision by the Lord.

Ignite Liberia Report Episode 1

In 2004 as part of the celebration of the centenary of the last great Welsh revival, Nigel and I were on a committee that organised a number of initiatives. Nigel talked for about 10 minutes at a small ministry training course and encouraged an Overseas student, Emmanuel Jonah to attend "Ignite the CIA" a youth event I organised. The event had a stellar line-up including Luis Palau, The Tribe, YFriday, Andy Hawthorne and the much missed actor Rob Lacey. As part of the programme Nigel also talked about the Ignite declaration. Emmanuel, unbeknownst to anyone to Nigel or I felt a prompting from God that this was something that God could use in the war torn sub-Saharan African nation. He returned home, discussed it with his wife and they prayed about it before contacting Nigel by email to ask if they might partner with us. We were delighted to oblige and sent him a few resources including our Ignite Africa, cards, a few books and some t shirts. With these meagre offerings this young man began to share the vision with pastors, ministers and youth workers throughout the nation.

Today, Ignite Liberia has a presence in 8 of the 15 counties of country impacting thousands of lives. It was into this climate that Nigel and I attended as the keynote speakers at the 1st Ignite Liberia National Conference.

Attending the conference turned into a huge logistical nightmare. In order to get reasonable priced flights, we decided to fly through Nigeria. This meant that we had to stay over in Lagos, one night on both ends of our trip. This in return required Nigerian visas as well as Liberian visas. What initially seemed a simple task required multiple visits to both high commissions and ridiculously high fees! Never the less we never lost the resolve that this was an essential trip. So it turned out to be 

Following an uneventful flight to Lagos via franfurt, Nigel and I arrived into Lagos early evening. The journey between the airport and the hotel in the friday rush hour was much more of a challenge! What should have been a simple 15 minute trip took over 2 1/2 hours. We were kept entertained by our the hotel receptionist who assured us that we were staying in the best hotel in Lagos. It also had the best restaurant. We asked for his recommendation of some quality, typical Nigerian fare. His initial suggestion of fish and chips was instantly rejected and I decided to try the goat pepper stew. It was the simply the spiciest thing I ever eaten! The venue had dim lighting, which maybe just as well as well as the picture taken with a flash makes it look not very appetising. This was nothing next to his main course recommendation. A dish we had never heard of before called "grass-cutter". As we tried to question him we all decided it was actually antelope on something similar. There is a picture below. Both Nigel and I decided to rip the hide off it before we ate it. A good move I think. In Liberia we were given a hint that it may not have been Antelope. In fact it turned out to be something less savoury. Below is a picture of what we actually ate.

To be continued.......

Ignite Liberia

Just a quick blog. Nigel and I are in Liberia for the first Ignite Liberia National Conference! This is such a poor and needy country, recovering still from the effects of a civil war. However, God is using Ignite in a remarkable way to reach the youth, the unite the churches and to encourage pastors. It is an honour to be here!

Bono's Easter meditation

It’s 2009. Do You Know Where Your Soul Is? (By Bono, New York Times, April 19, 2009)

I am in Midtown Manhattan, where drivers still play their car horns as if they were musical instruments and shouting in restaurants is sport.

I am a long way from the warm breeze of voices I heard a week ago on Easter Sunday.

“Glorify your name,” the island women sang, as they swayed in a cut sandstone church. I was overwhelmed by a riot of color, an emotional swell that carried me to sea.

Christianity, it turns out, has a rhythm — and it crescendos this time of year. The rumba of Carnival gives way to the slow march of Lent, then to the staccato hymnals of the Easter parade. From revelry to reverie. After 40 days in the desert, sort of ...

Carnival — rock stars are good at that.

“Carne” is flesh; “Carne-val,” its goodbye party. I’ve been to many. Brazilians say they’ve done it longest; they certainly do it best. You can’t help but contract the fever. You’ve got no choice but to join the ravers as they swell up the streets bursting like the banks of a river in a flood of fun set to rhythm. This is a Joy that cannot be conjured. This is life force. This is the heart full and spilling over with gratitude. The choice is yours ...

It’s Lent I’ve always had issues with. I gave it up ... self-denial is where I come a cropper. My idea of discipline is simple — hard work — but of course that’s another indulgence.

Then comes the dying and the living that is Easter.

It’s a transcendent moment for me — a rebirth I always seem to need. Never more so than a few years ago, when my father died. I recall the embarrassment and relief of hot tears as I knelt in a chapel in a village in France and repented my prodigal nature — repented for fighting my father for so many years and wasting so many opportunities to know him better. I remember the feeling of “a peace that passes understanding” as a load lifted. Of all the Christian festivals, it is the Easter parade that demands the most faith — pushing you past reverence for creation, through bewilderment at the idea of a virgin birth, and into the far-fetched and far-reaching idea that death is not the end. The cross as crossroads. Whatever your religious or nonreligious views, the chance to begin again is a compelling idea.

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Last Sunday, the choirmaster was jumping out of his skin ... stormy then still, playful then tender, on the most upright of pianos and melodies. He sang his invocations in a beautiful oaken tenor with a freckle-faced boy at his side playing conga and tambourine as if it was a full drum kit. The parish sang to the rafters songs of praise to a God that apparently surrendered His voice to ours.

I come to lowly church halls and lofty cathedrals for what purpose? I search the Scriptures to what end? To check my head? My heart? No, my soul. For me these meditations are like a plumb line dropped by a master builder — to see if the walls are straight or crooked. I check my emotional life with music, my intellectual life with writing, but religion is where I soul-search.

The preacher said, “What good does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?” Hearing this, every one of the pilgrims gathered in the room asked, “Is it me, Lord?” In America, in Europe, people are asking, “Is it us?”

Well, yes. It is us.

Carnival is over. Commerce has been overheating markets and climates ... the sooty skies of the industrial revolution have changed scale and location, but now melt ice caps and make the seas boil in the time of technological revolution. Capitalism is on trial; globalization is, once again, in the dock. We used to say that all we wanted for the rest of the world was what we had for ourselves. Then we found out that if every living soul on the planet had a fridge and a house and an S.U.V., we would choke on our own exhaust.

Lent is upon us whether we asked for it or not. And with it, we hope, comes a chance at redemption. But redemption is not just a spiritual term, it’s an economic concept. At the turn of the millennium, the debt cancellation campaign, inspired by the Jewish concept of Jubilee, aimed to give the poorest countries a fresh start. Thirty-four million more children in Africa are now in school in large part because their governments used money freed up by debt relief. This redemption was not an end to economic slavery, but it was a more hopeful beginning for many. And to the many, not the lucky few, is surely where any soul-searching must lead us.

A few weeks ago I was in Washington when news arrived of proposed cuts to the president’s aid budget. People said that it was going to be hard to fulfill promises to those who live in dire circumstances such a long way away when there is so much hardship in the United States. And there is.

But I read recently that Americans are taking up public service in greater numbers because they are short on money to give. And, following a successful bipartisan Senate vote, word is that Congress will restore the money that had been cut from the aid budget — a refusal to abandon those who would pay such a high price for a crisis not of their making. In the roughest of times, people show who they are.

Your soul.

So much of the discussion today is about value, not values. Aid well spent can be an example of both, values and value for money. Providing AIDS medication to just under four million people, putting in place modest measures to improve maternal health, eradicating killer pests like malaria and rotoviruses — all these provide a leg up on the climb to self-sufficiency, all these can help us make friends in a world quick to enmity. It’s not alms, it’s investment. It’s not charity, it’s justice.

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Strangely, as we file out of the small stone church into the cruel sun, I think of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, whose now combined fortune is dedicated to the fight against extreme poverty. Agnostics both, I believe. I think of Nelson Mandela, who has spent his life upholding the rights of others. A spiritual man — no doubt. Religious? I’m told he would not describe himself that way.

Not all soul music comes from the church.

Third Day Play London

Ignite is pleased to announce that Third Day will play the Kentish Town Forum in London on June 3rd 2009. This will be the third time they have played this classic rock venue following shows in 2004 and 2005. 

The support act will be The Sonflowerz also from the USA. There is expected to be a hugedemand for tickets so my advice is book now. They can be ordered online www.thirdday.co.uk At this site there is also great deals on merchandise and recorded products.

Text Worship and Facebook at Ignite

Whilst we were planning the last event, Dai Hankey and myself discussed ways that we could make it more interactive. One of the ideas we came up with was encouraging the young people to text there worship to God. They really loved this as a concept and within 2 worship songs we had received 130 texts. Here are a few of the favourites: Thank yu God for healing me. Thank u for forgivin me for the bad sinful things I’ve dun in the past. It’s all 4 u, all about u, all 2 u 4 u r all we nd. Lord God, Jesus my saviour, my provider, my redeemer, Thank you for counting me worth saving.  I love you man! Amen amen amen!

Thank u for savin me. Thank you God so much for everything Lord for dyin for me, for savin me I love you Lord I just want to thank u, for not only saving me once when you sent your only son to die for me but twice when I nearly died in hospital! You were there and you saved me! THANK YOU xxxxx

Thank u god I love you u God

Thank God for great friends who support me!

Now I suspect this idea is such a good one that we will see this adopted by many other events. You heard it here first!

I was honoured to be the speaker at the event. One of the things I challenged the young people about was their use of facebook. That for many they lived their lives through their FB status. I encouraged to use this as a form of accountability. The plan being that if what they put in their status was not appropriate for a Christian or they had stuff on their wall that was suspect, their Christian friends held them accountable. For some, it was such a dominant thing in their lives that they needed to fast from it. Well it seems to have hit the spot for some according to the feedback I have had.

Cardiff Mens Convention

Yesterday I joined another 1,000 men for the Cardiff Mens convention at the St Davids Hall Cardiff. It was quite an event. My role was to run some "round table" discussions about Cardiff Street Pastors. The seemed to be pretty well received. It was a particular joy when I was about to start one and Chief Superintendent Josh Jones sat down and joined me. There were a good crowd from Band of Brothers and Mark ran a round table about this growing movement (www.bandofbrothersonline.com).

The keynote speakers were RT Kendall. He preached from the life of Joseph and brought his message on total forgiveness. There was a time of repentance at the end of his talk that was very powerful.  Other keynote speakers were Lyndon Bowring who talked on what he had learnt in his life of ministry. Again, there was a significant message. 

The other main speaker was Richard Taylor who shared his testimony on how God had resued him from a life of crime and drug addiction. He may well be a speaker at Ignite at some point as it a story young people should hear. The organising committee for this event is chaired by Chris Street, on of our trustees. He is doing a great job.

Today will see RT Kendall preach at City Temple and me preach at the Ignite event. Talk about from the sublime to the ridiculous!

So much pain, such a small cause.

Pictured here are 3 kidney stones. They look fairly lethal but are in fact at least 10 times their actual size. Last Monday morning, I met for a quick coffee with my mate Paul Brown. Within 5 minutes of sitting down I had to excuse myself and dash home. I could feel a pain around my kidneys reminiscent of one I had had 14 year previously. Lesley took me to the hospital and I was admitted with suspected kidney stones. Tests showed there were 3. One was traveling between my kidney and bladder whilst the other 2 were still in the kidneys (1 on each!). It was the moving one that was causing the pain. Tiny as it was it was traveling through a tube the size of a single bristle on a tooth brush, so size is all relative. The pain was excruciating and only strong medication (including morphine) offered any respite. In fact you imagine my response to the nurse who seeing me in agony offered me a couple of paracetamol!

During the time I was in the ward I took the had some amazing conversations with a fairly evangelistic muslim who was there with the same ailment. He had such a passion for his faith and a respect for Jesus. However, is understanding was very limited. He was quite surprised when I told him that Jesus was the son of God, that this is what the bible said and there was no justification that he was only a profit. The dialogue was interesting but what struck home was when I told him the a story from the life of Jesus. I am challenged by meeting with him again to share more of this truth.

The power of prayer is a wonderful thing. When the doctor told me where he was going to put the camera and the instrument to remove the kidney, if I did not pass it with 24hrs, I confidently predicted that the pain would be gone before then. Indeed it was as I passed it that day (as I was typing this I accidentally put an i in the word passed where the a should be. Either way it is accurate). Praise God. Only 2 to go now!

U2 Announce 360 degree Tour to play Cardiff, Wales

U2 have announced their latest globe spanning tour and the European leg finishes in Cardiff on August 22nd 2009. I am delighted to say that we have floor tickets! If the show is anything like their last tour I will be delighted. This new album is a classic and gets better with every play. The band continue to explore spiritual themes that excite and challenge by turns. It is amazing that I managed to buy it for £6 from the local supermarket. I am also impressed that there were seats from as little as £30 for the show in the Millennium Stadium.

National prayer breakfast for Wales

This morning I am having breakfast with a couple of hundred people in the milennium centre, Cardiff. There is so much that is challenging here. As well as meeting with some of my friends, I was encouraged to hear from the leader of the Christian Union political party in the Netherlands. An academic by training he made a couple of fascinating points. One is there is no such thing as a post-Christian society. you cannot go beyond Jesus. Post-modernism and even a post secular society are reality but when we as the church suggest we are in a post Christian society, we buy into a poverty mentality that is a falsehood that our faith in Jesus must reject.

We also looked at returning to covenant living rather than contract living. I love these faith shaping, potentially paradigm shifting opportunities.

Written live from the event!