Graham, Gloria and Gossip! Religion Chat thread (part 4)

[nickelbabe]

I know we've not officially finished the last one, but I wanted to get the link in before we ran out of room!

Everyone welcome - the aim of this thread is to generally chat about church life, or just gossip in general!
You don't have to be a regular church-goer, nor do you have to know what we're going on about!
It's not about debate, it's just about chatting
:)

Thanks nickel

Blue...praying for you.

Have started a new thread in this section about a meet up, and you all have to come

Sorry forgot about this thread, please see my message on prayer thread, I could do with a bit of guidance spiritualy, always stop when things get a bit tough! never seem to cross that boundary of is she isn't she a christian, I lead a chritian lifestyle but just cave in at the hardest part 'COMMITMENT'

What do you feel stops you, Sooz?

Do you mean that you're worrying about being baptised?
(sorry, I don't go on the prayer thread, so I don't know your background)

There's no need to worry about commitment - if you are leading a christian lifestyle, then that's all you need to worry about.

I'm getting a bit stressed this afternoon.
doing the church magazine - everything's fine, printed it out, no problems.

Then started the colour photo centre spread (separate document for ease)
I printed out the first draft to make sure everything was fine, and it printed the photos all in the right place, but both pages of text were printed on the same page (ie over each other!). So I checked the print preview and the print settings, all fien, tried again. same thing.
changed the print setting to booklet, it did the same thing, but on a much smaller page (as if it was A5 instead of A4)
set the settings back to what they had been, and now Word is coming up with this thing on the print page telling me how to turn the page around to print the 2nd page. It's never done that before.
and it won't stop.
So I copied all the stuff onto a new document, brand new settings, and it's doing the same - overprinting the text and telling me how to feed the paper back in to do the other side
and it's printing onto half the page, instead of the full page.
So I saved it as a PDF thinking that might help.
well, it printed out correctly, albeit telling me how to do the second page (that's getting really annoying!!), but the PDF isn't printing some of the letters.
so, instead od The Alternative, I've got the Alterna ve, and others throughout the text.
It all shows fine on the print preview.

It's very annoying, very stressful, and I've wasted so much ink and paper!!!

madhairday - I wish I knew what stops me, I can only think of emotions being stripped bare, I get very emotional then I back off, along with lack of knowledge and understanding.

My comfort zone in prayer & praise is in hymms, music & art. I don't like silence, not my scene at all, so I thought I was ok, but I go to the 'Soulcentre' its a 10 week course of meditation etc next week we are going to Southwell Minster then a day at a Holy Convent, it freaks me out to be still, quiet and calm, its just not me.

I went on the meet to Northants in the summer and it was brilliant, I was so calm and have been since, but to put me on the spot of silence makes me talk gobbledigook.

My churchy friends are lovely and are very understanding of my uncomfortable hyper behaviour, so I don't know what I am worried about, because they accept me for who I am, (phew) but 'a Holy Convent' for a whole day, what if I crack, I think it must be fear of my emotions, I wear my heart on my sleeve, not very good at composure.

holycrosschc.org.uk

Community of the Holy Cross is in Loughborough LE12 6XE - looks really lovely though!

Hi everyone. Not sure if you remember me, I used to be a regular here, then sort of "lost" you all. I've just popped over to read Soozi's posts, but would love to hang around again, if you'll have me!

Sooz, can I tell you something. 8 years ago I was away at a staff conference and we were told that one of the evenings we would be having a silent meditation. I was dreading it. All day I was going over and over every excuse under the sun as to why this was just not for me. It was going to be a long session and I cant keep quiet for 2 minutes and I just KNEW I would giggle and act like some stupid teenager or something (in my 30's at the time). I was so closed to not going, but reluctantly went along. I can honestly say that the time spent in silent meditation on that evening was probably the single most life changing, awesome time of my life. I felt as if I was seated just me and God having the most wonderful, natural conversation. I have no idea how long it went on for. It could have been 10 minutes, it could have been 10 hours. (realistically it must have been a few hours, but I would have loved it to go for another 24 hours at least!!!) So much of my life was sorted during that session and I had this overwhelming feeling that I wanted God to use me in some way and I knew I needed to hand over absolutely everything to Him. He totally reassured me it would all be fine and I felt so happy and blessed in His presence. I have never felt so emptied of myself and so ready to take on the world for God!!
To me, that time has drastically changed my life in so many ways and our plans for the future can be directly linked back to that night.
That might not be a lot of help to you, but I just wanted to tell you and say that I do understand your reservations about the silent thing, but please, just go and see what happens. God may surprise you when you least expect it, as He did me!

As for the commitment, a very good friend of ours says that for the first year of becoming a Christian he would wake every morning and pray "God, I will let you guide me today, but if it doesn't work out and you let me down today will be the last day I give you." After a year he had not been let down and decided to make it a lifelong thing! Just give tomorrow (or today, depending on when you read this) to God and see what happens. It is an exciting way to live because you can live without the worries that everyone else has because you know that someone far better than any human is in control. The God who made you, made the heavens and all the universes and every star and planet loves you enough to care about how you are feeling right now and about the tiny minute details of your life.

Enough waffling from me.

Hi PA welcome back! Love your post above. Wise words indeed

Oh PA what a lovely post, and great to have you back here :)

Sooz how are you feeling today? I think PA has very wise words, and that the silence could actually be the last barrier to be broken as it were - you might find that it is in there that you have that encounter with God you need to feel more fully committed. Also, for a whole day of silence I find things like journalling helpful and also take an iPod and listen to worship songs if it all feels too much to just have silence - I often find it's in the space I can really worship God in more depth and the songs can help - or the silence can as well - having a balance is good :)

Is nobody else interested in the meet up then? come on, will be great!

I'm feeling pretty wounded today, have said why on prayer thread, basically due to dd and bully issues because of her exzema :(

Just checking in as I don't want to lose you all again.

Soozi - I can relate a bit to what you're saying. I do quite enjoy opportunities for reflective meditative prayer but do sometimes feel I hold back a but from God. I find it hard to let go and trust Him 100%.

PA - good to hear from you.

Hello everyone else. Will try and post and catch up properly soon.

Thank you for your support, as long as this is all normal, I just keep doubting myself, taking a step back, so maybe I am sub-consciously letting go to trusting God. Wow!

Sooz - "My comfort zone in prayer & praise is in hymms, music & art. I don't like silence, not my scene at all"
me too - I don't feel comfortable in silent prayer or meditation - i'm a talker, so it doesn't feel natural to me!
I feel closest to God when I'm using the talents he gave me, so singing for me is my favourite worship medium.
:)

I'm sure you'll be fine for one day at the Holy Convent. If it helps, I find myself singing in my head when I'm doing silence!

hi PA - we haven't forgotten about you!

Morning everyone. Oh I mean afternoon

Hope you all had good weekends. We enjoyed a confirmation service at one of the churches we've been going along too. Lovely worship too. Then had a coffee afternoon here and quite a few came along, was good to get to know people.

Still feel poorly, and rather fed up of it. Humphh

sorry you're still feeling poorly :(

Nice that I havent been forgotten.

Oh MHD hope you bounce back again soon. ((hugs))

Just flying by during a manic day, so waves to everyone and will drop by again later.

Hi Positive, you'll have to teach me to fly, I generally walk through sludge! xx

Nickel - thank you for your support, glad there is another singer/artist in prayer.

Its the whirlwind that is my life that propels my flying Sooz. Time to put my feet on the ground for a minute sometimes seems like a dream!!

Flying is the art of aiming at the ground and missing, according to Douglas Adams!

DD has asked to be confirmed, assuming all goes well, this will take place on Easter Sunday at the dawn service! Lovely time to do it, but logistically a nightmare!

That's brilliant Mary. will be so special. Why a nightmare logistically - because of guests getting there etc? Hope it can be arranged how she wants it.

Here's a question then. What works better long term for sharing faith, growing churches or whatever: Big community events or small scale relationship building?

Big community events are very difficult to organise... you need lots of volunteers to help so in order to be able to do that you need to do small scale relationship building first
People are never going to get involved in something big if you don't know them!
But you already know that as we've discussed it before

Its more the fact its so early in the morning, but also that there will be a midnight service AND a 10:30am service at our own church and I'd normally go to those...

As for your poser. I find the personal touch is best, and it is certainly the cause of growth in our church, however it can be labour intensive and produce little at times. But then you are treating people as individuals with individual needs, and people respond to that! Big events can still play their part though, as sometimes people respond to the "anonymous" aspect of it, and can be drawn in that way instead, so the focus isn't on them.

blimey, Mary that makes your DD sound keen!
(i assume it's the church that's decided, rather than your DD)

mhd - i would say both are as important as the other. It's important to have full-scale events that loads of people go to, so that they feel like a part of something, but you also have to have the small things, the intimate groups etc, otherwise you could have people feeling "alone in a crowd" - you need to encourage people to make friendships within small groups, so that they won't feel awkward with the big events, and so that they feel that they really are part of it, rather than just making up the numbers.
(and then they're more likely to volunteer to help with the big events!)