what's in a word

I've been thinking about writing something on this for a little while now.

Our tongue is such a powerful thing. The words we choose, and the way we say them are so important!!

As worshippers - whether leaders, teachers, lovers of Jesus - we spend our lives giving our all to Him. We've become good at making sure our actions match our hearts, and yet sometimes we've forgotten that how we use our tongue is a massive part of the same offering.

I just wanted to use this moment to get us thinking again about how we speak. Do we use it to bless and spur on? Do we use it to lift up and encourage. Do the words we choose to use reflect the honor and respect with which we treasure Jesus, or have we slipped into a way of talking that reflects only the culture empty of Him?

As James so beautifully put it in chapter 3 of his letter 'With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. Curses and blessings out of the same mouth!
My friends, this can’t go on. A spring doesn’t gush fresh water one day and brackish the next, does it?'

Sometimes the 'trend' can be to talk like everyone else - to choose words that are crass or crude, to use the Lord's name as a throw away comment, when in actual fact He is everything to us. Sometimes we've just slipped into it because we really haven't thought about what we're doing. But it honors God when we allow the challenge to come, and we have a look again - almost like getting our car serviced - making sure that things are 'running' as they should.

I know you'll be the same as me in this - that I want what I offer in worship on a Sunday morning to be as fresh water, and I long for the way I talk and think and act to be exactly the same the rest of the time too...

I'd love to hear your thoughts about this too

Where is the time going?

It is completely crazy to me that we are in the third week of September already!!

My kids have been back at school almost three weeks - and during that time we have had two sets of visitors stay with us, we’ve entertained other wonderful friends for the day here and there, we’ve started small group in our home again, we’ve met with architects for the new building at church, we’ve done our ordinary work into the bargain, and the days have seemed to go faster as each one passes!

I do love this time of year though. I love being able to ‘do’ some of the things I’ve only been able to think through in the summer months. And I love being able to take some of the fun of the summer and plan it into the autumn and the winter. I’m already thinking ahead to some holiday time for us as a family next year - and getting it into the diary now.

I’ve also been doing some work.

Today I finished writing some blogs for Tim Hughes and worshipcentral.org. They’ll be up there next month, and I’ll post a copy here too.

The rest of my week will be spent getting ready for a trip to Germany next week, and then the first proper ‘Deeper Tour’ in the USA the following week. And I’m doing my best to make sure I take a moment or two just to ‘breathe in’ again while I have these few days before it all kicks in.

I hope you are having a great start to the autumn too - and that the ‘busy’ hasn’t been allowed the opportunity to overtake just yet...

Love,
K