King's Daughters

No says it quite like Bobby Houston ... I love the way she puts the message across. So sticking with the theme of coming back to Church, here is a word from Bobby's Blog. I grew up in New Zealand. I say fish and chips with a funny accent. When I ask for a pin to clip something together, I get given a pen to write with. Growing up in that beautiful land where the ocean waters have this beautiful emerald tinge, we were always told that the land had 3 million people and SIXTY MILLION SHEEP! Those stats have probably changed by now... but sixty million sheep is a lot of sheep. I still get excited when I drive in the countryside and see sheep or lambs. I remember once my dad (who was a brickie... bricklayer) did a job for a couple of weeks on a farm. I was a little girl and he took me with him and that year, every ewe on that farm had twins. It was completely surreal. Actually, I'm just having this memory now, but when we pioneered our church, I helped organize the kids department

FINALLY, after a long wait, King's Square will be released on 4th September. It has been an incredible journey with a great deal of excitement along the way. Already we have had a great number of iTunes downloads and great reviews about this CD in the newpapers. The cherry on top of the cake was the recent BBC Radio interview which Samuel, Lorah & I had the privilege of attending! In order to celebrate the upcoming release I would like to give you the opportunity to have your own copy. Just leave your name and email address in the comment box and I will randomly choose one person to give our lovely CD to :)

Shock & horror is what I felt when I first started reading Jana's blog ! I had no idea that such abuse even existed in the Church. Too often those that have never experienced this sort of hurt find it hard to understand how real and damaging it is. Have a read of Jana's blog and see for yourself the horrible abuse and control that she suffered. But please keep reading to the end where you see how God healed and restored her too. Yes some nasty things happen in Church but we need to move on, if we don't the devil has won and destroyed the Church that Jesus died for. Ephesians 5:25 ... as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her When you finally managed to “escape” the church that was so damaging to you did you immediately start attending another church or did you have a season of not attending church? After we resigned we stayed in the area and actually attended the church periodically for a year in order to see things from a different perspective. I

Tears are rolling down my cheeks. I am hurting, grieving over the state of the world. Not the whole entire world in general, but people I know that represent the state of the whole entire world in many ways. I pray to God but words fail me. What do you pray when there is so much need and so little hope left? I have just heard of yet another marriage that has failed, my heart breaks. I have dinner with someone who has recently lost everything, his home, his wife and his five children. My heart breaks a little more. Someone who we were reaching out to on the street dies of a drug overdose, my heart cries - we were too late. These are some of the many stories we face every week from the lost and dying world around me. The need is so huge. Then to add to my heavy heart I also hear of Christians who are suffering too. They know Jesus and his love, grace and mercy. Forgiveness has been lavished on them but a human let them down. A pastor or a Christian friend betrayed them or di

He was 15 at the time with a proud display of deep cuts all over his arms. The image is still vividly imprinted on my mind as I knew that these bleeding wounds on his arms represented the state of his heart. Many teenagers came to us with a heart wrenching story full of hurt and confusion. The first time I met Ewen he made a clear statement that he was not to be messed with. His foul language and rough exterior combined with the cigarettes, drugs and alcohol defined him. Worst of all I could see that he really believe that this was his true self. After a few incidents at youth I started dreading his return, it was clear he was there to make trouble and assert himself as a ruffian. The first time a caught a glimmer of hope was when I ran a session on identity which Ewen surprisingly participated in. I spoke of the confusion that I saw the young people dealing with and delved into the fact that they don't really know who they are. As I spoke I saw Ewen's eyes well up.

I remember the day I met Tom. His sheer size was enough to make a lasting impression on me, he is a very tall man. To be honest he did frighten me at first. He was wearing a black, full length coat and had a dark look about him. Sweat dotted his forehead and his eyes were dull with a very glazed look about them. Slurred speech combined with regular spitting left me praying that saliva didn't land near my mouth and infect me with some sort of disease. I introduced myself to Tom and offered him a sandwich and a cup of coffee, only half a cup of course as he would have spilled it all over himself. I didn't mean this in an insulting way at all, it was just that I had learned to recognise that the shaky hands of a drug addict caused them to spill hot coffee all over the place. I had learned this the hard way, by spending my Sunday mornings wiping up trails of coffee spills all the way from the coffee lounge, down the steps, across the landing, down some more steps an

Luke 14:21 "... `Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.'" Her body reeked of alcohol and urine and her hair was oily and matted. Unusually long fingernails created an eerie vibe about her and her eyes caused you to quiver a little. This was my first impression of her and I didn't expect to ever see her again. Many people visited our church once for a free sandwich while passing through. I assumed she would be one of these people. Or was it that I was hoping this was the case? Never-the-less I walked up to her and introduced myself and did my best to show her the love of Jesus by engaging in a bit of conversation. As a team we knew that we had to go beyond the polite 'how are you' and show that we genuinely care. She enjoyed having a listening ear and kept my ear busy until I had to politely end the conversation to go into church. I invited her to join us but she wasn't