Church Planting

I have known for a while, ok about 10 years, that church planting was going to be a part of my future. But it always seemed far off.

A few springs ago, God reminded me of it on a hike and this was my response:

What! Really?! No way? Crap. No- it will be good. Scratch that. it will  be great!. Seriously? Ok.

Where you go I'll go. Where you lead I will go.

When I came to Northern Ireland, I kind of knew, that God was speaking into this more, I just needed to listen. There were a couple of people who were in the process of planting churches. I considered them and prayed about them, but those don't seem right. Recently, far more consistently and clearly, God speaking to me about church planting. It doesn't seem as far off in time.

Things are shifting. Things are gettting exciting. Things are getting out of the comfort zone.

I guess I would continue to ask for prayer, guidence and support.

Graphics & Multimedia at Causeway Coast Vineyard

Sunday Services @CCV, photo courtesty of Gillian Higgins

Part of what I am doing in Coleraine, is interning for Causeway Coast Vineyard, for Graphics and Multimedia. I do many things there. Some times it does my head in and there is always a demand for another piece of designed work. But it excites me.
I've been a graphic designer now for many years and I love it, but I found a struggle some times working in a creative service agency because the work wasn't always personally on par with me. It didn't go to make the world a better place.

I love fonts, I love colors, I like order, but working with CCV I see doing design as so much more than that. It is an opportunity to communicate when words can't. If things I design can get into the hands, or before the eyes of someone who hasn't had the opportunity to know anything of the church, and by that chance, they walk through the doors of the church, hear a sermon, or sing a song that is life changing, and they commit their life to pursuit of the love of God, then a day behind the computer is a a good day for me.

RECreate

I am so excited to share this with you. RECreate.

As their website says :

Born out of a creative movement on the North Coast of Northern Ireland, RECreate is a collaborative endeavor amongst friends. Its purpose is to highlight, empower, and enable opportunity for the unique and talented artists that are based in or visiting Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom. Whether it is music, words, or film…creativity is what drives us forward in our own lives, so we delight in encouraging others in their own pursuits. Our mentality is that creativity breeds creativity. We are RECreate.

wearerecreate,com

idea was born. They ran full steam ahead with it, and today it launched! I have been helping them with some of the graphics behind this so I've followed the progress before anyone else has seen it. It's going to be an amazing thing coming across the UK. Right now they're focusing on making music videos and writing reviews of the music, but there are plans for eventual growth into other areas.

I am so happy to promote them. Check it out.

wearerecreate.com

Encounter Gets Out Of Coleraine

With Encounter School of Mission, we have our teaching days and then we have our practical days. Often the practical days are in Coleraine, the town that we're based in. It's easy and we really focus on trying to impact our local community. But on occasion we go out to the town.

Recently we've gone to Derry and Enniskillen, both in Northern Ireland, and Sligo, in the south. They've been interesting trips.

Derry 

I really love meeting people while I'm traveling. Because of my personal interest in travel, I'm always curious why people are on the move so it provides opportunity to talk and pray with people. We had earlier in the year gone to another town on a train, and it was one of my favorite days. We'd missed our return train but I ended up talking to a woman called Ruby for 45 minutes. She and her husband were caretakers of a church, and she was traveling to get fitted for a leg brace. In that time we prayed for her leg, but she wanted to pray for revival in her church. Heck yes! Of course I wanted to pray with her about that. It was so good. Any how that day had made me love Encounter travel days, and my leaders knew this, so they asked me to lead the group to go to Derry.