As I sit and wait before my first meeting of the date, my mind is thinking of many things. These include was "was my son really 12 yesterday, it only seems 5 minutes since he was born" and then I briefly think that of many of the things that have happened in that time and think there was more than enough to fill 2 or 3 life times.

I am thinking of the nature of grace. After the success of IgniteHope I am considering some of the people who chose not to be involved or really where quite against it. The old man in me wants to either bay for their blood or ignore them. The road of Christ is I think one that challenges me to discover how I reach out to them.

I am a fortunate man, fantastic wife, amazing kids, blessed ministry and a great church.

Yesterday in City Temple Cardiff, John Coles of New Wine spoke on Mark 1: 15 "The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" It was a sermon in season. In particular in thinking about what the kingdom of God is now. How our world is in darkness and as Christians it is our place to usher in light. So we cannot expect it to be light unless we do something about it!
So what is my role in all of this?

Have a great week!

May 2nd-May 5th 2008 will be dates that stay in my mind for a very long-time. IgniteHope, which has dominated much of our lives in the last few months, actually happened.

The 1,200 seater marquee was erected the previous week. 29 strong men + me spent nearly 10 hours wrestling with this beast before we got it in the air! The hardest days work I have ever done in my life!

The months of planning all became worth it as 430 young people registered and joined on the journey to make a lasting change in Jesus name to South Wales. In addition we had almost 800 people in the marquee every night to take part in amazing worship, listen to the Gospel being preached and enjoying some great bands

The project was successful in no small part due to the commitment of some great volunteers including John Lewis (pictured here with the local police)
Nathan Davies, Ben Franks, Ruth Samways and Mike Thomas.

Each day the 430 young people left the site in Sophia Gardens and headed out all over South Wales to be good news. Even my kids Ben and Beci took part. Being good news included running community fun days, painting over grafitti, Painting fantastic grafitti
, picking litter, clearing land, doing car washes, gardening, environmental work etc etc. In total over 6,700 hours were delivered.

In addition 100's of people were told about Jesus and many came to faith. This is what it's all about!

There are few things more likely to enrage many scientists than to suggest that Darwin may have been wrong. Author of the God Delusion Richard Dawkins is the case in point. He is the Professor of the Public Understanding of Science. That would be understanding in the terms of agreeing with his ideas! His dismissal of religion is, in my view, tantamount to intellectual fascism. Anyone who disagrees with him is not only wrong but unworthy of consideration. Last year one of the major scientific institutes in the UK were so concerned about the rise of Intellectual Design that they hosted a series of public lectures (interestingly NOT debates). In an interview before the debate, the scientist who was die to speak talked about the accuracy of Darwinism. He was very interesting but in a side question the interviewer asked him about his scientific credentials. They were, and I kid you not, he was the the scientist who was the 3rd leading expert in the world on the dna of the slug. He was not even the leading expert, he was number 3. Yet he was qualified to dismiss Intelligent Design.

Here is a trailer for what looks to me like an interesting movie. Check it out!

If you believe what you like and reject what you like, it is not the Gospel you believe but yourself.

Charlie is one of my all time favourite people. He is on the council of reference if Ignite/Big Ideas. One Summer we worked together and as we sat in hospitality at Flevo. He said "As Christians, in everything we do, say and think, we have to ask does this make us more or less like Christ" It has become one of my most often quoted phrases, mainly to myself!

Here is a video of one of his most famous songs....enjoy

One of my favourite programmes, The Apprentice has just started. It becomes essential viewing as I try to guess "Who will become Sir Alan's Apprentice"

Last year I wrote an article about it which I have republished here!

Fired or Hired?
!

Business is the new TV phenomenon. Just as property was the growth area in the 90’s, TV chefs Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsey are the only serious competitors to the likes of Duncan Bannatyne and Sir Alan Sugar.

‘The Apprentice’ is quite brilliant TV. The format is simple. In Sugar’s own words, ‘it’s an 11 week job interview from hell.’ Each week the candidates competing for a £100,000 per annum job take on a task that effectively seeks to sort out the business wheat from the chaff.

It is interesting to speculate that ‘The Apprentice’, ‘Dragon’s Den’ & ‘Tycoon’ may be encouraging more people to consider becoming entrepreneurs than ever before! However, a close examination shows us that Sir Alan is not only a shrewd businessman but also an extremely talented, if unaccredited, TV producer. He has a knack of keeping incredibly loud, some might say obnoxious, volatile and controversial characters in the series. We saw Saira and Paul in series one, and in the last series Katie (cue the boos an’ hisses!) and Tre. Yes they are kept in, but those of us who study ‘apprentice form’ know they will not win. Is it because, as Sir Alan says, ‘There is only room for one big mouth in this organisation and that’s me’?

I believe it is much more fundamental than that. When selecting people to work with us and for us, we, like Sir Alan, look for people we like, people we trust and people we believe in. Despite all the shadiness, backbiting, double-dealing, tantrums and tears, the three winners have not been, on the surface at least, controversial. Series one winner Tim Campbell was quiet and efficient. Series two winner Michelle Dewberry was a woman from a disadvantaged background, who not only made money for herself but shared it with her family. And the most recent winner, Simon Ambrose, is a likeable, well-educated enthusiast. All of them were considered team players and appeared to have a safe pair of hands.

Fact or Fiction?

The challenge for the 20/30 generation is - how much can we take from programmes like this? Well, there seems to be a need to push people to breaking point, put them under huge amounts of pressure and then develop situations where they are encouraged to be nasty about each other. ‘Big Brother’, ‘Survivor’, ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ all share this with ‘The Apprentice’. Long hours, intense scrutiny, communal living, near-punishing tasks and then the single confessional camera where the candidate is encouraged to complain about their fellow competitors. This is TV land and whatever the producers would have us believe, businesses that prosper are not like that!

The Big Secret

Interestingly, at a time when servant leadership is one of the fastest growing management philosophies, TV favourites Sugar and Ramsay have reputations as old-school hard men! A little digging beneath the surface suggests this is only part of the story. Both are hugely committed family men, sometime philanthropists, they enjoy a laugh and are incredibly loyal. They are single-minded but not ruthless. However, the biggest secret they hide is revealed by those who know them best - they are actually nice blokes!

So don’t believe all you see and read, and recognise that charismatic leaders can hold complex philosophies in tension. A number of years ago a carpenter took over the family business and developed a model of servant leadership that has never since been equalled. He would say to those who wanted to join him as an apprentice that they would have to leave everything; their family, their business and their wealth if they wanted to join him. Did it work?

Gary Smith is Executive Director of the youth initiative ‘Ignite’. He has 2 children, watches far too much TV and is known to cook a classy meal for those he is trying to impress or those who have the cheek to invite themselves to dinner

This article was originally published at http://ezine.2030vision.org.uk

When we first started Big Ideas, we were honoured to to have poet and broadcaster Stewart Henderson on our council of reference. As I considered our image of Jesus, I thought that sometimes we are guilty of wanting to him to fit into our image rather than us trying to be more like him. Stewart's poem illustrates this very well. What do you think?

Splintered Messiah
I don’t want a splintered Messiah
In a sweat stained greasy grey robe
I want a new one
I couldn’t take this one to parties
People would say ‘Who’s your friend?’
I’d give an embarrassed giggle and change the subject.
If I took him home
I’d have to bandage his hands
The neighbours would think he’s a football hooligan
I don’t want his cross in the hall
It doesn’t go with the wallpaper
I don’t want him standing there
Like a sad ballet dancer with holes in his tights
I want a different Messiah
Streamlined and inoffensive
I want one from a catalogue
Who’s as quiet as a monastery
I want a package tour Messiah
Not one who takes me to Golgotha
I want a King of Kings
With blow waves in his hair
I don’t want the true Christ
I want a false one.

Stewart Henderson

One of the exciting developments in recent months has been a project conceived by Dai Hankie called Fuel.. Dai is our Evangelism and Discipleship coordinator and is consistently looking at ways that we can communicate with this generation. One of the latest is a series of films called fuel.

The question was how could we make this happen? We were very fortunate to meet Karl Francis. He has been a member of my church for the last 4 years and whilst I have seen him around, I had no idea what he did. So imagine my surprise when I discovered he was a film producer, director and a screenwriter!

Not only does he do this but he is recognised by some people as being the most influential film maker Wales has ever produced. Find out more about him at www.karlfrancis.com

In fact we discovered this as we were working on a series trailer for the Fuel films. We are now very excited about this series of 7 minute movies. Check out the trailer here:

Here is the promo video for IgniteHope. Watch it then sign-up, volunteer or give money!

A few days ago I quoted the lyrics for I Then Shall Live. Here is the video. Enjoy!
This was for me, the highlight of their shows in Belfast and Glasgow