It was a sweet show last night, although the audience seemed to hold back right until the last song! We then went to e birthday party of the promoter where we ate something I can only tell you about of we meet in person!

Today is a day off and we had a lazy start! It was nice to meet up with Jim Danneker and Skip Cleaving, both of whom play with Michael W. Smith. After lunch of fish soup, we all went out on boats fishing. I caught 2 but it was fairly lean pickings! We are now going to cook them for dinner.

Today is the 1st day of a short tour tour of Europe with Rebecca St James. Having left the hotel at 4.00am I met Rebecca and the band at 11.30am in Bergen, Holland. The first suprise was that Dave Smallbone is still in the USA with suspected Pneumonia!. A short ride to the harbour and we were on board a high speed boat to the village of Bekkarvik, Austevoll, where the show is. The is Fred the keyboard player!

The stage looks over the Fjord. I will update after the show!

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

Yesterday was a great day. It started with church. I was telling some young people a couple of weeks ago, the older I get the more I love the church. I feel blessed because my home church, Cardiff City Temple (www.citytemple.info) is just a great family to belong to. We are so spoilt with an excellent pastoral team. great preaching and inspiring worship.

Most of the afternoon was spent either preparing dinner or watchin/listening to the Concert for Diana. Later in the evening, Lesley came to the house and I cooked us dinner. I lolve cooking for people and the menu was: Salmon Chevice. Which is essentially thinly sliced raw salmon with red chilli, spring onion and garlic marinated in a dressing of light soy sauce, sesame seed oil and olive oil. It had amazing flavours. The mains was
Venison in a dark chocolate sauce The sauce was a combination of flavours created from bitter chocolate, raspberry vinegar, lardons, onions, thyme and bay leaves! Dessert was Caramalised peaches on a Pain Perdu with Raspberry Sauce I served it with Chantilly cream.

All recipes courtesy of Gordon Ramsay.

We loved it. Roll on next Sunday!

At about 3.20am I finished the autobiography of Duncan Bannatyne. It is called: If I can Do it Anyone Can: My Story Duncan is one of the major stars of the BBC TV programme The Dragons Den It is a brilliant programme whhere would be entrepeneurs present their business ideas to 5 "Dragons" The 5 are all self made multi-millionaires. If they like the idea they invest their own money, in return for a share in the company. I must admit Bannatyne is my favourite. His dry Glaswegian wit can sometimes be brutal. It makes for compulsive tv viewing.

Back to the autobiography. In it he talks about his charity work in Romania. Much of it is with a friend who describes as a "committed Christian". Throughout his charity work he says so many coincidences, he becomes to believe that it is God at work.

He goes onto say:

From time to time everyone involved in charity work like this breaks down in tears.....For me the tears came at about ten Oclock at night. I went outside and found a quiet place at the side of the house. I couldn't stop the tears......After many minutes I began to get the feeling I wasn't alone.

And God said, "OK" and disappeared.

I was so encouraged when I read that. It is clearly authentic and it prompted me to pray!

One of the key points in the Ignite declaration is "Involve yourself on a local church and respect its leadership"

On Saturday I had the pleasure of speaking at a special day for those interested in music, worship leading and songwriting called Inspire. As I was speaking I found myself saying "The older I get the more I love the church." I must say it was hearfelt.

I love being part of my local church. It is Cardiff City Temple.
W are blessed with having great leaders, worship, teaching and a very varied congregation.

Yesterday we had a great service. Steve Ball preached. and Richard Lewis lead the worship. The communion was excellent. It was just a good morning! When I came out into the foyer I headed to chat with one of my friends. Unfortunately, he had been buttonholed by one of the older members who spent the next 10 minutes just moanong about the church. Initially, I was angry. I made the decision not to get involved, which was definitely a good thing. However, as I reflected on it I was just sad. This is the bride of Christ! We should not be in the business of slagging he church off. If we have a complaint after taking it to God and we have confessed our prejudgices, if we are still frustrated, our concerns should be taken to the leadership and not be a subject of gossip.

I do not want to sound like I am taking the moral high ground. I suppose I am just as capable of saying inappropriate things.

The truth is, when we do this, we grieve God.

A couple of weeks ago the local paper, The South Wales Echo, featured an article about a "pub church" venture organised by Ararat Baptist church. The problem being that the venue, the Club Ifor Bach were not selling enough drinks.

Last week I was talking to a friend of mine who owns a coffee shop. Recently, he has been letting a local church use it for an evening cafe event. However, he has just stopped it as the most popular drink request was tap water!

Then yesterday I was organising a concert in London with the Christian band, Casting Crowns
at rock venue in London called The Forum.
After the doors had been open for about 45 minutes I visited the gents. On my way in I was greeted by an attendant. He was delighted that a Christian band were playing because he was a pentecostal Christian. He was offering people towels after they had washed their hands. Inside there was an amazing selection of aftershaves, deodrants, chewing gum and lollipops. In his tip tray he had £3!!

So here is my question? Why are we such bad customers? Why are we not blessing our people with our generosity. Why must business people despair if a bunch of Christians want to use their premises or services?

Last night I was fortunate enough to see The Who at the Liberty Stadium Swansea. Nigel, Gill and Martyn Evans were there and we all enjoyed a great show. I was suprised that the show was not sold out but to be honest it seemed like there had been a poor promotion.

No fanfares, no big introductions but at 8.30pm 6 men walked on stage and by 8.31 the stadium came alive to "Can't Explain." There were issues with the sound not least being that it kept cutting out as if there was a power cut. surely it was not the volume? because to be honest for a band that used to be the loudest in the world it was relatively tame! They lost the sound during "Who are you?". Undefeated, they tried again and get almost to the end when they lost the sound again. Pete Townsend then said "well there is no point in doing it again. I think we should all know who we are by now!"

The band ran through loads of their hits. The highlight for me, and worth the £50 ticket alone, was "Won't Get fooled Again" Daltery's scream has to be the best in rock!

A great start to my birthday weekend!

Today I travelled to London to attend a meeting about a festival that is happening in London in 2008 organised Share Jesus International headed up by Rob Frost.
I was representing Compassion UK. We are planning an event with Dr Tony Campolo
and US singer/songwriter Geoff Moore.
. It was good to see old friends from the record industry Les Moir and Dave Bruce who are all putting on events as part of this major outreach in the capital.

Rushing back to get my train to Cardiff as I got of the tube at Paddington, the station announcer said "Good evening my name is Sophie your station announcer. The District line is running smoothly, the Circle Line has some delays due to engineering and the Piccadilly line is suffering major delays following a person throwing themselves under a train"........ That was the end of the announcement, spoken as if it happened every day.

It struck me that many commuters, not knowing the cause of the delays, would be frustrated that their journeys would be much longer this evening. However, the major thoughts going through my mind was "what desperation was going through the mind of the person who jumped. What torture leads to this?"

As London continues, someones life has ended. To be honest I felt more than ever, this country needs Jesus.

, >
We have just finished a UK tour with US CCM superstars, Third Day. In our time at Ignite, Nigel James and myself have worked with some of the biggest artists in Christian music. The bottom line is, Third Day are the real deal! They are totally professional but have a massive heart to serve Jesus. We love these guys and are looking forward to the next time they come to Europe.

Posted at 10:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Reblog (0)