Harvest week 1

First week completed and as we thought the time is going to go in fast. Really good first week where we have been able to fully appreciate the emphasis of Harvest Bible Fellowship. It has been good to hang out with guys who love the gospel and have an urgency about the things that we too are passionate about- Word, Worship, Prayer and Evangelism.

We are in an interesting position of being trained and assessed at the same time. Likely how we respond to the training will fulfill an important part of the assessment as to our suitability. A couple of times I have felt a bit like the candidates in the penultimate episode of the Apprentice- you know the one where Alan Sugar's (or Donald Trump's) buddies sit down with you and really try and get to grips with who you are and what you are about. The big difference is that, different from the tv show, this is done with genuine warmth. The major part of the assessment, I think will be when they hear me preach live (they have some of the audio from past messages already)- this will probably happen in the next couple of weeks.

It really has been a full and interesting week. We had out first mall trip yesterday and bought a couple of shirts in Macys. Alison and the kids have been heroes and have been genuinely adventurous- they made some new friends at the library yesterday. This week will provide Alison with a bit more exposure to people in Harvest. The folks at Harvest have been very gracious at giving her and the kids space to settle and get acclimatised to the time and the cold.

So the lessons from this week are:

We are looking for people who are fired up about and will invest their lives in proclaiming the authority of God's Word without apology, lifting high the name of Jesus through worship, believing firmly in the power of prayer, sharing the good news of Jesus with boldness.

We are to lead with clarity, simplicity and urgency and the church should reflect this.

We are to equip the people in the church to worship God, walk with God and work for God as a way of life.

We are so dependent upon God to provide us with people to take this life-giving good news to a city that needs to hear about Jesus, and to grow this work so that the church can impact not just Glasgow but Scotland and all that for God's glory.